Nikki Noir's Blog, page 3
November 4, 2020
Interview with Mona Kabbani
Looking for a fresh face in horror? Please welcome Mona Kabbani to the scene!
Nikki Noir: Tell us a bit about Morality in Horror.
Mona Kabbani: Morality in Horror is my own personal brand of horror. Not that horror with a moral compass hasn't been done before, but it's a theme I like to stick to. I gave it an all encompassing name to be immediately recognizable to anyone who follows and reads my work. I like the idea of creating a brand where all of my stories and content fit comfortably in this little home of horror. It feels more complete and whole this way!
Noir: I read in the introduction of your book that you suffer from Sleep Terrors. Not Paralysis. You discuss the difference between them in depth, but I’m curious if you’ve had this condition since childhood or if it’s a newer development in life.
Kabanni: I've had them since I was a child. I actually used to be terrified of everything and anything - paralyzingly so. My parents would have to deal with me sleeping in between them in bed almost every night because the slightest things would scare me and haunt me in my sleep. As I got older, I grew less afraid but the terrors remained.
Noir: Follow-Up, are you sensitive to the condition in literature and films, due to it being a real-life issue for you? Anything you can share on how Sleep Terrors impacted your introduction to the world of horror fiction and/or how you interact with the genre?
Kabbani: So, like I said in the previous question, when I was a kid these movies and stories would cause me absolute terror. I'm not sensitive now but of course back then, I was to an extreme degree. It was quite bad to be honest. I wound up adoring horror because it was something I no longer wanted to be afraid of so I practiced extinguishing these fears until one day I woke up and I wasn't afraid anymore although the terrors remain. Now my love of horror veers on obsession. It's something I used to never be able to consume without crying myself to sleep yet now, it's my favorite thing to watch. I conquered that fear and it feels good.
Noir: Of all the characters you’ve written, who’s your favorite and why?
Kabbani: Oh, gosh. That's like asking to pick a favorite child as cliche as that sounds. (I know every author would have the same exact response, haha.) I actually have a set of characters in the novel I'm currently working on to be released soon that I'm in love with. But I can't choose because they're all so vastly different and flawed and I love them each differently. What I will tell you is that my favorite characters are the ones riddled with flaws such as human nature dictates.
Noir: What real-world situation terrifies you the most?
Kabbani: I'm terrified of losing my mind. It's my greatest fear, losing cognizance. The ability to think and hold thought and memory. That terrifies me beyond anything else.
Noir: If there’s one thing you want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Kabbani: It would be that I want you to enjoy my work in whatever capacity you see fit however, when you're finished, take a moment to reflect on the moral of the story and how it relates to your life. I love the gorific details I include for the visual fun of the novel but I want the terror to last past the pages and for the reader to become introspective no matter how terrifying it might be. I'm a firm believer that if we better understand ourselves and our faults, we can find better peace.
Noir: What’s the premise of your debut novella
,The Bell Chime
?
Kabbani: A girl suffering from paralyzing night terrors finds a missing poster hanging from the door of her apartment building. On that poster is a photograph of a frighteningly familiar face. It’s her. Over a series of strange events to follow, she must discover what is real and what is the nightmare
Noir: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Kabbani: I'm currently putting finishing edits on a novel titled Vanilla that I am hoping to have released Valentine's Day! I'm VERY excited for it.
I mainly exist on Instagram @moralityinhorror and on Twitter @moralitynhorror . I also have a website www.moralityinhorror.com where you can find links to my work and sign up for my newsletter (I don't typically send newsletters out - it's more so so I can keep all of my spooky goons in one place!).
Check out Mona's Novella Here!
October 23, 2020
Interview with E.B. Lunsford!
Nikki: ,Tell us about your novel ,No Escape, and the Inspiration for it.
