Home » Posts tagged "Women in Horror Month" (Page 20)

Women in Horror Fiction: Mary SanGiovanni

Image of Mary SanGiovanni

Mary SanGiovanni is the author of a number of novels, including The Hollower TrilogyThe Hollower (2007 Leisure Books), Found You (2008 Leisure Books) and The Triumvirate (2012 Thunderstorm Books); Thrall (2011 Thunderstorm Books), and Chaos (2013 Thunderstorm Books), a few novellas, including For Emmy (Thunderstorm Books), and her short work has appeared in a number of collections, including her own Under Cover of Night (2002 Flesh & Blood Press) and Is There A Demon in You? (Camelot Books).

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

My name is Mary SanGiovanni, and I have written five supernatural horror novels, three novellas, and numerous short stories over the last 15 years or so.  I have a Masters degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, and am a member of The Authors Guild. I’ve been published by both NY publishing houses and small presses, and have been both traditionally and non-traditionally published.  I am currently working on a new novel, a number of short stories, and a new novella, to all hopefully be completed and published this year.

 

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

I’ve come to the conclusion over time that I write horror for a number of reasons.  For one, there’s a thrill in writing a fun, scary story. But it’s more than that.  With all the injustice in the world, all the unexplained violence, all the senseless brutality that we have little or no control over, preventing, or fixing, fiction gives me an outlet to vicariously re-establish justice in the world, to oversee or control the universe.  Also, I believe essentially in the innate goodness of human beings.  Horror to me is a genre of hope, of survival – in this genre, we can safely explore and learn to cope with a wide range of fears and insecurities.  Often, horror re-establishes perspective on one’s own life, and offers a glimpse into not just the lowest and vilest that humanity has to offer, but also the most heroic, clever, and triumphant.

 

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

I guess I think of myself as writing supernatural/psychological horror, more quiet than splattery, often with monsters.  I strive to get my work to tap into true fear, whether it’s falling on the disquiet/disturbing side of the spectrum or the flat-out terror end.  To me, graphic depictions of violence or viscera are necessary only so much as a true understanding of the threat – the monster, the killer, what have you – is established.

 

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

I think our particular genre is rich with literary greats.  A few whose work has influenced me noticeably and greatly are Stephen King, Peter Straub, Gary Braunbeck, Ramsey Campbell, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, Dennis Lehane, Ian McEwan, along with great female writers Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Sarah Langan, Beth Massie, and Yvonne Navarro.  Honestly, I think writers can’t help but be influenced by so many sources – not just good books but good movies, video games, art, non-fiction, and music, both inside and outside of the horror genre.  I think just life experience – news, current events, social trends, those special personal moments, those terrible moments, dreams, nightmares, human interaction – it’s all an influence on fiction.

 

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

I’d say work from any of the above-mentioned authors are all valuable reads: King’s IT, The Shining, or Skeleton Crew, Straub’s Ghost Story or Houses Without Doors, Campbell’s Alone With The Horrors, Lehane’s Shutter Island, Lovecraft’s or Poe’s collected works, Langan’s Audrey’s Door, Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, etc.

6. Where can readers find your work? 

Most of my work is currently available in paperback and e-book on Amazon.  A handy guide to what’s available and where can be found at: http://marysangi.wordpress.com/bookstore-2/.

 

Interested in learning more? Visit Mary SanGiovanni’s Amazon page or her blog.

Come back soon and see who we talk to next!

Women in Horror Fiction: J. Lincoln Fenn

Image of J. Lincoln Fenn    

 

If you haven’t discovered J.Lincoln Fenn yet, you should check out her debut novel, Poe (2013, 47North). It’s got lots of dark humor, a great, quirky narrator, and while the story is firmly grounded in the present, it’s also a fantastical tale of insanity with a chilling, gothic feel. Poe also made the preliminary ballot for this year’s Stoker Awards. If any of that intrigues you, today Poe is available as a Kindle Daily Deal, so it’s a great time to check it out.

 

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

I’m just a white girl from Massachusetts who lives in Hawaii and writes dark things. My debut novel Poe won the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror, which led to its publication by 47North. A complete and utter surprise since about 10,000 people enter that contest each year.

