Tim Major’s novel, Snakeskins, will be published by Titan Books in May 2019, followed by a short story collection, And the House Lights Dim, published by Luna Press in July 2019. His earlier novels and novellas include Machineries of Mercy, You Don’t Belong Here, Blighters and Carus & Mitch. He has also written a monograph about the 1915 silent crime film, Les Vampires. His short stories have appeared in Interzone, Not One of Us, Shoreline of Infinity and numerous anthologies, including Best of British Science Fiction and The Best Horror of the Year. Tim is a professional editor, and is co-editor of the British Fantasy Society’s fiction journal, BFS Horizons.



Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Yikes. When someone asks you that sort of a question, do you clam up as much as I do? Hmm. Interesting. I notice that I’ve already assigned you a character, I’m talking to you as a person, despite this being a template of questions in a document. You’re not a real person. But I’ll pretend you are. How are you? I like your… um, coat.
 
So. Me, I’m a writer. I do actually tell people that, sometimes, nowadays. Parents at the school gates who ask what I do for a living. But I also tell them that it doesn’t make me much money, that I’m really an editor, mainly, that I’m trying to push the balance towards writing more and more, bit by bit.
 
I have a background too, of course. I was a bookish kid, but that’s obvious just looking at me and taking into account literally everything I do for work and for fun. I made photocopied magazines when I was seven years old, selling them to friends and teachers. My mum let me use her typewriter that she won in a competition, upon which I laboriously copied out my favourite stories from books. I’ve always been a writer, even before I had any story ideas.
 

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


Like I say, I’m bookish. I read. I watch a lot of films, though not many modern ones. I work as a freelance editor in my attic, and I write for fun, still in my attic, and sometimes I come downstairs and then occasionally venture out to take the kids to nursery and school. My kids are five and two. I’ve been sleep-deprived and exhausted for five whole years.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Without any disrespect to the horror genre, I’d be wary of any writer who was only influenced by one genre. I mean, a horror novel comprised of tropes from other horror novels and films, who’d want that? OK, sure, there are lots of novels and films that are exactly like that. And some of them make quite a lot of money. Good point.
 
Either way, I tend to write unsettling fiction, whether or not it’s tinged with other genres, and while I watch a lot of horror films, other things and people that have influenced my writing are, in no particular order: John Wyndham, H.G. Wells, Patricia Highsmith, John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ novels, Umberto Eco, Vladimir Nabokov, silent cinema, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Nicolas Roeg, Alfred Hitchcock, Olivier Assayas, and music of all sorts, to a huge degree.
 
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’s a tough one, isn’t it? You and I, we’re comfortable with the term, we know how wide-ranging the genre can be. But of course ‘normal’ people shy away from horror fiction, at least written horror fiction, and SF too, despite the fact that the majority of their Netflix binges or cinema outings are SF or horror to some degree. You know what people are? They’re idiots. But I don’t have a helpful answer, other than giving each book, or at least each little wave of related publishing successes, its own identity. ‘Slipstream’ has been a useful publishing term for a while, with fairly broad appeal, but it’s just a clever way of sneaking horror and SF into the diet of the average reader. So I guess sneaking is the way to go.

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?

You do ask some good questions, hypothetical interviewer, don’t you? There’s a superficial answer to this question, I suppose, and I’m not certain I’m qualified to go beyond it. Broadly, the last two years of the real world have been utterly shitty, and it’s inevitable that new novels of any genre will be tainted with the sickly flavour of Trump and Brexit. We all have a lot of rage and despair to process. Let’s do it the healthy way: sitting in dark rooms and spending many hours writing novels.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
John Wyndham’s The Day of The Triffids was the gateway through which I passed from my introduction to genre, Doctor Who, to adult fiction. I still think that it, and The Midwich Cuckoos, are near-perfect combinations of SF and horror. I’ve written about The Day of the Triffids for this very site before, in fact.

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


Helen Marshall’s The Migration is astounding, combining a thoroughly weird central premise with a surprisingly direct coming-of-age tale and a mass of research about epidemics and climate catastrophes that is dizzying in its richness. I recently caught up with a few recent novels that I missed first time around: Catriona Ward’s Rawblood, James Brogden’s Hekla’s Children, Naomi Booth’s Sealed. As if Tade Thompson’s Rosewater SF novels weren’t enough to make you envy his talent, his Molly Southbourne novellas are terrific horror. Everything I’ve read by Aliya Whiteley has been utterly incredible.
 
This is far from new and upcoming – we’re talking about 1872 here – but I recently read a bunch of Gothic classics, and I was blown away by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, which is one of those books people say they’ve read. It’s hard to believe how much of the ‘modern’ depiction of vampire was established in this novella, 26 years before Dracula, and how much of a page-turner it is.

How would you describe your writing style?


Domestic. Down-to-earth. Unsettling. Cynical? But also the opposite: a bit warm.

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

Actually, no. Any criticisms have seemed fair, but maybe that’s because no one’s been all that mean. I don’t think people set out to be mean.

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


Finding the time, what with doing part-time childcare of my two kids, and needing to earn money, and wrestling for writing time with everything else that needs to happen. I’m good at getting down to writing, once I’m in the right place, though. Having kids makes you concentrate when you finally get a moment. So, in fact, I don’t think of writing as difficult, or even the editing process, which I like, or even the admin aspect, as I’ve always thought of sending out submissions as a little like buying lottery tickets. Except they’re free! Writing is a cheap hobby.

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


Absolutely. I don’t go in for extreme subjects, which says a lot about my essential mildness, I guess. I’m interested in social and domestic discomfort. And aliens too.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Yes to both! I don’t agonise about names, though they often change, and often a character will suddenly feel real once they have the correct name. In my first novel, the protagonist was called Miles for the first few drafts, which never sat right for some reason, and then when I changed him to Daniel he suddenly felt like a person, though I’ve no idea why. In that same novel I also changed a character’s name, along with lots of locations, in response to getting the go-ahead from Paul Metsers to use a passage from his song ‘Farewell to the Gold’ in the book. The song seemed to have so much resonance that I reworked lots of aspects to make the parallels closer, on the afternoon before handing it over to the publisher.


Writing is not a static process – how have you developed as a writer over the years? 
 
I’d hope I’ve got a little better. In terms of novels, the biggest noticeable change in my writing process is that I write lengthy synopses now – I have the entire novel planned out in great detail. My early novels were more freewheeling affairs, which doesn’t necessarily show in the end results, but which meant, say, eight drafts rather than four.

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

I love the writing software Scrivener, which allows you to shift scenes around whilst writing. Even just as a means of visualizing the structure of a novel, I find it essential.

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


Nobody cares. In fact, nobody cared enough to even give me that advice – I came up with it myself. But when I started out writing, I agonised about what people would think of my work. Telling myself that, if it was shit, nobody would even glance at it, was enormously comforting.

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


I only wish I knew. I’m not so good at blowing my own trumpet. I make myself available and as present as possible in the genre community, I suppose, though that’s no hardship because these people are great. I go to conferences and conventions and I put myself forward for things that make me sweaty and panicky, like delivering my first academic paper at a recent conference, tying in with my non-fiction book about the silent film Les Vampires. But definitely cons, which are also fun: win-win.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favourite child, and who is your least  favourite to write for and why?


I realized recently that I don’t really like many of the men in my stories. At first I worried that that’s because they’re most identifiably like me, but actually I think I just despair about men in general. Anyway, to answer your question, I’ve just written a novella featuring a female private investigator, and I’ve grown to like her voice a lot.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
I’m very proud of Snakeskins, which comes out any day now, and also Hope Island, which I’ve just finished writing, and which is far more horrific, a nightmare.

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


Some early short stories, sure. In the early days my influences – by which I mean literally the book I was reading in the same period I was writing the story – were too evident. Nobody wants to read a shitty Italo Calvino knock-off, or even a Lovecraft, though in fairness there are lots of copies of the latter out there and my thesis is that there should not be.

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

Snakeskins. It’s quite direct, quite readable, I think, which I do aspire to now that I’ve shed some of my pretension. And more than anything it’s massively influenced by John Wyndham, which is absolutely where I’m at still. And I think it’s quite funny in parts, as much influenced by, say, Peep Show as any SF or horror fiction.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
This is from Hope Island, which I’ve just delivered to the publisher. I don’t think it’s a spoiler, and I can’t pin down exactly what makes me so happy with it:
Somebody turned the streaks of dawn to blazing daylight and somebody brought a truck.

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


Well, if by ‘last’ you mean ‘most current’, then it’s Snakeskins. It’s about a group of British people who rejuvenate by shedding their skins every seven years – but the catch is that those Snakeskins are sentient and continue living for a few minutes, hours or days. It’s all about identity – how would you feel if you were faced with yourself, and how would you react if that person were a better version of yourself? – and the effect of privilege on the rest of the population.
 
If by ‘last’ you mean ‘the one you’ve just completed’, then it’s Hope Island, which is due to be published by Titan in summer 2020. It’s got a remote island, creepy children, ethereal cave songs and, after a fairly quiet start, quite a lot of dead bodies.
 
If by ‘last’ you mean ‘the one you started last’, then there’s the female-private-investigator novella. Did I mention it was set on Mars? I write quite a lot of Mars stories.
 
And I’m just about to start planning another novel. Like all authors, I’m most excited about the next one. I’ve got a great XX-meets-XX pitch that I daren’t even say out loud, I’m so excited about it.
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

None. They’re fine. Reading all those Gothic novels in preparation for writing my academic paper demonstrated to me that the tropes have been around for a long time. They don’t do any harm, but of course any clichés are ripe for subversion, which is where the interesting aspects of genre really begin.

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


I’ve already named a lot of recent books I’ve loved. Most of my ‘discoveries’ have been older titles. I adored ‘Clarimonde’ by Théophile Gautier, which I’d imagine is about as Lynchian as stories got in 1836. I was surprised to find that John Polidori’s 1819 story ‘The Vampyre’ is kind of boring.

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

I don’t know. I do like questionnaires – I’m pretty sure we’ve spent more than our allocated five minutes together, hypothetical interviewer! But I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to ask. Maybe something about music? What’s the best album you heard for the first time recently? And the answer, unilluminating though it is, would be Marja Ahti’s Vegetal Negatives. I suppose this is why I don’t get to set the questions.
 
Thanks, hypothetical interviewer! It’s been lovely spending time with you.

​A SF thriller examining the repercussions of rejuvenation and cloning on individuals’ sense of identity and on wider society.

Caitlin Hext’s first shedding ceremony is imminent, but she’s far from prepared to produce a Snakeskin clone. When her Skin fails to turn to dust as expected, she must decide whether she wishes the newcomer alive or dead.

Worse still, it transpires that the Hext family may be of central importance to the survival of Charmers, a group of people with the inexplicable power to produce duplicates every seven years and, in the process, rejuvenate. In parallel with reporter Gerry Chafik and government aide Russell Handler, Caitlin must prevent the Great British Prosperity Party from establishing a corrupt new world order.

Snakeskins is an SF thriller examining the repercussions of rejuvenation and cloning on individuals’ sense of identity and on wider society, with the tone of classic John Wyndham stories and the multi-strand storytelling style of modern TV series such as Channel 4’s Humans.

The Tenants is showing as part of the Hola Mexico Film Festival at  Montalbán Theatre, Regal Cinemas LA Live and LA Plaza De Cultura Y Artes. in Los Angeles on 01 June 2019,  and we are honoured to bring you an interview with the director of the film Chava Cartas. 

The director Chava Cartas , was born on September 15, 1971 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He studied photography at the Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara and film at the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de Los Baños, in Cuba. He began his career as director of photography in the new millennium with the short film Bala Bume Bum!, Which was followed by the feature films Love You Hurts ,  Dark Cities  and  San Pancho Athletic , among many others. His career as a director began in 2006 with the films  Amor xtremo  and  Sexo, amor y otros perversiones 2 . In 2010 he made his first series, Mujeres Asesinas , followed by El Equipo , Gossip Girl Acapulco , Los Heroes del Norte and El Mariachi. Despite the good reception on television, Cartas returned to the big screen with Once Again and  Rock Marí. Among his latest projects are the feature films  Treintona, Soltera y Fantástica ,  Rosario Tijeras, Tenants, Mirreyes against Godinez  and  Solos at home,  most of them premiered between 2018 and, the others, to be released in 2019.

If you are in LA this weekend you can purchase tickets to the film by  by clicking here ​

 
Hello and thank you for doing this Interview. I have been a life-long fan of occult and possession films, so The Tenants (Inquilinos) was a real treat to watch considering many of them can be very similar. Watching horror from a different cultural lens always makes me smile because it can only further enrich the genre. As a Mexican American woman, I actively seek out these films.

What drew you to this particular project?

The script came to me when the producer, who I was working with preparing the film “Trientona Soltera y Fantástica”, calls me to tell me he has a great script for a horror film. To be honest, it is a very difficult genre and even more so if you don’t have a big budget to resolve all of the VFX and FX needs so my first reaction was that of horror but when I read the script I thought it was fascinating how the writers managed to tell the story, to talk about our Latin-American beliefs—one way or another there are topics that always surrounds us. In our local markets for example, you can find all types of witchcraft and “remedies or potions”, it is part of our folklore and a part that I could dare to take to the big screen.

The creepiest parts for me were the bloody saints and scenes of ritual. That opening scene sets the viewer up for a very sinister story. What was your approach to filming this? Do you have any experience with Santeria?

After doing a lot of research about Santeria, the saints came to play a part in the film because the base of many of their rituals was that they had to dress them up so that they could worship them, this was the common thread in all of the different practices of Santeria.

One of the most important ingredients in the film was the location, an additional character in the story. I found the “vencidad” or neighborhood in Guadalajara and that is why I decided to film there, and it definitely was visually a very sinister location.

Did you do any research into Santeria rituals before filming?

Of course, doing research was essential because up to that point I had no direct contact with “Santeros” even though these are topics that are always present in our culture. I made it my homework to get close to the “santeros” so that I could learn and dive into their beliefs to make sure we were always portraying their beliefs in a respectful way. There are very sensitive topics that personally I don’t follow but have utmost RESPECT for.

You have a wide spectrum of genres under your belt. What draws you to horror?

As a filmmaker, I am more passionate about being a storyteller regardless of the genre, if a script captivates me and I know that I can responsibly talk about the theme, I film it. If the story is a horror film, well I’ll film that genre, if the story is an action film then I will be making an action film.
I have a firm conviction that we should be storytellers not tellers of a certain genre. 

Favourite horror film and why?

SINISTER (2012) Scott Derrickson

This is a great example of how you combine reality with the supernatural. This story had great influence on my decision to film INQUILINOS.

I felt this had dashes of The Entity and Rosemary’s Baby. Were either of these influences?

Neither of them, my biggest influence was SINISTER that I believe has a very similar structure to my film.

The film is set in Guadalajara and this is where you are from. Did you have ideas in mind when it came to filming locations? I loved the Santeria market scene.

During my childhood my brothers and I would go to the local markets and we were always scared of walking down the halls that had witchcraft, where they sold the “remedies or potions.” Also talking to Tato Cartas, my brother and production designer of all my projects, we recalled all these moments we lived when we lived in Guadalajara and it just seemed like the best place to tell this story. Take the story out of the big city and tell it form a small city—one of the scenes that I like the most is that one shot in a market. Tato was able to recreate those halls that we were so scary. We were not allowed to film in any real market because of the superstitions people have about this so Tato had to create the entire market from scratch!
Any upcoming horror projects?

I am about start filming a very funny story alongside a great Mexican producer, Francisco Gonzales Compean and all I can tell you for now is the name of the film, but I think you will get the theme and the genre from the name…MEXZOMBIES

Thank you again for the interview. I look forward to spreading the word about The Tenants.

Thank you for your interest in my work. I really appreciate it.

V.Castro is the author of Maria The Wanted and the Legacy of The Keepers - her debut vampire novel series and The Erotic Modern Life of Malinalli the Vampire- an erotic novella series. You can also find her horror film reviews on

​www.scifiandscary.com.

She is a Mexican American ex-pat living in the UK for the past 12 years. As a full-time mother, she dedicates her time to her family and writing.
Violet can be found on Instagram, Twitter and at her website www.vvcastro.com 
​Contact: vvcastro100@gmail.com

Maria is a wanted woman. She's wanted by and Aztec trafficker, a cartel boss, the people she fights for, and now the Devil she can't resist.Her journey begins as a would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico until the injustices of the world turn her into somehting else. She's not just out for blood, she wants answers.Maria spends twenty-two years in motel cleaning purgatory trying to keep her faith and sanity intact. When she feels all hope is lost she meets an ex-boxer that offers her a new job and teaches her to fight. During this time, she becomes an unlikely bad ass enforcer of justice for the community that has embraced her. Is she a saint or an old God from a forgotten past?

Not only does she evolve into the woman she always hoped to be, but she finds her creator – Adam- he is nothing like she imagined.  He invites Maria to travel with him to England to join The Keepers, a vampire organization led by the ancient Mordecai and Dr. Elizabeth Appleton.
​
Learning that the true vampire way isn’t destruction but the safety of humanity, Maria joins The Keepers as they uncover a plot set into motion by Lucifer himself. The Keepers must end his corruption through political manipulation or watch as the world hurtles towards self-destruction.

Feral is showing as part of the Hola Mexico Film Festival at  Montalbán Theatre, Regal Cinemas LA Live and LA Plaza De Cultura Y Artes. in Los Angeles on 01 June 2019,  and we are honoured to bring you an interview with the director of the film Andrés Kaiser.  A member of Vicente Leñero’s writing workshop since 2009, Andrés studied screenwriting and film editing in Madrid. As an editor, he worked in HBO's Capadocia and Lourdes Grobet's Bering: Balance and Resistance. Feral is his debut as a director.

If you are in LA this weekend and would like to watch Feral  you can purchase tickets by clicking here 

 
I want to start by saying I thought the film was fantastic on so many levels. As a Mexican American woman, I am desperate to see more diverse narratives in horror. It was a pleasure to view this film. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this. It really means a lot to me!
 
What sparked the initial idea for this film, and how long did it take you to write? Was it a slow burn or something you envisioned immediately?

The film took 7 years to see the light. A lot of that time was due to writing the script, which was a major challenge. I think the core of the idea came to me as a kid when I read William Goldwing’s The Lord of the Flies. The story seemed to be very dark and really scary. I think the fact that as a reader, you always know that the real horror is coming from the kids and it has nothing to do with ghosts or paranormal activities is the scariest notion of all. As the character of Piggy well says:

“I know there isn’t no beast —not with claws and all that, I mean— but I know there isn’t no fear, either... Unless we get frightened of people.”
 
I absolutely loved that you included an indigenous woman speaking her own language. What was the significance of this? Did you encounter any issues when deciding to include this character? I ask this question because of the backlash Yalitza Aparicio faced after Roma.
 
For the documentary wrap it was important to always remain attached to the likelihood. It is strange to see a film where a German speaks in English with another German. The diversity of languages is a human reality, and that is how it should be treated in the cinema. In Feral's case, listening to a character speak Mixe, his own language, was vital.
 
You showcase a lot of beautiful landscape from the mountains to the forest. Does Oaxaca hold a significance for you?
 
The forest has always seemed to me a sinister and beautiful place alike. It is home to multiple legends and myths that nourish an important part of western civilization, such as the myth of the savage. In the case of Oaxaca, it is a state with enormous diversity - natural and human - that contains a unique energy in the world. The mysticism that historically surrounds Oaxaca was an element that helped to add a layer of atmosphere to the film and its drama.
 
Whenever the church is shown, I had this deep feeling of domination and almost coldness, it dwarfs everything in its presence, especially when it is contrasted with the natural landscape. The mountains are massive, yet they are inviting. Am I projecting my own emotions or was this deliberate?
 
