 Before we even get into this interview, here are the facts. Tiffany McDaniel has two books in print: The Summer That Melted Everything and the recently released Betty. I expect both of these novels to be in my top ten at the end of the year and if you are avoiding them because she is "not a horror writer," then you are 1: wrong. Both of her books easily have the emotional heft of books like Ketchum's The Girl Next Door, and no one would say THAT isn't horror. And 2: You are just doing yourself a disservice because Tiffany has written two masterpieces and she's just getting started. JC: So, is it true that your publisher gives you a bonus if you make us cry? Don't lie. TMcD: This is one of the best questions I’ve ever gotten. I take it as a compliment when a reader says they’ve cried. I always wonder if in those moments in the novel where I’m hoping the reader connects emotionally to the story, if I’ve accomplished the job of stirring up those emotions. What I think helps me craft those scenes is that I don’t work with an outline, so I don’t know if I’m going to be writing one of those emotionally charged scenes for the day, and I think using that natural build up, removes that pressure to create a sad scene because it comes about organically. JC: That's an interesting strategy for writing those scenes. On behalf of all of your readers: it works. I've always found the dynamic between readers and crying to be interesting. Most people would say that they dislike getting emotional, but then when you have them list their favorite movies, many of those films are very sad. You only cry for things you love right? TMcD: I agree. Those books and movies that I have cried in have always been the ones that have stood out to me for that reason. One of the things that I think my mother taught me so well was to not turn away from things that might make you sad or uncomfortable. My mother Betty has always valued reading and books so much. She read to me and my sisters from the time we were in the crib. And every night at bedtime, we would run into our closet, full of crates of books, and choose a armload our mother would happily read to us. I remember one book in particular. It was Donkey, Donkey by Roger Duvoisin. In the book, there is a donkey who wishes his ears were not so large. There was an illustration that as a child was scary to me. It was of Donkey getting his ear caught on a nail. The illustrator had drawn the blood drops. But my mother told me to look at the page because through understanding Donkey's pain, we could show compassion and empathy. I've carried that teaching through my life, and I think it has served me well in my writing. JC: Plenty of writers can paint three dimensional characters, but only the elite can do it with a few brush strokes. I consider you to be firmly in the elite category. How important is character development to you? TMcD: Well, first off, thank you for that incredibly kind compliment. Character development is such an important part of the process. Especially for a book like Betty, where we’re dealing with a family that is rather large. You have to make sure they feel related, but also that they have their own identities. For instance, Betty is inspired by my mother Betty, and these characters are based on those family members that I grew up knowing. For the book, I had conducted Q&A sessions with Mom and these other family members to really craft and form their identities wrapped around the things they had experienced, so that was a valuable tool to developing their characters. There’s always the question of what is more important? Plot or character development? But unless you have those characters to drive it forward, your plot is a car without wheels. JC: I have a high water mark test for how well characters are developed. After I finish a book, I ask myself if the story quality would've suffered if the point-of-view were changed to a different character. If the answer is no, then the characters were distinct and interesting. If yes, then I'd know that the other characters mostly existed as props to move the story along, not as three dimensional beings. I think both of your books could've existed with different points-of-view. TMcD: Well thank you for that. My hope is that I have crafted characters able to stand on their own. What I love about first person is that it allows us inside the mind of the person telling us this story, so we feel as if we move our feet with theirs. But even though I'm in one mind, I try to think about if the story was transferred over to one of the other characters. Sometimes I choose a certain narrator to save a secret. For example, I had originally planned to tell the story in The Summer that Melted Everything from Sal's perspective, but in many ways that would have let us in on his identity. And without giving too much away, it would have also removed the ability to look back on the events from a future time. And in the case of Betty, I thought about seeing her as an older woman, looking back on her life, sitting at the typewriter her father had given her. I want my books to feel as if they can exist in the waters of time, those ripples representing all of those voices, echoing out to the edges. JC: I was excited to learn that you are a horror fan. That'll get you some street cred here. What is your attraction to it, and what are some of your favorites? TMcD: From the time I was a child, I was drawn to the spider’s web. I was born on January 19th, which just happens to be the birthday of writer Edgar Allan Poe, so maybe I was born with a little of the raven. From the time I was a child, I was drawing things like plane crashes and writing spell books. I still have this phone book I made when I was about 8 that lists numbers for all the monsters in the neighborhood from the mummy to Dracula. The first piece of writing I had published was a short horror story I wrote when I was in the third grade. Horror ignites creativity and it allows us to challenge ourselves by using our fears against us. It’s just such an exciting genre, it’s hard to believe there are those who don’t have an attraction to it. Some of my favorite horror authors and books are Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Michael McDowell The Elementals, Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Marasco's Burnt Offerings, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked this Way Comes, which Bradbury is the rare author I re-read. JC: Lets talk about your new novel, Betty (out on August 18th, from Random House Knopf). I know that you had some trouble getting it published. Tell us about that. TMcD: It was an uphill battle to get Betty placed. It’s a book I wrote nearly two decades ago. When I started querying agents for it, they would give feedback that said the novel was too female, too risky, and too dark. It was frustrating, because they would say they enjoyed the writing, but that there just wouldn’t be an audience for this type of literature. The family members the book is based on would ask about the book’s progress to getting published over those years, and it was hard not to feel like a letdown when I told them there was no progress to report. I look back on those twenty years, and I carry the scars of that journey, but it’s also made me a stronger writer. When agents suggested I change Betty to a male narrator, I stood my ground. It's also a journey that taught me to be grateful for every second, because it’s so easy to have never been published at all. JC: Both of your books deal with dichotomies in human nature. "Villains" can act heroically, and "heroes" often make mistakes. TMcD: I tend to like to explore the gray area between good and evil, where I think most of us fall. If we only see the villain being evil and only see the hero being heroic, it feels more like fiction. But if we show those sides, then we open the door on seeing their psychology, which feels very human. What makes a villain or a hero are those decisions they make. If we show what they are capable of, we also underline their decision to either lean in or away from those decisions, thereby cementing their identities. JC: You've written two coming-of-age tales, one with male point-of-view, and one with female point-of-view. What's next? TMcD: Having had such a long journey to publication, means I’ve had some years to just write, so I have over twelve novels completed. There are a couple I’d like to follow Betty up with. One is titled On the Savage Side and is inspired by the Chillicothe Six, which is a true crime case out of Chillicothe Ohio. A few years ago, women had started to disappear in that town. Then, a few bodies were discovered. To this day, the case has never been solved and in many ways it felt as though their case was being forgotten. As fate would have it, I had gone to grade school with one of the women who went missing up in Columbus, and whose case was suspected to have been linked to the Chillicothe murders. And one of the victims was named Tiffany, so I felt connected to these women in many ways and I wanted to write about them and show the life behind the crime. Another book I think could be good to follow Betty up with is titled When Lions Stood as Men. It follows a brother and sister who escape Nazi Germany, cross the Atlantic and end up in Ohio where, suffering from survivor’s guilt, they create their own camp of punishment. In many ways it goes back to the horror stories I wrote as a kid. It's just that sometimes the horrors are not monsters in masks, but are instead the horrors of life itself. JC: Both of those sound good! Thanks again for doing this Tiffany! TMcD: I loved it. Thank you so much again for giving me the opportunity to do this, Jason.  Tiffany McDaniel is a novelist, poet, and visual artist born and raised in Ohio. She is the author of The Summer That Melted Everything. Her novel BETTY releases August 18, 2020.  Jason Cavallaro was born 8 days before the premiere of George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD premiere. Jason did not attend that premiere, because 8-day old infants aren’t supposed to travel cross country to see horror films. But….his mom should’ve at least TRIED. To make up for this oversight, he reads over 100 books every year, most of them in the horror genre. Jason Cavallaro is not an author, because that would cut into his reading time too much. Instead, it is his mission to read all the great books (so you can read them too) and the bad ones (so you don’t have to). Although horror is his favorite genre, he has been known to also read fantasy and science fiction. When not reading, he is either playing drums or talking to cats. He has a monthly column at www.horrordrive-in.com and can be followed on twitter, @pinheadspawn  A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians about a young girl and the family truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life "A girl comes of age against the knife." So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters. Despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family's past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that have stung her so deeply she could not tell them, until now. Inspired by generations of her family, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by delivering this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the most important voices in American fiction. "This book was a masterpiece. I struggle sometimes with books this well written. That may not make sense to some of you, but I was intimidated at times with how well written this was. I’m not a smart enough reader (or reviewer!) to fully verbalize what I’m trying to say, but there are moments in this book that are so crystal clear, perfect, you’ll need to set it down, go back and reread it." - Steve Stred: Kendall Reviews   THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR PROMOTION WEBSITESComments are closed.
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