Photo Credit Becca Schwartz\UNLV
What are the ways in which history haunts us—both in our waking and dreaming lives? How can we articulate the horrors of survival and loss of dignity amidst capitalism? Jarret Keene’s short story collection Gateways to Annihilation (Dark Wolf Books, 2025) unflinchingly interrogates these questions and more amidst unforgettable landscapes like a desert observatory or the Vegas casino floors. Described as “literary horror with a cult heart” and “[p]erfect for fans of weird fiction and supernatural thrillers,” the collection offers up a sharp selection of stories that lingered with me long after I finished the book. It is no wonder that Bram Stoker winner Michael Arnzen has glowingly praised the collection for its “risky spec-fic storytelling reflected throughout.” I had the opportunity to interview Keene about the making of this stunning collection and explore his thoughts regarding horror and the speculative in today’s world.
Wendy Chen: It’s a pleasure to sit down with you to discuss your latest book, Gateways to Annihilation. I greatly admire the breadth of your work, as you’ve previously written novels, most recently Hammer of the Dogs, as well as several middle grade books. What are the particular challenges, and delights, of putting together a short story collection versus a novel or middle grade books?
Jarret Keene: It’s great to be here, Wendy. For me, and I imagine for other writers, a story collection often emerges as an “in-between-projects” effort. When I find myself between full-length manuscripts, I’ll write a story on spec, usually for a themed horror anthology I discover online. I’ve been doing this since my grad school days at Florida State University. I hunt the web for interesting calls for submissions and use the deadlines as creative fuel. Most of the stories in Gateways to Annihilation were actually rejected by those anthologies. When that happens, I pivot to literary journals—places you might expect to be resistant to genre fiction. But surprisingly, that hasn’t been my experience. In fact, I’ve had better luck publishing horror and sci-fi stories in creative writing magazines than in genre outlets. I think that says something about how open-minded literary editors can be. Or maybe it just means they’re willing to take a chance on a cursed comic book story that didn’t quite land with the horror crowd.
WC: The collection opens with “Conjure Me,” a story which begins with a gruesome nightmare: a doctor operating on a living human. The blood on the operating table transforms into a bouquet of red roses, before then turning into the image of a snake. The dream compellingly reflects the violence and death that is intertwined with desire in “Conjure Me.” This dream also foreshadows the ways that dreams function in the story “Dream Evil,” in which a highschooler attempts to pursue his crush. Would you be able to speak to the role, and perhaps power, of dreams in storytelling, and your decision to begin with one in Gateways to Annihilation?
JK: Robert Olen Butler was my professor at FSU, and his work, especially Tabloid Dreams, had a profound influence on me. That 1996 collection, with its blend of absurdity and emotional resonance, helped shape my own approach to storytelling. I always recommend the story “Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot.” It’s funny, unsettling, and deeply human. In my own stories, like “Conjure Me” and “Dream Evil,” dreams strip the characters bare. Josephine’s dream in “Conjure Me” reveals the peril she’s courting as she tries to claim a wealthy doctor while his wife lies dying of yellow fever. In “Dream Evil,” a teenage magician delivering pizza in Las Vegas tries to win over a girl way out of his league—without relying on spells. But when he learns she’s dabbling in dangerous arcana, he steps in to protect her, sealing their fate in a way he couldn’t have predicted. You know, people often say listening to dreams is dull. I couldn’t disagree more. A dream, when interpreted with care, can be as revealing as a confession. And since stories are essentially dreams on the page, they give us a direct line to the desires, fears, and contradictions that animate our characters.
WC: In your previous work as a writer and series editor of the anthology Las Vegas Writes, you’ve explored the vibrant city of Las Vegas and its many facets. Gateways to Annihilation is no exception, with several of the stories being set in the city. From demonic summonings to strange happenings in a desert observatory, your stories offer up new visions of Las Vegas beyond that of the glitz and glamor of the Strip. Has living in the city changed your writing in any way? What are some of your favorite places to go in the city to find inspiration?
