Home » Posts tagged "Women in Horror Month" (Page 15)

Women in Horror Fiction: Debbie Cowens

 Debbie Cowens is a New Zealand-based writer and teacher. Her short stories can be found in the collection  Mansfield with Monsters with Matt Cowens and Katherine Mansfield (Steam Press  2013) , the novella At the Bay of Cthulu with Matt Cowens and Katherine Mansfield, and the anthologies  Baby Teeth (2013 Paper Road Press), Steam Pressed Shorts with Matt Cowens (2012 Amazon Digital), and Shades of Sentience (2010 lulu.com).

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

I’m a writer of a variety of genres – horror, SF, fantasy and crime. I co-authored the book Mansfield with Monsters, published by Steam Press, which is a collection of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories, adapted to include the monstrous and the macabre. I have also written numerous short stories, including the story “Caterpillars” in the recent horror anthology Baby Teeth. I’m currently working a short novel, Mother of the Baskervilles, a darkly comic mashup of Pride and Prejudice and Sherlock Holmes, which casts the Mrs Bennett-style mother as a ruthless serial killer and Elizabeth as an aspiring detective.

 

2. Why do you write horror? What draws you to the genre?

 

I’ve always been fascinated with the horror genre. One of the first films I remember making a strong impression on me as a child was the Christopher Lee film version of Dracula, which I watched unbeknownst to my parents as a five year old at my uncle’s house. It didn’t scare me as so much as enthrall. I would often sneak up after bedtime to watch the late night horror movies as a kid and most of the books I would choose to read had a horror or mystery element. As soon as I started writing my own stories, they tended to focus on monsters, which unfortunately worried one of my teachers who didn’t think seven year old girls should be writing about blood and guts or scary things. However, what draws to me the genre is as much the human element as the darker content. I’m fascinated by people and what drives them. Placing characters in truly terrifying situations often reveals more about who they really are and what matters to them than their everyday life. Our fears are an important part of human nature and often the monsters themselves reflect a lot about people and society. The scary ‘other’ in horror is often just a twisted and magnified reflection of ourselves.

 

3. Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set for your stories?

 

I’m a bit of a writing chameleon, adapting my style to suit the characters and scenarios I’m writing. In Mansfield with Monsters I faced the challenge of blending my writing with that of one of the pioneers of Modernism. I’d say the linking element in a lot of my fiction is a sense of humour, often dry and somewhat dark, and a compassion for the characters – even when they are being murdered by possessed children, torn apart by zombies or facing their werewolf packmate and husband drifting away despite the thrill of the chase and the promise of blood. While I love stories of horror and harm, I do tend to like a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel – a suggestion that the sun might rise again, that there might be, if not salvation, then at least a reprieve before the next onslaught. Like a weekend, or a holiday break away from the being killed.

 

4. Who are some of your influences? Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?

 

I really enjoyed reading Margaret Mahy as a kid and The Haunting was one of my favourites. As a teenager, I devoured a lot of Stephen King and I’m still a fan of his writing. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was one of the first classic horrors that I read. I loved it; it was moving and compelling, and both beautiful and horrific at the same time. I’m also really fond of the nineteenth century horror classics like Poe and Lovecraft. The Cthulhu mythos sort of redefined my notions of what terrible monsters could be in terms of scale, strangeness and terrifying power. In terms of writing style, I’m more influenced by more modern or at least less florid prose and storytelling.

 

5. What authors do you like to read? Any recommendations?

 

I enjoy reading a wide variety of books – anything from historical mysteries, young adult, fantasy, science fiction and of course horror. I like a lot of writers who blur the boundaries between genre and literary like Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami. I’ve also recently read a lot of translations of traditional Japanese ghost stories, which are fabulous, and the short stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa. I just finished two brilliant novels by fellow New Zealand Writers; The Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley by Danyl McLauchlan and The Wind City by Summer Wigmore. Both weird, surreal and darkly humorous tales with more moral complexity than I had anticipated. Next on my to-read list is Wake, a horror novel by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox.

 

6. Where can readers find your work?

 

Mansfield with Monsters is available from Steam Press or on Amazon. At the Bay of Cthulhu, a Lovecraftian take of a Katherine Mansfield novella is available of Amazon. Baby Teeth, the horror anthology is available from Paper Road Press   and a selection of my stories are included in Steam Pressed Shorts on Amazon, which includes a range of horror, steampunk, SF and fantasy short stories.

