What instantly gripped you about Requiem?
 
About three years ago, Kris sent me a two-page treatment‎. I was immediately struck by how strong it was. I was intrigued by its mix of genres and by the fact that it was influenced by lots of films I really admire, including Picnic at Hanging Rock, Don't Look Now and Rosemary's Baby.
 
What else caught your eye?
The fact that it was based on the very personal experience of Kris'‎s mother dying. Everyone is searching for identity. When his mother died, she was a repository for a lot of his identity. Tied up with his grief was a sense that some of his identity had been taken away from him. So Requiem is a very hooky thriller. It has great scares combined with great psychological questions – and that combination really appealed to me.
 
What does Mahalia bring to the party?
She has an eye for great performances that are deeply heartfelt. She also has a fabulous visual sense. It was very important that we had a director with the vision to elevate the whole production. Mahalia delivered that in spades.
 
Does it add something that she directs all six episodes?
Yes. Mahalia was brilliant – and perhaps foolhardy – enough to take on all six episodes. The authority with which Requiem announces itself elevates the piece. The look, design, performances and music all have a coherence to them. A director not afraid to take on the baton of authorship was essential. She had only done a single drama before, so she might not have been able to step up to the rigours of making a six-parter. But in the event, she rose to the challenge superbly.
 
What else distinguishes Requiem?
One of the most exciting elements is that everyone working on the show, apart from the writer and the first assistant director, was female. That made it a very special production.
As Matilda, what does Lydia give us?
She’s just a very smart and surprising actress. Matilda explodes into the story and into this community like a grenade going off. She’s a complete force of nature, and yet she has to carry us with her. We have to feel her grief, but not wallow in it.
 
Tell us more.
In order to make sense of her mother’s death, Matilda has to embark on this crazy journey. Lydia has the ability to approach that in a fearless, truthful way which will take the audience with her. As Matilda guides us into ever more challenging territory, Lydia leads us all the way. It’s a quite remarkable performance.
 
How does the Welsh setting enhance the drama?
Wales is such a beautiful place. There is also a sense in which Wales is a frontier and there are lots of secrets buried under its hills. Wales is the perfect theatre to situate a story like this. It gives us a great sense of myths and mysticism. That’s essential to Requiem because although the story is rooted in real people, it also touches on ancient myths.
 
What are the benefits of working with BBC and Netflix?
The BBC and Netflix have stayed very true to what Kris set out to do. We’ve had two partners who have really been on board. We’ve been very blessed with their support.
 
One other advantage is that with Netflix, you are tapping into a service that gives you an immediate release right across the world. We’re all trying to make shows with global audience, and Netflix allows us instant access to that. That is really exciting. 
 
Why do you think that Requiem will make an impact on its audience?
It’s much better to take risks, and Requiem does take risks. That doesn’t always work, but I really believe that in this case it will work. It’s thrilling. I haven’t seen anything like this on TV for a while.

23 years after a child disappears in Wales, Matilda travels to Wales, determined to explore this mystery, even if it means unraveling her own identity. In the process, she uncovers long buried secrets in this remote community – including  one  secret  more  bizarre, terrifying  and  dangerous  than anything  she  could  have  imagined:  Dark  otherworldly  forces  are gathering – they have been waiting many years for Matilda to arrive. 
 
If every life is a story, then for most of us, it’s our parents who write the opening chapters. They record and remember our early childhoods as we cannot, acting as trusted witnesses to our lives.
 
But what if you discovered that your parent might have lied to you? That almost everything they’d said about their own history, and yours, might have been untrue?
 
Requiem takes its inspiration from the psychological horror films of the late 1960s and ‘70s - Rosemary’s Baby, Don’t Look Now, and The Innocents, avoiding easy answers, and instead playing on uncertainty and ambiguity.
 
It’s also a rumination on the nature of memory, identity, and loss, hinging on a universal truth: that when a parent dies, a part of you dies with them.
 
Requiem is written by Kris Mrksa (episodes 1-4 and 6) and Blake Ayshford (episode 5). The series is directed by Mahalia Belo, produced by Susan Breen and executive produced by Willow Grylls, Elaine Pyke and Charlie Pattinson for New Pictures, Kris Mrksa and Christopher Aird for BBC.

To celebrate the launch of the new show Ginger Nuts of Horror brings you a set of mini interviews with the cast members of the show.  We also have a guest post from the show's creator (here)  and  you can read our review of the show here

What did you like about Requiem when you were offered this part?
As soon as I read the script, I thought, “This is brilliant and intriguing.” The horror elements sent shivers down my spine. It’s the most daring thing to put back onto the agenda the concept of evil. But this is done superbly. Kris has the bravery to say, “There are forces at work that have nothing other than naked power, greed and murder at their heart.” I thought, “This is just fabulous.” It’s really, really exciting to be involved.
 
Tell us more about what makes Requiem such a gripping series.
It’s a great human drama. It’s about who to trust, who to care about, who to receive care from, what happens within a community and how the people within a community can infect each other with venom. It’s also about place, landscape, the traditional order of British society and how the remains of the feudal system can poison a community. If you’re in that community, do you gravitate towards the light or the dark?
 
What do the far-flung Welsh locations add to Requiem?
The remote North Wales village where Matilda ends up is a metaphor for isolation. It is a place that is cut off from the rest of the world. Life in the city is anonymous, which has given Janice and Matilda a chance. But as soon as they lose that anonymity, they’re vulnerable. Once you’re being surveyed in a village, you’re at risk. So the village is a symbol; it indicates that Matilda is not at liberty to pursue the truth.
 
What you think viewers will gain from watching Requiem?
I hope people will experience a real thrill. We’re subjected so many options these days, so you have to be very bold to thrill people – and Requiem is very bold. It’s all too easy to bring something out of the drawer that is similar to something else. But this isn’t similar to anything else. We appear to live in a completely rational world. But I don’t think that rationality answers all our questions, and to watch a drama which gives us a chance to grapple with that idea is great. Requiem is a thrilling and intelligent drama. But it’s also very scary. Don’t watch it alone or in the dark!
​

What attracted you to Requiem?
The script was just so different from anything I’d seen. As actors, we read a lot of similar scripts. This one stood out because it’s gripping from start to finish. It’s totally absorbing. Also, it’s the sort of part I’ve never played before. I thought the casting was amazing as well. So saying yes to Requiem was a complete no-brainer!
 
Tell us about Mahalia’s qualities as a director.
I’d heard great things about her, and as it turned out, she is something special. She has a terrific eye. I’m always thrilled when new female directors come to the fore. It’s still a very male-heavy industry, but people like Mahalia are breaking through, and that’s got to be good news.
 
 
Is she also good with actors?
Definitely. What I love about Mahalia is that she has no fear. Some directors will hold back with actors. But even though she is a new director, Mahalia is not afraid to tell very experienced performers the truth. She has no qualms because all she wants is to make the drama better. Because of that, everyone is happy to take direction from her. We know she won’t let us be rubbish!
 
Can you expand on that?
The great thing is, you know she's got your back. She's as concerned with the performances as she is with the pictures.‎
That's important for actors. We often feel out on a limb and like a small cog in a big machine. But Mahalia makes every contribution feel valued.
 
What particularly caught your eye about this part?
I love the fact that my character only has a surname. She's not written as a woman, but as a person. For me, that's vital. Kris does that brilliantly. He just writes people. He doesn't go in for gender stereotyping. That's great. I'm so tired of playing the wife of someone.
 
How would you characterise Graves?
She's very straightforward. ‎She's dragged into this case very unwillingly. But she cares about her local village and wants to solve the mystery for that reason. I also like the fact that she's not tortured or ambitious. There is no angst about her. She's not a secret alcoholic. 

What was the most challenging scene for you to film?
Richard Harrington and I have a fight at one point. I was offered a stunt woman, but I very foolishly turned it down. I said, "Yeah, I can do that," and six hours later, I was nearly throwing up and passing out with exhaustion. Stunt people are there for a reason! By the end, I was absolutely battered, a mess. My driver had to help me up the path to the hotel that evening. All because I had an ego and thought I could do my own stunts. I'm sure that six-hour shoot will end up as three seconds on screen! 

Chad is a Midwestern born author, living most of his life in Iowa as well as in Illinois and Michigan. He studied at the University of Iowa and has been cultivating his own passion for the written word for most of that time. He focuses on genre fiction, namely horror and science fiction. In 2014, he published Borrowed Time, his first book, a collection of short stories. His writing can also be seen at his blog, bakedscribe.com where an original piece of short fiction is shared every week. 

Chad's latest book Winter Holiday published by Dark Minds Press is released today.  You can purchase a copy by clicking here.  

​ 
Hello Chad, it is the beginning of a new year, so how did you do you with last year's Resolution of reviewing every book you read?
 
I actually did pretty well. At the very least, I left a rating for pretty much everything I read. Some of the books from more established names like Stephen King and Joe Hill, I didn’t bother as much with leaving more than a rating. As much as I figure, writers at their level aren’t exactly hurting for reviews. Is there really a point to writing an actual review for a book that already has a thousand of them? The reason why I try to do this is to support independent and small press authors.
 
 
Do you have any book related resolutions for this year?
 
I’ll be doing the review resolution again and this year I’m going to try and make a point to, whenever I post something on social media about my books, I will try to also post something about someone else’s book. This is something I think I’m pretty good about but there’s always room for improvement and we can all definitely use the support. On an emotional level, I’m trying to avoid the point where I let projects pile up so high that I have no time for any of them. I have stepped back largely from blogging and I am trying as much as possible to focus on one book at a time, so that I can be available for all aspects of my life. With as difficult as it has become to get my existing work noticed, there’s no need to be killing myself in order to add more.
 
 
With all the millions of books out there, how do pick a book to read, and what makes you decide to write a shorter review for Goodreads or a longer more in-depth review for Machine Mean?
 
One thing that is particularly important for me is to trumpet the achievements and the work of my peers when I feel it is deserved. I post reviews on Goodreads or Amazon for most of what I read but if I really enjoy the book, I’ll go the extra mile to do a writeup for the blog. It’s my way of using what platform I have to try and reach out in support of other authors.
 
 
And what puts you off from picking up a book to review? 
 
