Local author and poet Raven Vervain talks with us about her debut writing collection, The Murder in my Garden and her upcoming book, Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine (to be released on June 21, 2026) along with her zine-making process.
AS: Can you start by introducing yourself and telling us about your background?
RV: “A little over a year ago, I started writing under the name Raven Vervain. But before Raven Vervain existed, I was a student in my last year of high school hoping to close out my childhood feeling confident about adulthood, and maybe looking to focus on something besides homework. My solution was writing my debut writing collection The Murder in my Garden. I dare to say it was one of the best decisions I have made.
Creative writing was present in my life long before my choice to write a poetry chapbook. In middle school, I joined a writing club, that I would eventually become an officer of, and participated multiple years in the youth NaNoWriMo challenge. It would be in high school that poetry would become my prominent writing style. I believe this shift happened because around the same time I began to listen to music that had heavy poetic form in their lyrics such as Destroy Boys, Lucy Dacus, and Mitski. Currently, I am trying to refine my writing style by reading more books and combining it with what I have learned about storytelling and poetry through music.
Particular topics in my work I naturally gravitate towards are exploring the healing process, coming to terms with my eventual death, and my connection with nature. Something new I have been focusing on through my writing however is my definition of forgiveness and if it even exists for me. I like playing around with nature related imagery and how it can help convey human struggle and success. Something I should add is that I don’t like restricting myself when it comes to writing. I am a multimedia writer. While poetry is typically my ballpark, I also enjoy delving into prose and short stories, especially horror short stories.
Outside of being a writer, I am a full time college student with big dreams of earning a doctorate regarding psychology, and I work part time as an after school assistant teacher. I can be found spending my free time at thrift stores, estate sales, record stores, cemeteries, and local coffee shops like Radio South and Captain Quack’s. I have bounced between places in the Texas Hill Country my entire life, but Austin has been my homebase since I was about seven. This city and its people are an important source of inspiration for me.”
AS: Tell us about your poetry chapbook, The Murder in my Garden. Do you have a favorite poem from it that you can share with us?
RV: “When I wrote
The Murder in my Garden I was on the cusp of adulthood. I was going through the motions of graduating high school, getting my drivers license, and nervously anticipating adult life. This book will always have a soft spot in my heart not only because it was my first but also because it is the last creative piece from my childhood that embodies the person I used to be. Even though I dislike some creative choices I made with the book,
The Murder in my Garden
is my roots. I came up with the title
The Murder in my Garden while driving home with my family in the Texas Hill Country. The phrase popped into my head and I liked the juxtaposition and double meanings of it. If this book had scents, they would be either wet graveyard dirt, hot earl grey tea, or a campfire on a cold night.
I have favorite poems for different reasons. My favorite poem structurally is “Small Clay Angels”, and my favorite poem to read is “Exorcism”, but my favorite poem overall out of The Murder in my Garden collection has to be the final one, “The Indigo Room”. It is about rising above your trauma and moving on with your life as a way to honor the version of yourself that was traumatized. Sometimes the music I am listening to while writing inspires the structure of my poems. While writing The “Indigo Room”, “Drinking Song” by Haley Heyenderickx was playing, the line: “There’s a light at the end where I know, where culprits on carpets make sense of it all, and the sky is all indigo” helped me write the first line of the poem: “There was an indigo room at the end of the world”. I didn’t know what it meant when I wrote it but I knew that I liked the flow of the words. I would describe my writing style as very spontaneous and nagging. I found this out about myself while writing The Murder in my Garden. When I get a certain string of words stuck in my head I feel almost forced to put them onto paper and figure out what they mean later. I believe these words come from my subconscious. “The Indigo Room” also features my favorite piece of artwork that I drew myself in the entire collection.
“The Indigo Room” is an emotionally intense poem for me, so I don’t like performing it in front of an audience. But, I wholeheartedly believe that poems have the power to stimulate conversations and bring awareness. That is my mission when I write poetry, “The Indigo Room”
perfectly embodies that mission.”
