Author Spotlight: Bam Stroker
Today, we're bringing you a special musical guest post from Bam Stroker, author of the current club read Rusalka. Read on to learn more about the music that inspired this erotic retelling of the slavic rusalka myth!
When you think of a lady in a lake, what comes to mind? For me, it’s the haunting trickster of the Rusalka!
Rusalka/Rusalki folklore exists in a pretty far reach, and the folklore for them is fascinating. Most folks will call them the “slavic mermaid”, but that’s not quite right. These ladies do not have fish tails! They hold a history much closer to nixie and nymphs, tied to the land. Until later in time they became associated with women who met their untimely deaths. Usually, by their own doing after losing the love of a man. Where they would then become haunting spirits that would seduce, trick, and drag anyone who dared come by their dwellings to a watery grave.
I first heard about them through the song Rusalka, Rusalka/ Wild Rushes by the Decemberists. When I listened to it, I was absolutely possessed to write a story where a woman runs to the lady of the lake, and instead of death finds love. It’s a setup we all know so well by now, of the historical lesbian gets hitched to a man and runs away to escape it all. And there have been plenty of historical lesbian stories where that escape is usually of the death variety.
Rusalka is a love letter to the complex history of Rusalki, and the stories we have been told about lesbians in history. For once, they both get a fairytale happy ending.
Music is a huge inspiration to me as a writer, especially of the folk variety, and while writing Rusalka I had many different songs on loop throughout the process. The first one is that Decemberists song:
Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes
While reading the story, music is very present with Sasha singing to the lady of the lake, earning the loving nickname of “Handsome songbird” from her smitten monster. One of the songs hinted at is from the opera Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák. For any Hans Christian Anderson fans out there, you’ll notice the plot of it is very familiar.
Song to the Moon - Rusalka Opera by Antonín Dvořák
Rusalka: “Song to the Moon”
When it comes to folk songs about Rusalki, Kitka’s The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between Worlds album truly is an amazing inspiration. I’m still on the hunt for Rusalka folk songs, so if you happen to know of any I would be so excited to hear them. In the meantime, here’s a song to set the mood of Sasha’s mad dash to the lake at the start of the story.
To the Lake - Kitka
As far as other music, the songs I had on loop while writing were folk songs from different areas of the region. Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, volume III, from The Bulgarian State Television Female Choir has got to be the most on loop music of them all though. I can almost hear them in my sleep at this point!
Here are some of those below:
Svatba (The Wedding) - Bulgarian State Television Female Choir
Solo Gousli - Stars of St. Petersburg
Kukułeczka - Mazowsze
Two Guitars - Andreyev Balalaika Ensemble
Echo of the steppes - Ukrainian Bandurist Ensemble
Whether you want to talk about monster folklore, monster fuckery, or have any monster folk songs recs, you can find Bam Stroker on their tumblr! Or if you’d like to peruse their erotic tomes, you can find them on itchio ✨💀✨
