Interview with Margrét Helgadottír

Margrét Helgadottír, editor of the Books of Monsters series, is an old friend of TFF: we have reviewed several of the previous volumes (European, African, Asian, Pacific), and interviewed many of the individual authors and contributors (Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Tihema Baker, Brian Kamaoli Kuwada, Raymond Gates, Iona Winter, Isabel Yap, Yukimi Ogawa, Eve Shi, and Margrét herself), and she wrote about the series for our Making Monsters anthology. The seventh and final volume in the award-winning series, Eurasian Monsters, appeared in December 2020, featuring 17 authors and including seven translated works.

Margrét joins us today to talk a bit about this new anthology, and the series, and monsters.

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TFF: Could you tell us a bit about the thinking behind editing a volume of Eurasian Monsters specifically, since it’s a slightly different concept from the other six volumes in the series? Were there gaps in the European and Asian volumes that you designed it to fill?

Margrét Helgadottír: The book embraces the vast region stretching from the Chinese border (but not including China) to eastern parts of Europe. The profile of the book is the same as for the first six volumes, it’s just the geographical area that is different. It’s been challenging since it is actually covering two continents. This is the book in the series I have spent most time on preparing. I was forced to make decisions, and I chose not to include stories from the Asian parts covered in Asian Monsters. I also chose not to include stories from the Baltic, or from the western parts of Balkan, mostly because that would mean including 5-10 more stories, if done properly. There seems to be different definitions of what is Eurasia, but I hope I am forgiven to have included a few stories from eastern Europe, a part neglected in the first monster volume covering Europe. I struggled most with locating authors from Central Eurasia, but I managed to get stories from Georgia and Kazakhstan. I am also proud to have stories from Russian authors from several parts of the huge country, not just Moscow. So all in all, I hope the readers feel they get some glimpses of some of the cultures within this vast region.

TFF: Can you describe the process of commissioning and editing Eurasian Monsters? For instance, did you have a call for submissions, or was everything commissioned or reprints? Did you have to deal with translators, or did you only look at work that was already in English?

MH: I worked with tracking down authors and artists to Eurasian Monsters the same way as for the other monster volumes. These books have been invitation-only anthologies. I had a number of available slots, I wanted a balanced representation—mostly covering as many countries in the region as possible, but also gender, sexuality, indigenous backgrounds etc. So what I did was carefully send out the invitations, only one at the time, building up the table of contents slowly, to make sure the representation became good. For some books I have used 4-5 months before being able to finish the contributor list. Some times I had a story I wanted to publish before contacting the author, but mostly I’ve invited the authors to write a new story within a set of guidelines.

We have had translations in several of the volumes. I have had no other choice than using the translator tools available, just to get a feeling about the author’s voice, and to be able to consider if the story fits the anthology. In Eurasian Monsters I had seven translations by four translators, six stories exclusively for the book. Of these a few reprints but also newly written stories. So that has been challenging because I have not been able to start the editing work until the translation work is done. I have learned a lot, and I do hope the translators feel happy about how the stories turned out.

TFF: Now that you’ve been around the world in eighty monsters, are there any patterns that you have noticed in stories and beliefs about the mythological creatures, or does each region have its own unique kinds of monsters and relationships to them?

MH: It is a difficult question. In general, humans of all times have created stories and myths about beasts, dark creatures, and monsters. You can find traces of them in old texts, architecture, art, in legends and myths, and even in old sea maps. Monster folklore is passed down from generation to generation, and these stories are not just for fun, but often teach a lesson as well, or make sure that curious people stay away from specific areas (like haunted houses). No matter where you are in the world, monsters have been there to take the blame when bad things happen—like shipwrecks or sudden deaths, or they can be a way to explain frightening phenomena like thunder and lightning.

Some monsters are universal. You will always find the shapeshifters, the flesh-eating walking dead and the great monsters of the lakes and sea. But just like the everyday lives of humans are influenced by whether their home is at the coastline, in the desert, in the jungle, or in the mountains—the monsters attracted to these different geographical conditional possibilities are also different. A vampire avoiding the sun might not find it pleasant to stay in the Sahara desert, nor would the hyena shapeshifter thrive in the Arctic either.

