Michelle Garren Flye is the fiction and poetry editor of edifice WRECKED. Her work has appeared in GUD, Opium, Blue Almonds, Salome, SmokeLong Quarterly, Moondance, The Glut, The Shore Magazine, flashquake, In Posse Review, and numerous other publications. You can also find her stories in Horror Library Vol. 1 (2006) and Our Shadows Speak: A Collection of Dark Fiction (2006). Michelle lives in North Carolina with her family.

Tell us about the numerous editing jobs you’ve held, including your current post as fiction and poetry editor at edifice WRECKED.

I have been privileged to work with a number of very talented people over the past couple of years. Edifice WRECKED was my first foray into editing. I couldn’t believe my luck when Leigh Hughes, the founder and editor of eW, contacted me and asked me to help out. I’ve enjoyed being involved with the magazine and have seen a lot of great work submitted there. Through the publisher Cutting Block Press, I’ve been privileged to help edit The Horror Library Volume 1, Butcher Shop Quartet Volume 1 and Tattered Souls. R.J. Cavender, Frank Hutton and Boyd Harris are great to work with and I’ve learned a lot from them. The Horror Library, incidentally, has a special place in my heart as it grew out of the online version www.horrorlibrary.net, and I was one of the original “Terrible Twelve”.

As an editor, do you have any tips for writers who are just starting out?

Sometimes I feel like I’m the one who’s just starting out. It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been writing and submitting my own stuff for five years. The whole process gets discouraging sometimes if you look at how far you still have to go to reach your goals and dreams. My advice is to find markets that are friendly to what you write. There are so many markets out there, and I can’t tell you how much I hate to hear back from a rejected writer that because we’ve rejected them so many times, they’re giving up. As a writer myself, I feel their pain. As an editor, it irritates me.

Have you noticed any current trends in the fiction being submitted? Poetry?

This is a tough question, because, to be honest, the only real trend I’ve noticed is that the stuff we’re getting at eW is getting better and better. Writers, or at least those who submit to us, are finding new ways to tell old stories, are blending genres, are basically doing what it takes to get their message across creatively. This makes our jobs as editors tougher, but more enjoyable.

Will you share a synopsis of “Weeds and Flowers,” the novel you’re currently editing?

“Weeds and Flowers” grew out of my own memories of a murder that took place in my hometown when I was a child. Although I used that murder as a premise for the novel, it’s totally fiction. Charlie, the protagonist, is a young girl growing up in a small Appalachian town in North Carolina. When the girlfriend of the boy Charlie has a crush on is killed, Charlie awakens to the fact that her sheltered life isn’t so perfect after all. It doesn’t help matters when her best friend becomes much too close to a creepy neighbor and racial tensions flare in the previously peaceful small mountain town. Through it all, Charlie is adjusting to life with a new stepfather and baby brother, as well as experiencing her first love. The story is about dealing with the darkness that comes with the light, or the paradox of beauty needing ugliness. Oh, and there’s a little bit of a ghost story, too.

What can you tell us about your second novel? Do you have a title? What genre is it?

My second novel’s working title is “Ducks in a Row,” and I like to think of it as women’s literature. It centers on the relationship between half-sisters who have been separated since childhood. It’s sort of the ultimate sibling rivalry in that one sister returns to town with something the other sister wants desperately. The result is that the two women, who are basically from completely different backgrounds, find out they have much more in common than they would have believed possible.

You write a variety of fiction, including literary, mainstream, horror and children’s. Which genre do you like better, or do you prefer to blend?

Everything I write blends something with something else. My favorite genre, to be honest, is folklore. I love reading ghost stories, urban legends, myths and folktales. I grew up on that kind of stuff. I collect North Carolina folklore, and a lot of it works its way into my writing in one way or another. I feel very lucky to have grown up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where folklore was part of my elementary education.

Tell us about your former jobs as a reporter and a librarian. What type of reporting did you do?

The reporter thing was me trying to be somebody I wasn’t really. I worked for two very small town newspapers. The kind where you pretty much have to do everything from typesetting to delivering the newspapers, even if you’re the only news reporter. I decided reporting wasn’t my thing one morning when I was delivering the newspapers and realized I would rather do that than go back and sit at my desk. Still, reporting had its high points. I got to write about a little bit of everything. Politics, sports, car accidents, and even who got arrested for drunk driving last weekend. And sometimes I was even happy that I was getting paid to do what I loved doing. But then I’d realize that although I was writing, I wasn’t writing what I wanted to write.

Being a librarian was different. In fact, I’m still a librarian. You should see my shelves of books! A little bit of everything. I started working in libraries when I was 12 years old. I worked in the R.B. House Undergraduate Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for six years while I went to college. I moved on to work at a medical library while I went to graduate school and got my Masters in Information and Library Science. And even now, I love it when somebody asks me a question so I can spend an hour or two on the Internet finding the answer, or at least finding where the answer can be found.

You recently gave birth to your first daughter. You have two sons, but does having a baby girl alter your perspective on anything? Do you think it will affect what you write or read about?

Tea parties. My perspective on tea parties has definitely changed. And the color pink. Seriously, I wasn’t sure I would know what to do with a girl, I was so used to my two boys. In fact, when I was told I was having a girl, I found it difficult to believe that the same process that produced two boys could actually result in a girl too. But I feel like I’ve got the best of both worlds now - I can go hang out on the football and soccer fields with my boys and still look forward to tea parties with my baby girl.

As far as what I write and read about, the many varied relationships between females has always been central to my interest, and now I’m particularly interested in the relationship between mothers and daughters. And siblings. I never had a sister, so that relationship is one that fascinates me, although I’ve noticed brother-sister relationships also crop up often in my writing.

You live in North Carolina. Have you always lived there? Tell me why I should visit your state.

Except for two years, I have lived in North Carolina my whole life. I hope I never have to live anywhere else ever again. North Carolina has so much to offer, including the most beautiful coast I’ve ever seen, and I’ve visited both the Pacific and the Caribbean. I wouldn’t trade North Carolina’s Outer Banks for either of them. But the real beauty of the state is the Blue Ridge Mountains. When I go home, I like to go as high up the Blue Ridge Parkway as I can, because up there is where I really realize how tiny I am in this world. It’s not a totally comfortable feeling, but it is a worthwhile reminder.

What is your favorite summer activity?

Biking. I just got a new bike and when I can get away for a half-hour bike ride, I feel like I’m 12 years old again. Then I go home and indulge in my other favorite summer activity: drinking a quart of lemonade.

And finally, because we’re all wondering, give us the scoop on the picture you provided.

That picture was taken in Baltimore at Horrorfind Weekend 7 in August 2006. My husband and I went up there so I could meet a few of the people who I’d worked with on Horror Library Volume 1, and we had a blast. An entire hotel was taken up with people walking around dressed in crazy costumes, a haunted house was set up in one of the convention rooms, and if you wanted anything horror-related, you could find it there — books, movies, pictures, models, even stuffed animals. It’s an annual event; you ought to try it.