Here’s something no author should admit: I’m a bigger fan of music than literature. There’s just something about telling a multi-dimensional story in the span of five minutes that include instrumental breaks. As a writer of horror fiction, I’ve learned much from these ten songs. Oh, and none of them are goth or psychobilly (sorry, no necrophilia or fantasy monster songs). No Misfits. No Rob Zombie. And definitely no ICP.


10. “Excitable Boy” by Warren Zevon
Or, the early years of the “quiet man.” The one the bodies in the crawlspace who neighbors say kept to himself, loved his mother, and would never harm a fly. Warren Zevon’s jaunty title track from his 1978 album is a coming of age story… of Edmund Kemper. It’s all the creepier because of the light-hearted feel of the vocals and music while his family excuses his budding sociopathy. He’s just an excitable boy, they all said.


9. “Edge of the World” by Faith No More
What could be described as the Albert Fish/Jerry from Subway courtship anthem is another juxtaposition of perverse storytelling and unassuming instrumentation. But, it fits. To endear himself to children, our predatory narrator needs to seem as harmless as a song your grandmother would play.


8. “Missed Me” by The Dresden Dolls
It’s Fatal Attraction for the child molester. This song may as well be the sequel to “Edge of the World” told from the perspective of Faith No More’s little girl who just wanted some candy. The pedophile gets his comeuppance here, but it’s not a happy ending for the lovestruck little victim. Maybe an Electric Six or De Staat will complete an accidental trilogy and let us all know what happens when he’s out of jail and she’s all grown up.


7. “Skinned” by Blind Melon
The song that makes us think Ed Gein must have whistled while he worked… making utilitarian household items out of human remains. It comes off as mundane as a Jeffrey Dahmer “What I Eat in a Day” YouTube video. The kazoo is a nice touch, and underused in popular music. As a horror-comedy writer, this is the mood I often strive to capture in my novels.


6. “Bad Guy” by Eminem
In a rare case of the sequel upstaging the original, Eminem’s 2013 epic first-person revenge saga manages to be substantially creepier than an obsessive fan’s deteriorating sanity of 2000’s “Stan.” It takes about 4 minutes of stalking Eminem to reveal the vengeful killer. But it’s the last two minutes that put this song on the list, the single greatest rap performance this non-hip-hop fan believes has ever been recorded, that provides a meta twist.


5. “Former Lee Warmer” by Alice Cooper
Buried on 1983’s forgotten (by everyone, including Alice) Dada is the narrator’s (who may or may not be the alcoholic, the mall Santa, and the serial killer in other songs) account of his enigmatic brother who never leaves his room. Why? Is he disfigured with his “wrinkled head”? He stares out at his “father out in the family grave”? Did he kill him? Is he hiding from the law? Maybe he’s just some poor invalid, but the context of the album, the instrumentation, and Alice’s singing make you assume the worst.


4. “Satan, Luella, and I” by HMLTD
This song may be the 21st century’s answer to Leonard Cohen’s “The Future.” It is murder. Our narrator recounts all the evils of the world to the lovely Luella. British electro glam rockers say “The West Is Dead” on their debut album “West of Eden.”


Unlike some of the earlier entries on this list, this song is creepy, eerie, atmospheric. Get me out of this dystopia! My pre-ordered CD arrived January, 2020, just as I started what would be my final rewrite of the dystopian horror-noir OUTRAGE: LEVEL 10.


3. “Charisma” by W.A.S.P.
Let’s enter the mind of a… svengali? A cult leader? A televangelist? A politician? In 2001’s Unholy Terror, Blackie Lawless sang a self-aware sociopath’s internal monologue while he stands at his pulpit double-talking to his poor, exploited followers.


I often find myself exploring themes of men in power who are not what they seem, that evil lurks within every person who seeks dominion over others. “Charisma” has been a favorite song for the better part of 20 years, predating even my earliest forays into horror fiction. To some extent, this internal diatribe lurks within all my arch-villains.


