How Bestselling Author Isabel Cañas Writes: Part One - Redux

Mexican-American writer and historian, Isabel Cañas, spoke to me about how to binge-write a novel, her fear of the dark, and swinging for the fences with her gothic debut "The Hacienda."

Isabel is a speculative fiction writer, and world traveler – currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation in medieval Islamic literature – who writes fiction inspired by her research and heritage.

Her debut novel is the highly-anticipated gothic, The Hacienda, "... a haunted house story with a Latinx refresh .... partly inspired by a home Isabel lived in when she was a child — one she still believes to this day is haunted."

Described by The Washington Post as, “[A] gothic tale of doomed love and vengeful spirits." NY Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi called the book, “A hypnotic, sinister tale that is equal parts terrifying and luxurious ... a nightmare lined with velvet.”

In this file Isabel Cañas and I discussed:

Writing fantasy fan fiction and her convoluted juvenilia 

Why horror demands vulnerability from the author

On haunted houses and ghosts of colonialism and diaspora

Zero-drafting

How to write 4000 words a day

And a lot more!

Stay calm and write on ...