To Mary SanGiovanni, anyone can relate to the titular creature of her Bram Stoker Award-nominated debut novel, The Hollower, even if they’re not connoisseurs of the dark and horrific. In fact, one of her friends claims a Hollower sighting, allegedly occurring on a dark and lonely night when her television went fuzzy. Physically, the blank-faced creature wearing the trench coat and fedora might’ve been a figment of her imagination. But, emotionally and spiritually, the Hollower might’ve been raring to attack her at her most vulnerable moment. In this sense, Mary distinguishes her monster from typical horror monsters, as the Hollower relies on human emotions and spirits for fuel. When Dark Scribe Magazine phoned Mary for an in-depth chat about monsters, contributor Derek Clendening set out to learn what a Hollower is, what it does, and what readers can expect in the sequel Found You.

Kicking off the conversation with some light banter about monsters, DSM was eager to know what inspired her faceless ghoul.

“I’ve always loved monsters,” she says, “but I wanted to write about a monster that was different from your basic monster archetype. You know…the kind of monster that’s going to eat you in the darkness.”

After racking her brain for ideas, she turned to her faithful first reader - dear old dad. Conscious of her stock in his opinion, she was determined to present new ideas to him until she had a winner. But that meant returning to the drawing board a few times.

“So, I ran the idea past him,” she continues, “and I asked, ‘What can I do that hasn’t already been done?’ He told me that I needed to come up with something completely different from what everyone has already seen.”

In an age where most possibilities seem exhausted, Mary chose to write about a monster that could strike a nerve in people of any age, gender, class or race. Thus, The Hollower and its titular creature were born.

In molding the Hollower, Mary says that she aimed to create a monster that is completely foreign to the human condition. This means that her monster is devoid of the emotions, remorse, sympathy and compassion that are common to us. To that end, she says that the Hollower uses these qualities against her characters. Whenever her more troubled characters feel as though they are in a safe place emotionally and spiritually, and progressing in their lives, the Hollower is prepared to utilize those human weaknesses and to haunt them from a distance. She’s quick to add that “the Hollower is never close to us unless it’s using something against us.”

With her father’s seal of approval on her monster, she proceeded to sketch out the plot for The Hollower. Next came the question of physicality - what the Hollower should look like. To Mary, a Hollower is a person who isn’t finished yet.

“If you were going to mold a person and give them no distinguishing characteristics like eye color, hair or tattoos,” she explains, “you’d get the Hollower.” Figuring that her monster could take on any face and any voice, she left the Hollower’s identity open for interpretation, adding “The artist who did the [Leisure] cover really captured what I’d imagined.”

With the release of Bryan Smith’s Queen of Blood and Brian Keene’s Ghost Walk from Leisure, horror lit is seeing more and more sequels. For Mary, a sequel to The Hollower was never in the cards, but she says that she didn’t realize how powerful a sequel could be until she started writing it. DSM was quick to ask what prompted her to write a sequel if she’d never envisioned one.

“My agent told me that we could sell a sequel if I wrote one, so I set to work on it. My problem [at the end of The Hollower] was that the characters’ resolutions ended up not being real resolutions, and a sequel gave me a chance to tie up those loose ends.”

She cites Dave, her protagonist, as being the character whose story is left the most open-ended, pointing out that the first book leaves him in a state where he’s safe, but not truly healed. In Found You, he faces a difficult truth about himself and falls into a state of regression. At the outset of the novel, the reader will discover that Dave hasn’t changed enough through the course of the first book to be truly healed. Mary adds that Dave deteriorates back to the most horrific personal states that he battled in The Hollower. “He drinks more,” she says, “and he’s in a bad place in society. His job barely factors into the book, but he is working; he’s just not in a great place.”

That not-so-great place is a province where so many of her original cast of characters find themselves, and it is where they are the most vulnerable to the Hollower.

“I realized that many of these characters had come to this place where they were content with themselves,” she explains, “but they hadn’t experienced enough change to make their new selves stick. Writing a sequel helped with my character and story arcs and, by the end of Found You, they resolve to the kind of change they need to experience to properly heal.” She adds that “the ending is unusual, but it’s the only way I could imagine that the story would end.”

