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Author Tananarive Due is the winner of the American Book Award, a recipient of the NAACP Image Award, as well a multiple Bram Stoker Award finalist and a general luminary of horror literature. With a career spanning three decades and highly influential academic and fictional works in Black horror and speculative literature, her contributions to American letters are impossible to overstate. Due teaches in the writing MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles, and is an endowed Cosby chair in the humanities at Spelman College. She currently teaches a class at UCLA called “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival, and the Black Horror Aesthetic” based in part on the work of Jordan Peele, who visited the class in its early days to express his appreciation.
With a body of work that just keeps coming — The Reformatory, a new novel about the horrors of segregation will be published by Simon and Schuster in October 2023 — her point of view on the current glow-up of horror is thoughtful, engaging, and impressive. Speaking with BGN via video chat, Due had much to share.
What keeps you going in disheartening times?
Writing has always been the thing to sustain me during hard times. That’s been true though the pandemic, but I remember it was true in 2012 when my mother passed away. I was fourteen when I had my BLM moment. Miami cops had beat a motorcyclist to death and then were acquitted, and that was when I realized we don’t matter. It blew my mind; this was the same nation to which I had been pledging allegiance.
I wasn’t naïve. My parents were civil right activists, and I knew the fight remained. But the vastness of white supremacy is the major trauma in my life. I leaned on my writing through all of that. I finished The Reformatory during COVID after working on it for seven years. The literal notion that I might die got me on a page quota, and I finished that baby.
Is it easier to write horror than stories that end happily ever after?
It is for me! Some people escape through happy stories, and a lot of people like those. Patricia Stephens, my mother, was the first horror fan in my life. She used horror and fantasy and that immersion into imaginary monsters to heal herself from the real monsters of state violence. We all like a good comedy, and that’s the other side of the coin of how I handle myself. I don’t get to show that side of myself often. I try to give that bad feeling a face and a protagonist to fight it, to confront the unknown.
What’s the work you’d recommend to get someone new into horror?
I love that horror is getting a glow up right now. I’d say look for best of the year short story anthologies and collections. Of course, I’d recommend my own collection, The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology contains works only by marginalized authors. Anthologies can be uneven, but this one is consistent. For Black readers who might not think of themselves as horror fans, the first step is to see yourself. Seek out Black authors, as well as the works of other marginalized folks.
The documentary Horror Noire, of which you were a huge part, has been out for a couple of years. What was that project like for you? What has the aftermath been like?
I was so honored to have been a part of this. The production team came to me and brought me in after the film was written, to give interviews and to lend my name and support.
Alejandro Brugués, director of the film Juan of the Dead,told me he loved it. I was fangirling him, and he came back to tell me he loved Horror Noire. Brian Fuller said the same thing to me when we walked past one another in the hallway.
And then I worked on the anthology of the same name for the horror network, Shudder — those are my first screen adaptations. I wrote the episodes “The Lake” and “Fugue State” with my husband, Stephen Barnes. That collab was a peak experience.
My only letdown was that I don’t feel like the series found its audience. That’s frustrating. You never feel like there’s enough billboards, never enough PR behind anything. But I love the short form, both in prose and scripts. I hope to be part of another anthology in the future. It is difficult but so exciting to create these pint-sized stories.
As a master of the horror genre, what kind of story still really scares you? What’s the monster you dread most?
So many stories begin with people moving into a dark house in the middle of nowhere. And they walk around the creepy house yelling, “Hello? Hello?” I wouldn’t do that, but they do. Everyone is so afraid that the house is haunted and they’ll meet a ghost. That doesn’t scare me; ghosts are simple. They want to be acknowledged, they want to tell somebody who killed them. But a demon? That’s the one that gets me. Demons can’t be placated. You can’t solve the mystery of how they died. It’s so hard to know how you pissed the demon off. Maybe you knocked a stone out of place, and now it’s an intergenerational curse.
I’m also afraid of zombies because they’re the monster who looks like a loved one. For those of us who have cared for aging parents or someone very ill, that can really hit home. They don’t know you, or they’re angry in their suffering. It’s like watching them transform into a zombie. That’s why they get under our skin so much. There’s too much truth to the zombie.
Who are you reading right now?
When I was at the L.A. Times Book Fair, I was paired with an author I didn’t know, but I was the last to find out about Leigh Bardugo. So now I’m reading Ninth House. It’s hot and I really like it.
The entire internet was taken aback when Darius Jackson, actor Keke Palmer’s boyfriend and her child’s father, took to Twitter to publicly criticize her outfit choice at an Usher concert. We all saw the video: Keke smiling and enjoying herself, in a revealing Black outfit; Usher serenading Keke, as they slow danced to a hype crowd.
Jackson took to social media to express his disapproval by stating, “It’s the outfit tho.. you a mom.” Twitter wasn’t having it and dragged him to filth. You see, you can’t come for our girl and get away with it.
