This interview with the wonderful Dave Jeffery is the first in an ongoing series for the AHWA’s Mental Health Initiative, A Cup of Stars, exploring how horror engages with mental health through lived experience, creative work, and critical reflection. Across interviews, essays, and discussions, A Cup of Stars will highlight thoughtful, responsible, and often deeply personal approaches to depicting mental health within the genre.
Kia ora Dave, it’s wonderful to feature you as part of the AHWA MHI. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m Dave Jeffery, a British Fantasy Award and Bridport Prize finalist and a writer, essayist, writing mentor, poet, and editor of speculative fiction. I’ve written 19 novels and 3 collections, in a publishing career that has spanned over 30 years. Like most authors, writing is in my blood, and I have been telling stories for as long as I can remember. My style is broad, and I write in a variety genres including dystopian (The A Quiet Apocalypse series, Demain Publishing), psychological horror (False Prophet, Eerie River Publishing), cryptoid (Frostbite Trilogy, Crossroad Press), YA Supernatural Adventure (The Beatrice Beecham Series, Crossroad Press), and occult detective fiction (Clutterbuck & Postlethwaite Investigate Series, Cathaven Press). My contemporary mental health novel, Finding Jericho is on the BBC Health and Independent School Examination Board’s Recommended Reading Lists. You can read more about my antics at: www.davejefferyauthor.com
What sort of professional background do you have working in or with mental health?
For 35 years, I worked in the UK’s National Health Service as a mental health nurse. During the course of this experience, I had the privilege of working with some incredible people who were determined not to let their illness define them. When I see mental illness described in the horror community with flippancy or stigmatising language, I think of those brave souls, and feel obligated to challenge such misguided and ignorant preconceptions.
How did you get involved in the HWA Mental Health Initiative? In particular, what inspired you to start it, what did you hope to achieve, and do you think you did achieve that?
Blame my dear friend Lee Murray, an incredible writer, poet, and editor who invited me to co-write the conversational piece Out of the Darkness for the HWA website in 2019. This article was the grounding for our three year tenure as co-chairs of the HWA Wellness Committee, during which time we designed, developed and delivered the organisation’s Mental Health Initiative. Lee and I each had our reasons for doing this work; she from her lived experience of mental illness, and me from my background in mental health advocacy, but we were both determined to challenge the stigma of mental illness perpetuated at that time by the horror genre. Our intention was not so much to criticise what was going on (although, we certainly did robustly challenge people at times) but to explore the reasons why mental illness and horror had such affinity and offer alternative guidance to assist writers to depict mental illness in a more sensitive, less stigmatising way. An important part of developing the way forward was engagement with genre creatives and fans. This was achieved in a variety of ways, including online and face-to-face forums at major events like StokerCon, ChillerCon and FantasyCon. During these events, frank and open discussions were had about how mental illness was portrayed and what people thought about changing these aspects. What emerged from feedback sessions is that many people’s lived experiences of mental illness found some form of solace when they felt the representation was sensitive and representative of their reality. Therefore, we knew that accurate depiction of mental health issues was a key factor of any future guidance. Overall, the aim was to enable a climate of change that would ultimately benefit everyone. Given that the initiative has since become a resource for outside agencies worldwide, Lee and I feel we have exceeded our goals, but more importantly, people who endure mental illness on a day-to-day basis can be assured that the genre is trying to change. However, as we know, change does take time, and determination.
What sort of challenges did you face working in the HWA MHI and how did you overcome them?
What we had to do from the outset was state what the MHI wasn’t. From early in the engagement process, it became clear that many genre creatives struggled with their own mental health issues. Many used their creativity as a means to work through or articulate their struggles, a key aspect of mental health recovery-based models. However, there were some members who were asking for resources to help them manage or treat their issues, so we had to make explicit reference to this by stating that the MHI did not offer any form of treatment or therapy program and was not a replacement for professional help at any time, but especially at point of crisis.
As the MHI was an innovative process, we had to develop tools to create a climate for change. This began with the HWA MHI Charter, written so that the organisation made clear the expectations of its members. Having the HWA Board sign off on the charter was integral as the membership could see that the project was representative of the whole organisation. We were saying to people that they would need to change how they portrayed mental illness in their stories and in order to do this, it was important to give tangible examples of what this looked like in the genre. This is where the HWA MHI Notable Works came in, offering writers keynote examples of where mental illness has been portrayed in an effective manner. Of course, there are people who choose not to employ any of the information on offer, but any serious writer of quality will always draw upon research to enhance their storytelling, and ultimately benefit from it.
