The World Feels Like a Horror Movie. Here’s How to Survive It.

The world feels heavy. Anxiety is high, headlines are grim, and creative burnout is real. This week, Horror Heals host Corey Stulce sits down with Lee Murray ONZM to talk about how horror can help us process the darkness instead of drowning in it.

Lee Murray is proof that horror can wear a crown and still draw blood. The Aotearoa-born author, editor, poet, and screenwriter has snagged five Bram Stokers®, a Shirley Jackson Award, and the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction. Her monsters whisper truth, her ghosts quote poetry, and her stories remind us that terror and tenderness often share the same heartbeat. Learn more: leemurray.info

Lee has built a global reputation as one of the genre’s most thoughtful voices, writing about grief, loss, and trauma with honesty and heart. In this conversation, she and Corey explore how creating (and consuming) horror can actually make us kinder and more resilient. They talk about writing from anxiety, building community in a chaotic world, and how fear can become a tool for healing.

This episode isn’t just for writers or horror fans. It’s for anyone who feels overwhelmed, disconnected, or creatively stuck. Lee’s message is clear: the monsters aren’t here to hurt us. They’re here to help us understand ourselves.

The World Feels Like a Horror Movie. Here’s How to Survive It.

What You’ll Learn

• How horror storytelling can serve as emotional processing for grief, fear, and anxiety.
• Why confronting darkness creatively is healthier than avoiding it.
• How Lee Murray’s own experiences with anxiety fuel her award-winning work.
• The role of community and connection in healing through horror.
• How to balance creative ambition with mental wellness.
• Why horror fans might be the most emotionally self-aware people on the planet.

Why This Episode Matters Right Now

Between global uncertainty, collective burnout, and the constant churn of bad news, conversations about mental wellness are everywhere. What sets this episode apart is its focus on how horror, a genre built on fear, can actually bring comfort, clarity, and community.

Lee Murray’s perspective feels especially relevant as artists, writers, and fans look for ways to stay grounded while the world feels unhinged. Her reminder that storytelling can transform anxiety into empathy lands like a lifeline in uncertain times.

About Lee Murray

Lee Murray is an award-winning author, poet, and editor from Aotearoa, New Zealand. She is a four-time Bram Stoker Award winner and the co-founder of the HWA New Zealand branch. Her work includes novels, short fiction, and anthologies that blend horror, fantasy, and the deeply human experience of fear and loss. Her collections and collaborations have inspired a generation of writers who view horror as both art and medicine.

Learn more at Lee Murray’s official website or follow her on

Thank you for listening to Horror Heals. 

Share the show with someone who loves horror and someone who needs a little healing.

If you want to support our guests, check the show notes for links to their work, conventions, and fundraising pages.

You can also listen to our sister podcast Family Twist, a show about DNA surprises, identity, and the families we find along the way.

Horror Heals is produced by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.

Is horror good for mental wellness? Of corpse it is.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hello, foils and dudes. It's your old pal trying to hear the voice of the good people. And I want to welcome my good feel of the Horror Heels Podcast. It's horror good for mental wellness. But of course it is. I delight in the delicious deaths of pitiful people on the still. So get ready for a hell of a good time with my new fiends, Cory and Kendall, on the Horror Heels Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey there, Horror Heliacs, it's Corey, and you're listening to Horror Heels. Alright, some real talk. The world is a dumpster fire with the fog machine right now. I mean we're anxious, we're exhausted, and a lot of us are stress-eating candy corn before Halloween even gets here, so this week's episode couldn't come in a better time. Our guest is the one and only Lee Murray, straight out of New Zealand, multiple Brahm Stoker Awards, writer, editor, poet, and all-around queen of turning emotional carnage into art. She's proved that horror isn't about scaring people, it's about understanding them. We talked about what it means to write from those dark places grief, burnout, general chaos of being alive, and how horror can actually be a survival strategy. And honestly, at this moment, that's something a lot of us need to hear. So whether you're a writer, a reader, or just someone trying not to scream into the void before noon, this one's for you. Lee's got the wisdom, the weirdness, and the wit to remind us that sometimes the monsters are just metaphors, and sometimes they're your in-laws. Let's get into it. This is Lee Murray on Horror Heels. Lee, welcome to Horror Heels.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Thank you, Corey and Kendall. Lovely to be here with you both.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So, New Zealand is one of those places that I've just I've always dreamed about visiting, and it's obviously very far from the US, but I'm just kind of curious what's the atmosphere like in New Zealand?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

