Welcome back for this week’s author interview! Today, I’m thrilled to spotlight Donna J.W. Munro! Donna is the author of numerous short stories, poetry, as well as her debut novel, Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book One.

Recently, Donna and I discussed her new novel as well as her inspiration as an author!

A couple icebreakers to start: when did you decide to become a writer, and who are some of your favorite authors?

I’ve always been a writer, but I think it really clicked for me when I took my first college level writing class. I did it with my husband and my awesome father in law. We encouraged each other and in that class, my icky stories got visceral reactions from the critiquers.  There’s magic in moving people to anger or excitement or fear with the words you’ve crafted. It felt witchy to me, so of course I wanted more. I think that’s when I first started to submit my writing with an inkling that I could become an author.

Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, the dark fantasy/cozy horror masters are at the top of my list of favorites, but Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon probably shaped my storytelling more than anything. I love making the monster an object of love, not pity. Turning the tables in a story and subverting horror into a romance between the subject and the reader fascinates me. Current authors I read with this sort of “turn the trope inside out” mastery include Nalo Hopkinson, Lucy Snyder, and (ahem) Gwen Kiste.

Congratulations on your new novel, Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book One! What can you share about your process for writing this particular book?

This is my first published novel, though I’ve written others. My process is pretty straight forward. I start with an idea. What if the dead could be revived as servants to do the jobs we hate? Then I start to think about who should tell the story. In this first book, my protagonist is a 16 year-old rich girl benefiting from the production of the dead. I had this image of a girl loving this dead thing that followed her and did things for her. I’m a history teacher, so my long fascination with the  screwed up zeitgeist of the Antebellum south informed the society of my book. Kids in the old south loved their enslaved caregivers like mothers and played with enslaved children like they were brothers. But at some point that love had to be crushed out of them so that they could become slave owners.

That process horrifies me. Brainwashed people growing up with this scar on their souls. And how terrible for the enslaved people to have to love these people who’d eventually turn on them.

This story isn’t about southern US slavery, but that zeitgeist shaped the conflict my protagonist is feeling. She’s on the cusp of adulthood and facing that change.

That conflict births all the others in the book.

I like to start my plotting with “One Page Novel.” It’s a brilliant method I learned in a class you can access at The Lady Writers League. There’s even a template for scrivener based on the program that I use to keep track of things.

Other than that, it’s butt in chair, fingers on keys, and suffering right along with my characters.

Your poem, “Call the CCC, Your Psychic Repair Team,” was recently published in the HWA Poetry Showcase, Volume VII anthology. What can you tell us about the inspiration for this particular poem?

That’s a fun story. I love writing short stories, especially flash fiction. Poems are a  mystery to me. I’m stunned by the work Stephanie Wytovich, Sara Tantlinger, Anton Cancre, Marge Simon, and Linda Addison are doing. Horror and beauty and words that weave a dream. I’m stunned by them all the time. That said, I do a weekly flash fiction contest at Obsidian Flash where we post prompts and I usually do story after story. One week it was a circle of robed acolytes with their arms raised around a busted up car. The poem flowed out and I giggled the entire time I wrote it.

You’ve written a wide variety of work, from poetry to short fiction to novels. Do you have a favorite form as a writer? How does your approach differ (or stay the same) depending on the length of the work?

I love writing a good short story. There’s nothing like achieving a beginning, middle, and end along with character growth and conflict in 1000 words or less. About three years ago, when I emerged from a serious low point that lasted years, I started the Ray Bradbury approach to short fiction. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” That changed my life! Since then, short stories have written me through bad times and depression and isolation. My best medicine is completing a story every weekend, no matter what ails me.

I’m a total pantser for a short story. I look at a prompt and start writing. Usually, something very close to the end product tumbles out of me.

For novels, I’m a plotter at first and a pantser inside of the scenes. Still, I’m much more deliberate in the long works because I don’t have a mind for detail.

Do you have any particular writing rituals, such as writing with music or writing at a certain time of day?

I like loud, old music, anything 60s-90’s I don’t have a ritual because I’m a teacher. I have to write when I don’t have other things going on, sometimes in the morning. Sometimes in classes when the kids don’t need me, I get 500 words in. Mostly I force myself to write between 5 and 7pm because that’s manageable with the rest of my life.