2. “The Snake” by Al Wilson
Take me in, tender woman, sighed the snake. Please, young lady, will you help me? Can’t you see my arm is in a sling? What are you thinking? Don’t help that man! You know he’s a snake. Who doesn’t love a murder song they can dance to?

1. “Song of Joy” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The unreliable narrator is one of my favorite plot devices, and if there is a better example of an unreliable narrator in popular music, @ me on Twitter and let me know. Did this doctor murder his own family? Will he murder the family of the man beckoning him into his home? Wait — is he even a doctor? Did he ever have a family? Did he just make up that whole macabre tragedy to tease the poor family man, revealing his true intentions via this elaborate ruse? If so, come on, man. You should have known he was a snake before you let him in.

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Award-winning author Don Roff has written nearly 20 books, primarily of a scary nature, for children and adults. His bestselling books include Werewolf Tales, Terrifying Tales, Ghost Hauntings: America’s Most Haunted Places published by Scholastic, as well as Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection published by Chronicle Books/Simon & Schuster UK, and Snowblind from Brambleberry Books (currently in pre-production for an adapted film).

His book, Clare at Sixteen, will be available from Parliament House Press on March 16, 2021; the adapted film will star Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale) as the eponymous Clare. His book, Usher House Rising, a modern series retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s short tale, "The Fall of the House of Usher," will be available September 21, 2021 from Parliament House Press.
​ He has won several awards for his screenwriting, including the 2006 PNWA Zola Award for Screenwriting. Roff served as a combatant in the 3rd Ranger Battalion in Fort Benning, Georgia. He writes a monthly blog for Save The Cat! that examines the story structure of popular films, mostly horror. His darkly humorous and suspenseful radio anthology, Darkside Drive, is available as a podcast on iTunes. He currently lives in the Pacific Northwest. ​

“The house stood dark and silent. In these hours, the still house could be so overbearing. Often times, I was afraid to stare down the darkness of the hallway. The last thing I wanted to see was the ghost of one of my relatives. Not that I believed that could happen."

Author Website: https://www.donvroff.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Author.Don.Roff
Twitter: https://twitter.com/donroff
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donroff
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/847186.Don_Roff 

​

Long Answer:

I went out west looking for work, headed to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, where all the oil is. This town became world famous when it caught on fire. (I swear I was gone by that time.) When I was there, a map in the library showed a hundred dots on a topographic map where there were 1.) Currently burning and out-of-control forest fires, 2.) Where there were forest fires that were being fought, and 3.) Where there once were forest fires, but which had been put out by fire crews. In June I’d be sitting on the back porch of the house where I rented a room and the air was hazy with smoke and the overwhelming smell was of a thick campfire.

When it wasn’t being threatening with fire, Fort Mac was almost exclusively a working town, twenty-four hours a day. You worked and slept then worked again, and made better money than you would anywhere in Canada. People from all over the world were there; I lived with Ethiopians and a racist Californian, and worked with South Africans and Estonians. Seriously: the WORLD was there, and still is.

I rented a room in a house with ten other people. You need to be seriously rich to own a home there, or even to rent an entire bachelor apartment yourself. The prices are insane, and the city is still a town, not knowing how to accommodate so many people. There are three men for every women. The bus routes change frequently, and if you don’t like it, complain to the mayor, whoever that is, the bus drivers will snap back at you. If you miss a bus it will take an hour for it to return, and you may freeze by that time. Summer is July; the rest is winter.

In my little room I was lucky to have my own standup shower. I bought a microwave and only bought food that could be cooked in one. I had no TV, internet, movies – not even a ping-pong table. (Though one of my new housemates invited me to sit next to him on the couch when the lights went out, but I declined the offer.)

I worked five days a week, plus overtime of three to four hours on the weekends, both Saturday and Sunday. I was there for the money, nothing else. Still, I needed some form of entertainment. There was a library. It was very well-stocked, better than many libraries I’ve been in. In general, I read everything. Sometimes I want to exercise my brain, so I read complex literature, then when I want to relax my brain, I read pulp. Love them both and can’t read either one too much without wanting the other. After finishing the Journals of Andre Gide, I picked up some horror novels. I needed trashy, pulpy, crazy stories that didn’t start slowly with mom, dad and the two-point-five kids living a happy life until something evil comes for a visit. It was during this time that I categorized horror into two basic types: 1.) Normal people who have something abnormal happen to them, and 2.) Abnormal people who have something even more abnormal happen to them.