The vibe in New Zealand, right at the moment, looking out the window, it's pitch black because it's 6 a.m. The day before you, so I'm coming to you from the darkness of the future.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Perfect for a horror podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, the vibe is also horror because we've just been through our local political, you know, our local council elections across the country. So there's a little bit going on there. Um but we're coming into summer. Um it's not a we're not a big Halloween country. It's starting to become more so. We've never been a big country for Halloween. That's much more of a UK, US kind of holiday. When I was a little girl, there was never any skeletons or spiderwebs or what have you in the stores. It's starting to come through, and we're a little bit, it's a little bit commercial, obviously. So we're starting to see those elements come through. And I've asked a lot of people why they think this is. You know, we say, Oh, it's not a thing here in New Zealand, it's just it's not a thing. Kids don't tend to go trick-or-treating. I mean, some neighborhoods do it, and you know, sometimes groups of friends will organize so their children can go and have candy and and visit, bearing in mind that October is coming into spring, so it's a fairly nice time to get out, and the schools are coming to the end of their school year, so it is kind of nice, but I think it's to do with the fact that New Zealand has horror, it's such a pervasive thing. There are some studies that suggest that not just the Maori people think that that haints and ghosts are very close to the veil here, but also the colonizing population also believes that. And I think it's inherent in our landscape here, which is very foreboding, lonely, isolated. So you can just go off, you just have to drive off the motorway, and you are on this lonely dirt road within within you know, minutes, and you, you know, with farmland or bush all around you, and you know, anything could happen, you know. You know, it's a very scary place. It's not like England where you know you go off the motorway, there's another roundabout, there's a little village, you know, it's very, very isolated here. There are miles and miles between places, and so you have this very lonely vibe as part of the New Zealand thing. And Catherine Mansfield called it this the savage spirit of the country that sort of walks at at dawn and dusk. And also our Maori culture, we kind of believe that that spirits work very closely with us, you know, they're just in a different, a little bit like Native American sort of approach to death and dying, is that those people have moved on, but they are still part of our everyday, if you like, ancestors, you know, and it's also encoded into our law here in New Zealand. It's very interesting. So Maori people consider that parts of our landscape are their ancestors because they are the things that have nurtured and brought us into the world, and it's part of the mythology. And so, for example, a mountain is considered a chieftain. New Zealand law has believed in this so much that this element of the landscape being part of our ancestry and part of our heritage is part of our everyday. They are part of, you know, we consult them, they nurture us. We've made it into law. So, for example, there's a humongous forest down on the coast, not far from where I live, an hour away. It's called the Teyirawera Forest, where the children of the mist live. The tribe is called the children of the mist. But that particular forest is just so important to New Zealanders that we have given it personhood. So we have made it, it's the first time it's ever been done where we have made a thing or an ancestor, a forest that nurtures us into a living person. So it now has, like a corporation, it now has all of the protected rights of a person. It can't be savaged, you can't go in there and decide to mine or whatever. It's it's got this protected personhood. So, yeah, so New Zealanders are very much in this idea of the surreal, the uncanny, the ghostly things, spiritual things being very much part of the everyday and very close to the veils. So, you know, they're in our neighborhoods. So there you go. That's the rundown of why I think New Zealanders don't have Halloween, isn't a big thing because it's it's horror is kind of everywhere here, if you like. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Well, that's interesting because I think you know, a lot of children in the US and UK and other parts of the globe are introduced to horror via Halloween because they get, you know, they dress up and they go trick-or-treating. And I think that's when some children become enamored with horror and some children become frightened of horror elements, but you know, costumes and monsters and things. But how early are Maori children introduced to the ideas of these spirits being among you?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah, I think it's from the beginning, like completely from a childhood, and not just Maori children, but all of us, we sort of have this unease about New Zealand. I think we have this very strong history of colonization, and Maori and Pacifica people were poorly treated, and so there's this tension. It's the same as everywhere else where you have a new group of people come in and you're trying to blend. And of course, that we had wars as well. So there is a tension, and anywhere you have tension and conflict, then you have opportunity for horror, horror. And what are the things we're frightened of? You know, here in New Zealand, we're frightened of earthquakes, we're frightened of lonely roads, we're frightened of, you know, not so much spiders and those kinds of monsters, but we tanifa, you know, the there are lots of, you know, spiritual things that are part and partial to our lives. I mean, in New Zealand, if the Maori consult with our, you know, with the engineers on a project and they say there's a tanifar, you know, this is a sacred place, then we don't build there. You know, we've got a history of taking a big doo-tool with a motorway because this is a sacred place to Maori. So those things are very much inherent in our everyday, and not just for Maori children, but for all of us. When you have it encoded in lore, that's very much something that we all buy into.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