Also I’m lazy so I need the block of time I set out to be like my “job.” Thank goodness for my supportive hubby. I disappear every day and when I come back he tells me how proud he is.

If forced to choose, which is your favorite part of the writing process: brainstorming new ideas, working on a first draft, or editing your work?

The longer I’m at this, the more I like the polish. My first draft is usually really complete, but it’s that last 10% that makes the work shine. I have an incredible developmental editor, Anna LaVoie at Literally Yours Editing, who helps me tease out real character depth. I love getting the edits from her… little fixes make all the difference.

Grammar editing? That sucks.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m writing a story a week and sending them out to find homes all the time. Anyone interested in my short stories can check my website for updates on what’s being published where. Aside from that, Runaway: Poppet Cycle 2 is in polish edits and Revolution: Poppet Cycle 3 is about halfway written.

Huge thanks to Donna Munro! Find her online at her author website as well as Facebook and Twitter!

Happy reading!

Welcome back for this week’s author interview! Today I’m thrilled to feature author Rick Claypool. Rick is the author of The Mold Farmer and Leech Girl Lives.

Recently, Rick and I discussed his inspiration as an author as well as his favorite parts of the writing process.

A couple icebreakers to start: when did you decide to become a writer, and who are some of your favorite authors?

I was always making up weird creatures and stories when I was a kid. There was one point when I decided I was going to write a book of short stories based on Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. I was like 10 and I don’t think I got much further than designing a cover with drippy skulls and things. I started taking writing seriously in college, when my professors turned me on to boundary-pushing writers like Samuel Beckett and Kathy Acker. I wanted to write bleak, hilarious books. Bleak, hilarious, and minimalist. I always sort of have one foot in the like, weird speculative fiction camp and one foot in the offbeat literary camp. There are so many authors I’m excited about right now. Brian Evenson, Aliya Whiteley, Oliver Zarandi, Lincoln Michel. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on by Joy Williams and Sam Pink. I could go on and on.

Congratulations on the recent release of your novella, The Mold Farmer! How did this particular story develop?

Thank you! The initial idea for The Mold Farmer was to tell the story of a character caught up in and utterly exploited and pretty much destroyed by a system that doesn’t care at all about humanity. So, capitalism. But capitalism taken even further than its current extremes, because in the post-apocalyptic world of The Mold Farmer, it is these non-human beings who are in charge. They have no qualms about just completely using people up and throwing them away when they’re finished with them. So, more like Lovecraftian horror capitalism. I mean, there have been political cartoons since the Gilded Age depicting capitalists and corporations as monstrous tentacled things, squids and such. Also, there are parts where the main character really really really has to pee, and these were inspired by a time when I really really really had to pee.

Your debut novel, Leech Girl Lives, was released in 2017. What was the inspiration for it?

Capitalism again! Haha. Ok to be more specific, supply chains. Sorry if this sounds super dull. So many products come from raw materials that are extracted from the earth under incredibly dangerous, exploitative conditions and then assembled under incredibly dangerous, exploitative conditions and then sold to us in a way that completely erases this production process, as if rather than some other country with underpaid workers and lax labor laws, they’ve been handed down from some sort of near-future technological utopia. And I wanted to explore all of this through a weird as hell, pulpy sci-fi page turner. So (spoiler alert!) what Leech Girl Lives does is ask, what if instead of people on one continent enjoying the spoils of people being exploited on another continent, it was people from the future enjoying the spoils of people being exploited in the past?

How has 2020 affected your writing, either in the themes you’re writing about or your productivity overall?

Since March, I haven’t been able to write anything besides the reports I write for my day job. (I’m a research director for Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting corporate power.) Because for the most part when I’m not working, I’m parenting. Or panicking. That’s a little bit of an exaggeration. This year has been just so exhausting. I started playing video games again for the first time since I was in my teens. Hollow Knight has been terrible for my productivity. But good for my mental health, I think.

Your work often delves into speculative territory, in particular science fiction with a focus on environmental themes. What draws you to this area of literature?