There are any number of points that might tip my interest away from the book. I’m not a huge stickler when it comes to the cover but if it looks like they just threw together an image in a few minutes just to go through the formality of having a cover, I tend to lose interest. If the description for the book is badly written, I often won’t bother. Those might sound petty or unfair but the way I see it, the whole point of a description and a cover is to entice the reader into picking up your book. So if it seems like you aren’t putting much energy or enthusiasm into that, what can I expect for the rest of the book? I tend to steer away from areas that seem well-trodden upon. I don’t have an inherent objection to vampires or werewolves or zombies but if the story seems like “just another” kind of a book, I will likely give it a pass. Often anymore, I find myself trending towards authors, more than book titles. There are a lot of intangibles that go into my process of evaluating a book, picking the melon up off the shelf and sniffing it, pretending I know what the hell I’m smelling for. I’m sure that while much of this is superficial and I likely end up skipping over some good books, I know that I’m also skipping over some bad ones.
 
 
Do you ever wish you could just read for pleasure so to speak?
 
I actually have no trouble reading for pleasure anymore. Even as a writer, I am more than happy to dial down that aspect of my brain and just enjoy a book. After years of acting at being intellectually engaged at University, it was important to me to get back to that place mentally where reading was something I did to bring joy to my life. I have been a writer for a long time but I’ve been a reader for even longer. Books were what got me into this in the first place. And as I have two young kids now, I don’t really get the chance to watch what I want on television anymore. So for me, books have become my primary means to ingest my preferred mode of entertainment.
 
 
Many other authors don't like to leave reviews, for fear of retaliation reviews, have you ever wished that you hadn't written a review, and how bad would a book have to be to stop you from leaving a review? 
 
I actually make a policy where if I really don’t like the book or if I’m just not getting it, I won’t leave a review. That stems from two places. First, in my earlier days as a writer, one thing that was really pounded into me was the notion of being respectful and positive when giving feedback to an author. It’s important to remember that no matter how strongly we might feel about an issue, we really are just one reader and what we have to say should be presented as our opinions, not set-in-stone fact. So even in reviews for books that I didn’t like as much, I try to make sure my comments are as constructive and respectful as possible. If I think it’s a book that merits fewer than three stars, I just refrain from rating it or leaving a review.
 
The other is that I do often give thought to the issue you bring up, of authors taking out revenge for a review they aren’t happy with. It seems anymore in this industry that any stray match can have the potential to flare up into a full brush fire so I do try to tread lightly. I do also see an inherent conflict of interest in how I use my reviews. With books on the market myself, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m just trying to tear down the competition. In my mind, it would be like a chef going onto a review site and ripping all the other restaurants in town.
 
Point is, when I review, I try to keep it positive and upbeat so I don’t think there has been a review that I’ve posted with concern or trepidation.
 
 
Reviewing is just one feather in the cap, for those who may not have heard of you, you are also an author. What made you want to a writer initially and what drew you to the horror genre? 
 
 
Growing up, I was lucky on several levels. First, I had parents that made sure we were going to the library on a regular basis and I had books in my hands, constantly. By the time I started kindergarten I was already reading quite well on my own, so books made an early entry into my life. I also experienced much of the eighties right at that perfect time of childhood where everything can still be magic and fun. The Star Trek films were starting to become a cultural phenomenon and of course, Star Wars was a towering giant. It really was a great time for popular entertainment and as cable television and video rentals were still in their infancy, going out to the movies was much more of an event than it is now.
 
I think that this love for books as well as for the more visual aspects of storytelling planted much of the seeds for what would become my identity as a writer, many years later. It wasn’t long after I developed the love of stories that I realized that I could take up a pen and start telling some of my own design.
 
The eighties were also a time when the horror genre was getting huge. Obviously this was when Stephen King was becoming the name he now is but also, a ton of great movie franchises that are in the process of being rebooted got their start, largely in the eighties. I remember reading John Bellairs as a kid and loving the spooky atmosphere in books like The House With A Clock In Its Walls. It wasn’t long after that when I found myself delving into King’s work, the books that I had always seen lying around my dad’s house but was too afraid to read. Those were books for adults, not me.
 
For me, horror has always been about intense storytelling and the shiver you get up your spine, sometimes, in just the right moment. I like it when stories force you to bring your own moral compass to bear and really think about what you’re reading. It’s about seeing a character in the worst possible situation, then looking inside ourselves and wondering, “What would I do?” It’s about going straight to the brink of madness but with the ability to turn away and make our way back to safety, outside the covers of the book.
 
 
The genre is as broad as they come, is there a particular sub-genre that you the most comfortable writing in? 
 
I suppose supernatural horror is where I’m most fond of being. I love the notion of the power of things unseen and of the unsettling nature these types of stories can often take on. I think that you often have to recruit the reader to be a part of the storytelling as you often count on their psyche to fill in the blanks of what you have on the page and to be creeped out by the implications of what they just read. I’m also a big fan of stories that bend the horror and sci-fi genres together, in the style of films like Alien and Event Horizon. I think that those genres play really well alongside one another so I’m always excited when I see authors that go there.
 
 
You published your first book Borrowed Time in 2014, which was a collection of short stories, did you write these stories especially for the collection or where did you select them from your back catalogue? 
 
When I made the decision to start publishing my work, most of the stories in that book had already been written. Of the six stories in that collection, all but one had been written within two years of publishing the book. The one exception was what ended up being the title story, Borrowed Time. This was more of a novella length story and it was actually this that, many years later would become my standalone book, Yesterday, When We Died.
 
 
How would you describe the collection, is there an overriding theme to the stories? 
 
I don’t think there is a particular theme. Two of the stories are pretty dark, supernatural horror. There are two sort of speculative sci-fi type stories and the other two are really more literary, with one of them taking on some vague supernatural elements.
 
At the time, my thinking was (and I think I still tend to feel) that while having a theme to a collection or an anthology can be great, it can also be an effort largely lost on the reader. I’ve read some fantastic anthologies of stories that were centered around a common theme and I’ve read books just as good that are all over the place in terms of theme and story. I think it largely depends on the game of the writer, more than anything else. If the author is taking me places I enjoy, I’m going to go along for the ride, regardless of the form it takes.
 
 
As with so many new authors, the collection did not sell as well as you hoped, if you knew then what you know now about how hard it is to market a short story collection by a new, and hell sometimes by an established, author would you still have Borrowed Time as your debut publication? 
 
That was a tough one for me. It’s hard to put something out there that you believe in and just see it tank. Releasing that book was my first hard reality check as an author as I found out that it is far easier for people to say, “Yeah, I’ll totally buy that when it comes out” than it is to actually follow through and click on that old purchase button. I don’t think I ever had the notion that I had a bestseller on my hands but I think I was hoping for slightly more active engagement and responses than I got.
 
The book was received well, for the few people who bought it and I did get a handful of positive reviews. But ultimately, the book just sat there and did not move.
 
And much of that is my own fault. I didn’t know what I was doing, not that I would characterize myself as knowing much, even today. I don’t have the kind of budget that would allow me to run a bunch of ad campaigns or pay for marketing. I was depending a lot on word of mouth and as many have also found out, that just isn’t a good way to sell books.
 
So to get around to an actual answer, I probably would have done things differently and maybe tried to put something out that would have had more potential to garner attention with the amount of resources I had to push it out there.
 
 
You have recently been releasing some of the stories as stand-alone versions, what made you decide to do this?
 
Yes, as of now, all but one of the stories in that book have been released as single titles. It reached a point where I realized I had to do something differently with that book. I couldn’t remember the last time I had sold a copy, but I still felt strongly about the stories in the collection. I think they were all good, but the problem was that no one was reading them so they weren’t doing any work for me. A golden egg doesn’t do anything for you if the goose isn’t giving it up.
 
As kindle singles have become more popular, I thought this would be a good way to get them out there and in front of readers. I have released four short stories, Utopia, Falling To Dark, Tomorrow’s Memory and Mist On The Highway. And as I mentioned earlier, the title story from that book, Borrowed Time, was released this year with a new title, Yesterday, When We Died.
While I wouldn’t say that the stories have set the world on fire, they have by far gotten more engagement and response as single titles than they ever had when I released them all in the same collection. Yesterday, When We Died and Falling To Dark both have gotten more ratings on Goodreads by themselves, than the book Borrowed Time ever did. So on the whole, I feel happy with how the decision has gone and looking back, I wish I had done it this way from the start.
 
 
Have you tweaked these stories in any way?
 
I gave all the stories some additional editing before I re-released them. The most radical change I did was in Yesterday, When We Died which had a scene that is similar to a scene from another one of my books. I went in and did a little rewrite. But other than that, all I did was go through and clean up areas where I thought the writing was dragging the story down. I’m far better now than I was then, both as a writer and an editor but one happy surprise I found when I was going back through these old stories was that I was still capable of enjoying my own work. I took that as a definite good sign.
 
 
Looking back over the years, how do you feel you have developed as a writer?
 
I’ve definitely gotten more confident in my abilities and in my instincts as a writer. I think I have a better sense of my strengths and my productivity has definitely improved. Making a point of writing every day has been a major decision for me and I’m currently sitting at close to 1,600 straight days of writing at least two hundred and fifty words.
 
Self esteem is something that as a writer, you are struggling with constantly. There’s a quote about writing I have always loved, I think it’s from Anne Lamott, that writing a novel is like trying to cross the ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of room for doubt.
 
The point is that early on, when I was younger I was constantly battling an unresolvable conflict. On one hand, I was a writer because I needed people to tell me that I was a good writer. That was never going to happen though as I never let anyone read my writing because I was terrified that they were going to tell me I was shit. I started plenty of stories but never had the steam to finish them. And then, after a year, I would find those handful of chapters in a notebook in my closet and I’d think, “This is really good, why didn’t I finish this?”
 
Getting more years and experience has taught me to trust that I do have good instincts and that my ideas are good. I’ve done much better at understanding that the statements of any one person shouldn’t be given too much weight and what really matters is that I realize that I AM a good writer, regardless of what they tell me. That may sound arrogant and maybe to some extent it is. But I think the point I’m trying to drive at is that as this is my art, if I can be honestly happy with what I put out there, I consider that to be a win.
 
It took me a lot of years to get to that head space and I still wage war on my own self-image, on a daily basis. As the time crawls by, I just get a little better at compartmentalizing that negativity and leaving it in the sewer, where it belongs.
 
 
Has living in the Midwest shaped your writing? Have the rolling planes and farmland ever manifested into your work?
 
I suppose I tend to write my stories in a generic sort of midwestern setting. All of the towns and places I use are fictionalized but my actual experiences with the environment I live in definitely affects how I write. And I do tend to lean towards stories featuring characters in somewhat isolated settings and small towns that just aren’t right. I’ve driven through more than my fair share of tiny little midwestern towns, basically just clusters of houses with maybe a gas station and a bar. I’m sure that creates somewhat of a comfort zone in my head in terms of where I instinctively place my stories.
 
