Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Nora Peevy

 An audio version of this podcast can be found here.

00:00:00.78

wednesdayleefriday

Hi friends, it's me Wednesday Lee Friday and you are listening to the Mentally Oddcast brought to you by sometimes hilarious horror. Visit us on coffee, please. This week, we have Nora B. Peavy, who is the author of For the Sake of Bridget, which is available now. ah Nora does interviews for queer horror books and writes nonfiction for the Weird Wide Web. Nora also reads submissions for journal stone publishing.


00:00:30.62

wednesdayleefriday

and is an active hedge witch, which we will be talking about in a bit. We'll have some links to her stuff in the description. ah Nora lives in Miliwake, which we know is Algonquin for the good land.


00:00:44.98

wednesdayleefriday

Welcome, Nora. Thanks for being here.


00:00:47.93

Nora B_ Peevy

Thank you for having me.


00:00:49.91

wednesdayleefriday

Have you seen Wayne's World? Do you know the Algonquin joke?


00:00:52.86

Nora B_ Peevy

I do.


00:00:54.30

wednesdayleefriday

ah Okay.


00:00:54.50

Nora B_ Peevy

Wayne's world is for my generation.


00:00:56.64

wednesdayleefriday

Right on. Okay. Well, it turns out a lot of the people I interview are younger than me, and I have no idea. So I'll be yucking it up about something that happened in the 90s. And they're like, Yeah, I was five.


00:01:10.14

Nora B_ Peevy

Happens to me too.


00:01:10.19

wednesdayleefriday

We um right. but we We actually like to start by asking guests to talk about the first horror movie that you remember seeing. So let's have it.


00:01:20.85

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay, the first horror movie I remember seeing is Poltergeist.


00:01:26.18

wednesdayleefriday

Okay. Good one. And, uh, and how did that break down? Were you allowed to see it? Did you have to sneak?


00:01:33.39

Nora B_ Peevy

Well, um let's just say that when my mom left me with my dad, he was not the greatest parent to be left with and would just do whatever.


00:01:44.60

wednesdayleefriday

Okay.


00:01:47.57

Nora B_ Peevy

Didn't really pay attention. He liked to watch horror movies, so I was exposed to a lot of things as a little kid that probably weren't age appropriate.


00:01:58.30

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.


00:01:59.49

Nora B_ Peevy

But I was traumatized and had the lights on a lot and didn't really tell my mom. Then when I got older, we kind of shared a love of horror together.


00:02:12.60

wednesdayleefriday

Well, poltergeist must be especially rough for a kid to see because there are so many kids in peril. Man, that whole thing with the clown and the the tree branch.


00:02:24.02

wednesdayleefriday

but Like as a kid, I would have been terrified. terrify Because I mean, for me, Salem's Lot is one of my quintessential childhood scare films, which also has kids in peril. So yeah, I think that hits a little harder because in a lot of movies, the kids are safe. You know, horror movies that are made with adult protagonists, usually it's all about protecting the kid. So when the kid is in peril, that that's a little more jarring, especially when you are a younger person.


00:02:55.17

Nora B_ Peevy

It is. The worst part for me was when the little girl got sucked into the television.


00:03:00.12

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:03:00.78

Nora B_ Peevy

That really creeped me out.


00:03:01.06

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:03:02.90

Nora B_ Peevy

I looked at the television and I thought, could that happen to me?


00:03:07.30

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah Right I'll bet so you were exposed to a lot of horror as a kid.


00:03:07.87

Nora B_ Peevy

Could the television do that to me? but It was very disturbing.


00:03:17.88

wednesdayleefriday

Would you say that put you on a path?


00:03:21.51

Nora B_ Peevy

I would say definitely.


00:03:21.90

wednesdayleefriday

I


00:03:23.87

Nora B_ Peevy

I would say watching all of the Stephen King specials with my dad definitely put me on the path. um I had met somebody whose name was Kelly and and then we had hung out in high school and she gave me a bunch of books.


00:03:43.69

Nora B_ Peevy

Those were the first books that I read Stephen King and after that I was hooked. so


00:03:51.15

wednesdayleefriday

Okay. So when, uh, when did you write your first horror thing?


00:03:55.48

Nora B_ Peevy

Actually, I wrote my first horror when I was probably around the age of 13.


00:04:06.99

wednesdayleefriday

Okay. Can you tell us about it?


00:04:09.67

Nora B_ Peevy

It was oddly after I had read in the young adult section a book that went and discussed rape at a very young age and that really stuck with me because I had been molested by my uncle when I was a toddler.


00:04:29.61

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I'm so sorry.


00:04:29.98

Nora B_ Peevy

So and I yeah it was it was difficult um and that book really hit home with me and I ended up writing something different but similar which was very cathartic never showed it to anyone, eventually ripped it up when I was in my later teens, but I think that's probably the first horror that I actually wrote.


00:04:55.90

wednesdayleefriday

Wow, that is huge. And it so speaks to what we do here, ah not only using the arts to to as a catharsis, um but also to talk about things in a way that you can't talk to the people in your life.


00:05:16.56

Nora B_ Peevy

That's true.


00:05:16.55

wednesdayleefriday

Because I mean, I think we all know someone who has been through ah some kind of of essay at at some point. And it's so unusual for someone to say, Oh, this terrible thing happened to me, I should probably talk to someone about it. I should tell someone what's going on. Because when women in particular are, ah you know, I don't want to use the word victim, but I can't think of another word.


00:05:44.14

wednesdayleefriday

when they have to survive something traumatic is so often the first reaction is shame. And like, what did I do to bring this on myself? What could I have done to avoid it? And regardless of the age, man, that stays with you.


00:05:58.78

wednesdayleefriday

So it sounds like you were working through that at ah at a really young age and that you were pretty much working through it by yourself.


00:05:58.90

Nora B_ Peevy

It does.


00:06:06.24

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, as a toddler, you don't really know the words. And I grew up, I was born in 1976. So we were not taught the way that they are in school now about bad touch and good touch. Things were different. And my parents had left me with my godmom.


00:06:29.35

Nora B_ Peevy

And it was the first time I had ever been away from home. So it was an extremely traumatic experience being my first experience away from home. It kind of shaped my entire life until I was older and able to put everything together. And then I got really angry because I kept on asking myself, what if? What if this hadn't happened? What type of person would I have


00:06:59.68

Nora B_ Peevy

been? Would I have gone away to college? Would I have been more trusting of sleeping over at friends' houses than I was? it It was really hard to deal with.


00:07:12.02

Nora B_ Peevy

And at least when I finally came out to my family about that, they believed me instantly, which that was good. But that was also hard to do because the questions were there.


00:07:23.38

Nora B_ Peevy

What if I'm not believed?


00:07:25.99

wednesdayleefriday

Mm-hmm.


00:07:26.40

Nora B_ Peevy

What what do I do then?


00:07:27.43

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.


00:07:30.15

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, yeah, that's huge. And that's, I mean, it's it's such a, that that is a question that people, like, I know so many people who have gone through trauma, and that is the most pervasive and infuriating question, who would I be if this had not happened to me?


00:07:49.08

wednesdayleefriday

if this awful person hadn't done this awful unnecessary thing, how different would I be now? Because, you know, I mean, I talk about my own stuff. Sometimes I was beaten until I had brain damage. You know, by the time I was in puberty, my health was already bad because I had apnea and I wasn't treated. And then,


00:08:08.58

wednesdayleefriday

You know, there was a lot of beating and emotional abuse and stuff. And I get super stuck on that sometimes when I am trying to do something and I fail. I'll be like, well, you know what? Maybe if I hadn't been beaten until I had brain damage, I would have been able to do this thing.


00:08:22.22

wednesdayleefriday

Which, you know, there' and there's no answer for that question. Who would I be if this hadn't happened? Because there is literally no way to know. we we we in That might be the most frustrating thing about it.


00:08:30.85

Nora B_ Peevy

nope


00:08:34.57

wednesdayleefriday

Because you pointed out something else that's really important. which is that we are doing better in schools and as a society about using proper words and and giving kids tools and information that they can use to protect themselves from predators.


00:08:52.04

wednesdayleefriday

We got a long way to go on that front, for sure.


00:08:52.61

Nora B_ Peevy

Nope.


00:08:55.66

Nora B_ Peevy

We do.


00:08:56.04

wednesdayleefriday

um Because I know there was a ah girl actually a block down from us and she was taught to call her vulva Kitty. And so when she went to school and said, you know, grandpa touched my kitty and it hurt, no one knew that there was something amiss and to end that this girl needed help. And that went on for much longer than it should have because people thought they were protecting her from adult information. And basically it just left her vulnerable.


00:09:27.93

Nora B_ Peevy

That's sad.


00:09:28.36

wednesdayleefriday

So it it is, um which I mean, that's why one of the the many reasons why I think that even though these are like unpleasant topics, it's really important to talk about them. Because I think the thing I mean, just doing the show, the thing that I hear the most from people is, oh, my God, no one's ever said that where I could hear it before.


00:09:51.21

wednesdayleefriday

You know, because like, I think you and I travel in a lot of the same internet circles where people are are pretty progressive and self-reflective.


00:09:51.97

Nora B_ Peevy

Mhm.


00:10:00.52

wednesdayleefriday

You know, everybody's trying to be a better person. They're trying to be kind. They're trying to know as much as they can. That's not universal. That is something that we have curated because we want it.


00:10:08.90

Nora B_ Peevy

the general.


00:10:12.36

wednesdayleefriday

So yeah, I mean, it's, it's just, um, and, and the thing is, like, I know you as a person from the internet, but I know very little about your work, you know, um, which is, is kind of embarrassing because once I started researching it, I was like, what the hell? How am I not reading this? Um, cause, cause certainly some of it is horror, but would you say that it's straight up horror or would you say you're straddling a lot of sub genres?


00:10:38.91

Nora B_ Peevy

I say I genre bend. I go into fantasy, sci-fi, bizarro, horror, dark fantasy, dark romance. I pretty much write what I want to. I don't try to limit myself. If the story comes out of me, it comes out of me and it's there for a reason. and I'm not like some people that I'll only write just in one genre.