Interested in learning more? Check out Debbie Cowens’ Amazon page, and  her blog. For a little more detail on Mansfield with Monsters, take a look at this interview, or this video, which also include her collaborator, Matt Cowens.

Posted on February 27, 2014 by , Reply

Women in Horror Fiction: Karen H. Koehler

Planet of Dinosaurs, The Complete Collection (Includes Planet of Dinosaurs, Sea of Serpents, & Valley of Dragons)Karen H. Koehler is a versatile writer who has written everything from kaiju novels to paranormal-tinged steampunk and noir. She is the author of  the stand alone novels Scarabus (KHP 2002), Raiju: The Kaiju Hunter  (K.H. Koehler Books 2010), Black Jack Derringer: The Complete Collection (K.H. Koehler Books 2011),  and Tales for 3 o”Clock in the Morning (K.H. Koehler Books 2012). She has also written several series, including    The Blackburn and Scarletti Mysteries and  the Slayer trilogy (both from KHP) , the Sasha Strange Chronicles, the Horrorotica Collection, the Nick Englebrecht books, and the Mrs. McGillicuddy Mysteries (all from K.H. Koehler Books), and the Anti-Heroes serial, written with Louise Bohmer (Anti-Heroes Press, 2013) She is the owner of K.H. Koehler Books. Her short work has appeared in the Bram-Stoker winning anthology Demons, edited by John Skipp, among other places.

 

1.) Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

 

I started writing books going all the way back to second grade, when I wrote, drew and stapled together a dinosaur book (rather unexpectedly, I might add) for my grade-school teacher. By the time I reached high school, I was regularly writing creepy little gothic, horror and science fiction stories all over the place. They were garbage, of course, but they lead me to reading Stephan King, Anne Rice, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, and countless other authors in a huge array of genres. Wonderful brain food for a young girl with a slightly spooky, overactive imagination! Now I attempt to emulate those authors with my own unique twist on the genres. It seemed a natural progression.

 

2.) Why do you write horror?  What draws you to the genre?

 

 
I have a lot of anger management issues, admittedly, and, yes, typing up carnal destruction does help feel the mental alligators. But, essentially, I write it because I believe horror is truly the most psychological of all genres. It’s the genre that dives deepest into the human psyche, tearing loose all the most primal concerns of the human race and putting them on morbid display: loneliness, fear, death, change. I guess I enjoy trying to figure out what makes humans tick.
 
3.) Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set  for your stories?

 

I’m a fairly eclectic writer, and I’ve been known to change voice and style frequently, depending on the sub-genre of the project or the particular needs of the story. In fact, some readers have trouble recognizing that I’ve written certain books at all, especially my pulp series like The Scorpion or Nick Englebrecht because those books are written in a decided “male” voice, you might say. But overall, when in “horror mode”–as opposed to, say, “pulp mode,” “steampunk mode”, or “mystery mode”–I usually try to convey feelings of isolation and oppression in my work. I’m interested in the inner workings of the damaged loner, the anti-hero, the freak, the castoff from society, the villain. I have to say I love the jaded, reluctant, sometimes even misanthropic voice of the Byronic Hero.

 
4.) Who are some of your influences?  Are there any women authors who  have particularly inspired you to write?

 

I’ve loved many authors over the years (from afar!). Probably the most influential are Poppy Z. Brite, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, and many of the pulp writers like Walter B. Gibson and Norvell. W. Page. More recently, I’ve come to love the ultra-clean, “power-ballad” styles of authors like Louise Bohmer and Christa Faust. They’re like a modern, more sadistic version, of Ernest Hemingway. I secretly owe them much as they have helped clean up my, at times, purplish–or, at least, mauve–prose.

 

5.) What authors do you like to read?  Any recommendations?

 

See above! You cannot go wrong with any of them.

 

6.) Where can readers find your work?
 
My ebooks are available from all the usual suspects, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Nook and Smashwords. Recently, I started offering them at All Romance/Omnilit as well–a wonderful and often-overlooked resource for selling your work, I find.

 

7.) Is there anything else you’d like to share with librarians or readers?

 

Only that I appreciate all my fans’ support and that their feedback is always vitally important to me. Reviews are always welcomed and I love listening to my readers’ opinions. It helps me shape my future works.