Lunsford: No Escape is an extreme horror novel five years in the making. The biggest inspiration for it was Richard Laymon. My hope for No Escape was to create a world that would suck my readers in same as Laymon's work had done to me. I wanted to take them for a ride that started out simple, then weaved in twists and turns, building to gripping anticipation of what would happen next. Some scenes were difficult to write, and I even disgusted myself with one particular scene. (*SPOILER: it involved maggots.) It was easily the darkest story I’ve ever written.
Nikki: Y,ou dedicated No Escape in part to Richard Laymon. How has Richard impacted your work and what does he mean to the genre of horror?
Lunsford: Richard Laymon was the first author I ever read who dared to go “there.” He went where other authors wouldn’t and quickly became one of my favorites. He had a way of pulling me into the story, forcing me to stay up late to finish one more chapter. I couldn’t put it down. His characters were so engrossing. Some of the scenes were terrifying and had me on the edge of my seat. He pushed the boundaries like no one else. I also learned how nice he was as a person, author, friend, and mentor. He was a family man and a real inspiration to many people. I wanted to be like him. I still do. His death was a tragic loss to the horror genre. As they say “no one wrote like Laymon,” and I don’t think anyone ever will.
Nikki: ,What's your next project and where can we stalk you?
Lundsford: My next project is a post-apocalyptic series that I have been working on for ten years. If all goes according to plan, the first book of the series will be published before Halloween. It will be followed up by three more books in the next two years. And yes, it involves zombies. I know that everyone says they have been overdone, but you haven't seen my series yet. Not only do I read every zombie book I can get my hands on, I’ve watched almost every zombie movie ever made. Its the characters that make a good zombie story and I think I've crafted some interesting ones. You can find out more on my website. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads.
Nikki: ,What real world environment scares you most?
Lundsford: Moving vehicles. There’s something about doing 75 miles per hour on the interstate stuck between an eighteen-wheeler and a concrete barrier that really sets my teeth on edge. And when that eighteen-wheeler swerves into your lane? You better hit the brakes and pray, because your life is now in the hands of an exhausted trucker driver. Cars are terrifying. I have lost a great deal of friends to car accidents.
Nikki: ,Of all the characters you've created, do you have a favorite and why?
Lundsford: I think my favorite character was actually the antagonist of No Escape. He was more scary and more real than any other character I had ever created. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the protagonist, too. Nicole even reminded me of a younger version of myself, but I already knew her story. Tom’s was the story I had to work hard to discover. He really seemed to come alive on the page while I was writing the novel.
Nikki: What's something you want readers to know about you?
Lundsford: First, I would like to let them know that I am a multi-genre author. I know some readers don’t like writers who write multiple genres, and I would prefer to let them know upfront. I have eight more novels planned for the next three years. They are all in various states of completion, and many of them I have been working on for some time. They all have undercurrents of horror even though they vary in genre. I have been through a lot in my life. I have endured loss and trauma. I try to use my own experiences to enhance my writing. I would like to add that in the spirit of Halloween, No Escape is on sale for the full month of October for .99 cents. You can find it on Multiple platforms here
More Places to Stalk E.B.
Website: https://eblunsford.com
No Escape: https://books2read.com/u/bzjnMn
FB Author Page: https://facebook.com/eblunsford
Instagram: https://instagram.com/eblunsfordauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20522915.E_B_Lunsford
September 9, 2020
Interview with Matthew Vaughn!
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for authors and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Matthew Vaughn
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Vaughn: I wouldn't say I have any crazy fantasies. Unless you count my dream of society being destroyed in some apocalyptic fashion and forcing us to live in some Mad Max style, wasteland of a world. It would be nice if something happened that puts the world into eternal fall-like weather, so its not too hot or too cold while we have to fight cannibal mutants over spoiled old food at the local abandoned Wal-Mart.