00:11:06.62

Nora B_ Peevy

If I see a sub and it looks interesting and it sparks something in me, then I'll go for it. I like to try new things and challenge myself because I think that's how I grow as an author and as a writer and also as a person.


00:11:16.67

wednesdayleefriday

Thank you.


00:11:21.42

Nora B_ Peevy

And that's fun to me. So yeah, I would say classify me more as a weird fiction author than anything else.


00:11:24.26

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


00:11:30.90

wednesdayleefriday

So when people say you should write to an audience, you should write to you know it's a specific demographic of reader, ah do do you agree with that on any level?


00:11:42.62

Nora B_ Peevy

Uh, nope, I'm pretty selfish. If I don't like what I am writing, it's not going to be good. I will not identify with it. And I know that nobody else will because I'm not having a good time. I'm not enjoying myself. The words are going to be clunky. The story is going to be boring. So I have to be having fun and I have to be able to play in my own sandbox in order for people to enjoy reading it and come play with me.


00:12:12.35

wednesdayleefriday

nice nice i love that i mean write the book you want to read is pretty standard reading advice or writing advice as well um i don't know necessarily it seems like the writers i like the most are the ones that don't give a shit like christopher more you know is is just a big like like yeah you could call those books horror because horrific things happen in them but they're funny as hell and the like i think of myself as a horror writer but


00:12:28.25

Nora B_ Peevy

Oh, yep.


00:12:36.97

Nora B_ Peevy

They are.


00:12:41.15

wednesdayleefriday

A lot of my stuff is hilarious. I mean, you know, we have the magazine sometimes hilarious horror because while I think a lot of horrific things are happening in the stories that I tell, they're told with just a wry sarcasm that's like, yeah, isn't this fucking ridiculous?


00:12:59.95

wednesdayleefriday

It's scary, but like also what?


00:13:03.03

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:13:03.22

wednesdayleefriday

So yeah, but but I love that. Um, i Think you know what? I actually want to get into like I know that you live with depression and anxiety ah you have ah Borderline is that is that right and PTSD as well?


00:13:12.97

Nora B_ Peevy

okay


00:13:16.85

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:13:18.01

wednesdayleefriday

You know, I use the the the abbreviation BPD which is borderline personality disorder, but it's also bipolar disorder So I like will get those confused because guess what?


00:13:18.13

Nora B_ Peevy

Yep.


00:13:28.80

wednesdayleefriday

I'm bipolar one um But I think as a freelancer some of those things must inhibit your ability to to focus.


00:13:40.51

Nora B_ Peevy

I have ADHD too, so that doesn't help. um I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder in the past year. And that, since I have been put on medication, has really, really helped.


00:14:02.37

Nora B_ Peevy

And that's also found me questioning, why did it take so long? Because I've actually spent most of my life in therapy, which I know a lot of people can relate to. And they've asked, what is wrong with me? Why? I've tried so many therapists. Why is this not working? And they get all these different diagnoses and they're on all this medicine and it doesn't work and they get frustrated and My advice is if you have a therapist that you're not vibing with, to find another one and to keep on trying and to not give up. And somewhere along the line, something's going to click with all of the notes and somebody will find something, even if it takes years. I mean, I was in therapy since I was 10 years old and I'm 48.


00:15:00.80

Nora B_ Peevy

And it took all that time to diagnose me and it has made me angry and frustrated. And it at first totally shocked me, but now I'm sleeping better. So I am functioning better. And it's also made me realize how it's affected my romantic relationships and my friendships and my, my, like my family relationships too. So that's good.


00:15:31.31

Nora B_ Peevy

And as for my writing, the type of ADHD that I have, its it's the one where you're very organized. So that's probably the one saving grace is that I'm very organized. So I've been able to to write, but the type of ADHD and borderline personality disorder that I have,


00:15:55.68

Nora B_ Peevy

also makes me extremely emotional. So I feel emotions very deeply and I just want to be loved by everybody and that makes me extremely vulnerable. So I have been taken advantage of in the online community and it makes me feel stupid, but then I have to realize that I'm just learning my diagnoses and that I'm learning how to cope and how to protect myself. And I just always thought that it was because I was a nice person and maybe I was just too naive, but now I know what it really is. So I'm able to start dealing with that and the medication is helping too.


00:16:41.72

wednesdayleefriday

Man, that is so hugely relatable. um We've actually talked on the show a few times about how women in our age group, you know, growing up in the like 70s and early to mid 80s, they didn't know how to diagnose ADHD in girls. They didn't know how it presented. So if we did not present the same way that a boy would present with ADHD, they didn't even look for it.


00:17:06.62

wednesdayleefriday

And I think what you describe is is more common than anybody would like to admit that if you are a woman and you're not a troublemaker, if you're able to sit down and be quiet and do your work, no one will even look to see if there's anything wrong with you, even if you're not performing and things get dismissed like, oh, you must be lazy. You must not be trying very hard. Why don't you pay attention?


00:17:29.83

wednesdayleefriday

You know, and yeah, there are reasons for those things. And again, it's a question of, well, what if I was treated for this when I was 11 and not 40 something, you know, like how, how much of a difference would that make?


00:17:40.96

Nora B_ Peevy

Definitely.


00:17:44.23

wednesdayleefriday

I have a buddy that I went to undergrad with and he has ADHD, but he was treated. And I'm not going to say his name, but I have on the show before actually. But he is a very popular writer. His output is insane. He invented the podcast novel like he's a huge, huge guy in the industry. And, you know, I can't help but compare myself to him.


00:18:10.20

wednesdayleefriday

Because we were, you know, nobody's together in undergrad. and ah And I mean, there's a lot of things that he has going on that I don't like his parents are educated in value education and mine were kind of the, Oh, I guess you think you know everything now that you've been to college kind of people. So, you know,


00:18:27.82

wednesdayleefriday

It is this whole like, I mean, we all are, everybody's story is unique and we don't know what people have been through, but there are also these sweeping generational things of like all these women that were never told they were ADHD and that there are reasons that we have a tougher time getting our shit together.


00:18:47.38

wednesdayleefriday

So that's a thing where I'd like to see us make some progress as a society. Now, let me ask you this. So you're super organized.


00:18:56.00

Nora B_ Peevy

is it


00:18:56.29

wednesdayleefriday

Um. So what's your work output like? and Do you have a set schedule when you for for writing?


00:19:02.57

Nora B_ Peevy

I don't. um And when I tend to get stressed, that's when ah my output tends to get even more ah prolific, I would say. I do work like at least eight hours a day or more, and I don't take any time off.


00:19:12.62

wednesdayleefriday

Really?


00:19:18.31

Nora B_ Peevy

And everybody always tells me, you need to take ah time off. Why are you working 365 days a year, this isn't good for you. I do enjoy it, but I also find with my ADHD brain that if I'm not busy, then I'll start thinking about things that are not healthy that aren't true about myself. And then that puts me into a deeper depression. And since I have a depressive disorder, that's not good. Then that affects my sleep schedule.


00:19:51.66

Nora B_ Peevy

And that's the other thing is for years and years and years, I was not sleeping well. And doctors were like, oh, she just has insomnia. We'll just throw a bunch of sleeping pills at her.


00:20:00.85

wednesdayleefriday

Uh huh.


00:20:02.83

Nora B_ Peevy

It never worked. Then all of a sudden I'm diagnosed with ADHD. They put me on ADHD medicine. And for the first time since high school, I've actually been able to sleep.


00:20:16.17

Nora B_ Peevy

And that makes me so angry that I went all that time from the time I was like 13 until 48 not being able to sleep. I mean, that's the huge thing that that actually you need to function for everything.


00:20:25.70

wednesdayleefriday

Yep. Yep.


00:20:30.53

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, totally. Totally. I, they told me I had, ap they told my mother I had apnea when I was a baby, like an infant before I could even talk. And it was treated when I was 37. And, and it's like my whole life people have treated me like shit for being fat. And the number one thing that apnea causes is fatness because you're not sleeping enough and your body just wants food all the time because you don't have any energy.


00:20:58.82

wednesdayleefriday

So I mean, yeah, I get it. That is freaking infuriating. So you started seeing therapists when you were, you said like 10, 10 or 11.


00:21:09.02

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I was really getting bullied at school, um really, really bullied to the point that I got taken out of the school system and put into a completely different one.


00:21:20.04

Nora B_ Peevy

That that's how bad it was. So.


00:21:23.18

wednesdayleefriday

Now, I want to point out that doctors say, oh, they don't know what's wrong with you. They can't tell. They can't tell. The bullies know. The bullies know which kids have something going on.


00:21:34.35

wednesdayleefriday

The bullies know which kids are vulnerable. So let's see what we can do about getting doctors that are as perceptive as a third grade bully, shall we?


00:21:37.30

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes, they do.


00:21:44.14

wednesdayleefriday

um so So when you went to therapy, it was because other people were treating you bad and they wanted to give you coping mechanisms.


00:21:44.28

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:21:51.81

wednesdayleefriday

Am I understanding that right?


00:21:53.29

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes, and also, um, I was having nightmares and I hadn't had the breakthrough nightmare all the way through that I was molested by my uncle. I used to every single night have the same nightmare, but it stopped at a certain period. And I never understood why I didn't fully like my uncle.


00:22:14.00

Nora B_ Peevy

And my uncle passed away.


00:22:16.80

wednesdayleefriday

So.


00:22:16.91

Nora B_ Peevy

And I felt really weird at his funeral and I didn't know why. And that combined with being bullied at school, I got sent to therapy at 10 years old.


00:22:28.83

Nora B_ Peevy

And um then around my freshman, between my freshman and sophomore year, I wanted to commit suicide. So over Thanksgiving break, I was institutionalized in the children's section for about a week. And my parents told everybody that I just was really sick. And only my two best friends knew where I was, because it was such a shameful thing, I guess, for my family and for everybody.