Though sequels are more typical in horror cinema than novels, Mary decided to take a different approach. To her, a sequel sounded too easy to lump in with Freddy, Jason or Michael Myers, who either terrorize the same characters or new batch of victims in a fresh setting.

“I thought about that while I was writing the second book,” she says, “and I realized that it’s a whole new Hollower. The idea of a sequel is a bit misleading, because it implies that the same Hollower has returned.” This Hollower is much more sadistic, she promises, and does target some characters from the first novel. Some of the new characters are connected to the originals, even if Found You does not encompass the entire original cast.

Given the numerous forms that a horror story can take, Mary does not feel bound to writing just supernatural horror. In fact, she dreams of spreading her wings and dabbling in other forms of writing, including themes outside of the genre.

“I’ve always wanted to write a Lovecraftian epic, or science fiction, or even a western” she says. “If I can get to a point where I can work on two books at once, I would write a supernatural horror novel, and then write a thriller novel on the side. It wouldn’t be your basic story about cops hunting down a serial killer, but something along those lines.”

Considering how removed the Lovecraftian epic, and other speculative genres are from what she’s used to writing, DSM asked her if she feels limited by her current work. To her, the books haven’t limited her, but rather have satisfied her level of patience.

“I don’t have the patience to write something over 100, 000 words, and I’m not patient enough to write one of those thick fantasy books that are broken down into a series,” she says. “Most of the stuff that I write falls into the 80, 000 words range, which is what Leisure wants anyway. I think that I would run out of steam if I wrote a story that runs any longer than that.”

Before the end our chat, Mary expands a bit on her roots, where she honed her writing chops, and how she arrived at where she is today. She tells DSM that reading and writing every day is a given, but that she was also helped by some more formal education. Seton Hill, a Catholic college near Pittsburgh, tops her list in terms of influences. In fact, she credits her enrollment as the smartest decision in her adult life. Her decision to enroll at Seton Hill stemmed from a desire to switch jobs, and knowing that an upgraded degree could land her a better-paying job.

“So I gave it a shot,” she says, “and I checked out what degrees I could do. All I’ve ever wanted to do is to write. Also, it would have been difficult for me to go to classes, say, on a Tuesday and a Thursday. So, I looked at two creative writing programs that I could do and that would allow me to write my novel as my thesis.” For Mary, that thesis was The Hollower. She continues, “Seton Hill caught my attention because it wasn’t just a creative writing MA, but it was a genre fiction MA, so no one would look down on me for being a horror writer.”

With instructors like Gary Braunbeck and Mike Arnzen, how could she go wrong? Their expert guidance helped her to pitch and sell The Hollower to Leisure, and she believes that the school loaned her a great deal of credibility. Since the program’s mission was to write a publishable novel, suffice to say she passed her MA with flying colors. She adds that everyone there was extremely happy for her, and that her fellow students were a great support system. “If writing is something you want to do, then I definitely recommend Seton Hill.”

The future is looking busy for Mary, as several of her short stories will be appearing in various magazines and anthologies, including the second volume of Legends of the Mountain State. Her current major writing project, which she hopes to sell to Leisure, is tentatively titled The Funeral Parties.

Mary will be busy promoting the new book, touring the New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts areas this fall. If you’d like to meet her in person and have your copies of Found You and The Hollower signed, she welcomes the opportunity to meet with her readers.

In the meantime, Mary will keep plugging away, forming new monsters in her head perfect for those dark, rainy nights when the TV goes fuzzy and you glimpse something taking shape in the static.

To learn more about Mary SanGiovanni, visit her official author website and MySpace page.

Purchase The Hollower

Purchase Found You

Todd Farmer is anxious for you to forget about Jason in space - also known as Jason X - the ill-fated tenth installment of the iconic Friday the 13th franchise that he's largely credited (and discredited) with writing. Now he's moving on to blood-soaked, heart-shaped candy boxes and is confident that fans will see more of his work - and less of intrusive studio execs - in the upcoming 3-D remake of My Bloody Valentine (due in theaters on January 23, 2009).

