Last month I interviewed horror writers Dave Jeffery [DJ] and Lee Murray [LM] for The Psychologist, the publication of the British Psychological Society. We chatted about their anthology This Way Lies Madness, which brings together a variety of horror stories all focussed on mental illness. Dave and Lee spoke about the background to the book, their practice as writers and editors, and their work with the Horror Writer’s Association. That interview is available here.
However, both Dave and Lee had more to say on the topics we covered, particularly about the use of metaphor, the place of the supernatural, and the importance of cultural context when writing about mental illness. To allow them to expand on these fascinating subjects, we carried out a supplementary interview which you can read below.
Which authors and works do you think are the most important or influential when it comes to thinking about the representation of mental illness in horror?
Classic short stories such as Edgar Allan Poe’s A Tell-tale Heart andCharlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper immediately spring to mind as their approach is not that of sensationalism, but the heavy use of metaphor to describe the lived experience of madness through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. In the anthology brief, we were keen to use metaphor as the vehicle to represent mental illness in an authentic and sensitive way. Through its initiative, the Horror Writer’s Association (HWA) has created a suite of resources dedicated to improving the portrayal of mental illness in genre fiction. One such element is Notable Works, where titles that have challenged conventional tropes are reviewed and presented to the membership as exemplars.
In our initial interview you touched on the importance of the supernatural. Is this one of the ways of using metaphor to create authentic and sensitive portrayals of mental illness? Could you both say a little more about how supernatural elements interact with the representation of mental illness either in your own work or elsewhere.
LM: This is a great question that points to the heart of our work. From the beginning of time, supernatural stories have been told and retold as a way of making sense of the world we live in and our place in it, to explain the unexplainable, and grapple with things outside our control. Our (Western/scientific) understanding of mental illness is still relatively new with much of it still deep in the realm of the inexplicable. Because of this it makes sense to me that people will turn to supernatural metaphor to cope with that uncertainty. Metaphor is such a powerful device that enables us to both articulate and examine complex and challenging experiences with an element of distance. It also allows us to give voice to events and emotions that might be confusing or frightening from a place of safety—since our Western knowledge tells us that dementia is not actually caused by vampires sucking our memories away, and that post-natal depression has nothing to do with one’s choice of wallpaper!
One caveat here, that I believe Dave and I noted in our previous interview, is that where supernatural metaphors appear in certain cultural interpretations of mental illness, those depictions may not be considered horror fiction at all, but rather as a representation of a culture’s real-world experience. Indeed, one culture’s ‘myth’ or ‘fable’ may be another culture’s faith—values that people hold at their core and which impact the way they navigate the world. I feel, that as scholars of horror literature we should be sensitive to that important aspect. Consider, for example, the Māori word for autism, takiwātanga, a fairly recent addition to te reo (Māori language) but used extensively in local storytelling, which translates as “in their own time and space”. Given that Māori also see death as fluid, with ancestor spirits embodied in the land we walk on and part of our everyday, we can also consider an individual with mental illness to be existing in one world while also being part of the fabric of our own. It’s a beautiful metaphor, surprisingly lacking in stigma, which helps us to understand the holistic nature of wellbeing among Māori, with spiritual aspects having equal importance to personal and community connections.
As for works which embrace metaphor as a means of depicting mental illness, a favourite novel I frequently refer to is Serpent’s Wake: A Tale for the Bitten (2018) by US-Australian author Lauren Elise Daniels. A horror-fantasy and HWA Notable Work, the book explores a young woman’s journey to recovery in the aftermath of violent trauma, with the character’s trauma represented as a terrible serpent. Using this device, the author is able to separate her character from that catastrophic event, allowing readers to witness the inevitable fall-out, including the context of stigma and isolation in which she must attempt to recover her wellbeing and also her sense of identity. It helps too that Daniels’s novel is couched in visceral poetic imagery, since what better way to evoke emotion and engender compassion than through a combination of poetry and horror.
A recent release I have found interesting is A Fragile Thing (2026) by UK novelist and poet Stephanie Ellis. In this darkly gothic tale, a Victorian mesmerist, attempting to prove that his is a legitimate scientific practice, allows a shadowy figure to implant his mind with demons. Like Daniels, Ellis compartmentalises her character from the mental illness that plagues him, with the disembodied voices of Ellis’s demons—the supernatural metaphor—conducting a persistent, insidious dialogue with their host in the character’s beleaguered mind. While Ellis’s character is morally corrupt and has every intention of deceiving his clients, the voices, hallucinations, and the lost time he experiences are beyond his control. It is this uncertainty, this inability to trust himself, that inspires fear and drives his actions.