00:23:03.86

Nora B_ Peevy

to know that I was suicidal and and that was I was in a children's ward at the psych hospital. But it got that bad with the bullying by then and with how I felt about myself that I just didn't want to be around anymore. So I was still in therapy at that time, but it just seems like between being 10 up until then, nothing worked and nothing worked all the way through high school and Up until I was 19, finally when I was 19, the nightmare that I had every night like came to the end and then I realized what had happened. and I told my therapist and my family and I thought, okay, now everything is fine, but no, it wasn't fine. I still had a lot to deal with and I hadn't been diagnosed with ADHD or


00:23:59.36

Nora B_ Peevy

anything and nobody talked to me about PTSD with things like that, which I think is pretty stupid that nobody mentioned that.


00:24:07.65

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


00:24:09.34

Nora B_ Peevy

it's I think a lot of things were missed.


00:24:09.62

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


00:24:12.10

Nora B_ Peevy

I mean, from 10 years old until you're 19, nobody notices that you're not sleeping and you might have other behaviors going on because I always was obsessive about certain things.


00:24:29.61

Nora B_ Peevy

And partly that was because my dad was a type A personality. So my parents always thought maybe it's that. But when I get upset, I tend to clean a lot and I can't stop myself or I tend to like purge a lot of my items that I don't use. And that makes me feel good. But that's also a really unhealthy way of dealing with things.


00:24:54.98

wednesdayleefriday

Well, that's that's about exercising control right over your environment.


00:24:57.85

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah. Yeah, because it's the only thing that I can control at that time. Or I'll write like a lot. um Like say in June, I was going through something really bad.


00:25:08.49

Nora B_ Peevy

I sent out 26 submissions that month, which is a lot.


00:25:11.95

wednesdayleefriday

Wow. Yeah, it is. Goodness.


00:25:16.72

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I was writing a lot. And sometimes the insomnia gets really bad. um And I'm still working. I'll work for like three days and I won't sleep.


00:25:30.04

Nora B_ Peevy

And it's crazy. So even with all the sleeping pills that I'm on.


00:25:33.56

wednesdayleefriday

Now, I don't want to make any sort of judgment calls about the adults that were around you during childhood, but man, it would be nice to get to a point where things like trauma and PTSD are common knowledge. I mean, yeah, you, you've repressed this thing that happened to you, which is, I mean, that's knock knock PTSD calling. Um, and the idea that even after it became known what had happened to you, that you weren't given like just baseline information and treatment about PTSD. I mean, I don't want to throw around the world word malpractice, but that's.


00:26:17.40

wednesdayleefriday

That's a big fumble from from everyone who was supposed to have your back at that time. it's ah it's It's really disappointing to hear. Because the thing is, I mean, maybe not so much back then, but even now, there are treatments for PTSD that actually work and help people and improve their lives. I cannot shut up about EMDR. I love it so much. And I maintain that I would not be in my current relationship without it, because I was a flincher.


00:26:46.76

wednesdayleefriday

You know, I grew up in a place where we would just get hit for reasons we did not understand at any time. And so anytime anyone reached for me, I would flinch because we weren't, you know, hugged. Nobody was like kissing us goodnight and stuff when we were kids. You know, it was any physical contact that we had was either medical or or violent. So.


00:27:09.51

wednesdayleefriday

I, when I started hanging out with a man who treated me well, he'd go to put his arm around me and I, and I would flinch and he would feel terrible about it. ah You know, and I'm like, no, no, it's not you. It's not you. I'm, I'm just broken. I'm just, you know, I'm, I'm that, that chewed up piece of gum. They used to tell girls not to be this person that's just been like, had all these awful things happen. And now I'm just this big broken lump of nothing.


00:27:34.77

wednesdayleefriday

And it turned out that like, no, you're a person and you could get better and there's ways to do that. And I don't think enough people know that. I don't think enough people know that good mental health is even an option, that nothing can break you all the way, that if you are still alive, it is possible to come back from it.


00:27:56.53

wednesdayleefriday

um Yeah, sorry, getting a little soapboxy there, but


00:28:00.30

Nora B_ Peevy

That's it there.


00:28:01.52

wednesdayleefriday

But but it's it's just so huge because i I spent, and I would imagine you too, spent a fair bit of time just thinking, well, this is what life is. This kind of sucks, but I guess life just sucks for some people. And it it doesn't have to be that way.


00:28:19.00

wednesdayleefriday

So, and and so you mentioned, um like, I know when I got diagnosed with ADHD, I made a pretty sharp shift from long form work to to short stories, and I ended up doing a lot more ah ah work for it. but But you're still writing both, right? You write long form and short form.


00:28:38.99

Nora B_ Peevy

Well, I'm starting to get into long because I want people to recognize my name more for myself. um But I particularly really do love the short story form. And I don't know if that's just ADHD or if it's just me, but I think it really is an art that is getting lost.


00:29:02.94

Nora B_ Peevy

and I love flash fiction too. I find it really challenging to be able to do a good story in a short amount of time and I just I like anthologies. I love reading those before bed because I can just read one or two stories if I want to and then I can put the book down and I'm not up late going Oh my God, what's happening?


00:29:29.96

Nora B_ Peevy

I have to read another chapter of them before I knew it.


00:29:31.93

wednesdayleefriday

Right, right.


00:29:32.76

Nora B_ Peevy

It's four o'clock in the morning.


00:29:35.62

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, definitely, definitely. um So, but but your book, ah For the Sake of Bridget, so that's that's a ah novel, it's a long form thing.


00:29:45.84

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I guess they classify it as a novelette.


00:29:45.98

wednesdayleefriday

um


00:29:49.12

Nora B_ Peevy

It's almost a novella. And it was supposed to be um included in a B charity book, which there's been a lot of controversy on, on the internet and Facebook.


00:30:03.57

Nora B_ Peevy

So I had that going on. And it just, ah it that anthology didn't go anywhere. And I felt that my story needed to be put somewhere.


00:30:15.16

Nora B_ Peevy

And ah I really feel for the bees, and I felt the story was good enough. So I was going to self-publish it, but then I found Unveiling Nightmares, and I had them publish it instead.


00:30:28.00

Nora B_ Peevy

So I did that.


00:30:30.13

wednesdayleefriday

Ooh, loud noise.


00:30:30.39

Nora B_ Peevy

so yeah Oh, sorry. Somebody came into the kitchen. Sorry.


00:30:38.69

Nora B_ Peevy

yeah ah so that


00:30:40.34

wednesdayleefriday

So, um, I guess I, I'm a little fuzzy on the whole, like what is considered novel length versus a novelette or a novella. I know people argue about it during the nano every year, like, Hey, that's not a novel.


00:30:52.75

wednesdayleefriday

How dare you? Um, how long is it?


00:30:56.19

Nora B_ Peevy

Well, I'm fuzzy on the two, but usually a novella, as I understand it, is less than 40,000 words. A novel starts around 40,000 words. A long short story can be 10 to 12,000 words, and a novelette can be, I think, 12 to 20,000 words.


00:31:24.80

Nora B_ Peevy

And flash fiction goes anywhere from, well if you talk to people, 500 only, or they'll say 500 to 1,500.


00:31:38.28

Nora B_ Peevy

So it depends.


00:31:38.27

wednesdayleefriday

okay well that's wild that yeah i get so confused i have to look it up every time because somebody will say oh you have a magazine do you take dribbles like what the fuck is a dribble oh right i think well


00:31:41.02

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:31:49.43

Nora B_ Peevy

I don't know. I think travel might be a 200, but I'm not really clear on that or 250.


00:31:56.29

wednesdayleefriday

i i think i see i thought a dribble was a hundred but there's also this weird rule where you can't use the same word twice And that, I know, right?


00:32:05.73

Nora B_ Peevy

Oh.


00:32:07.50

wednesdayleefriday

That's just mind games at that point. Like I'm intrigued by it, but I don't think I would seek it out to read. I don't think that that's, that's like, as a reader, I don't think that's a selling point for me.


00:32:18.76

Nora B_ Peevy

there's microfiction too


00:32:20.69

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and the thing is like for the magazine, for for my mag, we um don't pay by the word. We pay by the piece. And that's basically why we do it.


00:32:31.76

wednesdayleefriday

Because I don't want to send the message that this poetry is less valuable than a 10,000 word short story. Because it's not. If it knocks my socks off, i I want it and I want to publish it.


00:32:44.22

wednesdayleefriday

And I don't want to have to count words to find out what its value is because the number of words is not where the value is.


00:32:48.19

Nora B_ Peevy

There's microfiction too.


00:32:52.79

Nora B_ Peevy

I agree. I think sometimes publishers focus too much on that. And the other thing I don't like, um, and I am part of these groups, unfortunately, because I really liked the idea of the magazine, but I hate it when people have a closed group sometimes and nobody knew is ever allowed in because I feel like then it's just a popularity contest.


00:33:16.48

wednesdayleefriday

Oh.


00:33:20.69

Nora B_ Peevy

and it just becomes a click. So if you do allow new people to try to get in, that's great. But if it's just the same people and nobody ever, ever, ever is even allowed to try to get into the group, that's really awful.


00:33:37.69

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah.


00:33:37.95

Nora B_ Peevy

And I know what's happened.


00:33:38.89

wednesdayleefriday

I didn't even know that was happening.


00:33:40.99

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I know that it can happen sometimes.


00:33:41.24

wednesdayleefriday

Is that happening right under my nose?


00:33:46.03

Nora B_ Peevy

And sometimes like you can suggest somebody And if they think they're good enough, then they'll let them in. But if they don't think they're good enough, then they won't let them in.


00:33:57.56

Nora B_ Peevy

And it's frustrating. And I could name a magazine, but I won't because I don't want to cause because i don't want to cause any controversy.


00:34:04.33

wednesdayleefriday

Thank you.


00:34:09.62

wednesdayleefriday

Well, it doesn't sound like you'd be the one causing it, but yeah, I get that. I mean, we I try to not name drop people if I can help it, but I mean, you know, we had an issue with somebody in the, in the community that was, uh, they were doing a little smack talk and I was really concerned about it and.


00:34:29.66

wednesdayleefriday

I think this might even be related to the anthology that you had mentioned earlier, you know, this this person.