I like to play around with big ideas. Big ideas and big emotions. And I like making up weird creatures and horrible situations. And the weirder the creatures and the more horrible the situations, the more interesting the story is to me. So I guess science fiction is the category that most lets me get away with doing the stuff I want to do. I get excited every time I find an excuse to add another monster to the story I’m working on. And if I’m interested and having fun writing the story, I think that comes through for readers.

If forced to choose, which is your favorite part of the writing process: developing new ideas, working on a first draft, or polishing up an almost finished project?

Developing new ideas. It’s where the surprises live, and it happens at every stage of the writing process. Specifically my favorite part is working through narrative problems, like when I need to figure out a way to get the characters to do something in a way that’s plausible in the context of the story and honest for the characters and also unexpected. I want my readers to think that anything could happen. So when I have an idea that surprises me in a way that makes me laugh out loud and scribble it down and wonder how the hell I’ll ever pull it off, that’s the best.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m about 100 pages into this insane novel about these creatures that have been poisoned by magic pollution. They all live in this shitty town on the moon. Three creatures in particular go on a quest in response to a mysterious message from Earth, a cry for help. All my stuff is kind of weird but when it’s finished I think it’ll be the first of my books you could properly categorize as bizarro. What I’m going for is something like Aqua Teen Hunger Force meets Russell Edson. The working title is Super Worm Moon. I’ve hardly been able to work on it at all over the past year, but I think I just came up with the ending like last week.

Where can we find you online?

Oh crap I need to update my website. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, @weirdstrug. I post too much. A lot of it is just mushroom photos. Really cool mushroom photos though! The website is rickclaypool.org.

Big thanks to Rick Claypool for being part of this week’s author interview series!

Happy reading!

Welcome back for the last author interview of 2020! Today, I’m thrilled to spotlight Curtis M. Lawson. Curtis is the author of the novel, Black Heart Boys’ Choir, and his new collection, Devil’s Night, among other works.

Recently, he and I discussed his inspiration as a writer, his podcast, Wyrd Transmissions, as well as what he’s got planned next!

A couple icebreakers to start: when did you decide to become a writer, and who are some of your favorite authors?

I spent most of my teen years and early twenties playing in metal bands, where I wrote almost all of the lyrics. When I was 25 my last band broke up I decided that I wanted to explore a more solitary form of self-expression. I was passionate about all kinds of genre fiction and people had always told me I had a way with words, so I decided to give writing a shot. I toyed around with short stories, but mostly I wrote comic scripts at first. I spent about 10 years writing comics without much success.

Eventually I ran out of money to pay artists and wrote a novel called The Devoured, more as a pragmatic choice than an artistic one. I fell into a publishing deal for that first book and it was more successful than any of my comics had been, so I decided to turn my focus to prose. Five years later and I have four novels, two short story collections, and a novella under my belt. I’ve been very fortunate, and it seems like I made the right choice in jumping mediums. I have to credit those years making comics for teaching me how to tell a story though, and for bringing a cinematic element to my work.

As for my favorite authors, there are some of the bigger names you might expect like H. P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Kurt Vonnegut, and Neil Gaiman. John Langan, Jeffrey Thomas, and Caitlin Kiernan all immediately come to mind as well.  I also draw inspiration from visual storytellers like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Frank Miller, and Sam Keith.

Congratulations on the release of Devil’s Night! What can you share about your latest book?

Devil’s Night is a collection of short stories that all take place over the course of Devil’s Night in 1987 in Detroit. Each story is a standalone piece, but there are threads that connect them here and there, and they all come together to tell the bigger story of the city itself.

There are several recurring themes, symbols, and a sort of shared mythology between the tales, but each has a unique feel. Because of the structure of the book I was able to explore several different kinds of stories in the collection while keeping the theme consistent. There are some weird fiction stories, a bit of dark fantasy, and a few pieces of visceral horror without any sort of supernatural element. Despite their differences, each serves to more richly paint the picture of the night as a whole and look at recurring themes through different points of view.

Weird House Press has released the book as a signed and numbered limited edition hardcover. It’s a gorgeous book and features 9 full-color interior illustrations by Luke Spooner of Carrion House. It’s the kind of volume I always fantasized about for my work and I’m incredibly thankful to Weird House for investing their time and money to create such a beautiful edition.

