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Interview with Author Kristopher Rufty: Lipstick Wings

Highly skilled, experienced, and informed–with more than twenty novels to his name–Kristopher Rufty talks about one of his most recent titles, Lipstick Wings, a slasher in print and a heck of a good time.

Lipstick Wings

Marty Cantrell is an artist with a dark obsession. He follows women. But he’s not a stalker. He doesn’t harm them. They don’t even know he’s there, hiding in the shadows, watching them in their private moments like pieces of art displayed for only him to see.

One night, he saves Amelia Cole from the touch of a killer’s blade. By committing a good deed during one of his nightly escapades, he’s come out of the shadows that he’s felt secure hiding in for so long.

Now he’s ensnared in a psychopathic killer’s violent murder spree. He’s afraid of the darkness that had once offered him salvation. But as the body count continues to rise, Marty starts to wonder if he’s been the killer’s true target all along.

Click the pic for more on Amazon!The Interview

1. Media I: From Novels to Gialli and Slashers to Novels. Examples of “body count” narratives have appeared in prose fiction and film since the early days of both media, but when people think body count stories these days, they tend to think of slasher movies, and a subgenre of prose fiction now exists in the spirit of film slashers. Lipstick Wings is in part a body count narrative—is it a slasher? Why or why not? More specifically—but this could be my obsessive bias—Lipstick Wings reminds me of an Italian giallo film, a horror-thriller originally inspired by books published in Italy with yellow (giallo) covers and a near progenitor of the slasher. Did giallo have anything to do with Lipstick Wings’s inspiration? Either way, what do you think of this tradition of storytelling about psychopaths and murder circling from prose to film and back again?

KR: Giallo movies were a huge influence on Lipstick Wings. I’ve adored them for years from way back in the VHS days, renting horribly cut versions with different titles. In the early days of DVD, a friend of mine was the first I knew to own a DVD player. He started ordering uncut giallo movie after uncut giallo. I’ve watched them pretty much consistently since then. Their style, the way they’re framed and filmed, and the music are just unique and darkly beautiful. There’s really nothing else like them.

But I’m also a monster fan of slasher films. Friday the 13th was the movie that introduced me to horror at a very early age and springboarded me into wanting to create my own stories. Slasher movies are now my favorite horror subgenre. I love them all from backwoods slashers to college slashers.

I think that Lipstick Wings is a slasher, for sure. But it is also my love letter to giallo and those 90s sleazy thrillers that would come on Cinemax on Friday nights or Showtime on Saturday nights. I was too young to watch them at the time, so I was sneaky and did so anyway. There were a lot of good quality films from that subgenre of sleazy slashers that left their mark on me.

It’s great to see slashers and psychopaths in books a lot more these days. Growing up, I couldn’t ever find anything to read that was like the movies I liked to watch. I had yet to discover the Splatterpunks. And now there are writers, like me, who grew up hunting for these types of stories creating their own. I love it. 

Giallo master Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (1971) had a direct influence on… …Friday the 13th, a foundational slasher.

2. The Problematic Male Lead. Whether your main character, Marty, is a stalker might be debatable, but since he follows and spies on women, he’s certainly what a cop in the movie Body Double (1984, another possible touchstone for your book) calls a “peeper.” What he does violates women’s privacy and space. As a “hero,” he’s beyond flawed—he’s compromised. Why did you give him this trait? Do you expect readers to sympathize with him anyway? Why or why not? The description of the book above links his violation of women’s privacy to his proclivities as an artist. Does being an artist at all justify taking his voyeuristic impulses to the violating point where he takes them? Why or why not? Critics often see artists in books and films as stand-ins for writers and directors. Do you identify with Marty at all? If so, how?

KR: Body Double was another favorite of mine from my childhood escapades of watching movies I shouldn’t have been. Marty in Lipstick Wings is definitely flawed. I feel that he uses his artistic attributes as an excuse for his own issues. He knows watching these women is wrong. He hates that he does it but not enough to stop. He’s addicted yet justifies it with his creative nature and curiosity. To me, he’s in the wrong one hundred percent of the time. His little hobbies ruin lives and have ruined his own life as well. There is nothing redeemable about Marty’s hidden pleasures. That also made him, in an awful way, sort of fun to write. I don’t like writing about cookie cutter “heroes.” I feel the best heroes have flaws. Marty is an accidental hero in a sense. Wrong place, wrong time, but it opens a door to something he wasn’t expecting. But of course, lives continue to get ruined.

I don’t identify with Marty much at all. I do know a circle of people similar to those Marty associates with in the book. I’ve met people throughout the years of writing and the few years of working on independent movies that Marty becomes friends with from fetish models to actors and artists. They’ve become some of my closest friends.

3. The Female Killer. Although the killer’s facial appearance is (at least initially) cloaked by a hood, early clothing and other cues—as well as a victim certain she felt breasts when the killer’s body pressed up against her—make her female identity seem undeniable. Why did you decide to feature a female killer? Slightly more common in gialli, female killers are rare in slashers and other narratives featuring multiple murderers. Do you consider your female killer to be a challenge to your (sub)genre? Why or why not? Unlike the majority of male killers I’ve encountered in fiction and film (exceptions granted for TV’s Hannibal, 2013 – 2015), your female killer, “the silky coat flaring out to show sleek legs inside fishnet stockings and knee-high boots,” is quite sexy. Why? She hunts women. Is the woman-on-woman violence sexy, too? Why or why not?

KR: I’ve written about female killers before and always consider them to be some of the best to write. From slashers like the Sleepaway Camp series to Giallos with titles about killers in high heels, I’ve become fascinated with them. Also, those sleazy thrillers I mentioned earlier featured lots of female killers. I liked that. You’d follow along with the story, convinced one thing was happening, but would be surprised by the end. I feel that female killers have dynamics and range that are unmatched. I also like a revenge story with a female lead.

And yeah, the killer in Lipstick Wings wears fishnets and boots, which to me is very sexy. I think that stems from watching lots of heavy metal videos and those sleazy thrillers where the women often wore fishnets and tight, revealing skirts. Usually they had on heels, but it’s harder to chase down victims in heels, I would think.

4. Media II: Set Pieces and Cinematic Prose. The giallo, the slasher, and many other narratives noted for their body counts are often discussed for their set pieces, the detailed, usually in some way(s) gratuitous, scenes featuring the stalking and usually slaying of targets by the killer. The narrative sets up occasions for such scenes, and indeed, some would argue that such scenes are the purpose of such narratives. The story is secondary to the kills. I have seen “Jump to a Death” menus on DVDs. Lipstick Wings features elaborate descriptions of characters’ final moments. How much do you revel in these moments, and how much do you think readers revel in them? Do you think calling your writing in these moments “cinematic” is fair? Why or why not? Unlike slashers et. al, you don’t take the killer’s POV in your kill scenes but take victims’. Why? You often end chapters with deaths, the last things victims see, and the end of the chapter works like a cinematic cut to black. Do you see your chapter breaks this way? Why might you want or not want readers to have a cinematic experience in these moments?

KR: I don’t really sit down and plan how much to revel in death scenes. I come from a background of splatter films and books, so I naturally lean towards going “big” with the death scenes. They just go that route on their own, bloody, sometimes lingering, other times not. In Lipstick Wings, I did stay out of the killer’s POV intentionally because it adds to the mystery, I think. If we know what the person is thinking, we might not understand why or where it stems from or leads to. It’s sometimes scarier that way, too. I do love writing and reading stories that switch to the killer’s POV, but for this book, it works better without doing so.

I think you’re right about the death scenes ending the chapter, the final frame, so to speak. I didn’t really realize that I did that. That’s the story telling me that scene, as well as the character, is done. To me, I see these scenes as if they’re projected on a screen in my head. I’m not sure if other writers do this, but I just let the movie that’s going in my mind take me where it’s supposed to go. I see these flashy, gaudy deaths, and I try my best to describe them to the reader. I like cinematic scenes in books, showing and telling, that lead to bloody payoffs.

5. Southern Winter. Although you don’t emphasize it overtly, you set Lipstick Wings in the South (which, having grown up there, I claim the right to capitalize even though you don’t, which is also fine). Why? Do you think the Southern setting shapes the story—perhaps the moral perception of characters more on the sexual fringe? Interestingly, if I can trust my Kindle’s search function, you mention “the south” twice. Once is in relation to masculinity. Why do you think that is? The other time is in relation to the cold winter. Why did you choose a chilly Southern winter for your setting? What does the winter make possible for the scenarios you spin? What’s distinctive about your Southern winter atmosphere?

KR: Since I’m from the south and still live here, I tend to set the majority of my stories there. The Lurkers series takes place in the Midwest, but pretty much everything else I’ve written exists in North Carolina, where I live. But all of them share the universe. They all exist in each other’s worlds. I know the south really well, the pros and cons. I grew up here and have learned there are layers to the south, and some of them are rotten.

Winters here are never the same, always changing, and sometimes even during the same day. Sometimes we’ll have muggy winters, cold weather and somehow additional humidity. The snow, when it actually snows, never lasts. But to me, there has always been something almost… sinister about the winter season. I’m not sure where that comes from, but a horror story set during the cold months just adds a darker touch to certain aspects of the story. Maybe it’s the gray skies or the skeletal trees or the sunsets that sometimes make the sky look like it’s washed in neon colors. It also feels lonely, bleak. And the characters can feel it mixed with their dreads and fears, freezing them on the inside as well as the outside.

6. Sound. On the subject of atmosphere—much of which is cinematic—you devote a great deal of attention to dialogue. You frequently develop plot through conversations, verbal exchanges that frequently become heated. Why? How do you find characters’ voices and express them differently through their speech? Speech isn’t your only attention to sound that builds atmosphere and tension. You often describe sounds, or the absence of sounds, as characters journey deeper into situations where danger might lurk, escalating to a visual reveal that is a shock whether or not the outcome is truly threatening. How conscious are you of this technique? What do you think makes it effective? Do you have particular strategies for engaging the senses in order to play on readers’ nerves?

KR: Sometimes it feels the best way to move the plot forward is through conversations. Not always, but sometimes. I like crime fiction, especially the older pulp titles. I love how development happens either through dialogue or private thoughts of the narrator that seem to be directed at the reader. It’s like the reader finds out about situations at the same time as the characters. I like stories like that, a journey with the writer, characters, and reader. More times than not, I don’t even know what the characters are going to say until it’s written in the moment. I’m not a pantser, meaning, I don’t write completely by the seat of my pants. But I leave a lot of room for the characters to lead me instead of the other way around.

And to me, sounds, or lack thereof, are pieces of the story that are just as vital as the visuals. Silence can be terrifying, especially the heavy kind of silence where you enter a strange unknown place, or you venture into an area you’re not supposed to be in. Silence means somebody could be listening, could be watching. Just out of sight, hidden in that dark corner where the light doesn’t quite reach. Sometimes that corner is empty, but what about those other times? It’s frightening and frays my nerves even when writing moments like that. I can feel the character’s dread.

7. Shame, Victims, Victimizers, and Fetishes. Many characters in Lipstick Wings experience shame or shaming. Amelia, after being attacked, feels “accusatory stares” and doesn’t “want to admit she was a victim.” Why does she feel this way? Marty, perhaps less innocent, questions whether he’s a “perv” while spying on Amelia and feels ashamed of the impulses he has felt his whole life. Is his shame parallel to Amelia’s? Why or why not? Marty has fetishes beyond being a peeper, and your book features other characters with fetishes and a fetish club as a major setting. What’s your interest in fetishes, and how do you think your book depicts fetishistic behavior and fetishism? Marty likes following women from a library. Is something wrong with a library fetish… a book fetish?

KR: I think shame is something a lot of us feel at some point or consistently, whether it’s warranted or not. There are times where a memory from my childhood of me doing something stupid just pops into my head and embarrasses me all over again. Things like that stick with us, or at least they stick with me. I think Amelia’s shame of feeling like a victim stems from a place where she doesn’t want to be judged or pitied by strangers. But mostly it probably is her way of avoiding having to talk about it to others, to relive the horrible things that happened to her for the benefit of people who just want the details.

Marty’s shame probably dwells somewhere deeper, in a darker cellar somewhere in his mind. It’s the mutant offspring that’s locked away because it’s a reminder to him that he’s hiding something from everybody else. And if they knew what he kept in that cellar, that his dirty secret was being a voyeur and peeping on women, they wouldn’t approve of it, much like others wouldn’t approve of that ugly thing that’s chained in the basement, out of the light and away from prying eyes.

But book fetishes rock! I think all of us writers/readers have a fetish of sniffing book pages. I know I do. I’ve been busted at bookstores by other shoppers taking whiffs of the printed words, only for them to nod at me in an understanding, almost encouraging way.

8. Media III: Frames of Reference. Characters in Lipstick Wings often make sense of their violently changing world through references to fiction in print, film, or television. Victims-to-be think about their enjoyment of horror movies, Amelia makes sense of a police detective in relation to crime dramas, and so on. As you wrote, how much did you think about how much your characters think about other fiction? How typical is this referentiality—is it a standout feature of your characters’ world? A general feature of the entire world? What homages might your story make to others (beyond the ones we’ve mentioned)? What’s the importance of referentiality?

KR: I think a lot of us would do the same thing. A lot of our frame of reference for matters of horror-like distress comes from fiction in print or film. Let’s say I’m traveling on a rural mountain road that’s surrounded by acres of thick woodland, and I see a free gift that was left in the middle of the road, wrapped in a pretty bow. Now, the horror fan in me will remind me that movies feature situations similar to my current one, that getting out of the car to open the gift is probably a bad idea. That it might just be in my best interests to turn around and go back the way I came. Without the horror fiction to reference, I’d probably get out of the car and thank the Heavens that somebody left me a present, only to find a severed head inside or have it blow up in my face.

9. The Violence Quotient. I’m a terrible judge of such things. How violent is Lipstick Wings? I see you’ve got a story in a Splatterpunk Award-winning anthology, Fighting Back, and a Splatterpunk Award-nominated book of your own, The Devoured and the Dead. How does this book compare to your others, particularly in terms of violence and gore? I keep trying to wrap my head around this “extreme” thing. Is Lipstick Wings extreme? Are you extreme? Due to the sex and violence, who should read Lipstick Wings? Everybody? Nobody? Are people too uptight these days? Why or why not?

KR: Compared to some of my other books, Lipstick Wings might be considered a bit tame, but I hope the story is intriguing and pulls people in. It’s violent, for sure, but I’ve written others that are packed with the gruesome stuff. But it could probably still be considered extreme. I don’t sit down with a checklist of things to add to a book for it to be considered as a particular genre book. I just like to write the types of things I like to read. And I have fun. If I’m not having fun doing it, it’s probably not a story that needs to be told. I enjoy writing stories so much. It’s something I have done since I was a little kid and will keep doing for as long as I’m able. Even if nobody ever reads it, I’ll keep writing. I wrote stories for several years that nobody but me read, and I could do it again if I had to. I love it.

I’d read Lipstick Wings with a smile on my face. It kept me guessing while I was writing it, and I love stories like that.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

KR: My website is www.kristopherrufty.com. It has a direct link to my webstore on the main page where people can buy signed books. The website will be getting a facelift very soon. I’m also on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, and TikTok.

Thank you for having me on! I appreciate you.

About the Author

Kristopher Rufty lives in North Carolina with his three children and pets. He’s written over twenty novels, including All Will Die, The Devoured and the Dead, Desolation, The Lurkers, and Pillowface. When he’s not spending time with his family or writing, he’s obsessing over gardening and growing food.

His short story “Darla’s Problem” was included in the Splatterpunk Publications anthology Fighting Back, which won the Splatterpunk Award for best anthology. The Devoured and the Dead was nominated for a Splatterpunk Award.

He can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For more about Kristopher Rufty, please visit: www.kristopherrufty.com

The post Interview with Author Kristopher Rufty: Lipstick Wings appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Nadia Steven Rysing: Wilder Creatures

Author Nadia Steven Rysing puts her dark imaginative skills on display as we discuss the layered characters, elaborate worldbuilding, and fascinating creatures in her debut novella Wilder Creatures.

Wilder Creatures

Ruth McGowan’s estranged brother has been killed. But not just killed—torn apart.

And David’s not the only one. Shredded corpses are piling up in Grey County faster than the falling snow. Authorities say it’s a black bear, though Ruth—called home from Toronto to ID the body and face her broken family—fears the answer is much more complicated.