So how do you learn about some of the more traditional horror monsters, the vampires, the witches, the werewolves, those kind of beings, those demons?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Right. Okay, so Maori mythology obviously has its own, you know, band of demons and monsters and you know, strange things. But in New Zealand, of course, we were originally, you know, because we were colonized by the British, then they brought all of their monsters as with them, you know, the vampires and all of that kind of thing. So I was kind of raised, I'm pretty old now, but I was raised on, you know, sort of British literature. So all of that, you know, Grimm's Tales, you know, all its stuff from Europe came with those colonizers to New Zealand. So of course we were raised on those kinds of things. And New Zealand is an extremely multicultural country. You know, I'm a third-generation Chinese New Zealand and Chinese people bought their own notions, and the Pacifica people bought their notions, and you know, we have Dalmatians and all of these various groups that a lot of people came to mine gold um when the country was first born, and then we had gum diggers, and so all of these nations came to New Zealand um in those early years of colonization, and so we have this very broad mix of mythologies and cultures to draw from. So, you know, all of those things are part and partial to our lives here.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

You kind of feel very strongly about bringing more diversity and inclusion into the horror atmosphere. And so we appreciate what you're doing there. When did it sort of dawn on you that your voice was important because it's very unique, you know, to have a New Zealander Chinese person who is putting their take on horror out there?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah. Isn't it interesting? This aspect of it that I am quite well known for Asian diaspora horror, that came about because I went to a conference in Australia. I love horror conferences as well. I love, and I went to a conference in Australia where genre conference, and I ran into a writer called Genevieve Flynn, and I'd heard of Genevieve through various circles because I'd been involved in the mentorship program with the Australian Horror Writers Association and had allocated Genevieve to work with someone. You know, I knew her name and I'd read some of her work. I knew she was doing some really exciting things in horror. And we we both arrived to a conference panel too early, and we recognized immediately that he were two Asian girls, conscientious Asian girls who turned up too early to a panel. Like we were 20 minutes too early, like we would just, and that is such an Asian girl thing to do. And straight away we went, oh, and then we got to talking about you know all the things that you know Asian girls share, like why aren't you a doctor? Because your parents have have, you know, pushed you to be, you know, to go to be a doctor, because it's really the only profession that's appropriate if you're an Asian, an Asian child. And can you back a trailer? Because you know we're all notoriously bad at backing trailers, you know, at driving, because that's the stereotype, isn't it? And how could you possibly write horror when you're Asian? You know, that's so not the thing to do. We don't talk about those kinds of things, the things that frighten us, you know. And uh so we got talking and we said, well, where are all the other Asian women in horror? And so that kind of that's where that sort of aspect of my life has come about. And that, I think, in a way, has kind of made me much braver about putting my own story on the page. I always knew we were supposed to write about what you know, but I didn't really realize. I thought that was kind of more like plot or the character, but not your experience, the things that make you frightened. And if you really put the things that make you frightened, like not belonging, not being seen as an you know, for who you are and the monster that you are, you know, those things are scary. Being being your accept authentic self can be very, very scary, especially for marginalized populations. Once I did uh work with Genevieve, Black Cranes did was the anthology we brought out, and that sort of has spawned a whole lot of other anthologies, works in that area, including my own personal work. And I think that that once that had sort of launched that first book, you know, suddenly I had this community of people around. Horror is the wonderful place for community. And I mean, your anecdote, which was the the basis of this podcast, kind of tells the story. As soon as you get that connection, we're weird. You know, we're okay to be weird in horror, you know, we're okay to like odd things and strange things and talk about strange things and explore those things and those scary things through metaphor. And so suddenly there was this community around me, and that just gave me so much courage to try and put these things down that really matter to me, that matter to other people. Because horror is at its base. What are the things that worry us? What are the things that make us frightened and anxious and concerned? And and those are all the things they are, you know, what's happening in technology, and you know, what are we the things we're so uncertain about because we just don't we don't all have the knowledge of what's going to happen and what will be the impact of this technology, this social construct, what will happen if the these social things change and what's about climate change? What will happen? Will there be tsunamis and disasters? So those are the things that really concern us and worry us, and that is the heart of horror. All of us have fears and having this suddenly understanding that there were these people that felt the same way as me. Wow, there's this connection, isn't it? That where there's this immediate connection, and that's where the hope comes from. Other people feel like me, I'm not alone. There's this massive solace that comes from that. That kind of started with that Asian diaspora horror, but also very recently, well, very recent 10 years ago, I finally got diagnosed with anxiety and depression. And so, and it's only 10 years ago that I started being open about that. And so now I'm recognizing that other people feel this way. Same kind of thing. There's this massive community of people who not only write horror or read horror and love horror, but they also feel like me, anxious and depressed and struggling with mental health at times, and not always, you know, I don't always like to be in the room with lots of people. You know, maybe I can write something that's that will touch someone else's fears around that. And mental illness is one of those things that's just kind of swept under the carpet traditionally in my culture, in your culture, and we're demonized, you know, it's something very scary, mental illness. We don't know what's going on in other people's heads, we don't know what their motivation is. The easy, lazy thing has been to demonize them. They are scary, they're mad, they're crazy. Anyone who doesn't think like us is mad or crazy, right? We go, oh my god, they're doing a marathon, they're insane, right? And they're not, they're just ordinary people, just think differently. And and, you know, sure, there are, you know, anyone who is a serial killer is mad. You don't go around killing people, but there's a reason, you know. What's the backstory? And that's the thing I think is very interesting. Once we get into the skin of people, into their heads, and we start understanding their internal thought, then we've got something, haven't we? Now we're understanding the horror. So yeah, I think that's kind of how I've stepped into this. It's a I know that's a big long-winded, very wordy way of saying.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

