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Archives Interviews Women in Horror Month

Interview – Christa (Wojo) Wojciechowski

How long have you been writing for?

I started writing and illustrating short stories when I was a little kid. I also kept journals documenting everything in my life, which was not very interesting but that didn’t stop me from thinking every moment of life is important. I think writers have an innate compulsion to process what they see in the world through writing. Humans learn through stories and writers are the record keepers of the evolution of the human psyche.

 

What is it about horror that made you think ‘This is the genre for me’?

I actually didn’t choose horror. I wrote a book series based on a nightmare. I didn’t know where it fit, if anywhere. Then other readers and reviewers began to refer to it as horror. Still, it’s not like mainstream horror really. I think it’s more like psychological horror or dark fiction with gothic elements. Now that I know where I more or less belong, I’m going to explore horror more.

 

Any tips for combatting writer’s block?

Sometimes if I write through it, I can get wade through the crap and get back to the bones of the story. On the other hand, sometimes it’s best to just walk away and do something totally unrelated. Writers tend to be reclusive and live in their own world, and believe it or not, it helps to go out and do something with real live human beings. Scary. I know, but different activities and different people give your mind a rest from actively trying to work everything out. Then when you come back to your work-in-progress, your subconscious usually has figured out the problem while you’ve been otherwise occupied.

 

Any rituals you have before starting a new story?

I like to build a playlist in Spotify that I can listen to before I write. I may or may not dance around my office in my pajamas before sitting down at my desk. I also like to make videos to get me into the zone. It’s a great way to keep focused on your theme. Just make sure that the creation of your playlist or video doesn’t turn into a tool for procrastination.

 

How do you handle character creation? I find using Dungeons and Dragons character sheets helpful but it’s fun to see the many ways other people go about this.

Dungeons and Dragons character sheets are a brilliant idea. My characters usually come from dreams or an amalgamation of an actor who recently impressed me, a person I know or used to know, and a facet of my own personality that wants to make a performance.

 

Any projects coming up (or currently out) you’d like to share with us?

I’m currently working on a story for Project 13Dark, a unique Indiegogo dark fiction project created by Joseph Sale that showcases both the written and visual artwork of some of this century’s greatest creatives (you can see the video for it on my YouTube). I’m also working on a few short stories I plan to pitch around to indie lit mags. I’m taking a break from novels for a little bit.

 

How can we support your work?

Naturally, the best way to support indie authors is to buy their books and leave reviews. My current offering is The Sick Series. It’s a collection of three novellas about a woman whose very sick husband is not as innocent as he seems. They are easy to enjoy and digest (though palatable for everyone). Amazon http://christawojo.com/amazon

You can support by checking out Project 13Dark and helping to fund our next issue.

If you have a book review blog or would like me for an interview or guest post, hit me up. I’m a big believer in community and I love to work with other horror and dark fiction authors.

You can contact me on social media.

Website ChristaWojo.com

Facebook http://facebook.com/WebbellaChrista

Twitter http://twitter.com/christawojo

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/christawojo/

 

Any advice to people just starting out in their writing careers?

Don’t be afraid of yourself. Especially when you’re writing horror, you’ll be surprised what comes out of your mind. You think, “should I be allowed to roam free among the general public?” I’ve been frightened and disgusted by parts of my books. Everyone always asks me, “how did such a nice girl write such a sick book?” And I shrug because I don’t know. I can’t tell you where exactly these ideas come from. But, like I said in the answer to the first question, I’m processing whatever I absorb from the world around me. I’m documenting the human psyche. I’m not going to try to shape it into something that everyone will be comfortable with. As a writer, if you hold back, if you’re not true and honest, your book will be flat. It might be really good, but it won’t give people that punch-in-the-gut reaction.

Be brave, dig deep, and go all out. As we say here in Panama, do it con cojones (with balls).



Christa (Wojo) Wojciechowski is the author of The Wrong David, The Sick Series, and is working on a series called The Sculptor of New Hope. Her characters explore existential turmoil, mental illness, and the complexity of romantic love. She uses her stories to compare the dark, carnal nature of humanity with its higher qualities of creative expression and intellectualism.

