CityState: Current
Emily M. Danforth
The local author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post debuts a novel
for adults, Plain Bad Heroines, this October. By Andrew Small
Eight years after the release of her acclaimed young adult
debut, Emily M. Danforth’s second novel, Plain Bad Heroines,
combines her interests of gothic literature, historical fiction, horror
and queer lives at the turn of the twentieth century.
Born in Montana, Danforth first visited Rhode Island twenty
years ago while she was attending Hofstra University in New York,
and she immediately fell for the Ocean State. While looking for a
teaching position, Danforth happened upon an opportunity to
teach creative writing at Rhode Island College.
“Finding a position in my academic area in a location I so wanted
to live in, and getting hired for that position, was all very fortuitous,”
Danforth says.
Now living in Pawtucket
with her wife, mother and
two dogs, Danforth left RIC
last year to pursue her next
big project. She researched
seances and hauntings while
finding ways to work them
into a new novel. Her home
provided inspiration, too: In
the early twentieth century,
it hosted the Pawtucket Progressive
Spiritualist Lyceum,
where spiritualists would
gather and communicate
with the dead.
About 60 percent of Plain
Bad Heroines takes place in
Rhode Island, mostly in a fictionalized Little Compton. Although
you won’t be able to find the places she writes about on a map, the
novel is filled with Ocean State references, including a chapter that
takes place in the capital city. If Danforth didn’t live in Rhode
Island, Plain Bad Heroines wouldn’t have the same authenticity.
“I think it would be very different,” she says. “I would have this
tourist’s eye view as opposed to knowing about little pockets of the
state that you might not know about if you were just visiting.”
Danforth’s first novel, The Miseducation of Cameron Post — a
semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about a teen living in
rural Montana who is sent to a gay conversion therapy center — was
geared toward young adult readers and was adapted into an awardwinning
film starring Chloë Grace Moretz. Plain Bad Heroines, which
hits shelves October 20, is Danforth’s adult fiction debut. The novel,
with illustrations by Sara Lautman, was selected as one of five Buzz
Books for the international Book Expo America.
“Plain Bad Heroines covers two distinct timelines: one set in 1902
at a school for girls in Little Compton that seems to be in the throes
of a deadly curse related to a controversial memoir; the other set
in the contemporary world of today,” with three queer women
involved in the making of a movie about that historic curse, she
says.
“It’s like Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Blair Witch Project, but
with lesbians,” she adds with a smile.
Pre-order Plain Bad Heroines at the HarperCollins website or from
a local bookstore such as Stillwater Books in Pawtucket. Follow her
at emilymdanforth.com and on Instagram to keep up with her life,
her dogs and possible future events. �
COURTESY OF R. PROPHETE PHOTOGRAPHY.
18 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2020