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Vaughn: Anytime I have to get up in front of people and speak. I almost failed an English class in high school because I refused to get up in front of the class. Playing music live is the only time I can really get up in front of people, but I'm usually a nervous mess before hand.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Vaughn: There was originally a call for a splatter in space anthology, and when I saw it I immediately came up with this sex driven, space adventure. Edward Lee was the main inspiration behind the story though. I've been slowly reading through his bibliography and just felt inspired to try to write something gross, and over the top. I know I didn't achieve close to Lee status, but I had fun with it.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Vaughn: I first discovered Bizarro fiction about 10 or 11 years ago I think. I was already trying to seriously write, but I was trying for a more literary approach. Then I discovered books by Jeremy Robert Johnson, William Pauley III, and Carlton Mellick III and they aligned so well with my interests in music and movies and comics. It opened me up to the idea of writing outside the norm, and that there were people out there that were interested in reading that sort of thing. After trying for a few books I discovered I wasn't very good at writing bizarro and I've since quit reading the genre. I spend more time with splatterpunk and extreme horror now and I feel like it's helped me to find my place as an author.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Vaughn: I'm not here to turn the literary world on its head. I'm all about some mindless entertainment. I like to write books that you can just turn your brain off, sit back and get drunk while you read them. Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll be a little grossed out, but hopefully you're having a good time.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Vaughn: I've been slowly working on a book called The Kentucky Goatman Murders, loosely based off the Pope Lick Monster legend here in Kentucky. Hopefully I'll be releasing it before the years up. Also, at least one, maybe two more short stories based around my Hellsworld Hotel novella should be coming out soonish.
I'm terrible with social media, so stalking me would be super boring, but I have my Twitter @mcvaughn138 and Instagram M_F_N_Black_Skull_of_Death that I post on occasionally.
,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
And ,Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
September 8, 2020
Interview with John McNee!
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of this extreme anthology.
And if you're not a member of the online FB group for authors and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with John McNee
Nikki: Tell us about your cooking channel
McNee: ,A Recipe for Nightmares is a culinary journey through the recipes of horror icon Vincent Price. I got a copy of his legendary cookbook, 'A Treasury of Great Recipes' a few years ago, but realised I would probably never cook anything out of it unless I was filming it and putting it online for people to see. I thought it might also be another good platform on which to subtly market my own books. There have been 20 episodes so far, tackling some niche and frankly bizarre recipes ranging from Welsh Rabbit to Elfo's Special, Scandinavian Fruit Soup and Fish Pudding (tastier than you might expect).
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
McNee: A nudist colony. I don't think it would be my jam.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
McNee: It's a very, very simple idea. I think many of us, especially living in city-centre flats, have been annoyed by noisy neighbours partying loudly into the night and dreamed about how we might take revenge, if we only had the power. My story 'Splatter Party' runs with that thought and takes it to its most sadistic extreme.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
McNee: All this terminology has become a bit vague and confused. 'Splatterpunk' really meant something when it was coined in the 1980s but now it's hard to say. Generally speaking, I don't like writing with limitations, at least in terms of ideas. Give me a word count limit and that's fine, but when I began submitting horror stories I saw many editors/publishers stating things like 'no sexual assault, no blasphemy, no gore'. Those kinds of limitations are not conducive to good horror. At the same time, I'm not the kind of guy who writes gore for gore's sake. I love blood in my horror, but I want there to be a kernel of an interesting idea behind it. Splatterpunk done right is exactly the kind of horror fiction I care about: grotesque but thoughtful.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
McNee: I'm not interested in scaring people. I want to entertain. I think there's something wonderfully seductive about horror, about the darkest realms of the human imagination which most people are loathe to venture into. My work is dark and disturbing but, I hope, in an enriching way. I feel that a lot of horror today is geared towards making the audience have a bad time that leaves them feeling bad. I want my readers to have a good time. And I hope they have a good time with 'Splatter Party'.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
McNee: I'm working on a new novel which is not horror. I'm not sure what genre it's in. It might best be described as exploitation-satire-bizarro-sci-fi, but it's not horror. It is excessively violent, however, so it has that in it's favour. I have stories due to be published soon in ,CHEW ON THIS! from Blood Bound Books and ONE OF US: A TRIBUTE TO FRANK MICHAELS ERRINGTON. I can be found easily by searching for John McNee on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and YouTube.
