Nalo Hopkinson on House of Whispers: “I represent a lot to people who didn’t think they could do what I’m doing.”

June 29, 2023 Chris Well

The speculative fiction writer talks about building a house in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman world, and about being the historical winner of a major prize.

“I was writing my first comic in the universe of one of the most popular comic series in North America—so no pressure.”

This time we’re taking a look at Nalo Hopkinson’s comic book series House of Whispers—which combines her background as an award-winning speculative author with the award-winning comic book world of The Sandman. Below, find out more about the series, about how it fits into the bigger picture, and how Hopkinson’s unique background as an author made her the ideal writer for House of Whispers. We’ve also got several quotes from interviews where Hopkinson explains her experiences as they happened. There’s also info about her historic win of an important award.

Starting with legend of The Sandman

One of the most striking examples in comic books was the quite literary series Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman. Launched in 1989, the dark fantasy series starring the Lord of Dreams exerted considerable influence—and is considered one of the best comic book series ever.

In fact, in 1991, an issue of the series won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. (When the award was won by a comic book, they changed the rules so that it can’t happen again.)

The Sandman has since inspired various adaptations, including the Netflix TV series that launched in 2022.

Building the House of Whispers

A few years ago, to celebrate the series’ 30th anniversary, Gaiman and DC Comics launched a Sandman Universe line of spin-off comic book series. The four series were overseen by Gaiman, but made by new creative teams that continued with familiar concepts and characters while also adding new ideas.

One of those spin-off series was House of Whispers, built alongside the legendary comic book locations House of Mystery and House of Secrets. Written by Nalo Hopkinson, House of Whispers explored how the voodoo deity Erzulie ended up in the Dreaming with her titular house.

Gaiman told Entertainment Weekly why she was such a great pick for the job. “Nalo writes science-fiction and fantasy and historical stuff and books that blend all of those things, and they’re always informed by Caribbean roots and African roots.”

He said that he and DC were planning for House of Whispers to feature voodoo lore. House of Whispers transplanted vodun goddess Erzulie to the Dreaming and explored her connection to a comatose woman whose girlfriend tried to heal her using a magical tome.

“I [wanted] Nalo to do it because there isn’t anybody better,” Gaiman told EW. “The joy of this [was] being able to go out and find the best person.”

SYFY noted of the series when it launched, “The Sandman has always been about the interweaving of different mythologies into a nebulous core, and no book yet has done that quite so effortlessly as House of Whispers.”

As for Hopkinson, she was new to writing comics at the time—but was familiar with Gaiman’s work and was totally into finding her way in the Sandman world. “I was in a position knowing I was going to be cutting my teeth, writing my first comic in the universe of one of the most popular comic series in North America, so no pressure,” she joked to CBC Radio Canada.

The series was written by Hopkinson, who was joined for several issues by co-writer Dan Watters. They worked with a few artists. (The names all are included with the book info below.)

On her website, Hopkinson shared some of the events that unfolded in the comic book series.

“I got to make some pointed comments about the US’s horrific border detention camps. My main character is a thick-bodied, punkish young Latina woman who (spoiler alert) finds love and adopts a hell monster. I got to write about a cryptid specific to the American southwest, and about the hell monster, who is a creature from Caribbean folklore. I threw a famous ancient writer of aphorisms into the story, and 19th Century Black British man Joseph Johnson, with his amazing hat. Even the Corinthian played a big part in the story. And if that wasn’t enough yumminess to work with, there was my main character’s love interest. Some of the images of that character brought me to happy tears when I saw them.”

Below, find out more info about the collected editions of the House of Whispers comic book, plus Hopkinson’s thoughts and experiences that she shared with various interviewers. We also have a great video below where the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America—plus Star Trek: TNG star LeVar Burton—honor Hopkinson’s career as an author.

