The Lowdown with... A.C. Wise

A.C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her short fiction has appeared in places such as Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Shimmer, and The Best Horror of the Year Volume 10. She has two collections - The Ultra Fabulous  Glitter Squadron Saves The World Again and The Kissing Booth Girl - published with Lethe Press, and a novella, Catfish Lullaby, forthcoming from Broken Eye Books. In addition to her fiction, she contributes a monthly review column to Apex Magazine, and the Women to Read and Non-Binary Authors to Read series to The Book Smugglers. Find her online here and on twitter there.


1. Tell us three things about yourself.
I'm Canadian. I have an uncontrollable book-buying problem, though I don't really consider it a problem. I think corgis are the best, and the two corgis who live in my house agree.

2. What was the first thing you had published?
The first thing I had published was a short story in a yearly journal of work by students put together by a local library when I was in high school. The first thing I had professionally published was piece of flash fiction printed on a coffee label by Story House Coffee. Sadly Story House no longer exists, which is a shame because I love the idea of fiction on coffee labels. As a big coffee drinker myself, it felt very appropriate for my first professional publication.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

Hmm. That's hard to say. I've always been rather fond of "Final Girl Theory", which originally appeared at ChiZine, back when they regularly published short fiction online. It's since been reprinted in a couple of anthologies, and podcast at Pseudopod.

4. …and which makes you cringe?
Oh, geez. There are any number of embarrassing trunk novels and stories that will never see the light of day and I shudder to think of them.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?
I have a day job in addition to writing, so during the week, my writing is usually limited to whatever I can squeeze in at lunch. If I'm lucky, I can set aside a block of time on the weekend for writing, and it's always lovely to be able to immerse myself versus knowing I have less than an hour to cram in as much work as I can.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?
For a single story, I would say "Final Girl Theory" again, however if someone wanted a broader sample of my work, I would recommend my collection The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories. It's got a little bit of everything - fantasy, horror, science fiction, erotica, and cross-genre mash-ups.

7. What are you working on now?
Just moments ago I turned in the edits for my debut novella, Catfish Lullaby, which is slated to come out from Broken Eye Books this summer. I'm excited for it to be out in the world, and for folks to read it! It's kind of a Southern Gothic, weird horror type thing that's secretly about family/found family. There are also creatures with too many eyes and too many teeth and the end of the world is at hand, so it's got something for everyone!