***
,,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
August 24, 2020
Interview with Paul Stansfield
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of this extreme anthology.
And if you're not a member of the online FB group for authors and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Paul Stansfield
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Stansfield: I’ve talked for years about what I want done with my body after I die. Initially, I’d like it to go the Body Farm in Tennessee, where they train their forensic students by leaving corpses out in various situations and observe how they decay. After they’re finished with me, I’d like to be cremated, and my ashes divided up into say, 10 portions or so. Then I’d like a trusted friend or relative to toss these ashes into the faces of people that I strongly dislike or hate, saying “Paul says ‘hello’!” I would like to do this for real. I plan to set aside some money for my designated agents’ travel costs, trouble and time, and (probable) bail and lawyers’ fees. But I haven’t made out a will or anything yet, because I figured I still should have plenty of time to do so. Although in these pandemic days, maybe I should step up the preparation!
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Stansfield: Like a lot of people, I’m not into public speaking at all. So, any environment where this is necessary scares me—talking in class, giving a speech to coworkers, giving a toast at a wedding, and such. Although, that said, I have had to give the occasional oral presentation, of course, and I always get through it, by practicing it countless times beforehand. But I still always dread it, and will avoid it if at all possible.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Stansfield: “23 to 46” is about a guy whose body cells gain sentience, and start to communicate with him. And it quickly becomes uncomfortable, as some of the cells grow quite demanding, and even abusive. Things get alarming and disturbing from that point. So the actual conflict is a man literally against parts of himself. It’s been a long time since I wrote the story, so my memory is a bit hazy. But I’ve always been fascinated by real life medical situations when the body is in conflict with itself, such as severe allergic reactions to otherwise harmless substances, immune systems attacking a transplanted organ which is actually keeping the body alive, or the phantom limb syndrome that some amputees experience. Also, I find people’s opinions about fertility and pregnancy to often be illogical, and self-contradictory.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Stansfield: To me they mean speculative fiction stories that are more extreme, more absurd, and more subversive. “No holds barred” types of tales, which might revel in the violence and gore, and aren’t afraid to be weird and unsettling. As to being a big part of my stories—sometimes. I don’t sit down and say, “Today I’ll write a splatterpunk or bizarro story.” But sometimes the main idea behind the story lends itself well to these subgenres, and so they come out that way. I enjoy the horror genre in all of its formats, and have written in all of these ways. Some subtle, “quiet” horror movies and stories can be fantastic. And some over the top, grotesquely violent and bloody ones can be great, too. Or everything in between. If the plot, the tone, the characters, etc., are all compelling, then the story probably will be as well. How the story is presented can go a lot of different routes.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Stansfield: At the risk of sounding mundane, I don’t have any grand mission or goal about my writing, other than trying to express myself, and tell stories that people will hopefully find entertaining, and interesting.Most of my work tends to be in the horror genre, so in those tales I’m trying to frighten and disturb the reader, and ideally write something that sticks with them, and makes them think about morbid topics. Also, I live in the real world, so it would be nice to eventually make a full time living from writing, too.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Stansfield: My day job for 25 years was working as a field archaeologist.Among the excavations I worked on were several large cemetery removals.I found these fascinating—like snowflakes, each grave was different, and special in its own way.Determining the person’s age at death, sex, and disease or injury history was a cool bit of mystery-solving, too.Anyway, I’m working on a ghost story that is based on one of these projects.It’s highly fictionalized, but the kernel of it actually did happen.I don’t often write about work-related topics, but this is a notable exception.As for stalking me, I live at 123 Faux Street, in---just kidding, of course.My personal blog address is http://paulstansfield.blogspot.com, and I can be reached at the following email address: paulccstansfield@gmail.com Popular blog topics include bizarre and gross things I’ve consumed, underrated horror movie reviews, sports trivia, and writing updates.