00:34:34.51

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


00:34:36.21

wednesdayleefriday

And yeah, it's it's this situation. Well, the thing is that the person in question has been in the industry a lot longer than I have, and they've worked with much bigger names than I have. So when this person came out and accused me of, ah what what was the phrase?


00:34:51.50

wednesdayleefriday

a campaign of terrorism, an ongoing campaign of terror. Like, first of all, I am not motivated enough to engage in an ongoing campaign of productivity. I just don't have it in me, let alone terrorizing someone.


00:35:04.95

wednesdayleefriday

That is just not who I am as a person. I'm not motivated enough for that. Just ask Don Jr. Or don't. But um but when that happened,


00:35:11.92

Nora B_ Peevy

but


00:35:15.35

wednesdayleefriday

I was terrified because, you know, when you don't have a name for yourself, anything that happens can be the thing that people remember you for, you know?


00:35:20.16

Nora B_ Peevy

Mm hmm.


00:35:24.62

Nora B_ Peevy

Exactly.


00:35:25.83

wednesdayleefriday

And I didn't want to be the the horror version of like the hawk-taw girl or whatever. Like i if people know who I am, I want it to be for something that I'm proud of.


00:35:36.63

wednesdayleefriday

And I was actually, I felt really fortunate because anyone who contacted me about what happened was coming from a place of, Oh yeah, man, don't, don't worry about this.


00:35:47.92

wednesdayleefriday

You're fine. We got you. People know this isn't true. You know, this other person has a history, whatever.


00:35:52.60

Nora B_ Peevy

I got that too.


00:35:55.27

wednesdayleefriday

And I was so like touched and moved by that. Like people I barely knew were like, no, no, don't worry about it. It's just your turn. It's like,


00:36:04.33

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I was editing for that person and they kicked me off because I refused to not be friends with people that they didn't like. And then later on, yeah.


00:36:15.10

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, for heaven's sake. Yeah, yeah. Well, and and when when I had heard from that person who contacted me pretending to be their own legal representation representation, one of the things they said to me was, and you may not discuss this with Nora. And I'm like, what? How dare?


00:36:36.60

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes, I'm very bad because apparently I accuse this person, and this is funny, I accuse this person of being a Nazi.


00:36:45.91

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:36:46.17

Nora B_ Peevy

And that has been put on the internet for everyone to see, and I'm just like, What? It worries me too because I'm like what if there's somebody that actually believes this?


00:37:00.99

Nora B_ Peevy

I mean I'm not exactly like a huge name like Stephen King or anything but thankfully nobody really does but still I think it's sad because I really think that this person needs help and nobody is helping and


00:37:01.60

wednesdayleefriday

Right, right. Exactly.


00:37:20.98

Nora B_ Peevy

It just makes me feel bad because the person needs help.


00:37:26.99

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I agree. And I did talk to people that have known this person for quite a long time, actually, and had a lot of of respect for them. And for whatever reason, that has waned be because of of behavior like that. And it it is a shame. and And the thing is that there are various mental ah conditions that can bring about behavior that cause people to lose their social circle. You know, whether it's paranoia or constant anger,


00:37:56.67

wednesdayleefriday

or you know whatever man unless you're you know, some kind of cult leader, people just aren't going to stand for certain behaviors on a regular basis. And it is a shame because I would certainly like, I mean, but whatever I encounter, like super angry people or paranoid people on the internet, I'm like, damn, they must be so unhappy. That must suck to feel that way, to feel that like that's what's going on in the world. Like if you thought half of your country was molesting children or eating babies or something, like,


00:38:28.96

wednesdayleefriday

How would you even function? like I don't know how i don't know how how that can happen. and It's a pretty sad state of affairs. But in the end, the only person that I really get to work on is is me and and anybody else that like that i I live with who asks for my help.


00:38:48.92

wednesdayleefriday

you know i can't ah I think i'm I'm trying to step away from caring a whole lot about people that aren't going to care back.


00:39:00.05

wednesdayleefriday

And it's a tough thing to do because anytime you have to extract yourself from a situation, there's guilt, there's those little voices in your head that are like, Oh, what makes you think you're so special that you shouldn't have to deal with blah, blah, blah, you know, or it's it's just, uh, it feels like there's always a cost when you stand up for yourself in front of, you know, in, it in, uh, with regard to other people.


00:39:00.81

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


00:39:26.03

Nora B_ Peevy

I know you're always seen as being defensive and being whiny and one especially if you're a woman.


00:39:33.47

wednesdayleefriday

emotional, don't be emotional, right? Yep, yep, yep. So okay, now I know that your book I've read some reviews on it for the sake of Brigid.


00:39:45.90

wednesdayleefriday

And ah part of the the theme is is one of revenge. Now, I had a my my foray into paganism was actually a phase.


00:39:51.26

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:39:57.17

wednesdayleefriday

um I wanted to learn a whole lot about it and see if it fit into my life. And I i don't think it it really did. in most ways, but I am not really remembering Brigid being a vengeful goddess. What's the story there?


00:40:12.91

Nora B_ Peevy

She isn't really, she's more of the goddess of the hearth and more about love, but she is the goddess of bees. And in my story, one of the neighbors, because they're feuding neighbors who get into this horrible, horrible thing where they hate each other and they just go back and forth doing these really bad things.


00:40:33.23

Nora B_ Peevy

And the character Lydia gets to the point where she goes over to Nora's house, who is a beekeeper, and she sets all of the beehives on fire.


00:40:46.06

Nora B_ Peevy

And I did with an H instead of an A.


00:40:46.35

wednesdayleefriday

hold up hold up you gave a character your name that is that is balls out I've never never done such a thing I mean obviously my name's a little weirder but I love that so much


00:40:54.41

Nora B_ Peevy

well


00:41:00.13

Nora B_ Peevy

I love your name. I think it's cool.


00:41:03.30

wednesdayleefriday

Well, it's tough when you're a kid and you don't have any self-esteem and all you really want is to be normal. It's kind of a thing to be saddled with. But yeah, I grew into it eventually. I embraced my oddness, so it it ended up working out in the end.


00:41:18.53

Nora B_ Peevy

Hey, i they had that series Busy Body Nora when I was younger. So ah I hated that series at the library. but But now I like my name.


00:41:28.85

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:41:31.10

Nora B_ Peevy

I was named after my grandma, but um back to the, I was named after my grandma, but


00:41:33.66

wednesdayleefriday

Ah.


00:41:38.62

Nora B_ Peevy

But back to the story, so Lydia goes to Nora's house and burns all of her beehives, which is when Brigid gets angry and shows up because she's also the goddess of bees. And she's like, well, you know, I've had enough because she's also a nature goddess and a nurturer and mother nature. and And with everything else that has happened, she's just like, okay, it's gone too far.


00:42:05.74

Nora B_ Peevy

Now you've gone after my bees, which is one of my symbols. You've done this horrible act and i I know how horrible it was for my bees to die this way because, yeah, I researched how bees die and and it's pretty icky and pretty horrible for the way that they look after they die and stuff.


00:42:27.04

wednesdayleefriday

Really? I know nothing about it.


00:42:29.67

Nora B_ Peevy

So, so she shows up and she's just like, this is it. I'm just so tired of you two. I'm just going to exact revenge, which is not what she normally does. But after that, she's like, I've had it. And she just goes on this rampage because She's the goddess of bees. And she's like, that's it. So that's how she became who she was. And since it was supposed to be like ah a nature vengeance, I wanted to go for something that had to do and had to be a bee thing because it was a bee charity and theology. And I love writing about goddesses and gods and mythology. So I was like, well, what am I going to do? So I looked up all these different goddesses and everything and I settled on Brigid.


00:43:17.63

Nora B_ Peevy

because I didn't know she was a goddess of bees. And I was like, well, what would she do if? Because that's how a lot of my stories start with the one question, what if?


00:43:28.41

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.


00:43:28.70

Nora B_ Peevy

And so that's how that story came about.


00:43:32.65

wednesdayleefriday

Wow, I love it. So um I think it it sounds like I guess what I was thinking about was if you have like a nurturing feminine presence that sufficiently provoked. That's what I mean, are are you making a commentary about nurturing women in general when when you tell that story?


00:43:57.15

Nora B_ Peevy

Um, I think more of like, I'm making a commentary that you don't really have control over nature, that nature has control over us.


00:44:11.20

Nora B_ Peevy

And also that we should be respectful of nature because it can turn on us at any time and bad things can happen and just, you


00:44:24.46

wednesdayleefriday

Well, yeah, we're we're kind of getting slapped in the face with that right now. And there's a lot of people who still don't get it.


00:44:29.20

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes. And just in general that we should value bees and that just in general, people can be really, really horrible to each other for the smallest little thing. And and we should be better to each other than we are, especially the neighbors that we live around. It's it's so different. I mean, we don't really even get to know our neighbors most of the time. We don't even talk to them anymore. And I find that hard because where I grew up, we knew our neighbors and we talked to them all the time. And and now it seems like nobody wants to talk to each other. And it's weird if you talk to each other, which is an odd concept to me.


00:45:15.98

wednesdayleefriday

i yeah I have to agree with that. I grew up in a neighborhood with like lots of different families with kids and everybody had at least a passing acquaintance ship with everybody and you knew their names and whose kids were whose.


00:45:29.57

wednesdayleefriday

I've lived in this apartment with my husband for almost 20 years. Right around 20 years we've been here, I could not tell you the name of anyone else in this building, not one person.


00:45:40.58

Nora B_ Peevy

this


00:45:41.82

wednesdayleefriday

you know, even when I look at people's mail mail, and I'm like, Oh, well, that's not me. So I don't care who it is, you know, look through the packages or whatever. But yeah, and and I don't, I don't love that. I mean, because obviously you don't get to choose who lives near you. But I mean, it it seems like you could strike up a conversation with just about anyone and find some sort of common ground to agree with, even if it's like, you know, this weather sucks.


00:46:04.72

Nora B_ Peevy

Thank you.


