Our first Cry Baby Bridge Author Interviewer starts with William J. Donahue, horror writer, metal head, and cat rescuer.
William J. Donahue has been a supporter of the collection of utter speculation since it debut with The Lost Colony of Roanoke. He wrote us a killer foreword for The Lady in White, based on his own love of local urban legends.
His story, Hannah’s Bridge stands out in the Cry Baby Bridge collection for its bone deep sense of despair, it’s chilling portrayal of the harsh realities of real life, and the underlying dark hope it offers.
About Hannah’s Bridge: Thirteen-year-old Hannah lives in a small town called Lin, New York. She’s been traumatized by the death of her grandmother, Oma, and the daily suffering of having to share her home with a parent who has been consumed by her struggles with addiction. As she wanders the streets trying to figure out the problems the world has handed her, Hannah makes her way to a nearby covered bridge rumored to be the site of several tragic events. An encounter on the bridge helps her envision a clear path forward, out of the morass.
What are you reading right now? At the moment I’m about 250 pages into The Imposters from Tom Rachman. I love his novels because of how clearly he writes his characters. This one isn’t quite as strong as his prior works—The Imperfectionists, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, The Italian Teacher—but it’s still terrific. Before that I read an ’80s pulp horror novel called Killer by Peter Tonkin, about a malevolent orca, which was just okay; Small Town Sins by Ken Jaworowski, a very well-drawn story about people who struggle to get by and make lots of bad decisions in a Rust Belt town; and On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel. I absolutely loved McDaniel’s first two novels, The Summer That Melted Everything and Betty, but Savage just hit me the wrong way.
Books/short stories/poems/publishing projects you have out in the world now. My newest novel, Only Monsters Remain, came out in August. My prior two novels, Burn, Beautiful Soul and Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life, were published in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Several of my short stories have been published (or will soon be published) in anthologies—“Black-Metal Baker” in Heavy Metal Nightmares from Phobica Books, “The Bleeding Garden” in House of Haunts from Parlor Ghost Press, and “The Devil Sings in Millbrook’s Ear” in a literary and historical journal called Neshaminy.
What made you decide to write a story for Cry Baby Bridge: A collection of utter speculation? It was such a great prompt, because CBB touches on themes like suffering, legacy, and love. When I saw the deadline for submissions was coming up, I remembered a particular covered bridge in upstate New York, where my wife and I go once or twice a year to hike in the Adirondacks. The main character, Hannah, and the circumstances she faces came to me almost immediately. The bridge and the town in my story are fictitious, but the bridge in Jay, New York, provided all the inspiration I needed to see the setting clearly.
Did you grow up with a cry baby bridge legend? Is it something that affected you or was it a new story for you? I came of age in Philadelphia and Bucks County, both of which have tons of creepy ghost stories and legends about things that may or may not have actually happened: houses of devil worship, green phantoms, a spectral woman in white, demons sprouting from the soil, a knight-like ghost who craves the souls of the living. Once my friends and I started driving, naturally we sought out some of the places where these crazy things were supposed to have happened. I remember sitting in a car with a friend late one night, parked on an open bridge on Dark Hollow Road somewhere in Bucks County, and talking about the crybaby legend. I don’t remember exactly what was supposed to have happened there, but I do recall the details were somewhat grisly.
Why do you think this legend is so pervasive? What truth do you think is behind it? Every person who has ever lived has experienced some kind of pain, and I believe sometimes the pain can be so great and profound that it lingers, transcending space and time. The longer I live, the less I know, but I do believe in realms apart from this reality—spiritual, cosmic, otherworldly. Why wouldn’t those different realms bleed into one another?
What other projects are you working on? Where can we look for you next? I’m getting ready to start shopping another novel to publishers. I’m also on the final draft of yet another novel and am in the developmental stages of another novel after that, which will be my tenth. Otherwise I’ve had a few other stories accepted for forthcoming anthologies, not yet announced. All of my work is either straight-up horror or horror adjacent.
Final words: My house is full of animals, including kittens my wife and I foster through a wonderful nonprofit organization called Forgotten Cats. For anyone who is looking to rescue or foster, check them out at forgottencats.org. Surrounding myself with animals and trees and natural things has helped me find the peace I need to get through the day.
To find out more about William follow him at:
https://www.facebook.com/wmjdonahue
LC W. Allingham 
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