***
,,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
Interview with Matthew Weber!
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for creators and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Matthew Weber
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy?
Weber: In light of these divided political times, I'd like to see a nationally televised Presidential debate where everyone in attendance has secretly been dosed with bath salts. As the rhetoric heats up, people from the "extreme right" and "extreme left" lose grip on the last vestiges of their sanity and attack the opposing side in a cannibalistic frenzy. Throats are ripped apart, tongues wrenched out by the root, eyeballs plucked and stomped flat. The whole place devolves into an orgy of blood until no one is left breathing. Maybe then, having witnessed such unfettered horror on TV, the nation as a whole can take a breath, see a better way, and then perhaps objective reason and independent thought will return to public discourse.
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Weber: The political environment for the upcoming U.S. Presidential election feels like the closest we've come in my lifetime to something like the fantasy described above actually coming true. I'm raising three young kids in this scary world, and the election feels like the moment of culmination from the triple threat of the pandemic, the struggling economy, and social unrest. The nation is starkly divided in half, and I wonder how those two halves will react when one side is ultimately disappointed in the election outcome.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Weber: One of my greatest fears is something terrible happening to one of my kids while at school, and I'm not around to help them. That was the inspiration for "Code Black", my "monster on the loose in a high school" story. I fleshed it out by setting it in my usual small town of Trapper Valley and populating it with a couple of recurring characters from my back catalog of short stories.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Weber: Splatterpunk to me is horror on steroids. Trim the fat and leave just the red meat. Expect explicit violence and depravity. Splatterpunk is not meant to be subtle or dance around its message. You're here to be horrified, not "spooked" or to feel mild unease, and Splatterpunk will pull no punches to horrify you.
I also play bass in a punk band, and splatterpunk has a similar appeal to me as punk music or heavy metal. It's stripped down to juiciest parts to deliver "less talk, more rock" for readers who like their fiction played fast and loud.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Weber: I think the best stories pivot on strongly developed central characters, so I'm always trying to flesh out those players to make my narratives more engaging. I hope that shines through.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Weber: In March 2021, my horror/thriller novel Bobcats is scheduled for release by Silver Shamrock Publishing. I call it a "coming-of-age tale of survival."
I'm currently working on the artwork of my second children's book. I've not decided its title yet, but it involves a five-year-old boy, an army of mutant worms, and a giant monster fish.
You can keep up with my work at www.pintbottlepress.com or https://www.facebook.com/pintbottlepress/.
***
,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
Interview with Robert Essig
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for creators and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Robert Essig
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Essig: I don't have an extreme or bizarro fantasy. If I did, I suppose I would write it as a story rather than act it out in real life. That being said, the extreme stories I've written are far from fantasy. I'm too busy to fantasize about much of anything anymore.
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Essig: Big cities. That's one of many reasons why I moved from San Diego to rural Tennessee. I much prefer nature to sharing space with strangers. A specific environment I find terrifying is Hollywood. It's a shithole town. Nasty. So many of the people there are sharks, or just burnt out beggers. It's sad and depraved. On top of that you have people trying to sell you shit everwhere you go, people dressed up in stupid costumes, harassing passersby. It's one of the worst tourist traps in the world..
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Essig: "I Hang My Hat and There's No Blood" is about a low level comedian with a regular gig in some diminutive theater in Vegas. His life is a monotonous routine through the scorching streets of Vegas, but he has something of a surprise for his next show. Something to shake up the monotony his life has become.
My last trip to Vegas inspired the story. You'd think since I have such strong feelings about big cities that I would hate Vegas, but my feelings are sort of mixed when it comes to that particular city. I used to like it well enough, for what it is, but my last trip was in the middle of July and it was like being in Hell, for a variety of reasons. My descriptions of Vegas in the story were entirely drawn from the trip, right down to the condo my lead character lives in. The Burt Lancaster Theater, where he works as a stand up comedian, isn't a real place, but it was based on the place I went to see Evil Dead the Musical (which was so bad I almost walked out halfway through).