00:46:11.12

wednesdayleefriday

Like, there's always a path to having some sort of relationship to the people around you just because we're all humans, you know?


00:46:21.48

wednesdayleefriday

But at the same time, we've all met humans and some of them suck and we're all really busy and, you know, you don't always want to take the chance. So it could be a tough line to to walk. But yeah, I think I think you're right. I think people in general do better when they have community, not just on the Internet, but like in real life in a physical sense.


00:46:43.74

Nora B_ Peevy

And I think we tend to care more than about our neighborhood and the way it it looks and the trees and the plants and the playgrounds and common areas where people can meet them because we do want to socialize then. So we take care of those places. Whereas if we don't care about socializing, then we don't seem to take pride in things like that as much and we let those things go. So you don't get community gardens and you get a lot of littering and you get a lot of people who don't care about the trees that are in their yard which are really important to the environment and and people don't care about the bees and things like that and


00:47:39.35

Nora B_ Peevy

You get people using a lot of bad fertilizers because they don't educate themselves.


00:47:43.13

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.


00:47:44.07

Nora B_ Peevy

And just I think just so much comes from not being a real community.


00:47:52.42

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I think that's that's really accurate between that, ah like, the, the lack of community because. For the oligarchs, it's much better for them if we all hate each other, if we don't talk to each other, you know, similar to bosses that don't want anyone to discuss their salary. You know, they don't want people to sit around and say, hey, look, we're kind of getting screwed. And there's some really small steps we could take to have people screw us less. You know, if we grew our own groceries, it wouldn't cripple us every time they jack up food prices for no reason, stuff like that.


00:48:28.76

wednesdayleefriday

But the thing is that at its most basic, it requires people to trust each other and rely on each other. And there are so many forces right now that are so, so opposed to that for their own reasons, you know, this whole divide and conquer thing where they get all the proles furious at each other and pointing fingers and and freaking out about social issues when really you know i mean You could to turn your your neighborhood into stone soup.


00:48:59.10

wednesdayleefriday

you know that That could have happened during COVID.


00:48:59.92

Nora B_ Peevy

me Yeah.


00:49:01.14

wednesdayleefriday

We could have just all got together and said, let's all pitch in and figure this out. And we didn't. Instead, we fist fought each other over toilet paper and called people communists for going to the doctor and getting vaccinated.


00:49:13.75

wednesdayleefriday

so yeah know it's ah It's pretty frustrating. Now, let me ask you this. As someone who practices witchcraft, what can you do for the rest of us?


00:49:28.73

Nora B_ Peevy

Um, I think I've been doing a lot of praying to the goddess about being more of a service to my community and trying to help my community as much as I can and trying to be as respectful of nature as I can, trying to be as understanding as I can of my fellow man and realizing that they're just like me. Maybe they're having a bad day when I run into them instead of just thinking, Oh, that person's an asshole. Maybe I'm meeting them on a day when they just got fired from work and I don't know that. So that's why they're really bitchy when they're at the grocery store, you know, or,


00:50:23.99

Nora B_ Peevy

maybe somebody died and they're having a really hard time dealing with it. um As a witch, I meet in a park around a really old oak and every single time that we're there, we you know give a little tithing to the tree and we thank the mother goddess for what we do have in nature. And all of us are trying to forage and trying to make more green places in our neighborhoods and make people more aware of what they can do and trying to educate them. And I think that's really important, especially for young kids to make them more interested in the environment instead of them for them to think it's not a place to be and just to stay indoors. Because I remember going outside and not coming in until the lights were going on.


00:51:23.78

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:51:24.17

Nora B_ Peevy

you know or my mom called my name and then I knew it was dinner time.


00:51:28.95

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.


00:51:29.41

Nora B_ Peevy

And now kids are like, what? You're sending me outdoors to play? What am I supposed to do out there?


00:51:35.92

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


00:51:36.83

Nora B_ Peevy

And they don't know.


00:51:37.14

wednesdayleefriday

There are no video games outside.


00:51:39.19

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


00:51:39.21

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, that's that's huge because I know when I was hanging out with ah with Witches, so much of it was about ritual and ceremony and tradition and getting into the old traditions.


00:51:52.56

wednesdayleefriday

And I don't, like I find all that interesting, but I don't necessarily think that looking back hundreds of years is the way to to fix anything that's happening today. And it sounds like what you have been up to is a lot more proactive and a lot more community spirit based. Cause I would also say that being a solitary witch seems ah the The phrase that comes to mind is is up your own ass.


00:52:22.35

wednesdayleefriday

Not like the you you but the, I mean obviously that's that's a very judgmental statement, but I i do question the yeah the the usefulness of


00:52:23.10

Nora B_ Peevy

That's not really, yeah.


00:52:36.99

wednesdayleefriday

doing something, I mean, you're like a personal spirituality that doesn't extend beyond yourself, I guess is is what I'm getting at. But, you know, some people, ah even Christians do that, that thing where they say they have a personal relationship with Jesus.


00:52:52.66

wednesdayleefriday

And, and I always want to ask whether or not Jesus is aware of of that. But that's because I'm disdainful towards so many religions and the way that their practice because


00:52:58.50

Nora B_ Peevy

well but


00:53:04.59

Nora B_ Peevy

I'm not religious. I would say that I'm not. I'm pagan and I am solitary. And that is because covens are a power hungry thing where everybody's trying to be the leader.


00:53:18.06

Nora B_ Peevy

So i taking yeah, my pagan group is, I mean, some of them are pagan and they're also Christian.


00:53:18.15

wednesdayleefriday

um they sure can be yeah


00:53:25.89

Nora B_ Peevy

or they're pagan and they're Buddhist. and We pretty much accept anyone. It's just we get together to celebrate the full moon. And it's really, um some of us will grow too many tomato plants.


00:53:37.42

Nora B_ Peevy

So we'll bring tomato plants and be like, hey, who wants a tomato plant? Or we grew too much of this herb.


00:53:43.03

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, they sure can be.


00:53:43.97

Nora B_ Peevy

Hey, who would like some of this? So it's it's really nice because we do share things and we have ah events and parties and it's not,


00:53:55.80

Nora B_ Peevy

It's not a power thing. And we're not about tools, really expensive tools. We believe that, you know, just being in nature is being spiritual. You don't need to buy like fancy wands and and be like, yeah.


00:54:09.17

wednesdayleefriday

Well, yeah, that that will just cripple you. I mean, people went when I was was hanging out with pagans, they were really super smug about that. Like, oh, well, if you were sincere, you would have blah, blah, blah.


00:54:22.07

wednesdayleefriday

Like, yeah, I'm not I'm not less sincere because I can't drop three hundred dollars on crystals today.


00:54:22.31

Nora B_ Peevy

That's carbon demand. Yeah. but


00:54:29.78

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, it's the Gardenian and that's the very, very old following of witches where you have to have very expensive tools, very expensive wands and the ceremony is really, really long and really flowery and I guess I'm what you call a dirty witch.


00:54:31.25

wednesdayleefriday

That's.


00:54:34.87

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.


00:54:48.02

Nora B_ Peevy

All I need this is me and myself and out in nature and I'm good with that.


00:54:53.08

wednesdayleefriday

Uh, teeth or a coil would be horrified.


00:54:59.29

Nora B_ Peevy

That's how I describe myself. And when I do tarot, like I just use my kitchen table. I don't have anything fancy. I don't have a crystal ball or a ton of crystals and or a ton of candles. It's like you really don't need any of that. All you need is yourself.


00:55:16.28

Nora B_ Peevy

to connect to something. it's It's the same with any path. It's just you... I mean, a religion is just a tool to follow some type of creation.


00:55:30.32

Nora B_ Peevy

And that isn't faith. Faith is something totally different than religion. So...


00:55:37.21

wednesdayleefriday

Mm-hmm.


00:55:38.45

Nora B_ Peevy

i'm religion just perverts things and tries to control people, in my opinion, and I'm against that. So...


00:55:45.74

wednesdayleefriday

Cool. Well, I'm glad that that we talked about this. I actually did not know that ah you were a solitary witch or I probably wouldn't have set up your own ass.


00:55:56.39

wednesdayleefriday

Whoops.


00:55:57.69

Nora B_ Peevy

That's okay, it's fine.


00:55:59.47

wednesdayleefriday

Well, but I mean, I think that um like any religion can get into that with you know with the trappings, that that you fall into that.


00:56:10.86

wednesdayleefriday

like i mean The first time someone gave me a a crucifix that was solid silver, and everybody that i that saw it couldn't shut up about, oh, it's so beautiful.


00:56:17.34

Nora B_ Peevy

say


00:56:21.66

wednesdayleefriday

It's this, it's that. It's the most majestic thing I'd ever seen. I didn't want to wear it, man. It was a half-naked man being tortured, and I didn't want it around my neck. and


00:56:32.84

wednesdayleefriday

And i the the whole thing was so macabre. And then for a while we had to go to Catholic school. And it was this whole thing about like, i didn't I didn't realize that there were people who took religion literally. I really thought it was like Santa Claus. It was something they told kids to make them shut up and behave. So as an adult, looking at other adults and being like,


00:56:57.97

wednesdayleefriday

what do you are you Are you literally saying you think that person has a demon inside of them? because i don't want to i mean that's That's terrifying.


00:57:08.27

wednesdayleefriday

It's terrifying to me that an adult person would think that it is the stuff of horror stories.


00:57:09.18

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay.


00:57:11.68

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


00:57:14.05

wednesdayleefriday

I was in a ah therapy group once and one of the women would talk all the time about demons. And I thought that she was just you know being philosophical about it, like how people talk about it ah addiction as a disease that wants to kill you. you know So I thought it was all figurative. And then one day she warned me that when she looked at my husband, she saw a demon inside of him, and that if I needed help you know neutralizing him, that I should let her know.


00:57:42.46

wednesdayleefriday

and I mean, that's terrifying. That that goes well beyond like, you know, tithing, even when you can't afford it and stuff like that is and and again, she was a Christian.


00:57:55.91

wednesdayleefriday

So that's a major religion in this country. A lot of people are doing that.


