 Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself? There isn’t enough time to write all the novels I want to write, so I have to hustle now to make up for lost time. I’ve been writing professionally on and off since 1983. Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life? Wang Fat Fang, a villain in The Enigma Club. You just can’t talk to him. He’s a dick. Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing? The pulps, especially the Martian stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs; and comic books, particularly the Bronze Age up to the mid ‘80s. Tomb of Dracula was seminal to me. 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 horror is best when it is developed gradually and used sparingly, in the same way that Spielberg only allows short glimpses of the shark in Jaws until it’s time for the reveal. King used this technique in ‘Salem’s Lot, and Frank Miller used it in The Dark Knight Returns. The best horror surpasses the name of the genre, and reader or moviegoers accept some titles as mainstream thrillers, when in fact they are true horror, such as Jaws or Silence of the Lambs. Alien is minimally a sci-fi movie, and truly a horror film. I have to think that scaring people today is best done under the guise of a different genre. In that way audiences will accept scares that otherwise they would avoid…simply because it’s called “horror.” A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years? Escapism. A few novels and films will explore pandemic-related dystopias, but as a reader, I don’t want to be reminded of the Trump years or COVID, and I think most audiences will be like that. I envision more supernatural-based films and streaming; more films and series based on popular novels; and many more titles embracing diversity, showing genre-related stories from marginalized creators. Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? There are so many reasons people like horror that the answers are almost repetitious. Some like the supernatural, some like the occult. Some like the gore and the slashers; some like the vampires and werewolves. What I have noticed is that certain types of stories engage the imagination, especially at certain times in our lives. Horror and dystopian fiction seem to stimulate adolescent minds, and those loves linger with us, sometimes for the rest of our lives. We are thrilled by these stories, even with the blood and gore, because most of us see this and can say (somewhere deep in our minds) that this is only a movie, and the blood ain’t real. It’s like a roller coaster ride that is 100% safe, but scares us nevertheless. And it happens in real life when we slow down to look at terrible accidents, and leave, thinking, “Well, at least we’re safe.” It’s a form of aesthetic distancing. We’re fascinated by the show, but avoid the danger. What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre? 1. Pacing, timing, and building development slowly. There is something to be said for starting off a story with a bang, but it’s not always necessary—and I argue that the best stories start with a small, but consequential scene, and gradually rise from there. Again, I point to Close Encounters, Jaws, and The Dark Knight Returns, and their deliberate build up of both story and tension…and the eventual revelation of their characters’ inner strengths. 2. Heart. Having a story that means something. Carpenter’s Halloween asked (and answered) What if the Boogeyman came to town? But, of the uncounted slasher movies that followed it, did a single one of them really have anything to say? King has argued in Danse Macabre that all horror is allegorical. I hate to disagree, but I think that all GOOD horror is allegorical; we have too many bad books and movies that say absolutely nothing, but instead are merely gratuitous, which somehow creates cult audiences for them. Perhaps this is why the mainstream audience is averse to the term “horror”. Maybe the stories as told just aren’t well-rounded enough and substantial. What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off? Michael Howarth. Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you? Ghostflowers has been getting some nice advance reviews, but I can’t say that I memorized them. I’m extremely grateful for the kind things other writers have told me. What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult? Coming up with initial ideas! I write subconsciously while I’m in the middle of a novel, so things flow and ideas come. But original ideas for a new novel are hard to come by. The best stories I’ve written have come when ideas triangulated in my mind. Ghostflowers sprang like that: my wife gave me a simple premise, and in minutes I knew the characters, I knew the setting, and I knew the time period. Once those three things triangulated in my mind, the story opened up for me. Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? Two: the killing of animals, and torture. Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? We almost always start writing by imitating our imagination’s heroes, at least to a degree. My mother taught me how to read by the time I was 3 1/2, by using comic books. So I grew up on comic book adventures, which led to Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Shadow pulps, which led to Dark Shadows and Dracula and Tomb of Dracula, to Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. In college writing workshops, I was emulating King and Bradbury, and realized my prose had grown bloated and purple. In the years since, I’ve learned to pull back, be more direct. That last sentence right there has a comma splice in it. That’s bad writing, and I’ve taught myself as best I could to not use comma splices, and to check myself for bad grammar. And I realized that I have my own distinct voice, and that voice is the one I need to use to tell stories. But I couldn’t tell stories without experiencing first all the other voices, of King and Bradbury and Englehart and Goodwin and Stoker and Burroughs… What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing? Cut it back. Don’t overwrite. Which of your characters is your favourite? I absolutely love Summer Moore, the protagonist of Ghostflowers. I’ve always loved strong women characters—I think it was because The Avengers and Emma Peel were such a powerful influence on me. Also, Summer Moore is much more than just a character. I envisioned her as the embodiment of summer in the South, and I love the heat of summer in Virginia, the way the sky is so blue, and how a haze hangs over the trees. Which of your books best represents you? The Enigma Club (unpublished). It represents many of my literary interests, and my sense of humor, as well as reflecting the past and the future. It’s bookish and fun and stupid, combining text and pictures. It’s Animal House meets Indiana Jones. And it’s me. Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? The Half Shell was no frills: concrete floors, wooden tables and benches, chalkboard menus, and wide windows open to the ocean breeze. Up at the bar it was mostly locals, drinking beers, peeling shrimp and slurping oysters off the shell. Outside, an orange tabby slept on the bare wood railing separating the tables from the docks, and beyond that boats rocked gently in the shallow harbor. Dee insisted that we have conch fritters for an appetizer, and she fed me half the first one and popped the rest in her mouth, grinning as though she'd won a contest. Dinner was a dolphin filet that had been grilled in garlic butter and lime juice. She had the same, and we washed it down with cheap white wine in plastic cups while I told her about the puzzle box and why I had come here. She told me about moving to Key West with her parents when she was a kid and falling in love with it instantly. People laughed somewhere behind me, but I was falling into her wide green eyes, and everything else was merely a whisper—flickering glimpses that danced like candlelight: the mingling aromas of cooked fish and stale beer, the way she twirled her hair while we talked, the sound of boats creaking against the docks; a woman at the bar, laughing at her boyfriend, her hair slick with sweat. I ordered more wine, and told her how much I loved hearty reds; and couples flirted, and the breeze sent me a whiff of Dee's perfume, a wild tropical flower. Yellow light played along a woman's bare shoulder. I smelled salt water and heard the sound of a rock band from somewhere out in the night. A flash of light from the docks, and we laughed as a woman pulled up her tank top for her boyfriend's camera. The moon and stars hung above the Gulf, and a warm breeze sighed through the wide windows, and I thought there was no place and no time finer than this. Excerpt from The Enigma Club by Rus Wornom Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next? So, I finished The Enigma Club in 2012, I think, then I started Ghostflowers in 2013, and finished it in 2014. The draft being published is the 13th draft. I actually began Ghostflowers in 1996, when my wife gave me the idea, but real life and jobs and commuting three or more hours a day got in the way of writing…and then The Enigma Club took over my imagination. That started out as an outline/timeline for a jungle hero story—I had the idea to write a parody of the Tarzan novels. When I created the locale for my jungle man—a mysterious island in the Gulf of Mexico—the island itself became more important than my main character, and I knew that the island was instead the location of a club of pulp-era explorers, going on pulp adventures. The idea still thrills me, even though the novel has been finished for years. Hell, I was just making notes on additions to it earlier today. My next novel is a horror novel that takes place in Miami, and I’m also working on a mystery series with a writing partner. If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice? There are too many I despise, such as couples that have sex or smoke pot will be killed by the slasher, or anything to do with silver bullets. But I’ll just leave it with a very superficial cliché, but one that pisses me off: Dracula ALWAYS wears a cape. Look, I accepted it for Lugosi and Universal; I accepted it for Lee in the Hammer Draculas because, hell, it worked for Lee. But let’s move on. Give the greatest of vampires an equally impressive look, damn it! Get original! What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you? The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis was outstanding. I saw the series, then had to read the book, and the writing just blew me away. It’s the best book I’ve read in the last year and a half. On the other hand, The Shadow, the reboot novel by Patterson and Sitts, was ludicrous. It’s the single worst thing I’ve read—on every level—in a long time. It’s an insult to the original hero. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer? What’s your favorite type of monster? Answer: Same as my favorite hero. Both wear black capes. GHOSTFLOWERS |
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