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Essig: I like my horror raw and gritty, for the most part. Both what I write and what I consume. That sort of story fits nicely under the Splatterpunk umbrella, though I think the meaning of Splatterpunk has probably been convoluted over the years. Some people seem to think it was merely a period of time in the 80s and 90s, but I think that was just the birth of a writing movement that has lived on and even mutated a bit. From Splatterpunk we got extreme horror, even Bizarro. If I'm not mistaken, Carlton Mellick III has cited Skipp and Spector's The Bridge as a major influence. For me, Splatterpunk is a confirmation that it's okay to write whatever the hell I want to. It might not be for everyone, but there's an audience out there somewhere. It means I can get down on street level where literary fiction fears to tread.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Essig: I have no real mission. I love to write stories. It's fun. That's it. I don't want to get stuck on any certain trope, so if someone reads a book and doesn't like it (maybe it was too much, maybe the subject matter didn't hit the spot), try another one. I've learned that I cannot and will not judge a writer on one book. Sometimes you start off with the worst one, or one that just doesn't fit your tastes. Gotta give them another chance (unless, of course, it's just awful writing). My mission is to write what I would like to read. If others like it, that's great. Hell, that's amazing. But all I'm doing is writing for myself. That's what makes it enjoyable.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Essig: I am editing an anthology for Blood Bound Books called Chew on This!, which features stories that have themes of food and drink by a slew of authors including Chad Lutzke, Kristopher Triana, Tonia Brown, Ronald Kelly, and many more! The book is currently up for pre-order at only .99 cents! Pre-order HERE. I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just look up my name. You can check out my blog, where I occasionally review vintage books and post updates on my work.
***
T,he Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
August 18, 2020
Interview with Patrick Winters
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for creators and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Patrick Winters
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Winters: Well, a deep, strange part of me would love to run naked through the streets of my hometown, waving sparklers while a marching band chases after me playing a rendition of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance. But I don’t have the money to pay for the marching band, and I don’t want to be charged with cruel and unusual punishment for the naked part . . .
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Winters: I’m antisocial to a near-crippling degree, and I don’t tend to do well in crowds that I have to interact with. So stores like Wal-Mart can be little pockets of hell for me. Snail’s-pace browsers, crying toddlers, “Karens” on the prowl — if Dante had been alive today, they all would have appeared in the Inferno. Add the craziness that comes with the current pandemic to that situation and you’ve got yourself a pretty bad experience.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Winters: My story, “The Big Bad Boy,” is actually a sequel/companion piece to another story I wrote called “Curses and Shit,” which appeared in the Shit Fest anthology from Deadman’s Tome. Some people love to go on about how bad junk food can be for you, and I wanted to create some junk foods that were extremely bad for you. I also used to work in a dollar store, so it’s no coincidence that’s the setting for “The Big Bad Boy.” Haunted houses can take a flying leap; Dollar General is where the true terror lies.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Winters: I don’t tend to think or write with specific genres in mind, but I suppose I would associate those genres with graphic content that’s combined with absurdism. I lump my pieces under “Horror” or “dark” fiction, more often than not, and the reader can decide for themselves where exactly it fits along the spectrum. When it comes to my writing, I try to aim for whatever style happens to suit my content best, or whatever tickles my fancy in the writing process. Whether I make it an absurd and whacky experience or treat it with utter severity depends on the story at hand.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Winters: I’d like for people to know that my work can (hopefully) be both entertaining for entertainment’s sake and meaningful in ways that go beyond a chill or a laugh. Sometimes I just want to relish in some mayhem and sensation with my horror stories; other times, I’m aiming to speak to something greater, some grander issue that lends itself to the human experience and maybe even critiques something that is worth holding a magnifying glass up to and asking “Why?” And in either instance, whether I’m writing for thrills or thought, I see some value in the effort.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Winters: Several stories of mine will be appearing in the various Lockdown publications being released by Black Hare Press throughout the remainder of the year. I’ll be featured in various copies of the Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy editions, and I’m waiting to hear back on even more stories I’ve submitted to the series. Readers can keep tabs on those releases and many more on my writer’s website, which can be found at http://wintersauthor.azurewebsites.net
***
,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
August 14, 2020
Interview with C.M. Saunders!
