Caleb Wilson is a writer of weird fiction and designer of weird games.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

Sure! I live in the American Midwest -- Illinois -- in a college town that feels small and large at the same time. I work at a public library, so I'm always surrounded by books. Before that, I worked in a number of different bookstores, so I was always surrounded by books then. My house is full of bookshelves, but also more books than fit on the bookshelves. Books are one of my favorite things.

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

Apart from books, I love games, of many kinds: board games, card games, videogames. So when I'm not writing I play a lot of games, and I design them too. I've published some text-based computer games, and created a few board games for local competitions and for fun.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Weird literary fiction, writers like Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard in particular has a very addictive style, so after I read him I always write like him for a while. I read a lot of fantasy too, and I've taken inspiration from authors who mix fantasy and horror, like Michael Shea and Clark Ashton Smith. Interactive Fiction, which I write and play, has also influenced my fiction writing in weird ways: I really like writing descriptions of rooms, places, and evocative inanimate objects, probably because that's what I started with in those games.


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 like "fantasy", "horror" is broad enough to include almost anything. It doesn't really give you any information about whether it's going to scare you or scar you or make you laugh/cringe/shiver, and I think that's a good thing. By weaving in all kinds of other elements, we just broaden the horizons of horror.

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?

Good question, and it would be nice if I knew! Dystopias have already been popular for a while, so it would be great to figure out what the next big popular thing is going to be ahead of time. In general, stories of resistance are always appreciated. I don't mind happy endings, either.

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

Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen, which showed me that there aren't really rules for or limits on what fantasy fiction can be. Flash Gordon, which I'd usually rather watch than Star Wars, and which reminded me of the joy that comes from the right combinations of color, sound, and silliness. The stories of Jack Vance, which combine a wild imagination with a love of words.

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

Farah Rose Smith. Her book The Almanac of Dust is out now, and Eviscerator comes out in July. Her writing reminds me of my favorite decadent authors, with really great imagery and beautiful phrases.

How would you describe your writing style?

Ornate alternating with blunt. Dark humor. I write a lot about seething, hostile environments, and I write a lot of monsters.

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

Someone once wrote in a review that they weren't sure what country I was from, but what I was describing wasn't civilized behavior. I think that has to be a compliment, right?

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

Realistic dialogue, and moving stories ahead in a smooth and controlled way. Probably part of why I like writing computer games: the story is distributed across the player's actions, and to some extent the order of events is up to them, so I'm a little bit off the hook!

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

I don't write extreme violence (compared to other horror writers, anyway!) I prefer clammy, subdued weirdness.

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

I love naming characters when its easy and hate it when its hard. For me it's easy about 75% of the time. I choose based on meaning, sound, and sometimes just random syllables that appeal to me. I often look up words in ancient languages and then blend them together a bit, or change a letter or two in a normal name.

Writing is not a static process. How have you developed as a writer over the years?  

I finish more projects these days. Learning how to do that was a big deal for me. I've also gotten better at seeing how writers I enjoy perform their magic, and figuring out how to use the same tricks in my own writing.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?

I think the only indispensable tool is time: everything else you can work around. And even five minutes chunks of time can be stitched together, if nothing else. (Though for me, writing in two-hour-long chunks is the most efficient.)

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

Finish things. Make yourself finish things by having markets in mind to send them to from the start. Don't ever stop reading, and reading new things.

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

It's been a very slow process for me. These days I'm trying out the social media thing, trying to be "fun" and "engaging" online, which doesn't come naturally to me, at least with people who aren't already my friends.

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?

I really liked writing for my pair of sword and sorcery characters, Charops the Strategist and Ichneumon the Weird. (They're in a story called "Bow Down Before the Snail King!", published in Swords v. Cthulhu.) I enjoy their sour humor and refusal to give up in the face of disaster, though it might not do them much good. There are plenty of characters I didn't end up liking writing about, and their fate has been that I never finished writing their stories, and so they don't actually exist.

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

Polymer, my novella with Eraserhead Press, and Cannonfire Concerto, a text-based computer game I wrote for Choice of Games.

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

Not really. There are some old pieces floating around, which are probably embarrassing in certain ways, but they've got some good lines, too, so I don't mind.

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

Again, I'd go with Polymer. It ties together a lot of my loves and obsessions, and I think manages to not feel like anything else I've read.

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

"Like all of us except for sociopaths or actors, Liero had always been slave to the expressions that moved the surface of his skin." That's from Polymer.

Can you tell us about what you are working on next?

Right now I'm working on a dark fantasy/cosmic horror novella. It's about a city experiencing a very strange invasion, and it has a peculiar narrator. But that's all I really want to say about it for now!

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

How about "guy rescues helpless girl in peril". Other than that, I sort of love horror clichés. Almost anything can be used interestingly, given the surrounding context.

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

I just finished reading Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, a "great book" in the old classic sense. I can hardly imagine writing something so detailed and knowledgeable: it's 500+ pages of dense, thoughtful, solid information. I can't remember the last book that disappointed me, because I've gotten very good at searching out books I'm fairly sure to like! With a huge reading pile of books like that, I hardly ever finish something I'm not enjoying, and if I don't finish it, I don't really consider it disappointing, just not for me.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

Question: What are some of your favorite monsters?

