Leanna Renee Hieber: Gothic Storyteller and Haunted History Tour Guide

The 54th episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory has Mookie talking ghosts, gothic fiction, generational trauma, creativity, labor politics, and the thin membrane between the living and the dead with acclaimed author, actress, and haunted history guide Leanna Renee Hieber.Leanna’s work lives in the shadowy crossroads between gaslamp fantasy, horror, romance, historical fiction, paranormal mystery, and social commentary — which means trying to pin her to a single genre is like trying to handcuff fog. From Victorian ghost precincts and spectral detectives to haunted mansions, robber barons, labor uprisings, and vengeance-driven spirits, her fiction blends lush gothic atmosphere with sharp cultural critique and a wicked sense of humor.The conversation quickly spirals beyond ghost stories and into Leanna's lifelong fascination with the paranormal, childhood experiences she still cannot rationally explain, and why she believes science and the supernatural are not mutually exclusive. Drawing from her work leading haunted tours through New York City, she explains how certain places seem charged by tragedy, memory, suffering, and emotional residue: from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the lingering psychic weight of old brownstones, forgotten streets, and hidden atrocities.Mookie adds his own uncanny experiences: seeing his father’s ghost after death, sensing overwhelming energy inside Dachau, and living through bizarre moments in a Park Slope brownstone that felt less like coincidence and more like reality itself tearing at the seams. Together, they explore the provocative possibility that consciousness, memory, grief, and history may operate on levels modern society doesn't understand.Going beyond paranormal speculation, they offer an unapologetic defense for storytelling with boldness and bravado. Leanna breaks down her evolution from actress and theater performer to bestselling gothic novelist, discussing how she balances performance, prose, narration, and historical research while building a career that refuses to fit neatly into publishing categories. She talks about the challenge and liberation of writing “five genres in a trench coat,” embracing gothic excess, and refusing to flatten her voice into something market-safe.The discussion also turns into a broader critique of modern fiction culture itself: workshop orthodoxy, “show don’t tell” dogma, hyper-cinematic prose, sanitized storytelling, and the growing fear many writers seem to have of directly expressing ideas, values, or moral outrage through narrative. Mookie argues modern genre fiction has become over-engineered and emotionally declawed, while Leanna explains how gothic fiction has always used atmosphere, metaphor, horror, and heightened emotion to smuggle dangerous truths into the reader’s bloodstream.Part ghost story, philosophical debate, art gothic literary salon, and rant against modern creative conformity, join Leanna and Mookie for one of the strangest, smartest, and most emotionally layered conversations you'll hear on either side of the veil. The GuestLeanna Renee Hieber is a professional actress, playwright, ghost tour guide and an award-winning, bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction for Tor, Union Square & Co. and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts, co-authored with Andrea Janes, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction and their follow-up, America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction, was an Instant USA Today Bestseller and is also a Bram Stoker Award nominee. Her Gothic novel Ravenfield Hall is forthcoming early 2027 from Union Square & Co / Hachette. A 4-time Prism award winner, three of which went to her Gothic Strangely Beautiful saga and a Daphne du Maurier finalist for Darker Still, Leanna’s novels have received translations into multiple languages and her short stories have been featured in notable anthologies such as Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells while her non-fiction essays have appeared in Apex Magazine, The Deadlands, Haunted Magazine and more. A guide with New York’s Boroughs of the Dead, founded by Andrea Janes, Leanna also tours one-woman shows she has crafted from historic texts starring interesting figures in women’s history. Featured in film and television on shows like Mysteries at the Museum and Beyond the Unknown discussing Victorian Spiritualism, Leanna lives in New York and lectures around the country on Gothic and paranormal themes as they intersect with women’s history.Her WorkWebsite: https://leannareneehieber.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/leannareneehieberFB: https://facebook.com/lrhieberEtsy: https://torchandarrow.etsy.com  Want to be on the show? Have feedback? Send Mookie a text!Support the show