Bookwild - Emily Carpenter's Gothictown: Southern Hospitality Turns Out to Be Anything But Hospitable

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

This week, I got to chat with Emily Carpenter about her new horror-thriller Gothictown.  We dive into how a newspaper article she saw during the pandemic inspired the story, and how she crafted such a creepy vibe for Julianna, Georgia.  Gothictown SynopsisWelcome to gentle Juliana, where you can have it all…if you pay the price.The email that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true…or a devil’s bargain.A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised—two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a “gentle jewel” with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs…But Billie’s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana’s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.There’s something about “Gentle Juliana”—something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and if, they’ll ever leave. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with Emily Carpenter about her new horror thriller, Gothic Town. If you love moving to a remote city for a reason that seems too good to be true and then getting scared once you're there, you're going to love this one. Here's the synopsis. The email message that lands in Billy Hope's inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia. a small town year to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and some painful memories. Plus, she'll get a business grant to open a new restaurant and a charming Riverside community laden with opportunity.

After some phone calls and one hurried visit, Billy and her husband and daughter are officially part of the Julian initiative. The town is everything promised in between settling into her lavish home and starting a new restaurant, Billy is busy enough to dismiss misgivings. Yet those misgivings grow. There's something about Juliana, something off kilter, and menacing beneath its famous southern hospitality. No matter how much Billy longed for the family to come here, she's starting to wonder now and whether they'll ever need. This book gets wild. It is creepy. It has all the small town vibes and really plays with how much southern hospitality isn't always so hospitable. That being said, let's hear from Emily.

I am super excited to be with Emily Carpenter today talking about Gothic Town, which I feel like any listeners are going to be excited about a book with that title. So thank you for joining Emily. Thank you for having me, Kate. I appreciate it. I'm very excited as well. Yeah, that was a good title. I don't know. He's come up with the titles that good. Yes. I love it. I love it. Was gentle Juliana ever a title idea? You know, honestly, I called this, like from the moment I wrote in Chapter 1, this thing was called Goodsaintown, which again, that doesn't always, titles don't always come that easily to me. So, you know, when Kensington bought it, they were like, I don't know, we'll talk about the title. And I was thinking, come on, you guys.

This is a great. So I don't know that there was any real serious discussion. Nice. Yeah. That works too. That's awesome. You just knew. So I wanted to get to know you a little bit before we talk a little bit about the books.

So you've written a lot of books, but what was your moment when you were like, I want to write a book or I want to be an author? What was that like for you? So I think I wanted to be an author probably since I was a kid because I was a huge reader. The library was like heaven to me. That was my happy spot. but always knows in a book, you know, in the bathtub, walking around. Yes. Like, so I dreamed of being an author, but as a kid, I didn't know what that meant, really. I thought that meant you had to live in New York City and know fancy people. And I lived in Alabama, and I did not know any fancy people. So it didn't feel like an accessible dream to me.

Even as I went into college, I thought I was, I enjoyed acting as well. I did a lot of theater in high school and college. And I thought, you know, I really wanted to be an actor, that dream sort of overrode being a writer. And so I pursued that a little bit in my early adult years. But then I got into, I worked for two soap operas for CBS television when I lived in New York briefly. And that kind of got me into the writing because it had to read the scripts. That was part of my time. So I, then I sort of kind of married this like love of acting and love of writing.

And I thought, I really want to write movies. And this was in the 90s. So I kind of attempted that for a while. That proved to be a very hard business to get into, especially if you didn't live in L.A., which I didn't. And so by that time, I'm like having a family. I'm raising kids. You know, at that, I mean, really in my 30s and 40s, I was still kind of floundering around for like, where do I belong in this? like what is my niche? What is my path? And so it took me a while to sort of pivot to the,

oh, maybe I could write a book. And it might be a little bit of a more accessible career for me. And that's that turned out to be true. Yeah. That's awesome. That one worked out. Yeah, I didn't write my first book until I was in my late 40s. Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't realize that. So I did see in your bio, though, that you were, you've been an actor, a producer, a screenwriter. Did any of those or do any of those things and those experiences influence your writing now? Absolutely. And I will say, just to clarify, like, I, all of those things were kind of aspiring for me.