 
And can you confirm that you do indeed get tornadoes there, my wife spent two years living in Clear Lake and was upset that she never saw one?
 
Tornadoes are definitely a thing. I’ve been in close vicinity of them any number of times but I’ve only actually seen a tornado once, actually a water spout, which is basically a tornado when it’s over water. I saw that over Lake Michigan.
 
Shortly after our first son was born, I woke in the middle of the night to find myself in the opening scene of an apocalyptic film. The power was off, wind howling outside and everyone was gone. Turns out, there had been straight line winds going right past us and my wife, upon hearing a sound like a train bearing down on the house had scooped up the kiddo and gotten him downstairs. This wasn’t a tornado, but basically a storm with tornado strength winds. We woke up the next morning to find about a half dozen trees along our property line had fallen into our yard, one of which came a few feet away from the corner bedroom where our son had been sleeping. So I can definitely confirm their existence. I would say every year, we get at least a handful of tornadoes that touch down and are sighted around our area.
 
 
Your latest publication is almost here, Winter Holiday from Dark Minds Press.  How did you involved with this publisher? 
 
In the summer of 2016, I was looking for a book recommendation as I was waiting for Joe Hill’s book, The Fireman to come out. A friend suggested I check out Slaughter Beach, by Benedict Jones. Just so happens that was the first of the Dark Minds novella series. At the time, they were just about to release the fourth book in the series and I saw several names of authors I knew that were involved. I read all the rest and was blown away by both the simple, but elegant cover art as well as the economic and hard-hitting stories. I have come to fall in love with novella length stories for the horror genre. I think it allows for a quick and intense story while at the same time staying legitimate. I often find with really long horror stories that the premise starts to fall apart a bit and you hit a point where you just wonder why things haven’t been resolved yet.
 
Late that year, I reached out to Dark Minds to see if they had plans on publishing any more installments in the series. I did this fully with the expectation of being politely told that no such plans were in the works but thanks anyway for asking. It was, therefore, a pretty big surprise when they responded back that I was free to send along anything I might have for them to look at. One aspect of these books that I have really enjoyed is that while they are all unique, there is a similar feel of grim intensity to them. I took stock of the novellas I was working on at the time and picked out Winter Holiday as the one I thought would be the best fit.
 
I sent it along, again fully expecting to be told thanks, but no thanks. My expectations were obviously defied, once again. As much as I wanted it, I never really thought I would get to have one of those great covers with my name on it so it was a thrill for me when I received word that they were interested.
 
 
Did you read the other books in this novella series to get a feel for what sort of story they were looking for?
 
As I said, I had read all of the installments that had been put out at that time. I think I was feeling a general vibe and atmosphere to the stories that Winter Holiday would do a good job standing alongside. I sent the story along, hoping that they would agree that it was a good choice, but not really having the realistic expectation that it would happen. Dark Minds is a press that puts out fantastic work so if nothing else, I really felt the pressure to make sure the work I was crafting would be worthy of being placed under that esteemed name.
 
 
What does working with a publisher like Dark Minds bring to the table?
 
I was thrilled for the chance to work with such a great press. One great aspect of working with smaller publishers is when you get the chance to collaborate with people who have the luxury of taking their time to work with who they want. This will be my first traditionally published book so I’m looking forward to a new experience. Working with them on the editing end of things and in crafting the book down to a more effective product has been incredibly helpful and educational for me. I know that some writers out there take the attitude that every word extruded from their soul is like spun gold and how dare anyone think to change it, but I try to be more open to input. After all, a publisher wants the same thing as you, they want your book to succeed. So I take their advice and suggestions for what they are, an effort to make the book as good as it can possibly be. Dark Minds has been phenomenal to work with. And obviously, I certainly hope that with the audience they have and the platform they have created, I can hopefully get my name out there and maybe get some more notice for my other books as well.
 
 
What can we expect from the story?
 
I’m a big fan of a good monster story and I think/hope that this comes through clearly in Winter Holiday. I like using atmosphere a bit more than overt description. I’m not against having graphic content but I think that if I can get the reader to complete the image in their mind, it’s more effective and has more potential to stay with them. I’m a big believer in the sentiment that while a story might begin with me, it ultimately ends in the mind of the reader, so I want to make sure there is room for their imagination to roam. One author I have come to love in the past year is Amy Cross. I think she has a brilliant mix of suspenseful atmosphere but also with some more extreme content sprinkled in. I think it is a style of writing that I try to do as well, myself. My hope is that with Winter Holiday, readers will find a fun romp with a scary monster, an unsettling treatment of the experience of isolation and a plot that leaves you with just the right bitter twist at the end.
 
 
It has been described by that Canadain rapscallion Duncan Ralston as a cross between Stephen King and Owl Goingback, which in my book is a pretty good cross.  Where do you think this novella falls more in the King or Goingback camp?
 
I’m sad to say that I haven’t read any of Owl Goingback before but I intend to correct that soon. Crota looks like a fantastic book so I think I will shuffle it to the top of my to-read pile. The reference to The Dark Half is on point, though and I’m glad to see that book popping into his mind after reading Winter Holiday. It’s one book of King’s that I think has been severely underrated so it doesn’t surprise me to think that I could have been chewing it over somewhat on a subconscious level as I wrote this. I certainly had aspects of The Shining in mind as Winter Holiday deals quite a bit on the subject of isolation and the effect that can have on a creative mind, like the novelist who is the central character of this book.
 
 
If you could write a sequel to any of their books which book would you choose?
 
That’s a tough one. I think it would be interesting to write a followup to Misery. Not the movie-of-the-week type sequel where Annie’s twin sister shows up to take revenge, necessarily. But I think it would be an interesting turn to see Paul in the wake of his experiences in that house, to see how damaged he is as a result and how his character is fundamentally altered by Annie Wilkes.
 
It's just the start of the year, but can you tell us about any plans you have for the coming year with regards to your writing career?
 
In a few months, I will be putting out a novella with Shadow Work titled, In The Course Of Daily Events. This is another small-town tale, centered around an outbreak of violence that has happened to the populous. It’s a horror story but also a rare departure from the supernatural for me so I’m looking forward to share something a little different with my readers. Also this year, I will be publishing the follow-up to my 2016 apocalyptic novel, Behind Our Walls. This new book is titled From Across Their Walls and it has been incredibly fun to make a return to that universe. At some point this year, my collection of Stephen King reviews from my blogging project will be released in a book titled, Tracing Trails. I started this project several years ago and have just recently finished. I read all of his books in order of publication and reviewed each along the way. It was a great way to get myself re-invested in an author I love so I’m happy to have been able to complete it.
 
I have also started a small publishing company called Darker Worlds. Besides handling my own work, obviously, I’m already starting to reach out to authors in the hope of starting a line of short stories to release under the imprint. I’ve already gotten verbal commitment from two writers that I am very excited to be working with so keep an eye out for those releases.
 
Other than that, I will keep doing what I do. I work. I write. I try and be a positive force in this industry. I try to be humble and open minded as I continue to be inspired by artists I am honored to consider colleagues. Who knows what the future will bring to me, if my books will start to find some success or if I’m simply doomed to whither away in a deep sarlacc pit of obscurity. Either way, it’s important to be able to take happiness and joy from my journey, otherwise it isn’t going to make one bit of difference what the ultimate destination ends up being. I’ll try to be happy, and hope that more people can do the same.
 
I think that, more than anything, is what we all need right now.

 
William Blackwell studied journalism at Calgary’s Mount Royal University and English literature at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia. He worked as a print journalist for many years before becoming an author. He has written over seventeen novels, mainly in the horror genre. Currently living on an acreage in Prince Edward Island, Blackwell loves to travel and write dark fiction.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
Sure. Encouraged by some friends, I started writing novels about six years ago. Before that I worked for over fifteen years as a real estate agent in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Prior to that I held many jobs, but my passion has always been writing. I worked as a journalist for a couple of rural Alberta weekly newspapers and was always writing creative blurbs on scraps of paper in my spare time. Much of these story ideas were inspired by my nightmares, which I’ve had frequently for as long as I can remember.
 
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
 
I live on 45 acres of oceanfront property in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Weather permitting, I love to enjoy the outdoors and can often be found grooming my numerous sites with my trusty chainsaw, Mister Stihl. I love nature and my backyard is a giant outdoor playground. When I’m not writing, I also enjoy reading, online book promotion (maybe I don’t really enjoy it, but I have do it), horror movie, documentary and news watching, and socializing with my friends in an attempt to solve all the world’s problems. We usually do, by the way.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
I’m influenced constantly by everyday events, people, places and things. Often while I’m writing a novel, I find ways to incorporate news of the day into my story line and this often adds a dramatic twist to the novel and takes it in an unexpected and exciting direction.
 
The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?
 
The horror genre is intended to scare, disgust, or startle readers.  Many horror readers just love to be frightened and it has almost a cult-like following. But horror often crosses into other genres such as thriller, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic fiction, suspense, murder mystery, etc. I would like to see the definition of horror broaden to not only scare the hell out of readers, but also be a medium to entertain, educate and influence. Although my novels contain many macabre and grisly scenes, and I try my damnedest to shock and frighten my readers, I also try to impart a positive message somewhere in the book, a golden nugget of my moral code; something readers may take away that may help them on the pothole-laden path of life. My road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
 
A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?
 
To say the least, we now live in dangerous and uncertain times. In the next few years, I think you’ll see more horror writers reflecting that in their work. From a horror writer’s standpoint, we now have more real-life material than ever to draw from.

 What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
As corny and overused as it sounds, horror master Stephen King influenced me a lot. I love The Stand, his bible of post-apocalyptic fiction. Dmitry Glukhovsky, author of post-apocalyptic thriller Metro 2033, inspired my Assaulted Souls series.  I loved Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and, as lame as it sounds, I think all the horror films I watch influence and shape me as a writer to greater or lesser degrees.
 
What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?
 
Stephen King’s son Own King is definitely gaining traction, particularly with the recent release of Sleeping Beauties, a father-and-son collaboration.
 
How would you describe your writing style?
 
A: Raw, gritty, real, clear and concise. Trained as a journalist, I’m not a fan of overly descriptive, verbose or flowery prose and edit my own words ad-nauseam for clarity and brevity. I love Earnest Hemingway’s simple writing style; it communicates to audiences from all walks of life—from elementary school children to scholarly doctorate degree holders.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
A: The first novel I wrote, a strange hybrid of inspirational fiction and horror, is called Brainstorm. After many long months, I finally finished it and was unsure of its future. I sent it to Winslow Eliot, my editor, and said: “If you don’t like it, I’m trashing it and giving up novel writing.” I waited with anxiously for a response. Finally, one came.  One of the first things she said was, “Wow! What a truly amazing story of courage and personal transformation. I was deeply moved by this novel.” If it weren’t for her inspiring words, I wouldn’t have written seventeen novels. She confirmed that indeed I do have talent and encouraged me to pursue my calling.
 