Answer: The Beast from Over the Garden Wall (a miniseries that aired on Cartoon Network.) It's mysterious for most of the story, manifesting mostly as creepy operatic singing in a cold forest, and when it finally appears, there's a great tragic and faintly horrible misunderstanding about the way it operates and has been operating that I find really delicious.

The hyena from Jesse Bullington's The Enterprise of Death. It's a monster who speaks with a human voice to get you to come closer so it can eat you. Imperfect simulacra are creepy anyway, and the hyena is the perfect monster for the Dark Ages, where the world has so little light that you can't see three feet into the night to know for sure what sounds so friendly, just a bit disoriented.

The slake moths from Perdido Street Station. China Mieville has one of those megawatt imaginations and the slake moths are one of his most horrifying creations. They're these sort of huge demonic vaguely moth-like things covered with hypnotic swirling patterns that will make you docile if you so much as glance at them, and then they eat your personality and volition, leaving just a still-breathing empty shell.

 
I'm a meteorologist with the United States government. I began writing in February 2014 and published my first novel, Storberry, in August of the same year.
 
I live with my wife, our two children, and three dogs in Upstate New York.


Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
For as long as I can remember, I've loved music and horror. My musical tastes are pretty eclectic – I listen to everything from Tool to old REM to The Sex Pistols and Enya. My Spotify playlists would make most people label me as insane.
 
I grew up with the old Universal monster movies, graduated to the Hammer films, then came of age during the slasher craze of the late-70s and early-80s. John Carpenter's Halloween probably influenced me as much as any movie from my youth.

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

Besides spending time with my wife, Terri, I hit the gym four to five times per week, and during the warm season I love to bike and watch college lacrosse. My wife and I both love Renaissance fairs – one of the northeast's best fairs resides in Sterling NY, about a two hour drive from our home – and we're confirmed ice cream nuts.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Over the last decade I probably read more fantasy than horror, and I'm a big fan of Patrick Rothfuss, JK Rowling, and Terry Brooks. Nobody creates characters as well as Rowling, and Rothfuss is a master storyteller.

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 suppose, to the general public, the term “horror” conjures images of monsters, killers, demons, and blood, and to be perfectly honest, those themes predominate my storytelling. But horror can be “quiet,” as well. Think Straub and Poe. My story, “One Autumn in Kane Grove,” can be defined as quiet and a tad ethereal. Among more recent writers, Chad Lutzke writes intelligent, quiet horror.
 
But I see no reason to break public assumptions. Every horror fans gets something different from the sub-genres they prefer.

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?
 
Various stages in our political history have inspired golden ages in horror, including the legendary Godzilla franchise, which was borne out of atomic bomb fears and the destruction of Japanese cities.
 
The 1970s were a terrible economic period: excess unemployment, runaway inflation, stratospheric interest rates, and neither the democrats or republicans had answers in the United States. And out rolled horror classics such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, Jaws, Halloween, and many more.
 
Now we have the most toxic political climate of my lifetime. It seems no one can agree on anything, and the media is replete with extremists screaming at one another. It's enough to make you lose faith in humanity.
 
Where will this lead? I sincerely hope creatives won't write to the political climate to too high a degree, as horror also serves as an escape for many of us, but I wouldn't be surprised if bleak, apocalyptic horror themes dominate the next several years.

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

Black Christmas (1974) is the most frightening movie I've ever watched, and in my opinion it is the greatest slasher in horror history. I credit Black Christmas, along with Halloween, for giving me a lifelong love of horror.
 
Jack Ketchum's Hide and Seek greatly affected my storytelling, as did Richard Laymon's Night in the Lonesome October and The Traveling Vampire Show. I love all three books and reread them at least every few years, and I believe my terse writing style was most influenced by Ketchum and Laymon.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?
 
Matthew Brockmeyer's “Kind Nepenthe” rocked me back on my heels. Very bleak and inventive. I'm keeping an eye on Brockmeyer.
 
He's hardly a new commodity, but Paul Tremblay is knocking the ball out of the park with his storytelling. “Head Full of Ghosts” is one of the best horror novels of the last decade.

How would you describe your writing style?
 
My emotional state upon initiating a new writing project drives my writing style. Sometimes I am quite hopeful and Koontz-like, other times somber and horrific. Quilt is an example of the latter.

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

I try not to look too closely at reviews, as the Internet tends to be a very negative place. Certainly I appreciate the positive reviews I've received from readers, but I pay closest attention to my peers and mentors. The kind words Brian Keene wrote about my novel, “Crawlspace,” will stay with me forever.
 
What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
Believe it or not, kill and stalk scenes are very difficult for me to write, and this is coming from someone who leaves a lot of blood and body parts in his wake. I most enjoy character building and conversation, and find those scenes and chapters to be the easiest to write. Kill scenes require so much attention to detail and pacing. It usually takes me several drafts before I feel good about those scenes.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
Never say never, but I have a soft spot for children and would have a hard time murdering a child. For that matter, it would hurt me deeply to kill a dog, too.
 
My wife is a breast cancer survivor, and I've lost friends and family to that disease. Although I've referred to cancer in a few or my works, I don't think I could bring myself to write about someone dying of cancer or a similar disease.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Both, though I try not to go overboard with meaning. Too many names with obvious meanings appear tedious to readers.

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

I suppose every novel I've enjoyed over the last several years has influenced my style in some small way, though the development is probably too gradual to be noticeable.
 