No, I I appreciate it. It's and thank you for being so open about it because it was about 10 years ago that I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and it was scary because it's very difficult to try to explain to somebody how you're feeling. You know, they can't grasp like what's going on in your head. But it was when we were living in California, and my mother and sister and niece were visiting, and my mother pulled me aside and she said, You're not you right now. I don't know who you are, but you're not yourself. And it really made me think, Wow, oh my goodness. And there's something you said that really struck me a few minutes ago, is that feeling like an outsider also related that to being a monster. Now, were you did you make yourself think that you were a monster because you were an outsider, or were there others that made you feel that way? And that sort of added to the anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I'm at the intersection of sort of two cultures or three cultures. I'm a third culture child. You know, my dad was Pākeha or European, and my mum is Chinese. I wasn't properly Chinese, and I lived in New Zealand, a Western culture. Not properly Chinese and I'm not properly European either, you know, and so I never saw me growing up in anything I read. There was no books about little Asian girls living in New Zealand. There was nothing. There was not no story. And even now, like there's maybe something, but there are so few, so few stories for children where we're part of population of the story and the cast of characters, if you like. And I have told this story in a few places before, but I'll tell you, Corey, that the first time I saw myself in a horror book was The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. I don't know if you know that book. He wrote The Day of the Triffids, so you might know that book. Very old book now. I think that came out in 1953. And I think the Chrysalids came out just after. And it's a story for young people, it's an apocalyptic story about radioactive fallout. And you know, in the 50s, that was a big thing. The Cold War. So it was about an apocalypse in which the world was surviving after a massive radioactive fallout. Again, horror addresses the things that we're frightened about. And in this story, there are a group of teenagers who are all mutants. Mutants were shunned from society, obviously, because we want to keep the human population pure in this new world that humans are living in. But there are this group of teachers, it turns out that they're mutant, all the ones with extra fingers and what have you, they're just killed off or whatever. But these ones can be secret because they're telepathic and it can't be seen. So these mutants live in the forest. They're pushed out, they're either killed or they escape, and they live in the forest in the fringes. And between them, they understand that there is a place called New Zealand where there's a sanctuary, and you can go there to New Zealand, and it is a sanctuary. That's the book, that's in the book. And I saw this in the book and I went, Oh, I'm a mutant, I'm a monster. That's why I'm here. That's why I've been born here in New Zealand because I am this monstrous thing. And that I think I must have been 11 or 12.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Was that scary for you or therapeutic?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, I think it was just revelatory, you know, like I get it now. I get that this, you know, that there must be others like me. I think that was kind of the thing that I understood. So, yes, that's that connection and solace of understanding you're not alone in this, you know, like in the story, there are more people, and there's a sanctuary in New Zealand, so there must be more like me. And so perhaps that was the understanding. I'm not sure in my brain as an 11-year-old or 10 or 11-year-old, I really connected that, but it was revelatory, like suddenly, you you know, when you see yourself in literature, that's very important. It's really important, and I think we're seeing this in horror. We're seeing this wonderful horror has always been extremely subversive and progressive, right? Where it you can use metaphor and supernatural and all these wonderful things to to reveal things in a in a distant way. So we can see it, but we're it's couched in world building and metaphor and symbol and all of these kinds of things. And so it's kind of a little bit safe, and we can, you know, maybe when it's on the page, we can see a way through. And so maybe that's it, you know. I actually couldn't articulate that as an 11-year-old, but I think you're right, you know, it's that it's that recognition and that, you know, identity. And I think in in, you know, I've just read for World Fantasy this year as a judge, and wow, you know, all these little margin, these marginalized groups, you know, there's you know, we're seeing so much LBTQ plus uh uh works, which uh wonderful, wonderful depth of works, authentic writing. We're we're seeing so many more cultural works, you know, from different different cultures, understanding their take on death and dying and this the things that frighten them. And I think this is the wonderful thing about horror. It is just so I talked about it before, it's this community, and suddenly you're part you it's such an inclusive genre for that very reason, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