While there may have been no love lost between Ruth and her brother, she refuses to let the evil claim any more of the ones she holds dear—not her beloved little sisters; not Ellie, the ex-girlfriend she still carries a torch for; not even Cora, the poodle she inherited along with the rest of the farm. So, when a mysterious new ally shows up one cold night to offer help, Ruth agrees—against her better judgment.

But with so much responsibility to juggle, Ruth forgets to protect herself, and the bloody consequences are worse—and wilder—than she could ever have imagined.

Click the pic for more on Amazon!The Interview

1. Creating Creatures. What attracted you to the creature feature side of horror, and what inspired your creature? How did you choose the images that would define the creature’s closeness and potentially frightening distance from humanity? At least to a point, every creature designer is a Dr. Frankenstein: where did you get your creature’s parts, and how was the experience of creation? I hope I’m not being too much of a spoiler by saying that your creature, though atypical, falls into the sexy blood-drinker category, and Wilder Creatures partakes of the romance of the monstrous à la Anne Rice. What made you go all dark and sexy? What’s so attractive (to you and to readers) about the fantasy that blood-drinking could be better than sex?

NSR: The true spark for the Werros came from dancing with a friend in a bar many years ago. Under the cheap lighting, there was a moment where her blue eyes appeared violet without irises. That image has always remained an anchor point, and the rest of the creature developed in the writing process—essentially, adding on traits that allowed for new twists and turns in the plot. Those traits came from a deep love of monsters, cryptids, and the uncanny. I definitely enjoy Anne Rice, but I find myself drawing more on vampiric films like The Hunger (1983), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), or even Let the Right One In (2008). For me it is less the blood drinking that’s hot than the idea of lonely humans getting entangled with equally lonely immortal creatures who could easily destroy them.

2. Queer Eyes. Speaking of sexy blood-drinkers, such characters in literature stood in for sexual deviants and sexual deviancy more than a century and a half before Anne Rice had a male couple metaphorically conceive and try to raise a daughter in Interview with the Vampire (1976). Your novella presents queer perspectives not only through the protagonist, who doesn’t use the L word but is a woman sexually oriented toward women, but also through the creatures, who defy heteronormativity in almost every conceivable way. Do you agree that you’re carrying on a queer tradition in horror? If so, how would you describe your vision of queerness, and what does it add to the tradition? If not, why not? One issue for queer-identified people (also relevant to race) that I think your work takes on is passing, the practice of people in an oppressed minority actively or passively encouraging people in the majority to perceive them as part of the majority. Your creatures’ ability to pass varies in relation to their frequency of blood-drinking. What do you think this tidbit suggests about passing in general?

NSR: I think horror by its very nature is queer because it is a tradition based in subversion. It is a genre that takes away all the guiderails and forces you to drive switchback highways alone in the dark. That space allows for all sorts of possibilities that might not be available to you in any other kind of fiction. If you’re going back to the classics of blood-sucking monsters, you’re immediately running into ladies being seduced by dark temptresses such as Carmilla or Geraldine. And those are just surface level reads, never mind looking at Dracula in the context of Bram Stoker’s own life. While my horror tends to be explicitly queer, even seemingly heterosexual fiction in this genre is by convention quite subversive when it comes to gender and sexuality. So yes, I am part of that literary tradition, but I don’t think of it as a niche of the genre but one of the primary lenses through which to view it.  

I have to admit, I was blown away by your insight on passing. It was never a conscious intention on my part to provide commentary on what it means to be able to slip in and out of mainstream culture. I myself have complicated feelings about making my presence known in certain spaces, a constant balance of wondering if I need to share a part of my identity in order to explain my existence or to keep it tucked away as I am “close enough” to the norm that I can almost fit in. Either way takes up a great deal of energy, and maybe that’s where my mind was when I associated it with blood-drinking. Without that intake, you don’t have the choice to keep the mask on or not.  

3. Wilder Gender. Closely related to queerness with regard to sexuality is queerness with regard to gender, and though your creatures have femaleness and maleness, they don’t follow human gender conventions. Avoiding anything you’d consider to be a spoiler, how and why do you make gender an aspect of your creatures’ wildness? Their pronouns fluctuate. An individual is often “it” but sometimes “she.” Characters are self-aware about the pronoun confusion. Why did you make such confusion part of the story? Ruth seems to perceive the primary creature she knows as “she” when she feels close to the creature and “it” when she perceives the creature as less human and more morally suspect. What is the relationship between gender and humanity? Gender and morality?

NSR: I think it is more of a relationship between gender and convention—Ruth is two steps away from understanding herself as a non-binary woman, and I think people about to make that big a discovery about themselves tend to push hard against it. Her experience with the creatures is a direct blow in breaking down that wall, and the process of self-discovery is by its nature quite bewildering. If we had met Ruth a few years later in life, things might not have been so confusing.

There are some practical reasons why “it” and “she” are used in different places in the text. My own learning disability makes it difficult to conjugate pronouns when switching subjects (especially midsentence). But upon reflection, the idea of using “it” so freely came from a series of conversations with my mother, whose first language is German. She was having difficulty with a family friend’s transition, and her instinct for a gender-neutral pronoun is sie (she/they/it). I tried to explain that “it” typically wasn’t used in English because it has a dehumanizing connotation. When she essentially asked me why English was too cowardly to reclaim it, I didn’t have a good answer. So, thanks, Mama.

Look for Rysing’s story “tragic, silent, ravenous, souled”

4. Wayward Reproduction. Wilder Creatures offers a fantasy that might be every anti-LGBTQ hatemonger’s worst nightmare: in the world of your story, same-sex couples can reproduce. They can do so not in the metaphorical Anne Rice way I already mentioned, but they can literally conceive a baby alarmingly like the parenting creature (i.e. likely to be queer, too). What inspired this vision of non-heterosexual reproduction? Even the creatures are wary of some possibilities associated with their means of reproduction. Why? Must a means of reproduction that challenges the heterosexual be dangerous? What makes these new possibilities for reproduction so threatening?

NSR: Just as I have my long list of vampire movies, I have an equally long list of science fiction stories I reflected on when deciding upon the technical details of how reproduction works in this world. You can blame a variety of media from the works of the Great Dame Octavia E. Butler to endless hours replaying Mass Effect. But the truth is even in our own world, people reproduce in all kinds of ways everywhere on this planet—from T4T couples doing things the old-fashioned way to cis-heterosexuals using donated embryos in IVF. The threat posed by queer reproduction, at least in Wilder Creatures, comes from the fear of the unknown and the uncontrollable. I don’t think I have to go any further into that.

5. Family? Years after fleeing the unaccepting household led by her alcoholic, self-obsessed mother, Ruth gets drawn back home—and thus into your story’s horrific events—because of familial obligations surrounding the death of an abusive brother she hated. There she faces further responsibilities to her younger sisters because their mother is useless. Family feels like a terrible weight. Why? Why, for your story’s setup, did you decide to make Ruth and David “estranged?” Eventually, one of the creatures laments its familial obligations and draws a direct parallel to Ruth’s. Why present this parallel? To what extent does family determine destiny? To what extent, in Wilder Creatures, is biological family something to be questioned and, if necessary, fled? While family is problematic in many ways in this novella, Ruth’s devotion to her sisters and to the woman as close to her as a wife helps define her and give her purpose. How does this dimension help complete the portrait of “family” in Wilder Creatures?

NSR: Ruth’s backstory is steeped both in the Canadian literary tradition and born out of an understanding of the dynamics of parentification. Ruth’s brain has been wired from an early age to put the needs of her family above her own at all costs. This isn’t an uncommon issue, particularly with those who were exposed to loss and/or addiction at a young age. In many ways, the construction of one’s family—whether chosen, biological, or both—is the most conventional element of the story. The archetype of the Prodigal Child returning to their dysfunctional family is incredibly common in the homebrew microgenre that is the Southern Ontario Gothic. The audience being dropped into the moment when Ruth learns that David is dead is a direct callback to the writers who have come before me—and this is a microgenre that famously has a woman have sex with a bear, so it does give me permission to do whatever I want when it comes to the chaotic ways our characters get to process trauma.

6. Memory. Another aspect of both human and non-human existence you explore through comparison is memory, in both personal and collective senses. For Ruth, personal memory often seems like a source of pain closely tied to trauma and death, as when she struggles with her memories of David. Why do trauma and death seem to dominate the act of looking backward? The personal memory of a creature, on the other hand, seems to luxuriate in the length of the creature’s life, the wonders it has seen. Why the contrast? The collective memory of Ruth’s hometown seems invested in maintaining illusions, like the nice way they perceived David despite his dark side. Why? The collective memory of the creatures, by contrast, focuses on the majesty of history. What do the overall differences between human and creature memory say about the memory those of us outside your fictional world are forced to live with?

NSR: I think the greatest split between the Werros and humanity is that of observation versus experience. When the creatures share memories, many of them discuss what they’ve seen versus how they’ve felt (with a few very notable exceptions). Ruth is, quite frankly, going through hell when the novella begins due to multiple losses in her life and a sharp turn in the direction her personal narrative is going. Ruth can’t see the long view of history, only what she has gone through and what she is currently going through. This is in part due to the literary tradition Ruth has been slotted into, but it’s also the reality of those who have grown up in abusive families. There is always a part of her that has never left that house. In terms of community collective memory, there is the simple fact that abusers tend to be quite charismatic and charming in their lives outside the home—and sometimes even in it. Combine that with the Canadian tendency for weaponized politeness, and you have a community that refuses to look at its dark side and deal with it head on. The Werros aren’t immune to this themselves—glorifying being present to major historical events on Turtle Island all the while hunting its peoples down.

7. The Mettle of Loners. Ruth is a loner, a trait that gives her strong commonality with the creature she meets. The creature explains that among its/her people, solitary tendencies are prized and respected, whereas for Ruth they seem to be more of a burden. Why might an inclination toward solitude be a burden for Ruth (and in turn make the creatures’ reverence for it an attraction)? While to some people loners are misfits, to others they’re admirable. Might Ruth be close to a traditional Canadian ideal self-reliance and initiative (if the book were set in the U.S., I’d ask the same question with different words)? Aside from such ideals “traditionally” being male, how does and/or doesn’t Ruth’s solitary streak relate to her candidacy for heroism?

NSR: The notion of the lone Canadian surviving the harshness of the landscape is one that for Canada as a nation has repeatedly swept away the terrors of colonialism. The idea of self-reliance is strong, but it is almost always held in tandem with community. We don’t praise the guy who bought a snowblower to plough his own driveway, but we celebrate him when he uses it to dig everyone else out. Ruth’s vulnerability is she feels like she always needs to be out there alone with a shovel. She hasn’t grown up with a safety net and doesn’t see the moments where she could reach out and ask for help. There is nothing wrong with an inclination for solitude, but there is a cost to taking on every burden upon your own shoulders. That’s probably the most I can comment on that without spoiling things.

8. Becoming vs. Uncovering. Ruth’s experiences seem transformative, and she reflects on how they appear to change her: “It almost felt like she was not so much becoming but uncovering what had lain beneath her this whole time.” I’m not sure whether this reflection is a key to her character arc or a passing thought. Do you think her experiences release aspects of her that were there all along, that her story may seem to be about transformation on the surface but is more deeply about self-revelation? Why or why not? Philosophically speaking, some heavy issues are at stake. Do her actions, decisions, and experiences make who she is, or was her true identity there all along, waiting to be freed?

NSR: That’s a really good question and I really can’t come up with an answer that doesn’t give away more of the story than I want to here. I’ll tell you though that line especially is reflecting on the influence of the dark superhero or anti-hero in developing Ruth’s character arc. To be particularly nerdy, I was thinking of the dozen or so issues of Ed Brubaker’s 2004 run of Captain America. If you know, you know.

More of Rysing’s speculative work

9. Origin Story. You do a lot of world building in not a lot of words. Do you intend to do more with the world of Wilder Creatures? If you had to write more in this world, what would you most likely develop? Some of your creatures do scary, bad things, but they’re not intrinsically bad, and they have cool powers. One bit, mostly a tangent from the main storyline, evoked for me what could be a superhero’s origin story. Did such a thing occur to you? Might something superheroic grow from the world of your wilder creatures?

NSR: Currently, I don’t have any specific plans for future Wilder Creatures stories, but like I said, I’ve definitely had the superhero vigilante thought before, so I wouldn’t be surprised, if there is a next book, to see a Lethal Protector inspired plot. I also have an instinct to write from Naomi’s perspective, so we might end up getting more insight into the middlest sister in the MacGowan household.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

NSR: You can find me online on Bluesky and Tumblr at @a-tendency. You can find links to my publications at https://nadiastevenrysing.carrd.co/

About the Author

Nadia Steven Rysing (she/her) is a professional jack-of-all-trades living on the Haldimand Tract in Southwestern Ontario. Her work has appeared in a variety of anthologies, journals and a zine floating around Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her monstrous queer novella Wilder Creatures was published by Undertaker Books in November 2024.  You can find her on Tumblr and Bluesky at @a-tendency.  

The post Interview with Author Nadia Steven Rysing: Wilder Creatures appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Deborah Sheldon: Bodily Harm

A highly skilled and versatile writer with an astonishing list of accomplishments, Deborah Sheldon provides eloquent insights into her crime-horror novel Bodily Harm.

Bodily Harm

Survival has a price… Is Cara ready to pay it?

From the moment she feels a gun barrel shoved into her back, Cara Haynes is thrown into the brutal world of vicious criminals and the police officers tough enough to pursue them.

Cara has lived in Melbourne just a few weeks when she survives an armed robbery at her local pizzeria. Traumatised, afraid and alone, Cara’s lifeline is Mick Thompson, a detective from the Armed Offence Squad, whose compulsion to find these violent offenders keeps him awake at night. But soon, Cara doesn’t know the difference between safety and danger…

Written by award-winning author Deborah Sheldon, Bodily Harm is a fast-paced, savage, and disturbing read where one woman’s nightmare becomes a detective’s obsession.

“Sheldon has an uncanny gift for unnerving imagery and story” – Aurealis Magazine

Click the pic for more on AmazonThe Interview

1. Melbourne. Combining the description of Bodily Harm (above) with your bio (below), I see that your novel takes place in your hometown. For those unfamiliar, how would you describe Melbourne as a city? What’s its significance in your story? Why did you decide to make Cara a newcomer in town? As the story progresses, Cara thinks more than once it may be “time to move back to the country.” Through Cara’s perspective and experiences, is the novel critical of urban conditions? Why or why not?

DS: Melbourne has a well-deserved international reputation for culture and food. Bordered by the Yarra River as well as lush parks and gardens, the city is at its best in spring and summer. Melbourne is also one of my main characters in Bodily Harm, which is why the story takes place in winter! My protagonist, Cara, is literally and figuratively dwarfed by Melbourne’s size, sprawl, greyness and chill. She enjoys some of Melbourne’s high points—good restaurants, for example, feature quite often—but her isolation in “the big city” contributes to her anxiety and affects her decision-making.

In my fiction, I often look for ways to sever characters from any meaningful kinds of support because this allows me to put them under stress. My collection Liminal Spaces: Horror Stories (IFWG, 2022) focuses on this in particular; the stories feature characters who have left the familiar behind and are scared of what might lie ahead. That’s what really frightens us, don’t you think? The unknown in all its countless guises.

Cara’s desire for comfort and security is why she keeps thinking about returning to the countryside. Her perspective is similar to mine, in that I find country towns appealing, too. I’ve talked to my husband about life after his retirement and floated the idea of moving out of Melbourne. Victoria has many beautiful towns. And, naturally, some of these towns have wonderful restaurants, bistros and pubs. I couldn’t possibly live anywhere that didn’t have great places to eat.

2. Coppers and Crims. Your book’s opening “Notes & Warnings” are careful to point out that the police departments you portray “are fictitious, and do not reflect the structure, operations or philosophy of any actual police department.” Nevertheless, your fiction is convincing: did you research police behaviors and organizational structures and operations? Why or why not? What inspired the speech patterns and slang that help create your police culture? You emphasize the fictitious nature of your depictions, I think, at least in part because you portray deep corruption. How common do you think the “I can do what I want” attitude expressed by some of the police in your novel really is, and why do you hold that view? How often do you think police cover up the misdeeds of other police? Why?

DS: Back in the nineties, I worked as a researcher and scriptwriter of crime reenactments for the TV show Australia’s Most Wanted. For about 18 months, I worked with over 400 police officers across two states and immersed myself in heinous unsolved crimes including murder, armed robbery, and rape. The experience felt important—who wouldn’t want the chance to bring criminals to justice?—but emotionally grueling. Afterwards, to exorcise the violence from my psyche, I wrote the screenplay BODILY HARM. It was optioned but not made into a film. Subsequently, I reworked the screenplay into the novel Bodily Harm. To flesh out my police departments, I leaned on my experiences from the TV show, cherry-picked operational procedures from a range of police forces across Australia, and sprinkled a bit of artistic license wherever necessary to service my story.  

