David Brian asked Paula Cappa:

It seems obvious from your writing, and from the posts you make on Goodreads, that you have a deep affection for Victorian (pre-Victorian) supernatural literature. Have you always had a penchant for this type of work, and if so, what is the basis of your interest?

Paula Cappa Thanks, David, for your stimulating question. I love the old ghost stories like MR James' The Ash Tree or Hawthorne's The Haunted Mind, Bensen's The Room in the Tower, Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw, Valery's In the Mirror. There is something about reading 19th-century authors that feels so familiar to me. I'm right at home as if I once lived inside these stories and knew the characters. When I write my own ghost stories or quiet horror novels, I seem to retain those same flavors. Also, I think some of this, for me, comes from Carl Jung's "shadow" archetype: the dark side of human nature is a curious element that I like to explore in fiction. I tend to believe that the dead are still with us at some level. The act of writing ghost stories makes this idea become real: that is, the written language gives form to the abstract concept. So the act of writing the story creates its physical existence. Also, I love writing stories about dead authors. "Between the Darkness and the Dawn"is my ghost story about Nathaniel Hawthorne and his home the Old Manse in Concord MA (free read on my web site). I have another ghost story ("Beyond Castle Frankenstein") about Mary Shelley that will be published soon in an anthology by Terry M. West. Supernatural literature or what I call "quiet horror" is my little place in the sun, as a reader and a writer.

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