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for authors and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with C.M. Saunders
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Saunders: I want to start a massive open-air splatterpunk festival combining music, literature, performance art, and comedy. Alkaline Trio would probably be the perfect headliner, purely because their lyrics are so dark. There might be room for The Ataris on the bill too, along with Senses Fail and Neck Deep. I might stir things up by making Blink 182 open for everyone. They’d only be allowed to play Cure covers and songs from Enema of the State. Hold on, I just realized Matt Skiba is in both Alkaline Trio and Blink. He’s going to have a busy night. Fuck it, I’ll make him play a solo acoustic set, too. In the backstage VIP area, I want leather couches, an open bar, free tattoos, dwarves carrying silver plates of coke on their heads like Freddie Mercury used to have at his parties, and a time machine that transports you back to 1986 and back
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Saunders: I have a weird relationship with the ocean. It’s beautiful and beguiling, it draws you in on some profound, spiritual level, but deep down you know it’s dangerous as fuck. The sheer scale of it is terrifying. The pacific Ocean covers an area of 59 million square miles or something. What the actual fuck? It’s almost incomprehensible. Plus, the things that live in the sea don’t want us there, and then on top of all that there’s the constant danger of drowning. There’s a reason we don’t have fins and gills and its because people don’t belong in the fucking sea. Another terrifying real-world environment would be somewhere really high, in case I fall off and hurt myself. I laugh at those types who do extreme sports and then cry about it when it all goes wrong and they end up in a hospital. If you insist on putting yourself in those situations, you can expect to pay the consequences some day.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Saunders: My contribution is called "Holiday of a Lifetime", and its about a guy who gets made redundant and takes his wife on a trip to Thailand. At it’s core it’s the story of an ordinary Joe who has spent his entire life toeing the line and ticking boxes, only to be thrown on the trash heap when he’s served his purpose. That makes him question his role in society and wonder what the point of everything is. He doesn’t feel he fits in any more, even though he spent his entire life trying, and decides to go out with a scream rather than a whimper. I love south East Asia. Thailand has a special vibe. Anything goes there, and I wanted to capture the essence of that and put it in a story. My mom reads all my stuff, but she won’t be reading this one.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Saunders: To me, it means letting your imagination run wild and not feeling the need to conform. I despair when I see submission calls these days which are so restrictive and specific all you’re doing is dancing to someone else’s tune. You may as well work in a factory. Writing, in fact all art, is supposed to be about expression. Some people confuse splatterpunk with extreme horror and go out of their way to be controversial or gross the reader out, but to me it’s deeper than that. I love the punk ethos of making a stand and going against the flow is. Splatterpunk has an energy of its own and a kind of ‘fuck you’ charm which I find endearing. I used to write in a lot of genres, all of them dark. Now, there are just varying degrees of splatter and bizarreness.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Saunders: I don’t have a mission, as such. But my life philosophy is that we are all here for such a short time, we should make the most of it. It’s a cliché, but I want to die with memories, not dreams. I hope that comes through in my writing somehow. None of it can be described as upbeat and cheerful, but I think maybe I approach things from an alternative angle. Most of my writing has a heavy dose of what one reviewer called ‘sardonic humour.’ Sometimes you have to dig deep to find it, but it’s usually there.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Saunders: My new novella, Tethered, just came out. It’s about a struggling journalist who gets sucked into the world of internet rituals in search of a story, and finds much more than he bargained for. Internet rituals are a topic I’ve always been interested in. Something else that fascinates me is the mysterious death of Elisa Lam, who was found in a water tank in the Cecil Hotel in LA in 2013, the same place allegedly frequented by Elizabeth ‘the Black Dahlia’ Short and Richard ‘the Night Stalker’ Ramirez, who have each carved their own names in history. I also have stories coming up in a few anthologies, including Brewtality edited by Trap Jones. That particular story is about a housebound alcoholic who finds a tooth in his beer. As if that isn’t bad enough, the tooth is a grower.
