Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 33

5 Questions for S. G. Browne

[image error]I met Scott the afternoon he drove me up to the first Haunted Mansion Writers Retreat in 2010.  Since then, I’ve been following his work.  I’ve heard him read it a couple of times, which makes it really come alive (not to be missed, if you get the chance). I fell in love hard with the series of short stories he published as stand-alones on Amazon. (Try Dr. Sinister’s Home for Retired Villains or Scattered Showers with a Chance of Daikaiju, to get the flavor.)

Officially, S.G. Browne writes dark comedy and social satire. His published works include the novels Breathers, Fated, Lucky Bastard, Big Egos, and Less Than Hero, as well as the short story collection Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel and the heartwarming holiday novella I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus. He is also the author of The Maiden Poodle, a self-published fairy tale about anthropomorphic cats and dogs. He’s an ice cream connoisseur, Guinness aficionado, animal lover, and a sucker for It’s a Wonderful Life. He lives in San Francisco.

I’ve interviewed Scott here before, when we talked about the Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two. Now I’m excited to get to talk to him about one of my favorite of his novels, Less Than Hero:

[image error]Drowsiness. Nausea. Rashes. Bloating. For the pharmaceutical soldiers on the front lines of medical science—volunteers who test experimental drugs for cash—these common side effects are a small price to pay to defend our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of antidepressants.

When Lloyd Prescott, a thirty-year-old professional guinea pig and victim of his own inertia, notices that people around him are falling into slumbering heaps whenever he yawns, he realizes that he’s developed a bizarre superpower from years of testing not-quite-legal drugs. Meanwhile, his guinea pig buddies—Randy, Vic, Charlie, and Frank—are discovering their own unusual side effects that are causing people to break out in rashes, become nauseous, go into convulsions, and experience rapid weight gain.

Under cover of night, Lloyd and his misfit band of guinea pig superheroes patrol the streets of New York City to project their debilitating side effects onto petty criminals who prey upon the innocent and become quasi-media celebrities. When a horrible menace with powers eerily similar to their own threatens the city, only one force can stop this evil: the handful of brave men who routinely undergo clinical trials.

Less Than Hero is a dark comedy and social satire about superheroes and pharmaceutical drugs that fills the prescription for an over-medicated society.

Did something in the real world inspire Less Than Hero?

As is the case with all of my novels, several real world experiences inspired Less Than Hero. The first was a TV commercial for a prescription drug that promised to cure abdominal cramping with a side effect that it could cause abdominal cramping, which sounded asinine. This was October 2003, when direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs in the U.S. was in its infancy. The second inspiration took place sometime in 2008, when I read several articles about professional human guinea pigs who make a living beta testing pharmaceutical drugs in paid clinical trials. I mean, that had to be the basis for some fun character development.

The third inspiration was the decade-long percolation of an idea for my own superhero origin story. Admittedly, I came to be a fan of the superhero genre through films and TV rather than via the original comics. And while I love Batman, The Avengers, and the entire MCU, the films that inspired me the most were Mystery Men, Unbreakable, and the X-Men series. These films not only helped to shape Less Than Hero, but the novel encompasses aspects of all three films. I wrote a more detailed blog post about the inspiration for Less Than Hero, along with a number of fun facts, on my website if you’re interested in checking it out: http://sgbrowne.com/2015/03/beyond-the-keyboard-less-than-hero/

What is your favorite scene in the book?

That’s a tough one, as there are several that stand out to me. But I’ll go with Chapter 22, which takes place during lunch at Curry in a Hurry on Lexington and East 28th in New York City. In the scene, the group of guinea pigs, who have all developed supernatural abilities and have started using those abilities to fight petty crime, are also aware that there might be other mutants like them in the city using their newfound powers for evil. Isn’t that always the case? While having lunch, another customer, who is drunk and who claims to be Karma, sits on top of his table and starts espousing unsolicited wisdom. When another customer verbally abuses Karma and immediately trips and falls into another table, thus suffering instant karma, the group of misfit superheroes wonders if Karma is like them and whether or not they should recruit him to join their gang. But before they can, the police show up and take him away in handcuffs.

[image error]I chose this scene as my favorite because it’s a crossover with a scene that takes place in my second novel, Fated. There are several other scenes in Less Than Hero that cross over with Fated, but this is the first major scene where the characters interact with one another, which was a lot of fun to do. And it was also a challenge, since I didn’t want the reader to have to have read Fated first for the scene to make sense while, at the same time, creating a bit of an Easter Egg for anyone who had read Fated. Both novels deal with the concepts of fate and destiny, each in its own way. One of the lines Karma speaks while espousing his lunchtime philosophy is: Man creates his own destiny. The path you seek is your own. This line stays with Lloyd, the main character of Less Than Hero, as the concept of destiny ends up becoming a main theme for him.

What was your writing process like as you wrote Less Than Hero?