Just to reiterate, I never felt like I was like, okay, this is where I belong. I'm an actor or I'm a producer or a screenwriter. But like now I do feel this way. Like I feel like I found my place. But yeah, I think acting, I mean, it's all storytelling, right? And it's and I think I do tend to write books that are more cinematic in terms of I hope they're very visual and the world building, even though it's our contemporary recognizable world, I do feel like I lean towards the very atmospheric and kind of building

that cinematic feeling of you're really there. So I think that has helped me just in a real tangible way. I use screenplay outlines to write my books. I use, there's a book called it's Sid Fields screenplay. And he just, he lays out this very accessible outline as to three act outline. And I use that for all of my books, just to make sure that they're not, you know, heading off on rabbit trails, that they're heading towards plot points that are keeping people engaged in the pacing and all that. Yeah.

Yeah. So do you kind of from what you're saying there, do you just plot out like some of the plot points, but you're not like heavily outlining necessarily? Yeah. I call them tent poles. Yeah. But they leave room for discovery as I'm writing if I need to change or I have a great, you know, epiphany or inspiration.

Yeah. So I lay out those like temples of Act 1, the turning point that leads into act, you know, break into Act 2. The midpoint is very important to me. And I think in suspense, thrillers, that's, it's a very important moment. The break into Act 3. Yeah. So I've got tons of room to like come up with something great. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. And that's, is that Save the Cat then? Is that what that is, I think, possibly? Save the Cat is a little different. It's a little more specific. It drills down into each plot point a little more. I have found Save the Cat is too constricting for me. I get like, don't, I get those don't fence me in feelings.

Yeah, you don't want that when you're trying to be creative. I have a lot of friends who actually love using Save the Cat. And, you know, I just think it's a different. Oh, yeah, everybody's, that's what I said or that's what I started realizing when I started talking with authors. I was, I was realizing how much there's not just one way to write a book. But then also there's not even like just a hundred. There are like thousands of ways to do it. So it's just whatever ends up working for you.

Yeah, for sure. And you have to trust that process. Yeah, that whole part. Is there something that draws you to reading, or well, maybe reading too, but to writing thrillers, mystery, and suspense? Yeah, for sure. It's funny. The first book I ever wrote was kind of a romance. It wasn't really a technically it was not a romance, but it was kind of a romantic story. And I had a lot of fun writing it. I did not end up being able to get an agent with that book. And so when I was thinking about what I was going to write next, I really did think about, you know, what books and movies do I gravitate towards?

and have I always gravitated towards? And the truth was, even as a kid, I love mysteries. And I loved things that had like a touch of horror and kind of dark and kind of scary and kind of foreboding. And so I realized, oh, that's what I like to read and watch. And so I probably should write that. But it felt very intimidating to me because I didn't know. how to construct a mystery that felt complicated. Right.

Yeah. So. Yeah. There's a lot going on typically. Yeah. I was like, how do you drop the clues in? And I will say, I still don't know. If I had to teach a class on that on how to write a mystery and how to set up the clues and all that, I wouldn't know.

I would just be like, you feel your way through it, you know, and you edit a lot. a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You just work on it until it's something. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. That's awesome. Do you do any like character work before you start writing or do you kind of get to know the characters while you're writing? I think it's both. I think it's both. I've been talking a lot recently about it's not really a superstition, but I am pretty, I'm pretty strange about I got to have the the right name, especially for my main character, but for my whole cast. Like, I have the exact right name that kind of conveys everything I want this character to be. So that takes a while. But also what you just said, it also takes actually writing the

book to figure out who these characters are. I mean, I, And I don't, yeah, I find myself starting with some half-formed ideas. And then I get to the end of the book and I'm like, oh, you know, this is what this character is about. And this is what, and I'm, I feel, I feel like I'm on some solid ground. I'm like, okay, now I know what I'm writing about and what this is. But it does. It just takes getting.

through the story. So, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. With Gothic Town, what was the inspiration for the story? So I, way back in like 2016, 17, I remember coming across stories in the news about towns, U.S. towns that were really wanting to boost their economy and, you know, invite mostly young people or there wasn't as much remote working, but there was some going on then.

But I remember reading, you know, Topeka, Kansas was offering, you know, help with rent or, you know, different little economic incentives. And I think like, you know, I think I'd always been really interested in like that feeling of, because up other than sort of my stint in New York City for those three years, I've always lived in the South. And so I do kind of fantasize a little bit about like, what would it be like to just pick up like and move somewhere, totally different. I think everybody has that fan. to some degree. Like city dwellers are like, we're going to move to the country and open a B&B.

