An interview with author, Tracie McBride...

 With us today is dark fiction author, Tracie McBride...
[image error] Tell us a bit aboutyourself.I’m a New Zealander by birth, but have lived in Melbourne,Australia since 2008.  I have a husband,three children, a dog, a cat and a white picket fence (just joking about thefence).  By day, I’m a mild-manneredteacher aide and by night I craft dark speculative fiction stories.  I also read and assess a lot of otherpeople’s horror tales in my roles as a slush wrangler for Dark Moon Digest andas vice president for Dark Continents Publishing.
[image error] Could you tell uswhat work you currently have available?The best place to find the definitive list of all mycurrently available work is my Amazon author page - http://www.amazon.com/Tracie-McBride/e/B005FD2VTA/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1I’m a short story writer, so I have a story in thismagazine, a story in that anthology…you know how it goes.  If you’re looking for “all Tracie, all thetime,” my first collection, Ghosts CanBleed, is available in e-book and paperback from most online retailers.
Tell us about yourlatest release.That would be AprilFool and other Antipodean horror stories. It’s a novella-length collection of short stories, part of the Tales of Darkness and Dismay e-bookseries released by Dark Continents Publishing in January this year.  I co-wrote it with fellow Kiwi writer JohnIrvine.  John and I share a country oforigin and a certain dry sense of humour…and that’s about it.  Our differing writing styles and choices ofsubject matter make for some interesting contrasts in April Fool.  
For someoneunfamiliar with your work, how would you describe your writing?Recently someone described my writing style as ‘stark’.  I’ll take that as a compliment…?  My stories are usually (but not always) darkin tone and usually (but not always) speculative in nature.  I’m fascinated with the question “Whatif?”  I like to Omit Needless Words, andI like to leave plenty of room in my stories for the reader to layer his or herown interpretation.  Common themes for meare the family dynamic and family relationships – often with monsters throwninto the mix.  
What else do you havein the pipeline?It’s a never-ending production line at my desk!  I have some more stories coming out invarious publications this year, some more under submission, some more underconstruction, a stockpile of previously published pieces for my nextcollection…and a recently purchased piece of software for writers that isintended to help me wrestle my first novel into shape.
What writers have hadthe most influence on your own writing?I couldn’t point to any writers and say, “I write like thisperson,” but if you’re asking me which writers I admire, whose work I enjoy themost, who inspires me, the list is long. I’ll limit myself to a minute and see who first springs to mind – China Mieville, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, AnneRice, Margaret Atwood, Clive Barker, Stephen King, P K Dick, Dr Seuss (thegenius of the latter is only now becoming fully apparent to me, now that I’mhelping to teach kids to read in a professional capacity).
What was the lastthing you read?The last paperback I finished was a Mammoth Book of Best NewHorror (I think it was number 15?).  Thelast e-book I finished was The CrookedGod Machine by Autumn Christian (keep an eye out for this young woman, sheis going to be a star).
Anything else you’dlike to tell us about?Why, yes I would! Remember way back at the beginning, I mentioned Dark ContinentsPublishing?  We launched the company at theWorld Horror Convention in 2011, and now we have thirteen titles on ourcatalogue, with several more scheduled for publication this year.  Those titles include Monster’s Ink which is a paperback -only collection of shortstories by indie superstar Scott Nicholson, QuietHouses by Simon Kurt Unsworth and CampfireChillers by Dave Jeffery, both of which have been longlisted for theprestigious Edge Hill Prize, and TheCollector which is the latest offering from up-and-coming horror writerDaniel I Russell.  You might want tocheck us out…
Dark Continents Publishing catalog:  http://darkcontinents.com/catalog/
Tracie's blog:  http://traciemcbridewriter.wordpress.com/