Smiling Faceless Woman follows a linguistics student whose carefully planned life unravels when terrifying paranormal experiences lead him into a group investigating the mysterious forces behind hauntings. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

In a way, I have been thinking about this story all my life. I was always interested in the supernatural and the paranormal, and devoured whatever content was playing on TV, and borrowed whatever books from the library on the subject. I used to go ghost hunting with my little brother. I have had many experiences I can’t explain. So, I guess this book was my way of making sense of spirits and hauntings and the afterlife. But the genesis of this specific idea was a very difficult semester I had in college. Like in the novel, I was overworked and stressed and burnt out, and found myself balancing everything on the line from grades to relationships to a few mysterious encounters. I would say the other inspiration was just being a healthcare worker, surrounded by the sick and the hurt and the dying. I have worked in many various historic facilities, and with each strange thing seen or heard or heard about, a kind of deep, dark concept brewed that much more.

How did you decide how much of the story should focus on everyday life versus supernatural events?

There were a few sentiments I had going in. I always appreciated college and that time in my life, being a mall rat. I started to feel like modern rock is kind of dead, so I wanted to relive that a little. And I missed the early internet days when memes were still new and fresh and just starting to blossom. My first drafts were actually a little too heavy on the day-to-day stuff so I had to pull back. Although it was fun to dip into nostalgia and coming-of-age territory, of course, this is first and foremost a horror suspense thriller. I consider the structure of the book in three acts. First is mostly romance and some paranormal. Second and third is some romance and mostly paranormal. The relationship starts as a foundation but becomes a kind of frame narrative because the action and mystery builds up then takes over. I think this approach worked because you really care for the main character first before every terrifying otherworldly threat.

What inspired the creation of SPIRAL?

During the preparation of this novel, I felt compelled to do research on a level I hadn’t done before. I always do some, but not to this extent. I talked to a paranormal investigator, a preacher and also a local expert. I actually went to reportedly haunted locations by myself at night with nothing but a flashlight. So, a lot is inspired from these conversations and these experiences. I got a lot of different perspectives and ideas. As for the group itself, the name was something I thought of a long time ago. I knew the story would begin with a protagonist and a love interest but expand to this whole other route where I needed a cast of characters. The initial concept was kind of like your typical crew from those paranormal investigation reality series before. But I decided to use each character to represent a new layer of depth. In doing so, I made each character very unique from one another, and there was a nice ongoing contrast which was so pleasant to capture.

What do you hope readers take away from Alex and April’s reflections on their past?

First and foremost, my goal was to make the reader fall in love with these characters, and to fall in love with these characters being together. My intention was for audiences to get a slice of their lives and personality, a taste of the chemistry and attraction between them, and feel how they go so perfectly together in a lot of different ways. But I wanted there to be flaws and imperfection and incompatibility to some extent that could be examined with a magnifying glass. I thought it would be interesting to see a whole relationship timeline, from the crush stage to the courting stage, getting comfortable and then getting complicated. My aim is to have introspective lingering questions about what defines love and romance, and what makes a relationship work or not work, plus timing, plus fate.

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