The eighteen interconnected short horror stories in Man MadeMonsters (Levine Querido, 12 years and up) by Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee), illustrated by Jeff Edwards (Cherokee), follow a family forced from their ancestral lands through generations spanning two centuries, from 1839 to 2039.
1. What inspired you to combine fantastical horror with real-life horrors?
Photo: Hiba Tahir
Andrea L. Rogers: When I read fiction, I pick up random information about the world and history. Native people have often been stock characters in horror, portrayed in stereotypical ways, existing in made-up scenarios which may or may not have their facts straight about the Native people whose land is the setting for these stories. There is not a lot of horror (or contemporary fiction) out there being told through a Native lens. There certainly wasn’t when I was a kid. There were scary stories and movies that I was able to get lost in, but the main characters didn’t look like me or my family. As a teacher, when I tried to find books by Native people to give my high school students in our Native Education program and, later, my daughters, I couldn’t find them. I knew that for a long time. At some point I sat down to write, and these are the stories that sprang to life. They were fun to write. They were set in my world, so they couldn’t exist without the real-life horrors that have been visited upon Native people. We didn’t ask for these things to happen. They don’t define us as tribal nations, but they do impact our lives. I wanted to tell stories where we were the final people, where we do survive...
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