The 6'2" Kentucky-born dark scribe projects a good 'ole boy easiness and sense of humor that only slightly masks his antipathy for the current workings of the Hollywood machine. And while he's smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds him, he's not averse to the occasional nip with a well-aimed potshot at a particularly deserving studio honcho. Farmer calls it as he sees it, and what he sees right now is too much moviemaking by consensus and less filmmaking by vision.

He's hoping that changes with the upcoming redux of My Bloody Valentine, the cult-classic 1981 slasher flick in which a madman miner with a pickaxe dispatches with the usual collection of clueless young folk. It's a tall-order with genre fans weary from the spate of lackluster remakes of late like Prom Night, The Fog, Black Christmas, and When a Stranger Calls. Farmer understands that fans are rightfully wary of what's in store for this latest update, but promises that this remake will reverse the trend.

In this in-depth interview, Farmer opens up about the realities and frustrations of the modern screenwriter, makes a case for remakes, and shares his enthusiasm for the new My Bloody Valentine - championing everything from director Patrick Lussier and cast to the new 3-D technology that will put Harry Warden in a theater seat next to you.

Dark Scribe Magazine: How did your involvement in My Bloody Valentine come about?

Todd Farmer: This project has been in the making for several decades. I met Patrick Lussier while hunting Snow Yetis along the coast of Norway. Apparently, they are endangered; a small bit of information to which Patrick and I were not privy. The Norwegian government, however, was. During our chase across Sweden and our short stay in a Polish prison, Patrick and I became good friends. We’ve stayed in touch over the years and worked together on assorted development projects and pitches. As the writer’s strike neared Patrick was working on a different movie for Lionsgate. I read some scenes, offered my two cents and apparently that lead to my being discussed for Valentine . Unfortunately the strike hammer fell so Patrick and I traveled to Costa Rica to hunt chupacobra. Again, endangered. Shouldn’t there be a website or something? Fortunately for us, Lionsgate cut an early deal with the WGA so Patrick and I returned to the States and I got to work on My Bloody Valentine .

Dark Scribe: How does the new My Bloody Valentine differ from the original story wise?

Todd Farmer: Our story has a lot more cowbell. That’s not to say that the original didn’t have enough cowbell. On the contrary, for the times, I believe it had exactly the amount of cowbell required. However, we live in a post 9/11 world with TiVo and iPhone. There’s just no escaping the sheer poundage of cowbell required to make entertainment acceptable these days.

Dark Scribe: What did you incorporate from the original into this new treatment? What did you excise?

Todd Farmer: I was young when I saw the original. Too young perhaps. I remember a woman stuffed into a dryer, layered in cotton candy. It was one of those disturbing images you see as a child that never fully dilutes over the years. When I watched the movie again, pre-rewrite, I was shocked to discover a whole new movie. I was pleased at how intricate the story and characters were. Of course, that’s the stuff my pre-teen brain chose to dilute over the years. Although Friday the 13^th started this way, it quickly moved into Halloween territory. No real mystery. No story twists and turns. You have the hunter and the hunted. But with MBV you’re not quite sure who the hunter is and most of the time you think it’s the guy standing next to you. If you were to track the ancestry of Silence of the Lambs, you’d find MBV sitting in the seat of great-great-granddaddy. Campiness aside, the original MBV was a real story. That’s pretty cool, and I think all involved with the remake gravitated to it. Sure, we’ve got blood and 3-D, and perhaps one of the most surreal moments ever seen in a horror movie, but beneath it all, the story and the characters feel very real, very…this could happen to you.

Dark Scribe: Did you cringe when you heard the word ‘remake’?

Todd Farmer: I’m used to it. When I first started hearing about remakes, it was great. I mean, The Fly? The Thing? I love remakes. I grew up with remakes. But it’s not really the same is it? Not anymore. The Fly and The Thing were remade because someone had a great idea to layer on top of a great old premise. These days, it’s all about making a name that people recognize. Some yoyo with an accounting degree did the numbers some years back and showed on paper that movies with name recognition statistically do better than those without. They cost less to advertise…yadda, yadda, yadda. Welcome to the new, corporate-owned, bottom-line Hollywood.