I’m a pantser rather than a plotter, which means I write by the seat of my pants and make up the story as I go. So each scene and chapter is pretty much a discovery for me as I write it. Mostly I try to stay out of the way and let my characters do what they want to do. But since this a first-person POV told by Lloyd, the main protagonist, it’s also an origin story for his guinea pig pals. So I added third-person POV interludes throughout the novel for the other superheroes (and villains) to provide a little more insight into each of them and how they discovered their new abilities. I also peppered newspaper articles throughout the novel to give a larger scope as to the strange activities occurring in New York City and how the media would react to the unusual gang of heroes.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

I would have to say the signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth at Comic-Con. It’s always fun to sit and watch all of the people walk by, whether in costume or in regular garb, because everyone is just so happy to be there. And it doesn’t hurt when someone you’ve never met before who has read one of your books comes up to you and tells you how much they enjoyed one or more of your novels. As writers, we spend a lot of time alone creating, so it’s nice to have that moment of personal connection with a reader.

What do you have planned next?

[image error]I’ve been writing a lot of short stories lately, three of which I self-published as singles on Amazon (“Scattered Showers with a Chance of Daikaiju,” “Remedial English for Reanimated Corpses,” and “Dr. Sinister’s Home for Retired Villains”). Including those three, I have eleven stories that I’d like to compile in a collection, though I’d like to add a couple more to bring the total to a baker’s dozen. The title for the collection would be Lost Creatures, as all of the stories deal with a character, human or otherwise, who is lost in some way or looking for meaning or purpose. Actually all of my novels are about finding a purpose or reason for existence. While my stories deal with issues such as discrimination, the consumer culture, celebrity worship, and the over-medication of our society, they’re really quests by the main protagonists to find meaning in their lives. Obviously I’m using my fictional characters to work out some of my real world issues.

You can keep up with Scott and follow what he does next below:

Website:          www.sgbrowne.com

Facebook:        www.facebook.com/SGBrowneAuthor

Twitter:           twitter.com/s_g_browne

Goodreads:      www.goodreads.com/author/show/2129854.S_G_Browne

Amazon:          https://amzn.to/2Irrk8D

Behind “A Curiosity of Shadows”

[image error]

Early in 2010, I was invited to join a retreat of horror writers at a historic mansion in Northern California. I knew several of the other authors by name and reputation, but the only other person I knew personally was Rain Graves, the retreat’s organizer.

Once I paid for the first Haunted Mansion Writers Retreat, I worried what I’d do if the mansion really was haunted. I wasn’t able to drive to Mount Tamalpais, since I couldn’t leave my family without a car for the long weekend. If I caught a ride with a stranger, I would be trapped at the mansion. What if things got really bad and I was afraid to sleep? I wouldn’t be able to slink out to my car and sleep in it.

I also couldn’t call my husband—assuming the isolated mansion got cell reception—to come and get me in the middle of the night. No way could I ask him to get our seven-year-old up, put her in the car seat, drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, and rescue me from the ghosts. If I went, I had to stick it out.

Probably, I told myself, if it got that bad, someone else would have the sense to want to leave. I could ride back to the ferry or a bus stop with them.

Of course, I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t face a full-on Poltergeist-style freak-out. As I packed for the weekend, my new worry became that I’d spent a couple hundred dollars to write for a weekend in a haunted mansion—and nothing would happen. The ghosts would ignore us, or they’d prowl around downstairs while we were all upstairs asleep. How disappointing would that be?

See, I have a healthy respect for ghosts. I’ve seen their shadows since I was a kid. Generally, they don’t do anything more than make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I feel cold and slightly jittery. Most of the ghosts I’ve seen were people I knew, or at least people I recognized. They weren’t trying to scare me. My body’s reaction to them was scarier than anything they ever did.

Rain, the hostess of the retreat, hadn’t told us much about the ghosts that she’d encountered in the mansion. She wanted us to have our own experiences, to form our own opinions. It was hard to go into the retreat blind, knowing no one other than her.

I met S. G. Browne and E. S. Magill for the ride over to Mount Tam. Eunice had come up from Southern California; Scott would drive the two of us from San Francisco’s Marina District across the Golden Gate. I was relieved to find them your typical very nice horror writers. They made me feel comfortable, like I wasn’t making a terrible mistake going away with strangers to a haunted house for the weekend.

We arrived at the Haunted Mansion in the middle of Thursday afternoon. As we carried our bags into the mansion, Rain was standing in the grand staircase. She offered to give us a tour, so we could pick our rooms for the weekend. We hurried to move our luggage into the first-floor parlor and followed her up the stairs.

The second floor was a maze of interconnecting rooms that encircled the stairway. Almost everyone else had come with a friend with whom they planned to share a room. Since I was solo, I wavered between asking to share a stranger’s room or taking a room of my own. Would the ghosts be more or less likely to mess with me if I slept alone?

There were only eight of us there that first night, rattling around in a house that seemed able to sleep a hundred. Rain said we would all stay on the second floor, even though that was where she’d had the most intense of her ghostly encounters.