Christa currently resides in the mountains of Panama with her husband and a house full of pets. She works as a freelance digital marketer and helps thought leaders, podcasters, and fellow writers develop their marketing platforms. Christa enjoys foreign movies, yoga, wine, and rambling around in the cloud forests near her home. Most of all, she’s passionate about books and writers, and loves discussing them on social media.

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Archives Interviews Women in Horror Month

Interview – Torie Hague

How did you get involved in FX Makeup and body paint?

I had just moved to Fort Bragg, NC and I went from having three jobs to having no job at all, which was extremely difficult for me as a workaholic. My depression didn’t help much either. I had been watching Mykie, aka Glam&Gore, on YouTube and wanted to give FX a try to help pull me out of my depressive rut and I ended up falling in love with it.

My love for bodypainting started when my friend Maverick asked me to paint a Ouija board on my chest to try to freak out my husband, Levi. Levi doesn’t like horror at all, especially Ouija boards or anything that deals with messing with the dead so I thought this bodypaint was PERFECT. He wasn’t scared, however I continued to bodypaint because I had finally found a way to express my creativity since I can’t draw to save my life.

FX and bodypainting combined turned into my favorite art which is character creation. I love creating characters that no one else has done or seen before. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and pride because I did something out of the ordinary. It takes me away from the hardships of life, giving me a chance to be something/someone else for a little while.

 

Do you have a favourite piece that you’ve worked on?

Quite a few. My Weeping Demon face paint has been the makeup that I’ve re-done the most; my haunt boss loved it so much that she wanted me to be that character for the video that we had playing outside of our haunt this past season. I like to inflate my own ego and say that the Weeping Demon became the “face” of the haunt.

My Dark Rot makeup, inspired by Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, is my most liked makeup on Instagram to this day.

My Spider Queen was my most recent character that I created that definitely made it close to the top of my list. I had formed her in my mind and instantly fell in love with her. I’m so happy with how she came out.

 

Where do you draw inspiration from when you’re working on different
pieces/canvases?

Usually my ideas come to my mind suddenly out of nowhere. Sometimes they take a while to form in my brain. I don’t like to recreate “trends” that have already been done over and over, which can limit me sometimes but I always make up for it with what I produce.

Being a band nerd, music gives me a ton of inspiration. There’s some music that I’ll listen to set the mood for haunt-worthy makeup, some music for characters, so on so forth.

 

Any advice for people thinking about getting into FX?

People will think FX is gross and weird, that maniacs and psychopaths are the only ones willing to mangle Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant because they must be disgusting in the head. It’s okay to be gross, weird, and not a part of the norm. It’s fun to be different. KEEP BEING GROSS AND WEIRD!

Don’t stop doing FX because you think you’re terrible at it. I was crap at FX starting out but I knew that I wouldn’t be a pro overnight. Two years later, I’m still not a pro, but my bruises are now better than the bruises that I used to make.

 

You co-host a podcast. Where did the idea for that start?

The Podcast Is Coming From Inside The House, or PICFITH, actually wasn’t my idea! It was the idea of two of my co-hosts, Patrick and Leigh-Anne. They asked me for my thoughts on their podcast that they wanted to start and I encouraged them to do it. They ended up asking me and my 3rd co-host, John, to be a part of it so that we had a variety of interests such as my love of gore, John’s love of classics, Leigh-Anne’s love of murder mystery, and Patrick’s love of…whatever horror he loves, I’m still unclear on what he likes.

 

We used to do podcasts but I found the editing process took too much out of me, I’m also not that great when it comes to talking to people  haha. How long does it take for an episode to go from recorded to  completed?

We recently recorded our pilot episode, called Episode 0, January 13th. Recording took about five hours, including setup time, figuring out how the equipment worked, and waiting for the dogs to stop barking.

Editing so far is taking a couple of weeks. To give an average on how long an episode takes to put out, I’d say three weeks to a month, however I’m sure that we’ll be better and faster at it once we really get started.

 

When can we expect to hear the first episode?