It might be a coincidence but I do believe I’ve spotted some regional differences, while editing the monster volumes. To name a few observations: Magic is for instance a strong theme in monster narratives from Africa and South America, though it manifests in slightly different ways. The volume focused on North America has many human-made monsters, or monsters with human-like attributes. The Africa and the Pacific volumes have more beasts, when compared to the other volumes in the series. These two volumes and Eurasia also have a multitude of dark creatures from the wilderness or oceans, or with a connection to natural forces such as thunder storms. In both the Eurasia and Africa volumes several of the stories are concerned with place and origin, about immigration and going home. But Eurasian Monsters feels closer to the feeling of home created in the Asia volume, where it is not so much about the place but more about the family itself and the strong relationships between loved ones—dead, living or absent. The spirits, ghosts and demons create an almost floating atmosphere.

TFF: What about the oral tradition of sharing scary tales? Do you think that an anthology is its natural descendant, or that we are missing out on something?

MH: That is an interesting thought. An themed anthology like this could indeed fill some of the need to share the scary tale by the camp fire, both because short stories are shorter snippets with different author voices, and here you would have voices from different geographical places telling you tales about frightening creatures you’ve never heard about. What you would miss out is the sharing: People like to get scared together. And an anthology is (usually) about the relationship between only the author and the sole reader.

TFF: Could you invent and briefly describe a totally made-up monster that somehow clearly belongs in the Eurasian as opposed to any other volume in the Books of Monsters series?

MH: I was surprised there weren’t that many classical shapeshifters in Eurasian Monsters since so much of this region is vast wilderness, and the winters are cold and long. So I would nominate shapeshifter monsters with jaws, like the big brown bear or the giant grey wolf. But of course all these would also be able to exist in many parts of the Northern world. But if you combined it with the many beliefs in ghosts and spirits, especially house spirits, it could be a quite scary monster who lurked between your kitchen and other dimensions, and between a manlike form and an animalform.

Or even a cranky and bloodthirsty version of the prehistoric gigantic mammoth, maybe trampling people to death or piercing them with its long teeth. This latter is actually an intriguing idea, if you picture it in tunnels and not on the Siberian tundra. According to the great interwebs, there existed a belief among indigenous peoples of Siberia, that the mammoth was a creature that lived underground, burrowing tunnels as it went, and would die if reaching the surface.

TFF: Thanks for joining us, Margrét!

MH: Thanks for having me!

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Margrét Helgadottír’s Eurasian Monsters, and the other six volumes in the series, can be found at Fox Spirit Books, links at Margrét’s website, and many other online bookstores and libraries.

Recommend: mythological heroines

We're going to be running a new series of posts over the next few months, in which we ask readers to recommended their best examples of a particular literary genre, type of person, or other cool topic. To kick off the idea, we would like you to tell us your favorite mythological heroines—and why, what makes them amazing, heroic, feminist, progressive, compelling, whatever. Please leave a comment with your examples, justifications or pure gushings of love. To get you started, we’ve asked a few editors, authors and other friends of TFF to give their recommendations.

Margrét Helgadóttir (web page; FB)

Among the most famous and widespread of Inuit myths is the legend of the goddess known as Sedna, Nuliayuk or Taluliyuk, the Mother of the Sea. More than one version of the Sedna creation myth exists but each describes how her father, for different reasons, takes her to sea in his kayak, chops off her fingers, and then hands, when she attempted to return to the boat. She sinks to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and her body parts become the animals of the sea and she becomes the Mother of the Deep, the woman who controls all sea beasts and is half-woman and half-fish.

I find the legend about Sedna very fascinating. Despite her cruel death she gains a major role in the Inuit everyday life. The Arctic Ocean is a major food source and Sedna was worshiped by hunters who depended on her goodwill. She was considered a vengeful goddess, and hunters must placate and pray to her to release the sea animals from the ocean depths for their hunt. Other legends however tell about the good woman who lives under the sea who will keep children away from the dangerous places when they play on the shore. Mythology also says that when an Inuit breaks a taboo in society, Sedna’s hair gets filthy and entangles the animals, preventing the hunters from catching any food. The shaman must clean her hair and talk with her to find out which taboos were broken and communicate these lessons back to society.