Most of the second-floor rooms were pass-throughs: each dormitory-style room connected to the next. I don’t sleep well at the best of times, so I wasn’t eager to choose a room where people might walk through in the night to use the bathroom. Since I wander a fair amount when I can’t sleep, I also didn’t want to wake anyone else.

Rain’s tour paused outside a little blue room tucked between a suite—reserved for the one married couple among us—and dead space. I’m not sure what lay on the other side of the wall: maybe a linen closet? It wasn’t another guest room, anyway.

The blue room felt very restful to me, very welcoming. It helped that it only had one door, which faced the foot of the bed, and a window that looked out on Mount Tam. The room’s energy felt inviting. When I stepped inside and saw the artwork hanging above the vanity—a piece of white silk featuring a bright Chinese phoenix—I had to have that room. I wear a phoenix tattoo on my left arm. The room and I shared a kinship.

After midnight, my little room proved to be a great haven, especially after I set my suitcase in front of the large walk-in closet. Not that I thought anything was going to come through there—or felt that a suitcase provided much of a barricade—but I’ve seen Poltergeist too many times. You never know with big empty spaces.

I settled into the double bed, feeling safe in a way I wouldn’t have in a room with more doors. I closed my eyes, exhausted and slightly drunk from Rain’s good Argentinean wine.

Sleep wouldn’t come.

I thought I heard whispering voices, then a man speaking, but Yvonne Navarro and Weston Ochse had the suite that shared the minuscule balcony outside my spider-guarded window. I gladly put on my earbuds to block the voices out.

As I lay there in the dark, trying to sleep, the light in my room kept changing. Smudges and smears of light flashed through the well of shadow that lay between the bed and the vanity. The sliver of light coming in around the door grew wider toward morning, as if the door inched open, but it hadn’t. Even so, I didn’t turn my back toward the center of the room.

Finally, about 4:30 a.m., I told myself that I really needed to get some sleep. I rolled onto my stomach, clutched the pillow, felt myself relax. Sleep was washing over me when someone touched my hair.

Electricity thrilled through me. I knew I was still alone in the room, but opened my eyes anyway. The room remained silent and empty, holding its breath to see what I would do.

It occurred to me that a spider might have fallen from the ceiling on to me. However, the sensation of being touched hadn’t felt like something practically weightless dancing across my head. My hair is just not that sensitive. Something the size of a hand compressed the hair on the right side of my head. Without a doubt, someone touched me.

“Hello,” I whispered softly. “It will be dawn soon. I’d really like to get some sleep before then. Can we talk in the morning?”

I waited, but nothing more happened. Sleep was remarkably easy to find.

After a few hours of sleep, I went downstairs to find Scott in the parlor, quivering with fear. He told me a ghost story that made mine pale in comparison. Apparently, after the spirits couldn’t get much reaction from me, they went down the hall to find someone else to play with. Scott’s experience inspired the black shadows in “A Curiosity of Shadows.”

Even before the weekend had finished, Wes hatched a plan to create an anthology of stories inspired by our stay in the Haunted Mansion. The collection, edited by E. S. Magill, was published by Damnation Books in 2012. Parts of this essay were originally published in a piece called “Touched” in that book.

“A Curiosity of Shadows” also appeared in that book. The only character in the story with a direct analogue to the real retreat is Iris, who was modeled on Rain Graves. The other authors in the story are composites of types I’ve met at horror conventions over the years. They are not meant to represent any of the real authors who attended either of the Haunted Mansion Writers Retreats. Alondra’s attitude toward them does not mirror my own.

Several investigations of the house (which prefers to keep its anonymity, rather than advertise itself as haunted) were done by the GhostGirls. They recorded multiple voices and captured several ominous shadows moving through the house. You can see all their investigations here: http://www.ghost-girls.org/investigations.html.

When I was preparing to write the story, I research Mount Tamalpais, hoping to discover some Miwok or Ohlone legends about it. The best I could come up with was a record of the first white adventurer to climb the peak. Apparently, the Native Americans left the mountain alone, considering it the abode of the dead. That led to my explanation of things that ghosts fear.

[image error]

Here’s a clickable link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/2r8F7XR. The book is available for the kindle and all kindle readers.

5 Questions for Jennifer Brozek

[image error]I’ve known Jennifer Brozek through the Horror Writers Association for years. She was kind enough to invite me to guest post on her blog when the first edition of Wish You Were Here came out in 2013 (here, if you’re interested) and again in 2015 when Kill By Numbers came out (here). When her new book came out, I couldn’t wait to ask her my questions about it.

 Her description of To Fight the Black Wind:

Not all patients can be cured—or want to be.

