PHOTO: Leo Otherland, speculative fiction author and storyteller of haunting, visceral worlds that intertwine the strange and the profoundly human.
Speculative Fiction That Resonates With Heart And Wonder
Leo Otherland shares insights into writing Inflicted, blending science fiction and fantasy, personal inspirations, and how deeply felt emotions shape characters, resonating powerfully with readers in both imagination and lived experience.
Leo Otherland is a writer who embraces strangeness not as ornament, but as essence. A self-proclaimed “goblin masquerading as human,” their speculative worlds are at once visceral, haunting, and deeply human. In Inflicted and beyond, Otherland draws on a life steeped in uncanny memories and unrelenting curiosity, weaving stories that pulse with both wonder and unease. What emerges is fiction that unsettles, consoles, and ultimately insists on the power of feeling.
Their work is not content with boundaries—whether between science fiction and fantasy, or between the imagined and the remembered. Otherland blurs these lines with conviction, suggesting that the marvellous and the possible are closer than we might think. The result is fiction that reads like an incantation, where scientific theory and myth breathe the same air, and where emotional truth is always the compass.
Readers have found Inflicted not only as literature, but as solace—stories turned into companions in their own journeys of survival and healing. This, perhaps, is Otherland’s quiet triumph: the ability to write speculative fiction that resonates in the most personal of ways, grounding the extraordinary in the reality of human pain and resilience.
In every sentence, every fractured horizon of possibility, Leo Otherland asks us to lean closer—to feel, to question, and to remember that within the strange lies the most intimate truth.
How did your background growing up in a haunted house influence the visceral emotional landscapes you explore in Inflicted?
I think the better question would be, how didn’t it influence my writing? As I get older, and those memories of my younger years get further and further away, the tangible elements start to blunt and lose focus, but the ingrained emotional aspects remain. They do not diminish, and I believe the visceral surreality of them make their way into all aspects of my writing. In a way, I want to make my readers experience the same all-encompassing sensations of a child living in a paranormal gateway.
In Inflicted, you blend science fiction and fantasy—what challenges did you face merging those genres in one anthology?
Honestly, if there were challenges in creating this blending, I didn’t feel them. At its core and essence, fantasy is a showcase of the fantastic. Science fiction is the same, except people tend to believe because science is involved there is more of a possibility of these stories being “true.” This divides the genres, but if one can first dispense with the notion that the fantastic is impossible, and believe it is simply less probable, they will inevitably come to the realization the genres are not as divided as they seem.
You based Cole in “Any Other Day” on yourself—how did you balance authenticity with character development there?
Fairly easily, I’m happy to say. I wanted Cole to show only a few aspects of myself, ones specific to the events of the story. This made it easy to write those aspects into Cole but also let him develop as a character independent of me. While Cole and I might feel the same way about certain things, and share some emotions, how we reached these shared aspects are nothing alike. Cole’s backstory, and the planned continuation of his plotline, are nothing like my life.
Can you share how the Jess and Cole dynamic evolved from short story to the Make the Grade duology?
This dynamic is still in evolution. Life has been incredibly hectic and distracting, so the Leveler duology, containing the books Make the Grade and Qualifieris still being written. However, in a shocking turn of affairs, for me at least, I have both books well outlined, and can track the evolution fairly well. Make the Grade goes through Jess and Cole’s pasts, and deals heavily with their parallels, as well as their unknowing intersections. Qualifier comes after the events of “Any Other Day,” and shows a power switch in which Jess must relinquish some of his control, while Cole needs to lead. Without this exchange, neither of them will survive the qualifications their society imposes on them.
The gravitational time dilation research you mentioned—how integral is hard-science accuracy in your speculative fiction?
I can lose myself in science, it’s one of the reasons I left my technical college with a certificate in Solar Energy Technology I’m not likely to use, but that fascinated me while I was studying it. Astrophysics, metaphysics, the theories of conformal cyclic cosmology and eternal return, I love them all and do my best to incorporate some of their essences into pieces of my work. But I am at heart an author of the viscerally fantastic, and don’t overly concern myself with getting all the details right. I do my upmost best but will openly admit I have a limited understanding of these sciences.
Your readers have used Inflicted in therapy—how does knowing your work supports mental-health journeys affect your writing?
Ultimately, it tells me I am, as the saying goes, doing it right. Reading, and the worlds I was able to visit through the doorways of books, kept me alive when I was young. I have always felt if I can give the same gift to at least one other person, then I have fulfilled my purpose and my raisond’etre.
You overcame a six week deadline on Inflicted—what strategies help you maintain creativity under intense time pressure?
While I would love to say something profound here, the truth is simple and can be summoned up in three words: caffeine, insomnia, and panic. I rather think if creatives are honest with ourselves , these are three of the most common strategies. Emphasis on the panic.
What advice would you give aspiring authors hoping to write emotionally resonant speculative fiction like yours?
I would ask them to answer this question: What do you feel? When I first started seriously writing, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to capture on paper, or in words, what I saw inside myself. So, I would physically tell myself to stop, place myself in the position of my character, and ask myself what I would feel there, facing the same fate. This is part of the reason I very seldom write anything that is not inthe first-person perspective. I need to be in the heart and soul of my characters. This is also why there is a piece of me in each of them, and why many of the characters I never intended to write as autistic present this way. If we as writers can find ourselves in our words, and express what we find without fear, our work cannot help but resonate emotionally.