What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
Sometimes the editing process is a real grind for me. Before I even send a manuscript to my editor, I do at least three editing passes of my own, in addition to having a beta reader provide feedback. Then after Winslow performs her masterful surgery, there are usually at least two more edits and a final proof-read before it goes to press. By the time I’m done with it, I’m more than ready to move onto the next project.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
I’ve read excerpts from non-fiction books about women who’ve been abducted, held captive, tortured, and sexually abused. While I have written about abduction and torture in a fictional context, I could never write a novel on this topic based on a true story. I would be too afraid if would further scar victims of such heinous crimes.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way they sound or the meaning?
 
I love symbolism and sub-text. I pick names very carefully based on sound and symbolism.
 
Writing is not a static process. How have you developed as a writer over the years? 
 
I’ve become far more disciplined. I aim for 2000 words a day and don’t leave the office until I’ve accomplished that. I used to write a lot at night but I found when I went to bed, I couldn’t turn my brain off and would be getting up every few minutes and writing down new ideas. Often I’d find myself at the keyboards churning out words deep into the night. Sleepless night is not a way to maintain a steady and productive writing schedule. Now, while drinking gallons of coffee, my fuel, I write first-thing in the morning and don’t shower, eat, or talk (unless it’s to myself or one of my novel characters) until I’ve reached my daily writing quota. I also make sure all social media and the phone is shut off during this creative time.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?  
 
William Shrunk and E.B White’s The Elements of Style. Also Stephen King’s On Writing; an AP Style Guide; a good dictionary and a good thesaurus.
       
What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
I believe great writers are born talented. However, bad writers, with practice, can become good writers. A writer friend once told me, “Writing is not rocket science. If you want to become a good writer, read a lot and write a lot.”

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
 
I’m one of the worst examples in terms of self-promotion. I’d rather start a new novel than try and sell one of my existing ones. But this year, out of necessity, I’ve actually developed a marketing plan. I’m slowly developing an email list of my fans. I blog regularly, have a fixed time for posting and interacting on social media, and am constantly searching for that evasive book-promotion secret that will set me apart from that sea of mediocrity.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favourite child to write for and why?
 
In my new horror release Freaky Franky, Franklin Reiger is one of my favorite characters. What make a horror novel interesting is when characters are not black and white. Shades of gray make characters interesting and help readers identify with them. Freaky Franky is more than an evil character. As a child, he witnesses the deaths of many close family members, and eventually believes he’s cursed. Everyone around him dies and perhaps reluctantly he decides to give a few of them a little nudge. But, guild-ridden and regretful, he embarks down a landmine-laced path for redemption and rebirth.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
A Head for an Eye, The End Is Nigh, and Freaky Franky are among my favorites. Maybe they’re biased, but my editor calls Freaky Franky one of my best works and my publisher says it is my best work.
 
And are there any that you would like to forget about?
 
Inspired by true events, Brainstorm chronicles the lives of an epileptic man and his mentally challenged wife who have so little but give so much. Although my editor’s glowing praise of Brainstorm brought me to where I am today, when I read it I can certainly see how much my writing has evolved and improved over the years. If I decide to rewrite any of my backlist, Brainstorm is first on the chopping block.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
It’s a tough question as I have many favorites. But, since I’m under duress, I’ll take Freaky Franky. If I believe my writing improves with every novel (which, I do), then Freaky Franky represents the most recent culmination of that evolution.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
I have many favorite passages. This excerpt is from The End Is Nigh, a recently released post-apocalyptic thriller about an unlikely group of people who retreat to an underground shelter as a blazing inferno decimates the world.
 
“It wasn’t just the flames that made Ralph see red as the trailing SUV skidded to a stop about thirty feet from the inferno. Nor was it the dark red blood dribbling down his face from Steel’s sucker punch and Crass’s boot to the nose. No. It was something else. The agitation had started with Penny’s betrayal of the whereabouts of his friends—slowly unleashing the uncontrollable fury of the intermittent-explosive-disorder monster lurking inside him. Then it was the rejection demon intertwined with the green-eyed monster of jealousy that had begun to unravel the ties that bound him to a semblance of sanity. Frankenstein’s monster had begun to unravel. He first noticed it during the interrogation, but had dismissed it as tricks of his imagination. A look Penny had exchanged with Steel. A look of affection. Nothing. My mind playing tricks on me. But on the way to Sandra’s house, he had seen it again. Not once, but twice. And, to rub salt in the wound, he had also watched her exchange a weird look of affection with Crass.”

Can you tell us what you are working on next?
 
I’ve become fascinated with the mysterious landscape of dreams. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing blog posts on nightmares, lucid dreaming, night terrors, sleep paralysis and other sleep-related phenomena. I can feel a great story idea gelling that involves many aspects of dreams. The idea has a ghastly shape, but has yet to solidify into a discussable form. When the mold has form, I’ll give you more.

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?
 
The evil cat. Why don’t they make the cat the good guy for a change?

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is well-written and contains great character sketches. Also some very meaningful social commentary. Found Dean Koontz’s Shattered somewhat lame in terms of action and character development, although it is well written.
 
What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
A: People ask questions such as: “Are you making any money? How’s it going with your new book? Do you ever think you can really rise out of that ocean of obscurity?” And, although I’m not one to arbitrarily begin discussing writing without being prompted, I sometimes wish they’d ask me why I write. I write for many reasons: to feed my addiction (there are worse things to be addicted to), to please myself, and to educate, influence, entertain, and scare the hell out of my readers.

 
In June of 2016, blogger Phil Sandifer completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund what he called the ‘conspiracy ‘zine’ edition of his essay-become-book, Neoreaction: A Basilisk. Kit Power read it, and reviewed it for Gingernuts of Horror here.
 
In the 18 months since, the relevance of a book that seeks to interrogate and dismantle the philosophical and intellectual underpinnings of neoreaction and that alt-right has, to put it mildly, not faded. And so, for the first time, Dr. Sandifer has put out a general release copy of the book for sale in ebook and paperback formats, containing a revised version of the additional essay, plus an additional six pieces that includes coverage of Gamergate, the Austrian School of Economics, and the 45th president of the United States.
 
In the second part (click here to read part one) of our interview with him we talk collaborative working, GamerGate, TERFs, and Phil’s 2018 plans…
 
Gingernuts of Horror: Moving on to the other essays in this book, one of the things that occured to me about your piece on GamerGate was how much that movement, in retrospect, feels like a dry run for the Alt-Right element of the Trump campaign (and indeed, it contains some of the same key players). When did you write this essay? And were you concerned at all about blowback taking this subject on?
 
Phil Sandifer: I wrote the start of this essay and “Theses on a President” during the writing of the main essay, so probably about a year after the trashfire was well and truly lit. I’d already weathered the storm of getting into a feud with Vox Day at that point, so I had a pretty good idea of the worst case, though I hadn’t and haven’t been SWATted or anything. But to be honest, the alt-right had mostly taken to leaving me alone by 2016. I mean, I was a cis white male, so nowhere near their favorite flavor of punching bag, and every time Vox started a fight with me I turned it into a publicity boost, which managed to get him mad enough at me that he switched to completely ignoring me. So I felt like I was in a pretty safe position to take the topic on, and indeed felt something of an obligation to do so given that.
 
GNoH: ‘Theses on a President’ may actually contain the most concise detailed biography of Trump I’ve yet read. How much research did it take to pull that together?
 
PS: Why thank you. That’s strange to hear about a piece in which I suggest that Trump Tower was a black mass in which the President sacrificed his name for power, but oddly not out of keeping with what I was going for. And yes, as you suggest, it was pretty research-heavy, although it never got to, like, “actually reading a book” hard. (Well. I read a chunk of The Art of the Deal. But that’s hardly a book.) I mean, Trump was pretty well documented before he ran for President, and finding accounts of various periods of his past wasn’t really hard in the blizzard of stories. Often the hardest thing was tracking down something I remembered reading from months ago but hadn’t bookmarked, just because there’s so much stuff out there on him that if you slightly misremember a quote you’re up a creek finding it again. Honestly, though, the only part I actually minded was sitting through the first episode of The Apprentice, which was genuinely agonizing. On the whole, though, the piece broke down into individual chunks pretty easily. (It’s numbered sections of a couple paragraphs each, so that’s kind of literally true.) I could focus on getting a couple sources about Atlantic City, or a couple sources about the Grand Hyatt and work on teasing out the narrative I needed within the details of each given event.
 
GNoH: Based on that (relatively) recent viewing of The Apprentice, what do you make of the recent firing/resignation of Omarosa from Trump’s administration? Is there any chance it (or anything else, really) damages him?
 
PS: Oh god. It’s still hard to take Omarosa entirely seriously, I think because she’s fundamentally just an epiphenomenon of Trump. I’d be pretty surprised if her departure damages him. It seems very much like a sideshow act within the entire shit circus.
 
Though I think yes, lots of stuff really damages him. He’s got an approval rating of something like 36%. Republicans are doing terribly in special elections - they just lost Alabama for fuck’s sake. And yes, the astonishing badness of Roy Moore was a lot of that, but it also fits into a general tendency of Republicans to get clobbered or have elections be way, way closer than they should be over the last year. So yeah, I think he’s subject to the same political gravity as any staggeringly unpopular politician with next to no significant accomplishments. I think the Democrats are likely to do very well in 2018; I’d be surprised if they don’t take the House and unsurprised if they take the Senate. And I think he’s in for a very, very tough reelection campaign in 2020 unless the Democrats completely shit the bed in candidate selection, which, to be fair, they’re really good at. Assuming he makes it to 2020, because frankly it’s easy to see the GOP acquiescing to an impeachment in 2019 in a desperate attempt to salvage things. Nobody is untouchable, and asinine clowns are more touchable than most, even if they are often the best at making it look otherwise.
 
GNoH: Another one of the new essays for this edition of the book is a collaboration with Jack Graham. Can you talk about the collaboration process? What did you most enjoy about it, and what was the most significant challenge?
 
