BCC Shines a Light On: Melissa Flores Anderson
BCC Shines a Light On:
Melissa Flores Anderson
Name of the piece published by BCC:
When/where was it originally published:
It was published in October 2022 in a Halloween issue of a now defunct literary magazine and press (Bear Creek Gazette).
What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process?
I don’t usually write for themed issues or write monster/horror stories, but last fall I saw some Halloween-themed calls from a few different journals and literary magazines. I wanted to try something new and different.
I came up with this idea of what if someone was haunted by something they brought home from vacation – like instead of a souvenir, they brought a monster home in their suitcase. I spent a semester in Ireland as a college student, when I read a bunch of Irish stories and mythology. I knew stories about banshees and so that became the initial thought for the story – a stowaway banshee.
For those who don’t know a banshee is a female spirit that is part of Gaelic folklore. The banshee’s presence is a warning that someone will die soon. They are supposed to make a terrible shrieking or wailing sound, and when my son was a baby, my husband and I joked that he was the Banshee of Gilroy (the town we live in).
For this particular story, I had to write fast because I thought it would only work for a Halloween call and if I didn’t get an acceptance, I’d have to wait another year to submit it. For this piece, I wrote it over the course of a couple days after work, then sat on it for a days without opening it, did a quick copy edit, and sent it off to three places with fingers crossed.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
When I first wrote it, I thought of it as kind of a tongue-in-cheek spoof of a ghost story, just something silly and funny. While it hasn’t been that long since I first wrote it, I now see that it is actually a much more serious piece than that.
It’s about a woman who is in the early stages of a relationship and her partner has started to show some negative aspects of his personality. She tries to ignore the signs, but the banshee forces her to face what she already knows. Most of us have been in situations like that, whether it is a romantic relationship, a friendship, with a bad boss, where we know it’s not a healthy mental space for us but maybe we don’t know quite how to extricate ourselves.
Is there a specific message you’d like readers to take away from reading this piece?
I hope readers pay attention to their inner banshee if they are in a relationship where something feels off. And for other writers, I’d love them to see that it can be fun to experiment with writing new genres or telling an old story with a new twist. And I hope everyone checks out more of Bulb Culture Collective!
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
Visit my website at melissafloresandersonwrites.com for links to my online publications, videos of interviews and readings, and a list of upcoming publications. I post on Twitter @melissacuisine and on Instagram @TheIrishMonths.