Or people from the country are like, I'm moving to the city. You know, everyone, I think, has that kind of fantasy of starting over and clean slate and, you know, moving abroad. And anyway, so, you know, I was mulling over this idea. And then, of course, the pandemic happened and we're all stuck in our houses and like, you know, something about getting out of our house and remote working becomes like really the thing. And then I see this article about this, this is what did it. I saw an article about this little town medieval village in Italy offering villas for, you know, one euro. And I think there's been recently kind of another story about it.

And I was like, oh, my gosh, there's definitely, this is definitely a village full of vampires looking for new. There's no doubt in my mind. That place is haunted or there's something bad going on. Yeah. And I just thought, oh, I can pivot this story into being a southern town, make it very Southern Gothic. And all of this works.

and it just kind of tumbled out of me after that. I do remember seeing those during the pandemic and being like, really? Like, I don't even think it was Sweden, but if there was even one where I was like, really, we could just go live there. It was so random. I was so random and like, again, like so easy. Like there's not to be some something behind this or some stories. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's how I felt seeing it. I was like, there has to be something about this that is too good to be true, which is definitely what happens in Gothic town. And did you kind of like, you definitely explore too good to be true like at length? So is that something was that kind of like really intriguing to do as like a theme? Like thinking things are better than they are. Yeah. And I really, I wanted it to be something so big. that was sort of like, I don't want to give away too much here. I know. I really did. I was very attracted to the idea of like a whole town that's in on the secret, you know. And I was very inspired by Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, that short story, you know, where this whole town has this very,

a macabre tradition that they're they don't talk about they don't question do it every year and it's horrifying i love that and yeah even like watching wandavision you know that idea that whole town is in on the secret and you're trying to figure out like what the heck is going on i that's really fascinating to me yeah um more fun than I guess one villain that's out to get you. Yeah, it is. And it's like, it felt really claustrophobic because you really can't trust anyone is how it feels. It's just kind of like closing in on you.

Do you think any of that was like also related to how it was kind of a pandemic related story? Because as I was reading it, I was like it was also like we all felt so claustrophobic going through it. Yeah, for sure. And I think with Billy, my main character living in New York City and she's got this six-year-old daughter, I thought a lot because I lived in an apartment in Manhattan, you know, back in the 90s. But I didn't have a kid and I didn't have to homeschool or work remotely or all that. And so I did think a lot about like how intense that experience must have been. for those people in really not just in New York, but really any city, you know, or an apartment building just very difficult.

Yeah. And it made the appeal of going to the country even bigger at that point. Exactly. Yeah. It was like there were so many restaurants that closed down, especially in like New York and L.A. I was thinking about that too as I was reading it. Like it just was the reality for people who'd been really successful in things. Right. Yeah. I read a really interesting story in the, I think it was the New York Times about a really successful restaurateur who just was like, you know, I'm done.

Yeah. This was great. And that's heartbreaking. Mm-hmm. It was. It really was. I wanted to interrupt this episode really quickly. I have a goal of monetizing Book Wild, but I would love to do it without having to have ads

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And if you're looking for a free way to support the show, if you can like and review it on whichever platform you listen to, that helps so much. So the other kind of funny thing is there's like Southern hospitality happening, but kind of in the way that we see it on like, I don't know if you watch Southern Charm or there's something else that made me think of. But kind of in the way where you're saying one thing, but you also like mean another thing. So how did you kind of like approach working that into the creepiness of it too? Yeah, I just love it. It's like I explained to my northern friends we all laugh about and I'm sure you've heard just the difference in the, oh, bless your heart. Yes. Like sometimes it is sincere and truly bless your heart. And then sometimes it has a hint of snark. It doesn't mean something nice.

No. I love that about the whole southern way of being and the manners and the politeness. And it's very much a code you have to break. And I love the idea of Billy being this like native New Yorker who's like run a business. She's tough cookie. She says what she thinks. And she's like trying to give these people the benefit of the time. out and kind of fit in, but she really doesn't.

She doesn't fit in because she's a street shooter. And like she doesn't know what to do with, you know. Yeah. So, but yeah, the politeness, their politeness and their hospitality definitely hides not just snarkiness. It hides some darker motivation. Yeah. Yeah, totally. with those like darker themes like you're saying there's also kind of like

control versus community or like what an actual community would be like versus what is just trying to control outsiders or anyone um so what was it like kind of exploring that too with this with this plot yeah i always like to say like my writing i feel like my books can be really enjoyed on two different levels. Like if you just want a great story with some good plot twists and reveals and, you know, just a good suspense story, I feel like I have written that for you. But yeah, if you want, if you want some deeper themes, they are there. Because I'm always interested in exploring something that is meaningful to me or something

that's on my mind. So, yeah, that whole idea of, yeah, we're trying to preserve our community. And the way we do that is this one approach, which obviously I don't agree with. Rather than I think the way that you actually do preserve a community is to allow it to grow. and allow people to progress in the way they progress. And yeah, I mean, that can apply to anything. It can apply to like I'm a mom of kids who have grown up and they're leaving the nest. And so I have a choice to like try to keep things the way they've been and maneuver and finagle and, you know.