PS: In some ways I’d rather hear Jack’s answer to this than mine. From my perspective, Jack really took the lead on that piece. Collaboration is never as simple as “who wrote what bits” because in practice you go back and forth over each other’s sentences so that every bit is truly coauthored, but probably around 80% of the essay is stuff Jack wrote the first draft of. I knew why I wanted to tackle the Austrian School, which is that their economic system is based on the complete rejection of all empiricism and mathematical models in favor of reasoning entirely from first principles. I talk in the main essay about that approach and how it’s fundamentally a lie because what it presents is never actually the train of thought the writer used to get to those ideas, and so the Austrians, who are a major influence on Mencius Moldbug (and Vox Day for that matter) were an obvious corollary to it. The problem was that I know fuck all about economics, and so I brought in Jack, who I knew would also bring his deep knowledge of Marxism, which was another thread I’d set up in the main essay when I suggested that Marx offered better answers to almost all of Moldbug’s questions but never really paid off.
 
So I wrote a version of what became the first two pages or so in order to set an initial direction, then Jack wrote a first stab at the main body and sent that to me as a mixture of developed sections and half-formed notes. I went over it and worked out a vague structure, then wrote the lead-in to a conclusion (the close-reading of Rothbard’s argument that opens the section called “Demiurge!”) before leaving some appallingly useless note like “right, Jack, now explain the connection between Marxism and empathy” and sending it back to him. He, instead of having me killed, worked out a full draft. I partially redid the ending to better tie in to the rest of the book and did a general edit to match the style. But that’s mostly a lot of minor stuff that’s only of interest to real style geeks. Jack is really fond of ellipses, for instance, whereas I don’t use them very much, so I redid a bunch of jokes to get their comic pauses in different ways.
 
The most enjoyable part, as a result, was when I got to sit down and read a 20,000 word Jack Graham essay. I love Jack’s work and love the problem-solving involved in editing someone else’s work, and so just diving in and getting to really simultaneously deeply immerse myself in a Jack Graham piece and muck around with it was immensely gratifying. The biggest challenge was probably that Jack is a fucking monster who puts two spaces after a period.
 
GNoH: I have to admit, as a layperson, I was surprised at the vacuum at the heart of the Austrian School in terms of the rejection of empiricism (though it explains a lot). Were you aware just how closely this subject would dovetail with the similar vacuum at the heart of GamerGate, or Trump? It feels almost like rejection of empiricism is the ‘original sin’ of so many of these movements...
 
PS: Hm. I think the rejection of empiricism is close to the original sin - certainly it’s related - but for me, at least, it’s really the rejection of empathy that’s the original sin. In every case, there’s a terrifying failure to acknowledge the existence or importance of other people’s lived experience. That’s consistently, I think, the thing that pushes them into outright and deep-seated evil. But I think the rejection of empiricism is a part of that. When you operate from a standpoint of supposedly pure, “from first principles” reasoning - and again, that’s always a rhetorical device instead of an honest account of one’s thought - one of the things that happens is that you lose any sort of obligation to look at the consequences your arguments have for actual people. But I think the causality runs in the other direction: the reason the Austrians reject empiricism is that it would require them to acknowledge the obscene amounts of suffering their worldview causes, and they don’t want to do that.
 
That said, it obviously does dovetail with the rest of the book. What really unites the seven essays - since two of them aren’t really on the alt-right - is that they’re looking at ideas that are in very fundamental ways mad. And to be clear, I’m not using that word in terms of mental illness. I think mental illness is generally a really bad way to look at these subjects. (As one very astute assessment of describing Trump in terms of mental illness put it, the mentally ill cause suffering for themselves; Trump causes suffering for other people.) I mean it in much more of a Lovecraftian sense, in which they encounter some unfathomable and horrific piece of knowledge that shatters their minds. That’s the whole idea of the basilisk, really - the thing you wish you didn’t know. The Austrian School’s rejection of empiricism seemed at first glance like exactly that - an argument so utterly bizarre (one might even say Weird) as to clearly be pathological. And I suspected that pathology would probably be rooted in Marx, or at least figured that Jack would sell that case brilliantly, which he did. 
 
GNoH: David Icke feels on the surface to be a somewhat softer target than the other people and movements you cover in this book. What drew you to his particular brand of conspiracy theory, and what, if anything, did you learn from researching his work?
 
PS: He absolutely is a soft target, but in a weird way he’s the person I’m most fond of in the book. (Well, almost; I have a strange respect for Mary Daly, who comes up in the TERFs essay.) He’s just such an utterly ridiculous figure, spinning these preposterously unconvincing theories with apparently total conviction. He’s certainly not harmless; he’s viciously anti-semitic in ways that are legitimately destructive. But there’s a fundamental charm to the sheer barminess of his ideas. And in a book that is, as I said, about philosophies that are afflicted by madness, I thought an essay about someone who exists at a sort of odd angle from the book’s main subjects would be a good occasion to look at that madness in a context that’s, if not untainted by awful politics, at least less tainted. So he ends up being the sort of good example.
 
Where he let me down, really, was in just not being all that good. Like, when I actually dug into his books, they weren’t what you’d call satisfyingly mad. I was hoping for something much more Robert Anton Wilson, and instead I got this sort of sad paranoia of a man convinced he’s had some sort of crucial insight into the world but who’s just obviously failing to get anywhere with it. There’s a tendency in some of his late works - because his style does actually evolve over the twenty years or so he’s been writing - to talk with a sort of wearied crankiness, as though he’s just terribly annoyed how much of his valuable time he’s had to spend exposing the conspiracy of lizard people that run the world. So I end up giving, I think, some constructive criticism on how best to approach the subject of lizard people that I hope he’ll take on board. (And, you know, it gave me the opportunity to work a bit of Alan Moore into the book, which it really felt like it needed.)
 
GNoH: It seems to me that in ‘Notes on TERFs’ the rejection of empathy you identified earlier with the Austrians is front and centre, especially in the case of Brennan. Why do you think the ‘T’ in LGBT has so often been used as a bargaining chip in the way you describe in the essay? And assuming we don’t all get wiped out by rising sea levels, what do you think is the next civil rights barrier to be challenged?
 
PS: Brennan’s cruelty is jaw-dropping, but for me the really staggering lack of empathy (which is of course distinct from cruelty) in that essay is Janice Raymond, who gets so wrapped up in her conspiracy theory about the medical industry inventing transness to attack women that she seems to not even register the possibility that individual trans people might be sincere in their identification, instead treating them all as if they’re consciously in on the plan. It’s a position that’s self-evidently ridiculous if you actually say it out loud, and so the fact that Raymond doesn’t notice it about her argument speaks volumes about where her priorities lie.
 
Regarding the why of the history, I am in some ways reluctant to speculate. I’m very proud of that essay—there are ways in which it’s my favorite thing in the book. But as you can no doubt imagine it was also an essay I wanted to be very careful with, because it’s easy to argue that a guy named “Phil Sandifer” is the wrong person to be writing it. Ultimately I thought I had a take on it that was both valuable and not something another writer would ever think to do, but I had a number of trans women looking over my shoulder as I worked on that piece and making sure I didn’t fuck up. (I admit I was surprised when they unanimously declined to tell me calling it “My Vagina is Haunted” was a bad idea.) But while I’m comfortable making the empirically verifiable claim that there were specific people like Jim Fouratt and Elizabeth Birch who worked to undermine trans rights in favor of other initials, I think speculating about their motives moves beyond what I should be doing with the topic. Were I to make an initial hypothesis to test via research, I’d probably start by looking at the historical circumstances that put gender identity as part of an acronym that was otherwise about sexual orientation. But again, that’s what my starting point in researching the question would be, not an answer.
 
As for the next civil rights barrier, it’s tough to tell in the midst of a hard reactionary turn. Right now a lot of the most urgent fires seem to be protecting and extending existing civil rights victories: the aggressive reopening of conversations about sexual assault and harassment, for instance, or the Black Lives Matter movement, which are both parts of civil rights struggles that were already nominally “won.” So seeing through that into new possibilities feels cloudy at the moment. Disability rights activists are doing some really interesting work, though, and I’d probably put my money there.
 
GNoH: That’s a good point about preserving and maintaining existing struggles - I’d add voting rights to your list, given how close the Alabama vote was, how crucial the black vote was, and how intense the Republican voter suppression efforts have been over the last decade…
 
PS: Which is closely related to the civil rights struggles being reopened by Black Lives Matter, yeah. Though of course, even disability rights are something we’ve already fought over - the Americans With Disabilities act was nearly thirty years ago. Indeed, for the most part the orderly progression of civil rights victories is the exception as opposed to the rule. The progression from gay to trans rights was, I think, the product of some very specific historical circumstances—two movements that were explicitly allied on very deep levels, but where one group was being actively subordinated to the other. Progress is usually much messier than that.
 
GNoH: In ‘Zero to Zero’ you highlight again how so many of the key players in these movements clearly represent a living rebuke to the philosophy they espouse. Do you think Thiel is aware of the utter hypocrisy of his position, where he lectures about ‘0 to 1’ innovation being the most valuable, yet basically all his money comes from ‘1 to n’ development?
 
PS: The list of things Peter Thiel is not good at is very long, but self-awareness is clearly near the top. So no, I’m sure he’s as blissfully unaware of his hypocrisy as he is of the harm he causes. Though I think the particular nature of this hypocrisy makes it easy for him, because the underlying idea is kind of bullshit. This isn’t really something I got into with the essay, because I was more interested in showing how he fails on his own terms, but the basic idea of zero to one innovation is rubbish. There’s a bit early on in his book that I pick on him for, where he lists Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, and says that the next person like them isn’t going to get rich creating the operating system, social network, or search engine. Which, of course, none of those people did either. But if you actually go back through the history of computing, the question “who did” turns out to be extremely hard and to hinge on exactly how you define the object in question. And that gets at a real truth about innovation, which is that it’s almost always incremental. We learn statements like “Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1878” in school, but it’s not really true - Ebenezer Kinnersley came up with the basic technology all the way back in 1761, and there are tons of refinements in the intervening century before Edison came along and cracked the problem of making tons of money off the idea. The question of who invented a thing is almost always extremely complex, and very rarely leads back to a guy anyone has heard of. And so I think it’s easy, when you’ve got as wooly a division as Thiel’s “0 to 1” vs “1 to n” to convince yourself that all sorts of stuff is zero to one when it isn’t.
 
GNoH: Looking over the subjects of these essays, would you say that lack of self awareness, alongside a lack of empathy, is a defining characteristic of them? I often find myself wondering if, at some level, they know what they’re peddling doesn’t add up - or if there’s some psychological grey area between lack of self awareness and plausible deniability that they live in...
 