My background is scriptwriting, and I’ve had short plays produced as well. Dialogue is a passion of mine! I’ve always paid attention to how people talk and try to capture regional and idiosyncratic speech patterns in my prose fiction. Dialogue is one of the best ways to flesh out a character. There are plenty of linguistic tools to choose from, but I’ve got a few favourites. For example, Anglo-Saxon words (baby, help, teach, youth) versus Latinate words (infant, assist, educate, adolescent); vulgarity (shit, arsehole) versus profanity (Christ on a bike); and passive (how can I help you?) versus active phrasing (what do you want?). For Bodily Harm, I gave each detective their own way of speaking and wrote up a “ready reckoner” that listed, for instance, every character’s favourite obscenities. My zombie novel Body Farm Z (Severed Press, 2020) is another example of how I individualise dialogue across a wide cast. A main character was a Finn with English as a second language, and I had fun researching and writing his speech patterns.

In my “Notes & Warnings” at the start of Bodily Harm, I emphasise the fictitious nature of my police departments simply because they are fictitious. I wouldn’t want the reader to think I’ve faithfully reproduced Melbourne’s police culture like a documentary. Bodily Harm is a novel, and I’ve used my imagination for dramatic effect.

Globally, police departments must deal with corruption to varying degrees, and Australia’s no exception. Lord Acton’s quote “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is one of my novel’s themes. While I have respect for Australian police, it would be naïve to assume that all officers obey the law. Not everyone joins the police force for altruistic reasons, and weak-minded individuals who might start out with good intentions can be manipulated or intimidated by stronger personalities. A cop may become bent in a hundred different ways, but Bodily Harm explores the idea of the “boys’ club,” where machismo is reinforced and magnified inside a vacuum.

That said, Australia has a robust history of confronting and rooting out systemic corruption. I’m confident that we have some of the cleanest police forces in the world, comparatively speaking. But no longer some of the toughest. Parliaments and the judiciary exert a lot of influence on law enforcement, and I believe them to be mostly responsible whenever crime gets out of hand.

3. Toxic Masculinity. Many men in your novel behave very… badly. Are they examples of masculinity that happens to be toxic, or do they reveal something toxic within masculinity? Why do you think so? Is the tendency among men toward intimidating and aggressive behavior you depict amplified or merely exposed by being police? If it’s amplified, does a policeman’s public service, for which he faces so much violence and risk, excuse his proneness to aggression at all? If it’s merely exposed—and this toxicity lies in a potential state in most, if not all men—how should society respond?

DS: I don’t believe that masculinity is inherently toxic. Many of the best people I’ve ever known happen to be men, including my husband and adult son! But toxicity, regardless of sex, is part of the human condition. I’m an avid reader and writer of noir fiction, which proposes that the seed to a person’s destruction lies dormant within their personality, waiting for the right catalyst. Sometimes, that catalyst never arises. Bodily Harm explores what happens when it does.

One of the characters in Bodily Harm argues that police officers have to be scary. “Career crims are tough and mean,” she says. “The police who go after them have to be tougher and meaner.” That happens to be my belief, too. What’s the point of having a police force if hardened criminals laugh at it? But the downside of a “tough” police force includes rotten apples who will take things too far. Is there a way to keep everything in optimal balance? None that I know of.

One of my main characters, a detective, thinks he deserves a “free pass” because of the violence and lethal threats he faces on a daily basis. And isn’t pinning down that degree of “free pass” the crux of the West’s recent arguments about police power versus police brutality? While I don’t have any answers, Bodily Harm might offer the reader some interesting questions.

4. Endemic Sexism. Cara experiences sexism when she deals with police, but she also seems to face it at work. Why? Does her story relate to recent historical attempts to call attention to the widespread harassment and abuse of women in the workplace and beyond (such as #YesAllWomen)? Men in your novel often think of women as “bitches” and “sheilas” (a term some find offensive and others don’t). What do you think of these terms, and how do they characterize the men who apply them? Late in the book, a character comments, “‘Men beat up their women every day.’” What’s wrong with Australian—and American—society that makes this comment true? What, if anything, can people do about it?

DS: A deep dive into sexism is beyond the scope of this interview, but sex defines how the world treats you. Bodily Harm is, in part, an exploration of what it’s like to move through society as a woman or a man. In my experience—and I’m in my late-fifties—there’s very little overlap. What that says about society is up to the individual to decide.

In Aussie lingo, “sheila” is another word for “woman” and isn’t necessarily a pejorative. That said, women around the world are routinely subjected to sexual violence, and my character who says “Men beat up their women every day” is only stating a horrifying fact. Sexual violence is not so much a problem endemic to Australian or American societies, but a problem within human nature itself. Can sexual violence ever be stamped out? I don’t know. At the very least, our laws need to be stronger. We’ve made huge strides in, for example, the reduction in cigarette smoking by using regulations and social pressure. Ingrained cultural attitudes can change, yes, but great effort is required and the effort must be vigilantly sustained across decades.

We have a long way to go, but let’s appreciate how far we’ve come since, say, 1902 when Australian women achieved the right to vote. It’s important to recognise that Western societies such as Australia and America, while not perfect, still offer women a greater amount of freedom, autonomy and safety compared to many other countries. We’re definitely on the right track.

5. Trading Freedom for Safety. After Cara survives an armed robbery, as the book description says, she enters a world of police and criminals, and her reliance on police, not all of whom are honest, makes her feel like she’s losing her “agency,” her freedom, possibly herself. Does the safety that police offer necessarily carry such a cost, or does Cara just get unlucky? Do you think of Cara’s situation, losing freedom in the hope of gaining safety, as a microcosm of larger sociopolitical exchanges of personal autonomy for safety when governments hand more power—particularly unchecked power, which some police in your novel seem to have—to police and/or military forces? Why or why not? Might anyone feel as compromised as Cara when thrust into a system in which ordinary civilians have so little power?

DS: Trusting in the goodness of other people is often rewarded. So, I think Cara’s experience is unlucky, a bad roll of the dice. It’s interesting that you bring up the dichotomy of freedom versus safety, as I’m reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s well-known quote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Harsh words, but are they true? Well… yes, probably. Gifting your agency into the hands of someone else can certainly be dangerous. What if you trust the wrong person? Or, on a larger scale, what if you trust the wrong government? Unchecked power is one of Bodily Harm’s themes. Losing one’s individual agency is another.

Helplessness is a subject I return to often in my fiction. For example, my novel Cretaceous Canyon (Severed Press, 2023) puts a range of very different characters into a highly stressful and dangerous situation and explores the reactions that being helpless draws out of them. The novel I’m writing at the moment is perhaps my deepest dive into helplessness from a character-based perspective. On a broader scale, my novella Redhead Town (which is being re-released by Twisted Dreams Press) is about government overreach and the difficulties an individual faces when trying to “fight the Man.” Freedom versus safety is a running theme across my fiction, as it happens to be one of my philosophical preoccupations.

6. Sexual Violence. Your introductory “Notes & Warnings” point toward sexual violence ahead, and while I won’t give away the situation, I will say that it is disturbing. In the interest of disclosure and avoiding hypocrisy, I’ll say I’ve written worse, but I want your perspective: why write graphic sexual violence? Why do people want to read it? I was struck by how the violence you depict dehumanizes the criminal as well as the victim. The offender appears animalistic, even demonic. Do you think such violence dehumanizes one more than the other, the perpetrator or the victim? Dehumanization continues long after the act because the perpetrator seems totally oblivious to wrongdoing. Is the perpetrator’s failure to recognize sexual violence as violence sexism? Narcissism? Sociopathy? Something else? Some combination?

DS: Australian publishers refuse to consider a story that includes sexual violence. My scene is brief, only a few paragraphs, but it’s a significant plot event. While Bodily Harm was praised by commissioning editors from various Australian publishers, only an American press would dare publish it. Currently, Australia is experiencing a spike in domestic violence, so much so that the federal government has asked for suggestions on what can be done about it. Well, here’s my two cents: let authors write about sexual assault. Australian publishers, please stop rejecting novels that include any examples of it. If we’re to make headway as a society, we need the freedom to talk openly about ugly subjects.

And yes, I see where you’re coming from about dehumanisation in Bodily Harm, but in my view, only the offender is objectively dehumanised. Later, my perpetrator seems oblivious to his crime because he’s inured to violence and used to compartmentalising his behaviour. And isn’t that a skill all humans have to some degree: the ability to rationalise wrong, selfish or evil acts? Most people think more highly of themselves than they should.

7. Déjà Vu: Trauma Circles. The armed robbery at the novel’s beginning leaves Cara traumatized, and one symptom of her post-traumatic stress is repetitive flashbacks to the event. The novel deepens its exploration of trauma as Cara experiences more traumatic events and more and more symptoms of stress, feeling like her life is cyclical, coming back to what is more or less the same trauma again and again. What inspired you to write what amounts to a fairly significant account of trauma psychology? You have a background in medical writing—did that experience and/or related research skills come into play? The main villain of the piece turns out to be trapped in his own sort of trauma cycle, but I’d say that while Cara’s responses to trauma make her more sympathetic, his don’t make me feel any keener on him. Why do you think that is?

DS: As an author of crime and horror fiction, trauma features significantly in my work. You’re right that my decades of medical writing tend to factor into my fiction; I’ve always been deeply fascinated by human psychology, and trauma responses are central to that study. If I hadn’t loved writing so much, I may have chosen a career in behavioural psychology. On a personal level, I’m approaching 60 years of age, so I’ve been through a fair whack of trauma myself, and I’m sure there’s plenty more to come.

One of the ways I process uncomfortable emotions is via writing. The exploration of terrible things happening to my characters helps me make sense of this chaotic, random universe. The human brain is built to always look for patterns, so when you have a psychic wound, similar experiences automatically reinjure you, over and over. Bodily Harm touches upon trauma cycles for Cara, plus the villain, and other main characters.

I try not to “black hat” my bad guys. In fact, one of the bad guys in Bodily Harm considers himself a hero deserving of praise. Is that objectively true? Well, I’d rather allow the reader to come to their own conclusions about how sympathetic, or otherwise, my characters may be.

8. Randomness. Bodily Harm is scary in a number of ways, but what scared me most is a moment late in the novel when Cara muses that the chain of horrible events she experiences began with a random stop for a slice of pizza. Deciding to eat pizza could destroy your life. The idea seems as absurd as it seems true—how much did you consider the deep, voidy, existential horror in this idea about the power of random chance? If the chain of events begins by mere chance, is it meaningless? Why or why not? Might Cara find anything redemptive in her experiences? If so, how? If not, how dark is your novel really?

DS: Oh, existential dread is my jam! Here’s an example: when I was a young woman, I had a work friend who lived on the other side of the city. There were two routes I could take to drive home. After every visit, I’d sit in my car for a while and contemplate which route I’d choose, fretting that one of them might put me into a traffic accident. But which one? And one day, I chose the wrong route; an impatient driver, trying to overtake me, scraped his car alongside mine and smashed off my side mirror. While exchanging details, I kept thinking I should have picked the other route, but how could I have known? Our inability to predict the future is what fuels existential dread.

Yes, deciding to buy a pizza is the catalyst for Cara’s journey throughout Bodily Harm. Something so innocuous, so banal as pizza… Everything in our present reality depends on historical events happening in the exact way that they did. Who hasn’t got multiple stories of something mundane leading to a life-changing circumstance? Events feel meaningful because that’s how the human brain is wired: to find patterns, and make sense from chaos. But is the universe built on meaning or chance? Unfortunately for me, I believe that it’s chance, which is mildly terrifying. I rely on the philosophy of Stoicism and, in particular, the practices of amor fati and memento mori to cope with my anxiety about that.

9. Knowing People. Another rather dark thread that runs through your novel is the idea that people’s surfaces, who they seem to be when you meet them, can hide completely different personalities underneath. How much caution does your novel suggest we—and perhaps especially women—should use when approaching new people? For that matter, the novel shows longstanding relationships built on lies. Can we ever truly know other people? Is trust ever safe? How paranoid should we be?

DS: Carl Jung popularised the idea of “personas,” basically, that an individual creates various masks as “interfaces” between their own personality and the outside world. Of course, we all know that’s true. For example, how you speak to different people—mother, best friend, lover, child, boss, stranger—will differ wildly depending on the context.

I don’t have any “advice” about how to approach new people. But in Bodily Harm, Cara’s experiences aren’t particularly great. If asked, she would probably say it isn’t possible to really know another person, that trust is often misplaced, and one should always maintain paranoia to a certain degree. And even then, a “bad guy,” who’s accustomed to wearing masks, could slip past your defences.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

DS: My website lists my publications and offers the opportunity to sign up for my monthly newsletter with e-book giveaways: https://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com/

Then there’s my:

Facebook account run on my behalf – https://www.facebook.com/people/Deborah-Sheldon/100063653647844/Goodreads account – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3312459.Deborah_SheldonAmazon Author Page – https://www.amazon.com/stores/Deborah-Sheldon/author/B0035MWQ98About the Author

DEBORAH SHELDON is a multi-award-winning author and anthology editor from Melbourne, Australia. She writes poems, short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir. Her award-nominated titles include the novels Cretaceous Canyon, Body Farm Z, Contrition, and Devil Dragon; the novella Thylacines; and collections Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories, and Liminal Spaces: Horror Stories. Her latest titles are the crime-horror novel Bodily Harm and the anthology Spawn 2: More Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies. Forthcoming in 2025 is her collection The Broonie and Other Dark Poems.

Deb’s collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories won the Australian Shadows “Best Collected Work” Award, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, and long-listed for a Bram Stoker. Her short fiction has been widely published, shortlisted for numerous Australian Shadows and Aurealis Awards, translated, and included in various “best of” anthologies.

Deb has won the Australian Shadows “Best Edited Work” Award three times: for Midnight Echo 14; and for the two anthologies she conceived and edited, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, and Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite.

Other credits include feature articles for magazines, non-fiction books (Reed Books, Random House), TV scripts such as NEIGHBOURS, stage plays, award-nominated poetry, and award-winning script editing and medical writing. Visit Deb at http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com

The post Interview with Author Deborah Sheldon: Bodily Harm appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Candace Nola: Desperate Wishes

Multi-talented author, editor, and publisher Candace Nola talks about her chilling dystopian novella Desperate Wishes, a horrific tale with fairy tale qualities that don’t keep it from seeming far too plausible.

Desperate Wishes

In the not distant future, civilization as we know it is unrecognizable. People are property, and names are stripped away, replaced by obligation.

Makenna is treated as less than a person, as lesser than a beast. In her pain and rage, she opens herself to a voice that promises the fires of change.

“With Desperate Wishes, Candace Nola offers a glimpse of the terrible through bright and beautiful prose. She shows that the worst of monsters is what lurks in their very human hearts, and that the line between justice and vengeance is uncomfortably thin. Be careful what you wish for.” —Mary SanGiovanni, author of The Hollower

“In Candace Nola’s Desperate Wishes, the main character, Makenna, is used in the worst ways, in a not distant future where females are owned by powerful and abusive men. She meets an invisible spirit who offers to make any wish come true. Nola’s powerful writing in this beautifully raw book takes us through the journey of Makenna’s obvious wish and how she has to embrace her shattered (but not completely broken) soul to use the rage released to help her wish come true and become the change needed for others.” —Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master

“Take a little Handmaid’s Tale, mix in some 1,001 Nights and “The Monkey’s Paw,” and you have the barest idea of what Desperate Wishes has in store for you. Candace Nola drags the reader through the darkness, scraping away skin and muscle, in this timely tale of revenge and restitution, magic and hope.” — Brennan LaFaro, author of the Slattery Falls trilogy

Click the pic for more on Amazon!The Interview

1. Patriarchy Gone Wild. I don’t think I need to ask whether Desperate Wishes has a feminist angle, but how would you describe your book’s feminism? Early on, we learn that your protagonist, Makenna, lives in a near-future dystopia where brutal men who hoard resources and power enslave and dehumanize women. How realistic is your vision, the idea that men, under the circumstances you describe or comparable ones, would go so far? Some good men exist in Makenna’s world, but they seem like a minority. Does the corruption of patriarchal power make most men inclined to be brutal and exploitative? Why or why not?