I owe the most gratitude to my editors, Jack Musci and Chad Lutzke, for building my prose and keeping me on point with my plots.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
 
A 26-hour day is a must. But since we can't have that, I recommend a quality piece of writing software compatible with multiple platforms. My personal favorite is Scrivener, which runs on my PC, iPad, and iPhone. Perfect if you are standing in line at the store and feel inspired to crank out a quick paragraph. Seriously, I've done this.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
Chad Lutzke bashed me with a mallet until I agreed to trust my readers and “show” instead of “tell.”

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
 
Oh, dear. If someone figures out how to get noticed, I hope they tell me.
 
I do low-level advertising through Amazon and Bookbub, and I'm pretty active on Twitter and Facebook. Otherwise, I churn out new books with the hope of expanding my small reader base.
 
I've begun submitting to anthologies, as well, and I'll appear at Scares That Care in August.

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?
 
I can't say I have a least favorite character to write, but my favorite was Becca from “The Face of Midnight.” Here was a girl who had nothing but found an incredibly inventive way to survive and stay off the streets. I have to tread carefully here, lest I appear unsympathetic to the homeless, who I care deeply for. But Becca's freedom was intoxicating. I would like to write about her again soon.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
The early feedback I received on Quilt is that it surpassed Crawlspace, but Quilt is a novella, whereas Crawlspace is a full novel. I love Crawlspace's characters, and the plot is truly unique. I suppose it remains my favorite.

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

No. I'm proud of every story I've written, but my suspense-horror novel, “Severity,” bombed at the proverbial box office. Those who read it gave Severity strong reviews, but not many people discovered that book.
 
For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your  books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
Crawlspace, The Face of Midnight, and Quilt best represent my style and themes. I'm unabashed about being a back-to-basics horror writer. I rarely get cerebral. My goal is that you enjoy my stories the way you would a late-night horror flick while munching popcorn. I believe all three are frightening, and inventive in their own way, and many readers have told me the stories stuck with them and even provoked a few nightmares.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
Remember Severity, the book nobody read?
“The silence was all wrong, like the sound the night makes when a shadow passes by.”
That line came to me and immediately provoked a smile. Simple and effective.

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
My last story, “Murray's Pier,” is a post-apocalyptic tale that focuses on two young people trying to survive while living in an ocean-side amusement park. “Murray's Pier” is easily the most emotional story I've ever written. The storyline surprised a lot of people. The story was submitted to an anthology and is unavailable in print, but you can read it on Patreon.
 
I'm currently working on “Camp Slasher,” an homage to the backwoods slashers of the early-80s. The early chapters are available as works-in-progress on Patreon, and I hope to have the novel published before August.

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

The worst cliché in horror is that of the female victim, who must ostensibly be rescued by the heroic male.  I'd like to see that cliché skewered with a machete.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
The last great book I read was “Widow's Point,” by Richard and Billy Chizmar. Brilliant, old school ghost horror with a found footage twist. I loved it so much I read it in one sitting. I also got too much Florida sun and ended up with a burn. Thanks, Richard and Billy.
 
I don't like to be negative about other people's books, so instead I'll use this public forum to complain that Patrick Rothfuss still hasn't published book three in the Kingkiller trilogy. Hey, Patrick. While we're alive, okay?

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

Would you like a free ice cream cone? Why, yes. Yes, I would.

James Sabata is an award-winning filmmaker and author. Since graduating with a MA-Creative Writing from the University of South Dakota, James has published over twenty short stories and two novels. His novel ZER0: Lancaster's Greatest Supervillain, shows how bad things can get when the supervillain controls the media and convinces everyone he's the good guy.  His upcoming novel Fat Camp features overweight teenage boys stalked down by a machete-wielding maniac.  One teen has to overcome his own self-hatred to find the courage to save himself and his friends. Filled with allusions to the Slasher movies of yesteryear, Fat Camp delivers horror, humor, and a little slice of nostalgia for anyone who grew up at least somewhat afraid of the dark. James is a father of four, residing in Phoenix, AZ. 

James has also written a guest review of The Creepypasta Comic which you can read here 
Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I've been publishing horror stories and other short stories since 2010.  I've sold the rights to six short films, four of which won awards at various film festivals, the other two are in pre-production.  I published my first non-horror novel in February, ZER0: Lancaster's Greatest Supervillain. My latest novel, Fat Camp is basically a horcrux holding my soul.  It's a combination of my insecurities growing up overweight mixed with my fear a serial killer will murder me while I'm on the toilet with a small dash of my never ending ability to surprise myself with what I'm actually capable of accomplishing in life.

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

I live in Phoenix, AZ, so I spend a lot of time in the pool, especially this time of year.  I go to a lot of movies. If you want to be a successful writer, you need to read voraciously.  If you want to make films, you need watch films.  My wife would argue that I do not watch films, so much as I dissect every aspect of their writing and overanalyze minute details.  That's true about my interactions in my daily life as well. My favorite activity is just meeting new people and listening to their stories. You never know what you'll learn or where that information will lead you.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Other humans, in general. I spend a lot of time wondering, "Why the hell do humans do these things?" and that exploration of motivation and looking for answers fuels my writing.  Music is always a big influence.  I usually have a sound track to my work in progress.  When I wrote my upcoming novel FAT CAMP, I listened to Fozzy's "Judas" and "Painless" back to back whenever I wrote a kill scene.  That's not unusual for me. I try to listen to things that either describe my character's motivation or things I think that character would listen to. It helps me live in the scene and bring it to life on paper.