Having only read a few horror novels by that time, I didn’t know a damn thing about the genre. Didn’t know there were types of horror: that Stephen King does not write the same horror as Edward Lee, and vice versa. I brought home a shopping bag of books on each visit to the library, flipping through them, liking some, not in the mood for others.

Then I read Bryan Smith’s Depraved.

And I thought: you sick son-of-a-bitch, how can you write such wonderful filth! I didn’t think readers or publishers would dare want something so gory and grotesque. I had only been exposed to sanitized, happy horror novels that I was told were scary. The visceral is in Smith’s work – blood and guts and puke and fucking and killing with imagination and strange rusty killing devices. I read all the Smith they had, then picked anything which had a nice schlocky cover with raised lettering and pictures. Still love those more than the ethereal pseudo-pre-Raphaelite book covers that make you think you’re picking up the next Jane Austin.

If Charles Bukowski or William S. Burroughs wrote horror … they don’t win awards, but they’re pretty fun to read. I like to read fun horror, and Smith and Edward Lee showed me that such a thing existed. I didn’t know what grindhouse was when I was in Fort Mac. Back then, there were only three horror writers: King, Koontz and Saul. Had no idea there were more.

Anyway, I started writing my first horror novel in that town because I had nothing to do. When life is boring and you’re confined to home (this written during a Covid lockdown), writer’s will write. Boredom is a great reason to start writing a novel; Tolstoy didn’t have the internet, after all. I made a decision to be a horror writer in that smoky northern town. Try living in a town that catches on fire every year and tell me you wouldn’t want to write horror too.

I like to drive and see how horrific and weird the world really is. My eyes have been tuned to see horror now, ever since that summer in The Mac.

Nurse Stitch has her mouth sewn shut and her memory erased.

John Doe has undergone 'nightmare surgery', his memory also erased, replaced by crippling trauma and delusions.

Mahmoud Farouz is a captured insurgent from Iraq who is going to be used by a special Black Op organization to make America feel fear again.

When these three prisoners of a secret underground torture facility band together to escape, they cannot realize that not only has their torture been orchestrated, but so too will be their path to freedom..

Or Purchase a copy direct from Necro Publications by clicking here ​

Rob Bliss writes horror.

He was born in Canada in 1969.

He has had 100 stories published in 30 online magazines.

He has also published 17 more novels, novellas, and short story collections on Amazon.

Necro Publications has published three of his novels, with a fourth released in January, 2021.

Website: https://robbliss.weebly.com/


Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Rob-Bliss/e/B07VL1TQ1R?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1610743021&sr=8-1


Goodreads Profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19496667.Rob_Bliss


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rob.bliss.779/


Twitter: @BlissRob

The female horror creator that most inspired me has to be Mary Danby. I hated school and pretty much the only highlight of the year for me was when the book fair came. My parents had given me five pounds to spend on whatever books I wanted, and as I scanned the shelves one jumped out at me The Green Ghost and other stories: Edited by Mary Danby. I grabbed it and skipped to the desk to buy it, I was nine and this would be the first horror anthology I ever bought; sure I’d snuck out and read my parent’s Pan books of horror, but there was a completeness to this anthology, it wouldn’t be peeked at story by story in the early hours of the morning or when my parents were safely ensconced downstairs, no stolen moments and rushed readings. This book was mine and as such I could take my time, savour the stories within, it was also huge, over 500 pages of horror. I couldn’t wait.


“Sorry. It’s got a red sticker on it.”
“I know, it’s fine. See I have enough money.” I pushed my five pound note across the desk.
“You’ll have to put it back.”
“Why?”
“It has a red sticker on it.”