 

Want to learn more? Visit Karen Koehler’s blog— it has links to all of her books at a variety of online bookstores.
Posted on February 26, 2014 by , Reply

Women in Horror Fiction: Sephera Giron

 

 Sèphera Girón is the author of many books, including Borrowed Flesh (2004 Leisure Books), Weird Tales of Terror (2013 CreateSpace), and her latest, Captured Souls (2014 Samhain Publishing).  Her short stories have appeared in such anthologies as Slices of Flesh (2012 Dark Moon Books), The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One (2012 Damnation Books), Campus Chills (2012 Stark Publishing), and Unnatural Tales of the Jackalope (2012 Western Legends Press).

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

I write horror, erotica, non-fiction, and almost everything else. My first love is horror. I’ve had over twenty books published since 2000, and numerous short stories.

My birthplace is New Orleans and I currently live in Toronto. My two boys have grown into amazing adults.

 

2. Why do you write horror?  What draws you to the genre?

As a kid, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of horrific images or situations. My family life was stable, summer vacations spent in Maine at grandma’s house, nothing terribly dramatic. So if I’d see or read something “horror,” it struck a chord. And as we all know, horror can be found in the most benign genres and art.

My reading interests leaned towards dark, weird, unusual, mysteries, and science fiction. I was a voracious reader and read books, comics, newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias.  If there were words on paper, I was reading them.

Stephen King came on the scene when I was a teenager and of course, it was love-at-first sight. There was some point I said to myself after reading one of his books that I wanted to scare people with words like he scared me. By then, horror was a genre so it was easier to find as I grew older.

I loved all the small press, the magazines, even the photocopied ones. I witnessed the dawn of splatterpunk and two rounds of the zombie movement. The genre ever evolves and it’s fun to be part of it.

 

3. Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set for your stories?

I’ve experimented with several tones and styles since I’ve worked in many genres. Likely a recurring element in my fiction is that I’m not afraid to look under the rock.  Other than that, I’m not sure how to describe my stories.

 

4. Who are some of your influences?  Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?

Certainly the themes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein seem to keep appearing in my work. Captured Souls, which came out in February 2014 from Samhain, is about a mad scientist experimenting with love and lust. In July 2014, Flesh Failure will be released from Samhain, and it too explores a Frankenstein-inspired theme, although it takes place in the year of the Ripper.

I often relay Beautiful Joe as one of the first horrific novels I read as a young child. There was an old copy at my grandmother’s house, and one rainy day in Maine, I read it. I cried all the way through. I’ve never revisited it as an adult because I’m certain it won’t hold up even though I have that copy. It was written by Margret Marshall Saunders who was born in Milton, Nova Scotia and died in Toronto. I never realized until today that book was written by a Canadian woman. I had always associated it with Maine though likely an American author.

As many girls of my generation, I was in love with Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson and desired to be a writer too.

Some of my work is written in journal form (such as Captured Souls and Mistress of the Dark) and it is likely an influence of all these works.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle absolutely fascinated me. I invented landmarks around the neighbourhood where I played make-believe from the book in my head when I was young.

 

5. What authors do you like to read?  Any recommendations? 

Up until I had children, I was a voracious reader, and averaged a book every couple of days. These days, I’m often working on several projects, marketing, working at my day job (which is editing other people’s books), and by the end of it all, there’s very rarely time to read for fun. I’m badly behind. However, I will say that having been around so long, I know dozens of authors in the genre, both male and female. Every time I pick up work by a peer, I’m entertained. It’s very rarely I’ll see a clunker. My recommendation is read whatever sounds enticing to you. There are always wonderful new authors to discover, as well as the classics and those of us who have been writing for years. You can’t go wrong if you’re reading. I also would like to add that the face of publishing is rapidly changing, as we all know. These days, an author needs readers to support him or her. If you read a book and like it, and even if you don’t, please take a minute to review it on Amazon, Goodreads, or the author’s publisher’s site. It will help your favourite author to build sales and be able to keep writing more books for you.
6. Where can readers find your work?

The usual suspects:  Samhain Publishing, Necon E-books, and Ravenous Romance, as well as Amazon, Kobo,  and Barnes & Noble.

 

Interested in learning more? Check out Sephera Giron’s Amazon page, and her pages at Samhain Publishing, Necon E-Books, and Ravenous Romance. You can also visit her website, Sephera’s World, or her blogs, Sephera’s World (focused on writing and editing) and TarotPaths (focused on fortunetelling and the paranormal). And here’s a slightly more detailed interview she did last August.

Enjoy!

 

 

Posted on February 25, 2014 by , Reply
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