It was very important to be able to construct the image of the church as an impenetrable fortress - both physically and mystically - that even if it was full of the faithful, it was alien to the needs of the community. A church that pursues its own interests and labels as strange or dangerous that which it does not know. During the shooting, we always took much care on how we portray the church and the people who rotate its gears. I love that the screen was able to project some of these ideas.

Does the cast consist of professional actors only? It felt very authentic: the acting was subtle, yet the emotion seemed very real.

I believe that one of the great mystical elements in cinema lies precisely in the direction of actors; It is a very deep process that can make the difference between a good and a bad movie. In Feral, the choice of actors was based on the emotion that each character should convey. The cast is a mix of natural actors, professional actors, and debuting actors. In the end, it was a very powerful ensemble that brought the best of all the worlds. However, I had to work differently with each actor, that is, exercising a different direction technique, each one according to the origin of the actor in front of the camera. In the end, there were great surprises: children are spectacular, like Hector, who was somehow his guide and mentor with his discipline and talent. On the documentary side, "El Máquinas" and José Ángel García make the film "credible". It was a difficult process but of which I learned a lot and I am very grateful.

This film relies a lot on found footage. Do you have any favorite found footage films?

Yes. 1. Cannibal Holocaust   2. The Blair Witch Project    3. The Sacrament

What is the scariest film you have ever watched, and why?

The Innocents by Jack Clayton. I've only watched it once and I think it was enough. It is a ghost story brutally narrated. I have an equivalent proportion of desire and fear of watching it again.

I am desperate for more Latinx writers to break into horror because I feel we have such a wealth of ideas and history to draw upon. Is horror a genre you want to continue creating?

Yes. I want to continue exploring the horror from the human's point of view and its atrocities. I also have curiosities about drama or other types of movies, but for now, I want to continue making genre films.

Do you foresee creating an English language film with Mexican themes to break into the US Market? I was disappointed with The Curse of La Llorona. Please. Say. Yes.

I would love for that to happen one day. However, I know that it is difficult to become part of the American production system. Not impossible, but difficult. I would love to work in the film industry in the United States and at the same time continue to develop my concerns as an artist around issues that I think are important.

What is next for you?

Well, now I'm in my next horror movie. It is called Preciosísima Sangre (Precious Blood) and tells the story of a nun whom the Inquisition of death and the pact with the devil in eighteenth-century Mexico. The film explores themes such as death, isolation, fear of the unknown, religion, the role of women in Colonial México. I am very excited about this movie. It electrifies me every time I think about it.
 
Once again, Thank you for the interview. I look forward to seeing more of your work and spreading the word about Feral.
 
¡Muchísimas gracias!

Read V. Castro's review of Feral here 

V.Castro is the author of Maria The Wanted and the Legacy of The Keepers - her debut vampire novel series and The Erotic Modern Life of Malinalli the Vampire- an erotic novella series. You can also find her horror film reviews on

​www.scifiandscary.com.

She is a Mexican American ex-pat living in the UK for the past 12 years. As a full-time mother, she dedicates her time to her family and writing.
Violet can be found on Instagram, Twitter and at her website www.vvcastro.com 
​Contact: vvcastro100@gmail.com

Maria is a wanted woman. She's wanted by and Aztec trafficker, a cartel boss, the people she fights for, and now the Devil she can't resist.Her journey begins as a would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico until the injustices of the world turn her into somehting else. She's not just out for blood, she wants answers.Maria spends twenty-two years in motel cleaning purgatory trying to keep her faith and sanity intact. When she feels all hope is lost she meets an ex-boxer that offers her a new job and teaches her to fight. During this time, she becomes an unlikely bad ass enforcer of justice for the community that has embraced her. Is she a saint or an old God from a forgotten past?

Not only does she evolve into the woman she always hoped to be, but she finds her creator – Adam- he is nothing like she imagined.  He invites Maria to travel with him to England to join The Keepers, a vampire organization led by the ancient Mordecai and Dr. Elizabeth Appleton.
​
Learning that the true vampire way isn’t destruction but the safety of humanity, Maria joins The Keepers as they uncover a plot set into motion by Lucifer himself. The Keepers must end his corruption through political manipulation or watch as the world hurtles towards self-destruction.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
I live in West Yorkshire and share a big old house with a wife two kids. I've worked in a variety of jobs over the years, from cinema projectionist to a telecoms rigger working on radio towers.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Isaac Asimov once said that time not spent writing was time wasted, unless it was time spent with his wife. I have to agree with that, when I'm not writing it's family time. I've always been into movies, so an evening with a bluray, with DTS sound blasting out, is perfect – with wine and snacks, of course!


Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
Travelling and meeting people. I've travelled extensively across Asia, Japan, China, Malaysia. They say write about what you know, and I think what's meant by that is cherry pick from your personal experiences, the places you visit, the people you come across. Every place I visit has a potential place in a story, everything I hear is potential dialogue. People are fascinating. You can't write convincing dialogue or great characters if you don't get out and open your ears.
 
 
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 if you say you love horror, there's a misconception that you love blood and gore, monsters, listen to death metal, only fuck Goth chicks, live on take-out and would never watch Downton Abbey. OK, I'm exagerrating for dramatic effect. Horror is a very wide-ranging concept in fiction, and I think people who like the genre should embrace all of its forms, and that applies to people who say they are not into horror. Horror fiction isn't just  about blood and guts, monsters and  the occult, it can be about the darker side of life, the things that scare us or we find creepy, it's the fear factor most of all. The feeling that a cold hand is going to creep up the covers, grab your ankle and drag you to the bottom of the bed. I think if there's any assumptions about horror, then the way to change those assumptions is for publishers to embrace horror that might not be in the traditonal vein. It might a psychological thriller, but one that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.


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?
That's an almost impossible question to answer. But to take a guess, I can see horror returning to its roots, yarns about zombies, vampires and werewolves. I think also distopian, apocolytpic survival stories seem very popular now – Walking Dead meets Mad Max. A lot of up-and-coming horror authors are influenced by what's popular in the media, right now that seems to be the end of the world, zombies and gangs fighting for survival across a nuclear wasteland or those futuristic urban thrillers where one night a year you can kill anyone you want for free. I can also see horror moving into gang warfare, if you look at what the drug gangs are doing to each other in South America, especially Mexico, there's a lot of fertile ground there to throw in a few twists for the horror genre. There's the digital age of horror to consider now as well, in real life brutal murders are being filmed on mobile phones as entertainment.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
I was a big movie nut as a kid so I read a lot of movie novelizations, mostly by Alan Dean Foster. Through Bladerunner I got introduced to Phillp K. Dick, through The Shining I discovered Stephen King. Reading all that Alan Dean Foster taught me to not woffle as a writer, just to get on with it and tell the story in a very clean and precise manner. Foster has a very easy, straight-forward style, it's almost workman-like. I also read a lot of Robert E. Howard. I think Howard taught me to make a story thrilling and exciting, above all entertain the reader and don't bore them. Been a child of the 80s, I grew up with all of the so-called video nasties, and I loved every single one of them. Last House on the Left, A Clockwork Orange, Driller Killer, Suspiria, The Evil Dead, all those Italian exploitation movies. I think movies that made a lasting impression were the ones that threw a spanner in the works and did something totally unexpected – Caligula showed what you could do when you threw the rule book out of the window, and John Carpenter's The Thing showed what could be achieved when you let your creative side go all the way. I mean, some guy's head tearing itself from his body, growing spider legs and eyeballs on stalks and then scurrying across the floor ? That is pure genius !

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?
Myself, of course, but  I reckon that'll be the stock answer for everyone interviewed here. There's a lot, too many to mention. But the sad thing is, all those great authors with terrific novels might remain unheard of and unread because publishers won't give them a chance.

How would you describe your writing style?
Straight forward, easy to read. As Elmore Leonard called it, without any of that hooptedoodle. I hate dense prose, long paragraphs, and repitition. You can say a lot with the right choice of words.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
Criticism can be harsh, but dumb criticism is the worst. Somebody hating your book for all the wrong reasons. But criticism is good, all authors should embrace it.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
The sitting down and writing part. Motivation and having the time to get into my writing zone.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
Vampires. A love story with vampires.

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 want the characters to be real so they need names that sound normal. I don't want my hero to have a name that draws attention to itself.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
By reading and doing a lot of writing. But mostly having that writing read and critiqued. You can't improve as a writer if you don't let people read your work.  I think my writing style has become cleaner and more precise, I've dumped the hooptedoodle and stopped trying to be a smart ass.


What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers? 
A computer and a printer.  A place to work away from everybody.  A desk that doesn't wobble. An open imagination, you can't be a good writer if you are narrow-minded.


What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
This is shite, you can do better.
 


Getting your work noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
My publisher, Wild Wolf Books, has a pretty interesting business model for its authors. They are a traditional publisher, but they expect the author to be very hands on with their own marketting, which I feel is fair play. I thought social media would be the way to go, but it's only a tiny slice of the cake. The problem with Twitter and Facebook, especially Twitter, is that it's full of authors all shouting the same thing and fighting for attention. Word of mouth is by far the best way to get noticed, although for that to happen people have to know that your novel exists. And when Waterstones is only interested in celebrity books and Jamie Oliver, the only avenue is to direct readers to Amazon. I'm planning an advertising campaign that will target the places where my potential readers might hangout, drink coffee, the magazines they might read. I've got a novel that will appeal to a certain reader, so the marketting has to be laser-precise. I intend to attend literary fairs and horror conventions. The plan for next year is to attend comic con with two hot Asian models.


To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?
One of my favourite characters in Pornopsychedelica was a guy called Martin, an ex-soldier who goes to work for the villian of the story. A major critique came back and said he was the least interesting character in the story and was in fact boring. I had to have a major rethink, decided the criticism was right, and changed the character. It actually made the character way more interesting and gave those parts of the story a darker, more realistic tone. I don't have a least favourite of my own characters, otherwise they wouldn't be in the story. I hate stories with the token whiny kid, you know like Wesley Crusher in Star Trek. You just want to shove him in an airlock and blast him into space.


