Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “Bloody Hel” Writer / Artist Clayton McCormack

 

The idea of mixing fantasy and history is not new. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics have been doing it for years, as have the Wolfenstein games, and David Mack’s Dark Arts novels did it as well. But unless I’m mistaken, writer and artist Clayton McCormack is the first to send Vikings into the first World War. As for what the Vikings think of this idea, well, for that you’ll just have to read McCormack’s new graphic novel Bloody Hel (hardcover, digital). In the following email interview about it, McCormack discusses what inspired and influenced this horror / fantasy / history mélange.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “Comfort Me With Apples” Author Catherynne M. Valente

 

It sounds like a cookbook. Maybe by some nice who lives in the suburbs of New England. But it’s not. Instead, Catherynne M. Valente’s new novella Comfort Me With Apples (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) is actually a romantic horror story. In the following email interview about it, Valente discusses what inspired and influenced this story…but does so in what she implies is an appropriately cryptic way.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “The Strange Thing We Become” Author Eric LaRocca

 

It’s October, and that means it’s time to read some scary stories (though, really, when is it not?). But while writer Eric LaRocca says the ones in his short story collection The Strange Thing We Become And Other Dark Tales (paperback, Kindle) are “mainly horror stories,” he also says in the following email interview that they’re driven by sorrow and grief.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “Slewfoot” Author & Artist Brom

 

The phrase “witch hunt” is used a lot these days, often by people who don’t understand that it only applies if the people being hunted aren’t actually witches (or, in the case of the current mis-users, actually criminals, bigots, or just generally bad people). But what if the Salem Witch Trials actually did involve real witches? Such is the idea behind Brom’s new illustrated horror-infused fantasy novel Slewfoot (hardcover, Kindle), which he both wrote and drew. In the following email interview, Brom explains what inspired and influenced this story, as well as why it comes fully visualized.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “When The Moon Shines” Author John L. French

 

The term “cryptid” refers to a creature that people believe are real, even though there’s no proof that they do. But while Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster are two of the more famous cryptids, they’re not the only ones. In John L. French’s new novella When The Moon Shines (paperback, Kindle), he tells a horror-flavored crime story that involves the snallygaster, a cryptid from Maryland. In the following email interview, French not only discusses what inspired and influenced this story, but also how the book is the first in a series of cryptid-centric stories called System Paradoxa that will be initially (but not exclusively) be available in The Cryptid Crate, a new monthly subscription box that, on a quarterly basis (January, April, July, October), will feature exclusive items made just for that box.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: Evil In Technicolor Editor Joe M. McDermott

 

Given what’s going on in the world lately, you might think this isn’t a good time for some tales of horror. But the new anthology Evil In Technicolor (paperback, Kindle) isn’t just a collection of; instead, it’s an anthology of novelettes inspired by the iconic (and distinctive) horror films made by Hammer Studios in the 1960s and ’70s. In the following email interview, editor Joe M. McDermott discusses how this collection came together.

Categories
Books

Exclusive Interview: “Yellow Jessamine” Author Caitlin Starling

 

Having already given us a scary sci-fi story in her novel The Luminous Dead, writer Caitlin Starling is going in an absolutely, completely different direction with her scary Gothic tragedy novella Yellow Jessamine (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).

In the following email interview about it, she not only discusses what inspired and influenced this dark tale, but she also discusses her recently released audio-first novella Land Of Milk And Honey, which is part of the Vampire: The Masquerade: Walk Among Us collection, and her upcoming second novel, tentatively titled The Death Of Jane Lawrence.