You weren’t involved with any of the other Zombie Apocalypse! volumes. Did that present any special difficulties for you when it came to writing a novel that had to incorporate characters and situations from the dozens of short stories found in the anthologies?
No, not really, because I’d read them—or at least, I’d read the first one and had a copy of the second, which I then subsequently read. The greatest difficulty was in staying true to the time-lines and the characters that had already been established, and of not contradicting anything that had gone before.
In the Zombie Apocalypse! books, a virus (called “HRV”, or “Human Reanimation Virus”) is at the heart of the transformation and resurrection of the dead, and many of the stories in the anthologies—which recreate things like medical reports—are explicitly technical. How did you go about researching that aspect of Horror Hospital?
Fortunately the medical reports are written—or mostly written—by John Llewellyn Probert, who makes his “proper” living as a surgeon and who is a good friend of mine, so if there was anything I needed to know I just dropped John an email. The nursing and paramedic and ambulance staff material in the book was partly a result of on-line research and partly a result of putting an appeal on Facebook for any nurses, paramedics, etc. to contact me so that I could ask them questions about their jobs for a book I was writing. I got a pretty good response to that, and a few of the people who replied to my plea were incredibly generous with their time and wrote long, detailed answers to my no-doubt often silly questions.
At one point you and Tim Lebbon were co-writing a YA horror novel. Is there a chance we’ll be seeing that in the future?
We’re still writing it! The problem is we’ve both been so busy over the past eighteen months or so that it’s been sitting in limbo until we can free up some time to work on it. It’s about eighty percent done, barring rewrites, so I’m hoping we can finish it towards the tail-end of this year. The problem is we’re writing it on spec, so it keeps being put on the back burner while we concentrate on the stuff we’re actually being paid for. But we’re both really pleased with it, and if we finish it and get a deal for it and the publisher, whoever that might be, is interested in turning it into a series (which is our intention), then we’ll no doubt write the second book a hell of a lot faster.
You frequently attend conventions and have been somewhat involved with the British Fantasy Society, and you once said, “For me, being among other writers is like being plugged into a massive, never-ending socket of creativity.” How important is it to you to be part of a community of writers? Would you continue to craft horror if that community suddenly vanished?
Good question. When I started out I didn’t know any other writers, so I guess the answer to the second part of your question would be yes. But it’s massively important to me to be a part of the horror/fantasy community. Most of my best friends, my lifelong friends, are writers, and we share so much in terms of enthusiasms, attitudes, experiences, even senses of humour, that I can’t now imagine my life without that incredible support network. To me, being among other writers, other creative people, is exhilarating. It may be a cliché, but when I’m with my writer friends I get an energy, a buzz, that I don’t get elsewhere. I feel content. It’s like I’ve found my niche. It’s like I’ve come home.
Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of nonfiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” Her short fiction has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines, including The Mammoth Book of Dracula, Dark Delicacies, The Museum of Horrors, and Cemetery Dance, and in 2010 her first novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, received the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel. Recent books include the graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times (co-written with Rocky Wood, illustrated by Greg Chapman), and Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween. Appearing in 2013 were the novellas Summer’s End and Smog, and the novel Malediction. A lifelong Californian, she lives in North Hollywood, and can be found online at www.lisamorton.com.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: SEANAN MCGUIRE
Erika Holt
You’ve written about viruses, parasites, and fungi—what is it about these pathogens that fascinates you?
Everything! I figure I have two choices, with as much as I know: I can either be extremely fascinated and excited and enthralled, or I can be terrified and never leave my home again. The former seems healthier, oddly. And all these things are amazing! Everything’s amazing, when you look at it the right way. This is life in a format and on a scale that we so rarely stop to see.
What do you enjoy more: researching or writing? Has a new story idea ever sprung from your research, or does it always happen the other way around?
I enjoy them both in their own ways. It’s sort of like asking which I enjoy more, Disneyland or Disney World. Both of them have their unique appeals. Writing is a bigger playground, but research is my home. New stories come out of research all the time, whether it’s research for an existing project or research for funsies.
And, I’m curious, after all of your research, what do you see as the biggest potential threat to the survival of humanity?
Honestly, right now, the two-pronged fork of “humanity itself” and “the flu.” The fact that we have an anti-vaccination movement, like people saying “nope, I don’t like that science” is somehow as valid as the centuries-old experiment wherein we do not die of smallpox, measles, or other preventable childhood diseases, terrifies me. I think we’re going to get a lovely new flu strain, something with some teeth, and the fact that many people will choose not to get their flu shots because “oh it’s poison it’s a scam it’s whatever the blogs say this week” will mean that we can’t slow the speed of spread. I’m banking on something in the H13s, but there are a lot of candidates.
