Two days ago, I met online with horror author and poet Andrew K. Clark to talk writing, Christian fundamentalism, and a bit about his home Asheville, North Carolina — his body of work takes place in his backyard, Appalachia.

Like the previous interview with horror author Lana Casiello, the conversation went long and covered a lot of ground. Clark and I both were raised in Christian fundamentalism, though different flavors as he came up in a Baptist church and I came up in a Church of Christ. Much of his horror writing does delve into religious horror, a direct response to his own experiences.

And of course, it’s hard if not impossible to not draw comparisons between our current Christian nationalism state when discussing Christian fundamentalism. They are all intertwined.

For example, during the last presidential election, I opened up the Heritage Foundation plans for a second Trump presidency and as I read through it, it was clear to me that they were taking many of those fundamentalist beliefs and codifying them into politics. Which, if you’re unfamiliar with fundamentalist ideologies, you might have missed some of it or may not realize how far they plan to go.

I’m sure there were some women who voted for Trump who may be confused now that discussion is going around about abolishing the woman’s vote. But that’s fundamentalism for you: women aren’t supposed to have a vote, be able to make decisions of import, or hold leadership positions. Even this week, the Southern Baptist Convention moved to ban women pastors from their ranks.

All that to say, I think you may find my interview with Clark intriguing. I’ll be working on editing it down into episodes over the next month or two. In the meantime, you can pre-order his upcoming horror novel Hollow Folk which is set to release September 29th.