CN: I hesitate to say all men or most men, but in my personal experience, unfortunately men tend to treat women as lesser than themselves, invisible vessels to nurture them, cater to them, be pretty for them, but not have needs, desires, or feelings of their own. I do see my futuristic vision as more plausible than it should be, especially considering events of recent days. Fear makes people do things they otherwise would not. In the beginning, it’s fear of extinction in Desperate Wishes that drives the initial actions, but it devolves in something much more sadistic and crueler.

2. Political Resonance I: The Dobbs Decision. Desperate Wishes combines several nightmares, but the central nightmare is of a society that degrades women in ways (almost) unimaginable. Men treat women like animals or objects “no better than a chamber pot.” Women have no say in what they do or what is done to them. Women’s lack of self-governance in your story brought to mind the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Dobbs Decision,” which took away women’s Constitutional right to abortions and thus, many would say, women’s right to govern their own bodies. To what extent did the Dobbs Decision (June 24, 2022) inspire the nightmare society of Desperate Wishes (first published Dec. 23, 2023)? Whether or not it inspired your writing, do you think the Dobbs Decision suggests the U.S. is headed in the direction of the society in Desperate Wishes? Why or why not?

CN: Yes, of course, it inspired part of the Desperate Wishes landscape. And again, given recent actions, this reality is very realistic unless those that can do something stop it. The women in Desperate Wishes are stripped of their very names. They have zero say in what happens to them, ever. They are to obey and to stay silent. They are simply known as the Nameless, and even their ages are referred to as serving years rather than their true age because that is the age at which point the men deem it “allowable” for the youngest of the females to begin serving the men.

3. The Primitive Future Dystopia. Most technology in the world of Desperate Wishes seems to range from the medieval to the early modern; the story reveals that technology was among things lost as a result of the cataclysmic conflicts that led to the current dystopic social conditions. Why is the absence of technology important for your story and characters? Do you think scientific and technological “enlightenment” (in the historical sense of the word) is inextricable from social enlightenment on matters such as human rights and equality? Why or why not? Within the framework of your story’s world, how might people achieve enlightenment, and what would it look like?

CN: The absence of technology is a key factor as it demonstrates how far the world has truly fallen. The ability to communicate freely, to know what is happening in other parts of the world, was all taken from them. They only know what information is fed to them, until Makenna is met with a force that shows her what was lost and what can be regained. That entity is the force behind the Nameless finding enlightenment again and remembering who they were and how to find their voices once more.

4. The Nameless, Individuality, and Class. Why are the oppressed people in your story’s world “Nameless?” What is the importance of an individual identity? While I feel like Desperate Wishes advocates for a kind of humanist individualism, I note that the Nameless are also the have-nots, strongly associated with the working class. What, if anything, do you think Desperate Wishes is saying about class and class conflict? How do the emphases on individualism and class consciousness work together?

CN: They are Nameless because it’s a constant reminder that they are worth nothing at all to the men that are running the world. The livestock carry names, but the women and those men deemed inferior do not. They are silent beings only there to submit to the will of men. It is a world of haves and have-nots, or rather, those that were in power before the collapse quickly scrambled to ensure they would continue to have some type of power and control after the collapse. A name is everything to a person. It is who they are. It allows them a sense of self that others recognize. A name is power. Saying a person’s name is to recognize their humanity, their power.  The Nameless are meant to be kept in a position of powerlessness, and they are reminded of this daily.

5. Political Resonance II: Facts, Rumors, and Nonsense. In the world of Desperate Wishes, historical facts have become “fairy tales,” “rumors” spur political action, and “nonsense” provides occasion for great matters of state. In the present-day United States and elsewhere, textbooks are being rewritten to portray ruling powers more favorably, conspiracy theories reinforced by irresponsible media influence elections, and politicians use unimportant issues to distract people from the politicians’ criminality or from their own living conditions. Read between the lines as much as you like. To what extent were these parallels conscious, and what do they say about the world we live in? There’s an extended episode involving a cow in Desperate Wishes that is excellent satire of political nonsense. Does your satire have a specific target? If so, what? If not, what in general (other than simply “nonsense”) are you satirizing?

CN: The scene with the cow was not satire at all. It was meant to further illustrate that the life of the animal was worth more than the lives of the women and girls. It was a further means of control and intimidation. By that point, there are rumblings of someone doing something out of control. The lord intended to regain control by reminding them who they served and how little their lives truly meant. This was his first act done out of fear, once he finally was faced with something beyond his control.

6. Dangerous Wishes I: Ambiguity. Makenna meets a spiritual being, Armando, who grants wishes. For him to grant her wishes for freedom and vengeance, she must extract wishes from the men who have tormented her. These men’s wishes, following “Monkey’s Paw” logic, backfire horrifically at least in part because the wording of their wishes is too open to interpretation. Why is imprecise language so important to your story? To stories about wish-making in general? Is linguistic ambiguity related to moral ambiguity? For instance, your book highlights what may be a blurry moral line between justice and vengeance. Can Makenna’s wishes get justice and vengeance at the same time? Why or why not?

CN: Making the wishes open to interpretation allows the Djinn to extract his brand of chaos, justice for the Nameless in his eyes, revenge for Makenna as she sees it. Being able to play with the wish and its outcome was a key part of the story and allowed Armando to use the most savage outcome as the tool to fulfill the wish.  The men did not really think their wish through, falling prey to Makenna’s innocent charade and thinking her childish rather than a danger to them, even though she had proven herself to be a challenge already. I think there is a gray area between justice and revenge, much like between good and evil. There is always a slippery slope just waiting to happen if we lean too far on one side or the other. 

7. The Djinn. Armando identifies himself as a Djinn, a major figure in world religion and folklore that appears in the Quran and other sources. How did you research his character? Your descriptions of him are detailed: what inspired your imagery? What motivated you to transplant a Djinn from his usual environment into your setting? How do you expect readers to react to Armando?

CN: The Djinn for me was a mixture of several fairy tales and folklore legends based on both djinns and genies and how they function. Legend tells us that Djinns are more known to be sinister and evil, tricksters at the very least, rather than a typical genie. Armando is a trickster that leans into the sinister, but he has reason to want to help Makenna as his kind was also displaced due to the current state of the world. The places they once called home no longer exist, so they had to go wherever they could to exist in limbo until they could make themselves known. Armando finds a host in Makenna, a willing host that can help him and help herself, though he still is not being fully honest with her in his intentions.

8. Trauma and Dissociation. Once Makenna forms an alliance with Armando, he shields her from more of the traumas she has had to endure her whole life, enabling her to retreat to a place “safe inside her mind” where she doesn’t feel men’s brutal violations. In your book, this process is supernatural, but to me it reads a lot like real-life dissociation. Were you thinking of dissociation when you wrote about this aspect of Makenna and Armando’s relationship? If so, why did you choose to represent dissociation this way? If not, what do you think of the comparison? Do you think dissociation is a healthy response to the traumas she faces? Why or why not?

CN: Yes, it is very much based on dissociation. Many women that grew up in abusive homes, or that have survived sexual assaults and abuse will tell you that they survived by retreating from it mentally. By pretending to be someone else or going dark in their mind. They endure the assault by creating a safe place in their mind where they are not the one being hurt, but rather someone else. Is it healthy? No, any psychologist will tell you that it’s not a healthy response, but it is a natural response and one that our brain automatically engages.

We are designed to protect ourselves from trauma. It’s no different than being in a car accident and not feeling the pain until later because our brain shields us, floods us with adrenaline and lets us deal with the emergency. The pain comes later. Makenna has endured enough. Armando lets her go away to places that only he can show her, but while she is there, he is also showing her what once was and what could be again, all while protecting her from further trauma.

9. Dangerous Wishes II: Doomed by Desire. If the wishes Makenna extracts from men tend to backfire, might Makenna’s backfire as well? Makenna sees herself as potentially sacrificing herself when she wishes for freedom. Is something inherently wrong with wishing? Is wishing an intrinsically desperate act? Why or why not? Armando, who has the power to grant wishes, is male. Does his maleness relate to something tainted in the power he (allegedly) uses to help Makenna? Ultimately, do you see a chance for redemption in a desire for violence? Why or why not?

CN: Makenna is fully aware that Armando may trick her. She is already planning for that, but in the end, she realizes that her sacrifice can only lead to a change for good for the others. A step in the right direction is necessary for the Nameless to find their voice, and she is willing to risk her own wish and whatever price Armando wants her to pay in order to be a catalyst for the change they all need. I think all wishes are acts of desperation. The same as making deals with God when faced with a crisis. It is desperation and despair and a cry for help when we can endure no more, when there are no more options.

Armando presents as male, but he can be anything he wishes at any time. His maleness is part of the story because it helps to show that Makenna goes from the control of one male to being in the control of another, but she takes the risk because the Djinn has already given her something she had not had before. Hope. Hope can change everything. Hope can bring redemption despite the violence.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

Follow me on all social media platforms under Candace Nola or @Uncomfortably Dark Horror.

The publishing house Website is www.uncomfortablydark.com

My personal website is www.candacenolaauthor.com.

Find my books on Amazon or order signed copies on the website.

Order through Amazon! Order through Uncomfortably Dark Horror!About the Author

Candace Nola is a multiple award-winning author, editor, and publisher. She writes poetry, horror, dark fantasy, and extreme horror content. She is the creator of Uncomfortably Dark Horror, which focuses primarily on publishing marginalized voices, and promoting indie horror authors and small presses with weekly book reviews, interviews, and special features.

Books include Breach, Beyond the Breach, Hank Flynn, Bishop, Earth vs The Lava Spiders, The Unicorn Killer, Unmasked, The Vet, Desperate Wishes, and many more. Her short stories can be found in The Baker’s Dozen anthology, Secondhand Creeps, American Cannibal, Just A Girl, The Horror Collection: Lost Edition, Exactly the Wrong Things, and many others.

Follow her on all social media and join the Uncomfortably Dark Patreon for free books, merch, and more!

The post Interview with Author Candace Nola: Desperate Wishes appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Charlotte Platt: Treasured Guest

With alluring insights into its layered terrors, Charlotte Platt takes us on a tour of the haunted hotel in her novella Treasured Guest.

Treasured Guest

The Basker’s delighted to have you.

“Just one drink” the night before has left soldier-turned-corporate-trainer Stephanie with a hangover that could wake the dead. The dead, however, are never restful, and when checking out of her Glasgow hotel goes eerily sideways, Stephanie comes face to face with the very best–and worst–The Basker has to offer.

In fact, the chipper concierge insists she take advantage of his hospitality, leaving Stephanie in an executive suite with every amenity available at the press of a button. Every amenity, that is, except her freedom.

The Hotel Basker and its staff claim Stephanie is their most treasured guest, but she only wants to get home to her partner Jenny and their cats, fighting tooth and nail to find a way out of those rooms and away from the horrors they hold.

Who will prove stronger: The Basker, with its timeless sophistication and uncanny architecture, its bleeding ghosts and cosmic monsters–or one haunted woman, fierce with homesickness and relying on the combat training she never forgot?

Check in and find out.

Arriving March 14, 2025! Click the pic for more on Amazon.The Interview

1. Ghostly Guesthouses. On their website, Undertaker Books points out that Treasured Guest has “elements of The Shining.” Stephen King’s opus may be the contemporary go-to for hotel haunting, but (allegedly) ghost-infested accommodations have a noble literary tradition. Go back a century from The Shining (1977) and find Wilkie Collins’s The Haunted Hotel (1878); go forward about forty years and find a whole season of popular television, American Horror Story: Hotel (2015 – 2016). These examples alone create a broad spectrum for haunted hotels: where does the Basker fit? Avoiding spoilers, what elements does it, in fact, have in common with King’s Overlook, and how does it differ? King aside, who (or what) were your influences? Like haunted houses, haunted hotels usually have personalities. Does the Basker have a personality? If so, how would you describe it? What’s the Basker’s place in the world?

CP: This is a very fun question – to me, the Basker leans more H. H. Holmes than King, but it’s undeniable there are hints of the Overlook in there, too.  I think the Basker shares a malignance with the Overlook, a desire to corrupt, but the Basker is more likely to drive you to despair, rather than getting you to kill everyone else. It’s a patient predator rather than the escalation the Overlook induces. 

For influences, the Basker was inspired by a travel hotel I stayed in for my day job, which was not quite as ravenous as the Basker, but it was rather weird! It didn’t help that I mistook the front of the real-life hotel for the neighboring undertakers twice before I found it, but for all the neighbors to have the dead won’t issue a noise complaint, so there’s a logic to it! Writing wise, I think Clive Barker is always going to be someone I reference because I love his work, but the eco and echo horror of Jeff VanderMeer and Premee Mohamed creep in, too.

As for personality, I’m not sure the Basker has one in the way we’d recognize, though it is playful at times. I’d say it’s more like a big cat or a shark, something that’s intelligent but quite separate from how we’d interact with it. The best link the Basker has to humanity is the ghosts that fill it, but they’re progressively less human the longer they stay, too.

2. More than the Weather? Your hero, Stephanie, stays at the Basker on a trip to Glasgow, Scotland. Most of the audience for this interview will be American, like myself, and might share my impression that the weather in Glasgow is often as you depict it—which is to say, dreary. Do you consider your depiction of Glasgow, at least in that regard, to be realistic, or do you magnify the stereotypical dreariness for the sake of the isolating atmosphere around the Basker? What else, if anything, is particularly Glaswegian (or Scottish) about the Basker and its ghosts? Overall, what’s the significance of the broader urban setting?

CP: This question really made me laugh – I love Glasgow to bits. I studied for five years in Glasgow, and it’s one of the friendliest and liveliest cities in Scotland, but goodness me yes it can rain when the weather sets in. But the city is well adjusted to it: in my last year of studies the worst storm we’d had in 10 years at the time, an actual cyclone, was nicknamed “Hurricane Bawbag” (I’ll trust the audience to understand that one), and other than catching flying trampolines, everyone carried on pretty well. As such, while the Basker is certainly soaking up that dreary rain, that’s just November onwards for most of us in Scotland.

In terms of what else is especially Glaswegian, Frankie, our resident bartender, is very Weegie, and she’s a lot of fun because of it. Glasgow also has some fantastic art galleries and museums, which the Basker takes advantage of in a way.

The urban setting is something I love to play around with. The idea that there’s something magical lurking within the scrum of the city is always appealing to me, and the idea of predatory things evolving to hunt in new ways that could slip into the day to day is very fun. How often would you notice someone with too many teeth, or an extra set of footsteps following you in the dark? Would you know the difference between a mugger and a vampire until it was too late, and would that difference matter if you’re bleeding out either way? Having lived both in the city and very rural areas – I grew up on the Orkney Islands – I think the activity of the city always appeals to me because of how isolated you can be while in very busy spaces.

A different take on the paranormal, also with urban backdrops…

3. The Winter of Mixed Drinks. Stephanie drinks like many of my characters drink! Um, that is to say, a lot. A fear that her drinking might signal alcoholism does arise once, but otherwise, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for her. Does the novella imply any criticism of her heavy drinking? Why or why not? As hotel ghosts (“spirits”) point out, drinking and alcohol (especially “spirits”) serve multiple purposes, some of which might be essential. Does the novel exemplify the virtues of drinking and alcohol? If so, what virtues in particular do the teetotalers need to recognize? If not, why do drinking and alcohol seem so useful during Stephanie’s experiences?

CP: Being ex-army, Stephanie is very aware she’s self-medicating with how she drinks. I knew that from very early on that part of her keeping her control is relinquishing control in the sense of letting herself drink so she has something to ease the edge of what’s happening to her because thinking about it too much would crack her head like an egg. As such I think there is a critical edge to what she’s doing, but she’s taking the approach of doing something bad to prevent yourself from doing something worse. If that’s the right choice, that comes down to everyone’s own take, but I can understand why she does it.

I think there is a certain level of virtue in her use of the alcohol, but most of it is prevention rather than cure because this is not a curable situation! She does utilize it as a tool, in the medical sense, and that does surprise the hotel somewhat despite it giving her the alcohol to begin with. There’s only one real instance where the alcohol helps her out, though, and she gets punished for that by the Basker because it hadn’t expected that level of resistance. Equally, her breaking out the old army methods – both in the sense of wound tending and self-medication – helps keep her in her own mind rather than spiraling, so I think there’s a virtue in that as well.