I love stalkers. Especially the kind who buy my books. So I invite you to have a sneaky peak around my blog. And follow me on Twitter, or Facebook . All my books can be found here:
***
,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
August 7, 2020
Interview with Chandler Morrison!
The Splatter Club's first anthology is about to drop and being one of the contributing authors, I've got a front row seat to the insanity! Please join my exclusive, splattery interviews with the cast and crew of Welcome to the Club #1!
If you're not a member of the online FB group for authors and readers, you should join us here!
Today we chat with Chandler Morrison
Nikki: What’s your most extreme or most bizarro fantasy? Feel free to follow up on why you never will never act it out in real life?
Morrison: I don’t really have weird fantasies. The crazy stuff that happens in my books is pretty much the beginning and end of it, I suppose. In real life I’m rather reserved and docile, and I think that’s sometimes a disappointment to people. The extreme acts I describe in my work are always symbolic and allegorical of something deeper and more profound than just violence for the sake of violence. I’m in no way titillated by the depravity often depicted in my pages. I just want to be true to the characters and the plot, and stay in line with the themes I’m exploring.
Nikki: What real-world environment is most terrifying to you? Why?
Morrison: The human body. It’s a wasteland of disgusting biological processes, a host for innumerable diseases and parasites. What’s more, it’s always decaying. From the moment we’re born, it’s breaking down. Our consciousness is an eternal prisoner to a fragile, deteriorating husk. We’re slaves to biology. Mortality haunts us at every turn.
Nikki: Tell us about your story in Welcome to the Club? What inspired it?
Morrison: My story is called “Neutered,” and it’s about a drug-addicted woman with a traumatic past who is abducted by aliens for the purpose of being made into a house pet. The idea stemmed from these somewhat barbaric procedures we as humans force our own pets to endure, but on a deeper level, it’s also an indictment of society’s long-held tradition of essentially declawing women and attempting to force them into domestic compliance.
Nikki: What does Splatterpunk or bizarro fiction mean to you? And is it a big part of you as an author?
Morrison: I don’t actually consider myself to be a Splatterpunk or bizarro author. While my work certainly has elements of both, I’ve always described myself as a satirist. I write about some pretty horrific and bizarre things, but life is pretty horrific and bizarre. The world is a dark, strange place, full of violence, fear, and despair. On the other side of that same token, though, there’s a lot of beauty and comedy to be found in the world, oftentimes not very far from the people, places, and things that make it so ugly. Sometimes, you can even find it in those people, places, and things. That’s what I want my work to reflect, and I don’t know that there’s really a genre that encapsulates that with any kind of definitive totality.
Nikki: If there’s one thing you’d want readers to know about you or the mission of your work, what would it be?
Morrison: I’m primarily concerned with the human experience. I like to explore the unsightly trappings of what it means to be a person living in a society that is all too often cold and unfriendly. I’m always looking for the places where the façade is chipped and peeling away, and then I get out my hammer and chisel and start excavating. I want to uncover the darkest, most unexplored recesses of existence and shine a light on them.
Nikki: What’s your next project and where can we stalk you?
Morrison: I’m currently working on a transgressive Western novel set in Los Angeles in the mid-1800s, and that’ll be out from Death’s Head Press sometime next year. I’m pretty active on Twitter, where you can find me talking about any number of complex topics, ranging from my tan to the reasons why Dexter has the most perfect series finale of any show in TV history.
,The Club is open to submissions for Welcome to the Club #2 Now!
,And Check out the first anthology from The Splatter Club Here