Visiting psychologist Carolyn Fern’s newest patient is Josephine Ruggles, an heiress whose nightmares leave glyph-shaped wounds across her back. Miss Ruggles’s case is unusual, even for an institution like Arkham Sanatorium. Her case takes an even stranger turn after she claims to have met Malachi—Carolyn’s former patient whose treatment was cut short when he was brutally murdered—in her dreams. When Carolyn uses hypnotherapy to address Josephine’s trauma, they find themselves both journeying to a strange place Josephine calls “the Dreamlands.”

Together, Carolyn and Josephine discover that the mind is a powerful tool, but knowledge is dangerous. What is learned cannot be unlearned, and not everyone is prepared to pay the price.

[image error]Did something in the real world inspire To Fight the Black Wind ?

The majority of the novella is set in the Dreamlands from the Lovecraft Mythos. I’ve always been a vivid dreamer. In some circumstances, I can lucid dream. This is what I used in the novella. Much of the crazy dream logic and situations are based on some of the things I’ve dreamed and experienced in one way or another. In an odd way, my dreamed experiences lend a certain sense of reality to the book.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

Josephine (the secondary protagonist) was carrying around forbidden knowledge. It was killing her slowly. My favorite scene is where psychologist Carolyn Fern had to physically dig the knowledge out of Josephine’s body. It was a terrifying and visceral scene that I just loved writing. I hope the readers both appreciate the scene — and wince at it.

What was your writing process like as you wrote To Fight the Black Wind?

As it was a tie-in novella for Fantasy Flight Games’ Arkham Horror line, my writing process was a bit more involved than normal. I had to create an outline that called out the specific themes and character arcs in the book. Every scene had to serve the themes and the arcs. Once the outline was approved, I sat down and wrote the book. The writing came fast. I knew the story well, though some bits still surprised me.

I write in the morning. That is when I’m at my creative best. Revisions in the afternoon because I’m usually working on more than one project at a time.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

There were two unusual things that were both awesome and mystifying. The first was: on the first day of release, people on Amazon were selling the physical copy of the book for three times the amount that Fantasy Flight Games was selling it for. The second was that the physical copy of the book sold out within the first ten days. The kindle version is still available, but you have to get the physical copy through third party resellers now. I’ve never had that happen before with any of my books. It’s a good thing I’m so proud of this story.

What do you have planned next?

Right now, my life is all BattleTech all the time. I’m writing the first YA BattleTech trilogy in the Rogue Academy series (Iron Dawn, Hour of the Ghost, and Crimson Night). In-between the BattleTech novels, I do have a Shadowrun novella to write and several short stories. In the meantime, I have a couple of editing projects on my plate and my agent is shopping around my middle grade horror series called Fever County. I’m busy, but that’s the way I like it.

Jennifer Brozek is an award-winning author, editor, and tie-in writer. Two of her works, Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. She was awarded the Scribe Award for best tie-in Young Adult novel of 2015 for BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident. Grants Pass won an Australian Shadows Award for best edited publication. In-between cuddling her cats, writing, and editing, Jennifer is an active member of SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She keeps a tight writing and editing schedule and credits her husband Jeff with being the best sounding board ever. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or Twitter: @jenniferbrozek.

Bay Area Book Festival

This weekend, April 28 and 29, is the return of [image error]the Bay Area Book Festival to Berkeley, California.

The book festival is amazing because it brings together authors, writers organizations, publishers, booksellers, and — most importantly — readers.  There’s nothing I love more than seeing the streets filled with people who love books.

The book festival is always huge and sprawling, taking over downtown Berkeley beside the Farmers Market. Last year, booths ranged from kids books to travel to history to every flavor of fiction, from self-published to small presses to local indies like AK Press to the university presses. So many books! It was much like I imagine heaven to be.

On Saturday, I’ll be hanging out again with the Bay Area chapter of the Horror Writers Association at booth #81 from 11 to 6.  Please come by and talk to me about your favorite scary stories.

I’ll have some copies of 199 Cemeteries, as well the new edition of Wish You Were Here, Lost Angels, and The Dangerous Type — and I may throw in some rarities like the out-of-print Haunted Mansion collections.  Whether you like dark space opera or horror erotica or historic cemeteries or rock-n-roll vampire love stories, I’ll be glad to set you up.

[image error]

I don’t look like this any more, since I whacked off my hair earlier this month, but the books will be familiar. This was last year’s selection at the book festival.

Alondra’s Investigations

[image error]The second Alondra chapbook went live this morning! In this book, Alondra discovers a book that unleashes earthquakes, fights the things that ghosts are afraid of, and makes the hardest sacrifice in New Orleans.

The stories in Alondra’s Investigations were published previously in New Realm magazine and in the books The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, and Sins of the Sirens.

You can get your copy for the kindle from Amazon.

The first chapbook, Alondra’s Experiments, is still available, too. Here’s that link: https://amzn.to/2r33i9r

The advance word on Alondra’s Investigations:

In “The Fatal Book,” Alondra travels to Los Angeles to examine a very old and rare book. Before she can even start, an earthquake shakes the city. As she translates she realizes that if she can’t unravel the book’s power, the earthquake is only the beginning.