Last year saw the release of your novel, Black Heart Boys’ Choir, which garnered a lot of praise and made the Bram Stoker Awards Long List. What was the inspiration for that book?

Black Heart Boys’ Choir is a story of music, madness, and obsession. At its most basic, it’s about the psychology behind mass shootings. That was the impetus for the project. There are plenty of people who are vastly more qualified to talk about gun control and mental health, but I don’t see many folks discussing the deeper roots of the problem. I wanted to explore the inner and outer pressures that push troubled young men to commit these terrible acts of murder and suicide. I wanted to explore the sense of anomie in our society and how generations of adults have failed so many of our children on very basic levels. The book isn’t meant to romanticize these tragedies, nor is it intended to serve as an apologist manifesto for the killers, but I hope that it might get people asking some of the right questions.

Black Heart Boys’ Choir was largely inspired by experiences and feelings from my youth. I like to call it emotionally autobiographical. I drew a lot from the resentments I felt when I was younger and from traumatic experiences I experienced as a kid. The criminal activity in the Scandanavian and German black metal scenes were also a major influence on the narrative and the characters.

You’re also a podcaster with your awesome show, Wyrd Transmissions. What inspired you to create your own show, and what has been the best part of it so far?

Honestly, the show is just an excuse for me to talk with awesome people. I realized a while back that one of my favorite things to do is have interesting, meaningful conversations. I like to talk about art, books, music, and philosophy. Wyrd Transmissions gives me the opportunity to do that, and with a wide array of people with unique, interesting perspectives.

I’ve had so many incredible guests, but the high points might have been my discussions with S. T. Joshi and Ramsey Campbell. Ramsey is a living legend and one of the nicest, classiest people in the business. It was insane to get to chat with him and absorb some of his wisdom and experience. Joshi also has a lot of incredible insight and has served in so many roles in this business, so we were able to hit on a ton of topics. Joshi has been one of my biggest supporters. He’s been incredibly kind and generous to me, so it was nice to have a real conversation with him, rather than an email exchange.

You’ve written a wide variety of work. Do you find that you prefer short fiction or longer fiction? Do you have a different approach depending on the length of the project? 

I enjoy short stories, but I prefer writing longer fiction. My mind naturally gravitates to stories that have a little more going on. The sweet spot for me is that short novel length, just around 50-60k words. It gives me enough time to develop my characters and my world, to establish themes and motifs, and to unravel a plot with twists and turns. I’m a big advocate of brevity, so I try not to overburden the reader with too many asides and I do my best to cut out anything that might cause the story to drag.

My process is much more relaxed for short fiction. With short stories I plan out my beats and major plot points, but I let the rest come about organically as I write. When it comes to something like a novella or longer, I plan it out like a train heist. I have everything from plot points and character arcs to themes and symbolism mapped out on color coded index cards. It’s pretty nerdy, but it works for me.

If forced to choose, which is your favorite part of the writing process: establishing setting, crafting dialogue, or developing characters? 

I would have to say developing characters. I sometimes joke that I’m a method writer. There is something very satisfying about figuring out who a character is—their motivations, their insecurities, their mannerism and idiosyncrasies. In most cases the character directs the trajectory of the story, and sometimes they throw a monkey wrench into your outline. It’s kind of cool when that happens and they derail the story in a way that you didn’t expect.  That also leads to my second favorite part of writing, which is the problem-solving aspect of stringing together a narrative that’s logical, well-paced, and emotionally captivating.

What projects are you currently working on? 

There are two projects I’m actively working on. One is a novella for a shared universe project. All I can really say about it is that I’m kind of terrified and thrilled to be included in the author lineup for this one. My name will be appearing with some of the folks I most admire in the horror world.

I’m also working on a new novel for Weird House Press. It’s a Lovecraftian story, drawing upon the Cthulhu mythos and New England’s rich and creepy history. I was reluctant to do something in that sandbox at first, as I have a profound fear of messing it up, but I found an idea that I think is fairly original and captivating.

