Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabrielle Faust.
Hi Gabrielle, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Where to even begin? To tell the whole story would take a novel, so I’ll pare it down to just my professional experience. However, if you would like to know more about myself and my upbringing, which was quite colorful, I’m open to any questions.
I suppose, first, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gabrielle Faust. I am an author of primarily horror and dark fantasy, though I have been known to dabble in everything from poetry to cyberpunk, and am even working on my first cookbook of original recipes. To date, I have written twelve published novels and collections. I am currently represented by The Knight Agency, a prominent literary agency out of New York City. In 2022 I completed my thirteenth and fourteenth novels, which I hope to see published sometime in 2023. I am currently working on my fifteenth novel, as well as a new novella…
I was the International Housing Co-coordinator for twenty years, along with my mother Marilyn Faust – we were the founders of the program and successfully connected hundreds of musicians with volunteer hosts for the convention over the years up until my mother’s passing in 2018.
For the past fifteen years, I have also been a freelance entertainment journalist, food and travel blogger, and editorial contributor for such publications as Weird Tales Magazine, SciFi Wire, Girls and Corpses Magazine, Austin Food and Wine Magazine, Fatally Yours, Examiner, Doorways Magazine, Fear Zone, Gothic Beauty Magazine, and Austin Food & Wine Magazine, among many others.
I was the Guest of Honor at the Queen of the Damned Vampire Ball in 2008. From 2009 to 2011 she was a Special Guest of the Endless Night Festival in New Orleans and was crowned “New Orleans Vampire Royalty” by the Vampire Lestat Fan Club at the Tru Blood & Gold vampire ball in 2010 alongside Charlaine Harris of the famous True Blood series. In addition, I have been a featured guest at dozens of conventions across the United States and am currently the web and graphic designer for the Horror Writers Association, including their annual StokerCon literary convention.
When I’m not pursuing my career as a published author and journalist, I am the Social Media and Marketing Manager for the Cajas Digital Agency, here in Austin, Texas. I am also an artist with a focus on surrealistic realism painting and mixed media illustration. My other hobbies include playing the guitar and writing songs, though I haven’t performed live anywhere in quite some time, as well as baking (I had a home baking business from 2017 to 2020 until the pandemic shut it down)…
Let me know if there is anything else you would like for me to add to this? Like I said, if I were to start at the very beginning, it would take a book to fill the crazy life I’ve led, thus far. 😊
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My life has never been a smooth road in any sense of the saying. My childhood was extremely traumatic – my mother was bipolar, manic depressive, unmedicated, and an alcoholic. I began paying the rent and then other bills when I was 14 and then off and on after that. I developed anorexia during my teenage years, and have battled it ever since. It nearly killed me twice in my twenties, but I survived and keep surviving every day. I put myself through college working 3 jobs and going to school full-time while still helping my mother. I was lucky enough to head straight into the professional world after college with a graphic designer position. However in 2008-2009, during the recession at that time, I literally lost everything. I sold everything I owned and had to sleep in a friend’s garage for a year. Since that time I’ve spent my life rebuilding, determined never to let that happen to me ever again. But over the years I found myself in a couple of extremely abusive relationships which took their toll. Again, I literally fought my way out of those situations. I am a survivor, in more ways than one. And, as one psychologist once told me, I am “a case study in resilience’. And I hope that one day, when I do write my whole story, my story will be helpful to those who also struggled along the way…
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’ve grown up in Austin and have seen it explode with change and diversity over the years. What keeps me here is its willingness to, despite the massive changes and disappearance of much of what once kept it “weird” over the years, still strive to be inclusive and find ways to support its local artists and musicians. What I like least about it is that, unfortunately, said artists and musicians can no longer, for the most part, afford to live here, and definitely can’t support themselves off of their art. But it is my home and always will be in my heart.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gabriellefaust.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/countessfaust
- Facebook: facebook.com/gabrielle.faust
- Twitter: twitter.com/Gabrielle_Faust
- Youtube: youtube.com/gsfaust
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/gabrielle-faust-113865503
- Other: tiktok.com/thegabriellefaust