What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
The action scenes. I write pretty good action. I think I write good dialogue, too.


 
And are there any that you would like to forget about?
Time will tell, when the reviews start to come in. The reader will be the judge not me.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
I've not written that book yet. I find all kinds of fiction interesting, so I want to switch genres whenever I get a great idea – fantasy, dark horror, sci-fi, literary. So no one book could represent me as an author. I think Pornopschedelica shows I can write action, snappy dialogue and I'm not shy to push a few boundaries.



Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
He didn't like Asia. Now they had refugee Americans and Europeans treating the country as their own. He once heard a Chinaman say Americans were like fleas on a dog.
And there was nothing worse than an itch you couldn't scratch.
A Road Runner you couldn't catch.
     Martin kicked open the twisted door of the car.    'Sumbitch.'
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
The lastest book is Pornopsychedelica, a violent crime thriller set in Malaysia and Japan. It's set in the near future and is about a woman called Tomoko who goes on a mission of revenge against the crime boss who keeps her a virtual prisoner, using her as a killer for hire. Imagine if Takashi Miike had made Pulp Fiction. I wanted the story to be erotic and violent, with strange, almost trippy parts to it, but with a head-long narrative drive – very much a story driven and with great characters. Currently, I've moved away from genre fiction and I'm writing a literary novel about a guy who's spent the last five years searching for his missing children. The writing style is totally different, the approach is different. I want to flex my writing abilities and not just stick to the same thing. It might be literary, but it's very dark. It'll certainly be shocking and stay with the reader for a long time.



If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?
I hate clichés. How about the killer coming across the couple having sex?


What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
The Letter Bearer by Robert Allison was a great read. I can't remember the last book I was disappointed by.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
Hey, you're an author. I'm writing a novel, would you mind critiquing it?
The answer would be, sure, love to.
Too many wanna-be authors are terrified of people reading their books, so they remain in this bubble with the firm believe that they are brilliant, yet the only person who has ever read them is their mom and their gay best friend.

Penny Jones knew she was a writer when she started to talk about herself in the third person (her family knew when Santa bought her a typewriter for Christmas). She loves reading and will read pretty much anything you put in front of her, but her favourite authors are Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and John Wyndham. In fact Penny only got into writing to buy books, when she realised that there wasn’t that much money in writing she stayed for the cake.


Q: Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
A: Sure. I’m currently in the process of moving house, to live by the coast which I’m very excited about. My husband and I both lived by the sea when we were younger and have been dying to get back, we’ve spent the past twenty odd years in the Midlands. Other than that I love to travel, and I’m obsessed with rabbits, I had a couple as pets when I was growing up and loved them. Though I don’t have any now as I can’t even keep a houseplant alive.

Q: What do you like to do when you're not writing?
 
A: I read a lot, my favourite genre is horror, but I will read anything that takes my fancy, whether it’s contemporary, literary, sci-fi, whatever. With our move back to the coast I’m also looking forward to taking kayaking back up. I’ve also recently taken up indoor flying, which is amazing fun.

Q: Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
A: I love the work of John Wyndham. I have most of his work, but I’m currently on the lookout for the first American edition of The Midwich Cuckoos as it has an extra chapter in, which our British edition doesn’t contain. I also really enjoy literary fiction, whether that’s Gothic classics such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or more modern tales such as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I’m also a bit of a sucker for a psychological thriller, so really enjoy the works of Patrick Redmond, Dennis Lehane, and Patricia Highsmith.


Q: 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?
 
A: I’m actually a bit squeamish, I don’t really like torture (I’ve been goading myself to watch the Saw films, as I think their concept is brilliant), emotional torture is especially distressing for me to watch or read. My husband jokes that I make him watch horror movies, then hide behind my cushion and ask him to tell me when it’s over. I am definitely more of a fan of the quiet, creeping horror; than the, in your face gore and chainsaws. I actually find it strange when people turn their nose up at horror as if it is something unnatural, but will then happily watch Game of Thrones, which I find far more horrific. I’m not sure how we can break this assumption, other than letting people know that the majority of “Horror” is less horrific than their mainstream reading and viewing.

Q: 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?
 
A: I see dehumanization and a loss of self, a lot in the current horror market, but I think what is interesting is that horror has started to edge its way across into more mainstream viewing. The popularity of the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid's Tale” or the Oscar nomination for “Get Out” is a case in point. It is only understandable that as our socio/political climate becomes more fraught, then more people will want to immerse themselves in this kind of fiction.

Q: What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?
 
A: I have a habit that if I read something that I love, I wake my husband and tell him I hate that particular author (only because of my intense envy of their writing), the writers that have caused that particular disturbance have been Priya Sharma, Tracy Fahey, Laura Mauro, Georgina Bruce, Cate Gardner and Tim Major. My husband is very understanding, as he realises I have to vent my frustration somehow, and it is wake him or throw the book across the room, and that would never happen.

Q: How would you describe your writing style?
 
A: I’m still trying to find my writing style. I always say I’m a bit of a writing whore, I’ll write anything, in any style, for anyone.
 
Q: What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
Starting. Each day when I sit down to write I tense up. After a couple of hundred words everything is fine, but for that initial ten minutes or so each day, writing is hell. I get really bad impostor syndrome, and each time I turn on the computer it hits me afresh. It is why you will usually find me on Facebook or Twitter, I’m definitely no impostor at procrastination.

Q: Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
A: No. I will write about anything. My collection is themed around children, and I know a lot of authors who say they draw the line killing children in their stories, but I feel that if we are writing horror then we should look at those subjects that scare us the most. As long as it is done sympathetically, I don’t believe any subject should be taboo in writing.

Q: How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
A: I hate names. The names in my book mean nothing. They are actually the bane of my writing life, as I usually forget what my characters are called, or discover that they’ve changed name throughout the story.


Q: Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? 
 
A: I hope I’ve become better. I’ve certainly learnt some techniques when writing first drafts that make the latter stages of rewrites and editing easier.

Q: What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?     
 
A: A kettle, mug, and a tea caddy.    

Q: What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
A: When I was really struggling through the first draft of my novel, Mark West told me to stop trying to write 1,000 words a day, and just aim for 500. Mark said that he used this tip, and it meant that if he only got 650 words a day it felt that he had succeeded instead of failed. He was right, as soon as I did this I found I was usually writing around 1500 words a day, instead of my usual 1000. But even on a difficult day 500 was achievable and I didn’t feel like I’d failed.

Q: Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
 
A: I’ve not really thought this process through yet. Though I did suggest to my publisher that I was going to walk round EdgeLit shouting “Buy my book!”

Q: 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?
 
A: I don’t actually have one. I don’t have a maternal bone in my body, so as far as I’m concerned both stories and children are parasites that are born and then should be thrown out into the big, scary world to stand on their own two feet.
 
Q: Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
A: The last book I was working on was my debut collection “Suffer Little Children” which is being released by Black Shuck Books on 16th May. I tend to find that children are often central to my stories either as the antagonist or the victim. The whole vulnerability of the child fascinates me. The fact that they are often unheard, that if they raise concerns or fears they are told to grow up, or that it’s a phase they will grow out of. But also on the flip side of that I remember the sheer maliciousness of children, the pack mentality. I look back on my childhood, the situations I was in, the behaviour of myself and others. As children we haven’t yet learnt that our actions have consequences, or at least haven’t got an understanding of the depth of those consequences. I look back on my childhood and I can see so many moments that could have gone differently and ruined peoples lives.
 
A: I’m currently packing up my house to move, so I haven’t got anything I’m working on in particular at the moment. But I find I work better if I have some sort of deadline, so this year I have set myself the goal of writing and submitting one short story a month to open submissions.
 
Q: What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
A: It’s not really a question I don’t get asked. But I certainly don’t get asked it enough. It’s “Would you like to write a story for our anthology?” It’s a question that never gets old, and my answer is always yes.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

My name is Sally Bend, and I am a genderfluid author and reviewer of erotica, romance, and genre fiction. I love dragons and unicorns, ancient treasures and lost civilizations, monsters and tentacles, and dominant women and pretty boys.

Why horror?  What is appeal of the genre to you as both a fan and as a writer?

Well, there are two parts to that answer. The first is that I cut my teeth on the horror genre, having begged my mother to buy me a copy of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary from the paperback rack at the corner store.
 
The second half of that answer has to do with spending much of my life in hiding, burying my identity. I was so afraid of exposure that I practiced holding my emotions inside, lest they betray me, and I am sad to say I got rather good at it. Unlearning those habits has not been easy, but writing allows me the freedom to express myself, and nowhere are our passions and our emotions stronger – or more honest - than in erotic horror.

As LBGTQ+ fan and writer of horror, how did you when you first became immersed in the genre and found that representation that you could identify was few and far between?

Having grown up in the eighties, representation was there, but it was not positive. We were victims, targets of humor, sources of titillation, and sometimes even deranged killers. I remember watching Sleepaway Camp for the first time, feeling angry and shocked at the big twist – and sorry for Angela – while all my friends were hooting and hollering and making gagging noises.

How did you discover authors that wrote about characters that you could relate to?

It all comes down to one person – Clive Barker. It started with the BDSM themes of Hellraiser, continued with the outsider themes of Nightbreed, and reached its culmination (for me) in his masterpiece, Imajica. That was the book that opened my mind, not just to the magic of literature, but to the power of stories to capture, reflect, and celebrate the full spectrum of identities and sexualities, and to do so in a positive way.

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

The other major influence for me has been erotica, starting with the fetish-themed science fiction and fantasy novels published by Nexus in the late 90s. Here were mass-market paperbacks that I could easily pick up at the bookstore in the mall, with characters I could identify with, relate to, and look to for validation.
 
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?