Finally after many attempts at me trying to complete, what to my mind should have been a simple transaction, the cashier called my teacher over. Apparently the red sticker meant the book was aimed at secondary school students and they weren’t allowed to sell it to a 9 year old. Thankfully the book fair was there for two days, and after a sleepless night worrying that someone else would buy the book (because why wouldn’t you it’s a thing of beauty) my disgruntled mother came down and bought the book herself and handed it over to me, whilst handing the cashier some serious side-eye.


For reasons outside my control I lost that copy of the book when I was 13. But I searched high and low for another copy, trawling through second hand book shops and car boot sales, before finally being told about Amazon and finding a copy on their site. My new copy is the exact same print run as the one I had when I was 9, and whether it is nostalgia for the woman who properly introduced me to the horror anthology, or because there is such a mix of styles within those stories. The Green Ghost and other stories still delights me as an adult, and cements Mary Danby’s place as my Queen of Horror.


Looking at my copy of The Green Ghost, what stands out to me is how many of the authors are women; of the seventeen authors included, nine of them are female, and I wonder if reading so much short fiction by female authors at such a young age has shaped my taste in short horror fiction. Authors who I am drawn to in short fiction, tend to be female and luckily there are a lot of excellent female writers out there. But for this article I’m supposed to choose only one. A difficult choice. Each writer brings a fresh voice, a different nuance to the horror genre, and my choice of whose book I will pick up and read can change on a whim. But for me I think my favourite contemporary female author would have to be Cate Gardner.

There is a nightmarish quality to her stories, a discordant harmony that leaves you unsure of what is happening, disorientated and fearful without being able to really pinpoint why. Her characters are often guileless, not innocent as such, there often appears to be a deeper awareness to their cruelty. But their lack of deception endears you to them, no matter what atrocities they may perform within the pages of her stories.

Cate Gardner paints a beautiful picture within her tales, but if you look closely you will notice that there is death and madness hidden within those brushstrokes, and if I was you I wouldn’t wonder too much about what is mixed in with that paint.

This is a Women in Horror piece that is not going to talk about struggle in terms of men v women in the normal sense of WIHM. You’ll find plenty of those. In fact, I’ve just deleted the introduction I wrote to this article because it’s merely going to repeat what you’ve probably already read elsewhere – this year, last year – and will do so next year.

This article is a celebration and a list, and the list has a purpose. The list is pretty much a snapshot of the indie presses where women are at the helm in some way, a celebration that so many exist. What they publish differs. There may be a niche market, for example bizarro, or the presses may be any genre. They may publish only women (including those who identify as women) or they publish both sexes (and obviously all genders). What and who they publish is beside the point. Women have taken charge of their careers and if women can run the business then they can write for it.

And the purpose of this list? To give women a shot of confidence, to try and stop the struggle women have with themselves. Not only in terms of writing but also submission. Don’t mock those of us who worry we are not good enough. We have been conditioned. When you’ve worked in male-dominated industries and been introduced as the ‘token female’, when you’ve had to prove yourself again and again to show you are as good as your male counterparts, when you’ve had to rescue a project and then seen your original male colleagues gain pay rises greater than yours and you get a mere pat on the head – it knocks your confidence. All of this happened to me. I was conditioned and I still struggle with my self-confidence. Speak to the boss, people say. But when you are in a man’s world, it is hard to speak up. And I think there is an element of that in the genre. The conditioning of women, their greater lack of confidence – probably more so in the older age group who have experienced the greater discrimination in the ‘real world’ – is a stumbling block.

But if they see a woman’s name, they will think, ‘hey she’ll judge my writing for what it is and not who I am.’ I know this is a disservice to many men, but the conditioning is there and is real and it is also well known that women will open up more to other women. The list is not a reflection on the many wonderful presses run by men (for example, Silver Shamrock Publishing who have been brilliant in the support of my own career and their other female authors), or the male cheerleaders in the industry, it is just providing an alternative way in for those women writers standing nervously on the threshold, the women who feel safer talking to other women.

This list, I hope will give those writers a nudge to take the first step and then from there, spread their wings. It is by no means exhaustive, some are long-established, others brand new. Take a look, you might find a home: