The Sun Down Motel

by Simone St. James

The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one’s own thoughts—that person was stronger than anyone else. More ready. More prepared.

In my early twenties, I worked night shifts at a now-defunct TV station for almost two years. I was the new kid on the job, I had no husband or children, and I had nowhere else to be, so I was given the shifts no one else wanted. No one cared that a young woman who couldn’t afford a car had to get to and from work alone in a bad part of town in the middle of the night. For a long time, I had the itch to write a ghost story about people who work at night. I didn’t meet anyone or date for those two years, I didn’t party with friends, and I didn’t spend holidays with family because I was working the holiday shifts. I was like a rogue satellite that has left orbit. It seemed like a great setup for a scary story. The idea for The Sun Down Motel came from my love of true crime, ghost stories, Stephen King books, Stranger Things, and Psycho, but the idea’s magic happened when I created the character of Viv and made her just as deeply lonely as I had been, and when I created the other night shift characters. That loneliness became one of the themes of the book. And it has resonated with so many readers!