JK: Living in downtown Las Vegas for the past two decades, far from the suburbs and their HOAs, has given me a unique perspective on the city. Add to that my time as an entertainment journalist, covering everything from glitzy headliners to seedy backroom shows, and my years working for a major casino corporation, writing internal communications deep in the bowels of Strip resorts like Luxor and Excalibur. I became intimately familiar with what’s called “back-of-house operations.” I’ve interviewed pastry chefs, grease-trap cleaners, room attendants, union leaders, Cirque performers, and high-powered executives. I’ve seen the sausage get made and, as Warren Zevon put it, it ain’t that pretty at all. I mean, have you ever seen a young woman used a human sushi plate? These experiences deeply altered my writing. I still draw on my wild Strip-era memories, but these days I’m just as inspired by the stark, rugged beauty surrounding the city—from Mount Charleston to Valley of Fire, Red Rock Canyon to Lake Mead. There’s poetry in the desert. There are stories that defy the senses, haunted ruins in the middle of nowhere and barrels filled with human remains washing up on the receding shores of Lake Mead. I love this side of Vegas. Another great experience is that I serve as series editor for Las Vegas Writes, an annual anthology project sponsored by Nevada Humanities. Each year, I gather new creative nonfiction from local writers around a Vegas-centric theme. It’s an honor to help those voices get heard and often published for the first time.
WC: What I love about this collection is its speculative qualities that offers up surprises and delights across every page. From sinister doctors in historic New Orleans to big-tiger sanctuaries in futuristic Las Vegas, the collection constantly pushes against genre expectations and boundaries. How do you think about genre in your writing? Are the ways in which horror and the speculative might be particularly useful or relevant frameworks for the world today?
JK: Genre, for me, is like installing my own set of bumper rails at the bowling alley. It keeps me focused and gives me something to push against. I like to start with a juicy premise—say, giant white lions rampaging down the Las Vegas Strip—and then decide what conventions to obey and which ones to subvert. I see myself as a darkly playful literary writer, rooted in the tradition of Poe, Stephen Crane, and Flannery O’Connor. Horror and the speculative aren’t just gimmicks. They’re how the best stories get at life’s brutal hilarity. Think of O’Connor’s “The Misfit,” Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” or Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Life is grim, absurd, and often miraculous. That’s the terrain I want to explore.
WC: As a poet, I find that ordering a poetry collection can be one of the most challenging and integral aspects of putting together a manuscript. How did you think about the overarching order of this collection in terms of the reader’s experience? Were there different orders that you considered? Do you have advice for writers putting together their own short story collections?
JK: I approached sequencing Gateways to Annihilation the way I’d structure a rock album. Think Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard of Ozz: I’ll start with something loud and punchy, then shift the tempo and tone so the reader doesn’t get hit with, say, two cursed-object stories back to back. I want the reading experience to feel like sitting down to a decadent, unpredictable feast, each course surprising, each flavor distinct. Or, to mix metaphors, I want the collection to feel like a roller coaster. There’s the slow, suspenseful clank to the top of the lift hill, followed by a sudden, whiplash-plunge into the unknown.
WC: Were there any stories that didn’t make the cut? If so, why?
JK: A few stories rooted in domestic realism didn’t make the final cut. Not because they were bad, but because the tone didn’t mesh with the rest. Readers can find excellent realist fiction in places like The New Yorker—which isn’t a venue I aim for. Every story in Gateways leans into the uncanny, the speculative, or the culturally twisted. Whether it’s murderous biodome inmates, lunar werewolf cults, or skunk apes stalking hikers, there’s always a dark, weird thread tying the stories together. Mixing in slice-of-life hipster fiction would’ve diluted the effect. I want the collection to feel like nothing you’ve read before—lurid, literary, and unashamedly strange.
WC: What did the revision process look like for this collection? Did the process differ in any way from your revision process for your previous work? What was the most challenging story to revise?
JK: Compared to the agony of revising a novel or a poetry collection, the short story revision process felt merciful, almost breezy. There’s something about the scale of a short story that makes it easier to hold the entire work in your head. It’s like tuning a small, intricate machine. You can hear when it clicks. That said, I’m meticulous with language, cadence, and emotional payoff during the revision process. A story might be brief, but it still has to hit hard. Revision is where I can play with these aspects. The hardest story to revise was “Tomb of the Spherians,” about calorie-starved scientists struggling to survive in a closed ecosystem without killing one another. There was a lot of science layered within the story. I had to be careful to maintain narrative illusion without overwhelming the reader with superfluous technical details. It was a fun challenge. I revised that particular story at an airport gate during a long delay between connecting flights.
WC: The collection ends with “Son of Mogar,” which offers a different take on the idea of horror—not the horror of demons and werewolves, but that of post-war trauma, addiction, obsolescence. The story reinvents the scenes of monster transformation; rather than a body being transformed through supernatural forces, characters are transformed through the act of putting on monster costumes for film productions. How did you come to this story?
