BY JONATHAN THORNTON 

Ginger Nuts of Horror's Jonathan Thornton attended the book  launch for Kim Newman's latest novel Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters, where he was managed to catch up with kim, for this fascinating and hugely entertaining interview with one of the most important names in the genre fiction and genre criticism.   

Kim Newman is an expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith. 

In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel. 

Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters, his most novel sees his world of vampires take a trip around the world to Japan.  In 1899 Geneviève Dieudonné travels to Japan with a group of vampires exiled from Great Britain by Prince Dracula. They are allowed to settle in Yokai Town, the district of Tokyo set aside for Japan's own vampires, an altogether strange and less human breed than the nosferatu of Europe. Yet it is not the sanctuary they had hoped for, as a vicious murderer sets vampire against vampire, and Yokai Town is revealed to be more a prison than a refuge. Geneviève and her undead comrades will be forced to face new enemies and the horrors hidden within the Temple of One Thousand Monsters.  
 
Your new novel, Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters, sees you returning to the Anno Dracula series, and the return of Geneviève Dieudonné. What new monsters and challenges are she facing this time?

When I first wrote about her, which is not in Anno Dracula (1992) but in the Jack Yeovil novels, word processing was so crude that although I could do accents on my machine, the printers couldn't use that file without getting a block, so I was under orders not to put an accent in her name! So it's quite useful, it now differentiates the Anno Dracula Geneviève from the Jack Yeovil Genevieve. I assume she will have accepted multiple pronunciations over the years.

Well, one thousand of them! Actually not quite one thousand : that's just the name of the temple. But there are upwards of seven hundred new monsters. And the definition of monster is elastic, as indeed the definition of vampire or indeed the definition of human, or ordinary person. In the world of the books I think of monsters as a subset of humanity, rather than something separate from or different from, so I don't often use the term human to signify ordinary people. Cause quite a lot of my monsters are ordinary people. But one of the main motivations for doing this book was to embrace a different type of monstrousness. I really love far eastern folklore and legendary and Japanese ghost movies and all that kind of stuff. So I just wanted to bring on those monsters which aren't particularly well known in western literature. Lafcadio Hearn wrote this book Kwaidanin the early 1900s, which was a big influence oddly.  A lot of Japanese versions of their own folklore are based on this Irish American guy's take on them. He was sometimes one of the first people to write down the stories. So a lot of the films are based on his versions of Japanese ghosts. But there are a bunch of other really amazing strange things. The Japanese monster or ghost tradition is familiar through weird distancing filters like Pokémon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some of the Godzilla films. It was interesting looking back and finding what lies under those kind of cute monsters. There's even a weird term for that, kawaii, or super-deformed. And you find that there was something scary there originally.  Even some of the ones that seem really unthreatening like the umbrella monster, or the vampire who comes to your house and drinks your tea have something terrifying about them.
 
I wanted to address that, but also I've been trying with each of the Anno Dracula novels to go somewhere different. And in most of them the locus is still sort of Britain and probably Transylvania, although we haven't spent that much time in Transylvania. But obviously I've done Italy, I've done France, America... This time I thought it was time to go somewhere else and Asia seemed like the next place to go. This isn't the book I set out to write, as anybody who's been following this on Amazon will know. I originally set out to write a book set in 1999 in Japan, but it was going to have this little prologue.  Then when I started writing the book, I realised I was 40,000 words into the prologue, and I really wanted a flashback in the prologue. Because I'd never let Genevieve tell her own backstory and there were various things going on in the real world that made me want to address that moment which is implied in Anno Dracula, where everybody wakes up and finds that the most powerful military country in the world has been taken over by the worst person imaginable. Because that obviously had huge resonance for the way things have been going lately. So I wanted that in there. And then I realised that if I split the book in half, if half way through it leaped a hundred years to the rest of the story, and there'd be a change in protagonist and a complete change in style, there was a risk both halves would seem really crammed. But also maybe some people who were really into the first half but not so much into the second, or the other way round, so I deciced to make them separate things which can stand on their own. And that meant that this book suddenly had a lot of extra room to play around in. Which allowed me to bring back a character from the very first novel that I'd been thinking of occasionally, he's been mentioned once or twice since.  He he was a character that had a lot of good response, people seemed to like him, and I thought he was interesting and there was potential. This is Kostaki, he's like the honourable Carpathian, and I realised he made a really good partner for Geneviève.  They played off each other really well. They'd sort of met, and I thought that that, rather than go back and use some of the other characters that I'd been developing in the series, who've got their own histories - because this is a book that fits in  after the first novel and the comic, and before the second novel -, going back and reviving a character we hadn't seen gave me another fresh voice in it. And also this is the first time I'd written an Anno Dracula book that is primarily told in the first person. All the other books have first person sections, but this time  again it allowed me to have Geneviève talk directly, and since she's the moral conscience of the series, that again gave it a different feel. Cause one of the things I try and do with this and the other long running things I do is make sure the books aren't too like each other because it would be really easy to just write the same book over and over again. And it's possible that what I'm doing is writing the same book over and over again but disguising it. Tthere are things that in my mind have to happen in every Anno Dracula story. I'm not sure if I tick them all off this time! But as long as they're there then I can do anything else, and it allows me some scary stuff, some funny stuff, some social comment and social satire, and the thing that always comes in last but really surprises me is the emotional stuff. I suppose it's the soap opera aspect. That I sometimes think yeah but what would people feel about this, rather than gosh wow amazing monsters. Obviously I'm not immune to that as an appeal for writing a book like this, but there's the sense that these people can be hurt, but also that they can make jokes, that they can be fun.

The first collection of the Anno Dracula comics is also out now. What were the challenge in adapting the story for a new medium?

I didn't adapt a story, that was one of my insistences. Obviously I started being published by Titan, and they are a publisher with a comics division. And they've done comics which are licensed properties based on novels, and TV shows and whatever. So they were set up to do that. And I think this is the first in house book they've done. Ttechnically I am the licence holder.  Titan say I'm a lot easier to deal with than all the others, which is probably true. But I had two conditions for doing a comic. One is that I write it, and various people over the years have asked if they could do it, and I've said no. And the other is that it not be an adaptation of a novel, that it be a new story. And they were very receptive to that. It was fully scripted before an artist was assigned. Paul McCaffrey lobbied for the job, and I'm really pleased with his work, and I can't see any other visual of it now, it's not quite the first comic I've done, I did Witchfinderfor Dark Horse in collaboration with Maura McHugh a couple of years back, so I'm not a complete novice, but I still feel new in the medium. You'd have to ask the editors whether I was that difficult. There's something in both the series I've done, I've felt that the last issue needed to be longer than it is. Titan gave me three extra pages, I would have liked ten. Because you put all these balls in the air, and some are paid off in a panel, I would have liked a page to pay off. But writing a comic, the first thing you do is accept the limitations. It's like writing a TV show. It's got to be 42 minutes long and there's no way around it, and in some circumstances you have to break for commercials. Comics are very like that, it's 22 pages, five issues. I clawed my extra three pages for the last issue. After that, I was just concentrating on the story. And I thought since this would be introducing the series to a new audience, I wanted to do something relatively close to the original novel in time and place, so it's London in 1895, which is seven years after Anno Dracula. I didn't want to use all the characters from Anno Dracula, there's a huge canvas....

And you kill quite a lot of them as well!

Many of them die, you're right. In the first issue there's a page which is the story so far. If you haven't read the novels, this tells you what happens and why we're here. What it doesn't do is spoil the novel if you go back and read it. That was quite tricky, because big things appen in the novel that everybody in the world would know, and you have to do a whole comic in which no one mentions them. And I talk around them, but you can go through weeks and weeks without mentioning 9/11 or the death of Princess Diana, you know, big events. It is possible to dodge around that, and so far no one has pulled me up it. And I wanted to spotlight slightly different characters from the novels, so I used one of the main characters from the novels, one of the minor characters from the novels, and some new people. One of whom has gone on to be a big character in One Thousand Monsters, and will be an even bigger character in the cyberpunk book. So I have linked this into the continuity in such a way that Anno Dracula readers will need the comic if they want the whole story.

You've written a script for an Anno Dracula movie...
 
Oh, once yeah.
 
 Is there any chance of the movie being made soon?
 
At the moment the rights are back with me, but it's been in and out of option for many years, and every time it gets close to happening, somebody comes along and makes something terrible that's a bit like it. Or even worse if they make something good! To this day I've never watched Penny Dreadful because it killed an Anno DraculaTV series.
 
How much research goes into recreating the period detail and the fictional references in an Anno Dracula story?

A lot. More than is strictly necessary! I tend to steep myself in literature of the period, if available film and TV, music. I listened to a lot of Japanese music, and most of it is sort of ambient, proto-plunking sounds, but I also listened to a lot of Japanese rock as well. And the soundtracks to samurai films and Godzilla movies. I watched a lot of Japanese cartoons and samurai movies and really terrific 1950's Japanese horror films that I'd not seen before and I know a lot about horror films right. And before embarking on this project, I had seen all the Ring type movies, and I'd seen Kwaidan (1965) and Onibaba (1964) and a couple of the other famous ones. And researching this book opened up a world of wonderful scary strange magical things, I realised that in the west we saw all those Ring movies and didn't understand them because we didn't have the cultural context. You know, The Ghost Story Of Yotsuya (1825) is the key Japanese ghost story, that's like the Japanese version of Wuthering Heights (1847). There are 15 film versions of it, not counting the silent ones, it's done over and over and over again. Sort of really obsessive. I ended up not using her, Oiwa, as a character because there's a similar character who's more fun. So I steeped myself in that, and for the Kostaki strand I read Kipling and watched The Man Who Would Be King (1975) again. And read up on some Masonic stuff. 
 