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 have heard a lot of people's voice change when they go from "Oh, wow, you're a writer!" to "Horror? Why?"  There's a connotation that horror is unimportant or childish; that it's what people do if they can't write "real" stuff.  I usually fight this by asking people what they do like and point out that horror is in everything.  It's in every genre.  The entire plot of a romantic comedy is lost without the terror of being alone or the horror of losing the person you've fallen in love with.  A drama needs the terror of death or hardships.  I also think people think horror fits nicely in one definition. They don't like blood or gore, so they hate horror, but Dr. Who has no blood or gore and it's one of the greatest horror programs of all time.  Horror is such a broad genre and each subcategory is so complex. I think education of those subcategories might help.  At the end of the day, I think people like what they like and bash what they don't. I don't think we'll convince everyone, so the answer in my own life is to embrace the people willing to learn and help them find something they love in horror world.

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?

Ironically, this is the entire premise of the panel I'm doing at Phoenix Comic Fest May 24 with Dr. Rebekah McKendry (Blumhouse), Donald Guillory, and horror author Vincent V. Cava.  I think horror will continue to shift, as it has been, to a more reality-based setting; much like how the most recent season of American Horror Story ditched the supernatural and it was actually more terror inducing.  I think the way people attack one another "anonymously" online and how easy it actually is to track someone online will be a juxtaposition that gets explored nonstop. Technology has repeated caught up to the imaginations of horror writers and each generation is forced to push it further.  I think we will start to see the counter push, showing us what happens if society has to deal with losing that technology, after growing dependent on it.

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

Books - Misery. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.  Weird Tales. Anything by Ray Bradbury. Comics like Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Tales of the Unexpected. 
Films - Pretty much any slasher film.  I remember Texas Chainsaw Massacre terrifying me as a child who shouldn't have been watching it. Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Pretty much any random slasher at Blockbuster with a great cover or anything on HBO late at night on a weekend.  Silence of the Lambs really kicked it up, as I learned how terrible humans could be and that the monster could look like me.   Also television shows like Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, Outer Limits, and Tales from the Dark Side. 

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

I'm a huge fan of Christopher Coake. He wrote my favorite short story of all time, "Knitter." Vincent V. Cava has some awesome stuff going on.  He helped bring back the horror comics I loved as a child in his team up with Mr. Creepy Pasta for their comic. I really like VE Schuab's take on superpowers and the undead in her Villains series.  John FD Taff never fails to blow me away.  Josh Malerman recently dropped Unbury Carol and his books are a master class in writing atmosphere, so people should check him out.
 
I think writers would do well to stop thinking solely in terms of print.  There are so many amazing podcasts or YouTube shows or people making their own web comics, five-minute video shorts, or even how some people use social media to tell horror stories.  It's fascinating.  One of the joys of horror is that it can't be contained or defined fully, so I love that it can't be contained to a single form of media.  I also love that horror relies on senses a lot more than some genres, so the ability to manipulate the audience on multiple levels that other forms of media allow really impresses me.

How would you describe your writing style?

Chatty. Informal.  I write the way I speak.  Choppy sentences. Ellipses. Each individual thought is a sentence. That is the language my brain speaks to me, so it's what hits the paper.  I try to use words almost anyone can understand. I don't need people getting ripped out of my story to go look up words, even if they're only clicking a button on their Kindle. That minute might have killed the whole thing for them.  I'm never afraid to drop some profanity. I have a hard time believing that someone would be chased by a machete wielding maniac and yell, "Oh Gosh! Darn you to Heck!" when they're stabbed. 

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

I recently received a rejection that read, "I cannot use this story, as it doesn't fit the audience we currently have, but I want you to know that I'll be thinking about this story for a long time. You ruined my breakfast. Thank you."  I printed it, because I love that rejection so much. 

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

Marketing.  100%.  Writing is easy.  Brainstorming, outlining, pacing, characterizations, all of that comes with practice and insistence.  Marketing is a whole other world. NO ONE becomes a writer in order to spend their time trying to sell their books.  They do it because they miss that step in the understanding of the process.  Writers write.  Many hate editing (I'm not one of them. I live for editing).  But EVERYONE hates marketing. If you somehow get it down to a science and you're making a good living at this, the first thing a writer often does is hire someone else to deal with the marketing aspect.

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

I haven't found one so far.  I tend to write a lot about women who find their power and fight back against the world.  In that vein, I've covered rape, incestuous rape, and domestic violence.  Unfortunately, for every terrible concept I lay out on paper, I see something worse in the news, so if there's a subject I won't touch, I don't know about it yet. With that said, each thing would have to fit the story. It would have to serve a purpose.  I don't write anything for shock value and I don't make things gory to make them gory.

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

My writing basically appears to me in my head like a movie I'm watching, so a lot of times, people have names attached to them already.  Or, at least, that's how the main characters work.  Most of them don't have deeper meanings.  My upcoming novel, Fat Camp was a little different. I ran a Kickstarter to fund it and one of the rewards levels allowed people to name a character (with some provisions) and decide whether that character lived or died.  I have very rarely used names that had a deeper meaning.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? 

