1.- Could you introduce yourself to Jamreads’ readers?
I’m Nuzo Onoh, popularly known as the Queen of African Horror. I’m a writer of African speculative fiction; K-drama and K-indie pop mega-fan; besotted mother; lazy cook and pork belly lover.

2.- What impulse drove you to start writing?
Nothing specific. I dabbled in writing from a young age but only took it seriously after I returned to my old university, Warwick University, to do a Masters degree in writing aged almost fifty years. I realised it was a matter of ‘now or never’ to pursue one of my numerous childhood dreams, since I’d grown too old to become a popstar.

3.- Let’s talk about your new book, Where the Dead Brides Gather. What inspired you to create this story?
Like all my works, I never plan any story or plot the storyline. My characters call to me when they’re ready to tell me their stories and I just sit and type. With WHERE THE DEAD BRIDES GATHER, I was boiling the kettle in the kitchen when an image of a young girl coated in white paint flashed inside my head and that was it. I knew I had to write the story and once I started, I quickly realised it wasn’t white paint as I’d thought, but something else completely; a supernatural phenomenon.

4.- Was it challenging to capture the voice of such a young character as Bata? Which part would you say it was the most difficult to write?
It’s never difficult for me to capture voices because I just listen to what the characters tell me and type it as I hear it. Unlike many of my other characters, Bata wasn’t much of a talker and instead, exposed her thoughts to me, which I found really sad because it highlighted her total powerlessness in both her family and wider society. The part I found most difficult was writing the otherworld of Ibaja-La, the realm of the dead brides. I’m not a fantasy writer, yet this character was taking me to a world that required me to write like a fantasy author.

5.- Your novels include a bit of social commentary. Why do you think it’s important to share it with the public?
Like all my works, and in fact, as many horror writers do, we use the medium of horror to highlight many social ills that would be impossible to tackle in a non-fiction work where one runs the risk of sounding preachy. Like every other culture, Africa has it good and bad cultural practices and beliefs. Dangerous patriarchy and equally dangerous superstitions are amongst some of them. So, for instance, I needed to highlight in the story that mental health isn’t infectious, that being bitten by a person with mental health issues wouldn’t infect someone with rabies-like madness.

6.- Would you say your writing process has changed alongside your career?
My writing process hasn’t changed, albeit, I’ve recently been experimenting with multi-genre work of horror/fantasy/magical realism/humour. WHERE THE DEAD BRIDES GATHER has elements of magical realism, fantasy and humour within the predominantly horror context. As for my writing process, I still write only when my characters speak to me and stop writing when they stop speaking to me. So, I could go for a month without writing a single word and then have a week of non-stop manic writing where I become a total recluse till the story is done. I still need one particular song playing on loop to write each book. Once I’m done writing, I never listen to that song again for years. For WHERE THE DEAD BRIDES GATHER, the song was “Sad Tango” by the K-pop superstar, Rain. Finally, I don’t write sitting in my study. It makes me feel as if I’m working and destroys my concentration. So, I write either in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom, and even in the car; anywhere but my study, which is mainly for doing podcasts, zoom calls and interviews.

7.- In 2023, you were awarded the Bram Stoker Lifetime Award. How did you feel about it? Do you think there’s more pressure on you?
It was an unexpected honour to receive the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award. It was a validation of both my work and African horror as another bona-fide addition to the regional-horror genre pool like Japanese, Korean, and Latin American horror, to mention but a few. And no; it hasn’t put more pressure on me. On the contrary, I now feel a sense of freedom, knowing that other African writers can now carry on the mantle and go on to saturate the horror space with more works of African horror while I finally get to indulge my dream of writing all these other stories I’ve been pushing away for years as I worked flat-out to promote African horror to a global audience.

8.- Which elements would you say are your favourite ones when writing horror?
Anything to do with ghosts and haunting, especially when vengeful ghosts with unfinished business exact their deadly revenge and the wicked get their just desserts.

9.- Which three horror pieces would you recommend to the readers of this interview
- DEAD CORPSE by my unhumble self, Nuzo Onoh 😊
- AMONG THE LIVING by Tim Lebbon         
- MAGE OF FOOLS by Eugen Bacon
- WRITING AND RISING FROM ADDICTION by Brian Bowyer, a book to inspire every writer to stick to their art no matter the challenges lie throws them.

10.- What can we expect from Nuzo Onoh in the future?
WHERE THE DEAD BRIDES GATHER is the first of four works in this new multi-genre writing I mentioned to be released in the coming years. THE FAKE GHOST is released in August 2025 by Dead Sky Publishing; FUTILITY will be published in October 2025 by Titan Books, while THE TURNING OF SALLY-MAE and THE GHOSTS IN THE MOON will be released in 2026, also by Titan Books.

Where the Dead Brides Gather is the last novel written by Nuzo Onoh. You can get a copy from Bookshop using this link.