4. Haunting Time. Time works differently in the Basker, perhaps even running at different rates for different inhabitants. Why? Stories that involve the supernatural often depict time anomalies related to ghosts and haunted places. Why does this aspect of the haunting tradition fit with your work, and why do you think it has become such an integral part of people’s conceptions of supernatural phenomena? Without giving too much away, how would you describe the way time functions for different characters in the Basker? What causes the anomalies?

CP: Oh, I loved playing with time in this story. Time is absolutely different for different ghosts and other guests because the Basker doesn’t treat everyone equally, both in terms of preference and extent of power. A living human in the hotel is not the same as a ghost is not the same as other occupants, and Stephanie is a horrible little anomaly for the Basker because she’s not doing what it wants. The Basker absolutely expects her to give in after a day or so, and instead she sits there like a limpet at the bar, seething with hatred, stubbornly refusing to die. That takes more energy and means she’s both a torment and a prize for the hotel, which we see in her interactions with some of the ghosts as well. I especially think this shows later in the book because Stephanie’s sense of time really zones down into sleeping and waking, and the thin edge of if dreams are real or not, which comes back to reality with a crunch near the end.

Living in Scotland, the idea of time changing and slipping is a very natural thing. When you have days with only 6 hours of light (not guaranteed to be good light), or conversely days in the summer where the sun never goes down and you’re still hearing birdsong at midnight, it’s natural for things to feel a little fae.

5. Haunting Imagery. Treasured Guest delivers stunning imagery as Stephanie encounters supernatural phenomena. What inspired your imagery? The very effective descriptive writing often aims to construct—I’ll call them “entities”—in readers’ minds for which readers have no reference points. In other words, readers have never seen anything like these entities, so you must build them in readers’ imaginations from scratch. How do you do that? For me, the radically unfamiliar images cross from the grotesque to the surreal. Did you consciously seek surreal effects, and/or do you think of Treasured Guest as surreal? Why or why not? The Basker builds psychological tension by changing the art on its walls, which, like Treasured Guest’s descriptive passages, gets increasingly violent. What might this haunting parallel between the art in the story and the art of the writing mean?

CP: Each entity landed very firmly as what they were when I was writing the story, though they all tie into part of what Stephanie is going through when they haunt her. The horned men, for example, are easy to draw comparisons with things she will have seen in her previous life in the army, though her comrades probably didn’t have quite as many extra parts, and poor Eric is an echo of Stephanie’s own despair, though she chooses a different path. The most constant is the delightful company of the pit, and I really wanted the reader to feel the presence of that even when it’s just dark and hungry rather than actively enticing, as it can be.

Surreal is very much part of the book – the hotel revels in breaking reality around it, so some things simply have to be surreal as they’re outside of reality. Stephanie spends her whole time in the suite eating bar cherries because there’s no other food, which is deeply practical in the face of what’s happening, but her little habits of clinging to reality keep her from slipping into the same bizarreness the Basker is trying to lure her into. I’m not sure I think of the novella as capital-s Surreal, but the hotel does delight in the fuzzing of lines between dream and nightmare, worldly and ethereal, so it has to be walking in the shadow of surreal.

The art was absolutely how I wanted the hotel to talk, given it doesn’t have a “real” voice in the sense that other things in there do. The art is both a conversation the hotel is having with Stephanie and an extra pressure it’s putting on her, overwhelming or undermining her through the space she has to traverse to get help and her needs met in the suite. The art changes not only to reflect when it’s angry with her, or needling a wound, but the type of art changes, too, and escalates as she lasts longer in the suite. One of my favorite parts of this is a small statue we see, deeply lonely in the first instance, and then bloody and cruel when the hotel wants Stephanie to feel small, and her rejection of that is a very powerful moment for me because she doesn’t shy away from that pain, but she doesn’t let it consume her, either.

6. Haunted Hero. Stephanie has a military background that helps her survive assaults from the Basker’s more aggressive denizens. This background is important for the plot, but what should it help readers to understand about her character? Stephanie’s stay in the Basker ultimately becomes a pitched battle for survival, and her preparedness for such a situation makes your book resonate with a subgenre I never expected going in: survival horror. Did you think about survival horror while writing? Do you think “survival horror” is a fair label? Why or why not? Stephanie’s background has also left her with PTSD. How should knowing that fact affect readers’ perceptions of her? Of the reliability of her perceptions?

CP: Stephanie being ex-army was less of an active planning choice (I’m a pantser for life, alas), but it did come through very strongly with her character at the start of writing. I think this background explains a lot of her little checking in touches – her packing routine, still honed from being used to travelling, checking in with travel before she’s out of the hotel, knowing how to navigate travel with her hangover, all speak to a preparedness that hasn’t fallen away despite her change of career.

I always knew Treasured Guest was a survival story of sorts, so I do think survival horror fits, though it wasn’t exactly what I expected when I started writing it. I certainly think Stephanie’s PTSD is very controlled, but part of that is the balancing act with her drinking. If she doesn’t keep her mental boxes from falling open, she’s very aware she could lose control, and she’s in an extremely hostile environment, so that knife edge of relying on training and letting herself fall back into old habits like keeping armed and tending her own wounds helps her but leaves her at risk in new ways. I always wanted to keep that balance of choosing which thing would be worse and trying to keep the balance, though the Basker has no intention of making that easy!

7. Being Chosen and Being Queer. Stephanie has a longstanding girlfriend, Jenny. Why did you choose a queer hero? Before she learns that the Basker has chosen her to be one of its inmates, she reveals that her boss chose her for the trip to Glasgow because, instead of being in a relationship with a man that has produced children, she is in a relationship with a woman raising cats. Is a heterosexist bias responsible for sending Stephanie to the Basker in the first place? Why or why not? If there is a connection between Stephanie’s queerness and her selection for the trip to Glasgow, does it parallel her selection by the Basker? If so, what do the parallels mean? Stephanie’s thoughts eventually reveal that she had “little choice” but to leave the military once her relationship with Jenny was discovered by military police. Might Treasured Guest say something about queerness and choice? If so, what?

CP: I’d love to have an original answer here, but I’m queer and I love writing other queer characters because I want more of us out there! I do have the occasional straight hero, but most of mine are rolling around in the rainbow, and it seems likely to be that way for the foreseeable future.

Stephanie being sent off because she doesn’t have children is a real-life lift from something that was said to me previously! I was volunteered for a work matter four hundred miles away from the office when other – more qualified – people could have been sent, despite my long-term partner being a chap. I suspect it’s something a lot of people bump into, still, their relationships being minimized into “very good friends” or “tiding over”, etc. So yes, it was alas heteronormativity all along, and it’s still alive and well.

In terms of how it reflects on the Basker choosing her, I certainly think it would see itself as an equal opportunity employer, so to speak, but it’s more interested in what Stephanie can do. It’s quite willing to play on her preferences, such as Frankie the bartender, but that would be more to do with it being a good predator than having any love for a particular alignment.

Stephanie having to leave the army is another real-life lift! Until 2000 you couldn’t be gay in the army in the UK, it was illegal, and we had some fantastic people being forced out of careers they’d worked very hard for because of who they loved. Sure, there were open secrets that went on, but anything tangible got you out and revenge outings and the like very much happened. So, there is certainly an emphasis on choice for Stephanie – she already knows what she’s willing to live through and has lived through before in choosing her relationship with Jenny. I think that level of self-knowledge is a great strength for her and informs what she’s willing to do to survive, but I also think that being willing to fight for a life that you’ve made and value comes into play for a lot of people.  

8. The Pit, the Void, and Suicide. After Stephanie is in the Basker’s trap, she seeks a way out, and hotel personnel present her with three options: jumping in what looks like a dark, bottomless pit; surrendering to a void that seems to consume all that it touches; and suicide, which would lead to her body being cannibalized and… likely other horrors. Why must she face such apparently bleak options? No spoilers, but, at least symbolically, why the apparent opposition between the pit and the void? Is suicide a reasonable option? Why or why not? Either way, the possibility of suicide looms over much of the story. Why? We live in the age of trigger warnings. How do you feel about trigger warnings? Do you feel like Treasured Guest needs a trigger warning for suicide? Why or why not?

CP: The Basker doesn’t get good team members by giving them good choices! It consumes those it chooses because it wants the best, but that requires a level of acceptance for both parties – you have to jump into the pit, you have to willingly give yourself over, to be fully ingratiated into the “family.” And to reject such an offer has to mean the worst punishments, which to them is the unmaking of the void. Why would you surrender to oblivion when you could be so much more? This is obviously a false choice, but we are in a world with so many false choices presented as essential, and Treasured Guest is certainly happy to lean into that and show why we don’t have to make a choice we’re being forced into.

How reasonable can suicide be? There’re certain characters in the book that would argue either side of the line for whether suicide is a valid option – Stephanie possibly being one of them as a veteran. UK veteran suicide rates aren’t as bad as in the US, but they’re not great. One of my cousins killed himself after he couldn’t get what he’d seen out of his head, so he cracked it open. It’s hard when people do that, for them and everyone around them, and I think Treasured Guest presents suicide as a form of agency – to escape the Basker – but with its own risks and pain, which I wanted to highlight, too.

Suicide is certainly something that is strongly present, but I think it would be unrealistic for it to be absent. Stephanie is aware that there are worse things than death and was before the hotel, given she’d seen combat previously, so it would always be something that’s an option. But she also always has something she doesn’t want to give up – Jenny and her life, the ability to be herself openly now, and that’s a strong anchor for her. So, there is a hopeful element to Stephanie as well.

I’m in favor of trigger warnings. If they help someone have a better experience then that’s got to be a good thing, but ho boy yeah Treasured Guest comes with quite a few! I think when I was submitting it, I warned for graphic violence and gore mostly, but I wouldn’t feel bad about one of suicidal tendencies being present either.

9. “Defiance Against the Absurdity.” On the subject of voids and suicide, a lot of Treasured Guest seems to me to be about existential issues. Is it a philosophical novel in disguise? I’ve asked questions speculating about reasons, but to what extent is the Basker’s “choice” of Stephanie about randomness, or at least the appearance of randomness? Stephanie often perceives what is happening to her in terms of “absurdity” and the “ridiculous,” and she tries to avoid succumbing to the “insanity.” To what extent is the absurdity Stephanie faces the Absurd? Is “defiance against the Absurdity” (your words, capital A added) Stephanie’s supreme virtue? Why or why not?

CP: You can’t have cosmic horror without a good dose of existential issues, that’s part of the fun! And some good existential dread leads us nicely into philosophy, depending on who you like to read. I tend to lean more Robert W. Chambers and Ligotti than Lovecraft, but I don’t think you can tackle good cosmic horror without rolling around with some of the questions that raises.

Is Stepanie special or just very unlucky? I would say she’s a bit of both. She has an excellent set of skills, that she’s worked hard for and honed, and that just happens to be what the Basker wants. Does that make her special? To go back to Chambers again, and his quote of “what a terrible thing, to be noticed by a god”, can there be any good result of something so powerful recognizing you as interesting? Do the spiders we spot know we might go and get a glass to let them go rather than just killing them? They run away just the same, and Stephanie certainly hasn’t found her “glass” very appealing, despite the well-stocked bar.

I do think Stephanie’s unwillingness to give up her own sense of order is one of her great strengths in the book. She knows what is happening is a little bit impossible, but that doesn’t mean she has to agree with it or go along with it. This is especially present in her issues with the bathroom, because that really interferes with her ability to make things feel normal, and the scene with the towels is one of my favorite instances of that. I also think, as someone who is self-aware of her PTSD, she’s worked very hard at knowing what is real versus what is the rattling of a box in her mind, and the Basker’s willing chaos doesn’t have the same impact because she is quite regimented in grounding herself in reality. I don’t know if that makes it a virtue as much as her supreme survival tactic, because not everyone would agree with her methods for remaining alive, but I think it’s certainly her strength.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

I have a website which is https://charlotteplattwriter.co.uk/ and the mandatory Amazon page, or you can find me on the following:

Twitter & Bluesky – @Chazzaroo

Insta – chaz.platt (this is mostly dog photos, I warn in advance)

Tumblr – Chazzaroo47

About the Author

Charlotte Platt is a dark fantasy and horror writer based in the very far north of Scotland. She earned her Master’s in Creative Writing through the Open University and has had around fifty short stories placed across various anthologies, podcasts, and essay collections. Her most recent novel, One Smile More, was released in June 2024 through Grendel Press. When she isn’t out beside the river looking for herons, she can be found walking her parents’ rescue dog, Joe, or tending to her garden – both of which feature heavily on her socials. Outside of writing she likes live shows, comedy, and music, as well as researching deep dives for her next novel.

The post Interview with Author Charlotte Platt: Treasured Guest appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

The Sadean Thread in Alex’s Escape

A distinctly Sadean thread, not only sadistic in the general sense but derived from the narrative tactics of the Marquis de Sade, winds through films such as Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005), for which David Edelstein coined the term “torture porn.” While film subgenres such as giallo and slasher have long used traditional narrative elements as frames for set-pieces focused on violence and murder, “torture porn” revels in episodic depravity.

Although they fit together in a jigsaw puzzle of a story, the linear set-pieces of torture are the raison d’être for the Saw franchise. In the Hostel franchise, people pay for sessions of torture and murder. Violent fantasies paid for in the movie become violent fantasies paid for as the movie.

I have written about “torture porn” as well as the arguably more Sadean turn in European film a decade later seen in A Serbian Film (2010), so this phenomenon has been on my mind for a long time.

My first published book (2010) includes examination of torture porn in relation to contemporary political depravity. My essay in this 2015 collection connects A Serbian Film‘s episodic, very extreme, politically edged violence to Sade.

“Torture porn” brought at least the idea of extreme horror into mainstream contemporary horror, as American Psycho (1991) brought it into mainstream contemporary literature a little over a decade before. People got reminded that popular artforms could cross boundaries. People got reminded that there were boundaries.

If you only know the film version, you have no idea how far the novel goes.

Popular artforms have undoubtedly tested boundaries since the first dirty hieroglyphic, but testing boundaries with episodic depravity, for which “torture porn” is an apt description, was pioneered in Sade’s ungodly-long novels Justine (1791), Juliette (1797), and The120 Days of Sodom (1904 [1785]).

At a slim 320 pages, this book is the place to go for your taste of Sade. La Nouvelle Justine (1801), paired with Juliette, was nearly 4,000 pages! This edition boasts 1,205 pages, and I’m guessing it’s not large print. That’s a lot of variations of violation, torture, and death. I didn’t finish it. This edition clocks in at 464 pages… could’ve sworn it was longer… coprophagia grows tiresome. If you want the nasty, here it is.

Do not assume that, because they are more recent, films or contemporary novels called extreme horror or splatterpunk are more graphic in terms of explicit gore or sex than Sade’s work. You would be mistaken. However far there is to go, Sade has been there. An artist in the Sadean tradition can change or even add variables, such as modern technology, but that is all.

I make this point because, among others in the narrative yarn, a Sadean thread runs through my novel Alex’s Escape, not merely in Alex’s character–he is a psychological as well as a physical sadist–but in the showcasing of episodic depravity, especially in the second third of the novel (“Part Two: Alex’s Entertainment”).

The “Escapes” in Part One are Sadean episodes, as are many chapters in Part Two. Part Three has Sadean episodes that work… differently.

Like Sade, between story-driven interludes, I descend into passages that narrate cruelty and violence that boggle the imagination. I go in different directions and create diverse images to test different limits. An unkind ARC (advance reader copy) reviewer lambasted the book for seeming to go for shock value–of course it goes for shock value! The Sadean tradition is about shocking people out of their complacency, their acceptance of oppressive normativity that finally requires revolution. Shock has value. If you don’t believe that, read other genres. My Sadean episodes bombard the limits of acceptability.

Unlike Sade, I don’t offer so many episodes that I test virtually all the limits, but I do my best while folding my episodic rebelliousness into what I hope is a richer narrative with more varied themes than Sade ever found necessary. I could never rival Sade anyway, so I might as well throw in some other artistic flair.

However, if a category exists for Sadean fiction, I humbly submit my literary offspring Alex’s Escape for inclusion.

The post The Sadean Thread in Alex’s Escape appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Somer Canon: You’re Mine

Horror writer Somer Canon calls her novel You’re Mine a slow burn, but the ideas and insights on display in our interview point toward why I found it to be a page-turner…

You’re Mine

Insecure misfit Ioni Davis never thinks she’ll find love in her sleepy West Virginia hometown. Then the tall, fascinating stranger Raber Belliveau transfers to her school.

Their attraction is instant and red-hot. And a shared fascination with witchcraft bonds the young lovers even closer.