The second story is called “A Curiosity of Shadows.” When a friend asks for help sorting the spirits in a haunted house full of jittery writers, Alondra cannot refuse.

The book closes with “Last-Born.” New Orleans might be the home Alondra is looking for. When she receives a visit from Simon, the sultry night seems perfect. But her magic is at odds with a dangerous local practitioner and Alondra must make the hardest sacrifice to bring on the justice he deserves.

The second installment of the Alondra stories glitters with dark magic. We follow Alondra from L.A. to Northern California to New Orleans. She courts the spirits of Air, settles a house of unquiet ghosts and, in the final story, puts an end to one man’s bloody crimes. In all of these stories, there is beautiful and deadly magic. In Alondra’s world, even the litter in the city streets can be made to dance.

— Martha J. Allard, author of Black Light

 

5 Questions for Nancy Kilpatrick

[image error]I’ve known about Nancy Kilpatrick’s work since the earliest days of Borderlands Books. We started to correspond back in the Morbid Curiosity days, when I had the honor to reprint her story about a haunted doll in issue #5. She also featured the magazine in her amazing Goth Bible.

Award-winning author and editor Nancy Kilpatrick has published 21 novels, over 220 short stories, and 6 collections, and has edited 15 anthologies. She wrote the nonfiction book The goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined, the graphic novel Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampyre Theater, and has contributed scripts to several comics and graphic anthologies. Her most recent project is the six-book novel series Thrones of Blood. Titles available now in print and ebook: Revenge of the Vampir King; Sacrifice of the Hybrid Princess; (out soon) Abduction of Two Rulers.

I’m really excited to interview you about your new vampire series. Did something in the real world inspire the Thrones of Blood books?  

[image error]Not that I’m aware of. I started this series 10+ years before book 1 (Revenge of the Vampir King) came out. I was in Florida alone one February for one whole month. Believe me, getting away from Montreal’s frigid winters was a reminder that a) I still had a brain; and b) I could actually sit in the shade and write outdoors, or with a window open. And that’s what I did in 2006. I wrote 80% of the first book, 60% of books 2 and 3, and 45% of book 4 & 5. Over the decade that followed I revised madly and strengthened the connections of the two overarching series plots. Maybe the sound of surf and a temperate climate lured me right back into vampires, which I’d written about before–well, I am allergic to direct sunshine.

What is your favorite scene in the series?

It would be difficult to pick a favorite scene in any of the books. When the dynamic between characters crackles always is interesting to write. The sexual tension and love/hate between characters is obvious, but I also love a lot of other interactions, for example, Wolfsbane and his twin sister, Hemlock. And the character Belladonna, who is wise, clever, fearless, cynical and funny, or so I’ve tried to fashion her, so when any character interacts with her, that’s a joy to write.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the books?

[image error]Once I returned from Florida, I worked a little on the books now and then because other work impinged. During those years, I edited or co-edited 6 anthologies and put out a collection of stories, plus wrote a whole lot of stories for anthologies. Besides that, I teach writing for a college’s Distance Ed program. That’s just the tip of the work iceberg. What I found with this series is that I worked differently. Not sequentially. I’d work on the book that caught my interest that day. Each book features new characters that ‘star’ in their story, but other characters appear as well, since this is a world and the larger story is ongoing. It was really fun to work in a new way, just by feel, whichever book I felt like working on that day. No stress because I had no plans to publish these and referred to them as The Unpublishables.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the series?

One of the delightful things that recurs is how people on the internet and face to face at shows respond to the covers. My series is vampire novels for adults, not YA. Between the covers readers will find sex, violence, (sometimes a combo), treason, treachery, love, hate, jealousy, betrayal, misunderstanding, life, death, undeath, murder, you name it. These are vampires so not particularly PC. I think the gorgeous covers express the mature subject matter very well while presenting hot vampires. LOL The covers were designed by the very talented Istvan Kadar who, by the way, is from Transylvania, so he knows his vampires! Check him out at https://www.facebook.com/istvankadarphotography/

[image error] What do you have planned next?

Book 3 is about to come out so I’ll be working on book 4. I’ve committed to 2 stories for anthologies, and have a co-editing project to pursue. I also have a stand-alone SF novel I want to finish. SF isn’t a genre I’ve written much in so it’s taken me a couple of years to figure out how to make the ending work for SF fans who would launch an interstellar attack if it was implausible. I’ve consulted with a couple of space experts to make sure I’m on the right track.

This is the first time the cover of 3 has been shown.

The book descriptions:

Volume 1 – Revenge of the Vampir King – Moarte is king of the vampirii, creatures not prone to community or rule, but they have banded together out of necessity. He was recently a prisoner of the Sapiens King, whose daughter Valada tortured him, believing he murdered her mother. Moarte is bent on revenge and if he can’t get to the father, he will take it out on the daughter–now his prisoner–who he hates just as much. But a plan develops where he realizes he can use Valada to get to her father, the Sapiens King. The plan convolutes and backfires in many ways.

