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Few authors put the heart in horror like Grady Hendrix. Underneath the crawling layer of the demonic possession, haunted dolls, and Southern vampires his books deal with, there's always a human soul, a deep emotional connection his readers have come to expect with his unlucky protagonists. Hendrix's latest blood-and-tears removal system, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, just appeared on bookshelves across America, and during Hendrix's promotion of the book, Popverse got the chance to speak with him.

The conversation went down at New York Comic Con 2024, and ranged from his newest novel to the real-life inspirations behind his previous works to his government-issued license to land complicated metaphors (well, the government should issue one, anyway). Read the full interview below, and pick up Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, a book we're guessing you should read in the privacy of your own home.

Popverse: I finished How to sell a Haunted House on the train this morning, fighting back tears for the last 20 minutes of it.  

Grady Hendrix: Oh, yeah. It's so nice to cry in public.  

That's going to be the quote we headline the article with. So let’s get into this -  I noticed that, at one point, the character Mark mentions, “the girls from Albemarle that got kidnapped,” which is an Easter egg to My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Where else should your readers be looking for Easter eggs like that?  

My Best Friend's Exorcism, Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and Haunted House all take place in the same neighborhood. Chronologically, one after the other. And so, there's a shout out to Exorcism in Book Club. I think there's a mention of something very indirectly about Southern Book Club in Haunted House, but there's also the mention of My Best Friend's Exorcism. So that's its own little, like, Mount Pleasant universe. Mount Pleasant-iverse.  

On the subject of connective tissue, do the supernatural forces in your books come from the same place? For example, is the afterlife consistent throughout the books?.  

No. When you start talking about demons and things, like you have to for My Best Friend’s Exorcism - it's a possession book - the demons I was using were so different, and I kind of divorce them from theology, because then you just sort of wind up with the Bible as a user's manual. I just wanted to get a little distant. But in the new book, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the magic in that is much more organic. It's much more nature-based.  

I did get where Stephen King kind of went nuts with the ‘It's all one universe’ thing in The Dark Tower, because you are the connective tissue, the person writing. It’s the same sort of weird-fiction god in every book, so the stuff you think and feel stays consistent. After a while, you kind of want to rip off the mask and be like, ‘It's all connected. I am these fingers.’  

But you’re resisting the urge to rip off the mask.  

Yeah, because I don't think people want to see me without my mask on. I'm really self-conscious about my looks. My nose is there, you know, that kind of thing.  

Going back to the stuff you feel; there are these rich emotional hearts to your stories. In My Best Friend’s Exorcism, it’s this difficult friendship; in How to Sell a Haunted House, it's the sibling tension. Where will readers find that heart in Witchcraft for Wayward Girls?  

That book is set in a home for unwed mothers in 1970, in Florida. That’s where we used to send girls who got pregnant to have their babies in secret. I found out very late in my life that two of my relatives were sent away, as they said, when they were kids. And they kept the secret all their lives. That just sort of followed me around for a while; I just couldn't get over the fact that these two women who I loved very much had been treated this way.  

[The book] is really about these girls we sent away and what that was like for them, as much as I could imagine that. So that's the heart of this, because some of these girls’ experiences were really, really horrible. I mean, I've met some women who just have had lifelong issues afterwards. And for other girls it was like, ‘Oh, they're not being hidden in their bedroom upstairs all alone.’ Now they're around other girls who are going through the same thing; at least there was that connection.  

But, you know, it’s also a witch book. And witches are badass and out there to take revenge.  

Are there other family things that you've worked into other books?  

Oh, sure, sure. How to Sell a Haunted House really came from thinking through, you know, I had a lot of relatives dying, and my mom and dad were on deck. It's also set in my aunt's house. No one will recognize it, but, yeah, it's totally my aunt's house. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is really my high school experience, plus or minus a demon. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires is, to some extent, about my relationship with my mom's book club, which is now in its 49th year. I've known those women all my life and hated them for many of those years and really liked them for many of those years.  

Well, okay, two questions out of that. The first being: Has your mom's book club read any of your books?

