Reading one of Cynthia Palaya's books, including her newest release, Forgotten Sisters, is like stepping into an alternate universe, one shaped by genres ranging from true crime to fairy tale.

That escapism is rooted in Cynthia's childhood growing up in inner-city Chicago and a major

departure from her early work as a community reporter, a pivot that required a sort of writer's

identity crisis.

Cynthia shares her key to being prolific and how her success, including winning the prestigious

Brom Stoker Award, forced her to rethink her professional boundaries.

Cynthia, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

There is a lot of darkness in your work, a lot of darkness in forgotten sisters.

Where in your own life, what are you drawing upon to get to that sense of darkness?

The city of Chicago, I think it's, of course, we see it as this like scary place on the news.

And it is a beautiful city. There's a lot of light here and a lot of dark and a lot of fantastical things,

but a lot of what I saw growing up, a lot of suffering, a lot of young people being lost, a lot of injustice, and especially like the city's history, it's also reflective of that. It's a very

sad history that we have had such major tragedies in the city, many of which I don't think we've reconciled with as a community. And so those are things that I identify with because I see what trauma and tragedy does to someone and community is long term.

Knowing that there was danger in the neighborhood, danger outside, your parent's response

was sort of keep you inside, which I think is like a very familiar dynamic to a lot of our

listeners.

And while there is some sadness to that, right, like a little kid inside watching monster movies

because the monster movies are her escape from the quote unquote monsters outside, it also

is in some ways what really opens up your imagination and your sense of the fantastical and what was

possible. I don't know that we get your prolific work

without all of that time as a kid spent inside indulging in escapism. That's where it comes from.

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