Bretigne Shaffer writes children's horror, superhero graphic novels, and dark comedy about COVID — and she self-publishes all of it, because no traditional publisher (or Netflix) will touch a story that's critical of the pandemic response.
We talk about her Halloween story Elixir of Fear — a 19th-century patent-medicine salesman who's also a wizard, a "budgie flu," and a whole town swept up in a fear campaign — why great art about COVID hasn't arrived yet, the people now pretending lockdowns "weren't a big deal," and why she moved her family from California to Kentucky. Plus: the lost world of literary journals, short stories as Hollywood IP, B-movie horror vs. gore, The Exorcist, her upcoming short story collection and her novel Davy Sunshine and the Big Pandemic, the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry — and the burning question of whether female unicorns have horns.
Find Bretigne's books and Substack and follow Lou on all platforms below.
Bretigne Shaffer
Website & Substack: https://www.bretigne.com
Books: Annabel Pickering & the Sky Pirates · Urban Yogini: A Superhero Who Can't Use Violence
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0:00 – Intro: Bretigne Shaffer braves a cold
0:58 – The stomach bug that took down Lou's whole family
2:16 – Elixir of Fear: a COVID fable in children's horror
3:35 – The "budgie flu" and how fear campaigns work
4:50 – John Bellairs and scary-but-not-too-scary stories
6:04 – Why write fan fiction you can't sell?
8:12 – Procrastination and the pain of writing
10:07 – Where's the great art about COVID?
12:26 – "It wasn't a big deal": the lockdown memory hole
15:07 – When COVID skeptics couldn't say a word
17:00 – Her first short story collection
17:10 – Mailing stories to literary journals
19:31 – Tin House, Fiction, and Mark Jay Mirsky
20:37 – Short stories as Hollywood IP
22:07 – Libertarian film studios and fleeing California for Kentucky
22:54 – Halloween, B-movie monsters, and Alligator (1980)
25:09 – Real horror vs. gore: The Exorcist
26:47 – Why she self-publishes
30:07 – Annabel Pickering and Urban Yogini
31:28 – Davy Sunshine and the Big Pandemic
32:53 – Writing for kids vs. adults
34:26 – The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry
36:20 – Do female unicorns have horns?
37:14 – Molière's The Imaginary Invalid
38:46 – Where to find Bretigne
#BretigneShaffer #COVID #SelfPublishing #Horror #FreeSpeech #Libertarian #LouPerezPodcast
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