 It also gives us a safe way to confront the ideas and imagery that may haunt us in our nightmares and imaginations. Horror spans such a rich and diverse spectrum, there is something for everyone if they are willing to explore the options ranging from the horror comedy to the most extreme slaughterhouse blood fest. Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself? I’ve wanted to tell stories for as long as I can remember. I love the art and tradition of storytelling. As a child, using action figures from numerous and very different franchises, I created Rube Goldberg-like domino rallies that would explode into action with a nudge. That evolved into writing down stories, creating home video movies, and finally studying writing in college. It’s been a journey, for sure. Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life? Most of them! My published work contains characters that are just horrible people or amoral monsters. Wanda from Portrait of a Nuclear Family is particularly bad since she strives to maintain the appearance of a normal, loving housewife and mother while hiding in her home committing horrific acts. I would hate to walk into her house for her to decide to “improve” me. Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing? It’s a cheap answer, but everything. I started out reading Tolkien, then DragonLance, then Rice, then Vonnegut. I could list authors all day. Now, I mix in various non-fiction books into my TBR list to find and develop new and different ideas, to feed the mental compost pile as Neil Gaiman would call it. There is something to learn from everything and anything you consume, even if what you learn is, “I would never do that if I wrote it.” 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? When I think of horror, the first thing that comes to mind are the slasher movies of the ‘80s. That was my very first exposure to the genre, but I’ve come to realize that horror isn’t just blood and guts. It’s the psychological trauma of being powerless, facing overpowering fears, and the fight to overcome. In a lot of horror, the protagonist fails, but they almost always find the will or desperation to fight, win or lose. To break these assumptions would require an effort from television and movies to step away from the idea of cheap scares like the jump scare or buckets of blood spraying everywhere. We need to get back to diving into the characters and their fight. Monsters are fun, for sure, but how about a monster that has a motive the viewer can understand beyond, “kill, eat, next.” The most effective villains are the ones the audience see their twisted point of view and begrudgingly relate to them. 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? It could go in several directions. There’s the evergreen possibility of the social dystopia or a rash of escapist monster-of-the-week stories. With the current trends and discussions regarding choice, preferred pronouns, and identity, there is an opening for some very interesting body horror stories for the right person to explore. I would be very interested in reading that. Given the dark, violent, and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? Everyone enjoys some level of a scare. Grandparents enjoy being startled by their grandchildren, but may not want to watch even the tamest of horror movies they can find on many of the streaming services these days. That release of tension after a good scare can be invigorating. It also gives us a safe way to confront the ideas and imagery that may haunt us in our nightmares and imaginations. Horror spans such a rich and diverse spectrum, there is something for everyone if they are willing to explore the options ranging from the horror comedy to the most extreme slaughterhouse blood fest. What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre? I think one would be hard pressed to pinpoint something missing. The genre spans centuries, continents, and cultures to the point that writers throughout the ages have adapted little known folktales into full fledged franchises. If there is an unexplored corner for horror to squeeze into, I would be astonished. What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off? I’m pretty new and up-coming! Though a few names have fluttered by on social media. Daniel Volpe, Rebecca Rowland, Brianna Morgan, and Stephen King… That guy is just not getting any attention. It’s a travesty. Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you? Of course! All the negative reviews stay with you if you’re foolish enough to read them. Everything from, “What a waste of time,” to “It just didn’t work for me. Too obvious.” The negative reviews with constructive advice as wonderful, though. I know I’m still trying to figure this whole job out, so constructive criticism is always useful, even if it stings the first time around. Positive reviews leave a warm, glowing feeling in me that help keep me going while collecting the rejections. Nothing specific in a review has stayed with me, but the people who I form friendships with afterward have been a great emotional support when I’m getting frustrated in the middle of a project. What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult? Rewriting and rejection. I’ve gotten better at dealing with rejection. I only start to get annoyed at the tenth consecutive one rather than the third. Baby steps. Rewriting is just the worst for me. I love coming up with the idea, plotting it, and discovering all the details as I write. Once that rough draft is done, going back over it is a slog. I get short bursts of enjoyment when I discover an element that needs exploring, but those are short lived. But as many have stated, “writing is rewriting,” so I do the job and try to find something in the process to enjoy and keep moving forward. Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? I don’t like to say never, but it is highly improbable I will ever write erotica or anything overly romantic. That’s just not my wheelhouse. Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? I’ve become more disciplined with a daily routine and learned to emotionally compartmentalize the work. In order to receive and consider the feedback of alpha and beta readers, a little emotional distance is required. Leaning into one’s strengths, not one’s hopes, is another important lesson. One may want to write like a specific writer, but that may not be the writer one is. I hope my work is becoming better and more sophisticated, but that isn’t for me to judge. What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing? Brian Stelfreeze, known for his work in comics such as Black Panther, Domino, and Demon/Catwoman, once read an early draft of a graphic novel script I am still trying to get published. He said, “Your dialogue is beautiful. It’s like watching two dancers flowing together in a well-choreographed ballet. That’s wrong. Dialogue should be like a sword fight! ‘I want this!’ thrust “But I want this other thing!” parry. Your characters may want similar things, but no one wants exactly the same thing. Everyone should be maneuvering for better position to strike the winning blow and win the prize.” That has stuck with me for something like fifteen years. I will never forget it. Which of your characters is your favourite? Published? Probably, Wanda, even though I would never want to meet her. She’s by far my most fleshed-out character and I am super proud of that. Unpublished? I have a half-decayed, insane, capuchin monkey called Mr. Wriggles in the YA Fantasy I’m working on now who speaks in rhymes and reappears and disappears like the Cheshire Cat. How could I not love that one? Which of your books best represents you? Well, as I only have one, I would have to answer Portrait of a Nuclear Family. It definitely represents the struggle one fights against when battling mental illness. Wanda suffers her “one bad day” and goes off the rails. The people around her either enable or disregard her problems until they are well out of hand for anyone to course correct. So, in that way, it’s a worst nightmare scenario for any parent or anyone silently suffering from a mental illness who is too afraid of what others might think if they asked for help. Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? Nothing comes to mind. I have an odd relationship with my work. No matter how many times I go over it, I always feel the need to rewrite it or tweak it, of delete it outright. I only stop rewriting when the idea of going over it one more time makes me want to punch my computer screen. That’s when it goes out to beta readers. They always find lines they end up loving, so I tend to leave those alone, but nothing sticks out at me as personally noteworthy. Not yet, at least. Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next? My most recent novel is Portrait of a Nuclear Family. It follows Wanda who discovers her older son, Nathan, is hiding a secret that threatens to tear apart the façade of the perfect family she’s worked endlessly to present to the community. After confronting Nathan with what she’s found, events turn from bad to worse as she struggles to keep the horrors within her own walls from escaping into the world for all to see. The book I’m working on is the perfect follow-up to an extreme psychological horror novel, a YA Fantasy! Billy is going through a rough time and in a burst of self-involved anger falls through the cracks in reality to find a young blind girl who has lived there for almost fifty years, her decaying, insane capuchin monkey pet, and angelic creatures bent on his capture. The book explores the idea of beautiful evils and honorable monsters as our heroes explore a vast new world and rekindle the hopes and fears of it’s peoples. If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice? Smart characters doing incredibly stupid things. Post-apocalyptic survivors keep making bad decisions that should have gotten them killed within the first week of the end of the world. Groups keep splitting up in the haunted house/murder house. The guy who got bit by the zombie and hid it but no one notices him acting all sketchy. It drives me nuts. What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you? I’m currently reading Ken Liu’s collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. The book is a treasure and he has found a steadfast reader for all time. It’s been a very long time since I read a book that disappointed me. Some books I go into knowing that it’s not going to be a literary masterpiece so there is no disappointment. I’m reading it for nostalgia’s sake. I read Sock by Penn Jillette back in 2013 and found it underwhelming. I’m very careful about what I read and there is a lot of great stuff to easily fill the TBR library. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer? I don’t have a question I hope to get asked, but I do have one that I think no one should ever ask the same way again. “What is the best piece of advice you can give to a starting out writer/struggling writer?” I hear this question at so many workshops, convention panels, and in author FAQS. The answer is always the same. “Write all the time. Read all the time.” That’s it. That is the universal answer. So, my suggestion to everyone out there is when you ask the above question, amend it to, “What is the best piece of advice you can give to a starting out writer/struggling writer OTHER THAN write and read all the time?” Hopefully, you’ll get more interesting answers. PORTRAIT OF A NUCLEAR FAMILY |
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