I've always felt that these books needed a lot of material. They're very idea intensive. They involve lots of characters, lots of settings, and lots of thought. Because it's a whole world that's being explored.  Sometimes I want to take little byways and look at what the wallpaper is like, what popular songs there are, or what the jokes people are telling. And always, then there's a certain tussle because the editors sometimes want to trim irrelevant passages. People say things like, well what's the story? Which is fair enough. And in this book there is a lot of story, but most of it doesn't take place where our viewpoint characters are. And I thought that was interesting, to tell an epic story from the point of view of someone who's in jail for quite a bit of it.  She takes a couple of days in the cell and comes out and finds everything has changed. Which I loved but it's not something that Robert McKee would advise in a movie! And so I wanted to do all the little detail work and I have enjoyed that ever since the first novel. And maybe what differentiates this series from other roughly similar things is that I try and bring a bit of context ... It's not strictly speaking an alternative history or a dystopia, because it's a reflection of what actually happened and is happening. And there's almost a sense that the underlying message is that the world is awful and overwhelmed by a terrible fear of chaos and the worst people are in charge of it, but it's still possible to struggle to find some kind of honourable and decent way of living a life. Which is what my main sympathetic characters do. It's also possible to let that go away and just give in and become part of the problem. Which some of my other characters do.
 
You describe Anno Dracula as 'literally a vampire novel'. How did the idea to write about vampires in this way first occur?

It's something I was doing at university. It was an essay on turn of the century science fiction, Victorian science fiction. And I wrote a section on invasion narratives like The War Of The Worlds (1897) and The Battle Of Dorking [by George Tomkyns Chesney, 1871], When William Came [by Saki, 1913], The War In The Air (1908), all these wonderful Victorian novels about the French taking over or the Prussians marching through London. I recognised that this was very much the origins of that kind of 'Nazis won the war' genre, SS-GB (1978), The Man In The High Castle (1962), It Happened Here (1964). And just in a footnote to that section I said that Dracula could be considered an invasion narrative. Because Dracula's got this speech about his conquering powers, and Van Helsing has a speech where he says that what Dracula will do if he gets any power, it's going to be really terrifying. And of course in the book he then doesn't. That lingered in my mind for years and years obviously and at some point, a long time before I wrote the first novel, I must have done like a page of notes. Remember those Marvel comics What If …  you know, what if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four? And I think I wrote What If Dracula Won? Which might well have been the original title that thankfully I didn't use! Although I like question titles.  Once that was there I realised it was such a big idea that a single novel wasn't going to be enough. Because it was the era when everybody was writing trilogies, so my original thought was a trilogy. And it for a while was.  The first three booksthere are kind of a trilogy but then there are these bits and pieces that still are unanswered, there was room for much more. By the time I wrote the third book I'd already written a big chunk of the fourth so, I realised it wasn't a story that had a beginning and an end. It was a world I could return to at intervals.
 
As for battening on other works of literature, obviously I was stuck with Dracula.  The idea of using other characters from other fictions came in quite late. The first chapter of Anno Dracula has Dr Seward as Jack the Ripper, and he murders a victim. Every single Jack the Ripper movieopens with this scene of fog, gaslight, top hat, bloke with a bag full of knives.  You're walking through the cobblestones, then there's like Barbara Windsor saying, "Lawks-a-mighty, ducks." She turns round, a knife comes out, scream. I thought I wanted to write that scene, but when the girl turns round she has fangs. Then, it was a question of, who's the girl? I looked at all the actual Jack the Ripper victims and none of them fit, and also I reached a point where I thought well they've suffered enough. Then I remembered that in Pandora's Box (1929), the Pabst film from the Wedekind plays, Lulu, the Louise Brooks character, is a Jack the Ripper victim. And I thought, great, her, she's perfect! And she's got a great look and she's an iconic character.
 
Then I thought well in that case that opens up the possibility that this is a world inhabited by everybody from Victorian literature or indeed subsequent literature. And I realised that that solved a problem I'd been struggling with, that Dracula couldn't be a government on his own. And I thought well obviously his gang would be all the other vampires. Great! And then, I think, it was one of those things it must have taken literally five minutes I thought, oh yeah, Lord Ruthven - prime minister, Varney the Vampire - viceroy of India, and just ticking them all off. So many vampires in literature are imitations of Dracula, or Dracula wannabes. Count Iorga – from the film Count Yorga – Vampire (1970) - is one I've used quite a lot, because he's like a shorter fatter Dracula. And I thought, that makes perfect sense.  He'd surround himself with people, he'd set a fashion.  Other vampires would try and be like him, and none of them would be. But also they would start to resent him for it. You've got this frothing pack of envious, useless things. I had a bunch of anthologies of Victorian vampire stories -  Christopher Frayling compiled a really good one. And I went through and picked all those characters. And one of the things I've really enjoyed with this, is sometimes you take a character just to fill a gap, like I needed someone to be prime minister, Lord Ruthven was there. I read a story, it's called A True Story Of A Vampire (1894) by Eric Count Stenbok, which is this weird decadent gay vampire story from the 1890's with a really horrible predatory character, so I took him and made him one of the nastier characters in the books. In the comic and the current novel, the big character I've been playing with who isn't strictly a vampire but kind of is, is Christina Light, the Princess Casamassima, who's the only character Henry James wrote two books about. Roderick Hudson (1875), and then a follow up called The Princess Casamassima (1886),which is about radicals and anarchists in London in the 1890's. It's a really underrated book, really good on terrorism. It's all about how someone's friends slowly force him into becoming essentially a suicide bomber. The Princess Casamassima is this improbably glamorous yet ruthless socialist, and everybody who gets involved with her suffers horribly and dies. So I thought that if I actually made her a vampire she'd be cool.  I had a character who was snobbish and nasty and a vampire in the first book, but over subsequent books she sort of softened a bit and became almost likeable.  So I wanted somebody who was really awful, and Christina came in for this. Also I like the weird thing of taking characters you wouldn't necessarily think of and trying to find tragedy in their lives, or wondering how they would fit in to a fantastical universe. I've done it with James Bond, and I do it in this book with some other familiar characters who aren't named.

I love Dr Moreau and Dr Jekyll hanging out in Anno Dracula, sitting there vivisecting vampires because of course they would!

Scenes like that, I could just write forever. I really had to cut that down because I do like just having people talk to each other, I write plays as well. And there are scenes in One Thousand Monsters of Geneviève and Christina talking that I really had to stop, because if it was up to me, it's like all the samurai fighting and stuff would stop, and we'd just have this. And in the comics, there's a whole issue which is basically two people having tea. But I always like those. Because life stops sometimes and people talk things out. It's not what you're told to do but I like it as a way of conveying all kinds of stuff. Conversational trivialities can tell you an enormous amount about the world. And in fantasyworld building is a big thing. And I work hard at that. Just talking about what the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica would be like. That tells me what's going on in the world.
 
In The Bloody Red Barron (1995) Dracula becomes involved in the First World War. In Dracula Cha Cha Cha (1998) he crosses paths with an undead Bond in Rome. Johnny Alucard (2013) follows the vampires to America. How does each new time period and setting change your approach to writing the series?

Sometimes it changes completely the writing style, obviously.  I don't go overboard on that sort of crusty Victorian writing the way that some people writing period books try and write like Dickens or Conan Doyle or whatever. But I certainly think a bit about how people talk and the pacing. Obviously for Rome in 1959, I wasn't looking at Conan Doyle or Bram Stoker, I was looking at Patricia Highsmith and Ian Fleming.  Two Weeks In Another Town(1960) by Irwin Shaw was another book I looked at. There are lots of external things that change with each period. But because I've been tending to stick with a relatively small number of viewpoint characters, I try and convey how they change if the world changes around them. The story I wrote in London set in 1968 has a Victorian vampire main character and so she sort of is adapted, but she's also sort of a little old lady. Geneviève has ended up being quite a modern character although she is literally medieval. But my feeling was if you were going to live that long and not go mad you'd have to be very adaptable. There was that trend in the 80's for stuff like The Lost Boys, where you'd have ancient immortal vampires hanging out in goth clubs. And you think, why would they do that? And I see how it fits the audience, but it just doesn't seem quite right to me. I may well play a bit more with that in the book that's set in 1999. Although it won't be set strictly in our 1999 but the 1999 that William Gibson imagined in 1983. Cause we can now be nostalgic about that.
 
Geneviève has appeared in different stories across your work, in your Warhammer Books and in the Diogenes Club stories. What makes her such a compelling character?

I like her and people like her, I think. It's weird because in some ways she has to be a passive observer character rather than absolutely central to what's going on. Cause she needs to be held a bit out of it. She has a profession, she's a doctor. Although I've been recently edging her towards being a medical examiner, a coroner. And she's been a detective as well -- my version of Jim Rockford. She's just somebody who is continually amused and exasperated by how insane everything around her is. But doesn't completely let it get to her. She's somebody who won't be driven mad, no matter how bad everything else is. I think she's fun, Wwhen I first started writing her I was thinking a bit of Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, although Emma Peel is unflappable in a way that Geneviève isn't. But at that time there weren't that many heroines in fantasy and horror who had that model. And of course, because I created her for the Jack Yeovil books, which were young adult books, I was thinking of her as a teenager, although I slightly changed that in the Anno Dracula books, because I wanted her sometimes to have proper jobs that, you're not going to have a 16 year old coroner. And so I think maybe her resilience and survivability, and the fact that she won't put up with stuff. And it may also be that people just identify with how put-upon she is.