Yes, they do, and they feel very possessive of me. But they're disappointed that there's not more book clubs in them.  

When the Mount Pleasant-iverse takes off, the headquarters could be a book club.  

Exactly!  

Then second question: you said How to Sell a Haunted House is set in your aunt's house. Did your aunt have dolls?  

No, she was not a doll person, but she was a crafter. Yeah, she was a big crafter. Dolls were an addition.  

One of the weirdest parts of that book wasn't just the ghost, it was the radical puppet collective. Where did that come from?  

I was in a radical puppet collective in university.  

Please tell me as much about that as you can.  

I went off to university, you had to do an internship, and I wound up hooking up with this radical puppet collective in Boston. And we did that show. [Editor’s note: The show Hendrix references is from How to Sell a Haunted House, in which a radical puppet collective performs a gruesome show critiquing the Bush Administration before a class of elementary school students.]  

It was pre-9/11, so our show was about the Pinochet regime in Chile, and the torture and the disappeared and everything. We thought, you know, these fourth graders needed a wake up call on America and geopolitics. I like to think we left them better.  

We did not have the police called on us, but the administration was really, deeply unhappy at our show. We retreated to a house where we were all very depressed, but we didn't lose our minds to that extent [Editor’s note: The puppeteers in Haunted House undergo a bacchanalian transformation after the show. Read the book!], but yeah.

Actually, it's funny: I had completely forgotten what the name of the company was and everything about them. Then after the book came out, I found some old photos of them with their names on the back. So I keep weighing whether to get back in touch or not. I don't know if they'll be happy.  

That’s a toss-up. Going back to Witchcraft for Wayward Girls: what was the attitude toward witchcraft in 1970s Florida?  

The late 60s, early 70s were really two thumbs up for the occult. I mean, racks had paperbacks on like, ‘How to Be a Sensual Witch.’ You go to the supermarket; they'd have those little cheap booklets that are like, ‘Everyday Witchcraft,’ ‘Spells to Use Around the Home.’  

I always grab some magazines if I'm doing something from a time period, just to get a sense of it. I picked up a Marie Claire from 1970, and there's dozens of ads for sendaway ‘Learn How to Be a Witch’ and all this stuff. It was really largely positive. Obviously there were people who were like, ‘Not in my house, young lady,’ sure. But astrology was huge. The occult was really just a cool hobby a girl can have.  

I feel like so many positive-leaning witchcraft stories these days are about how it's on the fringes of society, right? But it feels like that's actually kind of recent in our history.  

Yeah, it was very mainstream in the early 70s, late 60s. You know, it was just like, it's something fun you can do on a Wednesday night. Which, I like that version of witchcraft.  

Moving away from the books for a second, I want to talk about your experience having stuff of yours adapted, specifically the My Best Friend’s Exorcism movie. What was it like working with Jenna Lamia to craft the story? And what's that feeling like? 

It's very weird because, like, the books are my life. Writing these books is a big thing, and then you finish them and you never talk to them again. So with a book getting adapted, you're kind of like, ‘I didn't hear from those guys for like three years.’ I mean, COVID happened in the middle and stuff. Then suddenly, the movie's done.

It's kind of like your kid goes off to college, okay? And then seeing the movie, that’s like they've come back from college and you're like, ‘I question this hairstyle.’ But also, you kind of hope they're hanging out with nice people who aren't leading them too far astray. They're the same, but they've changed and they have a bag of dirty laundry. So it's different. It's a weird experience.  

Wow, that was a very long metaphor that you just landed.  

Yep, landing extended metaphors. I have a license for that.  

You deserve it. Does having that experience make you want to revisit the worlds you've created in those books?  

No, no. Once the books are done, the books are done. I never reread them. I never go back to them. In fact, I'm one of the writers on a possible Southern Book Club adaptation for a show, and I realized everyone else in the room had more knowledge about the book than I did at this point.  

[Laughs] Fair enough. How has that experience been different from what you were doing with My Best Friend’s Exorcism?  

With Exorcism I was really like, 'Vaya con Dios. Do your thing, guys.' The other ones I've been a lot more connected to. I was just in a different place in my career.  

