Interview with GRIMM RETOLD Contributor, TT Madden
When we came across TT Madden’s submission for Grimm Retold we knew it would be a powerful contribution to the anthology, coming out September 24. Madden describes the story as “A re-imagining of Bluebeard on a slave plantation, a young slave finds himself brought into the big house for a secret, terrifying purpose.”
It is heartbreaking and terrifying and a perfect fit for the collection of twenty Grimm Fairy Tales told in dark and frightening new ways.
What we came to learn is that TT Madden is having quite a year, with several publications under their belt as well as two upcoming novellas. The Familialists and The Cosmic Color. We’re not even a little surprised. Madden’s unique and powerful voice stands out.
Publisher and Managing Editor of Neon Hemlock, dave ring, is publishing TT Madden’s upcoming The Cosmic Color and said “TT submitted their novella during open submissions, and I remember cracking into it while visiting a friend in Seattle. The writing had an urgency that drew me in right away, and I can’t wait for other folks to discover that urgency for themselves.”
I had to pin them down for an interview, to talk about their banner year.
It seems like 2024 is a pretty big year for your work. Can you tell us a little bit about everything you’ve been doing? (just a run down here) 2024 has my first two novellas coming out, The Familialists and The Cosmic Color, and I’ve also had several shorts published, most recently in the collections Skin: An Anthology of Dark Fiction, and Embodied Exegesis. And there’s one more upcoming in Ghoulish Tales.
What is the premise of The Familialists with Off Limits Press? The Familialists is about Sorrel, who runs into her ex, Maud, and receives a frightening coded message for help, hidden from the man who claims to be Maud’s husband. Sorrel then follows Maud to this frightening, implausible neighborhood, Trinity Springs, that seems plucked out of the 1950s, with something terrible lurking beneath its shiny veneer.
And your other novella coming out, The Cosmic Color, with Neon Hemlock, you have described as a transfem mecha/kaiju story like Pacific Rim, which sounds absolutely awesome, but totally different. Do these novella share any similar veins? Thank you! The Cosmic Color I actually wrote first, but will be coming out about a month later. I only realized after completing them that both novellas are, at their core, about repression and oppression, the ways both internal and external forces work against us, and the frightening things that can happen to us if we repress things about ourselves, like our true sexuality or gender identity.
What is the inspiration behind The Cosmic Color? The inspiration for The Cosmic Color was primarily my exploration of my own gender identity, combined with a nostalgia for the anime of my youth. Using the idea of a big robot to truly inhabit a body other than your own, or a big monster to explore what a physically changing body would feel like. Of course, with huge, over-the-top fights too.
We were blown away when we read “The Forbidden Room” in the submissions for Grimm Retold. The story originally appeared in Remapping Wonderland: Classic Fairytales Retold by People of Color, Alternating Current Press. What compelled this connection between the fairy tale of Bluebeard and Antebellum Slavery? I’m very glad you liked it! I have a mix of identities (genderfluid, mixed-race), so I always try to write from at least one of those perspectives, to make my stories me. This one in particular came about in the wake of Get Out, where storytellers began examining Blackness through different lenses. Not just Black analogues as horror for white characters or Black characters being the first to die, and tropes like that, but examining particular cultural fears that Black people have or have been through. In this case, it was very similar to Get Out in that the fear was “Black is the new black” taken to a horrific extreme.
What are you reading right now? I just started the audiobook of Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase, an Afrofuturist about bodily autonomy that’s billed as The Handmaid’s Tale and Get Out. It’s a fascinating and frightening world, one of those books where I want to just stop everything else and listen to it. The performance is phenomenal as well.
What are some trends you are really enjoying in horror? When it comes to books, I’m over the moon (from both a reading and writing standpoint) about the popularity of the novella. I think that’s a perfect amount of space for most horror stories to do what they need to do. I feel like indie horror games are making a big resurgence now, with stuff like Still Wakes the Deep and Crow Country, the latter of which is my persona game of the year so far.
What are a few movies you’ve really enjoyed recently? I’ve really loved the experimental or new stuff that’s out there, especially among established franchises. In these days of big superhero copy/paste movies, the wild experimentation with Halloween Ends, Prey, and smaller stuff like In a Violent Nature, Longlegs, or I Saw the TV Glow really shakes things up in fun ways.
What is an interesting Non-writing thing you have going on right now? This won’t be a spoiler by the time my partner sees this interview, but I am going to propose!!!!
What other projects are you working on? Where can we look for you next? Right now I’m editing my October 2025 book that’ll be coming out as part of Mad Axe Media’s Totally Freaked! series of Fear Street-inspired novellas, as well as plotting out another novella about the Polybius videogame cabinet, and shopping around some more books that don’t currently have homes. My big releases through the end of the year will be my first solo novellas The Familiasts and The Cosmic Color.
Follow TT Madden on their Twitter account @ttmaddenwrites
And order your copy of Grimm Retold now, so you’ll have it on Release Day!
