lachelle.xyz
I am a writer and art historian in training based in Detroit, Michigan. I write speculative fiction about messy midwesterners and bizarre encounters, and study gladiators and sex workers in Ancient Rome.
about
music
I downloaded Logic Pro X in December of 2019 and started making music for the first time at the start of the COVID pandemic. Since then, I've experimented with standalone albums and with projects meant to accompany other creative projects. When it comes to my productions, I like dark melodies, retro synths, and sine waves. you can find me on Spotify, Apple Music, and at the links below.
books
It’s been a year since Oasis stumbled away from Blessed Falls with wings carved into her back and too many scars to count.A year spent razing delusions of being an angel's vessel, proving to her brother that she doesn’t belong in a psych ward, and mourning the loss of her mother's vinyl pressed ashes.A year spent struggling to feel human again.Enter Laura, the mesmerizing stranger who claims to hear Oasis’ heartbeat, who reads her hand-written memoir like scripture, who makes her feel closer to found than lost.Laura is the most recent face of the eternal Count Dracula, ruler of the shadows, chimera of the Devil, and embittered victim of libel.The Van Helsing Institute have been waiting for a glimpse of the dragon’s underbelly, and eagerly approach Oasis for her help in a ploy to kill Dracula for good. But not every wound from Blessed Falls has cicatrized, and Oasis realizes she may be a danger to Laura—and to herself.Yet no one is as dangerous as Laura—the first vampire, the Devil's plaything, and the person with whom Oasis finally feels human.Oceans of time have passed since she last had a drink, and she will not let Oasis go easily.
"With a stunning blend of depth and humor, DARKNESSES is a retelling unlike anything I've read before. Seville presents a fresh take on vampires that breathes new life into Stoker's classic, weaving together elements of identity and interpersonal relationships that truly modernize the story on which it is built. In Laura, Seville presents a fun, nuanced take on Dracula that reminds me how enchanting and innovative the retelling genre can be, while in Oasis, Seville gives the audience a relatable, resilient, and infinitely readable hero. I found myself laughing one page and on the verge of tears the next. Complicated narratives and an inventive world create a rich tapestry that both pays homage to its source material while bringing it to entirely new heights, as well. Seville is a voice to watch and I cannot wait to see what they come up with next."Courtney Gould, author of The Dead and the Dark
_"DARKNESSES is a lush retelling of a classic with all the fun of the original. Seville will take you into the depths of pain and darkness, then guide you back up with a gentle hand and humor, all the while snagging you with each poetic sentence. You will fall in love with these characters and be sad when the last page is turned."Brendon Zatirka, author & translator
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"Sexy, smart, heart-wrenching, and somehow still laugh-out-loud funny. Seville has taken something old and made it wholly new. Is this book massive? Yes. Will I read it again and again? Also yes. It doesn’t matter if you think you don’t like vampires – do yourself the favor of buying this book immediately."Olivia A. Cole, critically acclaimed author of The Truth About White Lies
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“Contemplative, poetic, and romantic, DARKNESSES is like fine dining for every lover of vampires and the gothic tradition. With literary prose and complex relationships, Seville immerses us in a world as ethereal as it is real, as dark as it is hopeful. This is truly Dracula for the modern age.”Ryan Douglass, NYT bestselling author of The Taking of Jake Livingston
BIRD BONES
July 12, 2004 — ELIZABETH, NJOne-year-old Bird Bones, whose stalwart sobriquets include C'mere, Kitty Kitty and Get The Hell Off That Grass, has a hard-earned reputation for benevolence, having spent her time away from the litter leaving bird bones on welcome mats, peeing in rosebushes, and getting into homes and garages she doesn't belong in. Nights like this often find her gazing at her domain from 16661 Pomegranate Avenue, a hard sell of a house gone unsold for so long that the serpentine ivy and jungle of grass have begun to reclaim its civility.The living room windowsill provides Bird Bones with a glimpse of the speckled sky above the fence separating the street from the train tracks. Two street lamps form a net of light at the dead end—a hole in the night, too bright to see the rushing locomotive behind it. The floorboards tremble as it chugs west. The horn's echoes fold back on the silence like a hymn.Something swirls, like fallen leaves or loose mown grass. It spirals out slowly, a looming shadow with no source.Bird Bones watches as it takes shape, like flecks of ash reassembling—flecks of ash that beat the breeze, that sing in shrill notes and move like a cauldron of bats.The cauldron molds into one bat—one thin, upside-down bat swinging gently from the street lamp. The light bleeds back so that its outline is as defined as an angel descending: its sharp ears, the fluff on its head, its leathery, cape-like wings. Its eyes are closed. A yawn shows two twinkling fangs before it swings and takes flight.The train's horn thunders again, cleaving the night air.Bird Bones leaps from the sill as the bat made of bats lands in the grass and begins to carve a path towards the house, clarifying with each step. Its eyes are smaller, shrewder—the width and height of a human's. But where whites and irises should be, there's nothing but pools of churning dark red—churning brown in Bird Bones' feline vision, like what spills from the mice whose heads she bites off and delivers to the worthy.The train blares again, masking the sound of breaking glass as the shadow punches through the window. Its silhouette eclipses the streetlight, but where a shadow would fall from its figure is nothing but unbroken light.Bird Bones flattens with fear, a blob of spiked orange fur on the polished floor.The shadow borne of nothing reaches for the petrified cat and opens its mouth with a soft purr, jaw unhinged, fangs glistening.