Rachel Linn (author page)

The first time I remember hearing about Yuki-onna was in Kwaidan, a film by director Masaki Kobayashi that consists of a series of supernatural stories. Yuki-onna’s nature is difficult to pin down, but she is along the lines of a spirit or ghost and she often appears during snowfall. There are varied stories of Yuki-onna, though most of them begin with a mortal man falling in love with her and end with her disappearing like melting snow.

Yuki-onna is usually portrayed as a perilous influence, but I find the idea of her comfortingly heroic because of my own experiences with snow. I am particularly frightened of hypothermia because I became cold enough to hallucinate the first time I went for a hike in the dead of winter. I often feel that I am only a capable mountaineer with the help of modern insulation technology—water/windproof jackets, chemical warmers, etc.—and have a hard time valuing what I have done because of this. While on cold weather mountaineering or backpacking trips, as I fight with the cold, the image of Yuki-onna stepping out of a snowy forest in below-freezing temperatures (naked or dressed in a delicate kimono), is eerily reassuring. (The book Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost is a great account of ghosts and spirits in Japanese culture, if you want to learn more.)

Jessica Campbell (web page)

I first got excited about Psyche while I was working on my undergraduate thesis on fairy tales and discovered how similar “Cupid and Psyche” was to my favorite tale, “Beauty and the Beast.” Psyche’s story is complicated by the fact that for a long time she interacts with Cupid only in the dark and therefore does not know what he looks like; her jealous sisters feed her suspicion that he hides his appearance because he is some hideous beast. But it turns out that her mysterious lover is actually better than a human—he is a god, and an extremely attractive one at that. Now, as a queer person, I love the statement on nonnormative relationships that we can read into this development: a lover of an unexpected kind may turn out to be exactly the one you want. Oh, and did I mention that Psyche goes on a quest to recover her lover from the machinations of his controlling mother, Venus, at the end? For an intriguing fusion of this story with “Beauty and the Beast,” check out Tanith Lee’s story “Beauty” from the delightfully titled 1983 collection Red as Blood: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer.

Valeria Vitale (TFF)

I encountered Isis, Egyptian goddess of magic and the Underworld, when I was working on the 3D reconstruction of a temple dedicated to her. The story that won my heart is a peculiar one. During a (divine) family dinner, Set, a jealous rival of Isis and her brother-spouse Osiris, challenges all the guests to fit into a beautiful wooden box. If you think that it doesn’t sound like a good idea to step into something that your arch-enemy has built and that looks very much like a coffin, you are not being too suspicious. Once Osiris is inside the box, Set nails it quickly and dumps it in the river.

When Isis finds out what has happened, she immediately goes looking for the body of her partner, to properly bury him. She travels Egypt from corner to corner. I imagine her on a small boat, always followed by one or two silent crocodiles. And finally she finds the box floating! But Set, furious that his plan has been spoiled, chops the body into 14 parts and scatters them all around Egypt. Again, Isis starts her search. Patiently and stubbornly, she collects all the pieces of Osiris’ body to bring him back to life with magic. She finds all but one: his phallus. There are a couple versions of what happened next. One says that another god gave her a golden phallus for Osiris. In my favorite, though, she makes one herself, from mud, and then “blows life into it” (yep!). I love Isis’ determination, her proactive optimism, her faith in her own strength and resources, her unshaken loyalty. I like that it’s her rescuing the male character. Her story may also hint at the fact that a couple doesn’t need a biological phallus to have good sex :-)

Dolly Garland (web page; twitter)

A quintessential Hindu woman, idolized for her inner fire—born of the literal fire—Draupadi is often cited as the catalyst for the great war of Mahabharata. Though she plays such a pivotal role in the epic from which the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita is derived, Draupadi is rarely mentioned as a heroine or a central character, let alone a superhero. If she is, it is as the cause of the war, or as an example of a “typical” mischief-making female.

Though far from flawless, she was truly the woman behind the men. I believe the reason she was a designated catalyst of the Mahabharata (the Great War) in the long game played by Lord Krishna to rejuvenate the human race was because while her husbands—the mighty Pandavas—were brave and true of heart, they hid behind duty and tradition. Draupadi forced them to acknowledge that if they stand for truth and justice going to war was the right thing to do. She was the catalyst because she possessed the strength to do what hundreds of men could not—to raise her voice against injustice rather than hide behind duty and tradition.