I agree, and I think the reason we're in this explosion of diversity and horror is you know, we can say whatever we want about technology being great or not, but just having access to social media where people can be part of groups and part of a community because they might be living in a remote part of the world, but they can find their people online and they can be educated. Maybe they don't know that there's a convention or a conference 50 miles away, they might not have known about it otherwise, going to these conferences and seeing such a wide, diverse group of people there of all ages, backgrounds, and occupations. It's my happy place, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, yeah, we're all a bit odd, so it's okay, you know, like we all we can feel odd together. And I just yeah, totally. And look, I wouldn't be on this podcast with you across the world. You know, for New Zealanders, it's just been wonderful. The fact that I can talk with you, when would I get to see you? You know, what's the chances of us both turning up to the same horror conference? I do try and get to lots of horror conferences, there's the cost of it, but this is just wonderful. We can talk about the things we love and the books we enjoy and why we enjoy them at with through the magic of technology. And look, technology has been at the core of horror. I mean, if we think about Frankenstein, which, you know, I know there's a big debate about is this the first science fiction story or is it, you know, but it's a great story, and it's about isolation and loneliness, which is one of the scariest things that we all deal with as humans. And and and look, you know, Mary Shelley was just what 19 when she wrote that? Like near Lake Geneva. And that was right at the very nascence of electricity. It wasn't being used, and there was just the time. I think Volta had only just done his experiments. There was no, you know, it was another 70 years until you know electricity was everywhere and all the rest, you know. And here's this young woman thinking, hey, what about, you know, could we use this to reanimate a human? Could we use this technology to, you know, where is this technology going to take us? Because electricity was so unknown at that point. And imagine thinking that you could reanimate a body and now you go to the supermarket and there's a defibrillator, you know, on the wall just in case we need to reanimate someone. Okay, so we can say that technology isn't the biggest part, but it is a big part. Where is AI going, for example? How or where? How's it going to affect our politics? Uh understanding, you know, social media is this long big funnel. We don't know what we're seeing, how much of it is truth. Of course, these things are scary. We've got cyberbullying of young people online. We're saying, well, this is wonderful, we can have this connection. And then you have the nefarious aspects of connection. There's predation of young girls through the international, is you know, there's all of these scary, scary things. So it is a place of inclusiveness and progression, but it also is the place where we explore what if when we're, you know, these things that frighten us, these things that are new and threatening and uncertain. What does Stephen King say? It's about, you know, it's the sound of the branch on the window, you know, that what is that sound on the window, you know, that uncertainty, and that is that essence of horror. It is inclusive. And the fact that it's inclusive, it's all of those universal fears are drawn in, and we can draw from that in horror in a very in fresh ways, in contemporary ways that speak to all of us.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Right. And you know, evil people are always going to find ways to do their evil things, and they're going to take advantage of the technology or whatever's out there to continue to do that. But then there are also good people who are going to use that technology to do good things, and let's hope the latter is the stronger force.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