Expect to hear Episode 0, hopefully, within a week or two. Episode 1 should be out not too long after that! (NOTE FROM SHAWN : It’s available now)

 

You co-directed a film called The Dying Curse, what can you tell us about it?

First off, I have to give credit to my co-director and the writer of this whole film, Jason Setzer, for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this project in the first place. I can’t thank him enough for giving me this chance of growing my makeup skills and my newfound director skills. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to work for and with him and with the amazing cast that we have. I’m taking this movie wherever I go and I’m not just saying that because I have a tattoo dedicated to this movie, I swear! I’ll always remember The Dying Curse as where I truly got started along with the Devil’s Playground, the haunt that has my heart.

Without giving away too much, it follows a cryptozoologist and his students searching for a creature in the woods of North Carolina, but something isn’t right about the situation. The film stars my PICFITH co-host Patrick as the professor, Peter. Alongside him stars Isela Gomez, Dravi Otis, Sean David Henderson, and Cassandra Biddle, all good friends of mine, however not everyone in the film is listed or else that list would be a little long. Even I have a small role in the film!

It’s basically a psychological sci-fi horror take on a search for a creature like Bigfoot (except it’s not Bigfoot, we’re too low-budget to hire Bigfoot.) There’s gonna be some gore, there’s gonna be death, AND there will be a character that I’ve been given free reign to create!

We’re currently still shooting the film and hopefully we can be done shooting before I have to move to Hawaii in June. You can expect The Dying Curse to be released at the end of this year or early 2019!

 

How can we support your work?

You can support in a bunch of ways:

For my makeup, follow my page JoRave Special Effects on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and Instagram @joravesfx, especially Instagram since that’s where I spend most of my time when on social media, and share my work with your friends like wildfire!

For PICFITH, follow our page The Podcast Is Coming From Inside The House on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @PICFITH, as well as Instagram @picfith so that you don’t miss any updates on when we release our pilot episode. Also follow us on the podcast app for iOS, Spotify (I think?), or any other podcast broadcasting source that you may listen to so that you don’t miss a single episode.

For The Dying Curse, follow our page The Dying Curse on Facebook for behind the scenes photos, cast interviews, our first trailer, a release date, etc. We will be starting a crowdfunding page with rewards for donations soon so keep an eye out for that. The movie will be released on Amazon and YouTube.

ALSO if you’re in Fayetteville/ Fort Bragg or in a neighboring town, please please please go to the Devil’s Playground during haunt season! Like I said above, that haunt has my heart and I will absolutely be working for them again when/ if we return to the area.



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Archives Articles Interviews Women in Horror Month

Interview – Jennifer Allanson

So, what about horror specifically made you think ‘This is the genre I want to make films in’?

When I was a little kid (about 4 or 5) I used to stealthily watch scary movies from behind the couch, which is pretty creepy on its own. My older brother and cousins would watch scary movies and I wanted in – so this way I got to see saw Child’s Play and The Nightmare on Elm Street without anyone being the wiser.

Instead of having nightmares, I wanted more.

I got my own video store rental card when I was 14 and went to work. I had a good list of what I’d already seen by this time, but I got to rent some great classics on my own. Halloween, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Black Christmas, Slumber Party Massacre and Carrie were among my favorites.

They all had one common element – Female presence. Our hero often was a woman – something sorely lacking in many other genres.

I love the flexibility of what Horror actually means. I absolutely feel that people who think they don’t like horror just haven’t found the right style for them yet, there is definitely something there for everybody.

 

I’ve talked about your short film Time’s Up on this website before. I enjoy movies that feature hauntings that are just as sombre as they are scary. What were some of your influences for this one?

I pitched the idea to my husband (amazing Director Kristian Lariviere!) of doing more of a ‘slow burn’ horror film. Which seemed really impossible since I had to try to keep it under 15 minutes. I had just seen House of the Devil, which I really enjoyed. I loved the idea of letting fear seep in slowly.

There’s something really terrifying about the silence around seemingly normal tasks, on a normal day. I’d like to explore that more in the future – that was one of my favorite scripts to write.

 

You produced and acted in the short film Puritans which has won some awards. What was it like to get recognized for that film?

