Member Spotlight: P.M. Raymond

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I write for my own satisfaction. I am grateful when esteemed publications like Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Dark Yonder, or Punk Noir have selected my work for publication. If you are writing for someone else’s approval, stop writing. Artists of all kinds, including writers, are so important right now because it grounds us to our humanity and to our oral tradition of storytelling. We don’t want to lose that tradition. Passing down family history, community evolution, or any other means of transmitting the past is crucial right now as we see select communities’ histories under fire for erasure or manipulation.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? YouTube! Ha, I do like to watch visual mediums from short form videos to movies to get reenergized about hitting the laptop again. I also do scrapbooking or journaling with beautiful tapes and stickers. I use this as a jumping off point to create decorated pages then handwrite my to-do lists or goals on them. I also host in-person write-ins at local coffee shops with other writers where we will work in silence on our own projects or workshop ideas that one of us is having a problem with.

What is your favorite time to write? I’m most productive later in the day. I work full time so after my day is done and I’m fed and hydrated, I can concentrate on creating. I also do write-ins during the evening hours offered by Sisters in Crime to get more dedicated time to uninterrupted writing.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Don’t write to a trend. Write what moves you. As a writer of color, I have been told before that my stories might be ‘too much’ when it comes to dialect or incorporating the experiences around me. I think that’s false thinking. That kind of advice is meant to make someone else more comfortable. Storytelling can and should be uncomfortable if you are exploring dense or traumatic themes. My writing and my ability to get stories published has not suffered in any way from me being authentic and true to my voice. I am the 2024 Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award winner as well as a finalist for the Killer Shorts Screenplay Competition and Killer Nashville Claymore Award. Writing your truth shines through. And the books I enjoy the most are books that I can see the author’s sensibility in it regardless of genre.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? We are living in disordered times that lends itself to creativity. Whether it’s bringing more joy to counterbalance the chaos or leaning into the mess, this is a great time to be a writer who DOESN’T use AI. Depth and emotion are ripe for mining all around us I find so many ideas and opportunities through my surroundings that work themselves into a compelling story.

P.M. Raymond’s Things Are As They Should Be and Other Words to Die For is out today with Uncomfortably Dark Horror.