Or I can just let the birds. fly free and give them freedom and if they want to come back to the nest they do yeah that's a good healthy way to look at it yeah yeah well and unfortunately the people of juliana aren't that healthy i'm not very healthy it also kind of worked for me on a level of too like the more insular you are in your community like you just accept that like this is something we just do and like that like none of them are questioning it because they're kind of in an echo chamber together. For sure. And I mean, we see that all the time. If you're like in any kind of community that feels isolated or that sort of keeps outsiders out, that whole isolationist theme that we've heard recently

a lot of. Yeah. I think there's a danger. there and in having those those barriers up to just thinking outside the box and maybe be welcoming different ideas that are different than your own right totally so there are also some supernatural horror elements i won't say anything more than that there's some um do you ever freak yourself out when you're writing about those parts no that's my favorite favorite thing to write. Oh, that's good. I'm like, no, I let, I'm like not scared at all. Yeah. That's amazing. Like, um, yeah. And this, honestly, this was the first time, you know, all of my books kind of walked that line for the most part, not maybe not every one of them, but there's all, always a little bit

of that hint of spookiness of like, you know, but, um, this was the first. time I had an editor say to me, we really want to lean into these horror elements. And by horror, I think she meant this, the supernatural like elements of it. Like, um, so that was really exciting to me. And I love that. Like, I mean, you know, it's Scooby-Doo all over again. Right. Is there a monster? Is there really a monster or is it a guy with a mask? You know, is this like, am I, like, am I contacting the spirit world or am I just, or have I just had an insomnia and I'm overworked and I'm a little stressed out? Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Have I like the possibility that like being sleepless, you're like, maybe I'm closer to that realm.

I mean, some of those defenses go down and I'm fascinated by all that. And look, you read Stephen King and he goes like right into that realm. And that's not what I'm doing as much. I'm more like walking that fine line of is it or isn't it? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely what it feels like through the whole book.

It also, though, feeds into the Gothic town title. It does have those very like Southern Gothic vibes, but it also has like really realistic vibes. Like we are kind of in, kind of in the present. We're a little bit in the past. So how did you approach bringing those two things together? So to me, and this is where I get a little did didactic here, but to me, like the Gothic and the Southern Gothic are related, obviously, through this word. Gothic is, you know, dark and dread-inducing and hint of supernatural and crumbling buildings and dark and stormy night and, you know, brooding antagonists, all these, you know, also it is secrets.

of the path and, you know, the sins of the aristocracy and all these kinds of family secrets. So Southern Gothic then is just a short pivot to all of those same elements, but in the South, right? So and they sort of, you know, present a little differently. They can be a tad bit more humorous. and they deal with different sins of the past, obviously, and a different kind of aristocracy. But yeah, I think I just love that whole world,

whether it's Gothic or whether it's Southern Gothic and whether they've got like straight up ghosts like haunting a castle or whether there's just some whisper of like, ooh, something bad happened on this. piece of land. Yes. You know, are there something in the well? Yeah.

Yeah. They're so fun. You're right. I hadn't thought of how also for Southern Gothic, that is where it does have more humor than like a typical Gothic as well. And there are some like kind of satirical funny moments with the people in the town. Yeah. Yeah.

And I love what fun, right? To kind of poke a little fun. at those kind of over-the-top characters. Yeah. Yeah. The, what was that just reminding me of? Oh, I feel like another thing that's kind of common, definitely probably definitely in Southern Gothic,

but other ones as well is unlikeable female main characters. I'm saying this in quotation marks because it's not unlikable for me. Right. But Billy definitely is like making her very own decisions throughout this whole book. And was it fun kind of getting to write someone who was just like, I don't have to play by the rules. Yeah, I love that. I mean, be an unlikable female character any day of the week over a solidly likable one. I mean, the truth is, and it really does drive me crazy a little.

bit that we have to have these, you know, heroines that are just like blameless, like always do the right thing, always do the smart thing, always do, you know, make the wisest decisions because who amongst us makes the wisest decisions? I have done stupid things in my life. I have done things out of wrong or selfish motivations. And I love that about Billy. Like, you know, she, she wants to project that she wants to move her family and start over in this small town for them. And really, part of it is for her because, like, self-esteem is suffering. And she wants to get back to sort of being that success, you know, the image that she has of herself. And I don't even think that's bad. I'm like, I think Billy should just say, hey, this is, I miss this. This is what I want.