But while Ioni is responsibly studying her newfound religion of Wicca, Raber has chosen an altogether… different path.

Soon, Raber’s behavior becomes manipulative. Even abusive. And their love story for the ages is turning into a macabre farce. All Ioni wants to do is get out.

But Raber has discovered a dreadful way to control their relationship. A ritual which hasn’t been attempted in over a century. A spell to unleash a bloodthirsty terror which can never be satisfied.

Ioni finds herself trapped in a struggle for her life and even her free will against a once-trusted lover who has assured her…

YOU’RE MINE

Click the pic for more on Amazon!The Interview

1. You’re Whose? I: Audience. You’re Mine focuses on the relationship between teenagers Ioni and Raber, delving deeply into their emotions, and in doing so, it might fit with a YA readership. Did you think about YA readers as you wrote? I can think of at least two major problems with a YA classification. First, the sex. You write with delicate language, but sex scenes are nevertheless explicit and “red-hot.” Exactly how sexy do you aim to be? And why the delicacy? Second, the violence. Abuse and eventually gore also become explicit. The cover mentions your Splatterpunk Award nomination, not something one generally advertises to the YA market. How extreme is You’re Mine? Bottom line: who’s your audience for this book?

SC: My husband is a big fan of YA fiction, so I realize that it’s a very popular genre, but just because a story features characters of a certain age, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the tale is intended for that age group. I am a horror writer, and horror has a very large selection of coming-of-age tales. These are tales that typically, in horror, feature protagonists that are not yet adults, but the stories are meant for an adult audience.  The difference between a YA tale and a coming-of-age tale, especially in the horror genre, is that these tales are written with a very deliberate backwards glance. The reader is meant to feel nostalgic for their younger days.

There is a lot of sex in this book because the central story is a love story.  While love and sex can certainly happen independent of each other, they do tend to share the same spaces quite often.  As for the “delicacy” in the language that I use, the answer to that is actually a technical one.  I’ve been a published writer for a decade, and I’ve worked with many editors. Not all of my stories heavily feature sex, like Vicki Beautiful, but sex makes its appearances in my work at least half of the time.

During my career, I’ve learned from various editors that there’s a fine line, guided by the language used, between speculative fiction that features sexual content and pornography.  Sometimes you can get away with vague language in a sex scene, and I’ve certainly used that technique, but I wanted the sex scenes in You’re Mine to reflect that exciting time in life when sexuality is still being discovered, when it’s still new and experimental.  When it’s the most exciting.  So, yes, I wanted the sex scenes in this book to be impactful to the reader, but I had to maintain my genre by choosing my words carefully. 

My Splatterpunk Nomination was for a book titled Killer Chronicles. That book is actually a novella, a much shorter work than You’re Mine, and there are situations in that book that are strange, weird, and yes, very violent. Killer Chronicles has one scene that is surprisingly brutal and gory, and I think that is why it got the Splattterpunk Award nomination. That one scene is why You’re Mine isn’t quite as extreme when it comes to violence and horror, but it is still very much a horror novel, intended solely for horror fans.

2. Love, Possession, Objectification. As your book’s description (above) indicates, Raber utters the possessive words of the book’s title, but at one point Ioni also thinks of him as hers. Is possessive love necessarily problematic? Why or why not? Does feeling like a lover is “yours” necessarily objectify your lover? Why or why not? Without giving too much away, what turns Ioni and Raber’s love toxic?

SC: Being in love with a person and declaring them “yours” isn’t in and of itself problematic.  There are certain permissions granted to a romantic partner, and one must allow that sometimes, certain declarations are made lightly. The problems come when those same declarations are made with a seriousness that takes the other party’s consent out of the equation. Ioni says that Raber is hers at a time when, well, he was. He consented to that, and she consented to being his. It’s not total possession, but a declaration of a consensual bonding. But when a breakup happens, and one party still insists that the other is still “theirs”, that’s a problem because the consent has ostensibly been revoked.  A choice to be separate and break that bond has been made, and that’s when objectification happens. A de-humanization occurs when one party has no regard for the feelings and autonomy of the other.

As for Raber and Ioni’s relationship specifically, I think that it’s seeded pretty early on in their relationship that there are problems. As adults with experience in such matters, we can see certain behaviors as the big red flags that they are, but Ioni is still so young, and she’s inexperienced in such matters. Some lessons are learned the hard way, unfortunately. That’s why we see them so clearly as experienced adults. 

3. Teen Distortion. You’re Mine refers repeatedly to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a play that, when I look at it as an adult, seems very much to be about teenagers too whacked out on hormones and naivete to make reasonable choices. Romeo and Juliet’s melodramatic extremes are distorted by their youth. To what extent is the same true for Ioni and Raber? Does the book have a perspective behind theirs that holds the follies of their youth up for examination, and if it does, where does that perspective appear most clearly? Ioni, like a lot of young people of her time, is self-conscious about her age and stage of life, making “meta” comments about being young and the possibilities and limitations involved. What does her “meta” attitude say about her? Would her story even be possible if she and other characters were older? Why or why not?

SC: I think, because the intended audience of this book is adults, we can be forgiving of Ioni’s naïve decisions. This story most certainly could happen to older characters, but I truly believe that the readers would be less forgiving of some of Ioni’s decisions. Her youth and inexperience evoke pity, even when we find her frustrating.  As adults, we can remember how, at Raber and Ioni’s ages, we thought all of our feelings were the biggest feelings ever, and that was because at the time, it was our first time experiencing a lot of them. And that new bigness made us, honestly, very stupid and impulsive.  I think something that I wanted to impart about Ioni’s personality is that she’s very self-conscious, but she’s also introspective. She stops and thinks.  Of course, that doesn’t save her from a lot of things that inexperience sends her walking right into, but it does keep her from being outright reckless.  Ioni’s introspection is what brings about those meta moments, where she’s very self-referential and worried about how she’s perceived.  Being a teenager is hard, especially in regard to identity. Adult readers can feel Ioni’s struggle there because we lived that and may still be living it.  To reiterate, this story could happen to older characters, but it would be much harder to relate to those characters, much harder to sympathize with them, and much harder to excuse certain decisions.  Youth and inexperience makes some of this story believable. 

4. Party Like It’s… 2002. Published in 2022, You’re Mine is set in 2002. Why? What situations and cultural conditions are available for the story in a 2002 setting that aren’t in the nearer present? One salient detail early in the story is the absence of cellphones—getting to payphones is important—and then later in the story, the introduction of a cellphone as “new tech” becomes important. Why the emphasis on this particular tech for this story? What does the introduction of cellphones do for your characters in 2002 West Virginia?

SC: With all of the 80s nostalgia raging in popular culture, I honestly thought I’d take a whack at some Millennium nostalgia.  I graduated high school in 2001, so this is MY time.  I remember having to navigate certain activities around getting to a payphone.  I remember when average folk, not just the wealthy, could start getting cell phones, and how it immediately changed how we interacted, not only with others, but with the outside world. I have a very distinct memory from my childhood of driving back country roads to visit family, and my mom’s car broke down.  How my brother and I waited in the car while my mom hiked to the nearest house to ask if she could use their phone.  Cell phones changed that.  Being able to send a quick text as opposed to a phone call changed so much.  Communications, even important conversations, happening through text changed how we talk to each other, the words we choose when typing them out as opposed to speaking them. 

I’d also like to point out that the place, small town West Virginia, is important in all of this. When the internet became widely available, when we could be connected to anywhere at any time, the world got a whole lot smaller because it was much more accessible.  That was something that that area (I’m originally from small town WV) hadn’t had before.  The communities tended to be insular both by choice and because of geography. The youth of that time embraced the technology because we knew that there was so much more out there, and it shaped how a lot of us viewed ourselves, our hometowns, and the world at large.

5. Outsiders and Families of Choice. Ioni and her friends identify themselves as “weirdos” and outsiders, mostly dressing as goths. Why are goth looks and (at least temporary) goth identities right for these characters? Why is their outsider status important? Ioni thinks of her peer group from school as family, and later, she also thinks of her Wiccan group as family. What is You’re Mine saying about the idea of family, particularly about outsiders and families of choice?

SC: In the book, we meet Ioni’s family. While it seems that her family situation isn’t a toxic one, there seems to be a lack of closeness and affection with her family.  Her parents both work, her siblings are kind of self-involved, and that ends up leaving Ioni as a lonely person with a need for close bonds. Because her friends all have their own difficult situations, some much more than Ioni’s, they too crave a closeness.  It’s not exactly a trauma bond, but it’s people who see their own needs reflected back to them in their chosen friend group.

Goths in my small town in the early 2000s were rare but not unheard of.  My conservative mother would have had kittens if I’d taken up with that aesthetic, so I chose instead to be the invisible girl in school. But my friends were the weirdos, and I always admired their laissez-faire attitudes about how others perceived them. Really, the goth aspect of this book is my love letter to the weirdos. It’s nothing deeper than that; it’s just the romantic whims of an author who loved the moxie of the people who just decided not to care what others thought of them. Ironic, I guess, considering my main character in this book is actually a very self-conscious girl who maybe doesn’t care what others think of her, but she’s not quite comfortable in her own skin yet.

6. Magic and Ritual I: Right-Hand Path. As the novel’s description suggests, Wicca is very important in the story, which includes detailed descriptions of Wiccan beliefs and rituals. What background and/or research did you bring to your writing about Wicca? Why did you choose to make Wicca so prominent? What do you think people misunderstand most frequently about Wicca and the “right-hand path?” Why does Ioni “fit” with the study of this religion?

SC: I have personal connections to Wicca, but I really wanted to make sure that I wasn’t disrespecting those beliefs when writing this book. Witches are so often one-dimensional characters, and I wanted to provide a story that offered that Wiccans, witches, and the other connected beliefs were perceived in the multitudes that they inhabit.  There’s no one way to be any of these things. I did a lot of reading, and I read Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner, as well as a lot of works written about some of his other books.  I also read The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism by Shelly Rabinovitch and James Lewis, which was extremely informative.  I made Wicca so prominent in this book because I wanted it viewed as the lifestyle that it is to so many, and I wanted it to be appealing to my outsider cast of characters, while making sure that it’s not viewed as merely aesthetics. 

I’m not entirely sure that the average person knows enough about Wicca to understand enough about it to have misunderstandings.  But that’s why I chose to be detailed in my own descriptions. The right-hand path is one of service to a higher power. It’s of giving and living a life of helpful selflessness.  Of course, Wicca is a big belief system, and not all sects believe the exact same things.  But I think this was a good path for Ioni because she is a giving spirit. She enjoys being charitable and giving to those she loves, and the idea of living a life that subscribes to ideals that are unselfish at their core would very much appeal to her.  Living in a way that disregards others would never appeal to Ioni.

7. Magic and Ritual II: Left-Hand Path. You also introduce “black” magic alongside Wicca’s “white” magic, the left-hand path opposed to Wicca’s right-hand path. While you offer fewer details, your book is still well-informed: what were your sources for the beliefs and practices associated with those whom the Wiccans oppose? In your story black magic seems to be associated with a strong male influence while white magic is associated with a strong female influence. Are the two approaches gendered? Black and white also seem to be associated, respectively, with an active, aggressive will and a more passive form of communion. Is that correct? Why or why not? How do you personally feel about one character’s claim that “There is no white or black magic?”

SC: The same books were used for both the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Arthur Edward Waite put together a collection of what he considered to be black magic rituals and spells titled The Book of Black Magic, but it’s not really digestible to your average reader.  There was certainly more fiction writing done by me for the left-hand path side of the coin. Wiccans and pagans tend to be non-judgmental by nature, so they don’t condemn the left-hand path as heavily as the coven in You’re Mine does, but there is a sense of warning evident in the writings of it that I read. The left-hand path is the self-serving path.  No higher power is put above one’s own self, but more to the point of the book, no other person is put above one’s own self. It’s pure, unadulterated selfishness that is helped along by magic.

I don’t think the two paths are gendered.  The coven that practices the right-hand path has male practitioners and has a male high priest working with them. But you’re absolutely correct that the two paths are denoted by two very different temperaments. The right-hand path is more passive, but it’s also more relaxed because there is trust put into a higher power.  You don’t need to be so keyed up when you have faith in something bigger than yourself.  The left-hand-path, which tends to attract people who harbor beliefs that are antithetical to societal norms, tends to be more aggressive because one must do one’s own dirty work rather than pray to and have faith in a higher power. 

The assertion that there is no white or black magic is one that is used by some real-life magical practitioners. There’s a belief that the magic knows nothing of good or evil, it just is.  The intent is in the will of the practitioner.  The witch is white or black; the magic is an ephemeral, shifting thing that molds to the will of the practitioner.

8. You’re Whose? II: Genre. When the “bloodthirsty terror” mentioned in the book’s description (above) comes into play, Part One moves on to Part Two, and the story changes significantly, arguably shifting in genre from a coming-of-age, teen relationship thriller to all-out horror. The story transformation reminds me of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Miike’s Audition (1999, one of my favorite films of all time). Particularly in the first part, how conscious were you of genre conventions for coming-of-age stories and relationship thrillers? Do you agree that something on the level of a genre shift occurs when the second part begins? Why or why not? Do you expect readers to enjoy both parts equally? If so, how do you pull that off? If not, why do you distribute your reading pleasures the way you do?

SC: I don’t think of the break from the first part into the second part as being a genre shift, although I don’t disagree with someone who sees it that way.  I was very conscious that I was doing a big fifteen-degree jerk with the second part of the book, and I agonized over it. I toyed with the idea of flashbacks throughout, but decided that I wanted that jarring, abrupt change of tone. There’s something specifically horror about that sudden shift that I’ve grown to love.  Horror is very familiar with what we call the “slow burn horror.” Not every horror tale begins with action.  Sometimes we take the time to build something so that we can then later utterly destroy it.  That’s what I did.  I spent the first half of the book building something, and then I destroyed it in the second half.  The slow burn isn’t for everyone. Some readers find it frustrating, but no one thing is for everybody. I can’t write with the aim of pleasing everybody because I’d freeze with anxiety and never finish a thing.  I decided that I wanted to unseat my readers, surprise them. And that’s for no other reason than that’s what I’d like to read.  I like the high-octane, action-packed horror.  I like horror that starts creeping you out from the first sentence.  But, because I love character-based stories the most, I also don’t mind a slow burn.  I’ll be patient for a story that takes a little longer to get started if I’m getting to know some great characters.  Now, I won’t flatter myself by declaring the characters in You’re Mine great, but I think they’re pretty darn close. 

9. Empathy, Psychopathy, and Caution. Empathy, whether it succeeds or fails, is often a central issue in You’re Mine. As the description above reveals, Raber becomes manipulative and abusive—to what extent is lack of empathy a cause, perhaps even a necessary cause, of his behavior? Ioni seems to have deeper feelings for fellow humans, but she doesn’t empathize deeply enough to anticipate Raber’s behaviors—is she guilty of a lack of empathy? Why or why not? Are the behaviors of Raber and Andrew, his friend who influences him to follow a “dreadful” path, psychopathic, or reflective of an inability to empathize? Near the end of the book, a character reflects that what has occurred could be understood as a cautionary tale. What might it caution against? Failures of empathy? The predations of psychopaths? Something else entirely? Nothing at all?

SC: Raber’s lack of empathy is absolutely the root cause of his behavior.  If he had the capacity to care about how his actions affected others, he wouldn’t go as far as he does.  His lack of empathy is what, I think, draws him to the left-hand path.  Everything has to be about him, what he wants, how he wants it. 

I don’t think that Ioni is showing a lack of empathy in not being able to anticipate what is, essentially, sociopathic behavior from someone that she loves. She’s young and inexperienced, and she wants to see the good in people.  Even experienced adults still get bamboozled by manipulative people. Nobody has all the software to be able to anticipate someone getting close to you and then hurting you. If anything, it’s her empathy that Raber uses against her, that ends up hurting her the most.

I think Andrew is more psychopathic than Raber.  Andrew isn’t as scheming as Raber; he’s more a man of action. But both of them absolutely have an inability to empathize.  They sincerely do not care about other people.

The character who muses that Raber and Ioni’s is a tale of caution ends up seeing the situation as “just sad,” but I think that the caution is meant to be taken in the abandon that Raber and Ioni took in getting involved with each other.  Nobody wants to hear that you should be cautious in love, but that ends up being what that particular character saw the need for in this story.  But at the end of the day, it may just be the musings of someone who has seen some awful stuff and may just be trying to make sense of a situation that really makes no sense at all. 