PS: There is a consistent lack of self-awareness, yeah. Though self-awareness and madness are an inherently odd mixture, since the former often prevents the latter. I mean, there certainly are outright hucksters in the world who profess beliefs they don’t actually hold in order to part suckers from their money. But I suspect they gravitate towards more mainstream beliefs—it’s probably more common among Christian fundamentalists than it is among lizard conspiracists. I suspect everyone I deal with at any length, with the partial exception of Nick Land, is sincere in their beliefs and either oblivious to their madness or capable of rationalizing it away. But the rejection of empathy is probably a part of that. It’s decidedly inconvenient to have a really good understanding of how other people look at you when you’re stark-raving mad, because doing so would oblige you to reconsider things.
 
But I want to stress that I don’t think self-awareness, sincerity, and madness are a “pick any two” situation. You absolutely can be all three, which is more or less what I advocate at the end of “Lizard People, Dear Reader.” I think there’s a lot to be said for willful and puckish approach that takes advantage of madness’s ability to access truths that are difficult to discover through conventional means, and that takes these insights seriously, but that remains aware of its eccentricity and keeps track of its relationship with mundane reality. I mean, I think that’s basically the definition of mysticism, which is always something that’s been central to my work. So yes, a lot of the book is spent looking at stuff that is both mad and sincere, but that lacks the self-awareness necessary for mysticism, and trying both to understand what actually goes wrong there and to demonstrate the value of mysticism in comparison. So basically a standard issue Eruditorum Press book, trying to seduce the kids into witchcraft and communism.
 
GNoH: Accepting this book is a work (and study) of horror philosophy, stepping outside of that, do you see any hope for the future? And if so, in what form?
 
PS: You have to be careful with the definition of hope and the timeframe of the future, but yes. The big caveat that I have a lot of trouble getting around is the high probability of a human dieback. Climatological catastrophe that renders sustaining the current human population impossible looks increasingly inevitable. So that puts a damper on things, obviously. And it feels crass to assert some sort of bright side to billions of people dying because of preventable human folly.
 
All of which said, I find hope in two sources. The first is that, at 35, most of the timelines for when things get bad have us all dying around the time I’m going to die anyway. So there’s a disconnect between the future in a planetary/species sense, which looks pretty bad, and in a personal sense, which looks more or less fine. But that’s not so much hope as privilege. In terms of the planetary/species scale, I think there’s a reasonable chance that humanity won’t go extinct. We seem a fairly adaptable species, and it seems to me more likely than not that some of us stagger through the catastrophe. So where I find hope is mostly in the fact that something is going to emerge from this, and I don’t have too much trouble sketching out scenarios that end up fairly utopian for those future generations of humanity. If humanity reverts to being a fairly localized species with population centers across the world but large swaths of planet we mostly leave alone, and if technological knowledge mostly survives the crash then it’s easy to imagine a lot of new post-capitalist forms of civilization that I think have some real potential.
 
GNoH: Out of Moldbug, Land, and Yudkowsky, who do you think would win in a no-holds-barred knife fight, and why?
 
PS: I’m gonna go with Land. Those decades of doing staggeringly large quantities of drugs surely left him with some basic street skills, and he’s clearly the one who would go dirty first.
 
GNoH: Lastly, what does 2018 hold for Phil Sandifer and Eruditorum Press?
 
PS: I’m spectacularly burnt out on the alt-right at this point, and really craving a sort of neoclassical turn where I go back to basics and do the stuff I made my bones on for a bit. So my plan for 2018 is to focus on TARDIS Eruditorum, where I’ll get the long-delayed Sylvester McCoy book together and blog through the Capaldi era, along with The Last War in Albion, where I’ll wrap up Watchmen and hopefully move on to what will be Volume 3 of that project, which will finally involve spending a nice long chunk of time with Grant Morrison as the main character. I’m feeling much more in a crowd-pleasing mood than an “oblique and challenging stuff that gets zero comment” mood at the moment, and I’m really excited to lean into that. I’m sure by the time I get through Capaldi I’ll be chomping at the bit to write something totally alienating and incomprehensible, but right now I’m really feeling the “let’s do a tour where we play all the hits” instinct instead of the “and now for a twenty minute guitar solo inspired by experimental jazz” instinct.

Denise Bossarte is an author, poet and photographer whose passion is sharing the worlds of her mind and camera. Her daytime job in IT helps to keep the household running.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I live with my husband and ginormous Pixiebob cat in Texas. My current bill paying career is in IT as a data analyst. Usually there is some kind of story for Grace’s Paranorm world brewing in the back of my mind until it is ready to be written!
 
What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I am an avid reader, poet, yogini, and meditator. I spend my time away from writing in reading, walking, biking, and doing photography. I try to spend as much time outdoors with my camera as possible.
 

Other than the  horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
I am a huge fan of Paranormal and Dark Urban fiction. There are so many worlds that have been developed from pretty standard building blocks. I was inspired to try to find a brand-new way of bringing those elements together in fresh relationships.
 
Epic Fantasy has always inspired me with the sheer scope of the story telling. The number of characters and subplots that are carried through in epic fiction challenged me to find a way to step up my game on the quality of characters and their relationships to each other.

The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?
 
I think that horror has to market the quality of the stories and the writing rather than just the elements that people associate with the genre. Horror isn’t just about slashers and serial killers, etc. as people think from the movies they are offered. It’s about how people/characters respond to incredible situations – are they consumed by them or rise above them? Horror drags us down to the dark depths of our beings and forces us to face those primordial fears all humans have hidden in their souls. We need that catharsis, but we need to publicize/market more broadly that it is done well with great characters and memorable stories.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?

IMHO, America is in the midst of a horror story politically and socially. There is plenty of fodder for stories, there. Enough said.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?

I was heavily influenced by the sci-fi movies of the 70’s and 80’s. There were lots of “firsts” in that time period and some wonderful stories. Let’s not forget Stephen King movies of the 80s. One powerhouse after another.
 
I think Stephen King and Peter Straub's “The Talisman” is still one of my all-time favorite books. I try to re-read as often as I can. To me it was a powerful story pulling in elements of fairy tales and horror. I tried to share it with my mom once and she had to stop reading it because “things were coming out of the walls.” I had to laugh because that was one of the reasons I loved it!
 
And Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Forget the movie, it was awful. The series was fantastic.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?

I am enjoying Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Natural series.” I was drawn to the series out of curiosity on how another author would craft a story with serial killers. I have been plowing through her books because her writing and storytelling are so good.

How would you describe your writing style?

My writing style pulls you into the book so you feel like you are living the story rather than reading it. Being a photographer, I am a very visual person. I want the reader to feel that they are experiencing the story in 3D and not just observing it as words on a page.


Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?

This is my first novel, so I am just getting back reviews from ARCs.
 
So far two comments have caught my attention.
 
(1) I laughed out loud at this one: “…And can I express my joy that the main character is not caught up in some codependent love triangle?”
 
(2) The main character’s brother is around 11 years old. I don’t have kids, or even much experience with kids, so I was worried whether I would be able to pull off writing such a character. A reviewer put my fears to rest.
“…My favorite part of the book was anything that had to do with Danny. She did a great job with Danny. His actions seemed appropriate for his age, which I think is hard for some authors to get right.”
 
Good thing to, because I just finished up a short story from Danny’s POV!

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

Showing and not telling.  And sometimes getting the dialog to flow.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

Well, that’s an interesting question.
Glamorous has already covered a lot of button pushing topics, so I have already jumped into the deep end of the pool.
I think I would say that I would not write gratuitous violence or over-the-top gruesomeness in my stories just for the shock value. The violence should always serve a purpose and have a reason that moves the story forward rather than simply be there for shock and awe. And in my stories, Grace will always fight to stop the violence.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?

For me it’s a mix.
Grace Bishop just sounded cool. Kind of went that way for most of the other names as well.
For the Paranorms and Witches, they immigrated from Italy (unpublished backstory), so I wanted all their names to be Italian.
DL has the most meaningful name. DL stands for Dharma Lion, which is his Buddhist refuge name (reference his tattoos in the story.)


Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? 

I used to play around with poetry and short stories. Then I got interested in telling a story that was a bit bigger than I was ready to tackle.
 
Glamorous was originally going to be a short story. But it really didn’t work well in that format, or at least I suck at writing short stories.
 
Then I tried a Novella. I kept trying for something shorter than a full-length novel because I didn’t believe I had the skills to do a novel.
 
Finally, my novelist friend convinced me to read “Save the Cat!” by Blake Snyder, get a storyboard put together, and just start writing.
 
I could see my skills improve as the story evolved. And my development editors helped take my story telling to the next level.
 
I know I have a way to go in my skill level, but at least I feel my current stories are solid entertainment for the readers.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?        
 
Buy Scrivener.
Read “Save the Cat!” by Blake Snyder.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

Get out of your own way. Don’t try to get it down on paper perfect the first time. Just get it written and go back and perfect it later. That approach really works for me. And I still literally have to remind myself to “just write” as I sit down at the computer to turn off that perfectionist voice in my head.

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?

>I am hosting a Goodreads paperback giveaway and hope to grab an ebook giveaway once they are available.
>I spent a great deal of time finding reviewers on Amazon that I felt would connect to my book and reached out to them personally to ask for their reviews.
>I am planning on doing several promos over the launch weekend for this first book as well.
>I am doing a Kindle Fire giveaway and am leveraging what small social media footprint I have to get the word out. 

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favourite child, and who is your least  favourite to write for and why?

Grace is probably my favorite, followed closely by Danny.
Grace because she is essentially a much a braver and more confident version of my younger self.
Danny because he gets to be a smartass, and have fun driving Grace crazy and doing unexpected things.

My least favorite is the head of the Witch Family, Viora. I don’t like her at all, but she is very important for the overall arc of the series.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the multiple interwoven subplots and scenes in the book that all come together in the end. And very proud of that surprise that no one sees coming – not even my editor.

And are there any that you would like to forget about?

So far, thank goodness, no.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your  books do you think best represents your work and why?

Since there is only the one novel, I pick Glamorous!

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?

“None of this would be a problem if you were clever enough to keep your extracurricular activities a secret.”

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

I have just finished writing two short stories set in Grace’s Paranorm world: RETURN and BEGINNINGS. They tell Danny’s and Grace’s story before the events in Glamorous and right after the accident that kills Danny. Both will be released in February.
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

Clowns. I despise scary clowns. I read IT and couldn’t sleep without a light in the room for weeks.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?

“The Luster of Lost Things” was wonderful. Shh, I have an addiction to middle school and YA novels.
 
