TOD 013 David Bowles: These Dark Borderlands of Flowers, Poetry, & Blood

In this podcast Scott Nicolay interviews David Bowles, author of Chupacabra Vengeance. Also Gabino Iglesias (LitReactor, Zero Saints) reviews Bowles’ Chupacabra Vengeance and Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman.

Coverage of The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird will resume on the next episode of The Outer Dark. Thank you to our show sponsor, Rabbits podcast (0:00:30 & 2:48:12).

Show Notes

(0:01:58) David Bowles, author of Chupacabra Vengeance, and Scott discuss the problematic nature of many alien races in popular SF franchises and the challenge of finding ways to listen and be allies with people in marginalized cultures in fiction, liminal spaces and living on the borderlands literally in south Texas and in literature, nepantla and Weird fiction, existential crisis and uncertainly in Aztec poetry, how the gods may be crazy, Daniel José Older, implications of a Trump presidency that wants to close the border, cycles of history, his study of Nahuatl and his translations including Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry, a reading from a soon-to-be-published Nahautl poem translated by David, Van Morrison and Homer, working with J. David Osborne and Broken River Books and the careful chaotic construction of his collection Chupacabra Vengeance, the larger Weird universe in which many of his stories reside, his upcoming YA Mesoamerican magic steampunk graphic novel Clockwork Curandera illustrated by Raul Gonzalez, the genesis of his interest in Mesoamerican traditions and language, his kaiju novel Lords of the Earth set in Mexico City and grounded in Aztec mythology, reclaiming cosmic horror for Mesoamerica, a reading from his story “The Obsidian Codex,” his upcoming nonfiction book Feathered Spirit, Dark Heart of Sky: The Origin Myths of Mexico, why we really need a great “life of Quetzalcoatl” movie, merging his literary and academic lives, translating Andre Norton Award-nominated Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe García McCall (Tu Books, Fall 2017), his Garza Twins YA series, a tease about his next big literary step which involves signing a contract with Penguin Books, and much, much more.