Matthew Schumann

I was born in 1969, so that makes me 55 as of this writing. It was late in the year so as I grew up, I was 1 in 1971… I was 2 in 1972 – for the majority of the year. I was 10 in 1980. ’30 in Y2K. Anyway, all that’s only important insofar as the formative years that led to why I write and try to do the things I do now, run from 1978 to 1984 roughly. (I know! “Stranger Things!” … “Spielberg, E.T., Raiders” … Gen X and blah blah blah. Dungeons and Dragons. I drank from the garden hose etc. and I inhaled deeply the fragrant particles of asbestos anywhere I was able to.) Sure, all that was then, but what really tied it all together for me was cassette tapes.

Our family didn’t get a VCR until 1984. Video rental stores weren’t a thing yet. "TV Guide" (for sale in the grocery store and Shopko check-out aisle) was the Bible. And on TV, if you missed an airing of your favorite show or movie, you were out of luck, at least until network TV reran the show or movie 6 months later during summer rerun season. Call it a humble-brag or what you will, but I had the bright idea to record movies, with a cassette tape recorder – just the audio – as I sat and watched them on TV during the ABC Sunday Night at the Movies program (or the equivalent from CBS or NBC). I literally sat a foot from the TV screen – to the side, so as to not block the view for my mom or sisters – and recorded from the speaker on the side of the TV into the mic on the boom box. After some practice, getting the quality to a tolerable level, I began pressing pause during the commercials.

These were the days when “The Big Classics” played once a year on TV and that was it. “The Ten Commandments” – on Easter Sunday, that took up four 60-minute cassettes. “The Sound of Music” – took up three and a half 60-minute cassettes. I did “Grease” for my sister(s) when it premiered. (So controversial! Did you know they had to bleep a word in one of the songs?!) I tried doing “Gone With the Wind” but that one defeated me. My crowning achievement was “Superman – the Motion Picture” starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Brando, etc. I fit it all on two 90 minute tapes, and you see, what I would do is this: I would take the tape deck to my room, and listen to “Superman” every night before I fell asleep. I could visualize what was going on. Part One one night, Part Two the next night. I had a stack of audio movies on my bed stand; if I got bored with one after 3 or 4 listens, I’d switch to another. I tried “Grease” one night but, you know, “Yuck.” It was a “girl movie.” I had “Close Encounters” recorded. “The Poseidon Adventure.” “The Pink Panther Strikes Again!” I didn’t have to do Star Wars, because they already had a Star Wars Radio Drama for sale on cassette produced by NPR.

I outgrew the practice right around the time VCR’s came out and HBO and cable television became a thing. Anyway, I got good at visualizing images with just audio or music cues. Later, I became an AV nerd in high school.

I studied Screenplay Writing when I went to college in Bozeman Montana – Montana State had a film school. I also studied Creative Writing, Theater, and Poli-Sci.

I got a job helping to manage an independently run movie theater, back in my hometown of La Crosse WI. I enjoyed it so much I worked there for 17 years. But still, I wanted to write, and so, when the time came to hang up my movie theater goggles (? – I wasn’t sure what to write here. Goggles? Hm. Suspenders? Popcorn buckets - ?) I took some savings, took some time off, and wrote The Temple of the Mermaid. Now I have other projects in mind, historical fiction, biography, that sort of thing, but for today: Why Mermaids?

Why mermaids. Well… Let’s set aside any psychological issues I may or may not have, including any odd fascinations involving the reproductive or scatological biology and proclivities of said mythological beings in question. (You have to buy the books for that!) I think the answer is representation. These particular ladies are underrepresented in the genres of fantasy and horror.

Think about it: (this is one of my pitches) how many good vampire stories can you name, assuming you are a supernatural horror buff. How many? “Dracula,” of course sits atop the pile. But after that, if pressed, I bet I could name 20 or more solid movies or series in the vampire milieu. (“Milieu” is snobbish, I know, but it’s also fun to say because you can stick out your tongue at the end when you pronounce it.) Now… how many Mermaid stories are there out there? Bear in mind the Vampire genre has only been with us since 1890 or so – a hundred and forty years. Mermaids, mermaid “sightings,” and mermaid mythology have been around for thousands of years – since people figured out how to build boats, basically. So, how many iconic mermaid tales are there?

Arguably there is just one. Okay a few stragglers after that here and there. “Splash (1984),” … “Aquamarine (2006 and charming af btw),” … there’s a mermaid-rescue-squad young adult graphic novel series out there – I forget the name, but I hear its good… there’s the better half of “PotC” part 4… there’s a Polish horror movie I hear is good too. (Okay okay – there’s two "Aquaman" movies, but those came about while I was working on this, so I didn’t see them.) Those aside though, there’s one big, singing, red head atop the mermaid pile with a big wave going “Boosh” behind her. I hear tell she wants to be part of our world. That’s the rumor, anyway. Take this, the modern version, and add the original Hans Christian Andersen story, and there you go: kind of a threadbare family tree for being 1500 years old.

All props to the other Mer-themed fantasy novel series going out there. The vampires, werewolves, and masked killers all get big tables to eat at. Mermaids deserve that too.

My bio is running long, so let me finish with tying it back to visualization again. Everything that exists below the vast waterline of the dark deep ocean – all of that lives in our heads. It’s our unconscious. As primal humans, we can climb trees, or mountains and if we fall, the fall will kill us. So we choose not to, other than for recreation. A person can go camping in the deep dark woods and become frightened, yes, but our eyes adjust, and our senses heighten – naturally. We have fire light. Most animals know not to mess with us – or mess with us when we have fire and machines backing us up. But under that big horizon line of water, humans are clueless. The dark is physical – it subsumes you. A person diving into the water and going deep – no matter how you slice it, the senses get dim and become less and less useful. The range of vision shortens as the weight begins to squeeze. We know there’s good food down there. But for thousands of years, everything else was just guesswork. All we could do is glide across the top of it and hope it doesn’t kill us. We think on it. We can study the clues that wash ashore. We can bat around stories and dream on it. In the last (only!) 80 years we’ve been able to dive and get cameras down there. There is certain death in the deep for unprotected humans. Only very big creatures seem able to thrive. All we can do is try and visualize the world below, dream about it, and let it thrive in our unconsciousness.

But what if you could see in ultraviolet and infrared? What if you could taste molecules? What if you can hear and smell what’s going on two miles away? What if processing saltwater through your lungs helps regulate the weight of the deep?

In all these other pop culture examples mentioned above, the focus is on how shitty the landward side of the world is for merfolk. Your legs change; walking is weird and/or painful. You’re clumsy. Creepy people want to “out” you. I wanted a little more of what’s going on down below. And I wanted it to be aimed at an audience of women who enjoyed the fairytales when they were younger but can handle some of the darker stuff now that they’re (or we’re – guys included) older. Let’s see the merfolk living purposefully in their ancient society but with some organically modern advancements, as well as some hardcore societal difficulties. And if this is going to be a portal-fantasy, let’s get into the nuts and bolts of how these portals work. And if mermaids can see auras and read thoughts, let’s dissect that too. And what, by the way, are dolphins really saying when they’re chattering at you nonstop? Did you know they all sound Australian?

It's true!

So here we go: Meet Joy. Paycheck to paycheck weekend rager. Deployer of multiple f-bombs per minute. The last person in the world who wants to suddenly live in a fairy tale. She’s not big on the idea of her legs fusing shut. (Because, seriously?) But the growing of fangs aren’t so bad… once in a while.