I think that's right, Corey. But I think you'll probably understand this through being a reader of horror, is that there is, you know, when that we're not not all inherently good or just good or just bad. There's there's this nuance, isn't it? You know, it's why does this person believe this, want this? And I think that is, you know, the the beauty of horror is that, you know, it, you know, nothing is cut and dry. There is no just evil and there is no just good. That's we're getting that understanding through horror where we it through horror literature in particular, where we're able to step into the head of the character and start to understand what's making them tick. And it includes stories around um madness, they're horror stories around madness and different psychoses. And what we wanted to do with that one is to put together uh, you know, a collection of stories where there were sensitive portrayals of people suffering from madness. Our idea was to have authentic stories that show the lived experience of people in a way that you can still be the monster, or or you know, but from this perspective of a survivor or a struggle someone struggling with anxiety and depression, you know, and that descent into madness and that logic, because it's logic for the person, you know, and that sort of progression is you can understand it in these stories. And so these are couched in metaphor, of course. So we have vampires and we have the mad scientists, I'll say, in inverters, commas, and we have there is one really strange story about rejection to small fear, about uh personified as a book, for example. So really unusual, interesting takes, monsters in the sink. Some really wonderful takes on that, but just that getting in the head, that internal thought, that Poe-esque po type approach, you know, the telltale heart type approach, where we're getting in the head of the characters and really understanding what makes them tick and why do they feel this way. And and also the the beauty of these metaphors just make us understand in a way that's I don't know, safe and inclusive and and still great, gory, you know, uneasy horror, which is totally entertaining and also yeah, totally entertaining and just yeah, just informative as well. It's it's a bizarre thing, isn't it? And I think, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

When we were talking about technology a few minutes ago, I thought of Frankenstein at the same moment you were saying that. And I wonder if Mary Shelley thought about what kind of impact that her book was going to have where you can find sympathetic elements of the monster and the doctor and how it's timeless. Right now, there's a major motion picture by a very prominent horror director about to come out. We had a guest on a few months ago, a husband and wife collaborating on a book called Victoria Frankenstein that's about to come out. And so it's I love that we're continually getting inspired. And it sounds like some of the stories in your anthology, they could take their inspiration going all the way back to Mary Shelley. And it's just wild to think about how that book is still impacting us after so many years.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, and I mean it particularly a short fiction is so accessible too, you know, in Hora. You can pick one up while you're on your commute or while you're sitting at the doctor's office, you can just pick one up and consume it in that moment. And I just think that it's such a wonderful form for that, being accessible and readable. And a book like in anthology is a wonderful opportunity to sample authors you haven't read before, so that you can go and read their other works, their longer works, but also, you know, brings together all these different psychoses, different thoughts, you know, it's not all anxiety and depression, you know, some of it is eating disorders, and some of it is body dysmorphia, and some of it is, you know, some really megalomaniac ideas, and some of it, you know, all of those kinds of things, you know. Some of it is just the helplessness of watching someone else suffer and you're not in their head. So you want to be able to help them, but how can you help them? You know, paranoia, those kinds of things. So, how do you help someone who has a this massive addiction, for example, which is You know, a mental, you know, disorder. You know, how do you help them? How do you watch that happen? You know, what's the horror of watching someone you love descend into madness in this way? And one of the things that is a little bit different about This Way Lives Madness is that, you know, nothing happens in a void. You there's always a context in which these things are happening. Our contributors have been incredibly courageous and brave and put their inspiration for their stories on the page. So we have these little vignettes of 300 words or so on the end of each story to say this is why I've written this story, this is where I'm coming from, this is my lived experience and why this was this is why I took this particular decision to write this story. And wow, those are extremely powerful when you read them in context to understand where they've come from. And I think, yeah, again, there's that little step forward into being vulnerable like that is just you know, it's a big deal, isn't it? You know, like we want to keep those our things that frighten us, get you know, we want to keep those to ourselves. As soon as you're out there, you're out there. And so I have great admiration for these writers for being prepared to do that. You know, it's wasn't an easy thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

