Bookwild
Cosmic Horror and a Crime Procedural: CJ Leede's Headlights
Episode Notes
This week, I talk with CJ Leede about her new horror novel Headlights!
Listen to hear about:
- How CJ originally planned to become a medieval historian, but after a professor helped her discover storytelling was what she wanted to pursue.
- How Headlights began with the idea of people waking up on the side of a highway wearing the skin of strangers, and evolved into a story about grief, mortality, family legacy, and the search for meaning.
- Why Leede treats setting as a character, using Colorado's beauty, danger, wildlife, and landscapes as metaphors for the novel's larger themes about life, death, and the unknown.
- How the novel contains investigative thriller and horror elements, but is really a book about confronting sadness, loss, and the things we cannot outrun within ourselves.
- Why horror can uniquely encompass mysteries, romance, literary fiction, supernatural stories, social commentary, and psychological explorations, making it one of the broadest and most creative genres available.