HOWLS read Hiron Ennes’s debut novel, LEECH, earlier this year as part of our weekly Book Club. It scratched our gothic itch with its rich prose, shadowy world, dark mystery, and compelling characters. One of our members called the setting a “steampunk Switzerland.” Another said “I would definitely read a sequel of this, or at least read something in the same universe;” and another proclaimed “this book is so severely my type of shit.”
We had the pleasure of interviewing Hiron Ennes, author of the newly released THE WORKS OF VERMIN, to discuss worldbuilding, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and the goodest of good boys and girls: dogs.
My mother likes to tell the story of driving past roadkill and little Hiron demanding to turn around to examine it.
1. What draws you to the horror genre?
It’s hard to say what specifically draws me to horror. Some part of it, I’m sure, was an instinctual response to going to a conservative Christian school as a kid. I was a natural contrarian, so of course I sought out and greatly enjoyed any sort of scandalous or sinful material (it didn’t take much; Pokémon was banned at my school for promoting the idea of “evolution,” which goes to show you how little they understood about both basic science and popular culture).
All in all I’m sure the biggest contributor was that I was born with … I don’t know, a wonky amygdala or something. Somehow during my neural pruning, my fear/disgust wires got crossed with fascination. As a kid I loved ghosts and scorpions and gore. Before I could even read, I was obsessed with this coffee table medical history book because it had a huge foldout of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death. My mother likes to tell the story of driving past roadkill and little Hiron demanding to turn around to examine it.
Being ‘Too Online’ in the early aughts meant being exposed to all sorts of home-brewed rotten shit. To this day, I shudder at the vileness of it.
2. Can you tell us about any formative horror experiences you’ve had?
Hard to pick just one, since I was horror’ed way too young, and definitely of my own volition. Aside from my obsession with The Triumph of Death, I really loved Poe as a kid, and I have vague memories of hiding in the stairwell at about six or seven and watching I Know What You Did Last Summer over my parents’ shoulders. I don’t remember much, but I remember having a good time—maybe it was just the thrill of misbehavior. From there it was Ginger Snaps and House of 1000 Corpses and the Resident Evil games … and, of course, the internet. Being Too Online in the early aughts meant being exposed to all sorts of home-brewed rotten shit. To this day, I shudder at the vileness of it.
3. Your Macmillan bio is amazing. Can you tell us about this “mad doctor” business?
Believe it or not, I’m a doctor in real life. I’m a pathologist (the maddest flavor of doctor, I would argue). I work in a hospital right now, but I’ll be moving on to forensic pathology in the next couple years, so it’ll be all autopsies all day for me—which works out quite well considering the crisscrossed disgust/fascination neurons and all that. It at least puts my weird brain to work in service of the public good.
4. You are an “avid dog-petter.” How much do you like dogs? Do you have a dog? If so, can we see a photo of them?
I love dogs, I adore dogs, I will pet your dog right now. I will walk your dog, I will feed your dog under the table, I will argue at length with your dog. My elderly lady Budna, to whom Leech is dedicated, passed away this summer, but I’m hoping to adopt a new dog in the spring. Any of you guys have puppies you need to get rid of? I’ll take them. Mutts to the front.
Here is dear Budna, on a walk through the Verdiran wilderness:
If you need more pictures, I’ve got more. I’ve got pictures of Budna, I’ve also got pictures of other dogs. 90% of the pictures on my phone are of dogs. Friends’ dogs, strangers’ dogs. Big dogs, small dogs, ugly dogs, bizarre dogs, I’ve got a dog for every occasion.
“I am writing something at the moment that may delve more into cosmic/existential horror, if not spiritual horror….This story may go off the rails at some point, so we’ll see!”
5. Both LEECH and WORKS OF VERMIN deal with the creepy and the crawly. Are there other aspects of horror you would like to explore?
