The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions just hit bookstore shelves two weeks ago, released by Undertaker Books, with eighteen stories from author Emma E. Murray! I’ve been hearing great things about Emma’s work, and I know Undertaker Books never fails to release some of the freshest, most quality content in the industry, so I wanted to sit down with the author and find out more about her life and this new collection.
Hi, Emma. Thank you for being a guest on the Weird Wide Web blog! How has 2025 been treating you so far?
It’s been a strange start to the year, but I’m very happy about the release of my debut collection The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions. That’s helped start the year on the right foot.
You describe yourself as an author who attempts to “explore the dark side of humanity” and has “a fascination with the human psyche”. Does your latest release, The Drowning Machine, touch on these themes?
I’d say that those are very important themes for the collection, especially since so much of the horror is grounded in realistic fears. There are some more fantastical stories as well, featuring hellhounds, body horror, and androids, but the majority of the stories have their horror anchored in the realities of things like loss, grief, abduction, school shootings, major depression, and dementia. By delving into some of the most difficult experiences a person can go through, I hope to guide readers through their own feelings and thoughts about the darkest cruelties, pain, and sympathy humans are capable of.
I see that your short fiction has appeared in various anthologies. Are the stories in The Drowning Machine brand new stories, or are some prior publications included in the collection?
The collection is a mixture of previously published stories and new ones. Of the eighteen stories, five are brand new, including the title story “The Drowning Machine,” which is one of my personal favorites. Alongside the new stories, there are a couple that were only available in limited edition zines and behind paywalls, as well as the anticipated reprint of my sapphic cannibalism chapbook Exquisite Hunger, so I’m really excited about readers not only discovering the new stories but some previously published ones they might not have been able to read before.
What was the hardest part about getting this collection written, put together, and released?
Since this is my debut collection, I’d never realized just how much work it was to put one together. Thankfully, I had most of the pieces already written, but deciding on how to organize them was like putting together a puzzle. You really want it to flow the right way, and have the pieces connect to each other in meaningful ways and not feel haphazard, so I’m super grateful to have had TJ Price by my side as my editor. Together, we were able to really tease apart the different themes, and I’m very proud of how the final flow feels reading through from beginning to end.
What is the most rewarding part?
The most rewarding part is definitely hearing the reactions of readers, whether through reviews or social media posts or reaching out to me directly. I love hearing which stories terrified them, which ones broke their heart, and even which ones were their least favorites and why. There is nothing better than having someone read your art and resonate with it. I feel supremely privileged to have readers who read, analyze, and sit with my stories. It makes everything worthwhile.
Where do you see your writing career taking you in the next ten years?
I hope over the next decade that I’ll continue to find publishers that appreciate the vision behind my dark stories and continue giving them homes, whether they’re novels or shorter pieces. If my words continue to find more and more readers who appreciate them, when I look back ten years from now, I hope to have at least half a dozen more works out in the world.
Where can readers follow you online?
You can find me on:
Bluesky @emmaemurray.bsky.social
TikTok @authoremmaemurray
Instagram @emmaemurray_
And on my website (where you can sign up for my newsletter!) EmmaEMurray.com
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