To be honest, I have never thought of the term “Horror” having any negative connotations, especially today. Twenty years ago, sure, it could have been dismissed as trashy entertainment, without literary value, but I think readers and critics alike are far more receptive to what it does well – and that is pick up on our fears, force us to confront our insecurities, and shock us into some sort of awareness. What I would love to see is publishers and bookstores pull back from the “Thriller” genre they invented to make softer, less disgusting horror more socially palatable. Put those stories back onto the “Horror” shelves and allow readers to explore the diversity of the genre from there.

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?

Yikes, I am not even sure I want to speculate on that, but I suspect we will see more stories about the monsters within, about the breakdown of polite society, about bad people doing bad things, and about how seductive evil ideas can be. 

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

Clive Barker’s body of work is, of course, huge – Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Imajica, Weaveworld, Sacrament, and so on. John Everson, Sèphera Girón, and Poppy Z. Brite all had an impact on me as well. Outside the genre, the fantasies of Mercedes Lackey, Lynn Flewelling, and Jacqueline Carey were all pivotal, with approaches to characterization and themes that I can only hope to someday emulate.

In recent years there has been a slow but gradual diversification within the genre, which new LBGTQ+ writers do you think we should be paying attention to? 

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan is one of those books I eagerly thrust into people’s hands, a “Horror” novel from the “Thriller” shelf that is just amazing. Bryce Calderwood is an author I cannot recommend highly enough, an author who melds fetish with fear like no other. His take on vampires, especially, will make you forget anything romantic or sparkly.
 
I recently had the chance to give the Dark Rainbow: Queer Erotic Horror collection a read as well, which put Julianne Snow, Lindsay King-Miller, and Lisi Damette on my list of authors to who we should be paying attention.

How would you describe your writing style?

My writing style tends to follow one of two avenues. The first leans more towards imaginative horror, with supernatural themes and a pulp sensibility. The second falls more under the umbrella of dark, realistic, visceral horror, drawing on real-life fears and familiar situations.

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

Like many authors, I live and die by reviews. They are evidence that somebody read your work, and that it made enough of an impact for them to take a moment to write about it. The 5-star reviews are flattering, but it is the unexpected reviews from brand new readers that I find most encouraging.

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

I tend to procrastinate, driven by a fear of the blank page, so getting started is what I find most difficult. Once I get past the excuses, the stories flow, but sometimes that blank page is a hurdle. Beyond that, I struggle with titles, and I hate blurbs.

Are there any subjects that you would never write about?

Horror is an exciting genre because it offers us the opportunity to explore subjects we abhor and, quite literally, exorcise our demons. I would never glamorize homophobia, and I have no great love for organized religion, but a homophobic preacher could make for a fantastic villain.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?

I think the biggest evolution for me has been opening myself to feedback. It is one thing to publish a story and open yourself to the feedback of strangers, but it is another thing entirely to bare your soul for friends and colleagues. Learning to work with editors and beta readers has allowed me to develop my work in ways I could have never done on my own.

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

A good friend once advised me to write what I love, and love what I write. She reminded me that my passion will come through in the writing, so there is no need to exhaust myself trying to force the story into a niche. If it’s not natural or enjoyable for me, readers will pick up on that and they will feel the same dissatisfaction.

Getting your work noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you attempted to break through the barriers that are so often in place against LBGTQ+ writers?

Well, I started as a reviewer and an editor before getting serious about writing, so I already had a strong network of connections across publishers, authors, and social media. Getting mainstream exposure is still difficult, but networking within genre groups on places like Facebook and Goodreads has been huge.

Many CIS white male authors use LGBTQ+ characters in their works, what’s the mistake that they make when trying to portray these characters?

The biggest mistake is using LGBTQ+ characters as a costume or a cliché. To write them well, they need to have personality, emotion, and depth. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing outside your own experience, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, social class, religion, species, or mortality. If we only wrote who and what we are, our stories would be familiar and boring. I think authors who make a genuine effort to relate a different experience are to be celebrated for their efforts.

Moving on to getting your work read by unwashed masses, what do you think is the biggest misconception about LGBTQ+ fiction?

I think the biggest misconception is that it is all about sex. You can write an immensely powerful story about a lesbian couple or a transgender protagonist and never even kiss, much less hold hands.

There are as number of presses dedicated to LGBTQ+ fiction, do you view these as a good thing, or do you think they help to perpetuate the ongoing exclusion from mainstream presses?

Not only are they a good thing, I think they are hugely important to ensuring that LGBTQ+ authors continue to have a voice. They present authors with a defined market where they can feel accepted, encouraging them to explore their voices without fear. There is often a tendency to hold back, to censor yourself when submitting to a mainstream press. A dedicated press takes away that fear, it allows us to take chances and stretch our boundaries.
 
I think they have immense value for readers too. For mainstream readers, it is often an invisible line. It is a book cover, a title, and a blurb that catches their attention. They choose a book because it interests them or excites them – they could care less who the publisher is. For LGBTQ+ readers, though, dedicated presses make it easier for them to find stories with which they can identify.

And here is the million dollar question do you agree with movements like this and things such as Women in Horror Month?  If so how would you like to see sites such as Ginger Nuts of Horror tackle diversity? 

Oh, absolutely. I think any opportunity to showcase a different aspect of the community is fantastic. It creates awareness of new books and new voices and encourages readers to try something new. Women in Horror month and LGBTQ+ Horror month are both fantastic initiatives, but I think Ginger Nuts could accomplish just as much with a few dedicated weeks, or maybe even a branded day of the week.
 
Not only would it avoid the risk of potentially overwhelming readers, but it would send a wonderful message by incorporating ongoing diversity.

The most common phrase you hear when people object to active movements to encourage all forms of diversity is “I don’t care about the sexuality, gender, color etc etc of the writer I only care about good stories” what would you like to say to these people?

My mother has a habit of qualifying her prejudices. She will bring up the fact that somebody is gay, Asian, Muslim, or whatever - facts that are completely irrelevant to the fact that they were buying fresh Italian bread - and then add “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
 
The truth of the matter is, if she really thought there was nothing wrong with that, and readers really did not care about race, gender, or sexuality, then they would not have brought it up.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?

Oh, that is an easy one. Futanari Moans is my favorite, a character who straddles my public and private personas, embodying interests from both real-life and fantasy. She is so much fun to write about, over-the-top adventurous with pulp sensibilities.  As for least favorite, that would most definitely have to be Mrs. Kay, the transphobic, holier-than-thou, zealot of a mother from my current work-in-progress, a full-length supernatural horror novel.

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

I would have to say Fear, Love and Broken Things, my darkly erotic horror story from last year. It is some of my finest writing, with so many passages and images that still give me chills.

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

It is so hard to pick a favorite child, but I would have to go with my twinned Alpha Transformation/Alpha Surrender stories. Imaginative post-apocalyptic horror, with solid world-building, complex characters, and supernatural themes. I am as proud of the characters as I am the writing, and I loved how my own “what if?” scenario played out.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
There is a passage in Fear, Love and Broken Things that I love, and which had my beta reader comment “Pardon my French, but holy f*ck that’s incredible.”
 
In her mind, the spider was straddling her moist, dark hole, its eight legs tickling her with their teasing caress. She imagined it spinning a new hymen for her, a sparkling white web to catch a lover unawares, leaving them with a silken condom.
 
With indisputable proof of her rebirth.
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

Fear, Love and Broken Things was my last book, and I think is some of my darkest, most polished, most mature writing. I spent a long time working on it, and I feel like the hours paid off. As for what’s next, I am working through what I hope will be my final rewrite of my massive supernatural horror novel, an atheist’s take on the afterlife, which tackles themes of love, faith, gender, and sexuality.

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

I am midway through The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, and it has absolutely blown me away. The last to disappoint me was a memoir about sex work that was far too focused on spirituality, and which was far too thin, without a comfortable flow to the storytelling.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
I am rather shy and introverted, a very private person offline, so every question is a source of anxiety. Having said that, I am an open book, just not one that invites questions. 😊

Sally Bend is an author, editor, columnist, and reviewer. Although shy and polite (she is, after all, Canadian), she loves to boldly and boisterously express herself through stories that bend the binaries of gender and sexuality.
Her fiction incorporates a wide range of styles, from dark horror to quirky erotica, with her favorite themes being the acceptance of gender identity and the exploration of submissive sexuality.
When she’s not reading, writing, or wandering the forest, she can be found online at http://sallybend.com.

"[Collings] brings the reader close in and doesn't want them to leave... I'd give this an A." - Horror Drive-In
All passengers, please prepare for departure...

An employee, a cop, and six passengers; a prisoner, a stowaway, and a madman.

These are the people waiting at the Lawton bus terminal. Mostly late-night travelers who want nothing more than to get to their destinations, and employees who want nothing more than to get through the graveyard shift.

"The final reveal of Terminal is masterclass-level stuff..." - High Fever Books
But when a strange, otherworldly fog rolls in, the night changes to nightmare. Because something hides in the fog. Something powerful. Something strange. Something... inhuman.

5 stars! "[A] nightmarish tale that was both captivating and frightening and also a novel that I would highly recommend!" - The Genre Minx
Soon, those in the terminal have been cut off from the rest of the world. No phones, no computers. Just ten strangers in the terminal... and The Other.

The Other is the force in the mist. The Other is the thing that has captured them. And The Other wants to play a game. 

"Terminal is a fun read that keeps you guessing..." - Rae's Reading Lounge
The rules are simple:

1) The people in the terminal must choose a single person from among them. That person will live. The rest will die.
2) Anyone who attempts to leave the terminal before the final vote will die.
3) The final vote... must be unanimous.

"Another win for [Collings]... Excellent!" - The Raven Podcast
A nightmare. And getting worse, because the best way to make a vote unanimous... is to kill the other voters.

Welcome to the Terminal.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I’m a lifelong daydreamer - I used to get into trouble in primary school for drifting off into worlds of my own imagining rather than paying attention in class. I would write stories about enormous insects or living statues for school projects, and scribbled pictures of skeleton ships and patchwork mutants in my exercise books. I’ve always been fascinated by things that are monstrous or frightening.

I specialise in writing what I call ‘incidentally queer’ fiction - stories with characters who happen to be LGBTQIA and where the plots don’t necessarily revolve around their sexualities.