Although my forays into horror were partly spurred by escaping a Billy Graham Christofascist spiritual environment, oddly I haven’t done much spiritual/supernatural horror. I don’t instinctively gravitate toward those stories; my interest tends to lie in the horrors of the natural world (of which there are plenty!). However, I am writing something at the moment that may delve more into cosmic/existential horror, if not spiritual horror. True to form, I anticipate the paranormal and the normal will reach equivalence in some way, like how many natural phenomena were attributed to supernatural forces in the past. This story may go off the rails at some point, so we’ll see!
“I think the most important element of worldbuilding is uncertainty. To me, solid worldbuilding is anything but solid.”
6. Your world-building is amazing. LEECH was selected by our book club because of its gothic, near-Lovecraftian cityscape. WORKS OF VERMIN takes place in a city built in an ancient tree stump. Can you tell us more about how you weave setting into plot and theme in your books?
Setting is inextricable from plot, themes, and character for me. I’m very much a person for whom the backdrop is its own person—even more so in WORKS OF VERMIN than in LEECH. I don’t have a grasp of my characters or their motivations unless I have a grasp of the world that has shaped them. Necessarily, their decisions and attitudes will be informed by elements of their cultural and geographic backgrounds, i.e. extractive capitalism, imperialism, communalism ….
For example, manufactured scarcity is a driving force for many characters in Vermin, and so the setting must contend with the societal structures that maintain that scarcity, and the geography and ecology that begot those societal structures (and, to a lesser degree, the distant history that begot that ecology)
But I think the most important element of worldbuilding is uncertainty. To me, solid worldbuilding is anything but solid. Solid worldbuilding doesn’t mean a magic system with set and comprehensible rules (boring), or a well-documented history on which everyone generally agrees (uninspired). My worldbuilding demands ambiguity. Think of all the things we don’t know about our own world. History depends on who writes it. Even methods in science are far from objective. The origin of our own existence is informed by equal parts fervor and inference. We continuously struggle to understand our own world, so why would I expect people in a fictional world to understand theirs?
7. In LEECH, the protagonist is part of a collective. Writing a collective mind seems impossible to fully separate yourself from. Did you ever feel the parasite’s perspective bleeding into your own, or influencing your writing in ways you didn’t expect?
Sometimes–though, I feel like we all have a natural, if limited, collectivity about our own minds. We talk to ourselves, we argue with ourselves, we doubt ourselves, we think twice, we regret our decisions, we confuse ourselves to no end. We harbor contradictory attitudes and logics depending on the time of day, our mood, our environment, our current needs and desires. In truth, I don’t think writing from the Institute’s perspective was much of a leap from this— basically, I externalized and exaggerated the natural internal contradictions and conversations that take place in our heads all day every day. There’s a little Institute in all of us, LEECH just teased it out.
8. [SPOILER for LEECH. Click here at your own risk!]
How did you decide on that the parasite in LEECH propagates via fire? As opposed to being “in the water” or in contaminated food?
I wanted the parasite’s propagation to be a thematic contrast to the setting of Verdira, and I wanted the conditions to be enticing in some way to those infected. Verdira is cold and dark and windy–and so something warm and bright would a natural temptation for an infected host. This strategy is shamelessly stolen from the guinea worm. When it reaches sexual maturity, it induces a painful, burning blister in a host, forcing them to submerge their limbs in water–which just so happens to be the next step in the worm’s life cycle. Upon submersion, the parasite crawls from the wound and releases her larvae, ushering in a new generation. Well-played, worm. Brutal, but well-played.
9. We appreciated how genderqueerism is treated so effortlessly and naturally in LEECH. it doesn’t feel forced. Can you tell us about how you conceptualized character gender portrayals in the book?
I wanted to have a gender-neutral character, given that the Institute is dispersed across many bodies, all similarly desexed (I’m fortunate that Dr. is a gender-neutral honorific, but in reality most readers assumed the doctor was male–an example of our male-dominated cultural tendencies). Though the Institute understands that sex and sexual characteristics play large roles in human biology, it has no interest in participating in the societal construction of gender (among many other societal constructions it considers unnecessary). While other characters may contend with gender (i.e. the baron insulting Didier’s masculinity, or Helene struggling with her reproductive role as a wife), the Institute tends to brush it off. Sex only becomes a problem for it when its host’s menstruation makes it realize it has lost some degree of biological control.
