Eccentric-modern curiosity shop

Whose House? Samantha Beiko’s House!

Samantha Beiko in her home.

Photo by Callie Lugosi

Inspired by anime, manga, Harry Potter and so much more, Samantha Beiko is a fantasy writer who pours her energy into a variety of different creative projects.

Beiko has worked in the writing industry for 10 years as an editor, curator, project manager and publisher.

Currently, Beiko is the editor for comics anthologies like Gothic Tales of Haunted Love and Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures and has recently worked on her own comic: Krampus is My Boyfriend.

With all these projects on her plate, Beiko works primarily from the “eccentric-modern curiosity shop” that is her and her husband Peter’s home.

In terms of what inspires her creative works, Beiko speaks in depth about her love for Sailor Moon.

“I was super into anime as a kid, super into Sailor Moon. That kind of started me on my quest to just imaginative play and just making up stories,” she says.

In addition to anime, Beiko also fell in love with web comics at a young age.

“I was reading a lot of graphic novels and comics as well, and so that was also informing how I told a narrative story.

“I was super into web comics, though. Because as a young person with the internet, you have access to so many, and they’re free, and you kind of become engrossed in this community that is all about sharing stories.”

Beiko also teased about a darker element to creative works that sparks her imagination.

“I really love stuff with humanized demons and monsters. That’s what I’m super into: the friendly demon who lives in your house.

“That really feeds into how I tell stories,” she says.

1) What’s this? What’s this? Books everywhere!

“My husband insisted we make a display (here). It’s like ‘okay ... I guess I wrote them. I guess that’s fine.’”

2) Reading books by moonlight, writing tales by daylight

“It’s a nice, quiet space that has a door, so no one can bother me.”

3) Curios crate

“This house is full of weird stuff, but we’re not super into stuff. We just wanna make the space comfortable and homey.”

4) Choose your weapon: the pen or the sword

“This sword is folded carbon steel. It’s museum-exact, and it is double-bladed. Very sharp.”

5) Meet Sophie

“We bought the house, then I adopted her two months later ... I brought her home and was like, ‘Deal with this, Peter!’”

Published in Volume 74, Number 13 of The Uniter (January 9, 2020)

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