1
July 8, 2019 — Manhattan, NYI balance my phone against the cash register and lean forward on my wooden stool. I see my lips: thick and round—and dry. I apply a fresh coat of cocoa butter Vaseline from the small jar in my plaid flannel pocket. The roiling puce clouds outside the bookstore window are exactly how I feel right now. My cramps are killing me, and the ibuprofen I took at noon is taking its time kicking in.I flip through the pages of a Frankenstein paperback again and again, too fast to actually read, but slow enough to note its defects. It's an older edition, with a worn cloth cover and a few beverage stains on the inside. The marginalia's written in small cursive—stuff like 'the original deadbeat dad' and 'hubris gone wild.' Marginalia is a gift for someone like me—someone who gets turned around the moment a paragraph goes on for more than a few sentences. And sometimes, the notes are more entertaining than the book itself.After a moment, I set the book aside so that I can buy it later. Kennedy keeps reminding me of my discount whenever he sees me looking at something for more than a few minutes, and this seems like a good reason.Full Cauldron is a quiet place. As Manhattan's first female-owned, new-and-used science fiction and fantasy bookstore, it's a haven for an array of comic and book lovers: Trekkies and superhero fans, mystery lovers, literary fiction readers with a preference for the Victorian and Gothic. It's a haven for me because it's galaxies away from what I left behind.As I reach for another book from the appraisal pile, I notice someone approaching the counter. She's a glowing shade of dark brown, with curly laid edges and a silken ponytail. Her gold tracksuit is giving the type of Y2K royalty that reminds me of my mother's DJing wardrobe. I can't look away.She puts a stack of books on the counter. "Hello.""Hello." I nearly knock the unpriced books over getting to my feet. "Did you find everything okay?""Very okay." She pats the topmost book in her pile.It has a rust-colored leather cover and gold calligraphy letters on the spine. The title—Dracula—ripples in the light. It's $65. I reach for the next. It's another copy of Dracula, only this one is annotated with essays in the back. The third is a mass market paperback copy of Dracula, but with a dark painting on the cover.The stranger laces her fingers on the counter, stroking the wings of a golden bat around her middle finger, and watches as I ring them up,"You must be a big fan," I say."I am not a fan of any size," she says, ponytail swishing left and right as she shakes her head. "These are to burn.""Why?""Because I cannot do anything worse to them.""Oh." I search for something to say. "I...haven't read it." I almost add that up until now, there's been no room in my life for anything like it—that everything around me has been about being closer to angelic, and that I'm starting to think no amount of pop culture consumption can wash that away. But that's not cash register talk, so instead, I say, "It's about vampires, right?"The stranger runs her tongue over her teeth. "Right."I tear her receipt from the register and slip it into the first book. "It must be bad if you're burning such a nice copy.""Nothing about this book is nice." She pauses while picking up the stack. "But you would not know," she says slowly, smiling. "You have not read it.""I don't have to read it to know that your lungs deserve better than smoke from a book you hate," I say. "Are you gonna keep coming back to check our inventory? It could get expensive.""Money is of no concern to me." She's holding the books like she means to leave with them, but hasn't moved. "You know nothing of the vampire known as Count Dracula?""I know about the vampire bunny known as Bunnicula," I say. "And I know Carmilla. I read it in college." And experienced a sexual awakening so intense that I would've made a Tinder account for the express purpose of finding a girlfriend if I hadn't been failing so many classes. But this isn't cash register talk either, so I keep it to myself."I will note this," the stranger says thoughtfully. "Just to be certain that I understand wholly, you—" she points to me "—have never read this book—" she indicates a copy of Dracula "—by Abraham Stoker.""I didn't even know Abraham was his first name.""It is Abraham," she confirms.Yet again, I can't come up with anything to say, so I keep staring. After hours spent on autopilot, it's dawning on me that this is no longer a passing conversation had solely to fill the silence of a transaction.Is she flirting?I almost laugh out loud before the thought's even completed.Of course she's not.I'm as far from a catch as can be.Unless...?There's no unless.The universe hand-delivering a breathtaking woman in all gold to flirt with me is as close as I can get to a cosmic joke without leaving the galaxy."I learned something today." I return to my stool and grab another book to price. When I straighten up, she's still there, watching with her fingers laced under the stack. "Need anything else?""You."The Left Hand of Darkness slips out of my hand. I don't pick it up. "For what?""You have shown concern for my lungs, and you have never read this book," says the stranger. "And I am certain many reasons more will become apparent to us both."I clear my throat and glance around the store, like someone amongst the shelves will raise a cue card with my next line. "There's plenty of people out there who want you to take care of yourself and haven't read Dracula. You just haven't met them.""Why would I meet them?" she asks, brow quirked. "I have you."My mouth dries out. I lick the Vaseline off my lips, heart sprinting. "I'm lost.""This may have been the case before, but I have found you. You are mine." The woman adjusts the books in her arms, seeming satisfied—relieved, even. "Do not forget this. And do not," she says sternly, raising the stack, "read this book."I try and fail to form a response. She leaves through the open door, and disappears among the ambling pedestrians, all rushing towards their destinations against the countdown to imminent rain.Another customer approaches the register with a question, pulling me back to the present. After some time, I fall back into the silent groove of examining and pricing books, although with a more discerning eye, just in case Dracula is among them.