It was amazing. We won Best Film and my husband Kris won Best Director at the Digi 60 Film Festival in 2013.

We were feeling overwhelmed at the time. When we signed up for the festival, it felt like was the real start to the still seemingly endless wave of news stories about women constantly being violated in horrendous ways by men.

Feeling disappointed and disgusted with the world really made us want to write a story to symbolize these stories and start a good fight. We did it and we were so proud when people responded the way they did.

The film is available on Amazon Prime and YouTube. People still love it – although, there is the occasional chauvinist pig that likes to criticize the story as being man-hating and religion hating. Those people make me feel even better about putting it out there. If it threatens you, then maybe you’re on the wrong side of this story!

 

Do you have any projects coming out that you can share with us?

Do I ever! Our first Horror Feature, Hens Night is going to be available for rental and purchase on February 16th 2018!

Hens Night was experimental for us. The first Feature I’ve ever written.

It doesn’t hang on to any old tropes. We cast actors that people can relate to, and we really wanted you to understand them before any horror happened upon them. I wrote it for the women out there that don’t “like” horror. I want them to give this a chance. You don’t get any horror with this one until you have an opinion on our characters. Whether you love them or hate them, I wanted our viewer to feel something for them. There’s a tragic love story in there too, but not the kind of you’re used to.

Check http://www.hensnightfilm.com/ to find where you can see it now!

 

How can our readers support your work?

Watch what we can do, write to us, share with your friends!

I’ve already talked about the launch of Hens Night on February 16th, but if you’re short on time, we have a few shorts available that you might want to see.

Time’s Up:

Puritans:

Additionally, we completed our second feature, a Christmas Horror Anthology called ‘UNHOLY NIGHT’. This one is being submitted to film festivals worldwide at the moment and we are in distribution talks!

 

So if you’d like you can take a look at the trailer and send us your good vibes!

UNHOLY NIGHT trailer:

 

We’re both from Ottawa which is often known as ‘The City that fun forgot’, when you first started out making films here, what were your expectations for the horror community?

I didn’t really have any expectations – I didn’t have a clue how many people are part of this community! I was really surprised and happy. I finally found my tribe. Every time I meet someone new who shares my interests I’m so excited. The support has been so wonderful.

And I have got to defend our city. Sure, if you just go to work and retreat back to your chosen suburb and stay there day in, day out…then Ottawa is definitely no fun. But if you get out there, anywhere central, you’ll see that Ottawa is a lot of fun. We have places like the Mayfair Theatre, House of Targ, Art & Film festivals all over the place. Incredible food scene too. People just have to be willing to…you know…leave their homes!

 

Do you have any fun/nightmare stories to share from the set of one of your films?

We shot our wraparound storyline for ‘UNHOLY NIGHT’ over the course of two overnight shoots in an abandoned wing of a hospital at the wonderful Gallipeau Centre in Smiths Falls.

It used to be known as the Rideau Regional Hospital. It used to house children and adults with cognitive disabilities, and some physical. At times, from what I’ve read about it, they exceeded their capacity by thousands. It closed down in 2009.

A few crazy things happened during that shoot. One of our cast members saw an apparition at the end of a hallway that seemed to mimic her body movements.

My husband was on the bottom floor and heard children giggling. He was white as a ghost when he returned to the holding room to see that we were all there.

I felt the tiny hairs stand up on the back of my neck a few times, and saw a figure in a black hoodie watching us film when no one else was actually in the building.

I’m so thankful that we had the opportunity to use the hospital as our location. It really was a character in its own!

 

What have your experiences been like being a female producer/director so far?

Nothing but 100% positive. I did my Directorial debut with the Digi60 Film Festival with a 3 minute long short film you can see here called Retention. It was a great experience, it really got my feet wet. It’s far from a horror project, but still really fun!

Then I co-directed Time’s Up. The feedback has been incredible. People have been nothing but encouraging. I’ve made some Incredible partnerships and friendships with other creatives in the community.

I’ve been really passionate about trying to support women-led projects. Recently my friend Lana Bateman and I came up with a project that we are really passionate about. A project that we hope will encourage women to embrace, and get involved with, horror filmmaking. I have to be vague about it for now, but we are hoping to announce our project in the spring!