I know that it’s currently very chic to undermine and deconstruct Lovecraft, and that has been done very effectively by some talented writers, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. The book isn’t going to be a simple pastiche, either. I guess it could be described as a love letter to Lovecraft and to our shared home of New England. I’m hoping that I can channel all the things I admire about Lovecraft’s work and world, reframe them with more modern storytelling sensibilities, and present them in my own voice. Time will tell if I pull it off!

Where can we find you online?

My website is curtismlawson.com, but I’m pretty active on facebook. You can also find me on Instagram @curtismlawson or twitter @c_lawson.

Big thanks to Curtis M. Lawson for being this week’s featured author!

Happy reading!

Welcome back for this week’s author interview! Today I’m pleased to feature S. Alessandro Martinez. He’s the author of numerous short stories as well as the forthcoming novel, Helminth!

Recently, he and I discussed his inspiration as an author as well as his love for horror and his hopes for the future of the genre.

A couple icebreakers to start: when did you decide to become a writer, and who are some of your favorite authors?

I’ve been voraciously consuming books ever since I learned how to read. But as for writing my own stories, I started sophomore year of high school. I remember writing this violent dragon story for my English class. The teacher wasn’t that thrilled about it, haha. I also recall entering a short piece into a Star Wars fanfiction competition that same year, which I won.

Congrats on the forthcoming release of your debut novel, Helminth. What was the inspiration for this book?

Thanks! One of my all-time favorite locations for horror is a cabin in the woods, which is where my novel takes places. (I probably have Evil Dead 2 to thank for that.) There’s just something about the isolation, the absolute pitch-blackness when the sun goes down, the silence, the way the trees can hide the shadowy presences that like to lurk in the dark corners of our seemingly mundane world. The forest is primeval, and a perfect place to discover horror that is way older than humanity.

As for the inspiration for what Rei and her friends find out there, and what happens to them, well…I can’t say without giving some things away. But I can say there are some influences from Lovecraft, Cronenberg, some Barker splashed in there, and maybe a pinch of dark fantasy.

You’ve written a number of short stories over the years. How was the process of writing a novel different (or the same) as writing short fiction?

With a novel, you have much more room for everything. With a short story, you have a word limit, and you need to get everything you want to say into a nice compact package. With a novel, I can take more time setting a scene, giving intriguing backstory, or building up characters’ personalities and their relationships.

What first got you into the horror genre? Do you remember the first horror film you saw or first horror story you read?

I started watching horror movies when I was like five or six. My grandpa would take me to the video store so I could rent whatever I wanted, then we’d go home and watch it in the backroom, because that was the only TV with a VCR. It was almost always a horror movie that little me picked. I’d study all the VHS covers and choose one I thought looked the scariest. So I have my grandpa to thank for letting me do that. Of course, I had plenty of nightmares back then, but it was so worth it. As for books, my mom would let me pick almost anything I wanted at the bookstore. I obviously loved spooky things, so I’d pick whichever book (kid or adult) looked the most intriguing.

I don’t remember exactly what was the first horror movie I saw, but the earliest memories I have of watching horror movies are Child’s Play, The Evil Dead, and Trilogy of Terror. That little Zuni fetish doll that came to life in Trilogy of Terror scared me so much. It kind of still does…

As for horror books, I read tons of Goosebumps and other kid horror stuff. But I also remember reading authors like Stephen King, John Saul, and Bentley Little way, way before I was old enough to.

What are a few recent horror books you’ve read that you would recommend?

I’d recommend Diabhal by Kathleen Kaufman, The Troop by Nick Cutter, Devolution by Max Brooks, The Toll by Cherie Priest, The Nefarious Necklace by Kelly Evans (as K A Evans), and Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare.

What are your hopes for the future of horror?

Horror does seem to have had a big resurgence this last few years, doesn’t it? I see so many new horror movies and shows being added all the time to Netflix and Hulu. We horror fiends even got our own horror streaming service, Shudder. I would love to see this enthusiasm with horror books as well. Get more horror literature into the mainstream!

Also, one thing bugs me to no end: When people do enjoy horror, they want to label it a “thriller” or something. They’re like, “Oh, this was actually good. It can’t pooooossibly be horror.” (Insert snobby accent there.)  I wish people would stop that, haha.