DJ: We’ve talked at length about metaphor being such a powerful medium when it comes to writing sensitive and meaningful stories about mental illness. One issue that we must consider is that to do this effectively requires great skill and a significant commitment to researching and contextualising such themes. I say this because one book that embodies both of these aspects is Daniel Kraus’s Whalefall (2023), which is currently on the HWA Notable Works listing. The plot involves a teen boy who is estranged from his father—a scuba-diver and local legend. When diagnosed with a terminal illness, the father commits suicide by weighing himself down and jumping into the ocean. In order to manage an overbearing sense of guilt at shunning his father’s request to talk things through in his final days, the son seeks peace by diving in search of the remains. Then, of course, he is swallowed by a whale and what ensues is a battle of physical and psychological survival. Here, we have a great story that imbues the construct of mental illness as metaphor. The whale as guilt and grief, consuming the teen, and his slow, agonising road to redemption and ultimate recovery. During his incarceration in the whale’s first stomach, the teen endures a process of psychological transition and sensory assault to the point where he feels he can actually communicate with the whale. I often think about this story and that of L.E. Daniel’s simply brilliant Serpent’s Wake: A Tale for the Bitten, mentioned by Lee above; two powerful tales involving great creatures that represent the very real traumas and lived experiences of their narrators, but also their journey of redemption and recovery. These stories are representative of what I have always said; when done well, horror is such a powerful way to explore the human condition, both its strengths and its fragilities.
Thank you, I’m looking forward to seeking out some of these. It’s great to hear about so many sensitive portrayals. Do you think it’s fair to say that, historically, horror fiction has often been seen to stigmatise mental illness? Is your collection trying to change this perception/conversation?
DJ: I think such criticism is valid, but it needs to be given context in order to understand how we may have got to this point. It is fair to say that, when we look at the history of the care and treatment of mental illness, for example the well-meaning yet inconsistent asylum systems of the 1800s, or retrospective barbarity of some of the approaches to treatment, it is understandable to see why such representations exist in fiction. If creatives are writing stories within that setting, to not write or represent those systems or treatments would impact not only on authenticity but also the viable challenge against those systems. Lee and I are staunch advocates of research and its place in creating mental health-themed stories. Without getting the setting right, the writer risks perpetuating stigma by using clumsy, sensationalist portrayals of mental illness, rather than telling meaningful stories about how such themes impact on the person and those around them.
LM: Horror fiction has its roots in the European literary tradition and since stories reflect the society we live in, tales involving mental illness tended to come prepackaged with the prevailing Western prejudice, as Dave notes. I also believe storytelling styles have played a part. Works written before the mid-1900s (at least those written in English) tended to be told and often with some distance, for example by a narrator, rather than shown, which is more typical of modern stories. The emergence of contemporary show-not-tell writing techniques – imagery, metaphor and symbolism, dialogue, expressions and gestures, reactions by other characters, and the inclusion of direct and close internal thought – has allowed for deeper and more nuanced understanding of a character’s motivations. Modern horror writers draw the reader in, getting us into the heads of their characters, so we feel as if we are experiencing the terror first hand. When we do this, when we walk in someone else’s shoes, we begin to understand how people with mental illness endure and rationalise their eroding sense of self. That understanding can lead to compassion towards them and in turn, reduce stigma. So not only do we have better understanding of mental illness through research, but we also have better writing tools with which to represent those themes. Happily, our contributors to This Way Lies Madness have made skilful use of these narrative tools.
As you say, the horror genre as we typically think about it has emerged from the Western canon. Please could you tell us about some other cultural traditions of horror that you are interested in or that influence your work? How do these alter the way you think about/represent psychology, a field of study deeply rooted in Western thought?
LM: As publishing evolves to include more diverse voices, and as global interconnectivity increases through technology, horror is undergoing something of a revolution. My hope is that this new wave of cultural perspectives will have a positive impact on our genre, serving to amplify our knowledge of the human condition through literature. Likewise, while the field of psychology may have its roots in Western thought, does this have to be our final default setting? What might we discover if we open ourselves up to new cultural approaches?