No, and and you know, we're living in this very bizarre time where many of us feel like we're living in a horror story right now and we don't know what's going to happen, and that there are real life monsters out there that are making maniacal decisions on a daily basis. So I'm curious about what you know, the things that are happening in the US are obviously affecting the globe. How is it affecting you personally, mentally, and is it informing your writing at all?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Absolutely, yes. Yes, it definitely is informing my writing. I mean, in terms of impact on my life, I go every year I've gone to the United States for the Stoker Con conference for the last 10 years. Well, apart from COVID, obviously, but I still attended online. I didn't go this year. I just didn't feel safe to go, which is really hard. I miss all my friends and I'm worried for friends, obviously. When I see some of the things that are happening, maybe I'm seeing a distorted view, but I feel like some of the things that are happening really worry me for my friends, for everybody, really. So that's impacted me. So I have been disconnected from my horror colleagues and my dear friends, many of my dear friends, because I haven't been to see them. But also, you know, uh economically it's affected me because, you know, books, tariffs, books, you know, I can't send a book. Post New Zealand Post Office isn't sending little individual packages to the United States now, you know, we can't do that. So how do you get books into the hands of your and how do you get books to New Zealand, for example, you know, like there's there's tariffs and things to that's impacted, you know. So I think maybe the publishing industry has been severely impacted by what's going on, you know, the American public are paying more for their books, you know, that's just the way it is, sadly. And there are other things too, because the boldness, the audacity, the cruelties, we're seeing those kind of filtered into other politics and other places. We're seeing that kind of strongman rhetoric here. And, you know, New Zealand has been very progressive. We were the first country to give the vote to women. We are a very multicultural society. There's a conflict, there's a tension between that sort of boldness of coming out and saying things that are a little bit outrageous, to be honest. And those things are filtering into our lives too, Corey, and it frightens me greatly for my children. I have LBTGTQ children and children who are neurospicy as well and suffer from anxiety and their culturally look different from other children. So anytime you're part of a community and there are these kind of very strong views, which are really dangerous to other people, then of course. So a lot of what's happening in the United States, and don't even start me on the environment, protections to the environment, and we've all got to live on this blue ball. And you know, those those those things are just huge, just huge. And the war machine, you know, I mean, gosh, can't we just get along? War is well, boy, if we're gonna start talking about the things that frighten us, Corey. Well, there's one one thing we're lucky about here in New Zealand is we don't have open carry or any of that. You know, we have very strong gun registration rules, but even we've been impacted, you know. We had our first real gun massacre in New Zealand maybe five, six years ago, and that shocked us here in New Zealand because we just didn't believe that would happen to us, and it did. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

I'm curious because uh obviously I don't get the opportunity to speak with someone from all the way across the globe every day. And going back to technology, it's embarrassing for a lot of us what's happening. It's horrifying, but it's also we're embarrassed as citizens of the country. Is there a sense in New Zealand that not all of us are falling in line and that we are fighting back and we are using our voices to try to make better things happen?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yes, and I think that is where the courage comes in with community, isn't it? Yes, we do. I mean, I'm yeah, I agree that we're aware that it's not, it's not look, I lived in the United States. I lived four years in the United States. I lived in Wisconsin. You know, when I moved into the little neighborhood that I moved into, the lady across the road bought me her warm salsa. You know, she'd just made some and she came across the road and brought me her warm salsa. And until we bought a snowblower, that, you know, the chap across the road came and snowblowed my driveway because little Kiwis have no notion of how to snowblow a driveway. You know, this is a tropical country. And, you know, to me, neighbors invited us to come and, you know, to come and have, you know, cookout on their driveway and just, you know, would go walk up to the bus stop with the other mums in the community and meet the and we would have Memorial Day parties in the park, the America great that I know. Halloween was all the kids in the neighborhood got dressed up and the mums and dads would walk them around the neighborhood, and other mums and dads would open the doors and go, Oh, don't you look lovely? And here's your candy, you know, and it was lovely. That's the thing. It's about community. Yeah, so that's the America I know, and those are the people I know and love. This whole demonizing parts, factions of our community because they don't look like you, or they don't, their lifestyle is slightly different from you, or they believe in different monsters than you. I just I don't get that. And so, no, we don't believe that it is the majority of Americans. We think they're and we also think that those who speak up are very brave, and we hope they continue to do so for the people who can't, particularly those allies who have more privilege and can. Yes, yes, because I know that there is such a thing as cancelling now and people losing their jobs as a result, and that impacts their ability to feed their families and all the other things. So, yeah, the feeling I think it's just my opinion, but the feeling is that in general, most of us believe America is Americans are just kind, wonderful people living their lives, and there's this faction that's pulling it in this direction. And I hope that you can turn it around. And I, you know, turning it around unfortunately is not us. It has, you know, it really needs it needs to come from within. And for you know, we have to look at ourselves first, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