But I do a fair amount of screenwriting, I really like it. It's really disciplined in a way book writing isn’t. In book writing, you do whatever you want. You want to do a chapter in free verse? Go for it. Screenwriting is disciplined, it taught me to be a much more efficient writer. Which is weird coming from a guy whose new book is the size of a Bible. But yeah, it's really made me realize that things like page time are so important.  

Like, I have to introduce a character. They need a big stage entrance. For an audience to applaud, they gotta have something memorable about them. You really got to use their time wisely. You start to treat your characters like actors.  

Do you feel that as you're writing prose, you’re writing more visually? Because screenwriting is visual?  

Not more visually, but I'm trying to balance internal and external more. In a screenplay, everything's external, right? You can only show what someone's doing. You can't show them thinking about something; you can't show someone remembering something. You could show a flashback, but you can't show them remembering. Books are very internal - you're always inside someone's point of view, and it's very easy to be seduced by that. I really try to balance that more with like, yes, they're thinking of this, but it's got to be linked to something they're doing or something that's visible, because otherwise it starts to feel a little claustrophobic and airless. You're just trapped inside someone's dark skull.  

Before we move away from prose, I imagine you can't talk a ton about future projects right now. But are there any settings or subject matter that you are really interested in right now?  

I'm trying to get the next book started, and fortunately/unfortunately, it's spooky season, which means I'm doing a ton of press and stuff. It's hard because I really want to start the next book, and I just actually spent a week out in the woods camping, doing research for the next book. There's things in the trees for the next one.

When you say "camping," are we talking about summer camps, à la Friday the 13th?  

No, no, no. Out in the woods. It’s out in the woods. And just to throw in there: I was a Boy Scout for a very long time.  

That's a great tease. I know you mentioned demonic lore earlier, are you doing a lot of lore research right now? 

Some. With Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. I read a lot about Wicca and witchcraft and things, but then, you know, there are actually practicing witches out there today. I didn't want to steal someone's tradition or all that. So I sort of "magpie" bits and pieces. A little Gardnerian Wicca here, a little Dianic Wicca there, a little classical Greek. Then the rest I make up. But I really want to feel firm when I do that, and so I did a lot of reading and research, just to make sure I'm not doing something stupid. And I probably still did something stupid.  

Oh, I don’t know about that. Alright, as we're winding down here: how do you usually spend Halloween?  

Oh, man. Usually on Halloween, I'm doing a show. I used have a friend who had a really great Halloween party. But the thing I used to do that I miss so much, I haven't able to do it in like 3 or 4 years, cause I'm always promoting a book is: there's this group of dudes down in Philly called Exhumed, and they do a 24-hour horror movie marathon, and you don't know the titles of any of the movies. You just go in and it's just one after the other, and that room smells so bad by the time it's done. It's always been in a really uncomfortable movie theater, and I always used to love it so much. I just haven't had a chance to do it in a while.  

Just assuming from the title, are they movies that are not seen very much?  

Yeah. They have been doing this for 15 years and they made a vow to never show something twice. So the first year they can do Evil Dead and American Werewolf in London. But at this point we're at, like, The Incredible Melting Man and Mexican children's horror movies with marionettes. Yeah.  

Fantastic. Last question: what else are you working on or thinking about at the moment?  

Witchcraft for Wayward girls is out in January [Editor's note: that's right now!]. And in the meantime, It's taken me years, but I did a podcast called Super Scary Haunted Home School and I was like, this will be easy. The first season will be about vampires and I am just now finishing up the twilight episode, which is the end of vampires. So if anyone cares about vampires, my website is GradyHendrix.com, the podcast is there, but it's also on Spotify or wherever else. It's a lot of good producers and special effects people and actors and put way too much money into it.  

We’ll check it out. Thanks for chatting Grady.

Thank you!

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is available now.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we think you should check out horror aficionado Greg Silber's list of the best horror movies of all time. Or, if you've already seen those classics, check out our list of the most underrated horror movies from the past couple years. And if you've already seen all of those, Let us tell you what to look forward to (or dread) in Popverse's list of upcoming horror movies.