When What We Inherit Haunts Us: Deena Helm's Our Cut of Salt

This week, I talk with Deena Helm about her debut literary horror novel Our Cut of Salt!

Listen to hear about:

How Deena Helm turned a haunted house into a living embodiment of history, memory, and inherited trauma.Why Our Cut of Salt follows three generations of Palestinian women, and how trauma changes the relationships between mothers and daughters across decades. The tension between preserving family history and being consumed by it—and what happens when younger generations want answers their elders may not be ready to give. Why Deena chose horror to explore real historical violence, and how genre fiction can make readers connect emotionally with experiences far outside their own. How Deena approached the novel’s most painful scenes, balancing the need to show the reality of violence without sanitizing it or turning suffering into spectacle.

All the Bookwild Links:

Check Out the Bookwild Substack

Subscribe to Bookwild on YouTube

Get Bookwild Merch

Follow @imbookwild on Instagram

Check Out Author Social Media Packages

Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:

Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland