Not content with being a most excellent editor and publisher, Silvia Moreno-Garcia insists upon being a kick-ass writer as well. Here she talks about her collection Love & Other Poisons. Check out the Innsmouth Free Press site.
1. So what should new readers know about Silvia Moreno-Garcia?
I’m a writer and editor. My debut novel Signal to Noise, about sorcery, music and Mexico City, is out in February. My first short story collection This Strange Way of Dying was a finalist for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.My second collection is called Love and Other Poisons. The latest book I edited was Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse. I am also the publisher of Innsmouth Free Press.
2. What can readers expect of Love and Other Poisons?
For one reason or another I was not able to fit all the stories I wanted in This Strange Way of Dying. Which is fine. Thematically it forms a unified whole. So Love and Other Poisons is kind of a companion volume. Ideally I’d love it if people would read both collections because it would produce the effect I’m looking for.
Anyway, Love and Other Poisons works around the theme of, you guessed it, love and poison. Not just romantic love but friendship, family and even enemies (that love-hate thing). Relationships and their complexities. While my first collection was very grounded in Mexican folklore, this one wanders around a bit more. There’s a story inspired by Poe, one by Stoker, so it’s not just rooted in Latin America. But there are some very Latin American pieces.
Three of the stories are brand new, never published before and of those I’m most enamored with “Sublime Artifacts,” which is my anti-steampunk story.
3. When did you first decide you wanted to be a writer?
I wrote since I was a child but I didn’t take it seriously until 2006. At that point I decided I was going to take an organized approach to “making.” I suppose it worked since I have a novel coming out.
4. How do you balance being an editor and a writer? 
I’ve perfected the art of not sleeping. Joking. I bounce from one thing to another depending on how I feel. Sometimes I’ll be tired of writing so I switch do doing some of the editor stuff and then back. I am scaling back my editing and publishing stuff, and also scaling back my short story writing, to try and focus more on novels. But I don’t think it’s that inherently difficult to manage more than one thing at the same time. I would resent having to focus on a single activity, such as writing, without any other outlets. That’s also why I like my dayjob, which is a great job, and why I’m pursuing a Master’s degree part-time right now.
5. What scares you?
Lack of money. I have a very I’ll-never-be-hungry again Scarlett O’Hara mentality. Also, my own mortality, although I suppose that’s a universal thing.
6. What made you choose to publish The Nickronomicon?
I like Nick’s stories a lot. They’re ironic, witty, and he knows a lot about literature. And it just seemed natural to try and collect his output in a single volume since he’s been rather prolific in the Lovecraftian scene for the past few years. Also, the title. I just couldn’t resist that title. The project sells itself. At a practical level it happens to be the perfect project for a small press. It’s not the kind of thing a large imprint would be interested in, but Nick has enough of a reputation in Lovecraftian circles to ensure we sell enough copies of the book. Financially, artistically, it just fits well with us.
7. Name five people you’d like to have dinner with? Dead or alive (keeping in mind that the dead ones will be cheaper dates).
Lovecraft! That’s an obvious one. I’m not sure what he’d think of me, he might like me because I’m Canadian and therefore a citizen of the crown. Tanith Lee, because I love her books. I did interview her one time, by the way, but it was through mail. Ann Boleyn. I find her a fascinating historical figure at a pivotal moment in time. Charles Darwin, because I’ve been reading his papers and letters lately. Daphne du Maurier. Not only do I love her work but I think she was a fascinating person. And my great-grandmother. I miss her very much.
8. What interests you in Lovecraftian fiction?
Everything? Is that an answer? Right now I’m completing my Master’s degree in Science and Technology Studies. My thesis proposal is about Lovecraft and eugenics, specifically degeneration issues. So I’m very interested in looking at how he translates issues of reproduction and inheritance into horror fiction, and how society is absorbing those same issues at the time.
As a writer, I’ve often said “this is the last Lovecraftian story I’m writing” and then I surprise myself by finding something new to respond to.
9. Your favourite heroine? Your favourite villain? 
Emma Bovary, although she’s an anti-heroine. I’m fond of that devious rascal Tom Ripley. But I change my mind about these things all the time.
10. What’s your next big project?
My debut novel is coming out in February so I expect and hope a lot of my time will be spent promoting that. My agent has my second novel, Young Blood, about vampires and drug dealers in Mexico City. I’m hoping that sells, too. And then it’s off to complete my third novel, which is set in the Jazz Age, in the north of Mexico.
Editing wise I’m reading submissions for She Walks in Shadows, the first all-woman Lovecraft anthology. So a lot of reading. Oh, and my thesis work. I have a prospectus due this month.