I think it's almost an evolution in the fact that I don't really see it slowly shifting as I grow. One day you look back and realize how far you've come, but I don't really notice it as it occurs.  I used to half-joke that I wrote screenplays because I was terrible at description and only had to write, "Large house".  At some point, I came to see setting as a character of its own accord and I learned to control it better. Now I get more compliments on descriptions of rooms than my tight plotting.  Reading certain writers really helped with it as well, particularly Josh Malerman who is one of the best in developing settings and atmosphere in horror.  I think the biggest development was coming to understand that "writer" means a lot more than "storyteller." It means editor, marketing guru, publisher (if you go indie), convention panel presenter, and constant networking/relationship builder.  The best part is each one of those pieces is constantly evolving, so I have to adjust to them and learn more each day.
 
What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?     
    
Empathy and an undying desire to learn at all times.  Without empathy, you cannot create characters that are unlike yourself. You can't make a believable group of characters who have different motivations, feelings, and reactions.  And the desire to learn is an absolute must. If you're not willing to learn new things, your settings will be flat, your characters will be uninteresting, and you'll never be able to write anything you haven't personally experienced. 

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

Bram Stoker Award Winning editor Doug Murano gave me the best advice I've ever received.  "Ass in chair."  That's it. Three words.  But what it means is get your butt to the writing desk every single day and make that cursor dance.  You aren't a writer by thinking about writing.  The other motto I live my life by is "If it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an excuse."  That literally hangs in my office near my computer.  You have writer's block?  You can't write today? You can't make this scene work?  Well, if it's important to you to finish, you will.  Otherwise, keep finding excuses to not finish.

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

I've gotten a lot better at it the last year, but I wish I could go back in time and tell myself what I know now.  The biggest obstacle I faced is I thought no one would care.  I didn't want to tell them what I was writing, because they might think I'm weird or maybe it doesn't sound as good as it does to me.  I just didn't tell people about it.  Guess how well that worked out?  Then I started celebrating my accomplishments.  When I'd sell a short story, I'd link to the anthology on my social media accounts.  What's weird is that I don't know when it changed. At some point, I stopped worrying about what people think about my writing and I just beat them over the head with it.  I post links to my Kickstarter or my anthologies or my new novel CONSTANTLY on my social media.  If my friends get sick of it, maybe I need better friends.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sharing my friends' works.  I'm trying to get people to notice them.  I'll tell people what I loved in a friend's last book.  To me, your friends and family should be the biggest supporters of your work. Outside of them, I stopped expecting a no.  I write sites and ask if they'd be interested in reviewing my novel or post links to my short films on my Twitter account. 

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

I am most proud of an unpublished piece of work exploring Capgras Delusions, a rare form of schizophrenia (also witnessed in some traumatic brain injury cases and sometimes dementia). It's a psychological condition that prompts a person to believe that loved ones have been replaced by identical duplicates of themselves.  Extreme cases of Capgras Syndrome have ended with the brutal, horrific murder of the loved one.  In 2014 in New Orleans, a man decapitated his disabled son, believing the child had been replaced with a CPR dummy.  Another man killed his father, believing Dad was a robot.  He cut into him to find the batteries inside but found nothing.  Horrible things like that.  So, my next novel explores this subject.  I wrote the screenplay version a few years ago and that is the project I'm most proud of, but it's a story that's never left me and I feel it wants to be a novel, so that's where I'm going with it.

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

I try not to forget any writing project I've ever undertaken, because I tend to learn more from my failures than from my successes.  I would like to forget some of the terrible poetry I wrote cute girls in high school.  I'm sure they'd like to forget it as well.

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

Fat Camp, which comes out Friday, July 13, 2018, represents my work and my life.  It's humor. It's horror. It's all of the insecurities I grew up with as a severely overweight teenage boy in love with a cheerleader.  The voice is so true. When the main character degrades himself even when he's doing well, that's me.  That's how my brain works.  But Fat Camp represents my overall passion for horror that makes motivational and psychological sense.  The Killer's motivation is very true to life.  Each character has a reason he is at the camp to begin with, something different they want out of it. They're all there to lose weight, but that's the physical aspect of the true motivations.  I'm also one of those people who is horribly inappropriate at terrible times.  I make jokes at funerals to keep my friends from crying.  I love word play and innuendo, and sometimes sound like a fifteen-year-old boy instead of a forty-year-old man, so I think Fat Camp really showcases my work as well as my actual personality.

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

My favorite line is from an unpublished screenplay I wrote called Scattered.  It's basically the story of 20-something-year-old stealing his dead father's ashes and going on a road trip to scatter them, as he promised his father... but the ghost of his dad comes along for the ride, telling him stories about why places were important to him or how they shaped his life.  There's a flashback to when the Dad was alive and he's first diagnosed with cancer.  The main character has a voice over explaining the meaning of the diagnosis:
 
"Stage 4 - T3N2M1. It really is a countdown. It means your life clock is ticking so fucking loudly you can literally feel it in your chest. Stage 4 - The final stage. Over forty percent of people are already at Stage 4 when they find out they have lung cancer.  T3 - The T scale is in reference to the size of the tumor. T3 means it's fucking big. N2 - The N scale states where tumors have invaded the lymph nodes, how heavily they've invaded, and how far it's spread. N2 means the tumors hit a lot of lymph nodes, but not ones that are far away. Yet. M1 means the cancer metastasized to other organs.  Stage 4, T3N2M1 means you are royally fucked."