Volume 2 – Sacrifice of the Hybrid Princess – Part human, part vampir, the beautiful, stubborn, angry Princess Serene is a tormented hybrid. When her overprotective parents insist on an arranged marriage, visions of a grim future in a loveless pairing with the cold and dominating Wolfsbane drive Princess Serene into a desperate escape. Instead of freedom, she rushes headlong into the clutches of a human demon whose cruelty and violence threaten to destroy her and her world. The entire vampirii nation is helpless to rescue her, and war becomes a certainty. Rebellion will lead to many deaths, including those she loves. But to endure brutality until she can escape might be beyond her abilities.

Volume 3 – Abduction of Two Rulers – A conference between two species ends in disaster when Sapiens Queen Blanka and the Vampir King Thanatos are treacherously seized and imprisoned in a dungeon. War erupts as their jailers–an ancient vampir and a traitorous Sapiens usurper–each plot to reign over all of their own species. Desperate to end the conflict, the two prisoners escape, but en route to his stronghold, Thanatos disappears. His vampir allies want to find him, but attack is imminent, making defense the priority. Blanka knows the odds are against her surviving an all-powerful, ancient being whose goal is destruction but she is determined to rescue Thanatos. The question that tortures her is: does he still exist?

How to Follow Nancy:

Website: nancykilpatrick.com

Facebook: nancy.kilpatrick.31

Twitter: @nancykwriter

Occasional Blog: http://nancykilpatrickwriter.blogspot.ca/

Instagram: nancykilpatrickauthor/

Amazon author Page: amazon.com/author/www.nancykilpatrick.com

Alondra’s Influences

[image error]

I think I picked this up because the gothic cover made me think of the Dark Shadows books.

When I was in high school, I read a book about a woman who was believed to be a witch but was actually just a misunderstood, transplanted girl from Barbados who ended up living with a Puritan family.  The book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, won the Newbury Medal, but I was deeply disappointed that no one in it was an actual witch.

So disappointed, in fact, that I was inspired to create the character of Alondra DeCourval. I picked her names out of a program from the local variety theater, where I worked as an usher.

I had a friend named Carla who had the most glorious red hair.  She wore it in a braid as thick as her wrist that hung down her spine to her waist.  All my life I’ve aspired to have hair as beautiful and thick, so I gave it to Alondra. I was aware even then that red-haired witches were trite, but I decided I would twist the trope enough to make it original.

[image error]

I don’t remember John being quite so buff in the stories, but this is definitely the cover I remember.

Shortly thereafter, I encountered the John the Balladeer stories by Manly Wade Wellman. In Who Fears the Devil, Silver John played a guitar with silver strings and sang old folk songs as he faced down monsters in the hollows of North Carolina.

John sometimes bit off more than he could chew, but he was rarely frightened. Other people in the stories took him for simple, not realizing his depths.  The stories made a huge impression on me:  not only were they rooted in the real world with real-world solutions to supernatural problems, but the author managed to make them scary without John turning into a gibbering mess. I wanted to be able to achieve that affect, but with a young woman at the heart of the story.

The Silver John stories — those I’d read and others I hadn’t — were collected up by Night Shade Books in 2001 and republished as Owls Hoot in the Daytime. It’s for sale on Amazon in hardcover, but it’s not cheap.  Pity, because it’s a great collection and you really should read it. Here’s the link: https://amzn.to/2vvjMMN

[image error]

Terrible cover, I know. None of them are great. Don’t judge, ok?

The final major influence on my Alondra stories was Dion Fortune’s The Secrets of Doctor Taverner (much more reasonably priced on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2vtYj73). Dion Fortune was a ritual magician in the real world who led mass meditations against the Nazis during World War II, combatting them on the astral plane as they attempted to invade Britain. She wrote several novels and this collection of short stories, which used the sort of magic that she practiced.  I loved the Holmesian character of Doctor Taverner, who combined 20th century psychology with magic in order to help people who had no other defenses.

Most of all, I loved the idea of a champion who defended normal people from supernatural or elemental creatures that they couldn’t even recognize, let alone fight. In the Alondra stories, she just as often protects supernatural creatures from humans who would persecute or vivisect them, but I wanted her challenges — and her magic — to be rooted in our familiar world.

Alondra’s Experiments, the first short collection of Alondra stories is for sale for the kindle now: https://amzn.to/2JdR6dj.

The second volume — Alondra’s Investigations — will be available early next week.  Stay tuned!

 

5 Questions for Yvonne Navarro

[image error]I’ve been fascinated by Yvonne Navarro’s work since her vampire novel AfterAge was published in 1993. I didn’t get the chance to meet her until 2010, when we were down in the parlor at the Haunted Mansion Retreat while everyone else was upstairs running around in the dark.  She impressed me with her bloody sense of humor. (You can see the interview she gave me after the release of The Haunted Mansion Project: Year Two here.)