Over a two year period, the MHI Initiative became a suite of resources to help the membership change their perceptions of how they portrayed mental illness in their work, while recognising that creatives also use horror as a means to express their own struggles.
Why do you personally think mental health and horror are such frequent bedfellows? What is it about mental health issues that ties it to the genre?
The German expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (dir: Robert Wiene, 1920) is widely accepted as the originator of the modern day affiliation between mental illness and the horror genre. But it is important to note that the history of psychiatry, and narratives from such times, come with their own influences, especially when applied to arcane treatments and the pre-asylum and asylum systems of the 17/1800s. These are actualities, and in themselves should not be forgotten as they provide valuable information when it comes to learning lessons. How they are applied in the context of the genre is the difference. For example: is a straitjacket used to support unsympathetic images of the trite ‘raving homicidal maniac’ or is it used to create empathy for a person who is ill, yet incarcerated and without hope.
For me, these psychological aspects are fundamental to quality storytelling, as the genre is primarily used to explore how human beings cope with adversity, be that emotional or the visceral. If horror can do anything, it can show the trials of being human; how we battle literal emotional demons, the dark monsters of grief and loss, the terror of paranoia and dissociated realities.
Can you suggest some positive examples of depictions of mental health in horror?
I’m often asked this question, and my response is consistent because, while these stories are all very different, they have synergy in that they draw heavily upon the use of metaphor to talk about psychological dilemmas.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman concerns a Victorian woman’s ‘treatment’ for postpartum depression by her physician husband, namely isolating her in a bedroom where she begins to see unsettling images in the titular wallpaper. We remain unsure if these images are born from the woman’s unravelling mind, or are they that of a previous occupant, who perhaps incurred the same fate?
The Tell-tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe sees a man who has committed a heinous crime tormented by the beating heart of his victim from beneath the floorboards. Throughout this tale, we are unclear if the protagonist is truly persecuted from beyond the grave, or perhaps it is his guilty conscience.
The Serpent’s Wake by L. E. Daniels is a modern day fable that tells of a young girl who is swallowed by a great snake and lives inside it for several years before escaping and trying to reconnect with the world, thereafter. It is an intimate, harrowing story of finding hope after great trauma.
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus has a similar premise to Daniels’ book in that a person, this time a diver, is swallowed by a great beast. However, this is a taut, oppressive thriller that charts on man’s fight for physical survival and psychological redemption.
Lee and I were so taken with The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-tale Heart that we used them as inspiration for our This Way Lies Madness anthology (Flame Tree Press). As editors, we approached the book in the same way, and with the same core principles, as our work on the HWA MHI. Therefore, this book provides a collection of mental health-themed psychological horror stories that would act as exemplars to other writers, using metaphor to sensitively depict living with or being exposed to mental illness. With names like Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Volk, Alma Katsu, Alan Baxter, and Cynthia Pelayo on board (as well as many other incredible writers) we felt confident we were producing something that was both innovative and high quality. I’m pleased to say that public and professional reception to the book has been amazing.
Can you share some of your most hated tropes or themes around mental health in horror you wish people would avoid?
The incessant image of the ‘crazed’ and ‘psychotic’ killer or deranged monsters to garner cheap thrills at the expense of those very real people who endure mental illness on a day to day basis. Part of mental health recovery is the fostering of hope, this means looking at mental illness as something positive, something that people can overcome or survive. In terms of the genre, stigmatising language is counterproductive to such an ethic. As writers, we need to be better.
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?
I would say to those overseeing the project that the focus should always be about people; be that writers, readers, or those who endure mental illness. Central to that is engagement, finding out how the membership sees the current position, what it would like to see changed. This helps to inform a balanced process that works for everyone. Once we get that right, I think things fall into place quickly or, at least, the requirements for change do. For change to gain traction it must have some kind of meaning for those being asked to do so. In order for any initiative to have sustainability (and therefore longevity) the processes need to be simple and how they came to be made clear.
All I can say about why people should get involved is that as creatives we want our work to have meaning to those who read it, watch it, or listen to it. Therefore, to connect on a human level the work we produce must be authentic and to do this in terms of mental illness, we have to represent such concepts with sensitivity and accuracy. We use our work to help us navigate our own issues, we find such a process cathartic and it gives us comfort. Those exposed to our work are seeking the same, and they deserve access to creatives who are skilled and genuine in their portrayals of the human condition. Putting thought into our creations can only improve our craft and the work we produce. And that can’t be a bad thing, right?
Right?
