They say you should write what you know. But I wonder if the person who came up with that phrase would think about someone writing what they know when also writing about a viral apocalypse.
Well, now they, and you, can find out, courtesy of author C.J. Leede and her new apocalyptic horror novel, American Rapture (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), in which things, and she, get very personal.
To learn how, and why, and other things, check out this email interview.
Genre can be a tricky thing, and never let it be said I don’t listen to an author when they tell me a book is one genre or another. Or a couple genres at the same time.
Which brings me to author Caitlin Starling, who, in the following email interview about her horror novel Last To Leave The Room — which is now available in paperback a year after originally being released in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook — explains that while it has a scientist who may be sinking a city, and there’s an “impossible locked door,” and has some sci-fi flavor, Starling says, “it’s straight up horror to me.”
As she says in the following email interview, Ellen Datlow has edited the annual anthology series The Best Horror Of The Year, “…(in one form or another) for 37 years.”
But in that same time, she’s also assembled collections of horror short stories around a theme or type of scare, including Body Shocks: Extreme Tales Of Body Horror, Screams From The Dark: 29 Tales Of Monsters And The Monstrous, and When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired By Shirley Jackson.
Which brings me to her latest thematic anthology, Fears: Tales Of Psychological Horror (paperback, Kindle), which has stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Margo Lanagan, and others.
In the following email interview, Datlow talks about how she defined the term “psychological horror” for this anthology, as well as how she chose the stories to include in it.
There’s no end to the variety when it comes to vampires. Some are horrific, some are comedic; some are sexy and some are sparkly; still others are suave while others are feral.
But they usually share one common trait: an aversion to the sun.
Usually.
In Lindz McLeod’s new erotic horror novella Sunbathers (paperback, Kindle), she gives us vampires who thrive in the sun, while humans are forced to live underground, away from the light.
In the following email interview, McLeod discusses what inspired and influenced this story, how sexy and scary it gets, and how it connects to her short story of the same name.
While writer John Ringo may have started the Black Tide Rising series of zombie novels and stories, he’s often handed over the reins to other writers.
In the following email interview, author Jason Cordova talks about how he came to write the new Black Tide Rising novel Mountain Of Fire (hardcover, Kindle), as well as what inspired and influenced this horror story.
As someone who was a little kid in the ’70s, and not the ’00s or the ’20s, some of my fondest Halloween memories are going out for hours, and unsupervised.
That is, until I saw the movie Halloween; since then, my fondest Halloween memories are me hiding under my bed.
I suspect the same may have also happened if I had read Christopher Golden’s horror / suburban drama novel All Hallows…which would’ve been a neat trick given how it originally came out in 2023.
With All Hallows newly available in paperback (and still available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook), I crawled out from under my bed long enough to send Mr. Golden some questions about what inspired and influenced this scary story.
We all love dogs, and we all love watching videos of otters.
But a seven foot tall otter dog with a taste for human flesh…not something I’d want to see on TikTok. Or in my backyard.
In my new interview with author Sherri Cook Woosley about her urban fantasy / horror novella Mother’s Instinct (paperback, Kindle) — the latest installment of eSpec Book’s Systema Paradoxa series — she discusses why she decided to get up close and personal with the Dobhar-chu, the 7-foot-long, human eating, dog / otter hybrid from Irish folklore.
Rob Renzetti has made many kids laugh through his work on such cartoons as Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends, My Life As A Teenage Robot, and Dexter’s Laboratory.
But lately he’s been trying to scare the crap out of them with the middle-grade horror novels in his Horrible Bag trilogy.
In the following email interview, Renzetti talks about the second installment in this series, The Twisted Tower Of Endless Torment (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), which is the sequel to last year’s The Horrible Bag Of Terrible Things.
In most trilogies, the Big Bad is usually defeated in the third and final installment, while its impact is often left as an afterthought.
But in Megan E. O’Keefe’s The Devoured Worlds series, the central antagonist was [SPOILER ALERT] beaten in the second book, The Fractured Dark, which meant she could really delve into what happened next in the last book, The Bound Worlds (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).
In the following email interview, O’Keefe explains why she altered the trilogy formula, as well as what else inspired and influenced this horror- and dystopian-infused sci-fi space opera story.