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Why Indonesia is a gold mine for horror fans
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Scary stories: American-Indonesian writer Nadia Bulkin has loved horror stories ever since she was a child (Courtesy of Nadia Bulkin) (Archive/Courtesy of Nadia Bulkin)
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merican-Indonesian author Nadia Bulkin talks about her passion for horror fiction and how her Indonesian roots have influenced her writing.
Even as a child, Nadia Bulkin always had a penchant for telling stories. Her mother said she would dictate stories for her before Nadia had learned how to write.
“I was also one of those kids who really enjoyed being scared,” she recalls. “As I'm sure you know, Indonesia is a gold mine for horror fans, so I was always asking teachers to tell us ghost stories and watching Saturday morning horror movies on RCTI – and then dealing with my mother's frustration when I couldn't sleep.”
As the only child of an American mother and an Indonesian father, Nadia spent the first 10 years of her life in Jakarta before relocating to the US.
“My parents met in grad school,” she says. “My mom was an anthropology student who loved Indonesia, and my dad was a political science student who loved, or at least admired aspects of, the US. We lived in Indonesia because of my dad's scholarship obligations and how much easier it would be for him to get an academic job in Indonesia. My mom ended up an ABD [all but dissertation student], and she was trying to escape the Reagan years in the United States anyway.”
Unfortunately, Nadia lost her father in early 1998, when Indonesia was shaken by massive political turmoil, and then moved to Lincoln, Nebraska with her mother to be near family again in the US. To this day, she says, it saddens her that her dad did not live to see Soeharto’s fall.
Even though her environment changed completely, Nadia’s love for writing and horror stories remained. Currently residing in Washington, D.C., her short stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies. In August 2017, Nadia’s debut short story collection She Said Destroy was published by Word Horde.