What projects are you currently working on?

The very first novel I wrote is an epic fantasy with necromancers as the good guys. I’m still enthusiastically pitching it and shopping it around. And you know, there might be some…connections between Helminth and that fantasy world….

I’m in the last round of editing the sequel to that fantasy novel, and I’m also working on a cryptid horror novel, a horror/superhero novel, a haunted house novel, and an adventure/horror novel.

Where can we find you online?

You can find me at my website: https://salessandromartinez.com/
I’m pretty active on Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Morda_Shin
And if anybody is still on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salessandromartinezwriter/

Big thanks to S. Alessandro Martinez for being this week’s featured author!

Happy reading!

Welcome back! This month, I’m thrilled to feature a two-part spotlight on Mythic Delirium and their new collaborative book, A Sinister Quartet! This expansive omnibus features a brand-new novel from acclaimed author C.S.E. Cooney, a novella from Mike Allen, and the debut novellas from Jessica P. Wick and Amanda J. McGee.

Recently, I talked with all four authors about this fabulous new project, from its inspiration to why they’re writing in the horror genre!

Tell us a little about your latest project A Sinister Quartet. What inspired your particular story in the book?

C.S.E. COONEY: I feel like I always say this–only it isn’t always true!–but this one came from a dream I had. I don’t remember much about the dream, but I remember I was living in Rhode Island at the time, with my mother. I remember the scene with the sacrifice pretty vividly, and later a wild attempt at escape that ended by drowning in a river. I remember it had something to do with the movies, the desert, and strange angels. After my first (failed) attempt, I contacted a filmmaker friend of mine–Magill Foote–for some resources on the history of cinema, a subject I know very little of, hoping to give my secondary-world fantasy a bit of foundational structure through late 19th/early 20th century technology.

AMANDA J. MCGEE: I wrote “Viridian” about a year after my honeymoon in Vermont, where we had some excellent adventures. Vermont was just one of the places we visited, but we had so many odd and serendipitous experiences there I knew I wanted to write about it at some point. About a year after that I lost my favorite new aunt-in-law to cancer, which rekindled some old memories of similar losses that I found myself suddenly dealing with. The whole process of getting married was oddly stressful, though it turned out well, and I think I had that in the back of my mind when I started working on the story. It’s not exactly what I intended to throw in when I set out to write a Bluebeard retelling but I guess the best writing is personal.

JESSICA P. WICK: I wanted to write about a sister and brother and have their relationship be the important one in a story. I also wanted to write about a katabasis, a fairyland, and people making decisions that weren’t good for them. Then Ravenna pretty much just took over the story and told it to me. There’s definitely some Tam Lin influence here, maybe also a little of my trip to Central Europe. I know when I began writing “An Unkindness,” I had no idea how it was going to turn out, or even what was really wrong with Ravenna’s brother. Next project, I want to focus on a story about ladyfriends who are grown ass adults with lives.

MIKE ALLEN: “The Comforter” continues the story begun in (and expands the monster mythos invented in) my horror tales “The Button Bin” and “The Quiltmaker.” I didn’t write “The Button Bin” with intent to write a sequel, much less multiple sequels, but at the end of “The Quiltmaker” there are two children left alive whose situations are . . . let’s say, markedly different, yet related. After the publication of “The Quiltmaker,” I started wondering what would happen if, a few years later, one child tried to contact the other, which led to the couplet “how you and I are kin / my mom stole your mom’s skin.” The rest of it grew tendrils from that morsel.

I perhaps made a risky choice in presuming that “The Comforter” is so strange that it won’t matter that much if readers come to it without having read the earlier stories, but reactions so far seem to indicate I made a winning bet, whew!

How did A Sinister Quartet develop? Had you done a collaboration like this before, or was this your first time putting together a project with other authors?

C.S.E. COONEY: Mike Allen has probably answered this, but we’d been playing with the idea of combining our novella forces for a while, and either shopping something out or putting something together ourselves. It burgeoned from there into something rather more symphonic. I’m so pleased, both to have virtually “met” Amanda J. McGee and her wistful, lucid prose, and to see more work by Jessica P. Wick, of whom I’ve long been an ardent admirer, out in the world for others to slaver over.

