A Conversation with Pascale Potvin
By Ava DeVries
To describe Pascale Potvin as multi-talented would be an understatement. Spanning genres, her work has been published in venues like Maudlin House, Roi Fanéant, Crow & Cross Keys, Carmen et Error, and body fluids—and her debut short story collection, Demondust, or On Wanting and Killing Men, is forthcoming from Game Over Books. Along with being a prolific writer and poet, Potvin is also the Editor-in-Chief of Wrong Publishing, an Assistant Editor at CHEAP POP, and a skilled filmmaker.
Recently, we talked with Potvin about her feature-length directorial debut, Baby Fever (set to premiere later this year), the development of Demondust, her approach to adapting short fiction to film, what she’d like to see more of in the horror genre, and more.
Photograph ©Gary Isaacs
Congratulations on your debut short story collection, Demondust, being picked up by Game Over Books. Could you start us off by speaking a bit about how this collection has developed since its conception?
I definitely didn’t have a collection in mind when I started; I kind of thought “Baby Fever” (the story) would be one-and-done. I hadn’t been interested in writing horror since my edgy preteen years (and that was just torture porn…)—let alone anything you could call ‘short’ (I was focused on a novel all through high school.) I just had the story in my head one day, and I had to work to get it out. Once I did, more kept coming.
In retrospect, this collection emerged from my new adulthood, my emerging brain, when I was yet to find out my intrusive thoughts weren’t sick, suppressed desires. Since I had no one to talk to about them, I expressed them in fiction—and so instead of this is horrifying, you are a horrible person, people told me, this is horrifying, so I love it. It made them way less scary for myself too, ironically, by compartmentalizing them like: “it only came to mind as a story idea, that was its purpose, and now I’ve addressed it.
You’ll definitely see a development, though, as I became more practiced and more experimental in my approach. You’ll see my earlier stories all at around ten thousand words, mixed in with more recent micros that are only three hundred. I’m really grateful to Game Over Books for taking on something so erratic.
If you had to describe Demondust in three words, what would they be?
Erratic. Sensual. Gross.
You’ve described this collection as a cross between Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties and Julia Armfield’s Salt Slow. What other authors or works do you take inspiration from in your writing?
I basically take inspiration from whoever I’m reading at the moment, which I think a lot of people do! In general, I might actually take the most inspiration from reading philosophy, or anything that gets me really metaphysical.
[…] this collection emerged from my new adulthood, my emerging brain, when I was yet to find out my intrusive thoughts weren’t sick, suppressed desires. Since I had no one to talk to about them, I expressed them in fiction—and so instead of this is horrifying, you are a horrible person, people told me, this is horrifying, so I love it.
Your feature-length directorial debut, Baby Fever, is coming out later this year. You’ve worked on films before as a writer, producer, editor, and even an actor—how do you feel these roles, both behind and in front of the camera, prepared you for work as a director?
As any other actor/writer will say, writing and acting are super complementary in the ways they train you to jump into new perspectives. Both were also really key in helping me learn how to direct, a task which I was intimidated by but ended up adoring. Of course, even just my time spent on sets, no matter the role, provided examples to follow—and especially having been acting for a long time, I knew how to talk to actors, what is or isn’t helpful to them.
Baby Fever is based on your previously published short story of the same name. What does the process of adapting short fiction to film look like for you?
I wanted to put it to screen because I felt there were new layers to the story that could come out in that medium. I feel strongly that adaptations should have a purpose, or at least be adding something ‘new’ to the conversation. In general, I’m really into playing with and taking advantage of form. Of course, I also have to be mindful of budget when writing screenplays, which is the biggest practical difference to writing prose, at least for those of us without any funding—but limitations like those offer further opportunity to play. When it comes to Baby Fever, details that had to be changed due to budgetary constraints ended up being the most memorable and effective elements, to me.
I’m really into playing with and taking advantage of form. Of course, I also have to be mindful of budget when writing screenplays […] but limitations like those offer further opportunity to play. When it comes to Baby Fever, details that had to be changed due to budgetary constraints ended up being the most memorable and effective elements, to me.
Which of your other stories, if any, would you want to see adapted to film? (if you had endless time and funding, of course!)
I think my micro-story, “Brainworm,” originally published in Eclectica Magazine, could make a neat little short. I have a number of stories that I originally conceived visually but felt could be adapted to prose to satisfactory ends. “Brainworm” has been funny to get feedback on, because it’s very cryptic—a rule of thumb with my work is that the shorter it is, the more times it’ll probably need to be reread—so, everyone who’s spoken to me about it has had a different understanding. And that’s not a complaint, I think it’s wonderful, but I also want to put my spin on it again, and in this case that’ll lend itself more easily to film.
Still from Baby Fever
What movie(s) terrified you as a child? What movie(s) did you watch over and over again?
When I was really little, I had every shot of The Nightmare Before Christmas memorized. Later on, I saw Stephen King’s The Langoliers—and I’m told by my family that it traumatized me because I kept talking about it for weeks.
What topics or themes would you like to see represented more often in horror—both literature and film?
I think that OCD and OCD-related disorders are very much represented in horror but without being named as such. Only speaking for myself, those experiences are pure cortisol, living horror. It makes sense to put them into fiction, but I would like to see more characters with a literal diagnosis (or just a maybe-diagnosis) on-screen. Because then it’s more of a challenge to create the horror—then you can’t just lean on “oh no this character is just really fucked up and disturbed in this vague, spooky way.”
I’ll still always appreciate those stories as cathartic because that’s how I felt about myself growing up, but I also feel we’re in a zeitgeist that allows for a lot more. I really like Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s Swallow (2019) because so much of the horror there is the main character’s sudden othering by her family after she’s diagnosed with pica. You don’t need to feel the othering from the film itself, and it’s still very disturbing because it’s true to life.
OCD and OCD-related disorders are very much represented in horror but without being named as such. Only speaking for myself, those experiences are pure cortisol, living horror […] I would like to see more characters with a literal diagnosis (or just a maybe-diagnosis) on-screen […] we’re in a zeitgeist that allows for a lot more.
Still from Swallow (2019)
You’ve now been an editor-in-chief, an author, a poet, a filmmaker, and the list goes on. What advice do you wish you could give to your younger self?
Let your confidence shine.
And congratulations again on having two major projects coming out. What are you working on now?
I’m going back to my roots, actually, by finally finishing up the YA book series I was working on in my teens (it was my therapy before I was ready for horror, when I just needed something nice to escape to!). Still, there’s so much fire behind them, and I’m really loving revisiting them at this point of my life. I’m condensing them into a nice duology that I’d like to self-publish as a unit, hopefully not too long from now.
Check out more work by Pascale Potvin (@pastellegothe / @violavolee) here. The Toronto-based creative also offers editorial services, which you can learn more about here.
Ava DeVries (she/her) is finishing up her BA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University, where she’s also starting the MA program this fall. Her fiction has appeared in Crow & Cross Keys and Issue II of BAM Quarterly. Ava is also a Staff Editor at Beneath the Garden and a Submissions Reader for Fusion Fragment. She can be found @ava_devries on Instagram and @AvaDeVries04 on Twitter/X.