art
newsletter
My humble newsletter contains book, music, and life updates.
press kit
bio
Lachelle writes books about supernatural sapphics. They are a writer, artist, and budding literary and art historian at University of Michigan. Born and raised in Detroit, they lived in San Jose, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles before circling back home. Darknesses is their debut novel.
darknesses
Lachelle Seville’s debut Darknesses is about the scars that shape us, the pieces we lose to darkness, and finding solace in people you didn’t expect.
synopsis
It’s been a year since Oasis stumbled away from Blessed Falls with wings carved into her back and too many scars to count.A year spent razing delusions of being an angel's vessel, proving to her brother that she doesn’t belong in a psych ward, and mourning the loss of her mother's vinyl pressed ashes.A year spent struggling to feel human again.Enter Laura, the mesmerizing stranger who claims to hear Oasis’ heartbeat, who reads her hand-written memoir like scripture, who makes her feel closer to found than lost.Laura is the most recent face of the eternal Count Dracula, ruler of the shadows, chimera of the Devil, and embittered victim of libel.The Van Helsing Institute have been waiting for a glimpse of the dragon’s underbelly, and eagerly approach Oasis for her help in a ploy to kill Dracula for good. But not every wound from Blessed Falls has cicatrized, and Oasis realizes she may be a danger to Laura—and to herself.Yet no one is as dangerous as Laura—the first vampire, the Devil's plaything, and the person with whom Oasis finally feels human.Oceans of time have passed since she last had a drink, and she will not let Oasis go easily.
photos
contact
Nothing inspires me to write in the same way that my friends do. The highlight of this newsletter is an interview with my friend Brendon Zatirka. Brendon is a writer, translator, and fellow Midwesterner, and has been a major influence on my rejuvenated appreciation for classics. With Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad looming on the horizon, I thought I'd get the scoop on translating from a trusted source. My questions are in bold, and responses are block quotes.When and why did you decide to pursue translation? Was there a particular text that spoke to you that you decided you had to give a voice to?
So, this is one of my favorite things to talk about because I’ve always just sort of been interested in the way ideas move between languages. I took German in high school and we read some fairy tales, then I got to college and lost myself in Latin, French, and Old English. But my favorite has always been ancient Greek. I read Medea for the first time in a tragedy (in translation) class, and found it to be one of the most exciting texts I’ve ever read. It’s such a fast-paced tragedy, and there is a dark, foreboding cloud over the story from the very get-go, and the climax is so intense and jarring and it always raises a number of interesting questions with my own students when we read it. I was immediately was like, I will learn ancient Greek just so I can read this play in the original. And so I tried. Several times. The one class that Wayne State offered at the time never fit with the rest of my schedule (four days a week). I had the textbook, so I just started teaching myself on and off though, because god it was hard, especially by myself. I tried this for years, on and off, picking it up and putting it down when I hit a wall. Then Emily Wilson’s Odyssey came out and I immediately became obsessed. Not even with the text itself, but the way she would talk about process in her Translator’s Note and in her public lectures. She would often put words to the whys of why I enjoy working with languages, especially ones that are kind of like puzzles. I also sort of got into this habit one summer of running up to Loyola’s campus which has a beautiful view of Lake Michigan in the morning and taking photos of the sunrise, which I would then post to Instagram stories with my own renditions of the Odyssey’s various lines featuring rosy-fingered Dawn. I don’t know, I thought it was fun. I finally just said, Sit down and teach yourself. I did eventually, and then I started working on Medea, and that’s all she wrote.
Which individual translators do you gravitate towards for guidance? Is there any particular element that marks a particular translation as good or bad/helpful or unhelpful?