So did I cringe? I shrugged. And while I would prefer writing something original, feeding my wife and kid is way better than starving on principle. Besides, I love a good challenge and remakes present a whole unique list of challenges. So, while I didn’t cringe, I did pass. At least at first. Until I heard that Lussier was directing. For me that changed everything. I can assure you, Patrick Lussier is the real deal. He’s Charlie Heston and the rest of us are all damn dirty apes. Hollywood may be cashing in on name recognition, but Patrick tells stories he’s passionate about. I knew this wouldn’t be just another cookie cutter remake in his hands. And one thing I love more than money is being right. I was right. This movie is going to be wonderful. Not sure I’ve ever been able to say that about one of my movies before.

It’s tough, this business. As a writer you pour your heart into something and then you are forced to stand back and watch it change and change and morph and alter and dumb down and fade until there’s not much of you left. Then it comes out and some reviewer blames you, the writer, for everything, when in fact you haven’t been a part of the silly thing in three years. I knew with Patrick that wouldn’t happen. Oh, it tried to happen. With any other director it probably would have happened. But not with Patrick. Did I mention he’s the real deal?

Dark Scribe: Why do you think remakes get such a bad rap? Even from the announcement stage, fans go wild denouncing them.

Todd Farmer: Because fans and consumers in general aren’t stupid. They know they aren’t getting The Fly and The Thing anymore. The passion for making movies isn’t what it used to be…or I guess it’s just a different passion. It’s a bottom line passion. How much can we make opening night, opening weekend, on the DVD sales? The creatives are no longer in control of their own creations. Friday the 13^th isn’t being remade because Tarantino or Guillermo had this brilliant idea for it. But wouldn’t that be cool? No, it’s being remade because suits know the name will sell tickets. Personally, I miss the passion. I miss Cronenberg’s passion in The Fly. Carpenter’s passion in The Thing. That’s why I love MBV so much. Because I’m sure it started just like every other remake - for reasons of bottom line. What Lionsgate didn’t figure on was Lussier’s passion. Oh, they knew he was good - but now they know just how good.

And this is one thing that fans should consider about remakes. There are plenty of cons but this, I think, is a pro. When I first got started things were obviously different. A writer trying to get his foot in the door started in horror because it was cheap and the competition was green. The playing field was even, and the chance of getting in was better. Back then studios hated horror. Considered it beneath them. Embarrassing. Then, along came Scream and everything changed. Now, every numbnut with a production company has a genre department. Everybody makes horror. The embarrassment was destroyed by the bottom line. Horror costs little and makes lots. Even if your horror movie tanks, at a cost of ten million you’re still gonna make money and buy an Audi. So, now to my point. Most of these old classics that are now being remade were originally made for nothing. No stars, no production value, no real shooting days. At least now days these remakes are getting some first class treatment. Well, at least Business Class. I mean, the idea of seeing Friday the 13^th made with some semblance of a budget is intriguing to me. MBV was originally made for ten bucks and carton of Canadian smokes. For me, most of the originals are better while the remakes are more pleasant to look at. Shame we can’t get both. I think that’s because in the old days, passion made horror movies. These days money makes horror movies. In a perfect world, I’d love to see the money given to the writers, directors, actors and crew and then leave ’em alone and let them do their jobs.

Dark Scribe: Were you a big fan of the original My Bloody Valentine? Are you a big fan of the old-school slashers in general? If yes, which are your favorites?

Todd Farmer: Fan of it [the original], no. Again, I saw it young and it sort of freaked me out so I just subconsciously stayed away from it over the years. Welcome to the inner workings of psychology. Of course, now I regret that because in many ways I prefer it to those that I have for years called my favorites. That said, Halloween was, and still is, a favorite. Nightmare on Elm Street, in my opinion was brilliant. Friday the 13^th was great, if perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Cheap and dirty and naughty and somehow that translated to a fun ride that nine films later bought me an Audi. Go figger. Curtains, obscure but wonderful. The Fog - yes, supernatural - but counts as slasher in my book. Silence of the Lambs, yes, it too is slasher in my book. Gore, female lead, stalking scenes. Slasher.

