Yay! Today we get to chat with the always amazing Susanna Calkins, who writes the award-winning Lucy Campion mysteries set in 17th century London and the Speakeasy Mysteries set in 1920s Chicago. Her writing has been nominated for the Anthony, Agatha, Mary Higgins Clark, Macavity, and Lefty awards. She is a historian by training and teaches at the college level. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two sons, with whom she shares a general terror of rats.
What is your greatest fear?
I’d have to say that I’m terrified of the El (“L”, as we say in Chicago) or really any train. I’ve taken trains my whole life, especially growing up in Philadelphia, and I’m still afraid of the great gaping expanse where the tracks run. I’m afraid of jumping in as the train speeds towards the station–NOT, to be absolutely clear, because I’m suicidal. I’m not. It’s something different altogether. I spent some time researching this, and I learned that it’s not trypophobia (fear of holes) or acrophobia (fear of high places). Apparently, I experience what the French call “L’appel du Vide” or “the call of the Void.” (The call of the Void! How French is that?) I’m ALSO afraid of being pushed in front of the train by a random stranger, so I stand as far back from the track as I can, discreetly holding the back of a bench. I mean, you hear stories about people pushing other people in front of trains all the time, so I feel fully justified.
What is your greatest fear from childhood?
I was terrified of dying in a nuclear disaster. (Or perhaps worse, surviving as my skin and bones melted away.) I blame the fact that, as a child of the 80s, we were REQUIRED, actually required, to watch The Day After, which described the devastating after-effects of nuclear war on regular people JUST LIKE ME. There was no debrief, no one to talk to about it. For weeks after, I would just bury myself under the covers, hoping that the nuclear war (which seemed sadly inevitable) would happen in my great-grandchildren’s time, not in mine. (Poor great-grandchildren!)
What’s your weirdest fear?
I constantly imagine myself tripping and falling onto a spike that goes through my face. Like, my left eye. It’s a weirdly specific fear. I also fear this for other people, especially little kids, when I see them running awkwardly. I can imagine the whole thing playing out in slow motion, and it really turns my stomach.
What is a phobia you have?
I have an entire category of driving-related phobias. I’m afraid of people who drive without their headlights on. I’m also afraid of people pulling up directly alongside me. I will edge up or back to not be parallel with them. I will absolutely not make eye contact with anyone in the next lane, unless one of us is trying to change lanes. I will not drive down alleys where I can get blocked in. I’m just assuming that any of these situations is going to get me murdered. I don’t feel you can prove me wrong on this.
“I’m afraid of people who drive without their headlights on. I’m also afraid of people pulling up directly alongside me. I will edge up or back to not be parallel with them… I’m just assuming that any of these situations is going to get me murdered.”
I thought I just had driving-related phobias, but now that I think about it, I have a number of other phobias that relate to me being murdered. (Even writing this for public view now makes me feel like I’m going to invite a murderer to my door.) I’m afraid of secluded walking paths in forests (even though I am very comfortable walking around city streets). I would never ever go camping, because that is definitely where the murderers lurk. I’m afraid of taking a self-defense class because I assume that the criminals keep an eye on those classes to find vulnerable people who haven’t learned what to do yet. I’ve also been deathly afraid of revolving doors ever since I saw a scene of The Godfather, where someone gets mowed down in one.
What else, Susie? What else?
I was always worried that my dolls and stuffed animals would come to life and want to kill me for how I treated them. (I mean, I mostly made them sit through “school” all day, but I did leave them out in the rain from time to time.) Then when I saw Toy Story, and the attack on Sid, it made me VERY NERVOUS. That, and I know a famous writer named Tara Laskowski who regularly freaks me out with her crazy dolls…