On your website you indicate that Stephen King is your overall favorite author. What do you like or admire about his work? What makes for a good horror story, in your opinion?
I started reading Stephen King when I was nine years old. At this point, the way he uses words is incredibly soothing to me, like a literary security blanket. I don’t need anything else from him. I do adore his use of character, the way he puts things together so slowly and precisely, like he’s building a house. A man owns what he builds. I learned that from him. I learned a lot of things from him.
A good horror story should show you something you don’t really want to see, and it shouldn’t be cheap. I speak out a lot against rape in horror, because it’s cheap. It’s lazy and it’s cheap, and there’s no reason to do it when there are so many more interesting, more terrible things that can be done.
As of January 15, 2014 you became a full-time writer—congratulations! How’s that going and what does the year ahead look like for you?
It’s going pretty well, although I’m still catching up on sleep from the last couple of years! I have a bunch more conventions, and several books coming up in the second half of 2014: you can find details at seananmcguire.com.
Erika Holt lives in the cold, white North (i.e. Calgary, Canada), where she writes and edits speculative fiction. Her stories appear in Shelter of Daylight issue six, Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, and Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales. She has co-edited two anthologies: Rigor Amortis, about sexy, amorous zombies, and Broken Time Blues, featuring 1920s alien burlesque dancers and bootlegging chickens.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: ŁUKASZ ORBITOWSKI
Caroline Ratajski
“Don’t Go” features a fairly universal setting. What drove this decision?
Really, I don’t know. As a writer, I can concoct a story about almost anything except the setting. I just can’t. So, I set all my stories in places that really exist, like Warszawa or Kraków. The name “Rykusmyku” is fictional, but this town is real. My
former wife comes from Rykusmyku and my son lives there now. So, I’ve known this town for fifteen years, and I started to write about it.
Where did Mr. Scar come from? Was there someone in particular that inspired his character?
He is a combination of two different characters. The first, most obvious, inspiration was Ed Gein. I’m sure that you’re familiar with this extraordinary man. Before writing, I’d watched some movies about him. He still creeps me out. And I have a long time friend who lost his eye exactly the way Mr. Scar did, in a Polish mine. I combined the two and Mr. Scar was born.
You never name the narrator. Why not?
I thought he just didn’t need a name. He is an ordinary boy with ordinary dreams living in an ordinary town. It could be you, me, or anyone else. I tried to suggest that this kind of horror could happen to anyone. And anyone could behave as badly as this boy.
That a child is missing is a detail very casually delivered in the beginning so the reader experiences a moment of realization in parallel with the narrator. What drew you to this type of horror, as opposed to, say, dramatic irony?
I’ve learned this the hard way. In my early stories, I would try to shock my readers with ghosts and a lot of blood. Now I know that sometimes less means more. We have movies like the Saw series, and games like Dead Space, and they will be more effective, much scarier in a traditional way, than books can be. So, I’m looking for something different. I can’t scare my readers, not anymore. But I can make them feel uncomfortable and restless.
The narrator successfully retrieves Mr. Scar’s eye and finds the missing child. This could be a heroic story, but instead he and Bolo experience regret. Why did you decide to take the story in that direction?
Because I’m a cynical guy? I don’t know. I think people are cowards in most cases. I’ve met many, many cowards in my life and only a few brave heroes. That’s the point. I’m trying to write about “normal life” and “normal people.” People scare me. I think my nameless boy is much scarier than Mr. Scar.
What work do you have out now or forthcoming, and what are you working on now?
I still write short stories about Rykusmyku, and want to publish a collection next year. The timing is good, because my latest novel was a huge success in Poland. And now the time has come to write a new one, which I hope will turn out even better. It’s “true crime” about a Polish serial killer—a young guy named Jacek Balicki who killed two children in Bydgoszcz in the nineties. I’ve spent the last month researching case files, photos, and so on. It’s extremely hard. The horror of real life gets to me. And of course I hope to publish more stories in Nightmare Magazine.
Caroline Ratajski is a writer and software engineer currently living in Silicon Valley, California, USA. Previously published as Morgan Dempsey, her fiction is available in Broken Time Blues and Danse Macabre, as well as at Redstone Science Fiction. She is represented by Barry Goldblatt of Barry Goldblatt Literary, LLC.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: H.L. NELSON
Erika Holt
This story ends with a dedication. Would you like to tell us more about that?
I would. Thanks for asking. I’ve just finished my next-to-last grad school term at Queens University of Charlotte and had the illustrious Pinckney Benedict as instructor. He’s honestly the whole reason I chose to apply to Queens, because I feel a kinship with his work. As an instructor he did not disappoint, with his unaffected demeanor and despite his insistence that he only has a small amount of knowledge to impart. (Ha!) Before attending QU I read his “Mudman” piece in Miracle Boy and Other Stories, and I knew I had to write my own golem piece. I’d been wanting to do so since I studied Piercy’s He, She and It in a Science and English Lit course years ago at Texas Tech U. After I turned in a solid draft of “Dirtman,” Benedict offered crucial criticisms that helped me solidify the dirtman’s role and craft the best possible ending. I know I couldn’t have written it the way it ended up without his insights.