 

Any advice for people that want to get started making horror films?

Watch as many as you can, read the scripts and get out to any one of your city’s film events to make some connections. Use the resources available to you and just do it! All you really need is a good script, at least one good actor, and one location. The less complicated, the better.

Jennifer Allanson can be found on twitter here

 

 

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Articles Interviews Women in Horror Month

Interview – S.H. Cooper

You seem to write pretty prolifically, do you have any tips or tricks you can share with us on how to turn over stories so quickly?

Writing is half creativity, half discipline. In order to do it regularly, you have to turn it into a habit. Sometimes that means forcing yourself when you don’t want to, sometimes it means setting aside specific time specifically to write, sometimes it means churning out stuff that will never ever see the true light of day. The point is just to write. You’ll develop your voice and find your flow, both things that are important when it comes to being able to regularly create work.

How do you come up with your characters for your stories?

It depends how how I’ve come up with the story. If I’m basing it off of an actual person, it’s relatively easy to write them out. If I’ve come up with a story based off of inspiration around an item or a phrase, I tend to build the setting first and the characters fall into place as I go based on how they fit into that setting. For example, one of my story ideas came from a charm bracelet I wear. I knew I wanted to create a creepy atmosphere that incorporated the tinkling of a bracelet, which led me to wonder about what kind of person would wear it, which, in turn, made me think about why this particular person would wear this bracelet, and boom! Auntie Bells was born.

What is your favourite thing to write about when it comes to horror?

I love wholesome horror; creepy, tense storylines that lead to a feel good end. I try to keep more traditional horror and my wholesome stuff balanced, but I still think it’s pretty obvious how fond I am of that type of story. I think it comes from an enjoyment of subverting expectations, but also just a love of good overcoming evil.

Also, who doesn’t like stuffed animals saving the day?

Where do you get your influences from? Anything you can recommend to our readers?

Everywhere. Inspiration can literally be found in anything. I find it in the people in my life, in objects around me, in random daydreaming. I’ll find myself looking at my husband, a wonderful (and handsome) man, thinking, “How can I make you creepy?”

My best advice would be to be open minded, try to look at everyday items and ask yourself, “What if?” about them. What if crows started bringing someone items? What if spiders were hanging around to keep us safe? What if a boy hangs out in an unfinished housing development and starts seeing strange girls?

Writing horror is all about taking the most normal, mundane things and trying to turn them on their heads and make them an unsettling other.

Do you have any projects coming out that we should be aware of?

I am (slowly) assembling my second anthology, which I plan to release sometime this year. Not concrete details just yet!

I am also working on outlining a few of novel(la)s; two horror and one YA fantasy. Fingers crossed that I’ll actually manage to finish at least one!

 

Are there any superstitions you have when you write? Chair has to face a certain direction? Certain music needs to be playing? Cat needs to be on lap?

It’s not really a superstition, but I do 99% of my writing on my phone. Why? Probably because I hate myself.

Your stories often contain a lot of dialogue, how do you go about keeping it sounding natural? This is something I personally struggle with.

I talk to myself. A lot. I say almost all of my dialogue aloud as I’m writing it to hear how it actually sounds when spoken. If the flow is awkward or the word choice sounds odd, I scrap what I had and try again. I also ask myself if this character, who I’ve given particular attributes to, would really use this vocabulary or colloquialism. When writing dialog, you really need to know your characters in order to make their voice natural.

What’s it like working with the NoSleep people? Seeing your stories come to life in that way must be pretty exciting.

The NoSleep Podcast is an amazing production! I’ve been very lucky to have some of my stories included since Season 7 and, every time, it’s like magic. David Cummings, the showrunner, has assembled an amazing team of talent, including a number of voice actors, producers, artists, and a composer, all of whom pour themselves into making the podcast the very best horror has to offer. On top of being incredible at what they do, they’re some of the nicest people I’ve ever met! If given the chance, I would highly recommend working with them because it’s an all-around awesome experience.

I am super excited to see the NoSleep Podcast Live in March!