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

SomerCanon.com is a good place to find my works and appearances.  I also talk about horror books and movies on my YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXla3f6lLmvUULmWrT-2dg

About the Author

Somer Canon is the Imadjinn Award winning and Splatterpunk Award nominated author of works such as Killer Chronicles, The Hag Witch of Tripp Creek, and You’re Mine. When she’s not wreaking havoc in her minivan, she’s avoiding her neighbors and consuming all things horror. She has two sons and more cats than her husband agreed to have.

The post Interview with Author Somer Canon: You’re Mine appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Sonora Taylor: Errant Roots

Insightful and compelling author Sonora Taylor takes us down into the Errant Roots of a family with horrific secrets and traditions that might make us feel like “going home” is anything but safe.

Errant Roots

Deirdre’s family tree was never something she thought much about. For 24 years it’s just been her and her mother. But when she accidentally gets pregnant, her mother insists they go back to their family roots. Now Deirdre is about to discover just what kind of sinister soil her family has sprouted from.

“Witchy, clever, thoughtful, and brilliant, Errant Roots pulls the reader into the story headfirst. You’ll need to read just one more chapter, and another, and another, until you’ve devoured the tale of Deirdre’s family and the secrets they keep. Sonora’s expert touch brings to life characters and a story that are a joy to read, with all those delicious little thrills of tension and fright.”

 —Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and Below

“…the characters feel real, the dirt gets between your toes, and the emotions drive deep into the reader’s soul… a fantastic novella… that long-time fans of hers will be giddy about, and new readers will snap up her bibliography upon conclusion.”

—Steve Stred, author of When I Look At the Sky, All I See Are Stars

Click the pic for more from Raw Dog Screaming Press!The Interview

1. Generational Trauma. Past interviewees such as Grace R. Reynolds have helped me understand “generational trauma” not only as a concept but as a current literary interest that Errant Roots might share. I think I can fairly claim that as Deirdre gets in touch with her “family roots,” she inherits a great deal of trauma. Even if the term isn’t one you’ve thought about, what do you think generational trauma is, and what inspired you to write about traumas passed down through family? One of the scarier aspects of Errant Roots is a looming threat that past traumas, and past generations, might be inescapable. Why is this threat so prominent, and why do you think, at least for some readers (like me), it’s so effective?

ST: While Deirdre definitely experiences trauma, I see it as less an inheritance and more her own unique experience based on the fact that she wasn’t raised to see what’s happening in her family as normal. I do believe that trauma is inherited, but in the case of the Crofts, they’re instead being taught to do terrible things to keep the traumatic instance that started it all buried. It’s a ritual meant to keep their family unit together, strong, unharmed by outside forces. Further, to Deirdre, everyone except her mother is an outside force; and yet she can’t help but feel a connection to her grandmother, aunts, and cousins even though she never met them before the events of the book. How does that protection look when the outside forces threatening the order are one’s own family?

2. The Persistence of Memory. As the novella’s description (above) indicates, Deirdre is 24 when she gets pregnant, and the number 24 ends up being very significant in the story. Did you draw on any specific lore when you came up with your numerical scheme? This interview’s readers might guess that the number has something to do with hours in the day and therefore time. What is Errant Roots’s perspective on time? Does Deirdre’s perception of time change by the end of the story? Closely related to time, or at least to the past, is memory, which the novella theorizes through one character’s voice: “‘When we die, we become memories… And sometimes those memories manifest into spirits.’” How are memories like ghosts, and what does their ghostliness do to our perception of time? In the world of Errant Roots, is there any practical difference between a remembered ancestor and the supernatural? Why or why not?

ST: I’m starting with the ghosts because I think it ties to the outside forces discussed above. The Crofts’ rituals involve sacrificing those that aren’t part of the bloodline. However, it never remains as simple as the original sacrifice. Each generation added a new rule to keep the family strong and, subconsciously, to keep the trauma they wish to avoid as far away as possible. It’s not enough to sacrifice someone, they now have to mutilate the victim’s body in a symbolic gesture to keep their ghost away from the family and forever cast out. The family’s rituals are a visual of their growing madness as they cling to the one traumatic death that started everything.

I think the number started and ended as a coincidence, and while there are things, like Harriet being born a day later than her sisters, that seem like something bigger is at play, I also believe the family began creating self-fulling prophecies once they noticed the pattern. Surely Harriet and Yvonne became more interested in finding a partner once they reached their 23rd birthday so as to maintain the line. You can’t predict pregnancy without medical intervention, though, so I can see why Harriet would think that maybe her distrust in the family was incorrect and tried to right it by bringing Deirdre to meet them.

3. Matriarchy. Powerful women rule Deirdre’s family: their tree is a matriarchy. They’re highly invested in family connectedness and horticultural symbolism for their matriarchal legacy. Is their organic power an alternative to patriarchy? Why or why not? At least some family members seem to be… hostile… toward men. Does matriarchal power require an adversarial relationship with men? Why or why not? I might go as far as to say that some family members see men as good for one thing only… to what extent is this attitude a deliberate reversal of all-too-common male sexism? The matriarchal power in Errant Roots might not turn out to be so admirable… is this form of power doomed to corruption? Why or why not?

ST: I believe the family’s matriarchy comes from the fact that it’s rooted in birthing cycles, and by the fact that this family is really good at having daughters. I see the family as less hostile and more indifferent towards men. With the exception of Deirdre and Sarah, they see them as a means to an end–in their case, maintaining the Daylight Branch and the strength of the family. Some of this could be emotional protection, since the ritual started after Deirdre’s distant ancestor Josephine lost her husband while she was pregnant. I think a lot of it, though, is being taught from a young age that this is what will happen, since the sacrifice of the seed (aka the man) is the oldest ritual still performed.

I totally think such power is doomed to corruption. I can tell you from my professional life that replacing a room full of men with a room full of women does not create instant harmony. Women can and will find ways to inflict violence on each other, be it physical or through microaggressions. This can also happen in families.

4. Purity of Blood. Deirdre’s family members are particularly concerned about the blood of their mothers (and their mothers’ mothers) flowing through their veins, and certain members seem particularly concerned about maintaining a kind of purity in a specific family line. Why is blood so important, and what’s the significance of some family members making even finer distinctions among their kin? I’ve read and written about other horror with “witchy” (to borrow Laurel Hightower’s word) groups that exercise brutal authoritarian power through an investment in elders and the practice of occult rituals, groups that evoke early twentieth-century fascism and perhaps other fascisms as well. Deirdre’s family, especially with its concerns about blood and purity, seems like such a group… do you think their model of power reflects at all on the contemporary rise of authoritarian power structures around the world? Is authoritarianism another generational trauma that has returned? Why or why not?

ST: I see the focus on blood as almost like a monarchic purity–all that matters to the Crofts are the relatives directly related by blood, aka the roots from the same tree. As history will tell you, this focus is doomed to failure, especially in terms of dominion. What’s interesting about the Crofts, though, is their lack of desire to extend that dominion beyond their own family. This is a very insular means of power, with outsiders only used as a means to an end. This is also what makes Deirdre so interesting when she enters the mix, because she was raised as an outsider, yet accepted by (most of) the family because she’s related by blood.

I think the Crofts relate to the contemporary rise of authoritarianism in the way they isolate themselves from anything that might disrupt their dogma. They reject doctors. Their children are homeschooled. They only interact with the police to buy silence and make sure no one comes looking for the people they sacrifice. They see this as the best way to maintain their strength and bond, and are very much takers when it comes to the outside world. This leads to an absolute power that, in the end, corrupts and destroys the very things its leaders claim they’re preserving.

5. Nurturing. Beyond concerns about the influences of blood, Deirdre worries about the influence of upbringing, wondering, for example, if her mother Harriet’s early exposure to her family has made returning to them after a 24-year separation, as well as other behaviors even more difficult to explain, into compulsions. To what extent is Errant Roots about the power of families, especially mothers, to nurture, power that can be used very well or very ill? Is the horticulture more important than the genetics? Why or why not, and what’s at stake in your answer? The family’s nurturing power helps inculcate newer members into its unusual belief system. To what extent does Deirdre’s family model how belief systems are passed on more generally? Do you think Errant Roots critiques religious indoctrination? Why or why not?

ST: The novella definitely explores the fact that even though Deirdre is related to everyone in the Croft household by blood, she is very much an outsider because of how her mother raised her. Harriet did not expose her to ritual sacrifice or the importance of maintaining what the Crofts call the Daylight Branch, a term for the center of their family tree rooted in the 24, 48, 72, etc. cycle of the women’s ages. She’s different from her cousins because she’s never had any of what she witnesses in the events of the novella presented to her as normal. Institutions that close themselves off like the Crofts are what allow their ideas to permeate and hold power over its members, whether they’re families or other people who’ve been indoctrinated. It’s why cults are so adamant about cutting off their members from outside influences.

I do, however, think that having a blood relation to someone gives them a unique, biological pull to an individual, even if they’re not close or have never met. It could be entirely cultural, or there could be something biological there; but I believe in it. Even though Deirdre doesn’t know of, or approve of, what the Crofts do, I still think she feels a certain bond with them–which makes the pain they cause her all the more devastating. The main difference, though, is that by being raised away from the core family unit, Deirdre has other options to explore when she wants to escape. I think one of the saddest moments in the book is when Sarah, one of the people who questions the practices, says she can’t, or won’t, leave the family behind because they’re all she has. Deirdre has more, and as such, has a chance at a happier ending, even when everything falls apart around her. I think a family that truly loves its members allows them to have this option, which is why I believe Harriet truly loved Deirdre, in spite of what happens in the story.

6. Pregnancy, Paranoia, and Conspiracy. Errant Roots is partly about a woman who gets pregnant and becomes increasingly paranoid as the people around her seem to have secrets and ulterior motives, perhaps even participating in a conspiracy, maybe even an occult conspiracy, related to her unborn child. In other words, it has more than good writing in common with Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967) and many other narratives I might loosely describe as “pregnancy horror.” Why is pregnancy a good topic for suspense and horror? Why does it fit so well with feelings of paranoia and suspicions of conspiracy? Errant Roots raises the question of how far a mother would go for her child. How far, do you think? What forces are strong enough to make a mother betray her child?

ST: Well, at a base level, pregnancy is ripe for horror because you’re literally growing something inside of you. One thing I find fascinating about pregnancy is how the minute a woman becomes pregnant, she’s suddenly not her own in the eyes of others. There are obvious extreme cases, like anti-choicers putting the existence of a fetus over the living woman’s own health and rights; but there are also less extreme instances like strangers touching a pregnant woman’s belly without asking, a pregnant woman being scolded for the choices she makes as not being good for the baby (like eating unpasteurized cheese or lifting a heavy box), and the expectation that the woman will give up everything–her job, her social life, her me time–to take care of the baby. It even begins before impregnation happens. I’m a ciswoman married to a man, and the moment we said “I do,” I joked that I was now under #WombWatch because people wondered when I’d be pregnant. Social media has only made this constant watching and awareness of being watched all the greater. Living in a panopticon of womb watchers is very ripe for horror, since, as with many experiences being a woman, you don’t have to add too much to what’s already real to make it a horror story.

I think in Harriet’s case, the only force strong enough to make her jeopardize Deirdre’s safety was wanting to return to her mother. I once read a sci-pop article that claimed of all the parent-child bonds, the strongest biologically was the bond between mother and daughter. This greatly influenced my story and helped me decide to make all of the characters mothers and daughters. Harriet still has hesitations when she decides to return, since she willingly severed the tie with her family to protect her unborn child. But she was also raised to think the Crofts were normal and that there was a greater power protecting them thanks to their rituals. She is the literal middle between Deirdre’s beliefs and Yvonne’s.

7. Get Out and Elevated Horror. Even before I reached the moment when Deirdre and her boyfriend Tom get the message telling them to “get out,” the set-up for Errant Roots had reminded me of the movie Get Out (2017), as your book also initially centers on a young couple who feel like fish out of water visiting an isolated family estate where family members seem to have secrets and might be plotting against them, particularly against the young man. Was this resonance conscious and/or deliberate? Either way, what do you make of the comparison? One commonality is that Get Out and Errant Roots both likely qualify as “elevated horror,” a term thrown around in the film world for the last decade or so to label horror stories that supposedly have greater-than-average attention to character, social issues, etc. How do you feel about the idea of “elevated horror?” However you feel, assuming you had to say something, what would you say elevates Errant Roots?

ST: I actually hadn’t considered Get Out, even though I very much enjoy that film. I was more directly influenced by Ready or Not, where a man brings his bride home to an isolated family estate to perform a ritual that requires her to die in order for the family to live. I often describe Errant Roots as Ready or Not meets The Witch. Regardless, I think the partner’s family home as danger, much like pregnancy, is ripe for horror because it stresses the difference between in-laws and blood relatives, even though a married couple is considered to be a family, and each spouse’s relatives are in turn considered the married-in person’s family as well. Yet in the case of an in-law or someone married in–someone who isn’t blood–the tenuousness of that bond is exposed the minute that tie is severed for any reason, be it divorce or someone’s parents not liking their child’s spouse. Get Out and Ready or Not show the danger that the in-law faces. I show this in Errant Roots, but I also examine the danger that even the blood relative faces, creating an incredibly dangerous situation where no one is safe in a space generally sold as the safest place to be: with one’s family.

8. Gothic Secrets. Largely thanks to the popular and critical success of Ann Radcliffe (1764 – 1823), the original Gothic novels and the horror traditions born from them often focus on long-hidden family secrets (secrets that usually involve mistreated women). Do you think of Errant Roots as Gothic in this historical sense? Why or why not? You include the Gothic trope (a favorite with Radcliffe and others) of the mysterious manuscript that provides the heroine with crucial information—why did you include the manuscript, and how does it enhance your story?

ST: I hadn’t considered the story to be Gothic when I wrote it–I considered it a blend of folk horror and cult horror–but I can also see how it’d be a contemporary Gothic story, like my previous book, Seeing Things. The main thing that separates them, and probably why I didn’t consider the Gothic elements, is the presence of the supernatural. Ghosts exist in Seeing Things. While I don’t want to dictate anyone’s take-aways from Errant Roots, I wrote it thinking there were no supernatural forces at play: everything was created and perpetuated by the human women in this family. One of the ways I show this is through the manuscript. Rituals and ideas are added by each generation of women, adjusting things to explain away the cracks in Josephine’s original plan. Like many radical beliefs, though, it takes an outsider like Deirdre to see those cracks for what they are.

9. Family. The series intro for Errant Roots, “Horticulture,” begins the volume with “Family matters matter more than most believe.” By the end of your book, I’m not sure how horrified by family I should be. What makes family matters matter? Is the way that family matters good, bad, or something else altogether? Do you think any family springs from untainted soil? Why or why not?

ST: Family is often characterized as a home base you can always return to when you need unconditional love and support. Many, many people throughout history will tell you this is not true to life. Families abuse each other. Parents kick children out of their homes. Siblings bully and torment each other. Relatives play favorites and pit their children against one another. Yet even with the growing acceptance of found families and accepting that someone being related to you doesn’t grant them access to you without boundaries, it’s still very, very hard to shake off the bond you feel with someone who is related to you by blood. I do think there’s some biology at play there, something in the blood that makes you feel connected to someone you’re otherwise not close to. This is why I think it’s so important to trust your instincts when something feels wrong about someone, even when–especially when–that someone is related to you.

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

The best place to learn more about me is on my website: https://sonorawrites.com.

I am also on Bluesky and Instagram.

About the Author

Sonora Taylor (she/her) is the award-winning author of several books and short stories. Her books include Someone to Share My Nightmares: Stories, Seeing Things, Little Paranoias: Stories, Without Condition, The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales, and Wither and Other Stories.  She also co-edited Diet Riot: A Fatterpunk Anthology with Nico Bell. Her short stories have been published by Rooster Republic Press, PseudoPod, Kandisha Press, Camden Park Press, Cemetery Gates Media, Tales to Terrify, Sirens Call Publications, Ghost Orchid Press, and others.

Her short stories and books frequently appear on “Best of the Year” lists. In 2020, she won two Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards: one for Best Novel (Without Condition) and one for Best Short Story Collection (Little Paranoias: Stories). In 2022, her short story, “Eat Your Colors,” was selected by Tenebrous Press to appear in Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror Vol. 1. In 2024, her nonfiction essay, “Anything But Cooking, Please,” was a Top 15 finalist in Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club essay contest.

For two years, she co-managed Fright Girl Summer, an online book festival highlighting marginalized authors, with V. Castro. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and serves on the board of directors of Scares That Care.