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About author Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson was around 10 years old when her English teacher asked the kids in class to each write a mystery. “I wrote something that was a combination of a murder mystery and vampire tale,” the author told Caribbean Beat, “about a Catholic priest and a cross and holy water and ting and ting. That was the first story I ever wrote.”

Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor. Her novels (Midnight Robber, Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, The New Moon’s Arms) and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.

Hopkinson has edited two fiction anthologies (Whispers From the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and Mojo: Conjure Stories). She was the co-editor with Uppinder Mehan for the anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, and with Geoff Ryman for Tesseracts 9.

In 2020, Hopkinson was named by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master. As the first Black woman to receive one of science fiction writing’s most prestigious awards, Hopkinson told CBC Canadian Radio she takes a “joyful” responsibility in her work.

“I know I represent a lot to people who didn’t think they could do what I’m doing for various reasons,” said Hopkinson. “People from marginalized experiences like I am, being Black, being an immigrant to North America, being female, being queer, being over a certain age, having some level of disability. It’s something I do take seriously.”

Nalo Hopkinson Q&A: House of Whispers series set in the world of DC Comics Sandman

Q: What projects do you have in the works?

“The House of Whispers will feature Erzulie, a deity of love in the Ifa pantheon. Those previous two sentences sound really calm, but inside, I’m jumping up and down and going, ‘Eeeeee!’ and have been since I got the news. I get to create a new house in The Dreaming, and it’s run by a Black woman deity!”

—Author Spotlight: Nalo Hopkinson (Nightmare Magazine)

Q: Talk to me about your previous engagement with the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman’s work, and finding your own way into this universe.

“So, I’ve read comics off and on since I was a kid and knew about Neil’s work. I knew him best in his prose, but read High Cost of Living and definitely knew Sandman when it was out there. I’ve always loved Neil’s writing, the way he took mythology which I grew up with, and folded it into the stories in ways that I would recognize. I remember reading American Gods and going, ‘Wait a minute. I know why this guy’s name is Wednesday.’

“So yes. Then DC contacted me and asked if I would like to pitch for this… Yes, yes I would. I knew I wanted to be writing comics and had been working on little ones of my own. And I had written narrative tie-in stories for a game called Living Dark. So, yeah... I pitched it and they said yes, and here we are.”

—Legendary Writer Nalo Hopkinson Talks About Entering the Sandman Universe (Gizmodo)

Q: Has the pressure of following in Neil Gaiman’s footsteps lightened at all in the last year? Do you find yourselves feeling more ownership over the books as time goes on? Is Neil still a regular guiding presence or are the issues we’re seeing still spinning out of initial brainstorming talks?

“Dunno ‘bout everyone else, but my experience with HoW is that Neil’s hand has been very light. From the beginning, he wanted us to write our own stories. He gave us a quick-’n-dirty backgrounder and effectively said, “Now, go play.” So I’ve been pretty free, Neil-wise, to figure out what I’m playing at.

“A couple times he made a helpful suggestion, and that’s been mostly it.

“And I’ve had fun importing a couple of relatively minor characters from the Dreaming (minor with one or two exceptions) and folding them into the goings-on in the House of Whispers.”

—A Delightfully Off-the-Rails Conversation With the Writers Behind The Sandman Universe (Paste)

Q: As someone who has written a great deal of fantasy yourself, what are the most essential elements of The Sandman in your mind that have made it such a timeless fantasy story?

“I’d say it’s the way in which it mixed the ancient with the contemporary. Neil took characters and from ancient mythology and modern-day comics, and culture-jammed them in fresh ways which are relevant to latter-day readers. Classic example is the character of Death: you can find Death personified in mythologies the world over, but Neil made Death into a pretty, wise kind and hip young Goth woman. That took a lot of people by surprise and they’ve loved the character for it ever since.”

—How Hopkinson & Stanton plan to break diverse new ground in the Dreaming (The Beat)

Q: The Sandman mythology has largely been a really white world. What are you trying to bring to the book to advance a more inclusive narrative without falling into a token trap?

