Lisa Mannetti’s debut novel, The Gentling Box (2010 Shadowfall Publications), garnered a Bram Stoker Award. She has since been nominated twice for the award in both the short and long fiction categories: (“1925: A Fall River Halloween” and Dissolution). Her story, “Everybody Wins,” was made into a short film by director Paul Leyden starring Malin Ackerman, and was released under the title Bye-Bye Sally. Her work has appeared in Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology (2013 Nightscapes Press) and Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (2012 Smart Rhino Press) Recent short stories include, “Corruption,” in Nightscapes Volume 1 (2013 Nightscapes Press) and “The Hunger Artist” in Zippered Flesh II: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (February 2013,, Smart Rhino Press).
Mannetti has also authored The New Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (new adult and YA editions from Smart Rhino Publications), Deathwatch, which includes two companion novellas in a single volume, (new edition December 2013 Nightscape Press), the macabre gag book 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave your Lover( February 2010, Bad Moon Books), as well as non-fiction books and numerous articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines and anthologies. Forthcoming works include additional short stories and a novella about Houdini, The Box Jumper. She is currently working on a paranormal novel, Spy Glass Hill.
Lisa lives in New York.
As a side note, Lisa’s story about writing her first book, with 64 pages and 64 chapters, at the age of ten, made me smile, as the Monster Kid is currently involved in a writing project that at this time is about 44 pages and stands at about 15,000 words, with about one chapter per page. Thanks for participating, Lisa!
1.) Can you give our readers a brief introduction?
I’m five feet tall, weigh 112 pounds, have brown hair and brown eyes—oh wait. You didn’t mean that sort of introduction, did you? Probably not. <Sigh.> I guess it pays to glance at the rest of the questions before plunging in—but you’re absolutely sure you don’t want to hear about my twin cats? No? <Sigh>.
Okay, I learned to read when I was very young (my older brother taught me), and started writing when I was about eight years old. The first novel I wrote (never finished it, because even at age 10 I knew that no matter how I spiced it up with scenes in exotic tombs and with words like “sarcophagus,” and I did, that it wouldn’t work) was only 64 pages long. It also had 64 chapters. It was about twins—but I already know you’re not interested in my obsession with twins—feline or otherwise. Anyhow, this half-baked novel (and its title blessedly escapes me) was a good lesson about listening to your inner voice and knowing sometimes when you hear the words in your mind, “This is crap,” you’re absolutely right.
I wrote the next book (completed and currently and forever abiding inside a trunk, as they say) when I was 24. After that, I wrote more books (fiction and non-fiction—the latter for filthy lucre) and finally, the third novel I completed clicked, was published (The Gentling Box) and garnered a Bram Stoker Award.
2.) Why do you write horror? What draws you to the genre?
Well, for one thing, no matter how bad a day (or year, for that matter) you’re having, you can spread the misery via the creation of your own nasty little literary world, and as a result, you’ll begin to feel that what you’re personally going through looks like a beach picnic.
Seriously—technically, of course, I do write horror. But I like to think of myself (however accurately or not) as a writer per se, first. Not just because I also write satire and black comedy, but because what always interests me most is the true dark side of life—the inherent drama (and sometimes tragedy) that intersects with and sometimes overwhelms my characters’— and indeed, all— human situations. While fear and terror play a big part when tragedy strikes, they are intellectual and visceral by-products of the catastrophe or heartbreak itself. Some characters will be defiant in the face of calamity; others will struggle but eventually succumb—usually because of some inner weakness. A great example is George Hurstwood in Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (for me, a horrific book, and technically mainstream, not horror) who can’t cope, and declines at the same time that Carrie’s arc is in the ascendant.
I have no qualms about including gore to scare the crap out of my readers, but personally I’m more interested in exploring psychological and emotional fright.
3.) Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set for your stories?
I write literary horror— and words and phrasing are really important to me— but my work is eminently readable. I’m also drawn (mainly) to historic settings— but in a way that makes the period and place come alive for my audience. It’s a bit of a personal quirk— I feel that frequently my imagination expands when I write about other time periods. I do a tremendous amount of research, but it’s really crucial for me to have it evolve naturally and as part of the characters’ points of view and perspectives. There are a lot of tricks an author can employ that make it all seem very immediate and not at all difficult to sink into. One simple way is to pick a topic you’re personally smitten with, and to choose the facts that help the story play out. For the novella about Harry Houdini I’ve just completed, The Box Jumper (39,600 words) I must’ve read 50 books or more, (about Houdini and by Houdini, of course, but also on all kinds of ancillary topics like mentalism, ghosts, demonology, and Spiritualism—to name a few) and I also researched on the fly right through to the very last sentence because I needed to check which anti-psychotic drugs would have been administered in 1956 in asylums.