Your first novel The Night Mayor (1989) uses noir tropes to explore the fixations of film noir in a science fictional context. Was this good practice for writing about Dracula using vampire fiction?

Yeah, there's a similar thing going on in it, yeah. I wrote it before there was much virtual reality cyberpunk type fiction around. There were precedents I was thinking of, stuff like The Singing Detective (1986), and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), that kind of melange, consensus version of what film noir was. And that, I think I was more interested there in the idea that fantasy is seductive. The epigraph is from a really interesting book on 1940s cinema by Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg -- a really potent description of what film noir is.  The thing that really stuck with me from that was that it's a world of despair, darkness and terror, but in its own way it's as glamorous as Paramount musical comedies. And you realise that yeah, it's a world you'd like to live in. Who wouldn't want a world where you go into a night club and Hoagy Carmichael's playing the piano and Lauren Bacall is singing? And Bogart's in the corner. It was the fantasy of film goers in the 1940's. It was the fantasy of film fans in the 1970's when I was getting into it. But it's something still enormously appealing. And the idea that that can also be a trap, and maybe, yeah, I've in subsequent books surrendered to that trap a bit more. But the idea is, you know most genres offer worlds people would like to visit. The consensus vision of the West in Westerns is a fantasy.  People like playing Cowboys and Indians. But they don't want to get shot. Or dragged through the desert, eating their own horses, all that kind of horrible stuff that happens in westerns. But at a certain remove, it's still an exciting and enjoyable thing. And most of those forms interest me.

And the whole thing of having to play by the rules of the genre if you want to beat the guy at his own game...

Obviously that's an amusing conceit, or it was when I came up with it. It's a strange little novel. It's too short, for a proper novel, I'm amazed that it got published, cause it's a long novella.  I remember that the editor who first took a chance on it said, yeah you could easily put another hundred pages in it, but that's all you'd be doing. And she was exactly right. I could easily have had another bunch of chapters of running around, meeting new and interesting people, cool things happening, but it's a book that makes its point. Which is why when it was republished it's got a whole load of short stories at the back.


The idea of the boundaries between dreams and reality crumbling crops up again in your novels Bad Dreams (1990) and Jago (1991). Is this a big theme for you?

Yes it is. That's also, yeah. It was a bit, Bad Dreams has a slight spin on it, in that it was originally a film outline I did with Neil Gaiman, Phil Nutlman and Stefan Jaworzyn, and the brief was to write something a bit like Nightmare On Elm Street(1984), so there are dreams in it because that was what we were asked for. In the end I took it away and made it my own, but yeah that was fun. But it's in Jago too and there's no excuse for that.  I'm a huge admirer of Philip Dick and I like all those rubber reality-ish stories and yeah I did want to play in that.
 
The Quorum (1994) is your take on the Faustian pact trope. Was this something you always wanted to write?

That was one of the few books I had where I literally woke up in the middle of the night with the title and the plot, everything. And it's not like I had a dream or anything. I'm going to have to be quite circumspect about this, but somebody had told me something about a mutual friend that I thought was quite disturbing, and made both of us worry about this other person, whom we thought was becoming paranoid. He thought that people were deliberately sabotaging his life and his career in a way I suppose that anyone who's having a hard time starts to think, and I woke up and I thought, what if they were? What if people actually did that? And then I thought, oh yeah, what if you made a deal with the devil and sold somebody else's soul? And other ideas came like dominoes tipping over, and I thought oh right I know exactly how this fits together. And then it all came out of that.
 
Your novel Life's Lottery (1999) uses a Choose Your Own Adventure format to ask questions about free will. How was writing that different to writing a normal novel?

It is the most difficult book I've ever done, yeah. My front room was full of bits of paper with post it notes and arrows and numbers. For months. I think I actually drove people out of the house while I was working on that. I could still be writing that book if I hadn't decided to limit it to 300 segments. I was surprised nobody had done it before, I'm surprised so few people have done it since. One or two people have. Those Choose Your Own Adventure books were really popular.   but all about the choices you were given were simple material ones.  Turn left, turn right. Axe or saw. But I thought, what if you were given moral decisions? And that would mean that your adventure would be through not so much corridors but your own character. And it was a very difficult book to get the character arcs. Because each arc, each development was contingent on the choice the reader had made. So when you had two different paths, I had to write each path as if the main character were the kind of person who would have made this choice. But beforehand, not nudged. And so there was a certain neutrality of voice. It's the only book I've written in the second person, which is another thing you're not supposed to do. And so that was more complicated than keeping track of all the wives and children, jobs and the plot stuff, and there's a murder mystery bit in it I really like, and there's a kind of horrible social commentary, and there's a nightmare fantasy element and time twisting to justify the whole conceit. I'm very proud of it.  It is an oddity and one of the books that ties together my universe.
 
An English Ghost Story (2014) is Gothic horror but set in the present day. What are the challenges of recreating the atmosphere of the traditional gothic novel in the age of the Internet?

Well it's not, it's set in the 1990's, but I wrote the first draft in the 1990's so it was the present day, yeah. The reason it's set in the 1990's is because mobile phones would ruin the story. I've seen a couple of other things that have done the same trick, used the setting just before mobile phones fuck up every story ever written beforehand. Alfred Hitchcock always hated the question ‘why don't they go to the police?’ And he always answered, ‘because then there wouldn't be a story!’ Now it’s why don't they just look it up, why doesn't he just phone? And you have all these stories that have to start with them saying oh there's no reception. There was something about that period that was interesting and fit in with the story I wanted to tell. And I did want to do a traditional ghost story, rather than a haunted computer story, which most modern day ghost stories have to devolve to. A couple of years back I went to ghost story slam for charity, where ten people got up and read five minute ghost stories. And nine of them were about mobile phones, social media, the Internet, various other gadgets, and then the last guy – Kevin McNally, the actor - got up and read a story about pirates in the 18th century and it was like, yes! Thank you!

I mean arguably the Internet and social media are frightening enough without ghosts!

Sure. And I've written stuff about that too. I am interested in that and it is a subject on its own. But for this I wanted to do a traditional ghost story. It's got its own things going on in it, and it is strange in ways that, yeah, it's a Kim Newman book, it's not an M. R. James book. Again it's a book I'm pleased with. I try every time to do something I've not done before, and it's weird that I always seem to end up with things I want to go back to, I really want to do a follow up book to it but I'm not quite sure when I can fit it into my schedule.
 
An English Ghost Story also inhabits that space between the supernal and the infernal, and taps into the sense of awe that characterises much horror at its most haunting....

Yeah, and I that, I wanted something magical and frightening, rather than just brutal and frightening.
 
The Secrets Of Drearcliff Grange School (2015) first appears as a series of books in An English Ghost Story written by the character Louise Magellan Teazle. What made you want to turn it into its own novel?

That's right, yeah originally it was a pendant to An English Ghost story, I thought it might end up being a strand in it, but I'm glad I didn't because it fits into the way my world has been going. So it's another type of writing I'm interested in. I went away and read a lot of 1920's girl school stories. And I grew up with Billy Bunter and Jennings and the last of those school stories. Harry Potter has brought all that back. And obviously J. K. Rowling's a socialist, and people say to her, why are you writing these books about public schools? And she said, it's simple, it's got to be a boarding school or you can't have adventures. And she's right. I liked doing that. And I am going to be doing another Drearcliff Grange School next. So there's series potential in it.
 
Is there any fictional or historical character you would like to include in your work but haven't found the place for yet? 

I don't exactly have a hit list. I'd like to do a Western. I was going to do an Anno Dracula Western, but the thing I set up in Anno Dracula about Billy the Kid being a vampire has been used, Uwe Boll made a film called BloodRayne Deliverance which had a vampire Billy the Kid. I can't really be accused of ripping off Uwe fucking Boll. I can take a lot of things, but not that. So I satisfied myself slightly by putting a bit of Western stuff in One Thousand Monsters, but I doubt if I'm going to do a full on Anno Dracula Western. It would have to be set before Anno Draculaand I don't want to do too much to suggest that the world before Anno Dracula was openly fantastical. I try and show a bit of what it was like to be a vampire in a world before Anno Dracula, cause that was interesting to me. So at some point I'd like to do a Western. I'm not quite sure what. There's a historical occult mystery set in the 1940's I want to do, which is classic Hollywood days, Beverly Hills.

Were there any characters you felt nervous about using or doing justice to?
 
No, it sounds terrible doesn't it! I suppose what I do is I just treat them all as if I'd made them up. I've written a book about Professor Moriarty. He's a major fictional character and displaces a lot of cultural water but he's only in the Conan Doyle stories for about three pages. And Colonel Moran, who's my narrator in that, is in even less. However those pages are gold. Every single thing in it is brilliant. And I just kept thinking, there's a book here. And the really good stuff, the stuff that really clicks with me lets me spin off.


You are also known for your critical writing on the genre, especially on horror in film. Video Dungeon, a compendium of your writings on horror cinema drawing from your column of the same name, is out now as well. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Yeah, it's not a collection of my columns from Empire magazine, although it has the same title. It's the material that got subbed down into my column. If I spent a sentence reviewing a film in Empire, I probably wrote 400 words. And so this is that 400 words, slightly tidied up. And I just wanted to do something that was, that covered a lot of films that people hadn't spent much time being written about, the stuff that you couldn't find reviews of easily on the Internet, or not useful ones. So that was it really. It's a book that I've been working on for quite a while. And we've got enough material to do many more. And it was a fun project and I really like the packaging on it. It's not something that just anybody would sit and read, although I know people who do.  I find this kind of book compulsive as well. You look something up and then three hours later you realise, why have I read forty reviews of shark movies?
 
