Heather Daughrity loves all things macabre, dark, autumnal, supernatural, and horrific. She writes horror—the quiet, creeping, psychological kind, full of moaning wind, shifting shadows, and psychological pain. When she’s not writing, she works as a freelance editor, helping authors make their stories the best they can be.
Heather’s solo works include Knock Knock, Tales My Grandmother Told Me, and Echoes of the Dead. Her short stories have been featured in several anthologies, and she is the curating editor of the House of Haunts and Hospital of Haunts anthologies.
Heather loves digging in the dirt, hiking in the woods, whipping up delicious desserts in the kitchen, and generally soaking up all the weird and wild beauty of the world. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, author and publisher Joshua Loyd Fox, where together they spend their days reading, writing, and being blissfully bookish.
But what scares her? Let’s find out!
What is the scariest thing you remember from childhood?
When I was around 10 or 11, my mom—a very religious woman—became obsessed with the idea of spiritual warfare. So, on Sunday nights, a group of maybe 10 or 12 of us would go walking through the church buildings in the dark after nearly everyone had left, with the adults calling out any evil spirits that might be lurking about and casting them out in God’s name. There were definitely some creepy, anxiety-inducing moments during those dark hours. People claimed to see things or feel things, and I certainly had some washes of prickling trepidation upon walking into certain rooms.
Now—was there anything actually there or was I an impressionable kid caught up in a sort of small-scale mass hysteria built on eerie suggestion and spooky atmosphere? I don’t know. But I can still feel the goosebumps breaking out on my arms and the tears which would spring inexplicably to my eyes upon entering specific spaces.
What is your weirdest fear?
I have an immense fear of anything covering my face. Well, covering both my nose and mouth. If one is covered but the other is not, I’m fine, but having them both covered sends me into a panic. I can remember being very young and getting sweaters stuck on my head trying to get dressed or undressed by myself and feeling trapped and unable to breathe. I would freak out. I sometimes question if I am afraid of this now because of those moments, or was I freaking out then because I was already afraid of it?
In a related note: the COVID quarantine was HARD for me. Wearing a face mask that covered both my nose and mouth felt like I was constantly on the verge of suffocating. I DID wear one when I went out to places that required it, but I avoided going anywhere unless absolutely necessary because of this fear. And even when I was out, I would have to occasionally pull the mask away and take in a great gasping gulp of fresh air.
“I have an immense fear of anything covering both my nose and mouth. Having them both covered sends me into a panic.”
Do you have a recurring nightmare?
Sort of, and this is related to the fear described above. A few times a year I will have nightmares that my husband has to physically wake me up from. I will thrash about and mumble and groan in my sleep. The dreams are different, but always involve me either not being able to breathe or not being able to speak to someone (and what I’m trying to say is always life-or-death important, like “Don’t open that door, there’s poisonous gas out there!”). After several years of doing this, I realized that I only have these dreams when either I’ve fallen asleep on my stomach (so that in my sleep I end up with my face in the pillow) or the blankets have somehow gotten bunched up around my face and covered my mouth and nose.
So, to reiterate: even in my sleep, I do NOT like having my mouth and nose covered.
What’s something that most people are afraid of that you are not?
Bugs. Spiders. I was creeped out by them as a little girl, for sure, but after years of gardening, I’ve come to love most and at least tolerate others. It IS amusing to me when a big, strong man freaks out over a spider and I’m up with my face inches away from it going, “Look at this beauty!”
What’s creepier: clowns, dolls, or wax figures?
Well, not dolls. I’m pretty sure I could kick a doll across the room. Wax figures are meh, I mean just the whole Uncanny Valley thing makes them creepy, right? But clowns—clowns are the most truly horrifying because that’s a real person and unfortunately, we all know that the true horror in the world comes from what real people do to each other.
What’s your favorite horror movie or television series?
I LOVED Penny Dreadful. I grew up on those old-school Victorian Gothic monsters, and that show brings them all together in such a wonderful way. Each time a new (old) character was introduced, I would be absolutely giddy.
What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read? Is there a particular scene that really haunts you still?
This is a tie. For supernatural horror, Adam Nevill’s No One Gets Out Alive. That book is like six horror stories rolled into one. Just when you think you’ve escaped one danger, another one shows up. For man vs. man horror, Dean Koontz’s Intensity gave me actual nightmares. I wanted to DNF so many times, but something in me had to keep reading, to see how it ended, because I knew all the possible scenarios that were running through my mind were going to continue to haunt me if I didn’t get some closure.
People often say death is their greatest fear. What are your feelings about death/dying?
I have no fears about death and dying. Now, I certainly don’t want to go out in a painful way—whether that be a long, drawn-out illness or a violent car crash, but death itself doesn’t bother me. I’ve always had a sort of “it’s all part of the circle of life” mindset when it comes to this. Beautiful babies are born, lives are lived, people grow old and die; seasons change—nature is constantly in a cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth—I think it’s beautiful, really, and am just glad to be a part of it.