In other interviews you’ve been very candid about your difficult childhood. Was it tough writing about a protagonist with whom you share some common experiences? Do you think drawing on personal experience makes for a deeper, more profound story?
This was the toughest story I’ve ever written, hands down, and it’s because I do feel quite close to my main character. This story started off as an 800-word piece, because I couldn’t write more than that for months. There are specific scenes that come directly from my own childhood experiences, and perhaps a few cathartic tears were shed during the second draft filling-out process. With the help of my awesome beta readers who talked up the story, I kept at it. I think any time a writer draws from intense personal experience, and is able to transmute it into story form in a beautiful way, readers will certainly respond.
Have you written from the perspective of a child before? What do you like about this approach, and what do you find challenging?
Nothing that’s been published, I don’t believe. It was very challenging to maintain this main character’s voice and dialect without using words that could be construed as too advanced for her age. I’ve read differing things on the subject, though. Some writers say it’s perfectly fine to give children advanced voices, and other writers disagree. I had to go with what I felt worked for my main character, who is smarter, more learned, and experienced than the average nine year old.
I get the sense from this story that you’re fond of critters, be they dogs or insects. Would you say that’s true?
It’s not true, actually! I haven’t owned a dog since my eldest son was a crawling baby, and I pulled dog hairs out of his balled fists every day, despite vacuuming incessantly. Dogs plus kids equals too much trouble for me. And, though I don’t mind most insects, I prefer they stay outdoors. Having grown up in a semi-arid region, I’ve been bitten by scorpions, ants, and a host of other creepy crawlies, so I’m done with all of it!
As well as writing prolifically, you edit Cease, Cows, an online literary magazine. What do you as an editor look for in a story?
For CC, we want to see a complete story, no story sketches. We want there to be a surreal element, even if it’s slight. And, of course, we want the least amount of grammatical mishaps as possible. But that goes without saying. Lately, we’ve received a rash of submissions that aren’t surreal in the slightest, so we’re imploring submitters to read our guidelines.
What are you working on now?
The better question is: What am I not working on? My thesis is due to Pinckney Benedict (I chose him as my advisor, of course) by October, so I’m desperately trying to finish a draft. It’s my first full collection of dark fiction, and I hope to be shopping it around by the end of the year. I’m also working on a collection of short fiction for Marginalia Publishing. Additionally, my husband and I have started a new venture, Litdemon.com, with workshops and, eventually, manuscript services. It’s been a fun process setting up the site and bringing the instructors aboard. And, I’m working with Waide Marshall of RedReel Productions to bring a short-film version of “Dirtman” to the screen. We’re hoping to be finished by the end of the year. I am never, ever bored!
Erika Holt lives in the cold, white North (i.e. Calgary, Canada), where she writes and edits speculative fiction. Her stories appear in Shelter of Daylight issue six, Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, and Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales. She has co-edited two anthologies: Rigor Amortis, about sexy, amorous zombies, and Broken Time Blues, featuring 1920s alien burlesque dancers and bootlegging chickens.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: MICHAEL CISCO
E.C. Myers
“Machines of Concrete Light and Dark” originally appeared in Lovecraft Unbound, edited by Ellen Datlow. In your afterword in that volume, you explained that you “wrote this piece to try out a variation on his theme of a lurking power or divinity.” Are those your favorite types of Lovecraft stories?
My favorite Lovecraft stories change with time. I wouldn’t say any one feature attract
s me significantly more than any other. This lurking idea was simply a propitious jumping off point for the story.
With that anthology as motivation for writing a Lovecraft pastiche, what else inspired this story? How did it develop from there?
The story swam together out of a collection of impressions and memories. I grew up in a small canyon and we would hear the coyotes caroling at night sometimes. You knew they were out there, not particularly scary, but wild animals. The idea of necessity entered the story by way of some philosophical reading I’d been doing about free will at the time.
You have nine published novels and dozens of short stories. Do you approach writing novels and short stories differently? Does one format feel more natural for the tales you want to tell?
Novels are more intuitive for me, because they are capacious and varied. Short stories force me to concentrate on making a single impression. The challenge with novels is finding the path that will travel through all the desired points. The challenge with short stories is in finding the right way to push past the stopping point and give the story real depth.
In addition to writing, you are also a college English professor. How did your course Literature of the Macabre and the Supernatural come about, and will you share some of the reading list?
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