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Tag archive: Celebrating Our Elders [ 24 ]

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Koji Suzuki

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Koji Suzuki is a Japanese writer, who was born in Hamamatsu and lives in Tokyo. Suzuki is the author of the Ring novels, which have been adapted into other formats, including films, manga, TV series and video games. 

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?

My first novel Paradise was a love story in the South Pacific during the Age of Discovery (my second novel was Ring) and my third novel was also situated in the South Pacific, the story centers around a destined love story between a crew on a tuna fishing ship and a lovely female singer-songwriter. I personally am a yachtsman, so the ocean is the one situation I can really show my best. ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Lisa Tuttle

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Photo Credit: Colin Murray

Lisa Tuttle, a Texan by birth, Scottish by inclination and residence, is the author of 13 novels and seven short story collections. Windhaven, written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin, was her first novel and his second and has been almost continuously in print since 1981. She’s also written non-fiction and books for children and worked as a journalist and library assistant. The Curious Affair of the Missing Mummies, the third in a series of 1890s-set, supernaturally tinged mysteries, is forthcoming from Jo Fletcher Books, as well as a new collection, Riding the Nightmare, is out from Valancourt this summer.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisatuttlewriter ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Nancy Holder

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Nancy Holder is the former vice president and former board member of HWA. She is New York Times bestselling author of over a hundred book-length projects and hundreds of short stories, essays, and articles. She has received 7 Bram Stoker Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association and was named Faust Grand Master from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. She is known for writing material for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other intellectual properties, as well as novelizing movies such as Wonder Woman and Crimson Peak. She taught in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program offered through the University of Southern Maine for thirteen years, and many of her students have gone on to high-profile publishing success. She has been “investitured” [sic] as a Baker Street Irregular and an Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes. She is currently writing the forthcoming supernatural comics

They Call Me Midnight ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Paula Guran

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Editor, anthologist, and reviewer Paula Guran has edited more than fifty science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies and more than fifty novels and collections featuring the same. She was senior editor for Prime Books for seven years. Previously, she edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. Guran edits the annual Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series (first ten volumes with Prime; now published by Pyr). In an earlier life, she produced the weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 2 was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2022. Guran currently reviews for Locus Magazine. She lives in Akron, Ohio, near enough to her grandchildren to frequently be indulgent.

Did you start out working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?

I came to editing by a unique route. I had a background in journalism/editing as a teenager, but my first career was in technical theatre. My second career was as a full-time mom (and consequently, school/community volunteer). Although I was a science fiction and fantasy reader, with some exceptions, I wasn’t a big horror fan until I started discovering a lot of great writers/fiction around 1994. I wanted to spread the word and help writers and just sort of fell into it via the internet.

Who were your influences as an editor when you started out and who, if anyone, continues to influence you? 

Ellen Datlow, of course. Also, Gardner Dozois, Ann VanderMeer, David Hartwell, Kathryn Cranmer, Gordon Van Gelder, Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, and more.

How have the changes in horror publishing over the past decades affected you?

More the changes to publishing as a whole rather than just horror. The internet provided me with a way to make myself a niche in the field. Print-on-demand provided me entry to professional-level work that led to other things. Borders book chain wanting more genre fiction from independent presses gave me a full-time job. Lots of other things, of course, including the rise of fantasy and urban fantasy, played parts.

Do you think you’ve encountered ageism? If so, how do you counteract or deal with it?

Not really, at least no more than society in general. At first, I think people assumed I was younger than I am. And since I entered the field at a relatively late age, I never particularly advertised my age.=&0=&

What are some of your favorite portrayals of older characters?

Not really in horror, but the orcamancer in Sam J. Miller’s

Blackfish City ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Kathryn Ptacek

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Kathryn Ptacek is the editor of the landmark Women of Darkness I and Women of Darkness II, published at a time when most anthologies included few or no women writers. She knew they were out there, though. She has published numerous novels, short stories, articles, reviews, and poetry in various genres. She edits the monthly HWA Newsletter. She is also the recipient of three of HWA’s awards: The Silver Hammer Award, the Mentor of the Year Award, and the Richard Laymon President’s Award. Her books are available on Amazon and from Crossroad Press as e-books. She also sells extra copies of her print books; contact her at gilaqueen@att.net or find her on Facebook.

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?

The first two novels that sold were historical romances (Satan’s Angel and My Lady Rogue). I had always loved history, and at that time, historical romance was hot hot hot … so I thought, what the heck! I’ll give it a try.

