Four Questions with Mo Moshaty
One of the highlights of my time at StokerCon 2023 was meeting and getting to know author Mo Moshaty. Not only is she brilliant, but she is also kind-hearted, funny, and generous with her knowledge and expertise. So I am elated that she took the time to stop by Tamika Talks Terror amid the release of her story collection, Love the Sinner, out this summer from Brigids Gate Press.
Tamika Thompson: What is horror?
Mo Moshaty: Ha! I feel that this is such a loaded question but in the best ways. I feel that horror is anything that spikes your adrenaline or pulls your particular perception of fear to the absolute limit. And it's so relative, ask anyone what is scary, and you'll get a different answer from everyone. But I think on an individual level for me, horror is something that I turn to when the world is hard, that I cuddle into to quell my anxieties, a place where I can build new worlds within. Horror is my solace.
Thompson: What is the spookiest experience you've ever had?
Moshaty: When I was seven we lived in a Victorian duplex where we had the whole top level. I was walking past the bathroom which was a pink bathroom: pink toilet, pink sink, pink tile, and I was walking past, and I saw a little girl in a lace nightgown standing in the tub. Now the tub was a claw foot tub, the only thing that was white in the room and the lights were off. So I walked past, obviously chilled to the bone and then took another look into the bathroom and she was still there. Now, the bathroom sat across from the staircase that led up to the apartment and so I had taken a few steps too far backwards and fell all the way down the stairs to the bottom knocking the wind out of me. And when you think that's the worst of it, it wasn't. The little girl stood at the top of the staircase. And as my mother ran to see about me, she vanished and every time I tell this story my mother refuses to believe it 40 years later.
Thompson: What is the scariest book you've read and what about it frightened you?
Moshaty: The scariest book I've ever read is probably Stephen King's It. I read this when I was about 11 years old. My oldest sister, who is 10 years older than me, had left it at the house, she was graduating from college, and she was moving out, and I kind of stole it out of her box of books that she was bringing. And I think for me it was such a defining piece of horror. I had watched horror films already. I had watched Carrie, I had watched The Howling, everything I shouldn't have at that age. But there is a line in the book that I could actually hear someone's voice, who I've never heard before, in my head saying it and the line is: “He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghost”. And the fact that I could hear someone else's voice and not my own within that line has scared me to death from that day forward. It's also probably one of the most visceral horror books I’ve read as the children in that book were my age at the time.
Thompson: The summary of your new collection, Love the Sinner, states that “man is the scariest monster.” What thoughts do you hope to leave readers with about the concept of sin and the human capacity for evil?
Moshaty: I think really what warms me about the topic of Love the Sinner, is that we are all capable of committing something heinous when we can personally justify it. We've seen true crime documentaries where they were the quiet man, the life of the party woman, the sweetest person, yet they're committing these unspeakable acts of either violence, bigotry, theft what have you, and it's all because they've been motivated by something that they can justify.
And that's really within us all, and what I hope to have folks take away from Love the Sinner, a book about sins where the devil plays absolutely no role, is that not only is man the scariest monster, but we have the capacity to be the devil as well.
Mo Moshaty is a genre screenwriter, author, and lecturer. With a concentration on psychological and possession horror in her writing, Mo’s background as a Trauma Specialist and Behavioral Therapist provides a sturdy foundation. She is the creator of the course, “Writing Trauma Respectfully for Screen '' and was a Guest Lecturer for Prairie View A&M University's Film and TV Program and with Horror BAFSS in Sheffield, UK for No Return: A Yellowjackets Symposium.
Mo is a journalist, and co-founder with Nyx Horror Collective and co-producer of the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Festival featured on The Shudder Channel. Nyx Horror Collective was founded by a group of diverse woman-identifying horror creators to develop, celebrate, and elevate original, women-led horror content.
As a core member of Nyx, she has recently partnered with Stowe Story Labs to provide a fellowship for women writers over 40 working in the genre. Mo also served as Associate Producer on Scottish Indie SciFi Horror web series, “Cops and Monsters”, and was ecstatic to shine more of a light on indie horror. Mo's most recent literary work can be found in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales, published by Brigids Gate Press and 206 Word Stories by Bag O' Bones Press. She can be found online at www.momoshaty.com and on Twitter @MoMoshaty.