Dark Scribe: In your opinion, which of the old school slashers would most benefit from the remake treatment? Which one could be improved upon the most?

Todd Farmer: I’m really not that militant in my views that we should never remake a classic. It’s not like we’re building bonfire out on the old church softball field with the plastic corpses of original DVDs. The original still exists. That said, anything that originally had crappy production value is ripe for some princess treatment in my book. F13, MBV, Curtains. All in all, I think Halloween was perhaps the better movie of the above (granted just my opinion) and thus didn’t need a remake. But then the idea of seeing Rob Zombie’s version of Halloween? Well, that’s certainly intrigued to me. And falls more in line with what we saw from Cronenberg’s Fly or Carpenter’s Thing. A re-envisioning of the story. Those are my reasons for remaking a movie. Better production value or a different take on the premise. Or both.

Dark Scribe: You’re pretty frank in your observations about the Hollywood machine on your blog. One particular statement caught my attention: “ I used to think my job as the screenwriter was like a novelist, in that he/she writes a story and Hollywood does everything in its power to nurture, protect and bring that story to fruition…No, like it or not, in today's Hollywood the screenwriter's job is to take many different opinions, ideas, visions and work those into a cohesive and compelling story.” Has screenwriting really become more writing by consensus?

Todd Farmer: Unfortunately. Like it or not, the business is out of balance. It happens. Balance will eventually return. But right now the companies are in control. I watched the shift happen. Oddly enough, it all started with horror. Companies started hiring kids fresh out of college to head up their genre wings. Then came this influx of young hungry writers willing to write for magic beans and make any change they were asked to make in order to keep their job. The business changed. Suddenly, more seasoned writers were being replaced. Because seasoned writers argue. And seasoned writers get paid more. Thus, seasoned writers - needing to feed their families - began taking less money. Began arguing less. Stories suffered. Solid stories were turned into creations of compromise. Instead of Cronenberg giving you The Fly, you end up with a whole bunch of writers and executives giving you The Fog . I’m not saying The Fog is a bad movie, it’s just… eh . Screenplay by committee. Same thing can be said about The Messengers and most of the genre movies we’ve seen lately. Granted we’ve had some exceptions. Saw, Hostel…but both of those were independently made and snatched up later via acquisitions. They did not go through the studio development system. And although you can find this very sentiment plastered throughout the Internet, the audience too is to blame for this mess. Because the audience has been continually rewarding bad movies with strong box office.

Dark Scribe: How were the folks at Lionsgate to work with? You hint at some animosity on your blog…

Todd Farmer: I don’t know. They’re a little sneaky. Sexually, I’ve had better. Although I love their marketing department. Sarah and her partner are forces of nature. Perhaps the best in the business. And you cannot dispute the brilliance of LG’s acquisitions department. Saw? Hostel? Those were pretty good investments, don’t you think? But when you compare the movies LG bought to the movies they developed…well, I think a pretty clear pattern reveals itself. Fortunately, MBV will be the exception due mostly to Patrick Lussier but also to some great actors and a very talented crew.

Dark Scribe: Did the 3-D aspects of the new My Bloody Valentine pose any challenges from a screenwriting aspect? Should fans expect the same cheesy 3-D “stunts” with arrows flying at them – or does the new technology everyone’s talking about serve a different purpose?

Todd Farmer: The new technology is a whole new world. You really have to forget Friday the 13^th 3D and Jaws 3D. That whole flat, flat, flat…suddenly-something-flies-at-you-thing is gone. This is tomorrow’s 3-D and it is remarkable. It’s not about stuff flying at you; it’s about being immersed into the world. Suddenly, the killer really could be sitting right beside you. It’s stunning to watch. I can’t wait.