Any advice you’d like to give for people just starting out with their writing or to people who feel like they can’t do it?

Like I said before, it’s half creativity and half discipline. Like any other skill, writing requires practice if you ever want to get good. I’ve been writing for about 20 years, but it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that I started really sharing my work. It’s daunting and can be disheartening if people don’t immediately respond well to you work, but that’s ok! Every piece is a learning experience. If you keep at it, you’ll develop a voice and a style and learn what works and what doesn’t.

 

S.H. Cooper can be found on twitter here

S.H. Cooper has a book of short stories that you can buy here

 

 

Categories
Articles Interviews Women in Horror Month

Interview – Colin Harker

How long have you been writing for?

I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. When I was a kid, I mostly wrote fantasy imitative of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles and Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising series, then detective fiction when I became obsessed with Agatha Christie. I didn’t begin to seriously commit myself to horror until I turned 15 and read Lovecraft and Robert Bloch for the first time.

 

What is it about horror that made you think ‘This is the genre for me’?

When I was a kid, I was absurdly easy to terrify. Edgar Allan Poe’s tales and Roger Corman’s adaptations of them traumatized me for months on end. I read Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black in one night and wasn’t able to sleep, it haunted me so deeply. I was, in other words, ridiculously sensitive to even the slightest stimulant of terror.  Then I found an anthology with one of Robert Bloch’s stories — his blend of humor and horror really appealed to me and made the terror more palatable while not robbing it of its visceral strength. Lovecraft’s writing, both his fiction and his essay on the supernatural, was the final revolution of my metamorphoses. He articulated the genre’s philosophical and spiritual implications, its ability to open the reader up to the perception of eerie, alien phenomena outside the realm of ordinary experience, more clearly and eloquently than any writer since Edmund Burke in his transformative theory of sublime terror. All of a sudden, the genre’s power didn’t seem like something wholly chaotic: or if it was chaotic, there was a spiritual dimension to this terrifying yet somehow pleasurable chaos that I wanted to understand and harness. At the age of 15, I began to write stories that were basically pastiches of Lovecraftian horror and even though they weren’t very good, I think I learned a lot as a writer from these early experiments. After that, I began to mature into my own peculiar brand of horror, though I like to think that I still have a touch of these early influences.

 

Any tips for combating writer’s block? 

As someone who struggles with it quite a lot, especially during the editing stage, I am still working to find the most effective cure-all for this problem myself. However, I’ve found that it’s best to know when to quit the field with a project and try something different. There’s a lot to be said for returning to a frustrating project with fresh eyes rather than try and force it into submission. Another thing that I’ve found helpful is to channel your current obsessions or interests into a project: experiment with trying to write in the voice of a favorite writer, or capturing the atmosphere of a scene in a film that you enjoyed. It’s surprising how returning to early exercises in imitation that young writers engage in quite frequently can still be of invaluable use to maturer writers who have hit a creative roadblock.

 

Any rituals you have before starting a new story?

Besides, of course, making certain that I’m nicely caffeinated, I like to write a short blurb-like paragraph with the basic plot of the story so that I feel like I have something of a guideline. I don’t like to outline too much with short stories because that takes away the spirit of improvisation and can rob the process of its creative energy. Novels are a bit different — it’s good to have at least a skeletal outline of each chapter. Then, for both short stories and novels, I like to think of three or four distinct images or impressions that I want to depict in the story and write these down. I like to think of them as guiding nodes that allow me to remember vividly what kind of atmosphere I’m trying to generate. I have a very cinematic imagination, probably due to watching too many movies, and so usually for me these take the form of brief “scenes” or “stills” from an imagined production of my story. These nodes also allow me to vividly imagine my characters as physical beings inhabiting a particular world.

 

How do you handle character creation?

