Meet author Nikki Guerlain:
To start, please introduce yourself:
My name is Nikki Guerlain and I write fiction heavily influenced by David Lynch and Philip K. Dick.
What is horror to you, what makes a work of art one in the horror genre?
Horror is an experience, a playground, where at times you are truly looking at what is at the end of your fork as unappealing or horrific as it is. It has few guardrails, no happy ending is promised, possibilities are endless and exciting; horror is just more wide open in general. That said, the tone of horror is all over the place. I prefer to read and write a mix of mystery, horror, and science fiction.
What made you want to work in horror?
Horror allows me the opportunity to tell non-conforming stories with a wide range of emotions and content.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I get most of my inspiration from TV and film, but a handful of books as well.
Millennium, Hannibal, Twin Peaks, V: the Original Mini-Series, and now Severance are tv shows in constant rotation.
Naked Lunch, Donnie Darko, Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, and the Solaris remake are movies I frequent often.
As for books, Philip K. Dick’s novels Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly are very inspiring novels that I consider horror just as much as science fiction.
What would you like your legacy to be in the genre (or elsewhere)?
I would like to be known as writing unique immersive experiences enjoyed widely by fans of mystery, horror, and science fiction.
What is Women in Horror Month to you and why is it still important this many years later?
I feel it is important to have a reminder that year round we should be finding ways to do “the good work” and equalize things on the backend so that we don’t further segregate and “other” women. I appreciate these “Women in X” efforts and will contribute towards them but what I really love is when I see panels or collections and it’s just a good mix of people instead of “Women in X” etc but we obviously are not there yet.
Who are some of the Women in Horror who you look up to and who do you want to bring attention to in your field or others?
Right now I’m really looking up to Coralie Fargeat. Her movie The Substance is amazing and totally batshit in the best way possible. You need to see it. I also really admire Katheryn Bigelow’s vampire movie Near Dark. As well, a must see.
What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?
I’m currently finishing my debut novel and planning out the rest of the series. The novel is called Dead Cruise and it is the first book of the Cascadia Mine series. It’s like if David Lynch directed a Philip K. Dick novel with a Hannibal cast. Or something like that. It releases on 12/10/25 but is available for pre-order at most online retailers.
Where can readers keep up with you?
facebook.com/nikkiguerlain
goodreads.com/nikkiguerlain
radwriter.com
Pre-order for Dead Cruise:
https://a.co/d/eMCbqWZ