Writers are the product of our lived experience, all of which is subject to examination in our work. Much of my own writing is invested in reconciling my conservative Western parentage, upbringing, and scientific education with the expansive supernatural beliefs of my Chinese heritage as well as the Māori and Pasifika worldviews of my birth country. Add to these my affection for the cultural traditions of my husband’s Scottish and Māori family –values which are also manifest in my children – and the influence of living abroad in the UK, USA, and France for over a decade. My cultural makeup is an exciting and chaotic mix. I’ve found that the space where cultural traditions collide and intersect, in that uncertain primordial miasma, is where some of the most compelling horror is created.
DJ: This is an interesting one for me as my only experience of approaches to the genre come from a Westernised and scientific perspective. I can, however, talk about culture from the standpoint of marginalised groups—people who identify as Deaf, for example. During my time as a mental health professional, I worked with the Deaf Community whose culture is immersed in the question of what it means to be Deaf, and who are interested in how that is represented within society. This is where you experience the friction between deafness as disability and Deafness as an identity. The upshot is the ongoing battle between cultural erosion or compliance to an imposed, external set of beliefs and values. These themes and constructs are integral to my ‘a Quiet APOCALYPSE’ dystopian series and the main drivers as to why I wanted to write those books. Such conflicts are the exact elements that feed a compelling narrative, creating the kind of drama that writers love to inject into their work.
It’s really interesting to hear these diverse influences on your practice. What future projects are you planning that continue the great work you’ve been doing?
LM: As a follow-up to This Way Lies Madness, Dave and I have made a start on another anthology, this time presenting personal essays by horror creatives on mental health in horror literature. We hope this will further our mission to challenge stigma and create dialogue around this important topic. The new volume will provide a checkpoint for the development of quality horror narratives that elevate our understanding of mental illness through shared lived experience. We have some of the best writers in horror committed to writing for us, so already it’s looking exciting.
Aside from that, a colleague and I are currently scripting a horror feature film for a renowned Kiwi filmmaker, where the central motif is the manifestation of madness as the result of trauma with supernatural metaphor being a key driver of the narrative. In film, unlike in a novel, it’s harder to show internal rationalisations, so revealing the characters’ motivations requires careful writing, especially where mental illness is a factor. Working on the screenplay has expanded the way I think about sensitive portrayals even further, revealing how nuance and subtext might be used to avoid harmful tropes. I have a novel in (very slow) progress too, which examines the monstrosity of grief in a contemporary Lovecraftian context. Sadly, the novel has been on the backburner of late, because I’m something of a neuro-spicy chipmunk with too many project acorns stuffed in her cheeks!
DJ: As well as the joy of working with Lee again on the new book, I have just signed a deal to curate and edit a portmanteau anthology that will apply a fictitious Grounded Theory (GT) research study to a bunch of epistolary stories from both invited and open call submissions. The purpose of GT in qualitative research is to generate hypothesis using a systematic approach to analyse and interpret narrative data. Therefore, the book aims to explore human explanations of the supernatural and in doing so highlight—albeit fictitiously—both the mythos and meaning of these fantastic encounters for those exposed to them. As always, there are some very well-known genre writers already attached to the project and the submission call for the other story slots will be announced in October 2026. The book will be published in 2028.
As for other projects, I am currently working on the third novella in the Clutterbuck & Postlethwaite Investigate occult detective series in which the octogenarian investigators are involved with a case where grief and loss are instrumental to the story’s central conceit. As with the other stories in the series, this has already been sold to Occult Detective Magazine and will be available in 2027.
Lee Murray ONZM is a writer, editor, poet and screenwriter from Aotearoa New Zealand, a Shirley Jackson Award and five-time Bram Stoker Award® winner. A USA Today bestselling author with more than forty titles to her credit, Lee holds a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction and is an Honorary Literary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Among her works are feature film Grafted (Propaganda-Fluroblack) directed by Sasha Rainbow, horror anthology This Way Lies Madness (Flame Tree Press) co-edited with Dave Jeffery, and Oversight: Erasure Poetry (RIZE) a collaboration with Carina Bissett. www.leemurray.info
Dave Jeffery MSc., BSc. (hons) is a Bram Stoker Award, British Fantasy Award and Bridport Prize finalist and a writer of speculative and dystopian fiction. He has written 19 novels and 3 collections and is recipient of the Horror Writer’s Association Mentor of the Year Award. Jeffery is an anthologist with Flame Tree Press and his current book This Way Lies Madness (co-edited with Lee Murray) was released in September 2025. Screams & Whispers, his latest collection, is due for release in October 2026. Read more at www.davejefferyauthor.com