The Book of Revelation has colonized my symbolic language without a clear or definable provenance. But can you write about queerness, about monstrous desire, about obsession, without calling the Devil or the Woman of the Apocalypse?
One of the most stand-out aspects of this piece is its experimental form and structure. How did you arrive at this choice? Was there anything specific that informed it? Did you experiment with any alternative forms as you worked through the piece?
I wanted to reimagine the Serpent in the Garden of Eden and Eve as an eroto-cannibalistic sapphic relationship, or a conversation around obsession and yearning as a point of ecstatic or mystical egress. It came out as one sentence, written in one sitting, and I did very little to polish or refine it after. It felt complete to me upon its arrival.
There is a repeated use of religious imagery and theming throughout the piece. Did this choice come naturally as you wrote, or was it more of a conscious decision to write through this specific lens? If you feel comfortable speaking on it, did this religious connection stem from any personal experiences?
I have spent the past decade working in Occulture and Witchcraft, and so eschatological and heretical imagery play an explicit role in my cosmological and, therefore, creative landscapes. It haunts the imaginary for me. I haven’t been able to get away from the eschatological imagery for the past few years, which is especially funny to me because I grew up outside of any Abrahamic religion. The Book of Revelation has colonized my symbolic language without a clear or definable provenance. But can you write about queerness, about monstrous desire, about obsession, without calling the Devil or the Woman of the Apocalypse?
Do you have any particular writing rituals?
Yes! I have a witchcrafting practice associated with the mighty dead who inspire my literary and creative projects. I always call them up via necromantic praxis prior to sitting down for a heavy writing day. I never write alone.
Lastly . . . what scares you?
Quiddity without haecceity. Nothing freaks me out more than a person with no core, integral identity that simply shapeshifts into whatever is around it. I love films like The Thing or The Talented Mr. Ripley because nothing is scarier to me than a person who is so hollow they can cannibalize the unique identity of another person and attempt to wear it as their own.
(portions of interview have been omitted at author’s request)
Sasha Ravitch (she/her) consults, presents on, and writes fiction, theory, and creative non-fiction about the (posthumanist and otherwise) gothic imagination, quiddity vs haecceity, and monster theory. With a forthcoming manuscript with Revelore Press, she’s published by Strange Horizons, Cosmic Horror Monthly, ergot., Bloodletter Magazine, Cursed Morsels Press, Infested Publishing, and more. She’s a grateful recipient of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity’s Science Fiction Writer’s Residency, and EIC for antilogos press. Ravitch is a graduate student at Sarah Lawrence College, and recently finished her first novel. Her current academic research specialty is tracing what she refers to as the “eschatological gothic” in the early works of Nick Cave and the Berlin post-punk and no-wave scene.