Yvonne is the author of twenty-something published novels and well over a hundred short stories, plus numerous nonfiction articles and two editions of a reference dictionary. Her writing has won the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award plus a number of other writing awards. She also draws and paints and, after finally picking up her brushes with serious intent, has started winning ribbons and selling her artwork. She lives in southern Arizona and is married to author Weston Ochse. She dotes on their three rescued Great Danes, Ghoulie, I Am Groot, and The Grimmy Beast, and a talking, people-loving parakeet named BirdZilla.

A new edition of AfterAge was just published in February. Here’s the description:

[image error]The world as humans knew it is gone. Hunted for food by the vampires who’ve taken over the earth, mankind is on the brink of extinction. There are no armies, no politicians, no superheroes. But in a nearly empty Chicago, a few humans refuse to give up. They fight not only to survive, but to find a way to take back their world. While some survivors are captured and bred like cattle, others are more elusive and much stronger and more intelligent than their murderous vampire adversaries ever imagined.

Did something in the real world inspire AfterAge?

Here’s where a huge shout-out and thank you goes to Ann Kennedy, now VanderMeer. Back in the late 1980s, Ann was Buzzcity Press. She put out The Silver Web, a small press magazine. She bought my short story, “Victory’s Ode,” and published it in the first issue. I can’t recall whether it was before or after it was published, but she wrote me a letter about “Victory’s Ode.” She told me she’d dreamed about the story and said I really needed to turn it into a novel. And…voila!

What is your favorite scene in the book?

That’s a tough question. Sometimes I open AfterAge and read a paragraph or two, then think, “Wow, I wrote this. How the heck did I manage that?” LOL I will say that the first scene that came to mind was the scene where Dr. Perlman decides to capture a live vampire and bring it back to his lab to study. It’s pretty… shall we say, suspenseful.

What was your writing process like as you wrote AfterAge?

Ooooh. AfterAge took quite a while to complete. I started it on February 28, 1989 (yes, I do that—keep track of dates) and didn’t finish the final draft until May 15, 1992. From when I started it until July of 1989, I would get up seriously early in the morning—4:30 or 5:00 a.m.—and work on it before I went to work. I was married and often went to Michigan for the weekend, which meant no writing. I tried to write during the evening, but that didn’t go over well. In July, my Practice Husband left me while I was at NECON; one of the issues was my writing. “I thought this was a hobby.” I’d never, ever said that. Anyway, the divorce was unpleasant and the following months were the same; my landlord promptly raised my rent $150.00 a month “to cover all the things he was doing”—you mean those things I was doing while the Practice Husband took off for Michigan every weekend, so I ended up moving in with Dad. What I saw as shameful turned out to be a blessing: my Dad supported me in anything and everything I wanted to do, and I was finally able to finish AfterAge.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

That’s a hard one. I did a lot of promotion, paid for a lot of things out of pocket. Most authors can’t manage that, but I had a pretty good full-time job. Eventually I got to the point where I just couldn’t afford it anymore; at that point, I turned to the publisher, where the editor flatly refused. Even so, I think the coolest thing was the movie theater ad. No, not on the screen. Ha! But back then you could buy an advertisement about the size of a double business card, and it would go in the “Coming Attractions” booklet that people always picked up as they went in or came out of the theater. I put an ad in there that ran for four whole weeks. Every time I saw it, I got a little thrill.

What do you have planned next?

Ah… next. The book I did in the Supernatural universe, The Usual Sacrifices, was fun, but I had communication problems with the studio editor. That was last June. Last fall I was hired to do another movie novelization. Communication between almost all parties was just a nightmare and ultimately I left the project. I felt pretty raw because of it, so I’m taking a break from writing. The people who know me, either in person or via Facebook, know I have an artsy side. I grew up believing to my soul I was going to be an artist (as in drawing and painting, etc.) and I’ve always dabbled (pun intended). In the 1990s I had a number of illustrations appear in small press magazines. In 2009 I took some college courses in painting that actually taught me how to use some of the stuff I’d been collecting in my “studio” over the years. Now I’ve started to get serious about it. My paintings are picking up some ribbons at local galleries and shows. I’ve even sold a couple of things. And you know what? I feel ridiculously happy. I have no doubt, however, that the writing bug is still inside me. Actually, I’d call it more of a virus. No cure.

You can pick up a copy of AfterAge on Amazon or at your favorite bookstore.

Ways to keep an eye on Yvonne:

Website: www.yvonnenavarro.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/yvonne.navarro.001

Twitter: https://twitter.com/YvonneNavarro

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/2GDMf8m

 

Memento Mori evening

[image error]Next Tuesday, April 17, I’ll be participating in the citywide Reimagine End of Life festival across San Francisco from April 16-22. The evening I’m part of is called Memento Mori.

Memento Mori is an ancient Roman phrase meaning “Remember Your Mortality.” Come experience a night of amazing creators sharing their work and unique backstories on the topic of mortality, loss, memory, and love.