Her latest short story collection, Recreational Panic, is now available from Cemetery Gates Media.

She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband and a rescue dog.

The post Interview with Author Sonora Taylor: Errant Roots appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Interview with Author Eric Butler: The Rest Stop and There’s Something in the Water (Expanded Edition)

Skilled scribe Eric Butler discusses how two harrowing horror stories, The Rest Stop and There’s Something in the Water, draw on legend and lore to take you with his characters right to death’s door.

The Rest Stop

The author of The Pope Lick Massacre and Donn, TX returns with a grindhouse tale in the vein of TCM and House of 1000 Corpses.

At a rest stop with a reputation for abandoned cars in the middle of nowhere, a family’s journey to their new home turns into a tale of terror.

Sometimes it’s better to keep driving, no matter how tired you are.

Click the pic for more on Amazon! There’s Something in the Water (Expanded Edition)

All Kurt Reedy needed for his lakeside development project to go through was the land owned by Chuck Miller. The only problem was Miller refused to sell his family’s legacy. In the past, Reedy may have resorted to violence to get his way, but he was a legit businessman now.

Running out of time, he is forced to think outside the box. In his haste, he doesn’t do the proper research, and now there’s something in the water.

Something territorial.

Something hungry.

The Interview

1. Perspectives on Death. In both The Rest Stop and There’s Something in the Water, you tell your tales from limited third person perspectives, switching from one character’s point of view to another to build your stories and their worlds. Why did you choose this approach, and what do readers gain from it? Your use of this perspective differs from most because you have a tendency, a little in Rest Stop and a lot in Something in the Water, to follow a character’s perspective right up until the moment of death, which provides a section or chapter break. What’s attractive about narrating up to that limit? How do you think readers respond when they hit the storytelling wall of a character’s death?

EB: I wish I had some clever reason for writing my stories like that, but honestly, I just enjoy structuring my stories that way. I want the readers to see who the characters are, or at least how they perceive themselves. It also allows me to control the information, doling it out in a way that feels more natural to me. We rarely have the full picture in real life, and I like to mirror that in my writing.

I enjoy taking the reader through the entire experience of a character and often that will include their death. Usually, the reader’s reaction is decided by the character. If it’s one the reader hates, they enjoy it, but if it’s one they loved or connected with, then I do get DMs or reviews dog cussin’ me. Those are my favorite. 

2. Travelers Beware. A major setting in The Rest Stop is, unsurprisingly, a rest stop, and a major setting in There’s Something in the Water is a lakeside cabin resort, both places public, neither place intrinsically horrific… how do you turn these locations into bad, scary places? Both places are associated with travel. You seem to be tapping a well of travel horror—where does the horror of travel come from? How do you feel about rest stops and tourist traps—do you share the fears you’re tapping? The description (above) of Rest Stop says, “Sometimes it’s better to keep driving.” Might a better warning be, “Sometimes it’s better to stay put?” Why or why not?

EB: I firmly believe everything is horror, so I don’t have any trouble taking a place or event and finding the horror within. I traveled a ton as a kid, moving a lot since my father and stepfather were both in the Army. Because I’d been to so many places (in and out of the States) in my youth, when I became an adult, I discovered I preferred to stay home. Which sucks for my wife because she is a big fan of travel.

The idea for Rest Stop came from traveling to and from my first major convention, Scares that Care in VA. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to drive there and back from Texas. On the way, I took a nap at a rest stop. When I woke up, I realized how isolated this particular place was, and I was amazed I hadn’t been murdered. That was the planting of the seed moment. The full idea didn’t come to fruition until the drive after the event. Because I left later, when I stopped to rest this time, it was very late. As I walked up the stairs to check out the vending machine, the complete story clicked into place.

To answer the last part of the question. I wouldn’t say it is better to stay put or hit the road. Like I said, everything is horror, which means it can happen wherever you might be.

3. Folklore I: Urban(ish) Legends. The titular Rest Stop is isolated, not urban, but I feel like you had a hand up making your rest stop creepy because people disappearing, being abducted and/or murdered, in rest stops—like in mall parking lots or anywhere good for making out—is the stuff of urban legend, whether or not it actually happens (and I’m sure it does). Were you consciously drawing on the rest stop as a place of modern folkloric significance when you put together The Rest Stop? What might make a scary story about a rest stop particularly good for telling (or reading) around the campfire? A gruesome turn in the plot suggests another urban legend—I won’t say which one, lest I be a spoiler—and the description of the book I borrowed from Amazon suggests a comparison to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which frames itself as a true story (and is based distantly on the perverse behavior of murderer Ed Gein). Might your book’s proximity to urban legends give it an aura of “truth” like TCM’s claim to truth? Why or why not?

EB: I’m a sucker for a good myth or legend. I like to take aspects of them and put them in a place where they feel out of place and yet still somehow fit.  I think taking something folks might be a bit familiar with and twisting it gives the reader a chance to connect with the story quicker but still allows for them to be surprised by what happens.

I think any story told well that plays on people’s imaginations and fears would work around the campfire.

When I wrote Rest Stop, I was going for that gritty feel you see with old school grindhouse horror. I compare it to TCM and House of a 1000 Corpses so people know going in what I was trying to capture.

4. Inescapable Trauma. One of The Rest Stop’s lead characters, Kylie, has a history of trauma related to being on the road, and her traumatic experiences in the story bring the earlier trauma back to her in vivid and compromising ways. Why did you give Kylie this traumatic past? What does it add to the horror of the story in the present? Post-traumatic stress disorder often involves experiences similar to repeating the original trauma in some way. A very dark dimension of your story, from my perspective, anyway, suggests that Kylie is doomed to suffer repetition of her older trauma not only psychologically but also physically—and in ways that get worse and worse. Did you consciously create this sense of doom associated with her past? If so, why? What does Kylie’s overall experience with trauma suggest about trauma in general—is it inescapable? Are we doomed to keep suffering injuries like those from our pasts?

EB: This is a fantastic question that makes me feel smarter and dumber at the same time. Honestly, I didn’t think about trauma in that way while writing Kylie. It simply was an aspect of her character. It’s possible I saw all those possibilities with her trauma subconsciously, but more than likely, it was a happy accident. Initially, I didn’t think it would work as well if I said she didn’t want to or didn’t like to drive. I needed there to be a reason she couldn’t drive. It also gives the reader a peek into this family. They know there’s something under the surface, something that may or may not shape the narrative as the story moves forward.

To answer your last question, yes. We are doomed to repeat our past if we aren’t willing to get the help needed to understand it and overcome it.

5. Humiliation and Dehumanization. In The Rest Stop, when female characters are taken prisoner, they are treated like animals. A male character pets one of them, calls her pretty, and eventually spanks her, making her “holler in surprised indignation.” Although the women’s captors have many goals for their captives, why do their goals include humiliation and dehumanization? What does your emphasis on humiliation and dehumanization add to the representation of physical torture that’s more common in “grindhouse” horror? Would the moments of humiliation and dehumanization play differently if the captives were men? If so, what would the major differences be? If not, why do you think they’d more or less work the same way?

EB: Well, these aren’t the greatest of people. They’re doing terrible things to the folks they take at the Rest Stop. They don’t see them as people; they see them as a means to an end. Broadly, I think humiliation and dehumanization are very useful tools in breaking a person’s spirit and will.  Specifically in this story, I think they enjoy the humiliation of their captives for no other reason than it’s fun. You may argue that they dehumanize the women because it helps make it easier to do what they want to them, but you can also plainly see that some of the characters revel in it.

I find psychological damage to be just as, if not more, powerful than the physical torture the captives are put through. All of it is used to strip away their humanity, which in turn makes them easier to control and manipulate.

I think overall it’s the same, no matter the sex of the victim. Men and women may handle it differently, or react differently, but in the end, these tactics, done long enough, will wear a person down.

6. Folklore II: Special Monsters. There’s Something in the Water at least hints at modern folklore with the subtitle “An Extreme Cryptid Tale” on the cover. What makes your story’s creature a “cryptid?” What makes it extreme? One interesting dimension of cryptid lore is that its devotees often develop affection for the creatures: Nessie, Bigfoot, the Pope Lick Monster. What’s your interest in cryptids, and do you think there’s potential in this book’s cryptid for affection? Why or why not? What makes your new cryptid memorable?

EB: As I stated earlier, I’m a big fan of finding interesting myths and legends and crafting them into my stories. One way I do this is with cryptids. The creature in There’s Something in the Water is based on an Irish Cryptid. The Dobhar-Chu, which translates to water dog or water hound, is a giant otter-like creature with the head of a wolf.

Dobhar-Chu
By Bango Art at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

Many often see or hear the word “extreme” and think it’s gross-out horror or violence for the sake of violence, and while I don’t shy away from extreme as a descriptive, I use the term to let the reader know there are elements within my stories they may find uncomfortable.

I love creatures and cryptids and will look for any opportunity to get them into my stories. I have two Pope Lick Monster (Goatman) novels out already, with a third hopefully out this year. I just finished a project I can’t discuss in detail, but it centers around a well-known monster.

The creatures in There’s Something in the Water are just big dogs, so I‘m sure some folks can easily love them. I think they’re memorable because of the many different fears they allow the reader to tap into: animal attacks, water, and the unknown, to name a few.   

7. Other Monsters. As the description (above) indicates, Kurt Reedy is the character who gives There’s Something in the Water, really a story about an ensemble of characters, the most unity, but for me he doesn’t even rise to the level of anti-hero: he’s just a villain who does horrible things hoping for profit. Do you think he represents entrepreneurial evil? Why or why not? You introduce several other characters I think of as human monsters. Do you think the inhuman ones look good by comparison to some of your humans? Why or why not? Among the human monsters are Darlene and Gage, who seem mostly separate from the interlacing intrigues that connect the other characters, monstrous or not. What does including them add to your story’s broader picture of monstrosity?

EB: Kurt Reedy is 100% a villain. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants. I guess he represents entrepreneurial evil, in that he is both an entrepreneur and evil, but I don’t in any way think entrepreneurs as a whole are evil. In this case, he is a big fish in a small pond, but in no way is he the only danger present.

I wanted a hodgepodge of different bad guys peppered throughout the story. It’s a perfect storm of evil activity. You might argue the inhuman monsters in this story are better when compared to the human ones I’ve introduced, for no other reason than free will. The humans have made choices to become the monsters they are at this point. The Dobhar-Chu are simply existing.

8. Expanding. Since I read the Expanded Edition of There’s Something in the Water in one sitting, I have trouble imagining Part One, originally published solo, without Part Two. The intro says you “always wanted to go back” to the tale you’d started. Did you have ideas for Part Two while writing Part One? Either way, how did what I see as the story’s natural extension and conclusion develop? How might it be different if you’d written it all at once? I could imagine the story going even further… any chance for a Part Three? For that matter, The Rest Stop could continue… any thoughts?

EB: I had a very loose idea for a sequel after completing part one in 2023. When I sat down to start part two, I thought it would be fun to let the chaos introduced in the first part kind of spin out of control. I wanted to take the creature feature aspect of part 1 and kind of mirror it with the human monsters introduced. When I finished the rough draft of part two, I realized if folks didn’t read them back-to-back or if it was a case of people reading part one when it came out and then a year+ later, reading part two, the story would lose some of its punch.

I always make notes and leave a way for me to revisit my stories. I like to have a complete tale so readers don’t feel ripped off, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also make them part of a series. So yes, there’s always a chance I come back for part three. My favorite thing to write are creatures/cryptids, so I’m always looking for a way to revisit them.

I will be doing more Rest Stop stories in the future. I’m looking at a loose sequel and a prequel.

9. Fitting? Although I’ve pointed out commonalities, The Rest Stop and There’s Something in the Water are fairly different from one another. Using terms I’ve already borrowed from the stories’ accompaniment, Rest Stop is “grindhouse,” a tale of human depravity, and Something in the Water is “extreme cryptid,” or perhaps a creature feature. How much, if at all, do genre and subgenre factor into your inspiration and planning for your stories? What are other examples of places you’ve visited on the horror (or dark fiction) map? Do you tend to the extreme? How would you primarily like readers to think of you? What’s next?

EB: Like I said earlier, everything is horror. I don’t really focus on a subgenre when I’m coming up with ideas. I think if you try to force some aspect of storytelling, you end up doing a disservice to yourself and the reader.

I do tend to lean into extreme elements, but the most important thing is writing a good story. I don’t have a list of gross or extreme items that I try to shoehorn a story around. I tell a story, and if it happens to become extreme then that’s what the story required. Furthermore, everyone’s idea of extreme is different, so I may not go hard enough for some, and I may cross a line for others. It’s all subjective.

I’ve done some creature/cryptid/urban legends stuff (The Goatman in Pope Lick Massacre and Silly Rabbits, There’s Something in the Water, Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny, The Surrogate, Rest Stop), a Splatterwestern (To Stare Death in the Eyes), cursed town/supernatural/cult/ (Donn, TX series), a Victorian Cthulhu-Sherlock Holmesesque mashup (The Sins of the Past), and supernatural slasher/vacation horror (The Shadow Within).

10. Access! How can readers learn more about you and your works (please provide any links you want to share)?

EB: I’m most active on Facebook, but I’m also on Bluesky, Twitter, and TikTok. Author D.A. Latham and I do a Youtube show (What’s in the Box? Horror) where we discuss classic horror movies and books and how they pave the way for today’s horror.

Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Eric.Butler.Author

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ericbutlerauthor.bsky.social

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatsinthebox-episodesofho5905

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericbutlerauthor

Linktree : https://linktr.ee/EricButlerAuthor

About the Author

Eric Butler does the daily bidding of three huskies but somehow finds time to write horror fiction. With a twenty-year marriage and a grown son by his side, he won’t be running out of material any time soon. His works include The Pope Lick Massacre, The Rest Stop, and The Shadow Within, and his stories can be found in countless anthologies.  Eric and his family call North Richland Hills, Texas their home.

The post Interview with Author Eric Butler: The Rest Stop and There’s Something in the Water (Expanded Edition) appeared first on L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings.

Noir Falling: Encyclopedia Down

The idea of the “encyclopedic novel” stuck with me after a colleague doing his dissertation on it explained many of its facets to me. He mostly referred, as does the Wikipedia article to which I’ve linked the term, to twentieth-century doorstop novels such as Ulysses and Gravity’s Rainbow, the latter of which I adore and the former of which I begrudgingly appreciate. True encyclopedic ambition never seized me, but I always rather liked the idea of coming up with a narrative occasion to range over whatever subjects occupied my mind, lots and lots of them without regard for traditional expectations for focus in fiction.

A kind of specialized encyclopedia of my intellectual and artistic concerns.

Click the pic for more on Amazon!

Did I know I was writing such a thing when I wrote Noir Falling? Not at all. That I didn’t know strikes me as strange because the novel is pretty overdetermined and overwrought, with the story and structure and morphing repetitions planned, sometimes down to the sentence level, before I drafted. I don’t mean to say I didn’t have delightful moments of improvisation while drafting, especially during the action sequences, the surprisingly many chases that I never tired of writing, which I hope means readers won’t tire of reading them, and the explosions of fantastic animation and color. The book shows that “obsessively uninhibited” is a possible state of being.

So, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Noir Falling isn’t light beach reading, as although it does have a plot a reader can follow–Daniel Lowe’s bewildering and transformative journey as he tries to unravel the conspiracy threatening a beautiful woman, students at the university where he at least seems to hang out, and perhaps all art and humanity–it doesn’t hesitate to play with heavy concepts both on the surface and elsewhere. I personally think characters get silly as they try to talk deep, so readers don’t have to take it all so seriously, but, well, readers will react as they do (or don’t, if the big words put them off early).

While Noir Falling may have a conceptual kitchen sink quality, it does have some focus. It focuses on atypical mental states, mental illness in particular, and I’ve claimed that, though the word never appears, one of the things it’s about, if it’s about anything, is schizophrenia. More broadly, in that it’s about mental states that defy normative reason, it’s also about art that defies normative reason, and thus it pays particular attention to Piranesi (on the cover) and Kandinsky but also El Greco, Goya, and others. It’s about humanism and anti-humanism, democracy and fascism, identity and oblivion. Meaning’s creation, meaning’s absence.

So, if you’re not into that kind of…thing… along with events and images that are plain freaking weird, then don’t read Noir Falling. But if that all sounds like it could be fun… and I promise, Daniel’s bizarre journey is fun, if you can handle it… give it a try… https://mybook.to/noirfalling

Available February 8. Pre-order now. Feed your head.

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