In the Indian society which still, in 2017, often values traditions above everything else, Draupadi, a character that is so embedded in mythology and thousands of years old, is a true superhero.

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Now tell us about your favorite mythological heroines in the comments!

Interview with Margrét Helgadóttir

Today, Problem Daughters editor Rivqa Rafael talks to Margrét Helgadóttir about her latest work with Fox Spirit Books, Asian Monsters.

Margrét Helgadóttir is Norwegian-Icelandic and lives in Oslo, Norway. Margrét’s stories have appeared in several literary magazines and print anthologies. She was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards 2016 as writer with the debut book The Stars Seem So Far Away, and as editor for African Monsters, both published by Fox Spirit Books. She is editor for the Fox Spirit Book of Monsters, seven annual anthologies published between 2014 and 2020, and the anthology Winter Tales (2016). Find out more about Margrét on her blog or Twitter.

World of Monsters seems like a hugely ambitious project, with each book aiming to cover a huge range of folklore and mythology. How did you go about trying to get a representative sample?

Well, it is ambitious. Not only do we want a broad range of monsters, but we also wish to show the world authors and artists in the different regions, many largely ignored in the western popular culture. So from volume two (Africa), I have searched for authors with a strong connection to the continent or region who can either tell a tale of monsters based on local folklore or create a new monster. This means that I need both information about the background of the writer plus knowledge of their writing style. I spend lots of time in the beginning of each book project researching and building up the table of contents. I want writers from every corner of the continent. It is a goal but I can't succeed hundred percent with this. It has something to do with language, if there exist writers at all, and if I can reach them and they want to participate. It is always sad when a writer backs out of the project at some point because he/she is carefully selected and is not only a good writer, but also a representative for this part of the continent in the book.

This is of course not a guarantee that the writers will write about their country or a monster from the local folklore. I am always talking with the writers early in the project to make sure they don't select a monster which is already picked by other contributors. We can't have a book with fifteen stories about vampires for instance. There are always one or two monsters which are more popular than others so I try to challenge the writers to think broader. As the book slowly builds and I know a little bit about what monsters will be featured, I can usually see what direction the book is leaning. I might then give hints and directions to the authors who haven't made up their mind yet, about what kind of monsters that are neglected. Also it is a balance. At the same time as I want a representative range of monsters I must respect that each region often has a folklore dominated by this or this kind of monsters. In Asia it was clear that demons, ghosts and spirits was the thing. In the Pacific Ocean it seems to be (of course) monsters in the water.

So it is an unusual and time-consuming anthology method since I am slowly building it up and taking lots of risks since I never know how the stories will turn out. Great fun!

Any illustrations in books (at least, outside of children's books) are enough of a rarity these days. What made you decide to go all the way in the other direction, with such a gorgeously and comprehensively illustrated book?

It has been our mission to give the monsters a renaissance as real monsters, a comeback of sorts with gorgeous art and in the style of a coffee table book, with short stories, art, and graphic stories. We really felt they deserved to be put on the coffee tables in the glamorous style right there the middle of the humans' homes. I am very lucky that the publisher Fox Spirit Books shares this vision as these books are quite expensive to make.

I'd never expect you to choose a favourite story or illustration, but is there something unique about the Asian monsters that you can share with us?

Oh I do have favourites but I would never share them! In the continent of Asia you find same monsters as in other parts of the world but what has struck me while editing this volume is all the spirits and ghosts who exist in much of the Asian folklore. Also, I would say that home is an underlying theme in Asian Monsters, but it’s not so much about the place but about the family itself and the strong relationships between loved ones, dead, living or not there.

American monsters seem timely, but Australian monsters are pretty cool. Which will be next?

We discussed the order quite long but Pacific Monsters is next volume up, covering Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, including Hawaii. The next two volumes after Pacific region will cover South, Mid and North America, including the Caribbean Islands, while the last volume in the series will take us to Eurasia, including Russia, much of Eastern Europe and the Balkan. So, four more volumes to go!

Interview: Margrét Helgadóttir

Valeria Vitale (for The Future Fire): Let's start with your debut book, The Stars Seem So Far Away, a collection of interlinked tales published by Fox Spirit. What is this book about and what do the five main characters have in common?

