You write what???

Sometimes when someone asks me what I write, I feel a bit embarrassed to tell them I write horror. I find myself mumbling at times, and more than once have gotten the response, "Whore? You write whore?"

No. Horror.

See, I have this rather annoying nature of wanting to please everybody. I hate confrontation -- at least in real life. (In fiction, confrontation is king, queen and royal jester!) I hate disappointing people.

Horror? Oooh -- you write horror? Yuck. I don't read horror. Why can't you write something nice for a change?

Well, I have written other things. A few mystery short stories, some travel articles, a YA suspense novel, middle-grade historical fiction. But my first love, and the one I just can't quit, is horror. And I gotta think that at least some of these folks who poo-poo horror are more than happy to use the Bible as their ultimate moral compass. The Good Book. The Holy Bible. They must realize that the Bible contains more horror than an entire shelf of Stephen King novels, right?

When Abraham lifts his knife into the air over his son at the whim of God, and God says hey, dude, just kiddin'... Think of that -- a man ready to kill his son because he believes a voice from outta nowhere tells him to? Now that's horror.

And what about the flood story? A god who's not satisfied with the race of humans he created, so screw 'em - let's just wipe 'em all out, men, women, children...that there is your typical alien invasion scenario.

And Jesus raising the dead - methinks the whole Lazarus thing was the genesis (no pun intended) of the Zombie movement.

And don't even get me started on the Book of Revelations.

So eventually I came to the realization (finally, finally - I admit to being quite a late bloomer) that when someone asks what I write, I can hold my head up high and answer, "Whore! No, I mean, horror!"

Er...I mean...if that's cool with you...