INTERVIEW: Lee Murray

By Geneve Flynn

Lee Murray, award-winning New Zealand author and editor, talks about weird fiction, her latest weird tale, and the strange and mythic world of the land of the long white cloud. Lee’s story “The Good Wife” will appear in issue #364 of Weird Tales.

GENEVE FLYNN: Thanks for chatting with me today, Lee. We recently co-edited a horror anthology that was brimming with the uncanny, and your story “The Good Wife” feels like a very natural extension of that experience. What does weird fiction mean to you, and why do you think it’s had such lasting appeal?

LEE MURRAY: Weird fiction has a universal appeal because there is a supernatural and spiritual quality to it, a sense of the uncanny, and the exploration of those aspects offers us a deeper understanding of the complexities of our world. Jeff VanderMeer, who co-edited The Weird with former Weird Tales editor Ann VanderMeer, wrote in 2014, “There’s a power and weight to this type of fiction, which fascinates by presenting a dark mystery beyond our ken and engaging the subconscious. Just as in real life, things don’t always quite add up, the narrative isn’t quite what we expected, and in that space we discover some of the most powerful evocations of what it means to be human or inhuman.” (Jeff VanderMeer, “The Uncanny Power of Weird Fiction,” Atlantic, Oct 30, 2014.) 

GF: Weird Tales has been a seminal part of the speculative fiction landscape since 1923, with bestselling authors, including Stephen King, citing it as an important influence. When did you first encounter the magazine?

LM: How did I first hear of the magazine? I vaguely remember seeing Weird Tales on shelves in my local library in New Zealand in the ’70s. Too young to borrow them, I recall the vibrant, outlandish covers, which have gone on to symbolise the magazine. But your question got me thinking: has the magazine appeared widely here in New Zealand over the past century, and have any of my compatriots appeared on its pages? If so, wouldn’t it be wonderful to highlight those stories and their authors?

I did some browsing, discovering Terence Hanley’s excellent contributor site, Tellers of Weird Tales, but was unable to find any familiar names. I contacted Hanley to see if he had additional information, and he kindly replied, “I don’t know of any author who contributed to Weird Tales from 1923 to 1974 who came from New Zealand. That’s not to say that there wasn’t one, but I don’t know of any. I won’t know until I have gone through the entire list and have written about all of them, but even then, there are going to be several authors about whom nothing is known, including their real names. There could be a New Zealander hiding in there somewhere and we may never know.” Hanley mentioned New Zealand indexer Thomas G. L. Cockcroft as proof that people (or at least one person) in New Zealand read Weird Tales during the magazine’s history, but could shed no light on whether those copies might have been purchased at the newsstand, by subscription, or some other means.

That conversation had me bounding off down a research rabbit hole, contacting publisher John Harlacher, who knew of no New Zealand contributors either. Who were the likely suspects? I rattled off some names including Maurice Gee, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Katherine Mansfield, and Janet Frame. Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke finalist Phillip Mann had appeared in a back issue listed as a British author? I contacted Mann, a personal friend, who didn’t recall ever submitting work to the magazine.

Clearly, I needed to dig deeper; I emailed New Zealand fan historian, Ross Temple. Temple added Robin Hyde to my list of possible Kiwi contributors, and recommended I contact Murray MacLachlan, a friend of the archivist Thomas Cockcroft, who was now based in Melbourne and still involved in fandom. Temple had no idea how to contact him, but weird folk have weird ways, so I sent out a couple of text messages to colleagues, and within a day MacLachlan had contacted me. Yes, he had some of Cockcroft’s bibliographies, given to him when interviewing Cockcroft for his notes on New Zealand science fiction and fantasy. MacLachlan spoke fondly of Cockcroft as a bibliographer of some note, the larger bibliographies self-published in 1962, 1964, and 1970, and distributed through a US agent based in Staten Island, helped by word of mouth through the Weird Tales community. MacLachlan said he’d check his archives, but from memory he didn’t know of any New Zealand authors appearing in the magazine.

The trail might have stopped there, but MacLachlan suggested I contact another friend of Cockcroft’s, Rowan Gibbs of Smiths Books in Wellington, since Gibbs had also inherited some of Cockcroft’s bibliographies.

I made the call just before lunch. Gibbs answered on the first ringtone and we had a lovely conversation. He knew of no other New Zealander to appear in the magazine either, although he pointed out that Cockcroft’s interest was mainly in the American contributors and that he had corresponded with several of them personally, including Forrest Ackerman and his contemporaries. This point was confirmed by MacLachlan who said Cockcroft had been a member of a US-based fantasy amateur press association, which meant he was in regular mail correspondence with fans such as Donald Wollheim. Both MacLachlan and Gibbs expressed regret that the Cockcroft family had disposed of Thomas’s personal correspondence when he was medically retired to a rest home after an illness. The family did retain Cockcroft’s Weird Tales collection, but Gibbs said the magazines were in rather poor repair. However, as a bookseller, he was able to confirm that Weird Tales was frequently available in various bookstores in New Zealand through the 1930s and up until the war, and that Cockcroft had bought his copies locally. During the war years, supplies were patchy, with New Zealand’s book stocks sourced mainly from Britain, but US magazines tended to get through.