How does your criticism feed into your fiction, and your fiction feed into your criticism?

Well, my fiction quite often spins out of popular culture. And obviously I've seen a lot of movies in my spare time. I spend a lot of time thinking about movies and watching movies, so, that's how it works. I get ideas while doing that, and sometimes I can sometimes look at specific things and think oh while I was watching this I had that idea. And sometimes you watch 400 movies and it all comes together.  Same for TV shows or other books, or whatever. The other thing is that with my non-fiction writing I just try to work on the prose And it's really simple. It's something that makes it distinctive, to try and make it readable, try and make itnot amusing and with some substance. Not so much in the Video Dungeon book but in other things, it’s about trying to find a story.
 
What's next for Kim Newman? 

Oh, I can tell you. It's The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School. It's a year and a half later, and Amy is in the fourth form, and the school is haunted. There's other stuff. It's going to be partly about her relationship with a new teacher. And there's something I couldn't quite justify historically, but one of the great school stories is The Happiest Days Of Your Life (1950), That’s about a girls school and a boys school that accidentally have to have the same buildings for a term, and so I'm going to do that. I'm going to bring some boys to the school because I think that will make things interesting. And then, the next Anno Dracula book, which picks up a hundred years after One Thousand Monsters.  There's a tag at the end which sets it up. And it'll be set in 1999, in a Tokyo that's like William Gibson's idea of the future. In a giant building shaped like Godzilla. Rather, not like Godzilla, like a giant fire breathing lizard not copyrighted by Toho Pictures. And it has a new viewpoint character, someone I've built up a bit in the novellas ’Vampire Romance’ and ‘Aquarius’. She's called Nezumi and she's a Japanese vampire schoolgirl. In that manga way. So a thousand year old chick in a sailor suit with a sword. I felt for a while that the series desperately needed a non-European, non-White viewpoint character and this is her.


Thank you Kim Newman for speaking to us!
​
 

From London to Tokyo...

​In 1899 Geneviève Dieudonné travels to Japan with a group of vampires exiled from Great Britain by Prince Dracula. They are allowed to settle in Yokai Town, the district of Tokyo set aside for Japan's own vampires, an altogether strange and less human breed than the nosferatu of Europe. Yet it is not the sanctuary they had hoped for, as a vicious murderer sets vampire against vampire, and Yokai Town is revealed to be more a prison than a refuge. Geneviève and her undead comrades will be forced to face new enemies and the horrors hidden within the Temple of One Thousand Monsters...

 
To celebrate the launch of the new charity anthology Splatterpunk: Fighting Back from Jack Bantry's Splatterpunk Zine Ginger Nuts of Horror brings you a series of interviews with some of the contributors to the anthology. Today Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to welcome David Benton  to the interview chair.   

David Benton is the bass player for internationally renowned heavy metal novelty act Beatallica, as well as performing in one of the Milwaukee area’s most sought after original music groups, Chief. Published fiction collaborations with W.D. Gagliani have appeared in The X-Files: Trust No One, SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror, SNAFU: Wolves at the Door, Dark Passions: Hot Blood 13, Zippered Flesh 2, Splatterpunk Zine, The Horror Zine, DeadLines, and others.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
Outside of my creative endeavors I work days as a janitor at a nursing home. In the past I’ve been employed as a bricklayer, a cheese maker, forklift operator, I’ve worked on a printing press, and those are just the day jobs that readily come to mind. I have two grown daughters who I’m very proud of. And I’m currently living with my mother who is being treated for lung cancer (so participating in the Fighting Back anthology really hits home)

What do you like to do when you're not writing?
 
I actually don’t spend nearly enough time writing. Writing is what I do when I’m not at my day job, maintaining the house, making music, or upholding my social obligations. I suffer from the consequences of serving too many masters. If I had the option I would spend more time writing.

What does Splatterpunk mean to you? What attracts you to writing in this genre?
 
Splatterpunk is a sub-genre that doesn’t flinch away from graphically depicting sex, violence, or often a combination of the two. I don’t think I’m specifically drawn to Splatterpunk so much as I’m drawn to horror fiction in a broader sense, and what draws me to it is its dark and imaginative nature. I guess I can’t explain exactly why. I grew up a huge fan of Universal, Toho, and Hammer monster movies, as well as Warren Magazines. From there I was drawn to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which exposed me to a lot of fantasy and horror fiction, and I guess I just liked the darker fork in the road better. Basically, I like monsters.

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?
 
I think the ease of self-publishing, POD, and electronic publishing will end any large scale movements in publishing, and instead we will be able to find new work (and a lot of it) branching in every direction. The age of the gatekeepers and tastemakers is over. In much the same way that home recording and streaming has changed the music industry, technology will continue to challenge the status quo. As a fan it will be a great time to find new works from a wide variety of voices representing every sub-genre and style. Unfortunately it will also make it more and more difficult to earn a living wage as an artist.
 
What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
I’m a big fan of the Joe Konrath quote: “There’s a word for an author who doesn’t give up… published.” I think that, not just in writing but in life, giving up is the only way to ensure failure. As long as you stick to it and keep pushing forward you will improve.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of? Which book or story do you think is a good ‘jumping on’ point for new readers?
 
I’m proud of all of them for different reasons. I don’t think I can pick a favorite. I think the story W.D. Gagliani and I wrote for the Fighting Back anthology, Feast of Consequences, is a fine place to start. It’s actually a self-contained excerpt from a longer piece of fiction we’re slowly picking away at between other projects.

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
I recently finished my first novel and I’ll be self-publishing it soon, hopefully before the end of the year or early in 2018. It’s an apocalyptic tale of nature run amok entitled Fauna. Now I’m working on a longer piece of fiction about reincarnation.

To celebrate the launch of the new charity anthology Splatterpunk: Fighting Back from Jack Bantry's Splatterpunk Zine Ginger Nuts of Horror brings you a series of interviews with some of the contributors to the anthology. Today Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to welcome George Daniel Lea  to the interview chair.   

George Lea is an unfixed oddity that has a tendency to float around the UK Midlands (his precise location and plain of operation is somewhat difficult to determine beyond that, though certain institutions are working on various ways of defining his movements).

An isolated soul by nature, he tends to spend more time with books than with people, consumes stories in the manner a starving man might the scattered debris of an incongruously exploded pie factory, whilst also attempting to churn out his own species of mythological absurdity (it's cheaper than a therapist, less trouble than an exorcist and seems to have the effect of anchoring him in fixed form and state, at least for the moment).

Proclaims to spend most of his time "...feeling like some extra-dimensional alien on safari," which he very well might be (apprehension and autopsy will likely yield conclusive details).

Following the publication of his first short story collection, Strange Playgrounds, is currently working in collusion with the entity known as "Nick Hardy" on the project Born in Blood.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

Maybe a little. It always feels like this part of the interview has a confessional quality to it.
 
I'm...a fairly isolated soul by nature and inclination; I work in a field that is incredibly social (care and social support for individuals with learning difficulties), thus I find that moments of silence and separation from humanity are rare.
 
Those moments are more precious to me than almost any commodity I can identify: I need that silence, that schism, in order to not only rejuvenate myself, but to process the daily maelstrom of information and experience and input that my work requires.
 
Those are the moments when the weirdness makes itself apparent; when the images and visions that swill around my skull almost every waking instant (and otherwise) insist on themselves and demand to be expressed.
 
If I didn't indulge them or found myself in a position where I could not, then I fancy that the next you'd know of me would be through some headline or TV news report, though in what capacity I wouldn't like to conjecture.

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

Beyond the standard “thinking about writing?;” I've inherited from my Mother a love of all things media, from written fiction to art, comic books to video games...and there's very little parameter or restriction in that, though I tend to favour the bizarre or the surreal, I try not to limit myself or my input based on nostalgia or traditional prejudice:
 
Recently, for example, I was introduced to the highly theatrical absurdity that is the Julie Andrews vehicle, “Victor Victoria;” about as far from the kind of material that I produce as it's possible to get, but I adored it, because it's beautiful and brilliant and farcical.
 
Video games are a principle passion, though it's rare these days that I get the time to indulge them to their full.
 
I'm also what would probably be described as an inveterate geek; I enjoy lots of insular hobbies such as science fiction war-gaming, fantasy and horror tabletop roleplay, boardgames, strategy games et al.
 
I've also recently found myself getting into all forms of podcasting, which I enjoy immensely.

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?

Very, very difficult to predict: recent shifts have seen more or less the entire genre move to independent markets and flourish there, with numerous forms and sub-genres of horror available that mainstream markets struggled to find niches for (if they bothered at all).
 
The financial success of the recent adaptation of Stephen King's “IT,” the efflorescence of various forms of horror on the small screen, means that there might be another upheaval occurring in which the genre becomes popular and profitable again, but that remains to be seen:
 
With horror being so reflexive of cultural climate (at its most ideal), I can imagine there being something of an efflorescence in coming years, particularly in areas where it overlaps with other genres (for example, we've already seen the mass proliferation of dystopian horror/science fiction in response to certain political situations).
 
As to what forms it might take, who knows? Personally, I'd love to see the genre transcend itself a little and trespass into more surreal territory, but that's a matter of personal taste and inclination.

As a horror writer, do you consider any topic off limits? Is there a topic or subject you would never write about?
 
Off limits? No; not in and of itself. Any and all subjects, situations etc potentially have merit and are worth expressing or exploring, but I do feel they have to be earned, by which I mean: they must be treated with due attention, if a writer is going to tackle them.
 
