This is the second of the AHWA interviews for the mental health initiative. The first, in our March edition, featured Dave Jeffery. For this month Tee Wood sat down with horror writing legend, Alan Baxter.
Kia ora, Alan, it’s really wonderful to feature you as part of the AHWA mental health initiative. Can you please introduce yourself for those who aren’t already familiar with your (very impressive) body of work?
I’m Alan Baxter. I’m a multi-award-winning British-Australian author of horror and weird fiction. This Is Horror podcast calls me “Australia’s master of literary darkness” and the Talking Scared podcast dubbed me “The Lord of Weird Australia.” I’ve been writing and publishing for over twenty years now. I’m also a martial artist, a whisky-soaked swear monkey, metalhead and dog lover. I live deep in the valleys of southern Tasmania. Find me online at alanbaxter.com.au to learn more about me and what I do.
What sort of professional background do you have in mental health?
Part of my martial arts training involves qigong and tai chi and I’ve worked with various wellness groups over the years, using that kind of practice to help people manage their mental health as well as their physical health. I’ve also had various lived experience with people close to me that’s helped me understand some of how mental health can affect our lives. You live long enough in this world, you’ll come across various examples of mental health struggles unless you’re very fortunate.
Why do you personally think mental health and horror are such frequent bedfellows? Or more simply, what is it about mental health issues that they are so often used in the genre, for better or worse reasons?
I’m sure there are many different reasons for different people, but I do think there’s a core truth. When mental health takes a dive, there’s a sense that a person is deviating from what we would consider “normal” behaviour. Scare quotes there because there’s no such thing as normal, but in the same way that neurodivergence diverges from neurotypical mindsets, so too does poor mental health diverge from what’s considered typically good mental health. That sense of a divergence from the norm is at the core of horror fiction. The subversion of expectations, the idea that something isn’t right. Horror and mental health both share that core foundation.
Can you suggest some positive examples of depictions of mental health in horror?
I can give one really good example that I read recently: Hildur Knutsdottir’s novella, The Night Guest. It’s a great example of someone struggling with mental health issues while also being a strong person and advocating for herself, forcing people to take her personal issues seriously. It’s also a genuinely creepy horror story, and she’s not a reliable narrator, which is a trope I always enjoy. I did the same thing in a very different way in my novel, Recall, where a mob hitman has a psychotic break and has to rebuild his memories of who he is. Or, more accurately, who he was, and he doesn’t like that person, so tries to find a new way forward, all the time haunted by the ghosts of some of the people he’s killed. If the ghosts themselves are even real or simply a manifestation of his mental state is something he isn’t certain about for a lot of the book.
My story in This Way Lies Madness, called “Eighty-five Per Cent, Give or Take”, is a very different take on mental health and how trauma can cause a kind of cascade effect on a person’s mental health, and how that can affect them and the people around them.
Can you share some of your most hated tropes or themes around mental health in horror you wish people would avoid?
I don’t really hate any tropes, just badly written ones. I’m really tired of the “multiple personality” trope, for example, when it’s done badly, which it usually is. That’s why it’s always so refreshing when someone does something along those lines and handles it well. But honestly, any trope is bad when it’s done poorly, so anything can be good when it’s well written. Cop out answer, but it’s true!
With AHWA starting their own MHI, what sorts of things do you think they should focus on, and why should people get involved with it? Additionally, why do you think a MHI is needed to support and guide horror writers?
I think one good thing would be pointing out what kind of tropes are harmful if handled badly, and how that harm is done. It’s too easy to fall on “mental illness” as a plot device. It’s as lazy as rape, for example, and just as harmful a lot of the time. Education is key to everything, and we’re all better off when the stories we read and write are done better.
Resources for addressing and managing mental health would be great too. Perhaps AHWA members could offer to read others’ work if they have lived experience.
I’m sure members will slowly find all kinds of ways to make positive growth from the MHI. Good on you for getting it going.