In several files, which I kept separate from the manuscript, I had something like 30,000 words in notes I gathered from all the books and articles I read; I kept boiling then down as I wrote until, at the end, I had less than 1200 words in the notes with facts or concepts I actually needed to use. By then of course, I was totally immersed in the two periods the novella is set in: the 1920s and the 1950s—i.e. thirty years after Houdini died.
But to me, immersion doesn’t mean being slavish to the literary style of the time period. I think it means using just enough detail to create verisimilitude, just like when you write any other fiction, to pull the audience into the world you’re constructing.
Last, but not least, it’s also really important to me that my work resonates on many levels—that readers know going in they’re not about to get sucked into the literary equivalent of a B movie, but they’re also in for one hell of a thrill ride.
4.) Who are some of your influences? Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?
Peter Straub has influenced me the most. Other literary horror writers that captivate me include Robert Dunbar, Tom Piccirilli, Gary Braunbeck, Shirley Jackson, Joe Hill, Elizabeth Massie and Mary Shelley. I’ve also been drawn to the works of Stephen King and reread my favorites often.
Of the writers (not considered part of the horror genre) who inspire me delve into the human dilemma, two stand out: Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. I’m also indebted to William Styron, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (a book that terrifies me right along with Dreiser’s Sister Carrie), the Bronte sisters, Lillian Hellman, and John Irving. Humorists like Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, Lilian Hellman, J.P. Donleavy, Jean Kerr and Kingsley Amis have been lifelong favorites.
Nabokov’s Lolita gave me the “permission” to set aside anxiety over salability and questionable subject matter, and go ahead and write my novella, Dissolution, which eventually received a Bram Stoker nomination.
Poets who haunt me include Coleridge, T.S. Eliot, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath.
And I know I’ve left out at least fifty authors I venerate and should be including (and this is no excuse, but I’m getting hungry and have to go fix chicken Genovese for dinner pretty damn soon).
5.) What authors do you like to read? Any recommendations?
I read different types of books depending on what I’m in the mood for—and my interests span the gamut from non-fiction to all types of literature. I think it’s crucial to read in and out of the genre you write in. If I want to read something I’ve loved since childhood, I’ll pull out the Oz books, The Wind in the Willows, Jane Eyre (yes, it’s true, I first read it was when I was about 8 or 9), George MacDonald (especially The Princess and the Goblin) or, say, Grimm’s Fairy Tales. If I feel like having a good laugh: Jean Kerr, Phillip Roth, Heller’s Catch-22; almost anything by Donleavy, Amis, Twain, or Waugh. (Not that they aren’t deadly serious, too). When I crave dark work I read/reread anything by Straub or King—along with whatever new pieces they write.
I almost always have three to five books going at the same time. (Currently reading American Exorcism, by Michael Cuneo; Le Fanu’s Carmilla; Trying to Save Piggy Snead by John Irving, Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine; and an old fave, My Antonia.
Contemporary writers I’ve read and enjoyed recently include: Elizabeth Massie, Charles Colyott, Michael Hughes, Corrine De Winter and Sephera Giron in the genre (and again, I know I’m forgetting to mention a ton of people).
6. Where can readers find your work?
On their very own bookshelves and in their e-readers, I hope. No seriously, Nightscape Press has just come out with new digital editions of The Gentling Box and Deathwatch—with print versions due to be released in the next month or so, and available on Amazon, etc. Nightscapes Vol 1 contains a short story, “Corruption,”) I recently wrote. Weldon Burge of Smart Rhino Publications is re-issuing new digital and print versions of The New Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (both YA and Adult) in a few weeks, and has also published several of my short stories (also available on Amazon, etc.) in Uncommon Assassin, Zippered Flesh and most recently, “The Hunger Artist,” in Zippered Flesh 2.
Before I sign off, here’s a quick thanks to Colleen Wanglund for inviting me to be a part of the Women in Horror Month celebration over at Monster Librarian!
And now, I really have got to get that chicken Genovese started—or I’ll end up having to cook it tomorrow; and since I’m famished, I’ll be stuck tonight meanwhile with a goddamn tuna fish sandwich….
____________
Interested in Lisa Mannetti? Check out Lisa Mannetti’s Amazon page
Follow Us!