For example, if one is going to approach subjects of emotional extremity and resonance such as abuse or neglect, abandonment or trauma, one doesn't necessarily need direct experience of such things (that's what imagination is for), but one should have enough respect for the subject matter and one's own writing to put in the necessary research and/or contemplation and to present those subjects/situations in such a manner that they maintain verisimilitude: there is nothing worse than a writer presenting experiences or situations in their work that they clearly haven't considered or have little understanding of, if only because it has the effect of diluting and potentially destroying the fiction.
 
There is also the danger of rendering atrocity banal through repetition or the manner in which we present it: in that regard, I'd say we who dare broach such subjects in our writing do have a degree of responsibility, if only to ensure that such things are treated with weight and significance, rather than blandishment.
 
Are there any subjects I wouldn't write about? Not for moral reasons, rather because they either don't interest me or I don't think I have anything to say about them. But there is nothing in and of itself I would consider forbidden: if anything, I'd say that my writing principally concerns itself with transgression and approaching those very subjects and concerns that culture at large denies or sublimates: I don't particularly see the point in art, fiction or any created thing that doesn't do that in some way, shape or form: we are so enjoined by the systems we are born into to look away, to deny, to take the easiest or proscribed road...art and fiction allow for alternatives; for questions to be asked where they traditionally haven't but sorely need to.
 
In that, a certain degree of courage is necessary in order to write well and truthfully; we need to be willing to approach what others will not or actively disavow; to explore subjects, situations and phenomena that culture at large might seek to suppress or “protect” us from. This means that many will react strongly to the situations and subjects we present; we may trigger association with their own experiences, traumas etc, but this is what art and fiction are for: without that resonance and arousal, it becomes meaningless; like chewing already-masticated gum or eating a meal synthetically shorn of flavour or nutrients: fiction should not seek to protect any of us. Quite the contrary; to be hurt, to be soiled, to be wounded by art and fiction, are worthwhile experiences; it allows us to explore those contexts in arenas of imagination, without significant harm or consequence occurring, and thereby to develop our own emotional and imaginative conditions.
 
What do you most enjoy about the short story format? What do you find challenging?

Elegance. Elegance and concision; short stories require a degree of consideration and refinement that novels or larger works simply do not; there isn't any space for redundancy or deviation in a short story: they must tell what they have to tell within the allotted framework and do it well, or fail.
 
That is the beauty and challenge of them: they must be concise and stylised in the manner of poetry, yet weighty and significant in the manner of a novel.
 
For my money, the very best short stories are those that make best use of implication and inference; that trust the reader to fill in the spaces between words and paragraphs with their own assumptions and projections.
 
The very best short story writers know how to utilise silence and empty space in the same manner as the best composers of music.

Other than the  horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
How long have you got?; Everything, everything ever; every experience, every iota of input, everything that has ever engaged or disturbed or inspired or distressed...all of it has had impact upon the state of my mind and imagination; all of it continues to, and will do so, I would presume, until consciousness itself flickers out (assuming it will).
 
But, in terms of specific media influences, I'm fairly broad in what  I consume and always have been: as a child and adolescent, various forms of dark fantasy were my principal loves, as were traditional mythologies and folktales (I could do a fairly decent take on Hesiod as a kid). From there, I diversified into more or less any and all kinds or forms of fiction you might care to name: I adore various forms of science fiction (cyberpunk maintaining a particular  fascination), murder mysteries, detective noir; certain forms and sub-genres of erotica and romance...there is very little I will reject out of hand; if it is passably well put together, I'll likely get something out of it.
 
Another MAJOR influence on the state of my imagination would be video games:
a format that I feel somewhat privileged to have witnessed the birth and evolution of, certainly in terms of home computing, from the cassette-driven crudity of the Sinclair Spectrums and Commodore C64s to their current state of “Virtual Reality,” almost total immersion.
 
As story telling devices, video games have developed their own traditions, mythologies, tropes and techniques, and are fascinating in that regard; they inform  new modes of storytelling even as they are themselves informed by more traditional ones. Some of the most engaging, distressing and influential stories I've ever experienced are through the medium of video games, which has, in turn, profoundly affected the state of my imagination and the nature of my own storytelling.
 
This is an example of what I'd call an impossible question, in that there are so many answers and none at all: it asks us to pretend objectivity regarding the states of our own imaginations, and therefore our own states of mind: mind and imagination being both the subjects under and instruments of scrutiny, the analysis itself therefore becoming paradoxical.
 
And also lots of fun to play around with.
 
What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

I can't say I've ever been given a great deal of good advice on writing, as so much of the self-proclaimed “advice” out there is presumptuous, subjective nonsense.
 
The very best examples I can think of are non-didactic, but exemplary; those that demonstrate rather than telling.
 
There is definitely a “nuts and bolts” workmanship to the crafting element that takes time, experience and failure to learn. Stephen King talks quite eloquently about it in his book “On Writing” (one of the ONLY books about writing itself worth reading): much of it is simply a matter of getting out of your own way, not allowing yourself to get away with excuses and putting pen to paper (quite literally, in my case, as I write all of my first drafts longhand). Even if what you produce is shit, you are refining the craft by doing; you are teaching yourself what works and what doesn't.
 
Beyond that, I tend to look to the work of writers I admire as example: how did or could anyone have produced anything as mythologically complex as, for example, Barker's Imajica or Weaveworld? How did Mervyn Peake conceive and render the gothic immensity of Gormenghast? How could William Gibson have conceived of Neuromancer in a time before the internet was even a popular concept, much less a reality?
 
For my money, the very best form of self-education for a writer is simply to experience what others have created; to look at what works for them as a reader and become somewhat surgical in their analyses: How does this work and why? What is it about this element of the work that resonates?
 
But advice? Very little sticks with me or resonates profoundly. The lessons of experience are as paramount in this area as they are in any art or craft; the only way to learn is to do it and fail and do it and fail and do it and fail ad nauseum until you get halfway good at it, and not to abandon the effort because the first five or ten or twenty or a hundred efforts don't work.
 
What piece of your own work are you most proud of? Which book or story do you think is a good ‘jumping on’ point for new readers?
 
I'm very proud of anything I've managed to finish and refine to a legible -let alone publishable- standard. I take a LONG time to refine my stories from the sprawling tangles of ideas and images they originally occur as, meaning that my output is not -and is likely never going to be- anything approaching what others manage.
 
That said, anything I DO put out there for consideration has usually been worked on and considered and refined to the utmost possible degree. I place a high value on the “craft” element of the exercise, as I am asking people to lend me their time and attention; to lend me territory in their minds and imaginations. That places an onus of responsibility on me to give them the very best I can; to treat them with as much respect as I demand as a reader; to not treat them as lesser or as merely consumers for my material.
 
My first short story collection, Strange Playgrounds, somewhat serves as a manifesto of what my writing is about: that is, to transgress beyond proscribed boundaries, upset certain enshrined or proscribed traditions and demonstrate that material ostensibly labelled as “horror” can treat its audience with enormous respect; that it can be smart and profound and beautiful and moving, rather than what general audiences seem to assume (i.e. that it is universally “low brow,” catering to prurience and indulging in cheap shocks etc).
 
I'd say that would be an excellent start, as it more or less sets out what comes after; what I intend as a writer, and will determine whether or not readers will have a taste for my work (NOTE: it most certainly isn't for everyone).

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

My last book was the aforementioned Strange Playgrounds. Recently, I've been involved in a MUCH vaster project in the form of Born in Blood; a joint project with the photographer Nick Hardy, involving the creation of six volumes of Nick's photographs and my short stories inspired by themes of madness, mental illness, distress, abuse etc.
 
The full short story collection will also be published separately next year by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, so that readers can get a grasp of the wider mythology before the full set of visual volumes are published.
 
All proceeds from the project will be going to mental health organisations, most notably the charity MIND.
 
It has proven to be an immense and immensely rewarding project, and has garnered some attention from some interesting sources, not to mention opened up a number of doors for Nick and myself.
 
If you like horror that is not wry or sardonic, but intends to genuinely unsettle, distress and disturb, then check it out.

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

Question: Are you okay?
 
Answer: Probably not.

To celebrate the launch of the new charity anthology Splatterpunk: Fighting Back from Jack Bantry's Splatterpunk Zine Ginger Nuts of Horror brings you a series of interviews with some of the contributors to the anthology. Today Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to welcome Bracken Macleod to the interview chair.  
 
Bracken MacLeod has worked as a martial arts teacher, a university philosophy instructor, for a children's non-profit, and as a trial attorney. He is the author of the novels, Mountain Home, Stranded, and Come to Dust. His short fiction has appeared in several magazines and anthologies including LampLight, ThugLit, and Splatterpunk and has been collected in 13 Views of the Suicide Woods by ChiZine Publications. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and son, where he is at work on his next novel.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
A: I’m the author of a short story collection titled 13 Views of the Suicide Woods, and three novels. The first of those, Mountain Home, was just newly re-released in an author’s preferred edition by Haverhill House Press in October. I’ve done a lot of things before I came to be a writer, but whatever I gave up previously, I’m presently an insufferable bastard.

What does Splatterpunk mean to you? What attracts you to writing in this genre?

A: Splatterpunk to me started as a reaction to traditional quiet horror, the same way Punk music was a reaction and an answer to the love and peace music of the ‘60s. Given that the Splatterpunk subgenre is thirty years old now, I think it has evolved from a reaction into a heated conversation with quiet horror. But it’s still an inversion of the inherent conservatism of traditional horror where the status quo is what has to be restored in order for the protagonists to prevail. Splatterpunk (if it is truly to retain its punk credibility) has to be about how the horror of the world changes us and forces us to live differently (if we can live at all), instead of how do we get back to those quiet days before the shit hit the fan. If there isn’t something that its in an argument with, it’s not fucking punk! You don’t lace up your Dr. Martens to go on a garden tour. You put ‘em on to go kick shit down.

