You judge people with your eyes. That’s a private theory I developed as a teen, after losing much of my own eyesight.

Everyone has an internal scale; an intelligent but subconscious apparatus that weighs human intentions, beyond what you simply see in a person. The idea is that, if you’re in touch with your innermost feelings, you can size somebody up fairly – even a stranger. The idea for me was radical, magnanimous, genuinely…

You may have heard the phrase “body horror” used to describe a genre focused on producing terror and disgust by doing gruesome things to bodies. A lot of V.C. Andrews’s work falls into this category. Physical discomfort is a huge part of her work. There's a lot of painful childbirth and missed meals. And who can forget the scene in Flowers in the Attic when Cathy wakes up to find her grandmother has covered her…