The Indigo Room
There was an indigo room at the end of the world
The pith of my spirit lingered there alone
Hidden in my words that were stuck to the wall
Never to be held in the ears of some other
There was no comfort there at all
I had slept in that room for many nights before
Even now I can barely stomach the idea of it anymore
I can only remember the little stain of myself
From the bed and to the floor
There was no more light in that room anymore
Picking for the pith of my skin
I am prickling with nausea
There are needles and pins
In my bones and soul
Lost pieces of myself scratching for freedom
From this sullen tomb
The soul I bear outside the indigo room
Grew and learned to loom together
The bits of strings
Torn and ripped apart from behind me
Filling the empty gaps with wishing stars and dandelions
It learned to play with fire
And bought a box of matches
There was a light in the Indigo Room
From the fire, I set aflame
I am not fleeing, I am free
I know now who’s to blame
For my captivity, for my pain
Little girl, I hope you’re proud
Of the woman we both become
Like butterflies, our spirits can both fly away
From the ashes of what used to be
the end of the world
Recommended Listening for
The Murder in my Garden
- “I need to start a garden” by Haley Heyenderix (album)
- “Songs” by Adrianne Lenker (album)
- “Preacher’s Daughter” by Ethel Cain (album)
- The songs “Haunted Home” and “Rows of Somebodies” by The Saga
AS: Walk us through your zine making process. How do your ideas become realized in the final physical product?
RV: “My zine creation process is still in its infancy, but I have been immersed in zine culture for about two years. I first heard about zines through a friend of mine, who created a zine club at our high school. I mainly used the club to hangout with my close friends and work on
The Murder in my Garden, but I remember making one zine by myself about how to hunt ghosts. One of my favorite memories from that zine club is seeing the printed product of an “about zines” zine my friends and I all collaborated on. My addition to it was a poem.
Canva is my tool of choice for making zines. Mainly because the undo button is my best friend when I am in between ideas and that I get perfectionistic about my handwriting. I like taking up as much space as possible when I make zines. If I don’t use every page front to back, I feel like I am wasting paper. My major influences for the style of my zines are local independent magazines or zines that I have found in the free section at record stores or Half Price Books. Usually my zines include my writing, however I have been branching out lately. For my booth at Lone Star Zine Fest I included an Ethel Cain fanzine and “Camcorder Diary” that contained photos I took on my camcorder with descriptions. Zines are very charming to me because of their accessibility and handcrafted nature. They feel so much more genuine and relatable than other writing vessels that I have come in contact with.”
AS: Tell us about your upcoming book, Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine. What was the initial inspiration for it?
RV: “Similarly to
The Murder in my Garden, Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine mysteriously appeared to me while in a car. My best friend was driving us home after we went skating at the Austin Roller Rink. It was like some “eureka!” moment for me. For a month or so before that, the two letter noun “Shotgun Spine”
haunted my mind and I didn’t know what it meant until that car ride. It drove me crazy for that month. I won’t explain the meaning of the phrase “Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine” here because I like hearing people’s different interpretations of it. Everyone has a different answer, and I love it so much. I intend on explaining the meaning of the phrase on the last page of the collection. So, if you are reading this, and are interested in the true meaning of “Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine”, consider looking up my book on June 21st 2026.
Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine goes by many names such as Shotgun Spine for when I feel lazy or dry mouth and EHASFAS for when I have been writing on my computer for too long. As I am currently writing it, topics such as the meaning of forgiveness and acceptance, coming to terms with one’s eventual death, and living with trauma continue to be prevalent in my writing, except this book will be angerier in tone than The Murder in my Garden.
I’m striving to have this book be longer than my previous writing collection and I want to debut my potential with writing forms like prose and short stories. In addition, I intend on adapting my “Camcorder Diary” zine, that I mentioned earlier, into this book. If
Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine
had scents they would either be jasmine vanilla, rusted iron in the rain, or the aroma of a dusty vintage store specifically in South Austin.”
Recommended Listening for
Everyone has a Shotgun for a Spine
- “Something to Consume” by Die Spitz (album)
- “There’s a Monster” and “Faint Illusions” by Farmer’s Wife (albums)
- “Unknown Rooms” by Chelsea Wolfe (album)
- “Wiloughby Tucker, I’ll always love you” by Ethel Cain (album)
AS: How can readers support local authors like you?
Raven Vervain’s Top 5 Recommendations for Supporting Local Authors:
- Especially today, know your spending power, buy local if you can whenever you can.
Examples: Lioness Books, BookPeople, Reverie Books
- Talk to us! It is easier to remember our writings when you have a personality attached to it.
- For those with published works, leave us a review on Goodreads!
- For those without published works, follow us on social media! Subscribe to our newsletters! (my newsletter is @ravenvervain on substack and it’s free to subscribe)
- Bring our books to a book club! Make our works the center of attention in your circles!
Lioness Books supports local authors. Uplifting local authors is crucial to not only the growth and strength of the greater literary community, but free expression and democracy. Ordering from independent booksellers helps us move away from monopolies like Amazon and keeps our economy local. Visit our mobile bookstore to purchase a copy of Raven’s poetry chapbook!