AMANDA J. MCGEE: This is my first time participating in any kind of anthology really. It’s been a project of firsts for me — first published novella, first time working with a small press (or any press for that matter), first contemporary work. I’ve really enjoyed all of it. Mike, Claire, and Jess have been wonderful to work with, and I don’t think “Viridian” would have been as strong of a story without their input.

JESSICA P. WICK: The credit for A Sinister Quartet coming together as well as it does all goes to Mike Allen, who I’m sure will have more intelligent things to say about its making. I was familiar with Mike’s button bin world (pause here for a deep shudder) and I’ve long been an ardent fan of C. S. E.’s work, but I had no real idea what I was getting into with their pieces here, and this was my introduction to Amanda McGee’s awesomeness. The fact that these works all echo one another and seem to be playing on the same themes — to me, that was just a really marvelous surprise. Mike Allen’s a sharp, apparently tireless editor and co-creator, and I’m really just honored to have Ravenna included in the project.

MIKE ALLEN: I’ve worked with both C.S.E. Cooney and Jessica Wick before, as both publish-er (the Mythic Delirium zine, the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies, C.S.E.’s World Fantasy Award-winning collection Bone Swans) and publish-ee (C.S.E. edited my novel The Black Fire Concerto for Haunted Stars, Jess published my poetry in Goblin Fruit), while Amanda McGee is a new recruit. I consider A Sinister Quartet the unofficial sixth volume in the Clockwork Phoenix series.

As for how it came together, to try and keep it concise: about four years back C.S.E. and I had discussed appearing together in a book that would’ve been like one of those old Ace Doubles, two novellas (in her case it ended up being a full novel!) back to back with two front covers. That proposal never got off the ground — but I made the call that the book that could have resulted deserved to see daylight in some form, and set A Sinister Quartet in motion without quite knowing yet it was going to be a quartet. At about this same time, I read an early draft of Amanda’s “Viridian,” and C.S.E. put Jessica’s “An Unkindess” in front of me, and I saw threads that could connect.

Each of you has written in numerous genres, including fantasy and science fiction. What inspired you to write this book that focuses more on horror?

C.S.E. COONEY: I didn’t set out to write horror. I’m not sure I ever set out to write any particular genre; it’s only, I sort of see the world mythically, even the one I live in. That we’re living in dark times, that the dream upon which my story was based had embedded nightmarish aspects, and that I knew I’d be in a collection with Mike Allen—whose own “gross-outs” of fiction are epic—and therefore decided to up my own grotesque game a bit, probably all informed my prose on a subliminal level.

AMANDA J. MCGEE: It’s funny because I don’t know that I intended to write horror when I set out. I saw “Viridian” as more of a contemporary fantasy ghost story thing. I wasn’t sure how to market it. Mike, of course, immediately saw it for what it could be. I didn’t think of myself as a horror writer before that but I can see horror elements in some of my previous work now. It’s kind of freeing actually.

JESSICA P. WICK: I think I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that my natural inclination is just to wander my stories through the Dark. I give credit to fairy tales and a love of mischief and a hope/despair relationship with the human race, all of which lends itself well to telling darker stories. But I certainly didn’t think before, just for example, writing a certain scene in “An Unkindness,” ‘I want to make sure this is so horrific that when I express squeamishness irl to someone they’ll exclaim ‘YOU, who’s so cruel to [REDACTED]’ in tones of disbelief.’ (And yes, that did happen to me. And made me laugh. But it was unexpected.)

MIKE ALLEN: You may have noticed my co-authors laying the blame for this at my feet, hah, hah! I am certainly the capital-H Horror writer in the set, though I don’t limit myself to that.

It kind of goes back to the seed of the whole project — had that original proposal come to fruition, the book would have come out from a house known for horror and the Weird, and my half of the “double” was always going to be “The Comforter,” which is cut from the same mercilessly nightmarish cloth as its predecessors. It made sense for the other stories included to incorporate macabre turns and dark themes.

Huge thanks to the authors of A Sinister Quartet! Head on back here next week for Part 2 of our roundtable discussion!

Happy reading!