Guest Post: Interview with Lina Langley by Scott Menalson

I have had the great fortune to teach a course called “Vampires and Wizards” (which focuses on the ways in which these popular archetypes serve as metaphors for important issues in the societies and time periods in which they were written). As with Children’s Literature, I have found that final projects (which allow students to approach the course content in a hands-on way) are a more effective way of evaluating the ways in which students engage with and retain the course content. Scott Menalson presented this interview with author Lina Langley, and I have posted it (with the permission of both student and author) below.

Interview with Lina Langley

By Scott Melanson

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Lina Langley

In our course, Vampires & Wizards, we have talked about a variety of different ways that vampire and wizard character archetypes and stories affect and are affected by our real-life world. We looked at things like sexuality and taboo subjects and the way that vampires often represent more promiscuous behaviour, and even things that were taboo/illegal at the time of writing (such as homosexuality). There are even some stories that we covered that focused on vampires being “othered” (a term for those who are often pushed aside by the majority) and non-traditional relationships. I decided that I wanted to try and find out how closely these stories might compare to LGBT stories and people, since it seemed like an apparent connection existed between the stories and LGBT people. I wanted to find out what I could regarding this by asking an LGBT author, Lina Langley, what I could find about her work and how her real life may have impacted it so that I could try and draw some connections to our course work. I contacted Lina through Twitter and she was more than happy to answer my questions!

Q: Is there anything that compelled you to write LGBT fiction?

Lina Langley: This is a complex question, because I don’t know the answer to it very well. Partially, I think I’ve always known that I was queer – as in odd, not LGBT, though of course it follows – and I’ve always put a little bit of that into my work, even before knowing. When I discovered it was a genre, I thought “Well, that’s the perfect fit”.

Q: Who are your biggest inspirations when it comes to writing about same sex relationships?

Lina Langley: It’s going to sound like a cliché, but representation. It’s empowering to see queer characters in situations where we see straight characters a lot of the time. I have literally never seen anyone like me on the screen or in a book, ever, and I’m sure that I exist. If I can make one person feel seen, that’s good enough. That makes all the work worth it.

Q: Are you working on any new books? If so, are you trying anything you haven’t done before?

Lina Langley: Oh, boy. Right now, I’m working on a commercial m/m fiction. It’s the best seller of all my books, and I’m trying to create a sustainable living through it. But through that, I’m hoping to incorporate more queer characters – enbies [slang for Non-Binary], in particular – I feel are massively underrepresented. The majority of my characters are firmly genderqueer, too, though I think it’s often not said on the page.

Q: If we look back through history, we often find that there were many subjects that were considered to be taboo to be talked about or even written about. Do you feel that, today, there are still things that are “off limits” to write about?

Lina Langley: This is a good question, because I think it needs to be reframed from taboo to privilege. I’ll explain why. Whereas before it was scandalous to write a book like Lolita (and it still is) or Madame Bovary, the paradigm has shifted, and the real hurdle is accessibility. I don’t think that people don’t take on risky topics, but rather that their identity is deeply tied into writing, and especially publishing. So for instance, a white allosexual cis/het author would have a much easier time selling a story to an agent about sexual assault than a brown queer woman. Which is a long way to say, no, I don’t think so, but I think it’s harder for other voices to be heard than before, and taking on risky topics make it harder for those voices.

Q: Do you draw on your own personal experiences when writing?

Lina Langley: Of course! But it’s not that direct. It’s rarely 1:1, but rather, how did this make me feel? Or if I have a funny conversation with someone, that might find its way there too.

Q: If/When unable to draw from your own experiences, where do you get ideas for writing?

Lina Langley: I never run out of ideas. I think people think it’s possible to run out of ideas because we’re so used to dismissing our own as stupid. I listen to myself, even if it’s the most ridiculous thing, and follow through until I can’t follow through anymore. It’s informed by everything: shows I watch, people I talk to, songs I listen to, books I read, or a funny Tweet I saw. Inspiration isn’t real; though it’s nice to be struck by something you know will work. Self-confidence is real; and it’s work.

Q: What are your feelings on stereotypes in stories?

Lina Langley: They seem unnecessary. If a writer is writing a stereotype, I automatically think their writing is poor.

Q: Do you ever try to challenge the preconceived ideas of your readers?

Lina Langley: All the time. This one is especially obvious when I try to have a non-binary character in the book. I get several readers saying I made a grammar mistake, “they is plural!” They’re just trying to help, and I like to think I expand their horizons a little bit when I tell them it can be a singular pronoun.

Q: How do you feel about how LGBT characters are portrayed in other works, specifically where they are not the focus?