What do you most enjoy about the short story format? What do you find challenging?
 
A: What I enjoy about short story writing is the challenge of creating well-realized situations and characters in very little space. I think of myself primarily as a novelist, and when I’m writing novels, I have hundreds of pages to stretch out and let this person’s dilemma unfurl. A short piece forces me to think in an entirely different way about problems and solutions and about what makes a person interesting enough to want to know what happens to them. You have to use big knives for short story writing. This is no place for a leisurely dissection; you gotta hack at the meat to get to the bone in short time.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
A: Strictly limiting myself to written fiction, I’d say that the crime and literary genres (yes, “literary” is a genre with its own tropes and reader expectations) are my biggest influences as a writer along with horror. Books by Cormac McCarthy and James M. Cain taught me that the real heart of any story is always about people, not situations. Not monsters. Without real, well-fleshed out people facing terrible adversity, I don’t care about your monsters. And if the characters at the center of your story aren’t interesting enough for me to feel invested in either their success or failure, then I don’t give a shit about how many clever kills or unexpected twists an author can throw in.
 
What piece of your own work are you most proud of? Which book or story do you think is a good ‘jumping on’ point for new readers?

A: That’s hard. I’m proud of everything I’ve done for different reasons. I think Mountain Home is my best expression of the idea that the villain is the hero of her own tale, while Stranded captures everything I ever wanted to do with a paranoid supernatural thriller. But I’d have to say that Come to Dust is probably my favorite thing I’ve written so far. It’s the book I had to get closest to in order to get it out. I went deep into some really dark places to make that book have the kind of feeling I was going for.
 
For a new reader, I suppose it depends on what they’re looking for. Mountain Home is an all chiller, no filler siege novel. Come to Dust is a meditation on family and death in the context of dead children coming back to life (not zombies). And Stranded is my sci-fi horror love letter to stories like John Carpenter’s The Thing and Jacob’s Ladder.  Pick your poison!

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

I discussed my last book in the answer above, but what I’m working on now is a home invasion thriller about a couple who buy a house with stolen money from a man who isn’t ready to give it up. His secrets and theirs collide in a way that could cost all of them everything. It’s about all those little expenses that aren’t part of the asking price, and can sink the deal if you aren’t prepared for them. The book is tentatively titled Closing Costs. This one’s a “secular horror” thriller more like Mountain Home than either Stranded or Come to Dust. 

 
Em Dehaney is a mother of two, a writer of fantasy and a drinker of tea. Born in Gravesend, England, her writing is inspired by the dark and decadent history of her home town. She is made of tea, cake, blood and magic. By night she is The Black Nun, editor and whip-cracker at Burdizzo Books. By day you can always find her at http://www.emdehaney.com/ or lurking about on Facebook posting pictures of witches. https://www.facebook.com/emdehaney/
Her poem ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing’ features in the Burdizzo Books 12Days Christmas anthology and will soon be released as an illustrated novelette.  Her short story ‘The Mermaid’s Purse’ can be found in the Fossil Lake anthology Sharkasaurus. All available on her Amazon page.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

You know that opening scene in the film Goodfellas? “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster”? Well, substitute ‘gangster’ for ‘writer’, and substitute a kid running away from an exploding car with a kid sitting in the corner scribbling in a notebook, and you’re there.

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

Spending money I don’t have on kitsch print dresses, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and making mix-cds (not playlists, I like kicking it old school).

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

I read and write all sorts. My first novel is urban historical fantasy, I have a YA novel in the planning, I write poetry, horror, sci-fi, whatever takes my fancy. I think genre shouldn’t be a boundary, you should just write what you love. I love to read fantasy, historical fiction, horror, so called “literary fiction”, whatever that means. I also love factual books and true crime. I always have about three or four books on the go at any one time.  At the moment I’m reading a book about Hurricane Katrina, a historical fiction about The Great Fire of London, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman and Something Wicked This Way Comes by the genius that is Ray Bradbury. I am also a huge music lover and am a sucker for a rock biography.

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?

It is ironic that the horror community is, for the most part, the kindest, most generous, friendly and funniest bunch of lovelies you could hope to meet, and yet somehow ‘horror writer’ brings these negative connotations. Some people seem unable to separate the art from the artist. You write books about murdering people, therefore you must want to murder people. Horror books and films aren’t for everyone but that’s fine. I can’t stand chick-lit or rom-coms.

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?

Post-apocalyptic horror is where it’s at for me. Natural disasters, man-made disasters, war, famine, potential nuclear destruction. I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road this summer. I read it in one sitting, and it is one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. Not badged as a ‘horror’ novel, but horror nonetheless.

We have two post-apocalyptic tales in our latest anthology Sparks: ‘I’m Your Electric Man’ by Dani Brown and ‘Final Charge’ by Peter Germany. I’ve just written ‘A Story of Monsters, a post-apocalypse campfire tale and am currently working on a zombie story set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

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

It always has to be Stephen King, for so many reasons. His books had a massive impact on me as a youngster, Carrie and Misery in particular. The originality in both form and content. And he introduced me to Bradbury and Lovecraft. Ok, so he has written a couple of stinkers in his time, but even his worst is better than most writers could dream of being. He gets classed  as ‘just’ a horror writer, when really he writes epics of the modern condition, the failed American dream, hopes and fears for the future, dreams of the past and the loss of innocence. They just sometimes happen to have vampires or ghosts or possessed cars in them. His ‘On Writing’ should be mandatory for anyone even thinking of picking up a pen.

Another massive influence on my writing is the early Poppy Z. Brite novels. I remember getting New Orleans vampire tale Lost Souls when I was about 12 and devouring it in a day. The descriptions are so rich and colourful they almost hurt your eyes. You can taste the chartreuse, inhale the clove cigarette smoke. Brite’s follow up novel Drawing Blood just blew me away. It’s the story of a computer hacker falling in love with the only surviving son of a comic book artist who murdered his family then himself. It is a Deep South hallucinogenic horror, with plenty of sex and tech thrown in (all very dated now I’m sure, I haven’t read it in an while). The use of drugs as a portal to other worlds is something I have used in my own fiction.

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

My partner in crime at Burdizzo Books Matthew Cash has got a new book coming out soon called Fur, which is awesome (and I’m not just saying that). Jonathan Butcher is another one to watch. There was a real buzz around his recent release What Good Girls Do, a real thought provoking book, if hard to read at times. Burdizzo are working with him on a future release and it is hugely exciting.

How would you describe your writing style?

I tend to bring humour into a lot of my writing, as I’m generally a bit of a piss-taker. I’m quite proud to say that top fantasy publishing house Gollancz rejected my novel because it was too funny and there isn’t ‘a market for funny fantasy books’. I’m sure Terry Pratchett disagree, were he still around.

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

I have dealt with a lot of rejections of my debut novel, from various publishers and agents, and the funny thing is, they were all positive. I’ve yet to be totally slated. I’m sure my time will come. You can’t consider yourself a success unless someone really hates what you do.
 
What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

Finding time. I am a mum of two with a job and a house to keep running. I’ve heard some writers who say “You make time. You don’t do the housework, you don’t watch TV, you don’t do anything else, you just write.” Those people don’t have a two year old. I manage to cram the writing in when I can, but I very rarely get a quiet hour or two now to really get into the zone, like I did when my son had just been born. I wrote my first novel, about 80’000 words, in 8 months while on maternity leave. I have been writing my second novel for about a year and I’m barely past 25k.

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

I personally am not a fan of extreme sexual violence in my books, but that’s not to criticize those who do write about this kind of thing.

It all depends on the context and how it is written. There are lots of subjects that are considered taboo, but we still need to confront them through fiction. The difference is if these things are written about as titillation or to drive the story and the themes of the book forward. Extreme misogyny, violence, homophobia, rape, child abuse or racism purely for the sake of being shocking is not for me.

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 have various methods of choosing names for my characters. Sometimes they come to me, fully formed characters with their names. Other times it is as result of historic research. And other than that, I just like to collect unusual names that I come across in my life (I deal with a lot of different names from all around the world in my day job as a background screening analyst).

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

I’ve found editing for Burdizzo has made me much more aware of my own writing. I think critiquing others, either through editing or through critiquing sites like Scribophile is a great way to learn. That and reading a lot in a wide range of genre. And writing a lot. There is no substitute for practice.

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

An imagination. Other than that, it doesn’t really matter. Pencil? Fountain pen? Scrivener? The blood of your enemies? Who cares as long as you write.

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

Two pieces of advice, both from successful published authors. The first was “You are not an aspiring writer. If you write, you are writer.”
The second was, when I said my writing was never good enough and how I would read books and feel I could never write anything as good as that. “When you read a novel, it is the end of a very long process that starts with a shitty first draft just like yours, so don’t give up.” Never give up has become my writing motto.

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

I use social media to promote myself and my work, mainly Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I also blog, I record podcasts and I answer questions for Gingernuts of Horror! For all the criticism that social media gets, I have made the best connections, both personal and professional, through it. It is the new way to network, when we can’t get out to all the conventions and book fairs, it keeps you a part of the community. I have made links with artists who are now working with us at Burdizzo, other writers, put those writers in touch with screenwriters and actresses, and I have made some lifelong 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?

My favourite child is literally a child: Mikey from my Sharkasurus story ‘The Mermaid’s Purse’. He is a kid who is abused and neglected by his horrible mother, but takes his bloody revenge with the help of his pet shark. I have an emotional attachment to him and I would like pick his story up again, later on in life.
 