The lineup for Memento Mori is:

investigation of the history of the lost cemeteries of SF – Loren Rhoads
Emotions and the end of life ( Fear and Panic) from the Western Psychological Point of view, how secular Buddhism can help (Separate-Selflessness and Impermanence) – Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Eve Ekman
death of neighborhoods and the effect on the people that live there – Liz Ogbu
the art of shadow puppetry and the stories within -Daniel Barash
a poignant visual symphony covering a recent police shooting of a young man, from a healing mother’s perspective – Angelica Ekeke
tracing the roots of the themes of dying, death and mourning at the end of life, and how we can deal with it – Dr. September Williams
and a thought provoking look at the sound in hospitals and how it effects our ability to heal and to die in peace….Yoko Sen

You can get tickets here: https://letsreimagine.org/event-share/5/event/487

You can find the whole Reimagine End of Life schedule here: https://letsreimagine.org/san-francisco/schedule/all.

 

5 Questions for Maria Alexander

[image error]I had the honor to share a table of contents with Maria Alexander in Sins of the Sirens: Fourteen Tales of Dark Desire way back in 2008. She wrote such lovely, decadent stories that I was completely awed by her.

Maria Alexander’s short dark fiction and poetry has been in publication since 1999. Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her first YA novel, Snowed, won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel, and was nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children’s/YA Novel in mystery writing. When she’s not wielding a bladed weapon, she’s being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog. Want more? Visit her website at www.mariaalexander.net.

Here’s the summary of Snowed: Book 1 in Maria’s Bloodline of Yule Trilogy:

Charity Jones is a 16-year-old engineering genius who’s much-bullied for being biracial and a skeptic at her conservative school in Oak County, California. Everything changes when Charity’s social worker mother brings home a sweet teen runaway named Aidan to foster for the holidays. Matched in every way, Charity and Aidan quickly fall in love. But it seems he’s not the only new arrival: Charity soon finds the brutally slain corpse of her worst bully and she gets hard, haunting evidence that the killer is stalking Oak County. As she and her Skeptics Club investigate this death and others, they find at every turn the mystery only grows darker and more deadly. One thing’s for certain: there’s a bloody battle coming this holiday season that will change their lives — and human history — forever. Will they be ready?

Shivers! Let’s ask Maria some questions.

[image error]Did something in the real world inspire Snowed?

Snowed was inspired by a 1200-word flash fiction piece I wrote nearly 20 years ago called “Coming Home.” The story has been reprinted numerous times over the years. My friends at Disney helped me record an audio version for Pseudopod, and Women-in-Theater of Los Angeles produced it as a one-act play. I knew the story had much more potential as a full-fledged novel. It just took me some time to decide how best to expand it.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

I love every scene where Aidan hints at who he really is. Eventually, though, probably the most thrilling scene is when Aidan confesses who he is to Charity. And he doesn’t tell her, but rather shows her. My girl Charity keeps her cool — mostly because she’s a skeptic. I love those scenes because that’s where my sense of humor and imagination really get to dance.

What was your writing process like as you wrote Snowed?

It’s hard to imagine, but I thought early on that I was writing a sweet YA book about a super smart girl who falls in love (and trouble) with an abused boy with a surprising lineage. I had the broad strokes of an outline and dove right in. But when I started actually writing the book, someone wound up brutally murdered in Chapter 5. I knew it was right for the story, which meant I had to rethink the entire plot. Why I ever thought I wouldn’t be writing a book that was totally lights out is anyone’s guess.

In the end, it was one of the most joyous experiences of my life. I loved writing from a teen’s perspective. I was able to reach back to the emotions and dreams of my own adolescence to have a lot of empathy for teens today.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

Two things happened that sort of go hand in hand. First and best of course was winning the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a YA Novel. The book was also nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children’s/YA Novel, which is given out by the World Mystery Convention. I was deeply thrilled that this cross-genre book was recognized in both genres.

Getting fan mail from teens was amazing, too. YA is a great genre.

What do you have planned next?

Snowed was Book 1 in the Bloodline of Yule Trilogy. Book 2 is called Snowbound, which will be out September 8, 2018 from Ghede Press. I’m also currently working on a historical YA thriller with a magical twist. It’s about a real person named Julie d’Aubigny aka La Maupin, one of the deadliest blades in France, if not all of Europe, during the 17th century. But I’m starting when she’s 16 years old — just as she’s discovering that she’s both a badass and bisexual. As a demonic creature is killing the children of France, Julie must use her sword, wits, and gender-bending wiles to conquer the evil that seeks to destroy both her and her country. Magic is illegal, and so is dueling, but that won’t stop La Maupin.

Loren’s note: Doesn’t the La Maupin book sound amazing?  Cannot wait!

You can pick up Snowed, winner of the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel, or Mr. Wicker, winner of the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel, at Amazon or wherever you like to order books. Watch for Maria’s new novels on Amazon or wherever books are sold.