Lina Langley: I just hope it’s done respectfully. I like it when it’s not a big deal – have you seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? There’s a character called White Josh (another character is called Josh) and he happens to be gay. When one of the other characters asks him about it, he says: “They don’t call you big gay Darryl”. But that’s the exception in terms of representation, not the rule, and I’m tired of the dead lesbian trope or the annoying gay best friend trope. I can see it making progress, however, and I’m happy about that!

Q: In our course, we have been talking about vampires throughout their existence in literature. One popular theory I’ve discovered regarding Dracula is that he is either gay or is supposed to represent homosexuality symbolically. What are your thoughts on this?

Lina Langley: Dracula is one of the queerest coded stories out there. I ascribe to the death of the author philosophy as much as possible, but it’s disingenuous to divorce an allegory fiction from the author and from Stoker’s close relationships, it’s easy to see that he might have been queer. It’s easy to see Dracula as an artistic way to try and get to grips with a society that sees the gay man as a monster, so I agree with that theory.

Q: Are there any characters in other works of fiction that you believe are LGBT despite no direct reference in the text?

Lina Langley: The Portrait of Dorian Gray clearly has a same-sex relationship between Dorian and Henry. I think Rebecca has an undertone of queerness too between the maid and the titular character, but I can’t remember her name. Fight Club is about a guy in love with his imaginary friend written by an openly gay man. Women in Love is literally about two boys wanting to get married to each other and at one point, one of them asks the other one if he wants to marry him.

After reading through Lina’s answers I was super inspired to keep writing. Learning about her creative process was super interesting and informational and she even challenged some of my questions, which was pretty neat. I wanted to focus on drawing some comparison between the characters and lives of LGBT people and the way that vampires are written and discussed.

First and foremost, Lina’s analysis of Dracula is pretty spot on in my opinion. For a very long time, LGBT people have been ostracized by society based on fears of straight/cisgender people for a variety of (baseless) reasons like “becoming like them”. This is practically identical to vampires, who turn people into vampires, and are largely seen as monsters as Langley suggested. While many people are still very homophobic and anti-LGBT, the general attitudes of people regarding homosexuality have changed and many LGBT people feel comfortable living their lives “out of the closet”. While there is still plenty room for improvement (especially when it comes to transgender people), the world is changing for the better. This is evident by the fact that Lina able to make a living through her writing. Thirty or so years ago, this may not have been possible even in the traditional, non-digital format due to homophobia at the time. I am of the opinion that this change in attitude has affected vampire stories. For example, the Twilight stories do not depict vampires as being monstrous (among other stories as well). This may very well be that these authors stopped depicting vampires as allegories for gay men.

While I don’t personally read a lot of LGBT fiction, I definitely feel that representation is a powerful tool. When you can see yourself in a story, even only a little bit, it helps you relate to the characters and enjoy the story more. That’s why we often develop favourite characters. It may also help to cause people to think differently about people who are different. For example, in stories like Dead Until Dark, characters like Bill Compton may have an impact on readers in a positive way. While Bill isn’t a gay character, the way Charlaine Harris writes about him is obviously a nod to the way gay people are often treated in real life (although it isn’t explicitly gay people she writes about but “othered” groups in general). A vampire being “legalised” is the same as gay marriage being legalised, for example (and the story takes place in the American south, a deeply homophobic part of America).

Part of Lina’s identity is her sexuality. It is something that she deeply resonates with and is very aware of (as evidenced by her responses). While it is true that heterosexual people’s identities are informed by their sexuality, I think that LGBT people value it so much more because it is something that society tried to take away from them for so long. Writing characters like Bill Compton serves several different purposes as I mentioned earlier and is something that is critically important to not just literature, but society as a whole: representation. These “gay-coded” characters could be an excellent way to slip by homophobic people (who would never willingly read an LGBT story) and potentially teach them something. It is my opinion that homophobia is based entirely on ignorance and can be solved if they can just see reason. Lina said she frequently tries to challenge her readers (like gender-neutral pronouns). I feel that authors should definitely try to challenge their readers, especially when it comes to issues like LGBT people’s portrayal and their viewers’ perception of real LGBT people. I suspect that while Lina writes about LGBT stories, many of her readers may actually not be LGBT themselves (a lot of straight women seem to like male same-sex stories) so challenging her readers on LGBT issues is still important even though she writes LGBT stories.

I want to take a moment to thank Lina for her participation in this interview, as I learned a lot of how she writes stories and her approach to handling readers as well as furthered my understanding of the literature we read in class regarding vampires. I never personally made the connection about Bill and Dracula until after this interview so it was eye-opening to see it. Hopefully this interview has been of interest to others and has taught people about the importance of representation.

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