Poe is a genre blend of horror/urban fantasy/dark humor, more along the lines of John Dies in the End than your standard horror novel. It centers on Dimitri Petrov, a 23-yr. old, snarky obituary writer who wakes up on a slab in the morgue after a Halloween séance gone bad. Things go downhill from there.

 

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

Probably my Roman-Catholic roots and New England upbringing draws me to horror. Christianity is a religion based on one of the goriest books ever written, with a Sunday ritual involving the transfiguration of a wafer and wine into flesh and blood, which everyone consumes. And New England is just inherently spooky. Those long, dark winters with the wind howling around the eaves explain a lot about Hawthorne, Poe, and Lovecraft.

I write horror because I think it’s where we get to explore our darkest fears. Stephen King said, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” The truth inside horror is our fear of death. Some cultures take this on more directly. In Tibet, they practiced ‘sky burial’ where a corpse was dismembered as an offering to the vultures, a more literal form of transfiguration except the deity is impermanence.

 

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

I want to wake people up when I write. I want to them to read something and go, no, she didn’t just say that, did she? I want my words to do something. When I was writing Poe I was reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Great Expectations. Tonally there’s something gonzo-style about Dimitri’s voice, and the only better snark than Charles Dickens is George Eliot.

I also like playing disparate notes at the same time. The Prologue (to Poe) is horrific, with gory descriptions of the morgue, but the dialogue is funny, and there’s danger and threat too. Wakey wakey.

 

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

Even though Poe has almost nothing to do with E. A. Poe, he is a big influence. My grandfather, who worked in a factory, was somehow talked into buying Poe’s complete works. A wonderful discovery one long, dull summer.

I have an altar to Margaret Atwood. She sets an impossible standard, but I forgive her for that. Other women writers I find inspiring are Gillian Flynn, Ann Patchett, Isabel Allende, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, and Carolyn See. I had the good fortune to meet and take a course with See, who gave great advice on writing and the writing life.

 

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

I started reading Neil Gaiman after my PW weekly review said his fans would like Poe, and I thought oh yes, here’s a kindred spirit. The Ocean at the End of the Lane and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas were two of my favorite reads in 2013.

If it’s been a while since you read Frankenstein (probably high school), pick it up again. It holds up, and in these days of glow-in-the-dark bunnies and genetically engineered tomatoes, scarily prescient. Then read Oryx and Crake. And be afraid.
6.) Where can readers find your work?

For less than the cost of a latte and scone, anyone can pick up a Kindle version of Poe on Amazon. There’s also a paperback, which has a nice, waxy cover, and an audiobook. Readers can also find my most current musings on my blog at www.jlincolnfenn.com. Also I follow back.

 

Interested in learning more? Here’s a link to J. Lincoln Fenn’s Amazon page. You can access her most recent tweets and blog posts– they appear in the column to the right of the main page.

Have a great day, and check back soon to see another profile!

 

 

 

Women in Horror Fiction: Angeline Hawkes

Image of Angeline Hawkes

This month we asked a number of women horror writers to answer some questions for us about who they are, what they write, what it’s like to be a woman writer in the horror genre, and what they read and recommend for horror readers. The first person to respond to our questions was Angeline Hawkes, a writer of historical horror published primarily by small presses and independent publishers.

Angeline Hawkes is the author of Blood Alone (2013 ND3 Press), The Commandments (2012 ND3 Press), Shades of Blood and Shadow (2009 Dark Regions Press) and Symphony for the Forgotten (2008 Daverana Enterprises). She has collaborated with her husband Christopher Fulbright on such books as Sorrow Creek (2012 Delirium Books), Black Mercy Falls (2011 Delirium Books), and Scavengers (2011 Elder Signs Press). Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World (2007 Chaosium), Beneath the Surface: 13+ Shocking Tales of Terror (2008 Shroud Publishing), and Dark Light (2012 MARLvision Publishing).