Why horror?  What is appeal of the genre to you as both a fan and as a writer?

Horror is one of the oldest and most visceral kinds of fiction – we were telling stories around the fire to warn of the dark long before written literature or constructed novels. I find it very cathartic as a reader, and a writer, to tap into that.

Horror's also one of the broadest genres in literature, with some of the fewest restrictions – it can be supernatural or realistic, set against historical or fantastical or futuristic backgrounds, and doesn't require any specific plots or characters in order to work. There's so much depth and variety in published horror fiction at present, and I never get bored of exploring it.

As LBGTQ+ fan and writer of horror, how did you when you first became immersed in the genre and found that representation that you could identify was few and far between?

This one's a little difficult for me, because I was already immersed in horror long before I started coming to terms with my own identity or sexuality, and so I used to take a lot of what I was reading for granted.  By the  time I started to look for more diverse authors and characters, the genre was already becoming much broader – authors like Clive Barker, Caitlin Kiernan and Poppy Z Brite broke a significant number of barriers while I was still growing up.

How did you discover authors that wrote about characters that you could relate to?

I still find this quite difficult – although gay and lesbian characters are now much more common in horror fiction, finding bisexual protagonists is much harder, and non-binary or gender-queer fiction is almost nonexistent. I've had more luck with fantasy and science fiction than horror – Laura Lam, Kameron Hurley, Catherynne Valente, Rivers Solomon and Anna-Marie McLemore are all favourites of mine.

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

Fantasy was my first and fondest home in books - I grew up on The Hobbit and A Wizard of Earthsea, and became familiar with all kinds of supernatural and bizarre creatures before I ever turned to finding them in darker fiction. I think the line between fantasy and horror isn’t always easily defined - both depend on an element of the unexplainable or hint at events beyond our comprehension or control.

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 people often tend to associate horror with a set of genre trappings  - serial killers, zombies and so on – when I'd focus on the underlying philosophy of any given story. For me, a work of horror sets out to disturb the audience on a fundamental level - not simply to make them afraid of the individual monster but to make the world as a whole feel less safe and well-defined. If you give the audience what they expect, such as in a formula slasher plot, I’d actually argue it stops being horror because you’re comforting your readers and viewers instead of challenging them.
There’s a lot of great, diverse horror being written that doesn’t fit the genre formulas or stereotypes - I think we could work harder to highlight it.

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?

Environmental horror is the obvious one - I think we’ll see more modern equivalents of the nuclear threat and giant insect craze of 1950s B-Movies, as well as the social breakdown narratives that first sprung up after the Vietnam war.

To counterbalance that, we’re already seeing a revival of traditional gothic stories in both books and film - I think these have a more escapist appeal for people, and will continue to be successful given the state of the world outside.

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

I used to be far too scared of horror books and films as a child to read or watch them, but in my teens I stumbled into ghost stories in a big way - Shirley Jackson and M R James in literature, and the original Japanese versions of Ring, Dark Water and The Grudge in film led me into looking into their own influences and getting properly into the genre as a whole. I also started watching David Lynch around the same time, and his work made a particularly powerful impression on me - I don’t think I ever saw the world the same way again after Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive.

In recent years there has been a slow but gradual diversification within the genre, which new LBGTQ+ writers do you think we should be paying attention to? 

Amber Dawn is a long-running writer who recently moved into horror with her extraordinary novel Sodom Road Exit, which I can't recommend enough.
Daisy Johnson has had more attention in mainstream literary circles after her Booker prize nomination, but her short stories in Fen tapped into some very dark places, and I’m hoping she isn’t done with the genre yet.

Helen Oyeyemi's White is for Witching is one of the best gothic novels of this century – a relentlessly effective book part-narrated by the haunted house itself.

How would you describe your writing style?

Experimental - I’m always trying to find new ways of telling a story or trying to communicate a particular state of mind. My first novel, Lamplight, had a fragmentary back-and-forth style inspired by the way people hold conversations over social media, and my second, The Stickman’s Legacy, uses stylistic interludes and self-aware narrative to explore the heroine’s journey across different overlapping worlds.

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

Bringing everything together. Starting a new story is all very fresh and exciting - my ideas can practically fly off the page - but wrapping it up and editing it into a complete, coherent book can turn into a grind sometimes. I’ve got far too many half-started books compared to finished ones - as have many writers!

Are there any subjects that you would never write about?

Animal cruelty. I don’t like to think of myself as squeamish - and I certainly don’t judge other people for writing it - but something in me finds it much harder to contemplate than horrible things happening to people.

Sexual violence is also a difficult one - I wouldn’t say never, but I’d need to have a story that justified it first.

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

I had a tendency to overwrite everything when I started out, using a dozen words where one would do just as well. I wouldn’t say I’ve completely got rid of the habit, but I like to think I do it a great deal less.

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

Accept that your first book will be terrible, and that writing a bad book is a necessary step to producing a good one. It’s very easy to get hung up on trying to make your first book some kind of literary masterpiece, and realising that I instead needed to see it as a learning experience really helped me move on and improve my craft.

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you attempted to break through the barriers that are so often in place against LBGTQ+ writers?

I've tried to get my work noticed any number of different ways - social media across various channels, giveaways, review copies, open mic events and poetry readings, even contacting traditional media. It can be tremendously frustrating - I’ve had as many rejections when looking for reviews as I had trying to get my work published in the first place – but it's also impossible to know how many of those rejections have been because the book is LGBTQ+ and whether any of the reviewers or outlets would have looked at it otherwise. I think any barriers are all the more difficult for writers to deal with because their effect is often impossible to measure.

Many CIS white male authors use LGBTQ+ characters in their works, what’s the mistake that they make when trying to portray these characters?

Although I wouldn't say it's universal – some CIS writers can portray queer characters extremely well – the most common mistake is using the historically taboo aspects of being LGBTQ+ to write books that only give it negative connotations – having it be the cause of mental illness, a source of moral temptation, or exclusively associated with the villains of the book. Horror fiction thrives on social taboo, so there's obviously been a lot of older work written along these lines, but there's no excuse for doing it in the present day.

Moving on to getting your work read by unwashed masses, what do you think is the biggest misconception about LGBTQ+ fiction?
 
I think too many people expect a book with LGBTQ+ characters to be an 'issue book' - one that's about the queer experience itself, where coming out or self-discovery or learning to live with prejudice are central to the plot – when that's only a very narrow band of LGBTQ+ books. Most genre fiction with queer characters isn't and doesn't have to be about their sexuality.

There are as number of presses dedicated to LGBTQ+ fiction, do you view these as a good thing, or do you think they help to perpetuate the ongoing exclusion from mainstream presses?

I think it's a good thing – although it would obviously be better if all mainstream presses embraced queer fiction, having those specialist outlets available for LGBTQ+ writers and readers at least means the books are discoverable and gaining more visibility. I think that without them we'd simply have less LGBTQ+ fiction available altogether.

And here is the million dollar question do you agree with movements like this and things such as Women in Horror Month?  If so how would you like to see sites such as Ginger Nuts of Horror tackle diversity? 

I think spotlight months like this one are really helpful, especially coming from a site like Ginger Nuts of Horror that normally focuses on the genre as a whole. I'd like to see other promotional months for groups like writers of colour.

The most common phrase you hear when people object to active movements to encourage all forms of diversity is “I don’t care about the sexuality, gender, color etc etc of the writer I only care about good stories” what would you like to say to these people?

I'd say they're being disingenuous – if they genuinely only care about good stories then they should welcome movements that encourage a wider range of authors to write them.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?

My favourite and least favourite both are always whoever I’m writing at the time - they become fulfilling and frustrating all at once, and I’m sorely in need of a break from them by the time the book is finished!
Out of my published books, Mary in The Stickman’s Legacy was my favourite to write for, and Terry in Lamplight, who’s an antagonist of sorts, was easily my least favourite.

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

 It seems a little obvious, but it’s my most recent book, The Stickman’s Legacy. I spent years planning and creating the world and characters, then two years working on the first draft and another year re-writing it from scratch. It sometimes feels like half my life went into it.

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

The Stickman’s Legacy - out of my two books I think it best captures the kind of world and atmosphere I’m trying to create.
 
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

The Stickman’s Legacy is my newest book, and it’s a dark fairytale about a young woman investigating the death of her missing father, and discovering that his enemies are still very much alive. It features the old-fashioned type of fairies - child-stealers and blood-drinkers rather than granting wishes - and I based a lot of it on 19th-century folklore gathered from around the world.

I’m working on several different projects at present, but the next one I finish will probably be a dissociative supernatural murder mystery from the point of view of a girl with a chronic illness.

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

I’ve read several great books this year, but the most recent would be Seth Dickinson’s The Monster Baru Cormorant - a sophisticated, surreal and deeply disturbing novel from the point of view of an economic savant and budding tyrant as she jockeys for power in a brutal imperial society.

I was a little disappointed by Night Film -  not necessarily a bad book, but I was lead to expect a sinister and unsettling thriller and didn’t find it the least bit frightening; and it built mysteries a great deal more effectively than it answered them.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
​
I actually wish someone would ask me the much-hated question of ‘Where do your ideas come from?’
I dream many of mine. The trick is editing out the parts of the dream that are just everyday anxieties and leaving the peculiar core intact. Those I don’t dream come from asking myself questions - what could this thing do or be if it were allowed to happen? And what would follow after?
Social Media:

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
​
I like black coffee, white wine, and dirty martinis; I still smoke cigarettes; I prefer large sunglasses and mostly wear dresses; I’m a bag girl not a shoe girl; I love to clean my house while listening to film commentaries. My favorite flavor of ice cream is Butter Crunch.

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

I consider reading part of writing, so I bird watch in my yard, engage in audio, video, and scrapbook projects, volunteer at a local aquarium, and co-host the Dark Discussions podcast.