I emailed Terence Hanley with the names suggested by Gibbs: Cedric Centiplay was a possibility, or one of his many aliases. My Kiwi horror colleague, William Cook, had suggested Paul Haines and Tamsyn Muir, so I forwarded those names to Hanley, too.

Hanley replied expressing his dismay about the loss of important legacies such as Thomas Cockcroft’s. It’s the reason gaps exist in archivists’ knowledge about Weird Tales. Something similar had happened to the bibliographies of Leo Margulies, who owned the Weird Tales property from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. Margulies purportedly kept files and correspondence he’d inherited in his garage, and they’d become infested with insects and later thrown away.

But Hanley also had news, neatly ruling out Centiplay, Haines, and Muir based on entries in the The Collector’s Index to Weird Tales by Sheldon Jaffery and Fred Cook (1985), although he pointed out that the book only covered issues to Summer 1983. Hanley knew of no other index to Weird Tales issues released after that date. He noted that he had consulted the Internet Speculative Fiction Database indexes, but it would be a long and involved process to search the authors in each issue to pinpoint any New Zealanders.

Hanley had heard from Randal A. Everts, who’s been researching contributors to Weird Tales since the 1960s. Everts considered Denis Plimmer (1914-1981), might have been a New Zealander, but subsequent research revealed he was in fact born in Melbourne, Australia, although he may have lived in or visited New Zealand, his father’s native country, as a child. (Plimmer’s particular fame was that he and his American wife, Charlotte, were co-authors of a key article on J.R.R. Tolkien.)

“Denis Plimmer’s name is the only one offered by Mr. Everts,” wrote Hanley. “I would say that if he doesn’t know of any New Zealanders who contributed to Weird Tales, then there probably wasn’t one. It seems pretty safe to say that you will be the first!”

So, there it is: unless there is a reader out there who can point us to another, I may be the very first New Zealander to appear on the pages of Weird Tales. That fact seems uncanny and fantastic in itself, since there are many far more accomplished writers among my compatriots, both living and dead. My knees have barely stopped shaking since I received Terence Hanley’s last email. I do feel a little sad that it has taken this long to bring our Kiwi weirdness to the magazine, but I hope it is a sign of things to come.

GF: Congratulations on being a pioneer! Here’s to much more weirdness from around the world. Speaking of which, who are your favourite weird fiction authors and which stories have resonated with you the most?

LM: Well, Poe, naturally. “The Telltale Heart”, which Stephen King describes as “a persuasive story of lunacy,” has been a favourite of mine since I first read it as a schoolgirl, bearing out King’s observation that the author “foresaw the darkness of generations far beyond his own.” The French poet Charles Baudelaire, a contemporary of Poe and credited for translating much of his work, is another favourite. Lovecraft. Conan Doyle. Mary Shelley. King himself. It’s a long list.

Lee at one of Poe’s gravesites, in Baltimore

GF: Yes, there are many authors who have written brilliantly in this genre, and many, many stories. Which leads to my next question: what weird fiction cliché would you sacrifice to the unknowable gods?

LM: Perhaps, it is time for predominantly Western tropes to make way for more global representations, and reinterpretations, in bizarro fiction. Asian interpretations. Pasifika stories. Tales from the LGBTQ community. I’d like to see stories which twist current concerns and force us to look at them differently: weird tales on the recent devastating bushfires, the proliferation of the Asian giant hornet, new takes on AI. I expect the editorial leadership of Jonathan Maberry will result in renewed vigour. Already, in just two issues, we’re seeing him expand the magazine’s reach to include fresh voices and perspectives. And it makes sense, because weird fiction seeks to subvert traditional interpretations: what better way to do that than to throw open the doors to new voices?

GF: That was certainly the zeitgeist at the recent WorldCon in New Zealand. Readers, editors and publishers were vocal in their desire for fresh voices. Your tale “The Good Wife” presents a wonderfully unique perspective. Can you tell me what inspired the story, and what it was like writing for the magazine?

LM: “The Good Wife” was inspired partly from my own heritage as a third-generation Chinese New Zealander, and also the result of some research I’d uncovered around the differences between European and Chinese mining techniques. The story is set in the 1800s, in Arrowtown, at the heart of New Zealand’s goldfields, where a dutiful Chinese wife, known only as Second-Daughter, negotiates with a taniwha—a supernatural serpent-dragon of Māori mythology—for the life of her feckless miner husband. It’s a grimdark Chinese-New Zealand fairy tale imbued with themes of duty and ambition, which juxtaposes Chinese and Māori notions of the mythical taniwha-dragon. I hoped to highlight the Chinese diaspora in New Zealand and the harshness of life in those early mining communities. I squeezed in a mention of our gasp-worthy wētā-cricket as well. As far as writing for the magazine goes, my imposter syndrome was out in full force. Even now, with the contract neatly filed away, it still feels surreal.