Margrét Helgadóttir: My intention was to give the readers glimpses, like pieces of a larger puzzle, or short film clips. The Stars Seem So Far Away is not a collection of stories, but it’s not a novel either. It’s a hybrid, a fusion of linked tales that together tell a larger story, set in a distant apocalyptic future, where plagues, famine and wars rage across the dying Earth. The last shuttles to the space colonies are long gone. Fleeing the deadly sun, humans migrate farther and farther north.

I strongly believe in telling broader, more universal stories through the eyes of people who struggle with their own nightmares and personal stories, so this story is told through the tales of five people: One girl who sails the Northern Sea, robbing other ships to survive; one girl who guards something on a distant island; one guerrilla soldier; and finally, two refugee siblings who become separated when the plague hits Svalbard. They all try to survive on their own in a cold world where everything seems hopeless. It is a pessimistic world, filled with death and despair, but I wanted to tell a story where there’s also hope, love, laughter and friendship. I hope I have succeeded in this and that people will like the stories and the characters.

VV: You have also co-edited with Jo Thomas the first volume of a series about monsters: you recently published European Monsters, and are also planning the follow-up, African Monsters. Is there something that particularly struck you in how the imagery of monsters changes across different countries and cultures?

MH: We see some similar kinds of monsters across countries and cultures; sea or lake monsters, animal monsters, were animals and shapeshifters, demons and evil spirits. But there are differences when you look closer at the individual monsters. Some monsters like the vampire and the werewolf are considered universal. However this is mostly because it’s the western myths that dominate popular culture. A vampire in West Africa is something quite different than the vampire stalking the streets in Europe. They both are blood-thirsty, but where one seeks darkness, the other has an affinity
towards light.

Typically, monsters are used to embody nature and the wilderness or natural powers, to explain the existence of things that were made, such as rock formations; or to blame for when things go wrong. So, the individual monsters might not be universal, but the idea of what a monster is and their origin is. It’s a very exciting book series to work with and I am excited to see the stories we now receive to the Africa volume.

VV: A call for submissions for another Fox Spirit anthology titled Winter Tales has just opened. Do you think there is something that makes winter in the northern countries particularly fascinating and/or terrifying?

MH: I have lived in a few African countries, and despite what people think, you do have winter seasons in Africa as well. The temperature drops, the ocean becomes cold and in some parts, like Addis Ababa or South Africa, it can even snow.

That said, I adore the winters in the northern world, but that’s probably because I have lived here huge chunks of my life, so I have learned to look beyond the snow and the freezing cold. When it feels like the ice pierces through everything, including yourself, and you want to escape it, but you can’t, the northern winters might seem harsh and extreme. Personally I struggle mostly with the winter darkness. We have sun and daylight only for a short while during the winter season. All you want to do is sleep, and we joke about going into hibernation like animals do.

But I think there is beauty and magic. The pure white snow covers everything, chasing away the dark. The northern light dances green in the sky. And everything is so, so quiet. Candles are lit to chase away the darkness and people huddle up together in front of fires to share warmth, food, music and stories. It’s an important part of the culture and history of the northern and arctic countries and the different people who live here. Many of our stories and folklore have been created and shared in settings just like this. Just as I’m sure stories have been told in front of the fires in the cold seasons in other parts of the world for hundreds of years. And this, to me, is part of the magic of the winter seasons.

E. Dulac's illustration for H. C. Andersen's Snow Queen.
London: Hodder & Stoughton 1911

VV: In your experience as an editor, what makes a story stand out? What kind of stories would you like authors to submit to the winter anthology?

MH: In my view, the stories that stand out usually have a strong writing voice and a natural narrative flow. They don’t have to be long. I’ve read flash stories that impressed me more than novellas. Language is to me part of the reader experience, and I will enjoy a story even more if the language is polished and the story is proofread. Other than this, it’s difficult to say what makes me read a story twice. It can be a feeling in the story, a convincing character development, or an original setting.

The Winter Tales anthology will be a speculative fiction anthology, so I want fiction stories with full plot and strong characters within these genres. Stories about creatures, monsters, animals and shapeshifters are welcome. I seek and encourage diversity in literature, so I hope to receive many stories written by and/or about characters from all over the world, all genders and orientations. But I ask that the stories must be written in English, take place on Earth and have the winter as frame.

Poetry is also welcome. For more details, read our submission call.