Halloween Q&A
Welcome to my Halloween-themed Author Q&A. I interviewed myself first. Contact me if you want to be featured this month!
What's the scariest novel or story you've ever read?
It's a toss up between 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. 'Salem's Lot made vampires scary for me again after Twilight almost ruined them, and The Little Stranger kept me up for most of a night. Shirley Jackson's short stories always make my jaw drop, too.
Who is your favorite horror novelist, if you have one?
Stephen King by a mile. I love that he writes both horror and fantasy, and I love his gift for narrative and interesting characters. People joke that all of his protagonists are him, but he has created so many fascinating character studies, even the ones who weren't writers.
Are you a fan of the horror genre (books or film) or does it scare you too much?
I like horror, but it depends on the author and the story if I can stomach it. I love Poe, King, Straub and Neil Gaiman. I always mean to try Anne Rice's novels because I loved Interview With a Vampire. But there are a lot of horror films I haven't seen, like The Exorcist. I was raised very religious/Petntecostal, so growing up I thought all that stuff was demonic! And I have contamination OCD, so virus outbreak horror novels are a NO from me.
Do you plan to visit a Haunted House or Pumpkin Patch this year?
Pumpkin Patch, since I have a three year old. :)
Have you ever seen a ghost or spirit, or lived in a haunted house?
I've never seen anything closely resembling a spirit. As a kid I did see what looked like the soot sprites from Totoro in my grandma's yard a few times. The internet calls them shadow people, but I think they are just your eyes reacting to light and dark. I lived in an old house in my teens and it had an interesting atmosphere, very creaky floors, and a "chatty" attic. My brother and I both heard voices at night sometimes when we slept upstairs.
What's your favorite scary movie? (Fun ones are okay.)
The VVitch for true horror, and Beetlejuice for fun. And on Netflix, Stranger Things all the way.
Do you have your Halloween costume picked out?
I'm going to be a woodland faun.
Have you ever written a story or novel with horror elements or spooky themes? Tell us about it.
My YA Fantasy THE MIST AND THE TERN has some pretty dark themes. It begins with the heroine dreaming of being attacked by crows. There's a dark, looming shadow hinted at in her visions and by her companion, and at one point she goes into a trance and dreams of the Norse underworld. She also encounters a creature from Norwegian mythology called a Nokk, a sharp-toothed water sprite that attempts to lure unsuspecting victims into the water through seduction and song.
I'm also outlining a novel for NaNoWrimo called THE WITCH OF BLOODROOT HOLLOW. It's about a woman who goes missing as a teenager after her lover runs away. A year later, she turns up in a faerie holler with no memory and nothing but a black bottle in her pocket. Ten years later, she's the foremost witch in the valley and the bottle is the source of her power, but things get complicated when her lover turns back up with a malevolent entity trailing him and people in the valley start to go missing.