But she feels good about it. So she hides it. And yeah, she makes some bad decisions for sure. But, you know, she has. Also in some extenuating circumstances. She has, she's in a tough. There's some other forces acting on her. I mean, I had a friend who read the book and she was like, run. Why does it she just leave and run? I'm like, girl, do you know what if you got a huge house and 12 acres for $100? That is very hard to give up.

Yes, it would be. Are you kidding me? No rent. No face. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Yeah. I was down for however she wanted to play that out. Because I would be, that would be so hard to say no to right now. It would be very hard to say no to. I mean, especially when you have a kid and you're like,

this kid needs room to breathe and run and play. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And her relationship with her daughter is like a really big motivator for her. So it's, in some ways that like makes it make even more sense to me at least yeah and i think billy's the kind of person who thinks okay well if this is not exactly what it turned what i thought it was going to be i can make it work because she's she's a fixer and a doer and she's accomplished a lot so i think she you know i think that's part of the reason she keeps staying there she's like no no we can make this Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. As someone who just like really wants to fix every thread before I like go to sleep, I totally understand that concept. Oh God, me too. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm an optimist, right? I'm like, surely this isn't as bad as maybe it is.

Right. Sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it's not. Yes. So I also have seen. I don't know if you can talk about it. I saw that this got picked up and is in development right now. Is there anything you can talk about? And if you can't, I'm just cut it out. Yeah, no. It has been picked up option for development by AMC TV for a limited series. And they have, you know, a showrunner, exec producer,

Abia Jee, who's amazing and has a lot of great credits and accomplishments to her. her name. And that's really all that I know at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, this is my first experience with a television option. So it's all kind of me. And apparently it's very slowly, typically. I know. And you like can't get your hopes up, but you're like, I'm kind of excited. My hopes are up. I am Billy Hope. I am. Oh, yeah. I'm like, this. It's all going to happen. But yeah, I don't have any news yet. But as soon as I do, I will be, yeah.

Well, I'm hopeful. It would be so cool as a TV series. I like it that way compared to a movie. I think you can kind of go in depth more. Yeah, same. Suppose the backstory matters. Yeah, I was about to say, there's some cool chapters about down in the past, like very short vignettes about.

Yeah. How they dealt with certain situations. Yes. That would be pretty cool. Yeah. Well, you can tell we're talking about a round spoiler. So if you're dying to know what we're talking around, you can go pick up the book. So do you read a lot?

Do you have read anything recently that you loved? Yeah. I just finished Victorian Psycho, which is more of that. It's insane. It is, yeah, it's really good. It's a short novel, easy read. And it's very funny. I want to call it.

I feel like it's a satire, you know, almost. But it's super clever. And so I really, really enjoyed that. I'm reading a book, I think it's called The Expat Affair by Kimberly Bell. Right now, it's not until June. But she's like, she's automatic fave. She's also a friend of mine's. Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah. Oh, I'm listening to Sally Rooney's Intermezzo, which is great. and okay, I don't know. I don't know the name of this. So many books. Those are very good ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm excited for Kimberly's next one.

That one, the cover, it looks so cool too. Yes, it does. Great cover. I love it. She's a fabulous thriller writer, and it's set in Amsterdam, which is new. Nice. So. Yeah, she's kind of going international now.

Yeah, I love that. She was like, I need some more settings. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, she spends half her year there. So, yeah, she knows what she's talking about. And I think it's a really cool aspect to bring to a thriller. It is. It is cool.

Well, obviously, I loved your book. But where can people go and follow you to stay up to date with everything? I'm on Facebook. I'm also on Instagram at Emily. D.c because I'm Emily Drake Carpenter. But you can find out everything there. Occasionally I'm on threads, not as much.

Just mainly Facebook and Instagram. And you can pre-order the book anywhere. And it's out March 25th. Everybody needs to go get it so you can have it for the 25th. And I'll put those links in the show notes so everyone can find it. And otherwise, thanks for talking with me. Yeah, Kate, thanks. It's been fun. I appreciate it.