As it happens I have some darker elements in my historicals… I wasn’t even aware that I seemed to be moving in that direction … But looking back, I can see I was drawn to horror, although it wasn’t a separate genre as such back then. Long before that I had entered a radio’s writing contest about the Christmas spirit, and my entry had this dark creature crouching on someone’s roof late at night. Well, not precisely Santa or festive! And when I was eight or so, I did a series of watercolor comics which featured monsters. And when I was five and went to a New Year’s Eve party with my folks, I wandered through the house and found an older kid watching a movie:

Frankenstein ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Nisi Shawl

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Photo Credit: Misha Stone

Nisi Shawl’s debut novel Everfair, an alternate history of Africa’s Congo region, was a Nebula Award finalist. They’re the author of the Otherwise Award-winning story collection Filter House. They edited both volumes of the acclaimed New Suns anthology series, winner of the World Fantasy, Locus, and Ignyte awards. With Cynthia Ward they co-wrote Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text on inclusivity for over a decade. Recent publications include the horror collections Our Fruiting Bodies and Exploring Dark Short Fiction 3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl, as well as Speculation, a middle grade fantasy novel about redeeming a family curse.

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what
were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror? ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Stephen Gallagher

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Photographer’s Credit: Marilyn Gallagher

Stoker and World Fantasy Award nominee, winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for his short fiction, Stephen Gallagher has built a career both as a novelist and as a creator of primetime miniseries and episodic television. In the US he was lead writer on NBC’s Crusoe and creator of CBS Television’s Eleventh Hour. His fifteen novels include Chimera, Oktober, and Valley of Lights. He’s the creator of Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy, in a series of novels that includes The Kingdom of Bones, The Bedlam Detective, and The Authentic William James. http://www.stephengallagher.com

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?

I got my professional start in radio drama with science fiction and thrillers and an early TV gig on Doctor Who, but even then I could see that this wasn’t my real path. Not in prose fiction, anyway, which is where I really wanted to make a mark. I’d read a lot of SF in my teens but all the new work seemed to be from writers with the hardest of hard science backgrounds, speculating on a level I could never hope to reach. 

But then the strands of what I’d been doing came together in a way that I hadn’t predicted, with a genetic thriller that echoed themes of Mary Shelley and Moreau in a present-day setting. I ran the idea past my first agent and she encouraged me to run with it. That was Chimera, and it set me on the horror track. I researched the science but it was the darker implications of the story that gripped me. I began to sense how there are story patterns that tap into the human subconscious at the deepest levels, universal patterns of fear and desire. They can play in any genre but horror’s where they flourish.

Who were your influences as a writer when you started out and who, if anyone, continues to influence you?

By the grace of the junior library and the Salford market comic book stand I came in with a solid classical education in Wells, Conan Doyle, Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and Famous Monsters of Filmland. Anthologies were great for exploring and I was drawn mostly to the horror of commonplace settings. Lovecraft didn’t grab me, and for Machen and Dunsany the most I can say is that I was “aware of their work” (which was Stephen King’s diplomatic response when I asked our publisher to comp him a copy of

The Boat House) ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Terry Dowling

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Photographer’s Credit: Cat Sparks

Terry Dowling is author of Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award winner for Best Collection 2007), An Intimate Knowledge of the Night,

Blackwater Days ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Yvonne Navarro

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Photo Credit: Chuck Wade

Yvonne Navarro is an award-winning author of twenty-four published novels and a lot of short stories, articles and a reference dictionary. She writes several genres but favors horror or dark fantasy. Her work has won the Bram Stoker and IATW Awards, among others. Her shorter work has appeared in hundreds of anthologies and magazines. Her franchise work includes the Predator, Aliens, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, V-Wars, and more. She lives in Tucson, Arizona and dotes on her rescued dogs, Kyah and Chewbecca, and cranky talking parakeet, BirdZilla. Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/yvonne.navarro.001 ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Stuart David Schiff

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Photo Credit: Terry McVicker

Stuart got his undergraduate degree from Cornell University (1968) and his D.D.S. from The Columbia School of Dental and Oral Surgery (1972). He spent 8 years in the Army that included time as one of only four dentists in the 82nd Airborne. After he left the Army (1980), he joined a group dental practice in upstate NY and retired in 2012. He has won four World Fantasy Awards, the British Fantasy Award and had two Hugo nominations. In 2014 he was a Guest of honor at the World Fantasy Convention. ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Lucy Taylor

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Lucy Taylor is the Stoker Award–winning author of seven novels and five short story collections. Her most recent work includes stories in Body Shocks (Tachyon) Horror Library, Volume 7 (Dark Moon Books), and the Western/horror novella Desolation (Poltergeist Press). Her work has been translated into Italian, German, Czech, Russian, Spanish, and other languages.

She lives in the high desert outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, and enjoys ballroom and Latin dancing, Pilates, hiking, swimming, and being a 24/7 concierge, chef, and dispenser-of-treats to her two rescue kitties.

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move to horror?

I started writing short stories very young. At about eight or nine, I read my first horror stories in an issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I knew immediately I wanted to write stories full of blood and gore and monsters, both human and supernatural. I also had the dubious advantage of growing up in a household I can only describe as deranged Southern Gothic, so I learned very young to be fluent in the language of “crazy” and how to use those experiences creatively. 

In my twenties and thirties, I freelanced for newspapers and magazines and published erotica under various pseudonyms. I began selling horror fiction after moving to Colorado, where there was a flourishing horror community in Denver. Becoming a part of that group, which included Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem, Edward Bryant, Connie Willis, Dan Simmons, and many others, helped me immensely. 

Who were your influences as a writer when you started out and who, if anyone, continues to influence you?

I was thrilled by the work of Clive Barker, especially

The Books of Blood ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Nancy Kilpatrick

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Photo Credit: Caro Soles

Nancy Kilpatrick is an Award-winning author and editor. She has published 23 novels, 3 novellas, over 250 short stories, 6 collections, and has edited 15 anthologies. She wrote the non-fiction book The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined. Much of her work has been translated into 9 languages. Her most recent project is the six-book novel series Thrones of Blood, the final volume #6 coming soon in print and ebook. The series has been optioned for film and TV. ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Marge Simon

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Melle Tillison Broaderick

Marge Simon lives in Ocala, Florida, with her husband, poet/writer Bruce Boston. She has won multiple Bram Stoker Awards, Rhysling Awards, the Elgin, Dwarf Stars, and Strange Horizons Readers’ Awards. She received HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. Marge’s works have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction,

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Steve Rasnic Tem

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Steve Rasnic Tem is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. He won the Bram Stoker Award for his novel Blood Kin and his novel Ubo was a finalist. He has published over 500 short stories in his 40+ year career. Some of his best are collected in Thanatrauma and Figures Unseen from Valancourt Books, and in The Night Doctor & Other Tales from Macabre Ink. You can visit his home on the web at www.stevetem.com.

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what
were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror? ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Reggie Oliver

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Photo by Caroline Webster

Reggie Oliver is an actor, director, playwright, illustrator and award-winning author of fiction. Published work includes six plays, three novels, an illustrated children’s book, The Hauntings at Tankerton Park (Zagava 2016), nine volumes of short stories, including Mrs Midnight (2011 winner of Children of the Night Award for best work of supernatural fiction), and, the biography of the writer Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed (Bloomsbury 1998). His stories have appeared in over one hundred different anthologies and three “selected” editions of his stories have been published, the latest being Stages of Fear (Black Shuck Books 2020). His ninth volume of tales, A Maze for the Minotaur was published by Tartarus Press in 2021. 

See:

http://www.tartaruspress.com/reggie-oliver.html

Reggie Oliver (writer) – Wikipedia ...More...

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Stephen Volk

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Stephen Volk created BBC TV’s notorious Halloween mockumentary Ghostwatch and the award-winning ITV drama series Afterlife. His feature screenplays include The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall, William Friendkin’s The Guardian, and Ken Russell’s Gothic starring Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley. He is also the author of four collections – Dark Corners, Monsters in the Heart (which won the British Fantasy Award), The Parts We Play, and Lies of Tenderness. His other books include the acclaimed Dark Masters Trilogy, featuring Peter Cushing, Alfred Hitchcock, and Dennis Wheatley, while Under a Raven’s Wing teams Sherlock Holmes with Poe’s detective Dupin in 1870s Paris.

You can visit Stephen’s website at www.stephenvolk.net or follow him on Twitter: @stevevolkwriter or on Facebook.

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?

It would be tempting to say I’ve always been interested in the horror genre, but I think as a reader and writer your focus develops over time. Your genre, in some ways, chooses you, and I think those who gravitate to horror are drawn to it because they see fear all around them and the horror form gives them a way to deal with it in symbolic terms. Alfred Hitchcock was once asked, “Mr Hitchcock, as the master of screen terror, what frightens you?” Hitch answered “Everything!” That’s me to a tee.

I grew up in the South Wales town of Pontypridd in the 1960s, spending my pocket money on Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, Marvel Classics, and the Pan and Fontana books of horror and ghost stories, but I always had an equal obsession with the cinema and TV and glutted myself on the fare of fantasy shows of that era. I also consumed a lot of fantasy and science fiction books, and became a voracious consumer of Moorcock and Ballard, but had the erroneous urge as I reached adulthood to be a writer of “serious fiction” — that is to say, fiction that people took seriously. Happily, the phase soon passed. The British screenwriter Nigel Kneale taught me that if you are drawn to a genre, and it chimes with you, then embrace it: your only obligation is to write it to the best of your capacity. With subtlety, commitment, and intelligence. And never, ever to look down on the audience. 

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Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Kathe Koja

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Photo credit: Rick Lieder

Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction and creates and produces live and virtual immersive stories. Her work has won awards, been multiply translated, and optioned for film.  DARK PARK is forthcoming in August 2023 and CATHERINE THE GHOST in Fall 2024. @kathekoja on IG and FB

https://kathekoja.com/

Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror? ...More...

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