Dark Scribe: Some of the films in the recent spate of remakes get criticized for what many see as CW-casting – young, attractive name actors from popular youth-oriented TV fare. Did you have any involvement or input in My Bloody Valentine’s casting, and what are your initial thoughts on Jensen Ackles and Kerr Smith in the lead roles?

Todd Farmer: Outside of TV, writers have zero say when it comes to casting. Granted, there are hundreds of single writers sitting in bars right now, flashing their WGA cards, who do not want the girls to know this. But the truth hurts. The powers-that-be don’t want us getting out. They don’t want us talking in public, and they certainly don’t want us rubbing up against the talent. In fact, we rarely even see an audition tape. But it was different this time. Patrick allowed me access to the inner circle. I would watch audition tapes then call or IM about who stood out to me. Jaime [King] was a stand out from the start. I remember Patrick’s excitement after first meeting her. Normally he wouldn’t tell me who he liked until I weighed in. But with Jaime, he was too excited to keep it secret. Then there was Kerr. I knew his face. But it was his acting that grabbed me. He was simply in a different league. I told Patrick and, of course, he felt the same. At first Kerr was our favorite for Tom, but then Jensen arrived and we were torn…until Patrick suggested Kerr play Axel. It was perfect! I remember Edi [Gathegi] being a stand out. We kept referring to him as ‘Big Love’ since we loved his run on House, MD. But his interpretation was so… A-list. He and Kerr were so good together that we kept making their scenes longer. Then later when casting started for [the character of] Irene, again Patrick broke protocol and phoned saying, “You gotta check out Betsy [Rue]!” Patrick would get so excited. It was infectious. I mean, I’ve become so mean and bitter and angry all the time that it’s just so refreshing to be around someone who lifts you up and reminds you why you drove to LA in your old pickup with several garbage bags full of clothes and slept in a hammock for two months back in 1996 when gas prices were a buck fifty-five.

And when it comes to the actors something happened this time that I’ve never seen before. Many times someone will be brilliant in an audition but just the opposite on set. Or at least struggle on set. It’s the gamble you take. Not the case this time. In fact, the actors just kept getting better and better. As Jaime’s role became more and more physically and emotionally demanding, she nailed take after take. I knew Jensen’s work from watching Smallville and Supernatural. But I was not prepared for the performances he was giving. Patrick calls him a young Steve McQueen. Jaime, Jensen, and Kerr playing three incredibly complex characters. The movie is better because of them. In fact, I’d put those three up against any of your big budget movie stars. Any day of the week, twice on Thursday.

Dark Scribe: How did [genre veteran] Tom Atkins come to be involved? This has genre fans very excited! Is his role substantial or more a stunt casting move like Rob Zombie did with just about everyone in his Halloween reimagining?

Todd Farmer: Patrick knows every actor who has ever acted by face and name. You’ll be sitting at Starbucks and some vaguely familiar looking face will walk in and Patrick will say, “Hey, that’s Coffee Cofferson from Episode 22 of Love Boat.” There was this one rather small role in MBV that was very…important. Not the sort of thing you want to hand over to a day player. So Patrick was pushing for Tom. That was the initial plan. But the more he and Patrick talked, the more in love Patrick fell until he ended up giving Tom a much bigger role. And thank goodness. He’s so wonderful. And the fans are right. Tom Atkins is horror royalty. I’m sorry, but if you dis Halloween III in my presence, you and I are going to roll (laughs).

And I’m such an idiot. The night I arrived on set, Tom was shooting one of his scenes. I saw him. There were plenty of moments for me to go up and say ‘Hi.’ Introduce myself. Fumble awkwardly through some semblance of a greeting, but I was too star-struck. Seriously, I’m such a dolt.

Dark Scribe: We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention your (in)famous screenwriting work on Jason X, a rather poorly received entry in the Friday the 13^th franchise. Do you think the film is underappreciated by fans? What are your recollections about working on this project?

Todd Farmer: Underappreciated? Not at all. Fans aren’t stupid. I wanted to make Aliens with Jason. I thought we could. Sure, I knew others had tried to make horror in space and failed, but so what? That was them and this was us. Aliens with Jason would be cool. Even today, it would still be cool. So that’s what I wrote. But that’s not what we made.