Brandon Sanderson’s “Oathbringer” was a disappointment because I was ready for him to wrap up the story. He’s one of my favorite authors and an unbelievable story teller across multiple worlds. But this one was ready for a wrap up and we didn’t get it.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
​
No one’s ever asked me who is the inspiration for the villain. Answer, my grandfather.

A serial killer preys on homeless girls. Only her powers can stop him.​

Grace is a survivor.

Haunted by the memories of the car accident that killed her brother and brought her police career to an end, she's determined to bring wrongdoers to justice as a PI.

Little do her clients know that the accident gave her more than nightmares; it gave her paranormal abilities she can't explain.

When she agrees to help a friend solve a mystery involving missing homeless girls, Grace is drawn into a secret world of Paranorms and The Family that rules them. It's a supernatural haven for potential friends and deadly evil, and this discovery alters her reality forever.

With the killer still at large, Grace must use her powers to put an end to his murder spree, even if she ends up being the one in the cross-hairs.

Glamorous is the first book in a series of urban fantasy and paranormal thrillers. If you enjoy intriguing mystery, new and distinctive paranormal worlds, and a riveting plot, then you'll love this new series starter.

By Kit Power 

 
In June of 2016, blogger Phil Sandifer completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund what he called the ‘conspiracy ‘zine’ edition of his essay-become-book, Neoreaction: A Basilisk. Kit Power read it, and reviewed it for Gingernuts of Horror here.
 
In the 18 months since, the relevance of a book that seeks to interrogate and dismantle the philosophical and intellectual underpinnings of neoreaction and that alt-right has, to put it mildly, not faded. And so, for the first time, Dr. Sandifer has put out a general release copty of the book for sale, containing a revised version of the additional essay, plus an additional six pieces that includes coverage of Gamergate, the Austrian School of Economics, and the 45th president of the united states.
 
In part one of our interview with him we talk inspiration, process, and horror philosophy in the age of Trump.
 
Gingernuts of Horror: Thanks for agreeing to chat to us. I guess it’s worth starting by talking about the roots of this book - the initial essay came in part out of a previous piece you’d written on Vox Day and the Rabid Puppies, and the Hugo hijacking, is that correct?
 
Phil Sandifer: Yeah, Vox was my first stab at writing about the alt-right, in a piece called “Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons.” I was doing some extra essays to flesh that piece out into a full-blown essay collection, and a couple of ideas from those joined together and became the start of Neoreaction a Basilisk. That said, I tried pretty hard to distinguish the two projects - I made a point of not mentioning Vox in the main essay. But “The Blind All-Seeing Eye of Gamergate” opens by saying that I’m picking up where I left off before jumping into a Vox Day quote, so that owns up to the sequel quality a little more.
 
GNoH: You’ve described this book as your best writing to date - can you talk a bit about the process for writing an book like this? For the main essay, how much of the shape did you have before you started researching? How much did you research before you started writing? Or was the whole process more fluid than that?
 
PS: I’m not sure I ever entirely “had” the shape of it, really. I’ve joked that this is a book I accidentally wrote, and part of that was a sense of the structure revealing itself as it went. I thought I was writing an essay when I started, and then by the time I had the basic explanations of Yudkowsky, Moldbug, and Land in place it was already several thousand words long and I still didn’t have an obvious path to the actual insight I meant the piece to provide. And so at that point I realized I had a book, at least. But I really approached it step by step - I was writing in Scrivener, and I had a list of empty documents within it with titles gesturing towards things I wanted to talk about. I kept them in a sort of order, but usually it wasn’t until midway through one section that I’d realize for sure where I wanted to go next, and I tended to research each section when I got to it. I wasn’t 100% sure how I’d end it until I got there, and though my eventual selection of “with a distressingly typical Phil Blake riff” was always one of the possibilities, it didn’t emerge to the forefront until I sat down and went “OK, time to write the ending, so what is it going to be?”
 
GNoH: Did that ‘research as you go’ approach ever impact on earlier sections, or cause any structural problems?
 
PS: Nothing too bad. There was one spot - when I dealt with Moldbug’s account of how to build a parasitic memeplex - where I had to throw out my first effort and try again because it just wasn’t getting me where I needed to be, but it’s notable that was also the one time I tried writing the book outside of the normal conditions of working late at night on my laptop in a candlelit bedroom. But I also knew a lot of the big picture stuff already. Some of my arguments - especially the stuff about Turing - are things that’ve been sitting around in my brain waiting to get used for almost fifteen years. It’d occasionally get a bit wooly - the Paradise Lost sections were hard because I’d managed to get a PhD in English without ever actually reading Paradise Lost, and it’s both very much not the sort of thing I usually deal with and something countless really intelligent critics have already covered. It also wasn’t really a section I’d planned on - I was looking at a bit of Moldbug where he made a really stupid reading of a Samuel Johnson quip about how the Devil was the first Whig, and I thought “hang on, Johnson’s obviously talking about Milton there” (and sure enough, upon consulting the relevant passage in The Life of Johnson he was). And this was still pretty early in the essay - it’s just past a third of the way through - and so I was still in the phase where I was building out what the essay was capable of doing, and I thought a swerve into close-reading Paradise Lost would be satisfyingly unexpected.
 
But to be honest, if you’re good at research it’s usually a process of confirming hunches instead of going in blind. And while there’s loads in life I’m completely shit at, I’ve been doing this long enough to be pretty good at research. That doesn’t mean you don’t find things that surprise you, but if you’re doing it right they’re usually unexpected connections that enrich your argument instead of inconvenient truths that require you to rework it. (For instance, I was about a quarter of the way into the essay when I discovered that Nick Land had included a pastiche of Roko’s Basilisk in his novella Phyl-Undhu.) You work out the big picture, often with secondary sources, and only move on to primary sources once you have a good idea of what you’re going to find there. I almost always use the “research as I go” method because it means I can keep fewer details in your head at any given moment and makes it easier not to lose the forest for the trees when you’re making a really deep dive into minutiae. You have to do a lot of research projects before you can get it to work, but it’s really the only way to do a big, sprawling project that acts like it’s meandering aimlessly even as it works through a preposterously intricate structure. And that basically describes everything I write, so.
 
GNoH: One facet that is often present in your Eruditorum Press work on Doctor Who is the approach of redemptive readings. Was Neoreaction… in part a reaction against that, or an attempt to stretch yourself as a writer in a different way?
 
PS: Well, the idea of redemptive readings was that if you have a choice between interpreting something as flawed and problematic or interpreting it in a way that gives you tools for positive engagement, it’s generally more helpful to go for the latter. Problematic things are a dime a dozen, after all, whereas ways forward are a lot more precious. But there are loads of instances in TARDIS Eruditorum where I went “yeah, this is just irredeemable crap.” I mean, heck, I took aim at a few beloved classics that probably could have been redeemed because for all my talk about redemptive readings, sometimes the overall arc of the project needed a critique or a dead sacred cow somewhere.
 
All of this is a long way of saying that I don’t think there’s a redemptive reading to be had of most of the alt-right. That was just never on the table. They’re fucking evil, and I have no interest in suggesting otherwise. There are a bunch of ways in which Neoreaction a Basilisk is me stretching myself, but its utter contempt for the alt-right isn’t one of them. If anything, I think being angry and furious is generally easier to write than “actually, Paradise Towers is a neglected classic.” (Though it obviously is.)
 
GNoH: So in what ways has Neoreaction stretched you as a writer? What did you find the single biggest challenge writing the piece, and what’s the most valuable lesson you learned from the process as a writer?
 
PS: A lot of the challenge and stretching came in getting the structure to work. It was very much a book where I learned to write it as I went, the structure came down to trusting that the method I was developing was going to work. That’s not an entirely new sensation - The Last War in Albion has a lot of “trust the methodology” to it as well, and every project I do has at least a bit of it. But Neoreaction a Basilisk ended up being extremely intricate, and I’d never really approached something like that without a plan; certainly not over 55,000 words.
 
More specifically, one of the odd things about the book is that it makes its argument by implication. One of the big ideas within it is the idea of the intellectual basilisk - a monstrous realization at the end of a train of thought that the thinker doesn’t want to see. And so I had to be aware of my own basilisks. Which meant in practice leaving parts of my argument unsaid, and figuring out ways to constantly ostentatiously gesture towards what’s unsaid and make it conspicuous without actually saying it. And on top of that, I didn’t want the book to feel like a formalist puzzle to “solve.” I don’t want readers to be able to go “oh, the answer is X” and move on. I wanted what was unsaid to feel like a haunting presence that the reader knows is there but can never quite capture. All while reading, on a moment-to-moment basis, like a righteous forum post in which I’m completely owning some idiot in an entertainingly condescending way. That was… I don’t want to say hard per se, because this was actually a really easy book to write in terms of just sitting down and doing it, but I had to learn how to do it, and for that matter learn that was what I was doing in the first place.
 
GNoH: I know readers of this site will be interested in the way your book engages with Ligotti’s work. Can you talk a bit about how you discovered him, and how much of an impact he had on you and the essay?
 
PS: I encountered him how I think a lot of people did, which was when Nick Pizzolatto raided Conspiracy Against the Human Race in True Detective. But he immediately filled a gap in my intellectual worldview by occupying the nihilist position with such unflinching style. And obviously there’s a long history of nihilist and anti-natalist thought that I could have gone and read, but Ligotti, by dint of coming at it from a horror perspective, gets what it seems to me nihilism really requires, which is a commitment to its aesthetics. Because nihilism isn’t necessarily a position that needs to be argued with philosophical rigor - it’s one that needs to be argued in a way that captures the feel of cursing your own existence. And Ligotti does that while still providing the veneer of rigor needed to function as philosophy, which is terribly delightful.
 
In terms of Neoreaction a Basilisk, he was one of the two places it started. The initial idea the whole essay sprung out of was the realization that a long standing argument I’ve made about the Turing Test, namely that it’s not about language but about empathy, works as an answer to the central horror Ligotti identifies with his deliciously chilling “we’re not from here.” I flailed around with that for a while and then read about Nick Land and realized that he was the obvious ground on which to stage my imagined Turing/Ligotti dustup. Which got out of control quickly, obviously, and became a different thing, but the basic interplay of Ligotti’s radical sense of alienation and Turing’s radical sense of empathy is still very central to the book.
 
GNoH: At what point in the process did you realise Yudkowsky and Moldbug were also going to have to feature prominently in the essay?
 