00:57:59.87

Nora B_ Peevy

billion i Yeah, I have to say I was raised in the Methodist Church um from the time that I was baptized until I finally stopped believing it around 14 and that's when I started exploring world religions and then I became an atheist


00:58:01.05

wednesdayleefriday

And


00:58:27.06

Nora B_ Peevy

And then after that, I sort of was like, maybe I might be pagan. And for a while, I thought about it. And then I was like, maybe I might be a witch. I don't know. And then finally, I was like, yeah, I'm a witch.


00:58:40.14

Nora B_ Peevy

So I've had an interesting journey. But it was a spiritual journey. And my mom was supportive of it. But my dad, like he's he's gone already.


00:58:49.75

wednesdayleefriday

if


00:58:52.55

Nora B_ Peevy

He would have just died.


00:58:56.29

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.


00:58:57.19

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, he would not have liked it. So it it was interesting that I went from Methodist to atheist to questioning everything and then decided on this. And I honestly, I left the Methodist Church because I didn't like the questions that they answered um about the way that gays were treated. And I didn't like having to read the same prayers as everybody else at the same time.


00:59:24.14

Nora B_ Peevy

And I didn't like being told that I was a sinner and that I needed to ask to be worth worthy of God's forgiveness.


00:59:27.30

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.


00:59:32.04

Nora B_ Peevy

There were so many things that just really bothered me. I didn't like it that women couldn't run a service. I didn't like the amount of money that you had to give every week.


00:59:44.73

Nora B_ Peevy

There were so many things wrong. I saw the pastor being really corrupt. I mean, he promised that he would pay the organist back for the piano light, and then he never did. And I was like, what? This is Christianity? I'm so out of here.


01:00:03.32

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and that's why if if you are not sure whether or not people really believe what they're saying, like as a kid, I would watch the behavior of these Christians that would say, oh, you should be kind and nice all the time.


01:00:03.34

Nora B_ Peevy

and but


01:00:15.32

wednesdayleefriday

And then they would call their kids assholes right in front of us. You know, like you're not doing the thing you said you were doing. Like I had a friend who had a friend and they were supposedly a Christian couple.


01:00:27.88

wednesdayleefriday

and they were engaged and they couldn't shut up about how like bad it was not to be Christian and it's so important and this and that. They were having all kinds of sex before they were married.


01:00:38.71

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, I don't mind that you're doing that.


01:00:39.15

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


01:00:40.79

wednesdayleefriday

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I'm pretty sure your guy and your book and all of what you guys do say you're not supposed to do that. Well, why are you in a church that says not to do that if you're going to go ahead and do it?


01:00:53.98

wednesdayleefriday

like i don't that's that's one of the things that just blindsides me about Christianity is that even at its best People are preaching things that they have no intention to practice. Now, I have a friend who is an Episcopalian minister. I have tremendous respect for him. I believe that his faith is absolutely sincere. I think deep down he's an atheist. I don't think he believes that there's a God. I think he uses the church as a way to encourage people to live better lives. And if that's what it takes, I'm for it. But it'd be nice if you didn't have to play mind games with people to get them to be nice to each other.


01:01:33.48

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I think the church has perverted what Jesus really said. Jesus was a political figure and he was just trying to get people to be nicer. And I think, you know,


01:01:47.75

Nora B_ Peevy

The Romans didn't really like that because he was trying to take money away from the rich and he cared about the poor and he cared about prostitutes and he was saying, hey, this is wrong. We should not be doing things this way. But then along came people who wanted power and money. And so they used it to create the church and then they perverted what he said. And now we have these weird churches going on.


01:02:18.75

Nora B_ Peevy

I think if he were alive today, he'd be like, no, no, this isn't what I meant. And I think it's really hypocritical if you look at the Catholic Church and they're all like, yeah, I mean, they have so much gold.


01:02:28.18

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah.


01:02:32.52

Nora B_ Peevy

on alters and everything, but they want you to help the poor. It's just like, what, what is going on? Like, why do you have that?


01:02:40.92

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


01:02:43.29

Nora B_ Peevy

But you talk about helping the poor and how you need to give more, but you have that sitting in your church. It's like, and ah so I separate like the church from the man and I separate the church as being like,


01:03:01.62

Nora B_ Peevy

not faith, but being the religion and the tool that has been corrupted but to follow the faith. And that's how I look at it, because I really think Jesus would not have said those things.


01:03:17.63

Nora B_ Peevy

And plus, a lot of the the Bible was written after he was gone.


01:03:22.08

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah.


01:03:22.21

Nora B_ Peevy

So I think he would have been like, hey, man, um what are you dudes doing?


01:03:22.79

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


01:03:27.21

Nora B_ Peevy

ah


01:03:30.40

Nora B_ Peevy

I don't think he would have been very happy.


01:03:33.51

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I mean, I don't think he would have been that white either. Like that the Jesus people have been taught is not really.


01:03:38.13

Nora B_ Peevy

Right.


01:03:40.88

wednesdayleefriday

yeah Yeah, I think we could probably talk all day about that. um What I do want to focus on though is that, like you you mentioned your dad and that he would not really be down with ah your your journey through paganism.


01:03:56.45

wednesdayleefriday

um And I know a lot of people will say that like, oh, of course I don't believe in witchcraft. Of course that's not real. um But the the need for men to stomp out witches and witchcraft and any sort of woman who is self-possessed and has power and agency um what What are your thoughts about that in particular with regard to um to paganism? Because I know there are still the problems that you see with ah other religions in paganism. you know People being exploitive, people trying to get money out of you, people trying to make themselves a little harem, you know whatever. um is Is that part of what led you to be a solitary practitioner?


01:04:47.65

Nora B_ Peevy

Um, no, what led me to be a solitary practitioner is really because covens. Um, I don't really trust covens because it is really a big power play that everybody wants to be able to lead a ceremony and people are very judgmental and they want to be the high priestess and they want to get to that point where they have out all the power to lead the ceremonies.


01:05:17.45

Nora B_ Peevy

And I don't think that that is the way that it should be. um And also, there are some groups that are into sharing sex magic, and I am not okay with that. I'm okay with being sky-clad, which my group doesn't do, but i'm I'm not okay with doing a bunch of sex stuff in front of other people.


01:05:45.45

Nora B_ Peevy

And there are some groups that do do that. I have not really seen them, but I've heard that they still exist.


01:05:54.10

wednesdayleefriday

Yikes.


01:05:54.30

Nora B_ Peevy

I only have a problem with sex rights between you and the person that you're with, you know, and but I think that's a private thing, not a group thing, so.


01:06:05.94

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and certainly consent is an issue with things like that because people sometimes forget that, like, bringing people into your sexual situation is has also has to be consensual. like People that do things in public, everybody that can see you needs to be in on that. Otherwise, there's you know that's not okay. It's not consensual. It's it's borderline abusive.


01:06:32.82

wednesdayleefriday

um because yeah i mean i'm I'm really with you on that because i it seems like there's always Like an undercurrent. Like those kinds of things are not are not pure. You know, that there's a sexual component there that that exists separately from anything religious or spiritual that's happening when you get into like open sex in a circle. um I want actually to to move on to another topic if we can.


01:07:07.09

wednesdayleefriday

um


01:07:07.29

Nora B_ Peevy

Sure.


01:07:08.32

wednesdayleefriday

You've got a book coming up called Flesh Eating Turtles.


01:07:12.25

Nora B_ Peevy

can


01:07:13.89

wednesdayleefriday

I gotta know more. ah I encountered snapping turtles in a lake once when I was at camp and they'll mash you up. they they're They're nothing to to sneeze at.


01:07:24.63

wednesdayleefriday

um just Just a regular old snapping turtle. So what's going on here?


01:07:29.09

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay, um this is kind of a schlocky, campy type of splatterpunk. extreme horror novel where there is a lab and they are using CRISPR in science to try to figure out how to better use the growth hormone that they are with cows to see if they can use that with humans and with other animals. And they ran out of rats because of other different


01:08:06.38

Nora B_ Peevy

groups that are testing so they ended up with turtles and what they don't realize is that the turtles are very dangerous and some people that work there that are very low on the totem pole they end up taking some of the turtles out of there which is pretty horrible because some of the turtles get away and the food chain is affected because when one of the turtle bites and another, they end up passing along that DNA that is in their saliva and they just grow. So all these animals grow, so they become like part turtle and part larger, whatever they are, and they just take over and they just end up biting one other. So they're biting all themselves and the turtles and all the different animals and they just get larger and larger and they just go on


01:09:04.21

Nora B_ Peevy

a raging campy eating humans and hunting everything. So yeah, it's kind of like them and those other 1950s, 1960s things where you have very, very large, large animals running around eating everybody.


01:09:10.08

wednesdayleefriday

Yikes!


01:09:23.56

wednesdayleefriday

Well, that was ah like a 70s theme too, because there was Day of the Animals, there was um The Prophecy that had Armand de Santé in it, and it had those like bears that were getting the mercury poisoning or something.


01:09:23.72

Nora B_ Peevy

yeah Yes.


01:09:36.19

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


01:09:36.33

wednesdayleefriday

They got all big and mean. Do do you watch a lot of those like CGI B-movies?


01:09:41.66

Nora B_ Peevy

I do, and actually I love researching and putting science, if I can, into my stories because it makes it more believable.


01:09:49.94

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.


01:09:50.00

Nora B_ Peevy

And I talked to somebody who actually works in a lab, and she said that um I had understood CRISPR well enough that this actually, the CRISPR, the way that I used it, she's like, that actually could happen the way that you used it.


01:10:05.62

Nora B_ Peevy

So I was like, yay!


01:10:05.98

wednesdayleefriday

Fantastic. Yeah, that is great.


01:10:09.60

Nora B_ Peevy

So.


01:10:11.16

wednesdayleefriday

Well, the thing is that the more scientifically grounded the story is, the more fun and terrifying it is when it all goes to hell.


01:10:19.39

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


01:10:19.39

wednesdayleefriday

So I love that. So I have to ask, I bring up this movie a lot because I can't get over it.


01:10:22.23

Nora B_ Peevy

so


01:10:26.35

wednesdayleefriday

There's like two B movies that are my all time faves. there' but There's Velocipaster. which has Voltaire in it. Have you seen that one? Because they're therere they're working on a ah sequel, actually.


01:10:34.41

Nora B_ Peevy

I not. That sounds cool.


01:10:39.24

wednesdayleefriday

Velocipaster is must-see. I mean, it's it's even worth watching if you can only see it with commercials.


01:10:44.35

Nora B_ Peevy

Huh?


01:10:44.86

wednesdayleefriday

so um like it It is well worth sitting down to to see. And it has Voltaire in it, and I love Voltaire. so But also Inhumanwitch.


01:10:51.60

Nora B_ Peevy

Cool.


01:10:56.67

Nora B_ Peevy

I haven't seen that one either.


01:10:58.43

wednesdayleefriday

In human, which it was on YouTube. I don't know if it still is, but, uh, it's, it really looks like it was made for about $45. Like the backgrounds are like poster boards with drawn on with Sharpie. Like it's so funny and everyone involved is having the best time. Like it's, there is such joy in the making of this film and.


01:11:20.97

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, I can't because it's about astronauts and they in no way had the budget to do a movie about astronauts and they're in space. and And yeah, something happens to one of their, um apparently their their wives made their lunches before they went off into space because that's how astronauts works, right?


01:11:30.07

Nora B_ Peevy

ah That's funny.


01:11:39.79

wednesdayleefriday

um and Yeah, so there's some kind of mysterious Romero-esque radiation that impacts their sandwiches and they become carnivorous sandwiches and big blobs of meat be.


01:11:53.13

Nora B_ Peevy

It's funny.


01:11:54.57

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, yeah it it really it's.


01:11:57.35

Nora B_ Peevy

thomas stewart


01:11:57.59

wednesdayleefriday

what


01:11:58.37

Nora B_ Peevy

and for h two desk Sorry about that.


01:12:01.91

wednesdayleefriday

That's OK.


01:12:05.34

Nora B_ Peevy

Stop it. Go away.


01:12:06.83

wednesdayleefriday

OK, we good there?


01:12:10.80

Nora B_ Peevy

No.


01:12:10.91

wednesdayleefriday

all right ah okay okay we're unpaused so


01:12:11.76

Nora B_ Peevy

My phone doesn't want to turn off. Why doesn't anyone want to turn off?


01:12:18.96

Nora B_ Peevy

it I'm just going to put it into a different room. I'll be right back.


01:12:33.52

Nora B_ Peevy

Hold on a second.


01:12:37.82

wednesdayleefriday

But yes.


01:12:37.98

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay. Okay.


01:12:39.15

wednesdayleefriday

Inhumanwich. Inhumanwich.


01:12:40.71

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


01:12:41.79

wednesdayleefriday

Must see. Must see. Well, what's your favorite B-movie?


01:12:47.22

Nora B_ Peevy

My favorite B-movie is Frank and Fish.


01:12:50.35

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah, I could certainly appreciate that. Are you SharknadoFan?


01:12:58.51

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes! I've only seen the first one, but yes.


01:13:03.15

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I actually got a signed a script from Thunder 11. He was putting them up on eBay and a body of mine bought it for me. And that guy cracks me up because he wrote, I think, the first four Sharknados. And then after that, they take a giant nosedive because the new writers made the movies ridiculous. You know, the Sharknados are in like colonial America and Ben Franklin and shit, but they're not funny.


01:13:31.10

wednesdayleefriday

You know, it, it can't just be ridiculous. It also has to make you laugh. Um, and obviously in sharks have to be in the weather and and eat people. Um, so, so what, what do you, uh, what are you working on right now? What are you writing these days?


01:13:47.84

Nora B_ Peevy

I'm actually working on a story with Thomas Stewart and it is a dark fantasy romance that There are fallen angels. One of the angels realizes that he is an angel. The female the female angel, she doesn't realize it. she's um She's kind of just going through the motions of being a human and she's finding all these feathers and the guy angels following her. There are demons that want to


01:14:28.63

Nora B_ Peevy

keep them apart because if they're together they might be able to save the world. um The male is named Adam and the female is named Evelyn. um We might throw in some more biblical stuff, we're not sure. ah Let's see, I have a collection that I'm doing called Safic Divinity, which is just like it sounds, it's all woman, sapphic,


01:14:58.57

Nora B_ Peevy

lesbian, um, it's mostly goddesses that have interacted somehow with humans. And then I am working, I just got put into the author syndicate for thrill ride magazine.


01:15:15.26

Nora B_ Peevy

So that's kind of cool. Cause I've never worked in the spy fast cars gadget, James Bond world. That'll be fun. Um,


01:15:24.38

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.


01:15:26.27

Nora B_ Peevy

I'm going to be doing a couple of Splatterpunk anthologies for unveiling nightmares, which we haven't decided on names. One I think is called Splatterdome. I'm not sure what the other one is. And then I'm working on a witch story with Hedy Johansson. And it's about a witch who was executed during the Salem witch um trials and she has come back and is living in the modern day and loggers have come to her family's ancestral land and they're clear cutting everything and she's very angry and she meets two young people one who is reincarnated and is actually a witch and doesn't know it and another is her boyfriend and there's a when to go in the story too.


01:16:21.85

Nora B_ Peevy

So those are the things that I am working on right now.


01:16:22.60

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, wow.


01:16:25.97

wednesdayleefriday

Wow. That's so much. Do you have writing partners? Do you have people that you write with?


01:16:30.67

Nora B_ Peevy

This is the first time I'm actually writing with anybody. um I also have a witch story that I plotted out myself. That's fantasy. So we'll, we'll see what that comes out to. But I've never written with anybody, but I decided that I wanted to write with two people.


01:16:46.98

Nora B_ Peevy

um Around the same time. So and actually both of them are going really well and I like the experience a lot um usually I'll write and get to a part in the plot where things are Going really well and I get exhausted and I'm not sure What should happen next and I hand it over to the other person and they'll write until they're like, okay now I don't know what should happen and then I take over and And that's usually how that's going or we'll decide to write 1500 words or two chapters and then pass it back and forth.


01:17:27.83

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.


01:17:28.05

Nora B_ Peevy

And it's working out really well. It's um just trying to blend the voices and make sure that you keep the plot points the same so they don't change.


01:17:39.83

wednesdayleefriday

So wait, so when you do that, are you writing first person or third person?


01:17:39.94

Nora B_ Peevy

So.


01:17:44.01

Nora B_ Peevy

um Writing third person, um at one point I was writing first person for the one that I was working on, the angel one with Thomas Stewart, but we decided it was it was too hard to write first person for the two characters switching back and forth, so we went to third person.


01:18:06.23

wednesdayleefriday

OK.


01:18:07.20

Nora B_ Peevy

Though it would be interesting to do a first person and flip back and forth between two people. I might want to do that at some point.


01:18:16.08

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I love that. I have a couple of of novels that are multiple perspective, first person, just because I like to kind of like The Sopranos does. I really like to explore how people misunderstand each other and how that you know, how that can ripple out into various types of consequences.


01:18:35.68

wednesdayleefriday

um Let me ask you this, if somebody is completely unfamiliar with your published works, where should they start?


01:18:44.89

Nora B_ Peevy

with my published works. I think where they should start is with Eighth Tower Publishing, which is going to probably say Eighth Tower Bandcamp. I know that's going to be confusing, but the reason it says that is because every single single anthology that Raphael Pizella puts out has an accompanies CD that goes with the anthology so you can either buy like the book and the CD or you can just buy the book.


01:19:11.50

wednesdayleefriday

Oh neat!


01:19:17.24

Nora B_ Peevy

So that's probably the best place to find me. um I've done two podcasts of my book like of stories for the Wicked Library.


01:19:28.15

Nora B_ Peevy

I have done three podcasts for Sudden Fictions podcasts. The Wicked Library and the Sudden Fictions podcasts are free, so you can find me on there.


01:19:41.43

Nora B_ Peevy

And I i think that would be the best place.


01:19:41.80

wednesdayleefriday

Cool.


01:19:44.24

Nora B_ Peevy

um For the sake of Bridget, if you have Kindle Unlimited is free, and it is only 99 cents on godless.com.


01:19:54.55

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, wow.


01:19:54.98

Nora B_ Peevy

and


01:19:55.74

wednesdayleefriday

Do you have a lake tree so I could like put all that together for people?


01:19:56.14

Nora B_ Peevy

what


01:19:59.60

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, I do have a link tree.


01:20:01.62

wednesdayleefriday

Okay, cool. Then we'll put that in the description so that anybody that wants that information will have it handy. Um, we're, we're actually nearing, um, the end of our question list.


01:20:08.50

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah. one


01:20:12.30

wednesdayleefriday

Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we have not covered?


01:20:17.47

Nora B_ Peevy

um Well, I don't know if you had any questions for me about submission reading and how that goes or anything like that.


01:20:26.85

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, what we could definitely talk about that. Cause I've actually, I mean, I, we don't get a real robust lot of submissions when I was running e-horror. Um, I,


01:20:38.38

wednesdayleefriday

We had like a team of people that would go through the slush pile and I wouldn't look at anything unless the slush pile people said it was good. Is that, is that what you're doing? You go through like the the whole, like everything to see what's, what's worth picking out and pursuing.


01:20:53.30

Nora B_ Peevy

um Usually I get the slush pile, but sometimes I get some from the editor that says, this is priority. We've published this person before, read this. Generally with the slush pile, the rule that we have is you go through the first 10 pages. If you are interested in the first 10 pages, then you read another 10 and then you tell the editor, yes,


01:21:20.25

Nora B_ Peevy

and they will have somebody else read the entire thing before any type of contract is signed. um It's really, really painful when you get things that don't have very good grammar or people that don't know ah good dialogue that can really suck.


01:21:36.66

wednesdayleefriday

yeah


01:21:42.78

Nora B_ Peevy

um I'm usually the only one that does a lot of reading for them I sometimes read up to 300 manuscripts per season, which is a lot, but I really enjoy it.


01:21:57.42

Nora B_ Peevy

I've been working there for over four years now.


01:21:59.71

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. That's, that's a journal stone.


01:22:03.51

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, journal stone trepidatio, yeah.


01:22:05.74

wednesdayleefriday

So is that, that's Christopher Payne? Is that the guy running things over there?


01:22:10.31

Nora B_ Peevy

um Scarlett LJ is who I'm, she's my boss.


01:22:16.05

wednesdayleefriday

Okay.


01:22:16.48

Nora B_ Peevy

um


01:22:17.62

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I i did, uh, I was with, uh, in an anthology through journal stone years and years ago, and that was my contact Christopher Payne.


01:22:17.63

Nora B_ Peevy

um


01:22:24.70

wednesdayleefriday

And I thought that he was the head guy over there at the time, but that it was a while ago.


01:22:28.45

Nora B_ Peevy

I think he is. I'm not sure, but I think he still is. And I know that they're out of Chicago, which is pretty close to me. Aren't you in Chicago?


01:22:36.41

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, okay. I'm in Ann Arbor.


01:22:39.74

Nora B_ Peevy

Ah, okay. Why did I think you were in Chicago?


01:22:44.75

wednesdayleefriday

Uh, I went to Chicago for my honeymoon and I can't shut up about it because I got to see a, uh, Komodo dragon in person.


01:22:44.92

Nora B_ Peevy

I don't know.


01:22:52.54

Nora B_ Peevy

Oh my gosh. That's so cool.


01:22:54.72

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. And a green anaconda, man, that aquarium there, man, it is the shit.


01:22:57.89

Nora B_ Peevy

not


01:23:00.59

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah, the the aquarium is very cool. I've gone there too. like I'm an hour and a half away from Chicago, so I am very blessed and we have a lot of stuff here in Milwaukee that's cool too.


01:23:15.65

Nora B_ Peevy

We have our own opera and orchestra and theater and a lot of stuff. Everybody thinks we're just cows and beer, but we're more than that.


01:23:25.44

wednesdayleefriday

What? Yeah, I mean, my associations with Milwaukee are like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. That's, that's pretty much what I know about Milwaukee.


01:23:32.30

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


01:23:34.88

Nora B_ Peevy

Everybody says that.


01:23:35.39

wednesdayleefriday

So, well, do you have any questions for me? Cause sometimes guests like to ask me things.


01:23:43.05

Nora B_ Peevy

Are you still doing your soaps? Because I remember you were doing soaps for a while.


01:23:48.16

wednesdayleefriday

Oh my God. I am getting my ass kicked by Halloween orders. Cause we do the trick or treat packs, which are the little and It's just little gash soaps in a lot of different shapes, skulls and body parts and brains and little tombstones and stuff.


01:24:02.16

wednesdayleefriday

And we put them into little bundles so people can hand them out for tricks or treats. And yeah, and it's great because the thing is so many kids have allergies and so many schools have rules where you can't bring peanuts, you can't bring tree nuts, chocolate, gluten, you know, sometimes, or you get kids, you know, diabetic kids that just sit there and can't have any candy and that sucks.


01:24:06.74

Nora B_ Peevy

wow


01:24:24.49

wednesdayleefriday

So, giving out little soaps is fun. and the it it's The thing is, when you give out soaps, it's not like you're giving out pennies and people think you just forgot it was Halloween.


01:24:29.65

Nora B_ Peevy

Wow.


01:24:33.89

wednesdayleefriday

you know It's still a fun, colorful, festive little thing.


01:24:35.29

Nora B_ Peevy

Right.


01:24:38.46

wednesdayleefriday

Which, i mean granted, to soap is probably not quite as good as a Snickers, but if you can't have a Snickers, then yeah. we actually have a separate coffee for our soap site for Scared Soapless. And so that's where you can find not just soaps, but all of our lip balms, which are delicious. And we do Nail Lacquer too. We have a couple of great shades of Cat Lady Blue just in time to be ah a cat lady who likes blue things.


01:25:07.74

wednesdayleefriday

um


01:25:08.85

Nora B_ Peevy

Wow, I didn't know you didn't. Nail lacquer, is that like new?


01:25:11.67

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. It is. It is. We added that to the line just over the summer, actually. I got a bunch of stuff and tried it out to see if I was good at it and if the stuff I could get from my supplier was of high quality. And after about three or four months of wearing my own stuff exclusively um and really digging it, I did open up a line. We have a set of pride nails so you could get five different colors at a lower price, which is nice.


01:25:38.58

wednesdayleefriday

um


01:25:39.02

Nora B_ Peevy

No.


01:25:39.80

wednesdayleefriday

We have stuff that changes colors, stuff that glows in the dark. Um, so yeah, and that's coffee, uh, coffee dot.com slash scared soap lists. And coffee is KO hyphen F I just like we have one for.


01:25:53.55

wednesdayleefriday

Sometimes hilarious horror, but we we keep them separate because, you know, sometimes I do take time off from the soap business. We were off for a while in 2022 after I got sick. And then, uh, this is the first year that we really came just roaring back with new products and stuff. So, and we also have like, we had a Hollywood sculptor make us soap molds, our, uh, Reggie Nadler.


01:26:15.82

wednesdayleefriday

Um, we have Kurt Barlow from the first Salem slot, you know, the, the Reggie Niddler, the, the Nosferatu looking guy. We have a soap of that dude that was, it's from a mold carved by the guy.


01:26:26.91

wednesdayleefriday

Uh, you know, that movie, uh, the black phone, the guy that does the masks for that movie, he, he did our, our Kurt Barlow.


01:26:32.63

Nora B_ Peevy

Yeah.


01:26:34.70

wednesdayleefriday

And he also did, um, the Zuni fetish from trilogy of terror. We have blinky the three eyed fish. Um, so we have some really cool custom soaps that you just cannot get anywhere else.


01:26:41.77

Nora B_ Peevy

Oh, no.


01:26:47.44

wednesdayleefriday

They don't exist because there's like one or two molds and we have them. So yeah, and it's so fun.


01:26:53.80

Nora B_ Peevy

You've branched out like since i you first started. I remember when you first started that.


01:26:59.68

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.


01:27:00.22

Nora B_ Peevy

That's a lot.


01:27:01.72

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, we've been, we've been kicking ass at it even with COVID because we were just about to be in restaurants and bars and then COVID hit, which super sucked. Um, but, uh, but yeah, yeah, we're, we're back and we are still doing it, but guess what?


01:27:16.47

wednesdayleefriday

It is time for the Mad Lib. So I hope you are ready for this.


01:27:21.42

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay.


01:27:23.00

wednesdayleefriday

Um, you know, Mad Libs, right? You know, like how this all works.


01:27:25.20

Nora B_ Peevy

hygiene?


01:27:26.22

wednesdayleefriday

Okay.


01:27:26.40

Nora B_ Peevy

yes


01:27:27.01

wednesdayleefriday

Cool, well then let's start with adjectives. I need one, two, three, four adjectives, please.


01:27:36.66

Nora B_ Peevy

Yes.


01:27:42.46

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay.


01:27:45.63

Nora B_ Peevy

school Cool.


01:27:47.45

wednesdayleefriday

Wait, was that cool or cruel? Okay, cool.


01:27:52.96

Nora B_ Peevy

Cool.


01:27:57.03

Nora B_ Peevy

mysterious, fuzzy, and pointy.


01:28:14.02

wednesdayleefriday

Okay, I need a celebrity.


01:28:19.09

Nora B_ Peevy

Madonna.


01:28:22.26

wednesdayleefriday

Nice, nice. And ah let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six plural nouns.


01:28:31.65

Nora B_ Peevy

Okay. Sexes.


01:28:34.78

wednesdayleefriday

You did it now.


01:28:36.67

Nora B_ Peevy

It just came to mind. Dinosaurs.


01:28:42.59

Nora B_ Peevy

Dinosaurs.


01:28:43.61

wednesdayleefriday

Uh-huh.


01:28:45.31

Nora B_ Peevy

Sharks.


01:28:48.74

Nora B_ Peevy

Aliens. Pizzas. What, I think that leaves one more?


01:28:55.37

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, one more.


01:28:56.77

Nora B_ Peevy

Forks.


01:28:59.57

wednesdayleefriday

Okay, and one singular noun. Nope, I lied too. I need two different singular nouns.


01:29:05.69

Nora B_ Peevy

Uh, plants and microwave.


01:29:13.59

wednesdayleefriday

and a number.


01:29:16.85

Nora B_ Peevy

Nine.


01:29:20.57

wednesdayleefriday

Okay, this is called pizza party. Clerk. Hello Madonna's pizza shop. How can I help you? Girl, I am having a cool party.


01:29:34.03

wednesdayleefriday

And I would like to order enough pizza for nine mysterious pizzas. Oh, wait, nine mysterious people. OK, the clerk says five large sexes should be enough.


01:29:45.87

wednesdayleefriday

What dinosaurs would you like on them? Tonight's special pizza is topped with plant cheese. Ew, fuzzy tomatoes and green sharks. ah Girl, can you add sliced aliens and pointy onions to clerk?


01:29:56.79

Nora B_ Peevy

but Yes!


01:30:03.16

wednesdayleefriday

can do since you're ordering more than 50 pizzas worth of food you get free forks for dessert girl thanks and please hurry we're so hungry we could eat a microwave i can't help it i love mad libs Nora, I am so glad that you could be here and that we could, uh, we could do this interview. This was a great conversation. So thank you so much.


01:30:35.50

Nora B_ Peevy

Thank you for having me. It was fun.


01:30:38.15

wednesdayleefriday

Cool. Well, I'm glad. So, uh, and, and thanks to everybody for listening. Uh, don't forget to check us out on coffee and that's KO-FI slash sometimes hilarious horror. When you support us there, you support the magazine and the podcast and everybody who submits. So it's huge and.


01:30:56.54

wednesdayleefriday

We have a $2 level now. So for $2 a month, you can show us more love than that we could ever express thanks for. All right, so see everybody next week.


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