My least favourite characters always end up getting killed off in horrible ways (head smashed in with a bass guitar, dick pulled off and insides eaten by harpies, shredded by a shark) so I still enjoy writing them.

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

My first ever publication was my Christmas poem ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing’. I’m proud because it was my first piece in print and a stranger liked it enough to put it in their book (because that was what Matthew Cash at Burdizzo Books was back then). I’m double proud of it now as we have enlisted the services of Polish artist Krzysztof Wronksi and are turning it into an illustrated mini-graphic novel type thing.

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

A lot of terrible poetry I wrote whilst at University!

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

Well, I’ve only written one book so far, which has yet to be published.

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

This, from the current novel I am working on, The Lady of The Dead.
 
‘The Lady of The Dead comes for you. First, she will eat the stars.’
Ethel yanked Tommy’s arm, pulling him in close enough to feel her breath on his face. It smelled of rotten flowers. A voice came from deep within her, harsh and mocking. It was both infinite and intimate, a legion of voices in unison whispering in his ear.
‘Then she will eat your heart.’

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

My first novel, The Golden Virginian, is a tale of tea and cake, weed and water, magic and murder, full of riverside town history mixed in with urban fantasy. I am currently working on the sequel, The Lady of The Dead. It features the real life 1661 murder of a Transylvanian prince, Mexican folklore and Romany gypsies.
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

‘What’s that noise?’
‘Why don’t you go and investigate on your own?’
‘Ok, you stay here and get murdered. I’ll go off and get murdered.’

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

I really wanted to like Kraken by China Mieville. I mean, what’s not to like right? Giant squid gods, paranormal Police departments, a parallel supernatural London, talking tattoos, It’s right up my street. Yet, for some reason I failed to finish it. I’m more disappointed with myself than the book.
I’ve already mentioned The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I really enjoyed Paul Kane’s Sherlock Holmes and The Servants of Hell. I also loved M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts.

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

‘Hi, I’m from – insert name of famous publishing house here – please can we give you a million pound book deal, within which you will retain full creative control over your creations?’
Me: ‘Where do I sign?’
Yes, I am very proud of being a indie and producing our own books outside of the traditional publishing world, but I would still love the validation and the exposure that comes with a book deal. I know it isn’t always a fairy tale ending, but deep down we all secretly want to be able to make a (good) living out of our writing.

Pippa Bailey lives in rural Shropshire, England. Principally a horror writer, independent reviewer, and YouTube personality. Her supernatural, and sci-fi stories have featured in several anthologies, and zines. Her debut novel LUX is due for release summer 2018.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I’m what is commonly referred to as a RAF brat. Having grown up bouncing around military bases before finally settling in Shropshire, I’ve always had a bit of a disjointed life. I feel very much like a nomad without a real home. I think that need to belong has greatly influenced my characters.
I do have a day job, which I enjoy very much. But I suppose that come with the territory of writing horror. I work for a Magistrates criminal court as an usher. I spend my day in black robes working with legal advisers, lawyers, and criminals. It can be exciting, but it can also be incredibly harrowing. Every day I see people on the worst day of their lives.

I’m a bit of a gym bunny, you’ll find me there most week days. It helps me work through the necessary evils of my day job. Clears my mind.

I was a writer from a young age, with achievement awards (which I still have) for short horror stories at primary school. I started writing again as an adult after an accident a few years ago left me unable to walk for 3 months. I couldn’t return to work, so I needed something to fill my time. Boom. I started writing.

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

When I’m not writing I’m probably reading. I have a relatively large collection of indie horror comics and graphic novels, slowly collected over the last few years. They tend to keep me entertained, when I’m not delving into larger works of fiction.
I will admit I am addicted to watching “Lets Play”.  When I’m winding down at the end of the night you’ll find me on YouTube watching Game Grumps, (loud idiots playing games, being sarcastic and voice acting.) I love it.

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

I think other than the horror genre, locations have been a large influence on my writing. I have been lucky enough to grow up in an area steeped in history. I have spent the last 20 years in a tiny village in Shropshire, called Albrighton. Its full title being, Albrighton, Home of the English Rose.

It’s mentioned in the Doomsday book of 1066, and is potentially far older than that. The village sporadically ends up in the news. In January a 700-year-old templar cave was discovered under a field at the far end of the village boundaries. We also have the world famous “David Austen Roses” rose garden, which I visit several times a year.

Large sections of this strange little village have made their way into my literary world under the guise of Alnwick.

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 is one of the most versatile genres to work within. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it the same way. When talking to non-horror readers about my writing there is an automatic assumption that horror equals disgusting, or bad. Yes, I will admit, with horror you’re more likely to come across the extremes of human nature, and, or of the supernatural world. But that doesn’t have to equate shock value. With the recent release of the film IT (2017). I feel that it has done a great service to those of us working in the horror industry, by making the genre more accessible to those who wouldn’t traditionally approach it. Small changes like this in the minds of the general-public is turning the tide on the assumption that horror equals bad.


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?
 
The world today is a scary place. It can be said that it has always been a scary place, but now due to social media we see more of the dark side that was once hidden away. People seem more able, certainly in the literary community to approach these topics with an openness you don’t see in the media. In the last few years there seems to have been a resurgence in the horror genre. With TV shows like Stranger Things, and American Horror Story. I can see a new audience enjoying the thrill of what we have to offer, and I hope in the future this continues.


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

The first thing that springs to mind when looking at my influences would be the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It had a huge impact on my teenage years. When you’re leaving childhood, still vulnerable and starting to question your place in the world. Then BLAM. This powerhouse of a woman appears, kicking arse, and lusting after some dark and brooding man. It helped me never shy away from making my female characters strong, funny and open to love, no matter how many times it has destroyed them. Clive Barker’s Cabal, had an earlier influence on me. Having spent years staring at the cover of the book on my dad’s shelf he let me read it. I was completely blown away. This was my first introduction to anything of a sexual nature. And the innate darkness of people. I loved it. It sent me on my own dark path. It taught me that you shouldn’t mince your words. If you’re going to write a powerful scene. Do it, and do it well.

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

I am currently enjoying reading works from Mark Cassell and Lydian Faust, who both had releases this year. Mark with Hell Cat of the Holt and In the Company of False Gods. Lydian with Forest Underground. Both authors are spectacular world builders and the ambience they create is second to none. I can’t rate them highly enough. I see them both winning awards in the future.

How would you describe your writing style?

I lean towards supernatural horror, and with that I tend to find a familiar pattern within my stories. A punchy start, slow build, and an incredibly destructive scene, the pinnacle of action for the character. I don’t like to use gratuitous gore, I tend to punctuate with pockets of nastiness, give the reader a taste of how bad it could get. Let their mind fill in the blanks.


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

As my work has mostly been in anthologies it doesn’t always get picked up on individually. Though I do have a review from my first ever story Scarred. Reading that someone felt that passionately about my words nearly left me in tears. I felt proud of myself for the first time. It was a really great feeling that I hope I repeat.

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

I will openly admit I have dyslexia. I struggle with grammar and sentence structure. You probably won’t see that in my work because I have such fantastic support when it comes to editing. I have been very lucky to have become a Padawan of sorts to a far superior author. I have a huge collection of books on writing I was advised to get, and I’m slowly working my way through those. I can see myself steadily improving, but it is hard work. Editing takes me a very long time, because I’m constantly questioning myself, not on the content of the story, but on my ability to write.

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

I don’t think there is. I choose to write supernatural horror because that’s what I like to read. I’m comfortable writing about any taboos as I’ve learned from my day job to distance myself from things. Genre wise, I’m not interested in writing non-fiction, nor am I about history, or romance.

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 do tend to take my time over a character’s name, sometimes a character feels a certain way, or I want their name to meet something. I do the same with place names. I sometimes sneak in detail from my own world. Such as using the same number of letters in a name, as the real person the character is based upon. Or in my novel there is a school called Austin Albrights. Which is an amalgamation of David Austin Roses and Albrighton.

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

I’m still a newbie, so I am on my journey of discovery and learning. I’ve had a lot of support, and have been lucky enough to be mentored by a fantastic author. I’ve started studying my weak point, grammar and sentence structure. I’m taking my time to better my skills. I recommend picking up books from Rayne Hall, her work is invaluable when improving your skills.

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

Note pads, pencils, and flash cards. I was given a box of writers’ tools as a birthday gift. I think I have used everything in the box multiple times. It’s one of the most generous, thoughtful gifts I’ve ever been given. I highly recommend you go and make your own.
 
What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

Study writing, study your own work. Study the intricacies of what makes your work shine, find it in others and take notes. Keep notepads everywhere.

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

I was networking long before I was writing. I used to run an independent review company, and I have done PA and admin for several comic books, artists and authors.
Marketing and getting your work noticed is a lot about thinking outside the box, and making the right connections. Also creating a brand, an image is very important.
Knowing the right people, gets your work in the right places.

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?

My favourite is Finn, he’s one of the main characters in my novel series. I love his quirks, his awkward nature and how he unabashedly makes a fool of himself.

“Oops. Here,” he said, helping her take a bite, “of course, when I tell this story it’s going to be the other way around.”
“Hmm?” Alex muttered.
“Oh, I’ll be the one being hand fed by someone gorgeous,” said Finn grinning, “while tied up.”
 
– Least would be the woman in my first story, scarred. I have a lot of contempt for her and who she is. But I wrote her that way, and I don’t think I’d write someone like her again.

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

No none of my characters deserve to be forgotten, but several could be improved.

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

As I have only short stories available to the public currently I’d recommend my story from sparks when it is released, as I feel my skill level has improved greatly between this story and some of my earlier works.