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

My last book is not horror. It's a superhero fiction novel, as I mentioned earlier. I wrote it so that my kids would have something I wrote that they were old enough to read. My next two projects are short films with the Head Feathers Only production company in Minneapolis.  My next novel will be the Capgras Delusion.
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

Medicine cabinet mirrors.  It's so overdone.  We get it. It's a mirror that moves and we can get a jump scare out of it.  Then people flipped it so it would be a quick scare, but it's not a threat. It's a normal person there to throw us off.  Then sometimes we get the empty medicine cabinet mirror gag, where NO ONE is there, but then they get stabbed from another camera angle.  I hate it. Do away with the medicine cabinets.  No more!

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

The last great book I read was the horror anthology Behold: Oddities, Curiosities, and Undefinable Wonders, which won the Stoker for best Anthology this year.  Every single story in it sang.  The author list is spectacular, but the writing inside makes you forget to care who wrote it.  Each story takes you in a different direction and there was nothing in it I'd completely seen before.
The last book I was disappointed with was AJ Finn's The Woman in the Mirror. It felt like a cliched rip off of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, with an ending stolen from another film. The main character works really hard to make sure she's always a victim and reminds us every couple pages that she's drunk or high.  It just really wore on me.  I finished it, but I was greatly disappointed in the endeavor.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

Is there any difference between holding your completed book in your hand and watching one of your short films?
There's an absolute difference. They're both fantastic but in completely opposite ways.  When I create a novel, I go through the full process alone.  I live with the characters, record their voices, build their worlds, tell their stories.  I work with small press publishers and complete almost all the marketing myself. Aside from beta readers and their feedback, a novel is 100% me.  A short film is interesting because when things go exactly as I saw them in my mind, it's weird to see outside of my head.  In our short film This Stays With The House, Lauren Kincaid did an amazing job and brought her character to life EXACTLY as I saw her in my head, right down to the cadence of her voice.  It scared me to be honest.  When things don't go according to how I envisioned them, I'm reminded it's a team effort and what I'm seeing is the result of a collaboration of many brains working to make something that they each believe in. 
 
The other question I'd like to have asked is, "Can I option your book for a movie?" I'm pretty sure the answer would be yes.
 

Where can we find you online?
Website: http://JamesSabata.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JamesSabataAuthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/JamesSabata
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8516263/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7522067.James_Sabata
FAT CAMP PRESALE: http://JamesSabata.com/fatcamp

Award winning author of more than twenty five books, the majority of which are horror and thrillers. Nicknamed the danish king of horror. His work has been filmed, ‘Kat’ (2001) and ‘Finale’ (2018), made into radio plays and translated into English, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish. ‘Finale’ is his fifth novel published in English.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I am a Danish writer. 50 years old, living in Copenhagen with my wife and two teenage sons. My debut was back in 1995. I was able to quit my job the next year and have been making a living as a writer ever since. Some years ago I had four of my thriller noir novels published in English, however now I feel it’s time to get some of my darker, grittier, gorier, creepier and scarier books out there in English as well.
 
What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I like to travel. Go and see the world. Living in a cold and rainy place, I do prefer to visit sunnier climates. My travels seem to inspire some of my work along the way.

Other than the  horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Old noir stuff like Horace McCoy or Ira Levin — who despite his brilliant novel ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ really wasn’t a horror writer. The indie rock scene has also been an important influence, at least when I was younger.

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 am not sure we should try to break them. I understand that most of them are misunderstood and often negative, still, some of the genre’s strength comes from being unaccepted and frown upon. In my view, horror (like comedy) needs to be somewhat taboo-breaking or at least up there challenging good taste and the norms of society to really work. It can’t be safe and polite.
 
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?
 
Horror has been around for centuries, always changing, always dividing, always exploring new medias as well as going back and picking up old forgotten sub genres.
 
Looking at the world today, with Trump being what he is, the EU dismantling old European states and democracies, anger and despair seeming to build everywhere, so much tension, so many people feeling powerless and abandoned by their leaders, one would think there were plenty to inspire for any kinds of movements, horror or not, and I both long for it to happen and fear it as well. The world is at a very scary place these years, I think.
 
However, I do see, artists and writers try to play into this field, I just don’t see them finding common ground there. You could say that the never-ending row of superhero-movies are playing into the field of people feeling powerless and abandoned. But only to feed on it, not aiming for change.
 
I haven’t got a clue where horror will be going or if it will challenge the state of the world. I don’t see it happening within the established scene as its all about the money but then again there has always been a strong indie scene for horror and what ever we will see coming in the future, it has to come from the more daring independent producers or publishers.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
Too many to mention. And at the same time, I feel a need to redefine myself over and over again. I have been doing this for a long time. Still, Stephen King’s ‘Pet Semartary’, Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Jack Ketchum’s ‘The Girl Next Door’, Ira Levin’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, Richard Laymon’s ‘The Woods Are Dark’, and movies like ‘Jaws’, ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘The Orphange’, ‘Psycho’, ‘Seven’ and many many others.

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

The Danish writer Michael Kamp has just released a few books in English, I believe. He’s something special. Not many authors manage to be both funny and scary at the same point but he does. Check him out.
 
How would you describe your writing style?