PS: Almost immediately, because they seemed to me obviously necessary to explain Land. I mean, there’s no way to talk about “The Dark Enlightenment” without talking about Moldbug, because “The Dark Enlightenment” is about Moldbug. And Land is really interested in the idea of the singularity, which immediately sent me to Yudkowsky, because I think in practice a lot of our cultural rhetoric about the singularity comes from Yudkowsky. (To our detriment.) As I said, the basic explanations of who they all are were the first part of the book I wrote (though it all needed a complete redo when I finished the first draft because I hadn’t known what I was doing yet), and by the time I finished that section (and the attendant research) it was clear I’d been right, and that the three of them shared a bunch of connections and formed a coherent territory I could stalk.
 
GNoH: Can you talk a bit about how it felt having produced this book, watching 2016 unroll towards the Trump victory. Did you feel like you’d in some sense predicted what was going on? Caught whiff of some political undercurrents that had passed others by?
 
PS: I finished the main essay just as Trump was securing the Republican nomination, and at that point it was feeling like I’d caught a grim sort of wave. The rest of the year became a sort of horrifying confirmation of how large the wave was, peaking in a nice suicidal despair on election night. I have trouble calling it a prediction given that a week before the election I published the first version of “Theses on a President,” which confidently anticipated a Clinton victory, though. Inasmuch as I was ahead of the curve, though,  I think mostly I got…lucky? One of the things the alt-right emerged out of was a sort of perverted backwater of geek culture, and as a politically minded geek blogger with an interest in cranks and weirdos I was in a position to see and start writing about them while they were still confined to the small pond.
 
GNoH: I remember feeling sure that Trump was likely to bury reactionary politics in general for maybe a generation with his comical overreach (I am that kind of naive). What did you think was going to happen after the seemingly inevitable Clinton victory? And what do you think now, a year into Trump?
 
PS: I thought Clinton was going to cause less immediate-term suffering than Trump, but would still be on the whole bad. I think her brand of centrist liberalism is almost entirely discredited, in the sense that nobody actually believes it has solutions to the problems currently facing the world, really no matter what you might think those problems are. (And I think you can say that fairly about the entire electoral left - Sanders and Corbyn are clearly preferable to anyone we’ve elected in my lifetime, but “contemporary capitalism with better health care and affordable housing” is still clearly insufficient.) And so I think she’d have likely been a one term President beaten by a right-wing extremist of some sort or another because that’s all the Republican Party is currently capable of serving up, and that we’d find ourselves on a relatively similar track in four years’ time.
 
That said, there are a lot of things that are uniquely bad about Trump that wouldn’t be factors with Cruz or Pence, for instance. So it’s a bit of a trade-off - on the one hand, we get the inevitable reactionary turn out of our system faster, on the other we get one that’s, if not much worse, at least appreciably worse than we otherwise would have. Ultimately, though, I don’t think either outcome would have made a significant difference in the looming ecological catastrophe, and so I think the difference is purely in terms of the quality of life for people waiting for the inevitable massive human dieback. Which isn’t nothing, obviously, but it obviously forecloses some pretty important questions.
 
END OF PART ONE
 
BIO:  Phil Sandifer is a writer and druid who lives in Ithaca, New York. He is the author of TARDIS Eruditorum, a sprawling history of Doctor Who, and The Last War in Albion, an even more sprawling history of British comic books. He blogs at http://eruditorumpress.com
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Kelly Charron is the author of YA and adult horror, psychological thrillers and urban fantasy novels. All with gritty, murderous inclinations and some moderate amounts of humor. She spends far too much time consuming true crime television (and chocolate) while trying to decide if yes, it was the husband, with the wrench, in the library. Kelly has a degree in English Literature as well as a Social Work degree. She has worked as a hairstylist, youth outreach worker and education assistant. She lives with her husband and cat, Moo Moo, in Vancouver, British Columbia.


Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
I love all things creepy, terrifying and dark. My first loves are thrillers, horror and urban fantasy (but I make exceptions of course, especially with my obsession with all things Harry Potter, though they definitely have some darkness in them). I hate exercise but occasionally force myself to hike or walk. I’m a TV addict and have weened myself down from a solid six hours a day to a respectable two. I love reading and creating whether it be writing, crafting, painting and still doing hair on the side.


What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I watch all the TV, spend time with my husband and needy cat, Moo, and read. I scroll through Facebook and Twitter (I have yet to get Instagram because I barely take pictures). I also enjoy napping. My perfect day would be: wake up, scroll social media, eat, watch Supernatural, The Walking Dead and some true crime TV, then I’d read followed by a long nap.
 
Wake up and repeat. Bliss.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Urban fantasy and paranormal. I love ghosts, witches and parallel dimensions. I love anything psychological and dissecting human motivation. I always explore what makes people do the things they do, especially delving into how well people really know each other and themselves. I think some people are in denial about the kind of people they are, often shining an enhanced light on themselves to cope because facing our flaws can be difficult. I love characters that don’t shy away from their weaknesses and find a way to turn them into strengths.  
 
I’ve also been inspired by mystery and suspense genre (all forms from books to film and TV) and love the way these, often complex, stories are woven into a rich thrilling, drama.


Can you tell us about your childhood fears

I find this question quite interesting because I was a very neurotic and needy child. My poor parents! I had a very active imagination and turned normal, everyday occurrences into an ordeal. By the age of eight, I was sure I had cancer (I had watched a news clip of a boy with leukemia. Widespread bruising was a reported symptom and for weeks I’d show my parents every mark on body as proof of how ill I was). Next was the dreaded swallowing of the tongue. Yes, you heard that right. Again, I overheard someone somewhere say (mind you this was over twenty-five years ago) that you had to be careful with people who had epilepsy because they could “swallow their tongue” during a seizure. Well, I do not and never did have epilepsy or seizures, but hell if I didn’t sit, heart pounding in anticipation, with my tongue in between my teeth for three days straight because, damn it, my tongue was not going to go down my throat.

Not all my fears were bodily. I worried pretty regularly about death. Mine, other peoples. I worried about getting lost or being kidnapped, strangers taking me or my sister away from our parents, drowning (which incidentally almost happened to me once), and natural disasters. I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you, I really was a fun and carefree kid. During the day anyway. Most of my anxieties manifested at night. I’d be tough as nails when the sun was still out but come night fall, I’d be balled up under a blanket terrified of whatever boogey man was surely on his way. I loved to be scared and so I’d watch movies that I had no business watching and then would freak out in the few hours before bed.

I remember one evening, I think I was eight or nine, my mom and dad had friends over. I got out of bed and hovered outside the living room—as I often did. I suppose I always enjoyed observing human interaction (or I was a little snoop). My mom always knew I was lurking and called me in. She read my face in two seconds flat, in the powerful, all-knowing way only mothers can, and asked me what was wrong. I was stoic for about five or six minutes and then the dam broke. See, I’d watched a Nightmare on Elm Street earlier that day and was certain that Freddy Krueger was about to climb up the side of my house to get me in my second-floor bedroom. He’d stick the blades attached to his gloves in the mortar between the bricks and crawl up the side as easily as if he was Spiderman. I was over my fear of him a few days later, but some creepy images stayed with me much longer.

Namely, the character Regan MacNeil, who I still can’t look at when I’m flipping through the channels and see that The Exorcist is on. It absolutely scared the crap out of me. Still does. But this phobia isn’t all my doing. Okay, so I watched it of my own volition when I was somewhere between ten and eleven. It was disturbing (even for adults at the time of its release) so what child wouldn’t be traumatized? However… I grew up Catholic and had a very, very religious grandmother. I knew I shouldn’t be watching it, but there I was (possibly with my older sister, though I can’t recall for sure) glued to the TV in fixated horror. I was so captivated by the story and the special effects that I couldn’t turn it off. I don’t even think I watched any of it through my fingers despite being beside myself frightened. I was so greatly disturbed by it, that I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. Finally, I saw my grandmother for a visit. What better person to put my mind at ease that her? She would reassure me that Jesus loved me and this wasn’t factual and could never happen in real life! I would feel better in no time!


It went something like this:

Me: “I watched a movie about a little girl who was possessed by the devil and now I’m so scared that it’s going to happen to me. Can it really happen?” (Any minute, loving words or reassurance).

Grandma: “Anyone can become possessed by Satan.”
Me: *eyes wide + mouth open*

Grandma: “You won’t be though, so don’t worry. Only people who think about Satan can allow him in. When you think of him, you give him power and then he can take over.”

Me: Internal screaming sounded something like… She said don’t think about Satan and now that’s all I can do. I can’t get him out of my mind. He’d going to possess me. OH MY GOD!!!!!!

Needless to say, the phobia of being possessed by a demon had begun and while I’ve refused to watch The Exorcist over the last twenty odd years, I have watched other similar movies, though not many. I’ve mostly come out unscathed—until The Conjuring. That one was a close second. Any time these lovely film folks place the “BASED ON TRUE EVENTS” tag on it, I’m terrified and all in, spending days researching every morsel of information from the real events. I suppose I love to be scared or else I wouldn’t do this to myself.

One thing I have noticed is that it takes a lot to frighten me now. My theory on this is because I began exposing myself to thrillers and horror at a young age, I’m somewhat desensitized to a lot of it at this point. Plus, it’s getting more difficult to be truly surprised and it makes my day when I am. I still love every minute. I still jump and get nervous, but I don’t freak out—except for The Exorcist and The Conjuring (which I also REFUSE to watch a second time). I can watch everything else alone at midnight and fall asleep like a baby.

My childhood fears and penchant for anxiety and obsessive worry have definitely shaped how I write. I am a very positive person, though my mind has a tendency to always goes to the worst-case scenario. Always has. Husband is late and not answering his phone. He must have had a horrible accident and is trapped on the side of the road. Small creaking noise when I’m drifting off to sleep. Ghost (completely logical) or crazy serial killer about to break into my bedroom. Front door was left unlocked for a few hours. There’s got to be someone hiding in one of the closets waiting for the perfect time to strike. My imagination is always churning. What to do except become a writer.

Books were a huge influence on me as well, especially the scary ones (obviously). I can still remember reading The Shining by Stephen King in tenth grade. I was completely creeped out but couldn’t put it down. King sucked me right into the middle of this isolated hotel with Jack and the whole family. I literally held my breath reading, I was so tense. When it was over, I knew I wanted to do it all again.
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I hope to evoke similar emotions and experiences with my books. The experiences of being scared as a child, and having fun with that fear, helped shape my love of the dark and creepy. I believe that’s why I write thrillers and horror. I just want to help create the same safe sense of dread that I had growing up. Maybe one day some will tell me that one of my books scared the hell out of them when they were young. That would make my day.