- Abigail Thorn reads the audiobook version; was this a decision that you were a part of?
Abigail was partly my decision, partly the producers’. I wanted a trans or non-binary narrator, and was given a couple samples in response to this request. I liked her cadence on the audition samples (I think she can affect an elevated, detached sort of professionalism that I imagined the Institute might have), so we went with her.
“I think my inspiration (the impetus to actually write the thing) was a combination of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, a dream I had on a train, and the biophysics research going on in the lab next to mine.”
10. Our Book Club compared your book with Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. (Not so much Wuthering Heights.) Are there any books that inspired Leech? Are there books that you would recommend for people who liked Leech? (In addition to Works of Vermin, of course!)
I think it might be helpful to divide my influences and my inspiration–LEECH’S literary influences include [Edgar Allen] Poe and [Mervyn] Peake in terms of tone and flavor, but I think my inspiration (the impetus to actually write the thing) was a combination of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, a dream I had on a train, and the biophysics research going on in the lab next to mine.
Books I would recommend that have a similar creepy arctic vibe to them: DARK MATTER by Michelle Paver, NORTH WATER by Ian McGuire, and I guess jumping on that train (or ship), THE TERROR by Dan Simmons. (And of course, The Thing, which somehow I had not watched until this, the Year of Our Lord 2025–clearly there was some sort of spiritual osmosis going on, because I’m sure it influenced Leech even without my having seen it.)
And yes! Read THE WORKS OF VERMIN! Very different from LEECH but still gross and horrible.
You will definitely read some utterly, bewilderingly shitty bestsellers that will make you question your own sanity.
11. Do you have any advice generally for writers who are beginning their journeys?
Always remember who you write for. The industry is fickle. You may get lucky. You may not. You may publish one book, find yourself damned by a modest sales record, and never get picked up again. You may write stunning epics of unsurpassed brilliance that will never make it past the slush pile. You will definitely read some utterly, bewilderingly shitty bestsellers that will make you question your own sanity. You will watch the best minds of your generation destroyed by madness, you will watch the worst elevated to literary sainthood. There is nothing you can do. Remember who you write for.
13. How is the horror scene in your town? Do you have a favorite spot / local bookstore?
Horror’s pretty big in my town, but my town is pretty big. I’m currently in LA, and everything’s big in LA. Big and too far apart. My favorite bookstore here is Skylight Books, which was kind enough to host me for the release of The Works of Vermin.
Hm. Lots of people hired to do questionable shit in my novels. Seems to be a theme.
Thanks for the interview! We loved reading LEECH. What else should we be on the lookout for? What’s on the horizon?
THE WORKS OF VERMIN, of course!
I’ve finished a third novel, fingers crossed it gets traction. This one takes place in the same valley as Vermin: a priest who specializes in forbidden rituals is hired to assist a rich couple in conceiving a child, and as expected, things go very south in weird ways.
I’ve also got a short story coming out in Reactor Magazine sometime in 2026, and stories appearing in Best Weird Fiction of the Year, Vol. 1 (Undertow) and ECO 24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction (Violet Lichen Books).
I’m currently starting a project that returns to the medical world, following a doctor hired to perform autopsies on a cohort of odd elderly people (think the local bridge club if it was deeply cursed), and of course … things go very south in weird ways. Hm. Lots of people hired to do questionable shit in my novels. Seems to be a theme.
You can follow me on Bluesky, @hironennes, or visit my website hironennes.com.
Or scream into the void, I’ll probably show up eventually.
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Peter Ong Cook
Peter Ong Cook has published stories in HOWLS from the Dark Ages and HOWLS from the Scene of the Crime. His short fiction can also be found in Cosmic Horror Monthly and the anthology Trouble In Paradise. His husky resembles a wolf, the wolf featured in the HOWLS logo, but receives no royalties. The husky would just spend it on the dog-equivalent of booze.
