A short excerpt from a YouTube interview where Chris Collins and ND Stevenson discuss books that influenced Stevenson’s life. The conversation focuses on identity, feeling like an outsider, relating to villains/monsters, and introduces a question about how DM Cornish’s Monster Blood Tattoo impacted Stevenson’s storytelling.
This time on books that changed my life.
Ottoman was a boy with a girl's name.
What do you think about that?
Well, now that you mention it. What makes something monstrous? What makes us repulsed by something? Is that a way that we should be feeling? Or is that something that needs to be explored? I always related to villains and monsters because I felt really out of place. Felt out of place in South Carolina. I was, like, the only girl with a buzz cut. You know, the first time I broke down crying because in my heart, I was. I didn't really believe in Jesus. I was six years old.
Have you ever thought about how that experience affected your storytelling?
That is really central, I. I think, to every story I've ever told.
The big question how did Monster Blood Tattoo by DM Cornish change your life?
This was the book that.