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

Yes, but it’s a little racy.
The room darkened as she massaged him, shrouding him in a shadow he couldn’t fully comprehend. She made quick work of extracting the first few moans from his parched lips. Hands falling silently from the keyboard, twitching at his sides. He had lost this game of pleasure again, his slick cock aching in her grip. She knew how to bring him to the point of no return, waiting for the carnality of his relief.
– From a flash fiction story called Behind you.
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

I’m currently editing a couple stories for 2 anthologies this year. I am also still working on my labor of love, a novel called Lux, which is part 1 of a 6-part series. And I have a novella in the works. Based in the same world as the novel, but takes place 5 years prior.

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

I don’t enjoy the notion of a damsel in destress. I’m also not a big fan of zombies.

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

Last book I read was Forest Underground by Lydian Faust. It’s fantastic. The last book that disappointed me was a book I was asked to review. I won’t name names, but it took me 4 hours to read 25 pages. I had to contact the publisher and ask if they had looked at the book themselves, as it had some major issues.
 
What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer
​
I’ll leave people guessing, and yes.

Today we have the great pleasure of interviewing the Queen of American YA horror Amy Lukavics, who since her debut novel in 2015 has become one of the leading lights on the YA horror scene.  Amy now has three outstanding horror novels under her belt, “Daughters Unto Devils” (2015), “The Woman in the Walls” (2016) and the very recently published “Ravenous” (2017).

Although all three novels are unique experiences, Amy excels in creating strong believable teenage female characters, brooding horror in familiar family settings with freaky supernatural riffs, a combination which is perfect for captivating teenage readers.

Ginger Nuts of Horror has been a fan of Amy for a while and our reviews of her two previous novels can be found behind the links below. When we reviewed her debut novel we wrote “there is a new kid on the block in the world of YA horror.” How right we were…

Daughters unto Devils:
Woman in the Walls:

I have been involved professionally with YA literature for over two decades and have a lifelong interest in horror, and in all those years I can think of very few YA authors who have written three such vividly strong YA horror novels in succession to begin their career. This is one of the reasons I am very surprised Amy has been overlooked thus far for the YA section of the prestigious Bram Stoker Award which is presented annually by the Horror Writer’s Association? I have read virtually all short-listed books over the last few years, and sure there are some good books featured, but I see the omission of Amy as a major oversight from the HWA. Let’s hope they do not make the same mistake again and “The Ravenous” gets the nomination a novel of its quality richly deserves.

Onto the interview.

GNoH: Family, or family/parental issues, are an interconnecting theme in all three of your novels. What’s your fascination with what goes on behind the curtains?

Amy: I've always been intrigued by stories that delve into family relationships; between siblings, between parents, between grandparents. I just think those dynamics are well worth exploring in fiction, and my characters always become more complex and interesting when I tap into the emotions they have surrounding their family members. 

GNoH: Although all three novels are obviously for teens, they are only a small step away from fully fledged adult horror fiction, is this something we can expect from you in the future?

Amy: I absolutely plan on breaking into the adult market eventually! I'm working on my first adult horror now and I'm very excited to see what becomes of it.

GNoH: Apart from the obvious big sellers in the teen market, which YA horror writers do you read/recommend? The obscurer the better, we know it all…

Amy: I'm really into Kaitlin Ward, Cat Winters, Emily Carroll, and Dawn Kurtagich. All for different reasons, but every one of them has successfully creeped me out and/or just filled me with pure horror delight. I was also blown away recently by “My Best Friend's Exorcism” by Grady Hendrix, it was just insanely good.

GNoH: What did you read as a teenager and which authors currently have had the greatest influence on you, horror or otherwise?

Amy: As a teen I read whatever I could get from the school library--Laurie Halse Anderson, Jeffrey Eugenides, Sylvia Plath, RL Stine. I read plenty of Stephen King too, of course, and also never really lost my childhood obsession with the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” books.
As far as influences go, currently I find myself the most inspired by Shirley Jackson, Jennifer McMahon, Paul Tremblay, Joe Hill, Megan Abbott, Stephanie Kuehn, and Gillian Flynn.

GNoH: There are a distinct lack of men/boys/boyfriends in all three of your novels, why do you write such female driven fiction? This is not a criticism! Only an observation…

Amy: It's not necessarily something I've done on purpose, but at the same time I've always written the books that I would want to read myself. And it just so happens that most of my favourite stories, horror or not, are centred around women. I especially love a good female villain!

GNoH: I think you reveal the inspiration to your latest novel “The Ravenous” through a sequence in the book itself when the sisters are watching TV. Tell us what attracted you to The Blood Benders story?

Amy: I'd had an idea about a sister book similar to “The Virgin Suicides” simmering in my head for months, but there was some big piece missing that keep the idea from feeling whole, so I never pursued it. Then one random day, my husband sent me a link with the message “thought you'd be interested in this.” It was an article all about The Bloody Benders, a serial killer family from the early 1870's. The story was absolutely horrifying, and the 'killer family' element promptly transformed my simmering sisters story into “The Ravenous”.

GNoH: Your debut novel “Daughters unto Devils” is set in the prairie lands of old America. You could probably count the number of YA supernatural stories set in this period on one hand. What attracted you to it?

Amy: “Daughters unto Devils” was my first attempt at a horror novel, which I'd been wanting to do for years but had not yet been confident enough to try. But after I wrote a few contemporary novels that never sold, I figured I might as well write what would give me the most joy. I knew I wanted it to be a historical horror, and was going through potential settings in my head before I came across the thought, “What if Little House on the Prairie had been a possession horror?” And it was like a light switch going off...I had to do it!

GNoH: Your protagonists thus far have all been damaged but very engaging teenage girls. Is there much of yourself in these characters? You really put these girls through the wringer! There might even be a career as a ‘straight’ YA writer waiting for you?

Amy: While none of my characters are directly inspired by myself, I can certainly relate to some of the feelings they've experienced—the pressure they put on themselves for whatever reason, or the constant worrying they endure (I'm most certainly a worrier!) As far as the damaged element goes, well...who isn't damaged in one way or the other? Ha-ha!          
 
GNoH: Although for the most part your novels only have sporadic moments of bone crunching violence, I’m thinking of the hammer and eyeball scene in “The Ravenous” do you feel you’re holding the blood back a bit for your youthful audience or has your editor reigned you in?

Amy: No, never, and I get asked this question quite a bit. I'm extremely fortunate to have an editor who totally gets my stories and has never once commented that I needed to pull back on violence or gore, which was a delightful surprise. Some people insist that YA horror needs to be less gory than adult as well as have a happy ending, both things of which I disagree with.

GNoH: If you had a 100% guarantee one of your novels was to be filmed which would it be? Who would star in it?

Amy: Oh man, that's a hard question. I feel like “The Women in the Walls” could make for a really eerie and atmospheric movie, but there's also so much potential cast-wise when it comes to “The Ravenous”. I always thought it'd be awesome to have Taylor Swift to play the 'bad' sister, Juliet, and to have Shannon Purser (Barb from Stranger Things!) play Mona.

GNoH: When I read “The Women in the Walls” one of the things I really liked about it was the vagueness of where and when it was set. I’m also pretty sure there was no social media and I don’t think either of the girls either mentioned boyfriends… It is all very ‘unteenlike’ but helped create a tremendous atmosphere of isolation. Was this deliberate? What were the influences behind this ghost story?

Amy: It was deliberate. One of the most important things about the setting for “The Women in the Walls” was that it was isolated. This meant keeping the cast small and doing what I could to deny them instant access to the outside world, so I left social media out of it. As far as influences go, I was really inspired by the trailer (the movie itself had not yet come out) for “Crimson Peak”. I wanted to capture that dark, eerie, Gothic vibe in my own story!         
         
GNoH: Getting back to your latest novel “The Ravenous” which features five sisters…  I had already thought of “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides before the sisters started watching the film. I take it this was both deliberate and that you’re a fan?

Amy: Yep, I was very inspired by “The Virgin Suicides” for “The Ravenous”. I first discovered the book in high school and ended up loving it so much that I went back to highlight all of my favourite passages like a total geek. I am also a big fan of the Sofia Coppola movie adaptation, and the soundtrack as well.

GNoH: “The Ravenous” is seen through the eyes of one of the middle sisters Mona, who was both a sympathetic and sad character, I’m particularly thinking of her telephone friend, which had a fantastic reveal. Why were you so tough on her? Perhaps it’s tough being the middle sibling…

Amy: Ha! See, I don't really view it as me being tough on my characters, because they aren't pre-existing beings that I inflict horror upon on a whim. Usually when I come up with a character, I already have a pretty good idea of what will happen to them ultimately, even before the more personal details about their struggles come to me, so their experiences are pretty built in from the get-go. Mona was fun to write because of how many conflicting feelings she had on everything from her living situation to her sisters to her mother. And being the middle sibling absolutely had an influence on her character, the poor dear.

GNoH: What is the best piece of advice you ever received from another author?

Amy: It wasn't really advice, but I was really inspired by Paul Tremblay when I was fortunate enough to do a panel with him at San Diego ComicCon in 2016. He was just such a genuinely nice guy who was so encouraging when I mentioned that I wanted to break into the adult market one day. It really meant a lot to me to see someone represent the horror community in such a positive and welcoming way, and it made me want to work hard and write the best books that I possibly can.


GNoH: Can you tell us about your future projects?
Amy: My next book, out fall of 2018, is called “Nightingale” and is a psychological horror that takes place in an asylum in the 1950's. I am so, so excited for it!
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GNoH: Amy Lukavics, the Queen of YA American Horror, It has been an absolute pleasure having you on The Ginger Nuts of Horror and we wish you all the best for “The Ravenous” and future projects.
Tony Jones