Short and effective, I guess. Minimalistic and cinematic. Scary and heartfelt.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
Oh my, the first one. It was February the 14th 1995. I had actually forgotten that this was my big day. The day of my debut. I went to work as usual but getting there I was told that there was a review in Politiken (a large Danish newspaper, considered the most important paper when it came to literature in Denmark) and my debut was ripped to pieces. Reading that, I understood that I was a failure and my book rubbish. I would never make it. A few hours later, however, my editor called and told me that there were several reviews in other papers praising the book and my debut. The book was later filmed and ended up as the beginning of a long and productive career. But I will never forget that first review.

What aspects of writing do you find the most difficult?

Being an introvert, like many writers are, the publicity of the business is not my favorite part. I do it. I have to. And for the most part it is fun and everything but it’s by far the most difficult part of my life. Being out there, being the center of attention.
 
Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

Never is a dangerous word. Ten years ago, I would have sworn that I’d never do torture horror (some say torture porn — but porn and horror aim differently so I can’t use that word about a horror sub-genre). Then suddenly, I got this idea about two young women working at a isolated gas station being set up by an online snuff show, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with that idea, until I had to face it: It was no longer something I’d never do, it had become a challenge. Did I dare to? So, I wrote it, and it was awarded Best Danish Horror Novel of the Year, an upcoming film is based upon the novel and it has just been published in English and German. The latter by the Random House imprint Heyne Verlag.
 
So today, I don’t think there’s much I’d say I’d never write about. It all comes down to having the right idea, the right angle at the subject, and then it’s all art.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Names are tricky. I tend to forget names. Both in real life and when I write. At the same time I can spend hours, sometimes days, searching for the right name for a given character. I have even used Google Translate to create strange-sounding names. I can get desperate like that.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? 

Getting older, becoming a father, a husband, experiencing life, love, death, becoming more mature, evolving as we all do in life, have changed what I write and how I write it and even how I see myself as a writer. The me of the 90s couldn’t write the books, I write today, however the me of today can’t write the books I did back then, either.
 
I have become more self-confident over the years, more focussed and more disciplined. I get up in the morning, I write. I do not debate a lot, I do not waste a lot of time arguing or trying to explain myself or my work. I do my shit, knowing some will hate, some will love it, but as long as I know I do my best, and I always do, then it’s really out of my hands.
 
What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?         

Imagination.

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

‘Work gives work’. It wasn't an advice anyone gave me. In fact I believe it was an advice I read somewhere a long time ago that the actor Jane Fonda had gotten from her dad, going into the film industry. It goes for writers as well. New opportunities arise from the stuff you’ve already done, not from the shit you never finished. So finish it and move on.
 
Getting your work noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?

I have tried almost every approach you can think of. As I said earlier, I have been doing this a long time. I am not sure about what have worked and what haven’t. It’s hard to tell. It’s very rare that you do something and then bang! your books sell like crazy. On the other hand, miracles do happen, and books tend to have a life of their own once they are out there and I’m not sure that any of the luck I’ve had along the way was due to anything I did, other than writing the book in the first place.
 
I always try to do something. To reach out to my readers, new and old. I try to be honest and friendly. But you’ll never know. I guess, my approach today is to keep on going, never give up.
 
At lot of it is about timing. At some points in your career you can do all the right things without any effect at all and then when the right momentum arrives you can’t do much wrong it just all comes around.
 
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?

That’s a tough question. I been thinking about it for more than a day now. It’s hard to pick, impossible actually, so I going to cheat and choose some of the characters from my new book in English ‘Finale’ as, to be honest, that’s the book I’m here to talk about. I could easily have chosen characters from most of my other books. But here you go:
 
I will choose the two leading characters in ‘Finale’, Agnes and Belinda, as my favorite characters. Not one of them, but both of them, because what I really enjoyed about them was playing them up against one another. Agnes is a student at the university. She’s a caring intellectual, well-meaning and good-mannered. Belinda is the opposite. She’s a few years younger, up for trouble, uneducated and reckless. They don’t get along but they have to. In the beginning only in order to work the nightshift a the gas station but later on, when the night turns into the most terrifying nightmare, they have to overcome their differences in order to survive. They have to evolve and fast.
 
The one character from the book that I favor the least must be Belinda’s lowlife boyfriend, Christoffer. He’s an immature and selfish thug, using Belinda without any concern for her well-being at all. I guess, maybe, some day he’ll become more mature and change his ways but at this point in his life where we meet him in this story, he’s just bad news.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
 At tough question again. But I guess, I’ll go with the novel ‘Ø’ or in English ‘Island’. It’s not out in English yet but it’s been translated and will be published in English in 2019, I hope.

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

 There are a few of my early novels, written by a much younger me, that I’m not sure I’ll ever publish in English. I can say that much. Still, there are readers that love them so maybe I should just shut up and accept that a younger me did his best back then?
 

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

Maybe ‘The Whispering of the Flies’, to be published in English later this year (2018). It’s a mix of thriller and supernatural horror which seem to be my playground. It’s the younger me at his best, I guess. Or maybe I should choose ‘Island’ that I mentioned before as this novel may be the older me at my best. I don’t know.

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

Maybe the first line from the noir thriller ‘In the Shadow of Sadd’. Published in English a few years ago.
 
