Author Peyton June channels her Ohio childhood into sci-fi horror

One night, a group of friends gather near Reed’s Farm in Scarberry, Nebraska. Suddenly, bright lights beam from the sky, a low, threatening howl fills the air and a monster attacks teenager Willy Lamb, ripping off part of his shoulder.

The culprit behind the attack: Old Lucky, a pale, 10-foot-tall, red-eyed alien with a long neck, made famous from sightings in the 1960s. .

The incident kicks off “The Monsters We Made,” a young adult horror novel that blends mystery, the paranormal and queer themes inspired by author Peyton June’s own childhood growing up in Liberty Center, Ohio.

The book’s main character, Claire, is an out lesbian teen who dreams of leaving Scarberry. But the possibility feels distant because her family’s farm is no longer the tourist attraction it once was, and her cousin’s cancer has returned.

Hoping to turn around the farm’s fortunes by attracting a new generation of tourists, Claire creates fake new footage of Old Lucky that goes viral. YouTubers Lenny and Evan arrive on the scene to investigate the validity of these new sightings.

However, after more cows are found mutilated and a farm hand goes missing, Claire begins to realize that the evil lurking out there isn’t just in her imagination.

‘I was a very angry teenager’

To create the stubborn Claire, June drew upon her own experiences working at a drive-in movie theater in high school and at a factory during college summer breaks.

“I was a very angry teenager. I didn’t really have anywhere to put it, and I also feel like horror is, it’s always political, whether you claim it is or not,” she said.

Growing up in Liberty Center, a tiny village in Northwest Ohio with two restaurants and six churches, June lacked exposure to the LGBTQ+ community, which made it difficult for her to come to terms with her bisexuality.

Claire “was both my ‘What if I was braver than I was, but also what if I was in a more difficult, thorny position where it was harder for me to get out,” June said.

After reading Andrew Joseph White’s “Hell Followed Us,” a dystopian horror novel that follows 16-year-old transgender Benji as he escapes a cult, June was inspired to write young adult horror novels that tackle difficult subject matter.

“I wish that kind of stuff existed when I was a teenager. I was so afraid of going to hell,” she said. “I would go to the end of Revelation (in the Bible) and then I’d feel guilty about it because I’m like, ‘Why are you seeking all the scary stuff?’”

“I always knew I’m going to be better than this place. I’m going to be bigger than this place, so I was always in this liminal space of knowing I’m going to leave, it’s just when does it happen,” she said, “and that’s kind of what positioned Claire, one of the protagonists, is in.”

Although June was still exploring her identity as a teen and wasn’t out then she wanted to live vicariously through Claire.

“With Claire, it was, ‘OK, what if I was very sure of who I was earlier and came out while I was still in Liberty Center and how would that go,’” she said. “It would not go well, but if I was so sure that I was leaving, I might be a little bit ballsier with it.”

June’s experiences attending the Cleveland Institute of Art, moving to the state of Washington and visiting other rural towns served as the inspiration for the character Lenny, co-host of YouTube show “The Odd Kids” in the book.

“I was stopping in these small towns that were very similar to mine, but for the first time I was an outsider in those places,” she said. “So I took on this idea of ‘What does it mean to be an outsider in a place that you were supposed to be from, and what does it mean to be queer in those small towns and to be like one of them but still treated like an alien.”

June’s next horror book, “Rabid Flesh,” scheduled to come out in 2027, will also have a small town as its backdrop. It follows a teenage girl living with obsessive-compulsive disorder and vitiligo, a condition where patches of skin lose pigmentation. After escaping her abusive father, she joins a coven of girls who can transform into animals during the night.

No matter how far she is from her father, she still fears “that she’s going to become something beastly and evil like her father.”

June, who now lives in Washington state, continues to take on challenging topics, including gender-based violence, in “Rabid Flesh.” She views the horror genre as the perfect vehicle for doing that.

“I feel like teenagers – especially with times like these, especially queer kids – are either going to want something that’s wish fulfillment, light and fluffy to escape or something that reflects the horrors that they feel are happening,” she said.

“So, I want to tell kids, especially queer kids: You’re not crazy for being afraid, but also these things are survivable and here’s maybe a blueprint of what to do or not to do.” 🔥