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

The places I visit, urban legends and National Geographic articles. I fall in love with anywhere that’s abandoned, cities and towns, or amusement parks and attractions. A story often starts when I set foot somewhere new and connect it with an urban legend or a tidbit I read in National Geographic.
 
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?

Horror is subjective; what’s scary to one person isn’t necessarily scary to another, and this is because we each have different life experiences. There is plenty of real horror in the world, and the monsters we encounter in movies and books are exaggerated stand-ins for the world’s real ones: grief, loss, death, disease, famine, abandonment, abuse, corruption…it’s a long list.  When people think of horror, they don’t think about the work as metaphor. If we were to reframe horror as commentary on the world’s afflictions, we might get there. But this also places a responsibility on the creators of horror to want to make it something deeper as well.

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’ve already seen a strong trend in themes dealing with identity (probably due to the rise in social media) and grief (probably due to our wider exposure to tragedy). I think, as social media and the focus on the self and individualism continues to rise, we’re going to see more psychological thrillers embracing these themes. I also think, as we, through social media, begin to accept vulnerabilities—such as depression and social anxiety—in ourselves and others, we’re going to see more characters reflecting those vulnerabilities.

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

My work is heavily influenced by Poe, Koji Suzuki, creative memoir, and classic short stories like “Leiningen vs the Ants,” “The Monkey’s Paw,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As far as what started me on all this back when I was a kid, my earliest film influences were back in the 1970s on Saturday afternoon television: Trilogy of Terror, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, The Haunting, The Fall of the House of Usher, The UFO Incident, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Jaws, Grey Lady Down, The Towering Inferno, Telefon, and Raise the Titanic. As far as books, I was always reading about volcanic eruptions, shipwrecks, sharks and the Bermuda Triangle. I read National Geographic cover to cover and 1970s thrillers. I remember I really loved Ghost Boat and Irving Wallace’s The Word.
 
What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of?

There are some fantastic short story writers I’ve recently discovered. Douglas Bruton wrote an incredibly emotional piece called “Thirteen Wedding Dresses” that recently appeared in an issue of The Fiction Desk. He’s won some awards for his work, but he’s over in Scotland and I’m hoping he gets a more international following. Kris Ashton is an Australian writer, and his short work—mostly speculative—is wonderful, too. His short “Highway Memorials” is both sad and thought-provoking. Again, I’d like to see him get more attention over here.

How would you describe your writing style?

It really depends on what I’m writing, because I look at each story as a captured moment in my life rendered in fiction, so sometimes, they have very different feels depending on what mood I’m in when it was created. I’ve been told many of my stories are sad, and that’s probably because grief is a theme I don’t seem to be done writing about yet. A hefty chunk of my stories features the unreliable narrator, because it’s the most like reality: we are all unreliable narrators in our own lives (that’s also my love of Poe bleeding onto the page). My other hallmarks are vibrant settings, at least one “out-there” or “larger than life” character, drastically varying speech patterns in dialogue, and single effect—rarely is “red” just the color red—everything usually means something else.

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

Yes. A Shock Totem reviewer of my novel, Bad Apple, gushed about how wonderful it was, going so far as to note it was such “a powerful and enlightening tale…completely feminine in the best of ways”…and also noted that I’d been painted into a corner at the end and used a technique that he wasn’t thrilled with. But he was absolutely right about the ending, and I felt it was a fair review. I have never forgotten that, and since then, I’ve been careful to make certain it doesn’t happen again. It was a powerful lesson for which I’m thankful.

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

I find it takes more time and focus to create the raw material than it does to polish; to me, the exciting part is the revision process. That’s where the art and craft come in.

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

I don’t consider anything taboo—whatever shows up, shows up—but I’ve found I naturally don’t write graphic violence and/or sex. I like a good slasher or something sexually explicit, but I don’t enjoy writing it.

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

Names are crucial, but they’re usually finalized at the end of the process. When I’m in the throes of writing, I slap down the first names that come to my head, but in the end, I like to contribute to the single effect, so I’ll choose them based on meaning. Unless, of course, it just feels right. Sometimes the original name turns out to be the best fit.


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

Everyone says to be a good writer, you must read, read, read. That’s true. The other thing that makes one a good writer is training and studying, and having the humility to accept that you’re never an expert. I’ve developed because I’ve read, and I’ve studied, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing that, because it’s the only way to improve. I’ve also found that taking breaks from writing and working on something else creatively—and I’m talking about long breaks, a few months—is refreshing; my work is often tighter when I return to it following a hiatus.

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

A coffee cup, a candle, a pen and paper, and a playlist.

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

There are a few that come to mind, but the two I tend to live by: My dad was a teacher, and he always used to say about his job, “if I reach one person, I’ve done my job.” I adapted that to my writing, meaning that if a piece I wrote affected even just one individual, if I made him think or shifted his perspective or inspired him—which many times we writers don’t hear about—then I’ve been successful as an artist. The second is from my mentor the late Daniel Pearlman, who said that “you have to make sure the movie that’s in your mind makes it to the page so that the reader isn’t confused.” Meaning, make sure that everything is clear, because sometimes, we think we’ve put things we intended to into the work but really haven’t—because we, as writers, are living in that world and know things about it the reader doesn’t.

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

I don’t write for recognition or to make a living, because for me it isn’t about that. Getting it out there so that people read it in the hopes I’ll reach that one person is what it’s about for me. Yes, I have to do my marketing; yes, I have to put myself out there; yes, I have to write blog posts, and I have to be willing to spend money to promote and do what it takes so the stuff gets read. But in the end, if that’s all I’m focused on, I’m really not much more than a car salesman. Most of my time is spent on the craft and the work. You can’t change people’s lives if what you’ve written isn’t powerful enough to affect them. So my advice is, quality first, promotion second, and where the latter’s concerned, just do as much as you can without sacrificing the time you need to make great art. There’s so much noise out there that even if you obsess on it and do everything right, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get the results you expect. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?

My favorite is definitely Todd from This Poisoned Ground, because he’s so complex; getting him to come alive on the page required understanding his inner workings, and how his conflicting emotions and paradoxical personality traits could co-exist. He was a huge challenge, and one I could embrace. Helene, from “Under the Kudzu,” was my least favorite, because she was deliberately written to be a blank slate. She couldn’t be fleshed out, but still had to be rendered so the reader could engage with her. She was a challenge also, just not a fun one.

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

My latest short story, “Wrecking Malcolm,” was inspired by a recently-discovered shipwreck graveyard in Rhode Island. I had some personal issues going on at the time, and what I needed to express collided with my fascination with the graveyard and some unresolved issues from my past. What came out was a well-blended supernatural cocktail. Although I’m also enormously proud of the four prize-winning tales I wrote for the Toasted Cheese Dead of Winter Contests: “Wailing Station,” “King of Bull,” “Bridging Christmas,” and “A Bone to Pick.” Twisting a given theme on its ear is one my specialties.
 
And are there any that you would like to forget about?

Of course. I’ve been getting work published since I was 13 years old, so there is plenty (although, thank God, there wasn’t the Internet or Amazon for over half my career, so most of it’s gone now). A short (published) story called “All Dolled Up” is pretty clichéd and predictable; the short (published) pieces “Growlers” and “May You Grow Old and Bitter” feel like they just need more work in terms of the endings, and the published “The Lace in the Window,” which I wrote for my wedding, feels contrived. I have a dozen or more that I’m not super proud of, but I don’t beat myself up over them for two reasons: A, this is all a growth process, and as a writer, you should always be improving; and B, honestly? I’ve read much worse by others that’s actually won awards. So it’s very much about the journey, and about understanding that one’s man’s junk is another’s treasure.

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

“Splendid Chyna”—one of three novellas in a collection called Three on a Match—is a great example of how I take an abandoned amusement park setting and turn it on its ear, and it’s also got one of my signature “out there” characters—everybody seems to love Farah.  This Poisoned Ground is where Poe’s influence is extremely strong, and both “A Bone to Pick” and “King of Bull”—which are available online at Toasted Cheese—are my best examples of the unreliable narrator. One of the stories featuring my most vivid settings is “Wailing Station,” also available at Toasted Cheese.
 
Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?

There are so many passages that I love, but it’s not necessarily because of how I wrote them. I often feel that I’m writing something just for me. My favorite new passage is from an unpublished story that hasn’t found a home yet, so I don’t want to reveal it here. But one passage I like to read repeatedly when I feel sad—it comforts me; I feel not so alone, and that things in my life could be far worse—is this one. It’s the opening of the short story “Roots,” which is being reprinted in the upcoming The Shadows Behind:
 
The only place I see my daughter Anna’s face now is on a milk carton.

She was just five years old when she wandered out the back door into the woods behind the house and disappeared, but in that moment, less traumatic but still painful, I lost more than the Anna I loved. The other women on Merrow Street—neighbors, friends, confidantes—withdrew; they didn’t understand because they still had their children. Oh, certainly, in those first days they were all aflutter, alighting on my doorstep with their lasagnas, cookies, and wine. Two weeks in, their voluntary visits tapered off, and despite my well-in-advance invitations, they had their excuses: Bethany was in the weeds picking up after the girls; Diane had to take Derek and Tyler to soccer practice; Sabrina had to give Miranda her piano lesson. I knew, of course, that they weren’t really that consumed; they hadn’t been too busy for me when I had my Anna. They regarded me as though I had an infectious condition; as though the loss of a child were viral; as though being near me were to guarantee that one day their children would disappear, too.

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

The Shadows Behind is a collection of new and reprinted short stories. Each story deals with the monsters that live inside us and has supernatural elements (I’ve often thought of my work more as magic realism than anything else). My next project is a novella called “Tidings.” It has to do with one of my passions—birds—and although it’s typical of my style, it’s also a love story. I don’t want to talk about specifics, because if I do, I’ll let all the energy out of it, and I won’t finish it.


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

I toe-curl at the “moving into a haunted house” scenario, although the reality is? If you believe in that phenomenon (my husband is an occult researcher), that’s the way it happens in real life. I love ghost stories, and we have seen new ways to tell them over the years, but this scenario just won’t let us go.