I find using Dungeons and Dragons character sheets helpful but it’s fun to see the many ways other people go about this.  I too find RPG manuals to be creatively stimulating! I love paging through my Call of Cthulhu guidebook for ideas on monsters and villains in particular. I find that my sources of inspiration tend to be varied: sometimes a particular actor will serve as the physical inspiration for a character’s movements and mannerisms, while a character in a novel will serve as an insight into a character’s psyche. I play “what if” a lot while I watch movies and read books and often I’ll see certain characters in fairly typical situations and wonder what that same type of character would do in a wholly unrelated situation. History, too, provides a wealth of inspiration. The villainous Judge Complin in my serial Gothic novel The Cost of a Rose, for instance, is loosely based on Thomas Burnet, an early 18th-century hanging judge and libertine, infamous for his sardonic and wittily blasphemous sense of humor.

 

Any projects coming up (or currently out) you’d like to share with us?

I’m currently working on editing a final draft of a Gothic horror novel set in 17th century Scotland called The Feast of the Innocents. It involves grisly, ritualistic murders; a sinister, social-climbing chimney-sweeper; and a young hero with a mysterious past, on the run from a bloodthirsty assassin-torturer. I’m also, of course, continuing my serial Gothic thriller The Cost of a Rose on my blog, which features a young servant falsely accused of murder and tormented and pursued by his arch-enemy, the sadistic Judge Complin. It’s all very Sadean — something like the adult, Gothic version of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I am also working on several short stories — one, a reimagining of Jonathan Harker’s encounter with Dracula’s brides and the other a dystopian sci-fi horror tale.

 

How can we support your work?

Visit my blog  and leave a comment if you enjoy what you read — reader encouragement truly means so much. Of course, if you’re an agent or know an agent who would be interested in a 17th century Gothic horror tale with large doses of folk horror, grisly terror, and brooding atmosphere, do let me know!

 

I’ve noticed quite a few Silent Hill nods in your writing; do you have a favourite game in the series?

Well, firstly, thank you for saying so as that’s quite a compliment. I’ve always admired the atmosphere and masterful blend of supernatural and psychological horror in that franchise. If I had to choose a favorite game, well, that’s a bit difficult. I’ve only played through Silent Hill 3 myself, though I’ve watched playthroughs of the other games. I guess that 2 & 3 hold a special place in my heart: I love the Dantean horror of Silent Hill 2 as each character confronts some manifestation of their past guilts and traumas, but I also love the Lovecraftian horror of Silent Hill 3 which has a stronger emphasis on the sinister cult at the heart of the town’s history.

 

What about ‘gothic horror’ drew you in so much? You’re one of my favourite authors currently dealing with truly gothic tales.

Thank you so much! As you probably guessed from my Silent Hill reply, I am very drawn to horror that has a strong emphasis on atmosphere — that is, the texture of a particular setting. I think that the Gothic, with its emphasis on history, landscape, and larger-than-life characters really foregrounds atmosphere and gives it a symbolic and emotional resonance. Castles, for instance, aren’t just dwellings in Gothic novels — they’re symbolic of a dark past, of the character of their past and present owners, and of some sinister and inescapable power. Indeed, everything in the Gothic is alive with some kind of malignant power and meaning and mystery. As a kid, I was always drawn to the paperback Gothic romances that I would find in used bookstores, as well as the Gothic writings of Poe and Hawthorne. As I grew older and read the British Gothic novels of Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin, and Charles Robert Maturin, my love for the genre was confirmed. Moreover, I’ve always been drawn to historical settings, particularly 17th and 18th century Britain, and my love for setting horror tales in the past makes the Gothic a natural habitation for me. There is a stylistic attraction as well: my novel The Cost of a Rose could, of course, be set in modern times with a few tweaks and adjustments, but it would be a bit trickier to have those same grandiose flourishes of language and setting — and I think the Gothic, with its love for exuberance, gives me an opportunity to really play with prose as poetry.

 

Any advice to people just starting out in their writing careers?

Keep trying and don’t be too hard on yourself if there are times in your life when inspiration runs dry. I know that common wisdom often dictates that a writer should write every day, but sometimes due to other responsibilities or the fickleness of the Muse, that’s simply not possible. Just do the best you can and remember that there’s more to writing than getting words down. Reading history and literature, listening to inspirational and evocative music, communing with kindred spirits, is essential as well. No great writer ever writes in a vacuum.

You can find Colin on twitter here