“[laughs] Having been put in that token trap too many times, I think I can smell it coming. So, what’s wonderful is that Neil and the artists who did the original Sandman series wrote the roads into to inclusivity. So, yes, it’s a white world. It was really weird whenever everyone was looking African at certain points, but at least he thought to do that. But the spaces are there, the sensibility is there, and the support is there. Neil knows what I’m going to bring to it. He’s read my work and my pitch. That encouragement is there.

“I want to bring in a diverse diversity of African-ness. Our skin colors are different, we speak different languages, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds. I have so far used at least three languages. I’m hybridizing our existing mode. Yoruba is a religion that has numbers of different versions of it, and I’m hybridizing those. There’s a feel of kind of breaking orthodoxy that sort of gives me pause, but I need to do it to make the story go where I want...”

—Legendary Writer Nalo Hopkinson Talks About Entering the Sandman Universe (Gizmodo)

Complete House of Whispers series collections

The House of Whispers (2018-) Vol. 1: Power Divided

by Nalo Hopkinson (Author), Dan Watters (Author), Simon Spurrier (Author), Kat Howard (Author), Dominike “Domo” Stanton (Artist), Aneke (Artist), Tom Fowler (Artist), Bilquis Evely (Artist), Max Fiumara (Artist), Sebastiàn Fiumara (Artist)

From her bayou, Erzulie scries upon the mortal realm and sees four human girls open a mysterious and magical journal filled with whispers and rumors that, if they spread, could cause a pandemic unlike any the Earth has seen, with the power to release Sopona, the loa lord of infectious disease and cousin to Erzulie, who is currently banned from the human plane. Meanwhile, a mysterious infection doctors are calling “Cotard’s Delusion” spreads, trapping countless souls in the Dreaming and leaving their physical bodies yearning for death. Issues #1-6 of the new series from DC Vertigo are collected here, along with THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE SPECIAL #1.

Find Vol. 1: Power Divided on Amazon

The House of Whispers (2018-) Vol. 2: Ananse

by Nalo Hopkinson (Author), Dan Watters (Author), Dominke Stanton (Illustrator), Dominike “Domo” Stanton (Artist), Nelson Blake (Artist), Isaac Goodhart (Artist), Amancay Nahuelpan (Artist)

The pandemic is spreading, and Erzulie is calling upon all her distant contacts to aid her in stopping Shakpana and his infection. The souls trapped in the Dreaming are restless, seeking any help they can attain to escape from their "predeceased" state. Erzulie calls upon the spider-god of stories, Ananse, to assist her in unraveling the truth behind her own history. But can Ananse be trusted with any truths he finds? Collects House of Whispers #7-12.

Find Vol. 2: Ananse on Amazon

House of Whispers (2018-) Vol. 3: Watching the Watchers

by Nalo Hopkinson (Author), Dan Watters (Author), Dominike Stanton (Illustrator), Dominike “Domo” Stanton (Artist), Matthew Dow Smith (Artist)

The goddess Erzulie is grieving the loss of one of her husbands, while her remaining spouses are asking themselves if they can remain by her side. But in the darkness, the Corinthian has his eyes on Erzulie’s place. Erzulie will need allies-including Papa Midnite, the dangerous immortal on whom everyone in the afterlife has sworn revenge! Collects House of Whispers #13-22.

Find Vol. 3: Watching the Watchers on Amazon

History in the making—Nalo Hopkinson Named 37th SFWA Grand Master

In June 2021, Hopkinson was the first Black woman to win the Damon Knight Grand Master award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In fact, she also became the youngest person to have ever won the award.

The SFWA named Hopkinson the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy. The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award recognizes “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.”

Hopkinson joined the Grand Master ranks alongside such legends as C. J. Cherryh, Peter S. Beagle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, and Joe Haldeman.

This tribute video for the award includes appearances from SFWA members plus Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton.

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