So thank you for sharing that though. I think it's it's important for people to hear that and understand that because I didn't want to end this episode on a bleak note. So thank you for bringing a little bit of hope.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Well, horror is the genre of hope, Corey, and what all we can do is write these stories and write those fears down and hopefully connect with people feeling the same way and needing that courage, needing that little horror is always juxtaposed with hope. Yes, always.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yes. So Lee, I'm gonna put you on the spot. The question, the final question that we ask every guest on Horror Heels is who is your favorite final person, the survivor, in either a horror film or a piece of fiction? And feel free to take your time.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

This is the book that I would like to point out called Serpent's Wake by Lauren Elise Daniels. I've mentioned it before on a number of forums, but this is a book about trauma and surviving trauma. And it doesn't matter what the trauma is, this is one. If you have, if you are struggling through trauma or recovery, I think it's beautifully written. Very dark, but in a distanced way. For example, none of the characters have names. So you can put yourself in this story. Right. This is about a final girl, and I think it is definitely one to read. It's a beautiful, beautiful story, and that's how you write sensitive trauma horror. But there is a whole raft of horror writers now writing in this area, and it's great because you know, we've had Charlotte Gilman and we need some contemporary examples, but we understand a little bit more about the brain and how our brains work and the psychology of humans and how the human conditions. So, you know, there's this opportunity now for understanding, and so many more writers writing in this field. But I will mention that wimple because over the last few years that's one I've returned to. It's really spoken to me.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Excellent. Well, Lee, this has been a joy for me. I love this conversation, and one of my favorite things about doing this podcast is our own community growing and our own list of friends growing. And so I certainly consider you a friend now and an ally, and we really appreciate what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

And look, thank you for having me. And you know, the bravery of having this conversation about horror and healing, really, and and also, yeah, and also look, I I understand, you know, that that we live in this context. It's not that that the politics is tough now and and the economy is tough now for all of us, and the environment we're struggling. So there's this and social contra uh constructs. I mean, that's the problem, isn't it? When there are things that are tense, when the world is tense and there is tension, then you know, people look to blame someone, and I think that's what's happening in the world. And and and so I I think that horror has a place here because we're all scared about being the person who's blamed for what's going down. And I think horror has a place to if we just talk, if we have a dialogue, and and when you have a you know, a piece of work, a writing, a story, then you then it's it's a safe space into dialogue. And look at us talking like this. It's just a joy to be with you today. Thank you so much for inviting me and the history of this this podcast and this community talking about the things that frighten us.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

All right, my fellow horror heliacs. That was Lee Murray, and I don't know about y'all, but I feel like I just went to War Church. What I love about Lee is that she doesn't sugarcoat the darkness, she just hands you a flashlight and says, Here, go make something out of it. She reminded me that horror isn't misery, it's therapy with better lighting. Her take on community, creativity, and anxiety couldn't be timelier. Because yeah, the world's weird right now. Maybe weird is exactly where we do our best healing. So if this episode hit you right over the head, or if you just want to sound smart while defending your horror obsession at the next family dinner, share this one with your fellow creeps and creatives. And remember, when someone asks, is horror good for mental wellness? You tell them, of course it is. The Horror Heals Podcast is produced and presented by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.