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

I have been writing horror and (mostly) dark fantasy professionally since 2000. Before that my earliest publication credit was in 1981 – that makes me sound ancient, but in reality, I was only 11 at the time.  My earliest publications from age 11-19 were poetry and various non-fiction/journalism related work. I went through college on scholarship (East Texas State University which is now Texas A&M University-Commerce) and many of those scholarships were based on my writing and publications. In fact, for most of them my publications were the real selling point that persuaded scholarship committees in my favor.  I taught high school and middle school, then retired to write full-time. Since 2000, I have churned out quite a few short stories, but from 2006 to the present, I have been concentrating on longer works – collections, novellas, novels. I write independently and collaboratively with my husband, Christopher Fulbright. My collection, The Commandments, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist, and I have some short stories in a couple of anthologies that were finalists for various awards.  In my personal life, I’m a mom to four skin babies and 1 fur baby. I don’t do anything “just a little”.  Kids, writing – I’m a hard worker and don’t have an off switch.

 

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

I have always been drawn to the supernatural. I wrote ghost and monster stories as a young child. I think my earliest horror story was probably written around age eight. I was raised in a very religious environment where there was a heavy influence on sin, Hell, and the general end of the world apocalyptic type of lifestyle. I always say that the Bible is the ultimate horror book. Contained between those pages is just about every horror you can cook up. So, religion would definitely have a huge influence on my draw to the horror genre. The cycle of sin and redemption, good and evil – it all translates well into horror. I didn’t start out to be a horror writer, professionally. I thought I was writing historical fiction. I finally had an editor reply that although he loved everything I had submitted and previously submitted, I just WAS NOT writing historical fiction – I was writing HORROR. Imagine my surprise. I started re-reading everything I had written and came to the same conclusion. I just didn’t see it before it was pointed out.

 

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

I write primarily historical horror and loosely earth-based heroic fantasy. Both of those require an immersion into the era I’m writing about at the time. So, I tend to find my influences in ages past, more than with modern writers. My writing style has been described by many people as “British” in tone and style. I see that a little. Probably because my biggest literary influences were British writers: Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, etc. I was an English teacher with a specialty on British Literature. Makes sense. Also, if you take into consideration my early influences of the King James Bible, that style of writing comes naturally. I think my writing is one of “building”. I like to set a firm foundation full of atmosphere. I want the reader to feel, see, hear, smell – to BE in the story. Then the story climbs to a – sometimes – sudden climax and BAM! – the conclusion is upon you. When I read reviews that mention anything the reviewer “didn’t like”, the comments are always that the story was too short or that the conclusion was too sudden or that they wanted more. I don’t necessarily see these as “bad” reviews. Life isn’t a neat and tidy thing, is it? When the story is done, it’s done. Sometimes the conclusion isn’t all wrapped up with a shiny bow – because in real life, stories aren’t always wrapped up in shiny bows. The reader gets to know what the character(s) gets to know…and sometimes the character never knows. My work has been compared to Lovecraft, Moore and Blackwood. I’m flattered, but I can only hope to stand in the shadow of such masters.

 

 4. Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, was a big influence in my adolescence. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, was terrifying to me, I think because there were so many elements that I could relate to in my restrictive upbringing. I knew people like the people in her novel. It was scary. Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, George Eliot, Margaret Mitchell, Madeleine L’Engle, C.L. Moore– some of these are typical answers. I’ve never been a reader who selected my material based on the gender of the writer, but on the content of the story. Many of my female writer influences are not horror writers either, so not sure about the psychology behind the meaning of that.

 

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

I read a lot of nonfiction because I’m constantly researching for whatever I’m writing at the time. Some of my favorite fiction writers are Dickens, Tolkien, Moore, Howard, Shakespeare, Stoker, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Burroughs– all dead. Some of my favorite writers still kicking, that I find really fun to read, are Robert Weinberg, C. Dean Andersson, Steven Wedel, Steven Shrewsbury, Jeff Marriott, and of course, Christopher Fulbright.
6. Where can readers find your work?

My websites do not list everything. I try to keep the sites current, with not too many out of print works. A google search will bring up older works. Of course, Amazon has just about anything that is currently for sale – as does Barnes & Noble. As a short story writer, I’ve been fairly prolific in both horror and dark fantasy. I believe most of my longer works and collections are listed, with purchasing links, on my website: http://angelinehawkes.com/ and on Christopher Fulbright’s and my collaborative website: http://www.fulbrightandhawkes.com. I am currently writing for or have written for: Chaosium, DarkFuse, Dark Regions Press, Delirium Books, Elder Signs Press, and many others.

 

Interested in learning more about her, or checking out her work? Here’s a link to Angeline Hawkes’ Amazon page.