“There is always a unique atmosphere in the car when you drive through the City with a dead body in the back.”
 
I like it as an opening line. It kind of captures both genre, location and the dark humor of the book in one sentence. As a reader, I have a weakness for great opening lines. They are harder to do than you’d think.

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

I keep my work in Danish out of this and focus on my English books.
 
My new book is called ‘Finale’. It’s the novel behind the upcoming terrifying Danish motion picture of the same name. It’s a short novel, some may call it a novella, in the tradition of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Hostel’ and ‘Saw’.
 
Belinda and Agnes are working the nightshift at the gas station by the highway. It’s a big night as Denmark is playing the world cup finale and everybody will sitting at home watching the game. So, the two women expect very few costumers. But no costumers means no witnesses. They have been chosen for a totally different show.
 
If everything goes as planned, I will publish my next book in English later this year as I mentioned before. It’s called ‘The Whispering of the Flies’. It’s something like ‘Seven’ meets ‘Sinister’. This supernatural thriller novel takes you around some of Copenhagen’s best known sites as its demonic tale unfolds. It’s the summer of 1999. During a seemingly never-ending heatwave, Copenhagen has seen a tremendous rise in the numbers of flies in the city. Two police detectives are working a strange case, the victims killed in the most gruesome and unimaginable ways. They soon come to realize, this isn’t the work of a serial killer. This is much worse.
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

The part where someone sees something bad and pukes. I get it, I can’t stand the sight of blood myself, I once fainted at the veterinarian but still. Stop it. Get over it. It becomes mechanical—like oh look blood, somebody has to get sick or else the audience wont understand that this is really gory. I mean, hey, I want books or movies to make me feel something, I don’t want to sit and watch the characters feel something. It’s like watching a comedian laughing of his own jokes.

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

The last great book must be ‘Stillhouse Lake’ by Rachel Caine. It’s a thriller, not horror, but it’s a great read.
 
I hate to give thumbs down to other writer’s work. That’s not my job.
 
What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

Can I please give you a million dollars?
 
The answer would be: Hell, yeah. 
​

How did you first get into book design?
​
I sort of fell into the industry.  I’ve been an artist for as long as I can remember, and I originally wanted to draw for Marvel Comics. . Author Adam Cesare was one of the first folks to draw me into the cover artist profession.  See what I did there?  Draw?  Anyway, he approached me online after I had drawn a poster for fun for a then new facebook friend whom he was also friends with.
 
Going to the annual Scares that Care convention is what cemented the idea of being a cover designer for me.  I got to meet a ton of fantastic authors, some who I had read, others that were completely undiscovered to me, and became good friends with them over the years. 
 
In my first year, I saw that many small press horror books were lacking a unique touch.  I felt that they weren’t doing a good enough job at representing the fantastic works found within them.  So, I set about changing that, and business has been good.

Would you say you have particular style or does it vary between projects?

I’m told my style is recognizable,  but I like to offer varying styles dependent on what the author or publisher is looking for to draw attention to their book.  I’ve done cartoonish looking work, gritty realism, and heavy photoshopped images. For the “Kaiju Revisited” series I did for Jacob Haddon and Apokrupha Books, I kept to an animated theme that I wanted to invoke 80’s Saturday Morning Cartoons in the style.  I particularly enjoyed drawing the big monster on Author Jessica Mchugh’s book, “Home Birth”
 
I absolutely enjoy doing heavily inked black and white illustration, and that’s what people recognize the most of my work  Mostly that ends up in interior art, like my signature pages for the “Clicker Forever: A tribute to J.F Gonzalez” Collector’s Edition from Thunderstorm Books and “T.V Dinners from Hell”, by Author Amber Fallon.

What’s your preferred medium to work with?

I mostly work digitally.  It’s a more affordable medium for folks, and it's much easier to communicate back and forth with authors and publishers as I design.  It also saves on shipping.

And what’s your process from initial concept to final proof?

The first thing I like to do is speak with the author and see what they’re visualizing in their head for a cover.  Some folks know what they want, and I want to make sure I visually communicate that in the best way for them.  I like to send progress reports as I work to show the author or publisher how I’m progressing.  I usually sketch out a mess of an image and send it, and I’m not entirely sure people can make sense of it right away, but it works for me.
 
Once I get the green light on the design, I begin doing line work to build form and make sense of the mess I doodled.  Depending on the style called for, I may then fill the lines with color and do shading, or start blocking out colors and do a painter-style.  I tend to use reference images if something needs to look a specific way, but for the most part, I draw everything from off the top of my head.


What specific challenges or constraints do you face in designing a book cover, as opposed to a poster, an album cover, or other print design platforms?

The biggest challenge I face with book covers is conveying what the author is trying to tell you in his or her book all in one little image.  Someone might be writing a book about killer slugs that take over your brain and make you feel intense pain whenever any part of you is touched.  How do you make that into a cover, at least, a cover that makes you want to read the book?
 
My job is to grab your attention when you’re perusing the book aisle, or browsing online.  I need you to want to find out more about “Slug Touch".  I’m going to use this as the title.  Sorry.  The go-to obviously would be to draw a nasty slug beast crawling on the ground.  But, you’ve probably seen that already.  Probably more than once.  So I’m not going to go that route with my design.  I instead focus on something simple or abstract.  I might try to use nerve clusters from the human body in a unique way. There are lots of possibilities.