Dissecting Bernardo Villela
Today, we slice open horror writer, Bernardo Villela, to spill his writing secrets and learn the inspiration behind the anthology, Occupying Bodies.
Welcome, Bernardo!
Bernardo Villela lives in Wilmington, Delaware. He's had short fiction included in periodicals such as LatineLit, Penumbra Online and Horror Tree and in anthologies such as We Deserve to Exist, Dismember the Coop, and There's More of Us Than You Know. He’s had original poetry published by Phantom Kangaroo, Straylight, and Raven’s Quoth Press, and translations published by Mantis, AzonaL, Red Fern Review. You can find his other works here: linktr.ee/bernardovillela.Tell us about yourself. When did your passion for reading and writing start?
It started very young. Many of my oldest and fondest memories are of being read to. Being read to by my mom was how I really learned Portuguese. Reading and writing went hand-in-hand in my early schooling, as the earliest grades of my Montessori school had a “writer’s workshop” period where we wrote and bound our own books. I still have them, and it kept writing in mind as something I could do and have done compulsively since.
What drew you to your preferred writing genres?
It took me a while to be able to consistently find enjoyment in being scared. Despite vivid memories of listening to “The Tell-Tale Heart” read aloud when I was young, I still shied away from horror as many things do scare me in reality.
It wasn’t until I started reading Stephen King—which I started in a backwards sort of way, after having watched The Shining—that I began to enjoy “controlled doses” of fear and gravitated toward the genre first in reading and viewing habits and later in writing.
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
My favorite part is drafting. Nothing beats the feeling of the first attempts at taking notes, ideas, and wild bits of spontaneous creation onto the page.
Where do you find inspiration for your stories?
It’s not always a conscious thing, and for me inspiration comes from any number of places. I’ve come up with and expanded concepts based on something misheard or misread; a minute detail in something read; music, or merely titles. For example, my story “Braindeaths” in Occupying Bodies owes its origin to my taking the title of Günter Grass novel—Headbirths, or, the Germans are Dying Out—literally and then spinning a yarn from there.
Do recurring themes appear in your stories?
Aside from typical things like death, the fear of it, and things both body horror and body horror-adjacent, recently my stories have featured themes of culture like folklore and being a dual citizen. Along those lines many works have been at least influenced, if not overtly about, multilingualism. There are some others, but those are the most apparent and particular to me.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don’t try an blend in so much. Fully embrace yourself in your writing and it’ll stand out, that means incorporating elements of your own cultural background, sexual orientation, and so on. In a similar vein, don’t shy away from your genre and find the beauty in different forms of writing, learn how to use them and what ideas fit best in given mediums.
In relation to:
Occupying Bodies
What sparked the idea for this anthology?
On Black Hare Press’s Facebook page a question was asked about what themes for an anthology we’d like to see that had not been previously done. I responded “Body Horror” as it was a subgenre that appealed to me.
Why body horror? What attracted you to this theme?
I chose body horror because perhaps no other form of horror more acutely exposes the fragility of human existence.
How varied are the stories in relation to how the authors tackled the theme?
We asked for and received a wide variety of interpretations on the theme and the submissions fit the bill. We stretched the definition of the subgenre to examine how unnatural horrors can affect the body in any number of ways.
Were there any concepts in the stories presented that surprised you?
Many of them are surprising in different ways such as using a little-known medical condition as a plot device, or illuminating a bit of forgotten history, or simply by their sheer ingenuity in creating the uncanny.
What were the deciding factors that influenced the final selections?
It was very difficult to make the final decisions. In many cases we had to unfortunately exclude some truly, remarkable work that wasn’t as strong in the body horror element. I do hope some of those works find homes as they deserve to be read as well, but we feel confident that the stories selected will make readers feel uneasy in their own skin.
What do you hope readers will take away from this anthology?
Aside from the obvious of being scared and entertained, I hope that readers also find these stories to be cathartic and even thought-provoking. Horror—and body horror especially—at its best doesn’t just tantalize and gross out but should move people as well.
What’s your writing Kryptonite?
What one thing would/did you give up to be a writer?
How many half-finished and unpublished books do you have right now?
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?
What book from your childhood do you remember the best?
