Interviewing Christina Rosso? A Novel Idea

Christina Rosso is an author from the Philadelphia area. Her latest book Creole Conjure puts a fairytale twist on Honey Island Swamp in New Orleans, Louisiana. Honey Island Swamp acts as a realm between the living and the dead, attracting both magical creatures and mere mortals with its energy.

I had the pleasure of talking with Rosso at her bookstore A Novel Idea in South Philly.

Sophia Mattia: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into writing?

Christina Rosso: I have always considered myself to be a writer. I started writing poems and stories when I was maybe four or five years old. I always also loved reading. I’m not sure the exact moment that it clicked for me, but I think I was about eight years old when I started going around telling people, “I’m gonna be a writer when I grow up.” I’ve never lost sight of that. So, I was an English major in undergrad. Then I went on to do a Masters in Literature and an MFA in creative writing at Arcadia University, which is local.

In 2020 I had my first book of short stories come out. Now my second book is out. It’s just been this huge part of my life and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

SM: Speaking of your books being published, how was that process? Did you ever consider self-publishing?

CR: I never considered self-publishing. I know that while there are some amazing self-published books out there, there’s not the same amount of quality control necessarily. I wanted the additional support of going through a publisher even if it is a small press. So, my first book She Is a Beast was published through APEP publications which is a micro press based in Baltimore, Maryland.

I was really excited it landed there because all of their books are handmade, and it was a collection of fairytales. I wanted it to have that kind of old-fashioned storybook kind of vibe that I knew with this press in particular could be accomplished. My next book, Creole Conjure, ended up being placed with Maudelin House, which is a small press based in Chicago. It’s been really exciting, since that book came out almost a year ago, to see that it’s at places like Target, and even though I hate it, it’s on Amazon.

As of March I have an agent who’s local, Eric Smith, and I have a novel out on submission. This time around I’m trying to get into one of the big five in publishing because I’m trying to increase distribution and increase monetarily what I’m receiving, my compensation, because I am trying to prioritize my writing and make it more of a career.

SM: You mentioned the bookstore, A Novel Idea. How did you end up starting this? You started it with your husband, right?

CR: I co-own A Novel Idea with my husband Alex. We opened in December of 2018 and the idea for the bookstore really came from a love of books and each other, wanting to spend time together. We were engaged at the time. But I was an adjunct professor at three colleges and Alex was a graphic designer. We were feeling overworked and underpaid, and not passionate about what we were doing. We wanted to do something that we would be passionate about.

We opened six weeks after we got married, which I don’t recommend planning a wedding and opening a small business at the same time. It’s been really wonderful to get to work together, to be our own bosses. I’m still an adjunct professor, but not full-time. And something that was really important to us too, because I went to school locally, I knew a lot of writers even before we opened the shop, was to have a space that was community-minded and would always support local artists.

SM: You mentioned the workshops that you have here. I looked on the website and I saw Witch 101 and other things like that. What are those about and how did you start doing them?

CR: I’ve been interested in witchcraft and the occult and pretty much everything spooky for a long time. When we opened the store and it was just Alex and me, it was great to do poetry readings and I started offering writing workshops.

I wanted to learn more about the Philly witch community. We’ve been running Witch 101 since the spring of 2019 and then have added classes like Sabot School which is the wheel of the year and the pagan holidays. I teach classes like Reimagining the Witch as well as other fairytale and mythology-based classes because that’s really where my focus is.

It’s almost four years since the store opened and there’s this very vibrant, supportive community of folks who consider themselves to be witches or are just interested in witchcraft. It’s been really welcoming and made me feel like I belong to something.

SM: Do you have a favorite author or favorite book that has influenced your writing thus far?

CR: A book that I love that has really influenced my writing is The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, which was published in 1979. It is, if you’re not familiar with it, essentially the first book that was dubbed feminist fairytales. I discovered it when I was in my graduate program and it was what really set me on the path of reimagining fairytales from a feminist perspective and mythology, and now reimagining the witch, which is all that I do in my writing, so it’s been a huge inspiration to unpacking gender identity and sexuality in those texts.

SM: That leads me to my next question. How did you come up with the concepts for She Is A Beast and Creole Conjure?

CR: She Is A Beast is primarily reimagined fairytales. There’s six stories total, four that are directly inspired by fairytales like Rapunzel or Cinderella and then two original. And those were stories that I started writing pretty soon after I finished my graduate program.

With that book I wanted to explore this idea of what is a beast and who is a beast. And I wanted to have a clear evolution of both empowerment and a release of the expectations of society and humanity, for these characters, that there is, for me at least, a clear arc from the very first story of killing the beast, all the way to the end of the collection.

And then Creole Conjure, I also started writing when I was in grad school. Actually, the first time I went to New Orleans, which was where Alex and I ended up getting married years later. With that book, I wanted to do a lot of what I did with She Is A Beast but push myself to go beyond just the fairytales I did in She Is A Beast and dive into mythology. Dive into folklore specifically in a Southern Gothic Louisiana style. In that book I’m not just focusing on necessarily fem-bodied characters but also on nonbinary characters as well, that are both fighting literal forces of evil and then the evils of the patriarchy as well.

SM: I saw you posted on Twitter that you have a new idea for a novel. Is there anything you can tell our readers about that?

CR: The novel that I currently have on submission is fairytale based. It’s loosely inspired by The Little Mermaid. I have a siren or a mermaid in every book I’ve written so far. And loosely is inspired by a cult case. I love True Crime. So that is like a very dark thriller with fantastical elements in it. So that’s a book I have on submission. And then one of the novel ideas I have follows a feminist cult.

SM: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

CR: My advice to aspiring writers is write for yourself because if you are planning to write with the goal of getting published, you will face rejection. Rejection sucks. I get rejected all the time.

For instance, Creole Conjure is a really weird book.But, that was a book that I had to write. I actually wrote that entire book in three months.

Once I started submitting it and I did get rejections for it, I said, “Well why’d you write this book? You wrote this book because you loved this world you created. Because you wanted to do a mashup of fairytales and mythology. Because you wanted to write a love letter to New Orleans. You know it’s weird. You know it’s not gonna be for everyone.” So that’s what I try to remind myself or sometimes my partner reminds me when I lose sight of that.

The other thing is to read in the genre that you’re interested in writing in. It’s not the most sexy advice, but it is the best advice. If you want to write fantasy, read fantasy. If you want to write horror, you should be reading horror.

 

Christina Rosso’s works can be found on her website and at her bookstore, A Novel Idea on Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia.