Norman Prentiss won the 2010 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for Invisible Fences, published by Cemetery Dance (www.cemeterydance.com) and recently released as an e-book. He also won a 2009 Stoker for his short story, “In the Porches of My Ears,” published in Postscripts 18. His latest book is Four Legs in the Morning, a collection of three linked stories from Cemetery Dance. Other fiction has appeared in Black Static, Commutability, Tales from the Gorezone, Damned Nation, Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and in three editions of the Shivers anthology series. His poetry has appeared in Writer Online, Southern Poetry Review, Baltimore’s City Paper, and A Sea of Alone: Poems for Alfred Hitchcock. Visit him online at www.normanprentiss.com.
How would you describe Invisible Fences?
I think I’d say it’s part coming-of-age story, part haunted house story. It’s also about storytelling itself, and how cautionary tales from your childhood might haunt you as an adult.
Tell us about what inspired you to write Invisible Fences?
I started with the opening metaphor of an “invisible fence,” connecting those devices that keep dogs in the yard to the stories our parents tell us to keep us close to home and safe. Once I had the central metaphor, what I expected would be a short story grew into a novella. I included a lot of materials from my life—my own parents’ cautionary tales, and the books and horror movies that my father encouraged me to love as I was growing up.
What was your writing process like for the book? Do you have a regular writing routine or schedule?
I’m a high school English teacher, and during my two summer months I treat writing as my full-time job. I wrote Invisible Fences almost exclusively at the Johns Hopkins library. I typically spend Monday-Friday at a library, away from home and Internet distractions, so I can get in a good 8 hours of writing time. I use an Alphasmart, which is essentially a dedicated word processing machine with no other programs on it—and it really helps me focus and be productive.
What most attracts you to writing horror?
I’ve always loved stories with all the expected horror tropes (haunted houses, ghosts, vampires, etc.), and the horror elements in other books that don’t call themselves horror (Shakespeare’s tragedies, 19th century novels by Dickens and Hardy and the Bronte sisters). I also think horror fits with my world view: the idea that life is not as straightforward and easy to understand as we’d like it to be. For me, horror fiction dramatizes those moments when our everyday, comfortable existence gets challenged: a spouse or family member reveals a dark secret, for example, or when nature does something unexpected and disturbing.
What are some of the themes you explore in your writing? Are there any topics you consider “out of bounds” even for horror fiction?
Love and loss are big topics for me, with a lot of my characters struggling to understand their identity. The idea of being haunted, in a psychological as well as literal sense, is a symptom of (or metaphor for) this struggle with identity. As for taboo subjects, I think part of horrors “job” is to explore taboos, so I don’t know that I’d throw any topics out of bounds for the genre itself—though there may be a few topics I wouldn’t touch in my own writing. But then, even as I’m trying to come up with my own taboo subjects, I start to think, “if the story were good enough, maybe…”
What are you writing now?
I’m working on another Dr. Sibley story, continuing with the character I created for my recently announced book from Cemetery Dance (Four Legs in the Morning; the title story from that collection is available as a free e-book from the publisher). I’m also working on a novel, the first part of which contains several queer pulp-style adventures that would work as standalone stories—but there’s an overall framework that puts the stories into a larger, more meaningful context. That’s the plan, at least!
What do you see as horror literature’s role in contemporary culture?
I think horror will always have a double role. One role is to be a “thrill ride”—the safe space where we can have fun confronting our fears, some scares and maybe a little nervous laughter along the way. The other role is for horror to remind us of the darkness we’d rather ignore—to disturb us even after we’ve closed the book, maybe help readers prepare for the worst that could happen.
Tell us about an experience or experiences with the HWA that influenced your writing or helped you as a writer.
The thing I’m most impressed by is the openness of the horror community, which the HWA exemplifies. As writers, we may be aiming for the same limited slots in an upcoming anthology, for example, but there’s a genuine sense of mutual encouragement rather than competition. That helps a lot, because writing can be such an isolating experience (I’m thinking of my 8 hour library days during the summer months!), and it’s good to share in and celebrate everyone’s successes.
What advice would you share with new horror writers? What do you think are the biggest challenges most writers face?
My best advice would be not to rush to publication. Any great story that’s out there with your name on it is strong publicity for your other writing—but if a story’s weak, it makes a bad first impression on readers.
The biggest challenges most writers face have to do with the changing options for publication. The traditional advice doesn’t necessarily work anymore. Although it seems like a positive outcome of electronic publishing, it may actually be too easy to make your work available for readers. The best writing should stand out, though, no matter how it finds its readers.
What are three of your favorite horror stories?
M. R. James, “Casting the Runes”
Douglas Clegg, Neverland
T. M. Wright, Cold House (a novel, also available as part of his Bone Soup collection)
What’s your favorite Halloween memory or tradition?
When I was about 12, a local dentist gave out toothpaste instead of candy. My brother and I emptied the tubes onto his sidewalk, walked a few steps and saw a bunch of other kids had gotten the same revenge.
Given a choice, trick? Or treat?
A trick is usually more memorable, so I’ll go with that.
Who would win in a fight—Bigfoot or Yeti?
Bigfoot, because of the toenails.
Excerpt from Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss
There’s an invention for today’s dog owners called an invisible fence. It’s basically a radio signal around the perimeter of the yard, and if the dog steps too close to the signal, it triggers a device in the animal’s collar and delivers a small electrical shock. Perfect Pavlov conditioning, just like I learned back in ninth grade psychology class. But it seems a bit cruel to me. The dog’s bound to be zapped a few times before it catches on. Dogs aren’t always as quick as we are. Hell, growing up we had a mongrel lab that would probably never have figured it out: Atlas would have barked at air, then -zap!-. Another bark and charge then -zap!- again. I loved that sweet, dumb animal.
Still, I guess for most dogs the gadget would work eventually. Inflict a little pain and terror at the start, and then you’re forever spared the eyesore of a chain-link fence around your front lawn.
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“The Big Street”
When I was growing up, my parents invented their own kind of invisible fence for me and my sister. All parents build some version of this fence—never talk to strangers, keep close to home after sundown, that kind of thing. But my parents had a gift with words and storytelling that zapped those lessons into my young mind with a special permanence.
My father taught Shop—excuse me, Industrial Arts—at Kensington High School, so I guess that’s where he built up his skills with the cautionary tale: don’t feed your hand into the disc sander; keep your un-goggled eyes away from the jigsaw blade, and other Greatest Hits. But listen to his rendition of that old stand-by, “The Big Street”:
He walked me and my sister Pam to the divided road on the north end of our community. I was six, and Pam was three years older. He stopped us at the curb of McNeil Road, just close enough where we could hear the cars zip by, feel the hot wind of exhaust or maybe get hit by a stray speck of gravel tossed up by a rear wheel. A half-mile down, on the other side of McNeil, was a small shopping center: a single screen movie theater, Safeway grocery, People’s Drugs, and a Dairy Queen, among other highlights. In the other direction visible from the top of this hill was Strathmore Park, with swings, monkey bars, and a fiberglass spider with bent-ladder legs. We could visit these wondrous places anytime dad drove us there, but we were never, ever, to cross the Big Street on our own.
