
Today I am interviewing C.J. Leede, author of the new horror novel, Maeve Fly.
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DJ: Hi C.J.! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview!
For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?
C.J. Leede: Hey there! I’m a horror writer living out in California with my boyfriend and our rescue dog pack! I grew up in Austin, TX and New York, NY, and I’m a big hiker, road tripper, and forever Trekkie. Maeve Fly is my first novel, coming out this summer with Nightfire, and I’ve got two more following!
DJ: What is Maeve Fly about?

C.J.: An LA theme park princess by day, Sunset Strip barfly by night whose world is upended when a new hockey player moves to town. It’s about loneliness, Halloween, the things we cling to, and overall is a sordid debaucherous love story.
DJ: What were some of your influences for Maeve Fly?
C.J.: American Psycho, Story of the Eye, and Notes from Underground all factor in heavily! But also My Heart is a Chainsaw, The Final Girl Support Group, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Faust, Fight Club, and I’m always reading Stephen King, so I feel like that’s got to have worked its way in too. Also just Los Angeles and its history! All the gritty and shiny dive bars, the Sunset Strip, the *large theme park in Anaheim*. This story never could have come to be if I hadn’t moved here from New York! I tried to include everything that I felt was vital to this town.
DJ: Could you briefly tell us a little about your main characters? Do they have any cool quirks or habits, or any reason why readers will sympathize with them?
C.J.: Maeve enjoys misanthropic literature at dive tiki bars, internet trolling, strange and unsettling youtube videos on repeat, obscure music and trivia, all things Halloween, the grit beneath any shiny surface, masturbation (the weirder the better), theme park visitors, authenticity, audacity, anomalous princesses, non-conformity, pina coladas, and routine. She would do anything for the few people she loves, even if it ends in a bloodbath. She’s a lot of things that maybe aren’t the healthiest, but she is at her core endlessly loyal… in her own wolfish way.
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