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

I often read in other genres besides horror, and so the last great book I read that I couldn’t put down was Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World by Noah Stricker. It’s a creative memoir about a man who embarks on an international Big Year. Powerfully written, moving, and solid. The last book that disappointed me was A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons. I loved The Terror, so I was excited to read this. It was fine, and I’d  even recommend it to people who like ghost stories, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped.

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

The question I’ve always wished someone would ask was this: Was your family supportive of your writing? If not, what advice would you give to other writers who may feel as though their loved ones don’t support them?
 
My parents constantly discouraged me from spending time on my writing in favor of “something more productive” (mostly whatever their own agenda was that day), or critical when I got something published (“you could’ve thought of a better title” or “why don’t you write something happy?”). In fact, my father stopped paying for me to go to college in my senior year because I refused to move home and finish out locally.  But, eventually, I not only finished my BA but also got my MFA—and I paid my own way and went to the schools I wanted to. I’m grateful, because their objections just made me persist. I wouldn’t have gotten this far with my work if they hadn’t been so unsupportive. So, if you’re a writer and you’re constantly undermined by those you love? Don’t let that discourage or stop you. Use it as fuel instead. You might find that your determination to succeed is that much stronger for it.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
Born and raised on the east coast of the United States in the shadow of New York City, I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1999 to pursue a career in newspaper journalism. I was a reporter and magazine writer for 14 years before moving into public relations and marketing.
 
I’ve been writing fiction since I was a young kid. I started out writing fantasy novels and short stories before moving into “serious literary fiction” as a college student. Later, after a long hiatus writing fiction, I wrote two more novels (both remain unpublished) and had started my third when I got stuck and decided to take a crack at writing in my favorite genre – horror. A year or two later, I had a dozen or so short horror stories and my first writing credit. I’ve been writing horror ever since.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?
 
Spend time with my wife and son. Read widely across fiction genres and history. I am also a passionate baseball fan and die-hard Seattle Mariners fan (which means I watch a lot of losing baseball.) Big movie fan and TV binge watcher as well.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
I’m an English Lit student, so I like to think SOME of what I spent four years studying at college has found its way into my writing. However, I read a great deal of fantasy, science fiction and mystery writing, as well as a fair amount of history. That’s in addition to horror, of course, which I read widely.
 
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?
 
My feeling is that the best horror is atmospheric and infused with a gradual and unmistakeable feeling of dread. The feeling that something truly awful is going to happen to the protagonist. A great example is a classic of the horror genre I only read very recently – Song of Kali, by Dan Simmons. Simmons’ writing immerses you in the wretchedness that was Calcutta back in the 1970s – there’s a real sense of otherworldliness to it, almost as if the city is on another planet. Part of it is the authority with which he wrote that book – I am not an expert on Indian history or culture, and I know there has been some debate about the way Calcutta and Indian society was portrayed in Song of Kali, but the writing was so vivid that I often felt like I was there. And the protagonists felt doomed from the vert first page. THAT’S great horror writing. I don’t want to see that changed – I want to see MORE of it.

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, thankfully, we’re going to see more and more diverse voices in the horror genre. Points of view and stories that might not have had much of a chance of getting told even five or 10 years ago. Jordan Peele comes to mind. I was a big fan of Get Out and I will be seeing Us on opening night, or shortly thereafter. The more diverse the genre becomes, the better. Maybe we’ll see more cross-pollination of new perspectives as writers – as they are wont to do – beg, borrow and steal ideas from one another. It can really make all of our storytelling so much richer. I really hope the current trend of diverse voices getting the attention they deserve continues.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
The Exorcist has probably had more influence on me than any other book, though I also consider H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Ambrose Bierce, Ray Bradbury and W.P. Kinsella to be major influences. From a film perspective, I’m all over the place – Star Wars, Star Trek and Halloween all made a huge impression on me as a kid.

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

How would you describe your writing style?
 
Economical and invisible to the reader, yet evocative of feeling. Hopefully. I always cringe when my writing “feels or sounds like writing” – typically that’s a sign I’m showing off my writing chops instead of trying to tell a good story. I think my long career as a newspaper reporter helped instill in me a sense that it’s verboten to insert myself into a story. That’s not why the reader paid for my book with his or her time and money. They paid to escape the real world for a little while and read a good yarn.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
My published work has not been widely reviewed, unfortunately. I am very grateful to all those who had taken the time to review what’s out there. My hope is that my work evokes a strong reaction one way or the other. And 14 years in newsrooms gave me a pretty thick skin. I won’t say I haven’t gotten criticism from editors (both news editors and fiction editors) that I disagreed with or dismissed out of hand because I have; but it doesn’t stay with me for long and I don’t take it personally. Better to get a negative reaction than NO reaction. And in the end, most of it’s completely subjective. Certainly there’s never a reason to lash out at reviewers. To my mind, it’s better to thank someone for giving you the gift of taking the time to read your work and provide feedback, good or bad, and leave it at that.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
Summoning the willpower to keep writing when I am stuck or when I am losing passion for a work in progress. Typically, I force myself to finish what I start, because such feelings of dissatisfaction and hopelessness are fleeting. Over the years, I’ve abandoned only a few projects, and I’ve hated doing it every single time. I’m not saying there aren’t times when letting a project go isn’t the right thing to do, because there are, but those times, for me, have been few and far between.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
No. I don’t think writers should shy away from any subject. In general, I think it’s a bad idea to write (or not write) out of fear. It’s true in writing and it’s definitely true in life.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Names are pretty important. Great characters are people, and people have names that are as core to their beings as anything else about them. So it’s important to get names right. I choose names based on lots of factors, including when and where the story takes place. Different names have come into and fallen out of favor over the years, and they need to be authentic to the story’s time and place.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
 
Well, hopefully, I’ve gotten better at it! In all seriousness, I hope I’ve become more open minded and less controlling of my stories as they unfold on my laptop screen. Sometimes, you just gotta let your story be what it wants to be and get out of the way. Easier said than done.


What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
 
Passion for storytelling, discipline to read and write every day, curiosity and courage to ask one’s self the tough and scary questions that lead to great stories.


What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
Never stop writing.


Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
 
To date, I’ve had about 14 stories published in magazines, anthologies or podcasts, including two novellas. Getting my work noticed has been a tough go. For me, it started with magazine editors. And the only way to get your work noticed is to be relentless. Submit, submit, submit, submit.
 
More recently, I’ve tried to make use of my background in digital marketing to amplify news of my published work, but the challenge there is rising above the noise. And there’s a lot of noise out there. It’s a learning process, and, as in my day job as a marketer, the most critical thing for me is to keep trying new things to get my work noticed.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?


What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
It was never published, but to this day, the first novel I ever wrote is one of the works I’m most proud of. It was a huge accomplishment for me and very cathartic. I’ll never forget the moment when I wrote the last sentence and thought to myself, “That’s it. I did it. I’ve written a book.” Getting my first story published back in 2009 is a close second.
 
And are there any that you would like to forget about? Yes, pretty much anything I wrote before the age of 30.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
Hmm. Great question. I love combining history and horror, and both Old Hollow and The Death Chute have elements of both, so I’d have to go with those two.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
I’m a big fan of the final passages in Old Hollow, where the protagonist, U.S. Cavalry Captain Benjamin Lawson, comes face to face with the demonic creatures that killed one of his men earlier in the story.
 
Warning: Spoilers below.
 
Harsh rasps and whispers filled the night air, but Lawson ignored them. He started walking toward the creatures and lined up a shot. As he moved, a passage from a poem with which he’d become acquainted during his final year at West Point flashed through his mind. It had been a new poem at the time, appearing in all the popular magazines. The academy’s English composition instructor had forced the cadets in his charge to commit the entire poem to memory, though Lawson was damned if he could remember the title or author. One particular stanza came back to him as he fired:
“Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell ...”
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
Sure. My latest book is a horror novella called The Death Chute. It’s basically a classic haunted house story that takes place in an old tuberculosis sanatorium. The sanatorium has been converted into a posh rest home for seniors. The book comes out April 9 and is being released by indie publisher Aurelia Leo. It’s my second book with Aurelia, which published another horror novella of mine, Old Hollow, which takes place during the waning days of the American Civil War. Gingersnaps was kind enough to allow me to guest blog about Old Hollow and my love of historical horror stories a year or so ago.
 
At the moment, I’m working on the second draft of a new horror novel – it’s about a man who discovers an old console radio from the 1940s that he becomes obsessed with restoring. One night, the radio starts talking to him and telling him to “do things” and the things it tells him to do aren’t very nice. Hope to finish it up soon.


If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?
 
The whole “in the end, it was all a dream” cliché. You know, Bobby wakes up from a dream in Dallas. Man, I hate that crap.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
The last great book I read was The Dixon Cornbelt League, a collection of mystical baseball stories by W.P. Kinsella. Read it in about two days. The last book to disappoint me? Probably Live and Let Die, by Ian Fleming. I’m a huge James Bond fan, but some of the writing in the Fleming books hasn’t aged well, specifically the way women and minorities are portrayed. It’s not really a fair criticism because all writers are products of their time to a certain extent, but what I can tell you is there were several times when I was knocked out of the story due to language and word choice. This isn’t to say it’s a bad book or Fleming was a bad writer – neither is true – I just know what I felt when I read that book, and it was disappointment.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer?
 
Question: Why do you love the horror genre?
 
Answer: More than any other genre, horror allows writers (and readers, of course) to explore the things that scare us the most – usually, the fear of the unknown. It’s scary to not know what’s going to happen, and our fears change as we age. When I was a kid, I was afraid I’d never grow up. When I was a young man, I was afraid I’d never find a job or someone to share my life with. As a middle-aged man, now with a wife and a son, my greatest fear is losing those who are most important to me – my wife and my son – through some terrible accident or misfortune. Another fear I have that I feel more and more is the realization that I’m pretty much at the halfway point. Will I ever get where I really want to be – writing full time? I don’t know. But there’s a lot of grist to write about there, wouldn’t you say?
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