That’s where I learned that executives will often rewrite the magic right out of a script. Writers and directors - and even actors - have this basic wiring ability to constantly look for ways to improve a story and characters while never forgetting what was so magical in the first place. Executives always forget what was magical in the first. Shame really. Would Jason X have made more money without the 11^th hour rewrites dumbing it down? Doubtful. Jason in space, two years in a can, DeLuca leaving New Line…just too many factors going against it. But it would have been a better movie.

Dark Scribe: Where you pleased with the final result with The Messengers? What can you tell our readers about The Messengers II: The Scarecrow? Is this a sequel? We heard it’s currently shooting in Bulgaria (!).

Todd Farmer: Was I pleased? Well, I liked it. I thought it was a cool premise. Just not my premise. It wasn’t the movie I wrote. When I saw it, I was very detached. I kept thinking, ‘why couldn’t we have just made the movie I wrote?’ Everyone liked it. Loved it even. Heck, even Patrick Lussier was attached to direct it. Then, for no reason I was ever able to understand, the studio had it rewritten. By Stuart Beattie, who by the way is a great writer. But he was given some crazy studio notes, which essentially killed all of my big ideas. So, Revolution decided not to make it. It sat in turnaround for a year or so, and then Sam Raimi grabbed it and breathed some life into it. Six writers later and it was a much different movie. Although very understandable because they had to come up with a whole new big idea. And that’s where the idea of children being able to see ghosts that adults cannot came from. I like that. But I liked my idea as well.

Thus, years later in the craziest of twists, J.R. Young, a Raimi executive, read my original draft and took it to Sam. And Messengers II was born. One script enters, two movies leave. Truth is, I have adored every moment working on it. The budget was smaller so we had to tweak, but the creative freedom has been unbelievable. J.R., Sam, and the Mandate twins actually restored my faith in executives. Their notes were smart. They think like writers. There’s no other way to put it. I’d work with them again in a heartbeat. And Martin Barnewitz has done an incredible job on a tight budget and tighter shoot. We spoke early this morning and he’s a week away from flying to LA where I’m going to hound him to see the early cut and try to bribe him with vodka.

I complain a lot - okay...more than a lot - but I had two movies shot this year and both are very much… me . That’s…well, that’s cool. What I wrote got shot this time. Yay for me!

Dark Scribe: With all the studio involvement disrupting the creative flow on a film project, do screenwriters unfairly take the brunt for the finished product? Conversely, when a film comes together, does the screenwriter get due credit?

Todd Farmer: Hard to say. I’ve certainly received my share of hate mail for Jason X. And if you hated his being in space, then I’m the guy to blame. Send your hate mail and I will read it and feel poorly about myself for about 20 minutes. But it’s hard being judged when you know the movie is not what you intended. And I guess on Messengers it’s both better and worse. Because there’s hardly anything of it that’s mine. A family living on a sunflower farm. Some crows. Three of the character names are the same. The rest is different. Yet I get hate mail proclaiming it the worst movie ever written and I need to do everyone a favor and go back to building houses. Yet on the other side of the coin, it opened number one its opening weekend and I would never pretend to require credit for that.

My reward came when J.R. read my draft and took it to Raimi and they said, “Hey, let’s make this.”

Dark Scribe: How did a boy from Kentucky end up in Hollywood trying to navigate the studio system? Was screenwriting always a professional goal?

Todd Farmer: Always knew I wanted to write. I was the guy telling stories around the campfire. And having discovered Stephen King, those stories were always ghost stories. I was a double major in Marketing and English because I wanted to write, but figured if that failed, I needed some business to fall back on. I toyed with novels but found I didn’t have the patience to write 300 pages once I’d figured out the full story. Then I saw a screenplay at a used book store in Dallas and saw…wait a minute…110 pages? Seriously? That I can do. A friend of a friend - Dean Lorey - had just written Major Payne. We chatted, I tossed out some ideas, and he optioned a script from me. Later, he told me if I was serious about writing movies then I had to move to LA. So I did. He had written Jason Goes to Hell and later introduced me to Sean Cunningham. I worked for Sean for three years. I wrote dozens of scripts, including a draft of Freddy vs. Jason which New Line sent back unopened. Long story. Eventually, we started toying with F13 /10 and my stunning rise to wealth and fame was unleashed.

