Table of Contents
Highland Avenue resident Romie Stott enjoys science fiction and fantasy, and her first novel has just been published. “Nothing in the Basement,” a horror novel, was a work of love.
But many people have read what Stott’s written — her day job is live voice writer, which is the official title of those who write closed captions for live television.
“I’m a member of the National Captioning Institute and we do captions for C-SPAN, [a cable service broadcasting U.S. senate and congressional hearings in real time].”
A native of Texas, Stott’s family moved a lot because her father was an auditor.
“I went to grad school in England for film,” she says. “I wrote and directed ‘Hayseeds and Scalawags.’ I liked to do short films under the name Romie Faienza, although I don’t have time with two sons in McCall Middle School. Sometimes shooting the films required 16-hour days.”
Stott’s talents include writing Broadway musicals, including a full-length one, “The Lady Takes the Mic” and a short one, “First Contact.”
“I’ve always enjoyed science fiction and fantasy ever since I was a little kid,” she says. “I’m the editor of the magazine ‘Strange Horizons.’ I actually wrote ‘Nothing in the Basement’ 15 years ago, before kids.
“I shopped it around to agents and publishers and got feedback that said it was a solid effort, but until readers knew who I was, there’d be no money in it, and that it would make a better second novel,” she continues. “It’s very literary so horror fans might not like it — they usually prefer ‘pulpy’ books. But Locus Magazine called it ‘one of the best first novels on 2025.’”
And what’s Stott working on these days?
“I already finished the first novel in a trilogy,” she says. “It’s about King Arthur, Andy Warhol, and the New York art scene. And I’m getting started with a time travel noir novel set around here. The plot is that MIT scientists have discovered how to do time travel, and EPA uses it to assess long-term impact of road work.”
Stott’s work week is long; her captioning job is Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and “I write whenever I can — in longhand because that’s transportable. I sometimes write when I’m at my kids’ gymnastics classes. But that’s OK. I tell myself if it’s good, it’ll be good two years from now.”
Winchester resident Joyce Westner is one of the founders of Winchester News. She holds a degree in English and journalism from Northeastern University. If you have a suggestion for either a Meet the Artist or Helpers Among Us resident, email editor@winchesternews.org.
