Do you know a middle schooler who loves scary books? This one is pretty scary! The Creeps by Tehlor Mejia just came out October 6. It was hard to put down. I’m thrilled to interview Tehlor to learn more about how the book came to be.
About the Book
Hi Tehlor! Give us a short summary of The Creeps.
Hi! The Creeps is a book about a middle school boy named Dylan who has to move into a motel for a while when his mom gets sick. Only this isn’t a normal motel. It’s a motel with a lot of rules to follow, and when people don’t follow them, those people tend to disappear…
Who did you have in mind when you wrote it?
First and foremost I wanted to write this book for kids who have experienced housing insecurity—which is a lot more kids than we sometimes realize. Stable housing is such a given in most books for this age group, but that doesn’t reflect the lived experience of a lot of readers, especially as our economy continues to recess.
What came first, the rules or the storyline?
The rules were first! I was thinking about how folks who need to access housing support often have to jump through a lot of hoops to access it, and how sometimes people use their desperation as a way to push a particular agenda. I wondered how a slightly rebellious middle schooler would react to all those extra rules and Dylan’s story grew from there.
You address some serious topics in the book, including a child coping with a chronically sick parent as well as money issues. Unfortunately, there will be many children who relate to both of these. May I ask why you chose to tackle these issues?
Sure. As people in book publishing we’re always talking about the importance of kids seeing themselves in the stories they read. A lot of times being represented by the books you love can be the spark that makes a kid a lifelong reader. But for some kids, representation is pretty sparse. We seem to be pretty scared as a society of talking about poverty and illness. Maybe we’re so afraid of these things happening to us that we want to pretend they don’t exist. But this is reality for a lot of kids, and I believe those kids deserve to see themselves and their experiences in the books they read too.
About the Author
What horror films or books did you grow up liking? (Is “like” the right word for our relationship with horror?)
I’ll be honest, I’m a total scaredy-cat. I was barely able to watch any horror as a kid without getting terrified (this is pretty much still the case). But I did love Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and some of the less visceral kids horror. You’ll never catch me writing something scary enough for adults, that’s for sure.
What parts of Dylan can you relate to?
I shared Dylan’s experience of housing insecurity for periods of my own childhood. I never lived in a creepy motel run by [REDACTED], but my family had times where we stayed with friends or had to move to new places due to money issues. It was an experience that wasn’t shared by many of my friends, so it sometimes felt shameful and isolating to be dealing with stuff like that as a kid.
Writing Horror for Middle Grade
I’d imagine writing horror for middle graders is tough as there’s a fine line between not-enough-scare and too much. What rules do you have for yourself on this?
Honestly this one is pretty easy for me since I have about the same scare-tolerance as a ten-year-old. If it’s too scary for me, it’s probably too scary for them.
You’ve written adult, young adult (YA), and middle grade novels. Tell us a little about what you do differently for middle grade versus YA.
Yeah, there are so many cool things about writing for all age groups, but I’ll always have a soft spot for middle grade. I think in YA we’re often dealing with a character’s first time experiencing the world on their own, and having to navigate new situations without parents or guardians guiding them every step of the way. Middle grade is a little different because middle schoolers are really feeling the urge to separate from the adults in their lives and prove that they can handle things, but they’re still a long way from adulthood. So for YA I try to focus on the moment of separation and stepping into your own authority, while in middle grade I like to explore what happens when you feellike you want that freedom and independence but you might not quite be ready to separate entirely from the adults in your life.
I see you have a new book coming out: According to Vero. Can you give a brief description? It sounds really scary—evil AI is scarier than Freddy Krueger, for sure!
Thank you, yeah! According to Vero is about a boy who struggles to make new friends in school until he finds a mysterious device that seems to give him all the answers. It works great at first, until he starts to realize the device has an agenda of its own, and that the price for its corrupted advice might be higher than he was willing to pay.
For Teachers
Are you doing school visits related to this book?
I’m always happy to consider school visits for elementary and middle school. I can do book talks, talk about horror for kids, talk about the craft of writing scary stories, etc. Anyone interested can reach out through the contact form on my website.
How can we learn more about you?
I’m on Instagram at @tehlormejia and my website is tehlormejia.com
Thanks for your time, Tehlor!
Thank you so much! This was fun 😀
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