GF: Speaking of surreal, the real and mythical landscapes of New Zealand often feature in your stories. How does this fit into the genre of weird fiction?

LM: If weird fiction invokes a sense of the numinous, then New Zealand’s landscape makes for the perfect backdrop. Aotearoa is a brutal yet beautiful place where wairua-spirits walk close to the veil, as American William Schafer pointed out in his book Mapping the Godzone (1998): “A common cultural link between Pākehā and Māori is a belief in the hauntedness of the landscape, the sense that Aotearoa New Zealand is a land of sinister and unseen forces, of imminent (and immanent) threat, of the undead or revenant spirits.” In fact, the Māori term tipua refers to demonic uncanny things from our local landscape. It’s part of the fabric of our lives, as my Path of Ra co-author, Dan Rabarts (Ngāti Porou), states: “Our gods and ghosts are primeval, a constant presence in the backs of our minds, both bloodthirsty and mischievous. Turn your back, deny them for even a moment, and they don’t miss an opportunity to remind us they’re there, and that they don’t like us. New Zealand is full of ghosts, all the time…” (Dan Rabarts & Lee Murray, “Underworld Gothic,” Halloween Haunts, HWA, October, 2017). Like I said, the perfect backdrop.

GF: You’ve mentored many writers, and developed and funded programs to support new writers, what’s the best piece of advice you could give to someone starting out?

LM: There is so much advice, isn’t there, and everyone’s path is different, especially given that the publishing landscape is changing so rapidly with new opportunities evolving every day. Nevertheless, there are some indisputable truths, like write the story you want to read; write the best story you can; revise; rewrite; send it out; write another; read a lot; read some more; read more widely; keep writing… But overall, I want to say that writing is hard, so mostly people should always remember to be kind.

GF: Weird Tales has undergone many iterations and continues to evolve. What are your thoughts on the magazine’s new direction?

LM: I’m excited to see the diversity that will undoubtedly come from Maberry’s stewardship, and the vitality those authors will lend the magazine. I expect Maberry’s own versatility as a writer of multiple genres and media will influence what readers will see in future issues. He’s not afraid to pull up a chair for newer writers, to take a risk. Me, for example. I hadn’t yet come across Marguerite Reed, who appears in issue #364, and I’m looking forward to discovering her work. Of course, Weird Tales has a great team with people like editor James Aquilone behind the scenes polishing the work to obsidian. I think the future looks dark at Weird Tales, and in a good way!

GF: And finally, can you tell us about your latest projects, and what you’re working on next?

LM: Thank you for asking, Geneve. Despite the pandemic, my publishers have been working hard to push my weird work into the world. In July, Things in the Well Australia released my debut short story collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories, and in September, Omnium Gatherum released Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, an anthology by Southeast Asian horror writers that you and I have edited, featuring some of our favourite writers of weird fiction, including three-time Bram Stoker Award®-winner Rena Mason, who also appears in issue #364. I’m currently working on a poetry collection in a spin-off to the work we started with Black Cranes on the Asian diaspora in horror. And finally, in November, Raw Dog Screaming Press will release Blood of the Sun, the final installment in the Path of Ra supernatural crime-noir series I write with my Kiwi colleague Dan Rabarts, which, rather fittingly, ends with a spectacular showdown in the volcanic crater of Auckland’s Maungawhau (Mount Eden) as the Earth switches magnetic poles.

About Lee Murray

Lee is a multi-award-winning writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows) and a three-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee. Her works include the Taine McKenna military thrillers, and supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra, co-written with Dan Rabarts, short story collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories, as well as several books for children. She is proud to have edited fifteen speculative works, Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (co-edited with Geneve Flynn) is the most recent. She is the co-founder of Young New Zealand Writers and the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, and HWA Mentor of the Year for 2019. In February 2020, Lee was made an Honorary Literary Fellow in the New Zealand Society of Authors Waitangi Day Honours. Lee lives in New Zealand’s sunny Bay of Plenty where she dreams up stories from her office overlooking a cow paddock. Read more at www.leemurray.info

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geneve Flynn is a freelance editor from Australia who specialises in speculative fiction. She has two psychology degrees and has only ever used them for nefarious purposes. She has been a judge for a key Australian horror award and a submissions reader for a leading Australian speculative fiction magazine. Her horror short stories have been published in various markets, including Flame Tree Publishing, Things in the Well, and the Tales to Terrify podcast. She is a professional member of the Institute of Professional Editors and teaches creative writing courses with Brisbane Writers Workshop.

She loves tales that unsettle, all things writerly, and B-grade action movies. If that sounds like you, check out her website at www.geneveflynn.com.au.