GREETINGS, BOOKWORMS! I’m Aisha Kandisha, Head Librarian at Kandisha Press. Join me in the dusty stacks of the library I will never leave again as I chat with some of my favorite Women in Horror. Today we feature author Dawn DeBraal! Dawn’s story “Quid Pro Quo” is featured in PRETEND YOU DON’T SEE HER: THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (Kandisha Press 2025 Women of Horror Anthology.)
DAWN DEBRAAL lives in rural Wisconsin and has published over 700 short stories, drabbles, and poems in online ezines and anthologies. She tends to lean toward the horror genre because it makes her life seem so much better! Falling Star Magazine nominated Dawn for the 2019 Pushcart Award; she was Runner-up in the 2022 Horror Story Competition, two-time Author of the Month, nominated 2020,2022,2023 Author of the Year and received Contributor of the Year 2023 for Spillwords Magazine. Her newest novel “The Lord’s Prayer, A Series in Horror,” won the Literary Global Book Award for Fictional Anthology, 2024.
https://www.facebook.com/All-The-Clever-Names-Were-Taken-114783950248991https://linktr.ee/dawndebraal
I know you had mentioned you got the idea for Quid Pro Quo in a dream you once had. Tell us more about the dream, and how it led you to create the story.
I was taking a nap in the afternoon, which I seldom do, and dreamed of being on the water when the boat I was in struck two people on a raft. By the time we got back to where the couple had gone down, all I could see was two hands just below the surface of the water waving with the current like they were plants growing up from the bottom of the lake. I woke, startled from the dream and the feeling haunted me. The story wrote itself after that about a woman who depended on her husband for everything, and how the accident changed her perception of the person she had invested her life with.
Charlotte is a woman who seems chained to her life, and her fate is decided by the actions of men. How can the ordinary “invisible” woman relate to Charlotte’s plight?
Women are characteristically thrust into the role of being the family caregiver to their spouse and children. Charlotte was the caregiver to her husband and college bound son, so much so that she no longer existed as an individual in her family. She had become a fixture who wasn’t appreciated and an embarrassment when she couldn’t do her job to the family’s expectations.
Charlotte blamed her husband for all the decisions she had gone along with at the time such as being a stay-at-home mom. Being the dedicated housewife, she didn’t have the courage to free herself when her son was old enough to seek a job outside the role of housekeeper and caregiver, that could have helped her build a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. She made herself the victim and then blamed her circumstances on her husband.
What does your creative process look like when you’re writing? Do you have any special rituals or routines?
I am a pantser. I sit down and write a story linearly. I know the ending or at least where I want the story to go as I work my way toward the finale, but the characters find a way to waylay me along the way! I am surprised by the twists when they present themselves. There are no rituals or routines. I write only when I am moved to.
What else are you working on? Any projects you’re especially excited about?
I have completed my next book; The Morgan Dollar Stories ( working title.) Something so different because it is not in the horror genre. It is a novel of twenty-seven individual short stories written during the era when the Morgan silver dollar was minted from 1878 to 1904, with the coins featured in each story, and how each life was affected by the gain or loss of money.
Some stole, some hoarded, some used it to help others. I love the variety of protagonists and antagonists and how the money that passes through their hands is either a blessing or a curse. There are some historical events sprinkled in because the era was so interesting in shaping the United States. The idea came to me when my husband and neighbor were admiring his Morgan dollar coin collection, and they talked about whose pockets the coins could have been in. Still trying to find a publisher. Thank you for your interesting questions!
KANDISHA PRESS 
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