JK: “Son of Mogar” is probably the most overtly literary story in Gateways to Annihilation. It riffs on the idea that kaiju films—particularly Godzilla—serve as catharsis for national trauma, especially Japan’s experience with nuclear devastation. I wanted to push that further: to imagine a man, Hirose, who becomes a monster to shield himself from racism and marginalization in a regressive entertainment industry. The story’s steeped in research—I read every issue of G-Fan magazine I could get my hands on, absorbing the lore, the fandom, the philosophy behind giant monster cinema. In the end, it’s about a man processing grief by destroying miniature cities in a rubber suit. It sounds absurd, and maybe it is, but readers have responded to it in the most heartfelt ways. I’m proud of that one.
WC: In addition to being a writer, you also teach courses on fiction, graphic novels, and literature at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. How has teaching shaped your approach to writing? What advice do you give to your students who are interested in pursuing writing? Additionally, what advice have you received that has been the most valuable to you as a writer?
JK: In my experience, it’s not that teaching has shaped my writing. For me, it’s the other way around. Writing has dramatically shaped how I teach. I’m a strong believer in pushing students to submit the work they create in my classes to literary journals and commercial outlets. That real-world validation—seeing your name in print or online—is incredibly powerful. It changes how you see yourself as a writer. Now, I don’t expect all my students to become professional writers or tenured professors of creative writing. That road is hard, uncertain, and not for everyone. But I do encourage them to push themselves a little harder than they probably think they can, especially when it comes to publishing. I’m always surprised by how many students are hesitant—even fearful—about submitting work. If you’ve written five strong poems, workshopped them, polished them, and done the hard editing... why not send them out? That act of bravery—hitting “submit”—can be transformative. It’s a small gesture, but it carries big weight. It says, “I take myself seriously as a writer.” Some of the best advice I ever received came from professors I didn’t particularly click with. They told me, bluntly, to write not for approval, not to please an imagined audience, but for myself, for the stories and poems I alone want to read. That was liberating. And I took it a step further: I found that writing for commercial outlets—on deadline, with an audience in mind—can be just as freeing. It teaches you discipline, voice control, and adaptability. That’s why I urge my students to write everything: newspaper features, technical manuals, product descriptions, film reviews. Writing professionally in varied contexts builds confidence and subject-matter fluency. It demystifies the process. It also arms you with real knowledge you can later bring into your creative work. For instance, writing about boxing as a journalist gave me the insight I needed to craft vivid, believable scenes in my postwar noir story “The Flyweight.” You learn how to describe things not just accurately, but evocatively. You learn how to make the reader feel the jab, the footwork, the tension.
In short: writing for the world sharpens how you write for yourself.
WC: What are you working on next? Are there any projects you’re particularly excited about?
JK: I’m currently working on an essay collection titled More Fun, Please: Exploring the Strange Intersection of Identity and Pop Culture, which celebrates the 1980s through a dark, humorous lens, focusing on its transformative comics, films, TV, and video games. For example, one essay explores how the movie Red Dawn shaped perceptions of teenage identity, blending nostalgia with sharp cultural critique. As someone whose strengths have typically been in fiction, nonfiction has been a challenging but exciting frontier. I’m learning to craft arguments and weave personal anecdotes with cultural analysis. I’m sharpening my storytelling skills across genres. This project has fueled my curiosity about writing in new formats, like video game scripts or scripted TV series, where I can push my creative boundaries even more. I thrive on these challenges, because writing teaches me more about adaptability than any classroom ever could. I’m thrilled to be growing through writing another book.
Jarret Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of English at UNLV, where he teaches fiction writing, American literature, and the history of the graphic novel. He is the series editor for Las Vegas Writes, sponsored by Nevada Humanities and published by Huntington Press. He is the author of Hammer of the Dogs, and the middle grade books Decide and Survive: The Attack on Pearl Harbor, Decide and Survive: The Battle of Gettysburg, and Heroes of World War II: 25 True Stories of Unsung Heroes Who Fought for Freedom. Keene’s Kid Crimson series of western novels, about the youngest, deadliest, and most handsome hired gun in Virginia City, Nevada, was published in 2024 by Wolfpack Publishing. His latest book is the story collection Gateways to Annihilation, published by Dark Wolf in 2025. Keene has featured in Writer’s Digest, Publisher’s Weekly, EcoTheo Review, Library Thing, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Coast to Coast AM. He was recently inducted into the Nevada Writer’s Hall of Fame by the University Libraries at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Wendy Chen is the author of the novel Their Divine Fires (Algonquin) and the poetry collection Unearthings (Tavern Books). Her poetry translations of Song-dynasty woman writer Li Qingzhao are published in The Magpie at Night from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She is the editor of Witness, associate editor-in-chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and prose editor of Tupelo Press. She earned her MFA in poetry from Syracuse University and her PhD in English from the University of Denver. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.