GINGER SNAPS: MINI INTERVIEWS WITH BITE! ROBERT P. OTTONE

15/4/2022

Ginger Snaps: Mini Interviews with Bite!

Ginger Snaps is a quick-fire “bite-sized” interview, where your answers relate to what you’ve been doing in the past month (30 days or so).

Tell us:

Who are you?
Robert P. Ottone, author of the cosmic-horror YA novel The Triangle, as well as the collection Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares.

Your signature style:
I guess my signature style would be that I like to riff on urban legends, folklore and more while also adding a little humor and honesty to the work.

Toot your own horn:
My latest novel, The Triangle, is an attempt to introduce a younger audience to the basics of cosmic horror. I wanted to tell a story about a young girl facing impossible horror beyond human understanding, because I feel so often, that growing up feels exactly like that: impossible horror. Changes to one’s body. One’s mind. One’s emotions. It’s like were corrupted and forced into a new person during our formative years and it’s bonkers.

Books read:
My favorite book that I’ve read in the past year is A Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. I had a fairly strong reaction to that one, which I didn’t expect to have going into it. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to hit me that hard.

I’m currently reading Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway and loving it. It’s like salve. That’s really the only way I can describe it. It hasn’t gone crazy yet. I don’t know if it does. But it’s beautiful and sad and I love the characters.

Movies watched:
I really enjoyed Hellbender, Slapface, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched from Shudder. Fresh on Hulu was great. The Manor on Amazon Prime might be the best horror movie of the year. I rented an entire movie theatre to see The Batman and it’s easily the best movie of the year.

Games and/or music played:
My favorite album of last year was probably Chemtrails Over the Country Club by Lana Del Rey. I listened to that on repeat for a while. This year, I’m really digging hard into some older stuff that I hadn’t listened to since I was a kid, because I’m working on something set in the early nineties.

Bands like R. E. M. and The Violent Femmes and stuff. They’re all creeping into my subconscious a lot.

On the videogame front, I’ve been playing too much Best Fiends, Bloons TD 6+ and GameDev Story.

Words written:
My collection Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares was included as an “honourable mention” by Ellen Datlow, which was great.

Future stuff:
I have the follow-up novel in my YA series coming. It’s called The Deep and my goal with that was to expand the world while also telling a more intimate story, if that makes sense. I also have a novel called Nocturnal Creatures that’s coming soon(ish). Beyond that, I have a few short stories being published, one in Even in the Grave, another in The Call of Poohthulhu, and a reprint in Horror From the High Dive Vol. 2.

I have a non-fiction piece on the Silent Hill franchise in the first issue of Weird House Magazine, coming in April/May.

I may or may not have another novel on the horizon that I can’t talk about yet. It’s exceedingly dark and might upset some people.

Brain worms:
I’ll never really understand the thought process behind the modern Halloween trilogy. The folks behind the camera talk a big game about how much they love the original movie and then go as far away from that concept as humanly possible when given the reigns. Makes no sense to me.

When will the producers of the Scream franchise realize that Stephen Graham Jones is the guy to write the next entry? How is it not obvious to them?

I’ll never stop wondering what Hideo Kojima had in store for us with Silent Hills. That lives rent-free in my brain for all eternity.

The Triangle (The Rise Trilogy Book 1)
by Robert P. Ottone

The world, as we know it, is over. Sea level rise has all but finished off life on Earth.

Born with a gift for engineering and technology, Azlynn and her father Merrill spend their days running a small shop in the flotilla community of Coral Cove. They scavenge shipwrecks, sunken vessels, and what precious little remains of the world before the planet drowned. With her best friend Ellis, they do their best to support their community, while struggling to survive.

When a group of scouts sent by The Order, a mysterious and powerful northeastern cabal, goes missing in the nearby Bermuda Triangle, Merrill is tasked with finding them. Unbeknownst to him, Azlynn and Ellis have snuck aboard to join in on the mission to find out what lurks within The Triangle. The ancient, cosmic truths they discover may be more terrifying than they ever imagined.

Robert P. Ottone

Robert P. Ottone is the author of the horror collection HER INFERNAL NAME & OTHER NIGHTMARES (an honorable mention in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOLUME 13) as well as the young adult dystopian-cosmic horror trilogy THE RISE.

His short stories have appeared in various anthologies as well as online. He’s also the publisher and owner of Spooky House Press.

Robert is also an English as a New Language teacher, as well as a teacher of English Language Arts. He can be found online at SpookyHousePress.com or on Twitter/Instagram (@RobertOttone). He delights in the creepy and views bagels solely as a cream cheese delivery device.