Emily Wilson, Anne Carson, Shadi Bartsch are all translators I gravitated towards while I was figuring out my roots. Anne Carson’s Agamemnon is perhaps one of the best works of translation I’ve ever read and imo one of the best translations of ancient Greek literature ever. She simply blew Robert Fagles out of the water (his was the only other translation of the text I’d read before). Emily Wilson was my entry point into translation theory, so I found a lot of the more critical writing on what translation IS through her. And Shadi Bartsch’s Aeneid is just, simply put, very good. Her Translator’s Note for that work also gave me so much to think about. Translator Notes are now one of my favorite things to read. Sometimes I’ll go to a bookstore and just read these notes in books I have no intention of reading otherwise because every translator has a particular approach and I need to know what they’re thinking as they work.
For me, a good translation is one that attempts to capture the source’s original vibe while also making it accessible for readers of all degrees. I obviously only stick to ancient texts, which are already difficult to read at the level of substance because they’re so Other (culturally, temporally). So many popular translations of the 60s through the aughts are somewhat inaccessible because they use an archaic-sounding registrar, or they translate complex Greek into the clunkiest, wordiest English. (For example, this is the case with many translations of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, and every time I teach the poem my students have a rough time reading it as do I. So I spent a part of this summer doing my own translation specifically for my students.) There’s also a significant lack of poetry in these translations, or if they are poetic, often they’re expanding on the Greek too much. I also hate translations that attempt to be poetic by using rhyming couplets. So a good translation for me is accessible, does not expand the Greek or Latin too much (I give some wiggle room, I mean come on), and does something interesting with the flow or poetry of the English. What’s funny is I’ve noticed a sort of resurgence of alliteration in current translations, which I actually credit to Wilson’s Odyssey, and there’s something about balanced alliteration that really makes a text shine. I loved Stephanie McCarter’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses for this reason.
In what ways does being a translator and a polyglot in general influence your original fiction?
Okay so this was actually something I noticed very quickly. I hadn’t been writing for a long time because I was burned out severely (still am...lol) so I turned to translation as a creative outlet. When I was working on Medea, I told myself I wanted to keep my lines of English a certain length (not by word count or meter, just simply visually on the page). This made me be economical in my word choices. It made me think about the nuances of particular words and how I can convey the most with the least number of words. So something I noticed in my writing was my own economical word choices. I wrote my Persephone short story with this kind of care and precision. Greek also has incredibly weird metaphors that English-speakers would not normally make, and they’re often layered, so working through bits of the Odyssey really made me start pushing my imagination toward more unusual or weird ways of characterizing the world and giving the world its vividness.
Who are your storytelling influences?
This is such a hard question to answer because I feel like the authors who got me into storytelling I’ve either outgrown or they’ve become monsters. There are two fantasy authors who’ve been around since like 2012 who were a big influence on my storytelling, but I don’t really look to them anymore for that, especially now that both their social media presence has dwindled I still (usually) enjoy their books though. Really, nowadays, I look to authors I consider friends. Adam Sass’s books are so break-neck paced and I’m obsessed with that. For prose and world-building, Somaiya Daud (Mirage and Court of Lions) has a HUGE impact on me; she is just so, so incredibly smart about sci-fi and fantasy. Can I also say you? lmao Darknesses is such a fascinating and smart retelling, but I also still think about Moonblink and its family dynamics a lot. You really just know how to craft characters.
What storytelling mediums do you prefer to consume?
Books and TV/film. I cannot do audio-only anything. I have tried podcasts, but I really have to be sitting still to listen, and I hate sitting still and just listening. Graphic novels are fun too but they just don’t do it for me as much, personally.
What are you currently watching/playing/listening to/reading?
Okay I’ve finally gotten into Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, which is good (even though I think I’m over my dark fantasy phase). But I’ve also been rereading R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War for the third time (reading for narrative structure and flow), and I want to read Simon Jimenez’s The Spear Cuts Through Water, which is supposed to be this amazing fantasy book I’ve seen people chirping about on the dead bird site.
For music, I’ve currently been obsessed with PVRIS’ new album Evergreen, and Kat Cunning, Florence’s Dance Fever, and BANKS’ Altar have been brought back into my rotation recently.
TV lately is mostly Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy and rewatching old seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I’m currently in a very restless phase where I don’t want to sit and watch TV (this happens like every 4 months now lol)
Any forthcoming projects you’d care to drop a line about?
I have a book inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle (more so the movie than the book crucify me) that is very gay and tries to tackle the theme of caring for oneself when nobody else has been around in the way that you need. That sounds a bit cryptic but the crux of this story is so exciting to me that I don’t want to share it until I’ve written and (self?)published it. I’ll just say I think I’ve reshaped/reinterpreted Calcifer’s character very interestingly especially within the context of being gay.