It’s worthy to mention, based on what we know, Palmer and Jackson are not married, even though he refers to her as his wife in his tweets. The irony of Jackson shaming Palmer for not conforming to traditional standards becomes hard to ignore when considering he had a child outside of wedlock with her and he is not the primary breadwinner. By Jackson’s own standards, being a stay-at-home unmarried father is not that traditional either.
The truth is, patriarchy is a pay-to-play game, and some Black men do not have the appropriate bandwidth to participate in the way they may want to or in the way wealthy and white men can. This stems from decades of oppression and enduring institutional barriers that affect Black men’s earning potential. Meanwhile, the emasculation some Black men feel because they are unable to provide might cause them to displace blame and direct that frustration onto their Black women. When Black men cannot execute masculinity the way men who have power and resources can, there is this loss of power and respect that shows up in their relationships.
We absolutely adore Keke Palmer. We’ve watched her grow up, since Akeelah and the Bee, which is why we protect her at all costs. After she announced her pregnancy on Saturday Night Live, the Internet began to question who she was pregnant by. Soon after, via social media, she introduced us to Jackson. She then had the baby and quickly lost the baby weight. Keke has always been cute, but the result of pregnancy on her body has her stacked to the gods. She looks amazing, and the best part is that she’s feeling it. You can look at a woman and tell when she feels good from the inside out. Keke is glowing and in her sexy phase.
We’ve seen her show up to events with Jackson and the baby. Yet, a girls’ weekend in Vegas seemed to change everything.
Let’s be clear. Usher and Keke are both entertainers; two entertainers entertaining the audience. Celebrity to celebrity, they were having fun and wanted the people to buy what they were selling.
We know that there is a whole universe on the internet whose greatest pleasure is dragging Black women. We are too masculine; we desire to dress inappropriately; we want Black men to protect us but we don’t want to be led; we don’t deserve protection, if we choose to dress a certain way. The list goes on.
Yes, she is a mother. But a mother can’t wear a sexy dress? Jackson chose to publicly shame Keke about his issue with her dress instead of calling her privately. He invited the entire internet to criticize her then start commenting on their relationship. After people began dragging him, he doubled down attempting to justify that he’s only being the man of his family with morals and respect. He also said, “This is my family and my representation.”
Well, sir, at best we knew you as Keke Palmer’s baby daddy. We had no idea who you were until this instance. She has mentioned in interviews that she is a very private person, which is the truth because I don’t recall knowing anyone she’s dated. Keke has never even been involved with any controversy or mess. Sir, you had one job — not to embarrass her — and you failed.
Toni Morrison once described the function of racism: “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”
The same can be said about the function of sexism and misogynoir. As Jackson continued to double-down and justify his stance, he merely proved that he has no stance at all. Married or not, Keke is a whole grown woman and can wear what she wants. I would counter his stance to say that Jackson may have had a different issue and didn’t want to publicly disclose what truly triggered him, which was probably the whole interaction with her and Usher; his arm around her, the serenade, or even the hug she gave him. Even if she had on sweat pants and a turtleneck, chances are he might have felt the same way.
I’m certain for many men, a successful and driven woman is attractive. But when the dust settles, are they really okay with not being the stereotypical bread winner? Do they feel threatened if their partner has the better paying job, or, in this case, is a successful celebrity?
I believe that every relationship has to operate in a way that’s best for them. When women are the breadwinners, however, some couples have a difficult time discussing any emotions that may rise, especially if they’ve been raised and conditioned to believe men should dutifully make more money. For some men, making more money means they have the control and power in the relationship. Jackson’s unsuccessful flex to shame Keke and police what she was wearing indicates that he desires more than being at home taking care of their child. His desire to be more and do better may have gotten the best of him, and seeing Keke comfortable in her Blackness with the Usher Raymond was his breaking point.
Once we have a better sense of where our insecurities come from and the influence it has on our relationships, we can begin to challenge it in healthy ways with our partner and avoid being dragged on Twitter.
Apple TV+ today unveiled a first look at The Changeling, an upcoming eight-part drama series starring and executive produced by Academy Award-nominee LaKeith Stanfield and announced that the series will make its global debut with the first three episodes on Friday, September 8, 2023 on Apple TV+, followed by one episode weekly through October 13.
Based on the acclaimed best-selling book of the same name by Victor LaValle, The Changeling is a fairytale for grown-ups. A horror story, a parenthood fable and a perilous odyssey through a New York City you didn’t know existed. In addition to Stanfield, the series stars Clark Backo, Adina Porter, Samuel T. Herring, Alexis Louder, Jared Abrahamson, and special guest star Malcolm Barrett.
The Changeling is written and adapted by showrunner and executive producer Kelly Marcel (Cruella, Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage). The pilot episode was directed by Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim, Insecure).
The series is produced by Apple Studios and Annapurna. Megan Ellison, Patrick Chu and Ali Krug are executive producers on behalf of Annapurna. Showrunner Kelly Marcel, the book’s author Victor LaValle, David Knoller, and director Jonathan van Tulleken executive produce alongside star LaKeith Stanfield. Director Matsoukas serves as executive producer through her De La Revolución Films. Sue Naegle and David Wolkis also serve as executive producer, Khaliah Neal as co-executive producer.