Long story short, I was stupidly lucky.

Dark Scribe: Which of your fellow screenwriters do you most admire? Favorite screenplay of the last decade?

Todd Farmer: Impossible to name just one. I love several for different reasons. Tarantino changed the face of Hollywood. Kevin Williamson changed the face of horror. John August gives me goosebumps. Peter Jackson, Steve Kloves. They have single-handedly poured life into the fantasy genre. Russio and Elliot had me at Shrek , tripped me at Pirates III but I forgave them because…well… Jason X? Goldman…a moment of silence, please . Koepp, we should all hope to be the sweat off this man. Although Darabont’s Crystal Skull was way better. Who else? Kasden! Empire- freaking- Strikes Back? I’m not freaking worthy.

Oddly enough, I’ve met several of these guys. Having dinner with one of them at Comicon. You know, my life’s not so bad.

Dark Scribe: Speaking of Comicon, tell us a little about your work writing comics with actor Thomas Jane (The Mist). What are the challenges of writing in this medium?

Todd Farmer: Well, there’s no money in comics. But by creating a comic book, we own the idea rather than a studio owning it. In every other country in the world, the screenwriter owns his or her story. Not the case in the America. So, sometimes screenwriters will write novels and comics as a way to both own and back-door their way into a movie. I mean, we have discussed the whole name recognition thing… video games and comic books certainly fall into the arena. Hollywood likes ’em. So, Tom and I did Alien Pig Farm with that in mind. We’re doing The Lycan - an 1800’s werewolf story with Tim Bradstreet - next.

Dark Scribe: What’s next after My Bloody Valentine? We read somewhere that you were once attached to John Carpenter’s next film…

Todd Farmer: Yeah, John Carpenter’s Psychopath. Catchy name. Lots of rumors out there, but it’s still happening. It’s coming out as a comic this year. Same reason as above. We want to own it. I’m finishing Monkey’s Paw for RKO. Perhaps the most disturbing script I’ve ever written. Tim Bradstreet and I are writing Devil’s Commando’s for Tom Jane to star and direct. Tom directed Dark Country for Sony and this would be his follow up. In fact, we’ll all be at the RAW booth at Comicon most likely working on the script if anyone wants to drop by and yell at us. I have a couple of animated TV shows based on video games that I’ve written pilots for and will shortly start on episodes. There’s roughly a six month lead time so lots of work yet to do. Lussier and I have another movie together. Don’t know what it is yet.

Dark Scribe: Let’s end on a My Bloody Valentine note. Answer the burning question: Will there be a Mabel character, and will her demise involve a Laundromat dryer? At least tell us there’s a bloody heart in a candy-box somewhere in your script (!).

Todd Farmer: (groans loudly) Have we not discussed my hatred of spoilers? All I will say is, “Yes and yes.”

Learn more about Todd Farmer at his official website and MySpace page.

Joe Nassise might be more familiar to German readers than to his North American faithful, thanks to his versatility and vision. The Arizona native is a Bram Stoker award nominee and was the longest-sitting president of the Horror Writers Association. Since his 2001 debut novel, Riverwatch, he has sold nine novels, two novellas, and has branches off into comics. His novel Eyes to See, due out in fall 2008, promises to chill readers, but also to reach them on an emotional level.

Recently, Joe took time out from his hectic writing schedule to sit down for an early morning interview. As the phone rang, I meant to satisfy my curiosity about how his writing delves into the human condition, and how his stories have crafted a literary landscape.

When I put Joe on speakerphone, and started my recorder, he told me that he’d never intended to become a writer. In fact, he’d never had much interest in writing at all. He cites having read a novel by Margaret Truman, of Murder in the Whitehouse fame, and being so appalled by the formula plot that he whipped it at the wall. He says, “I kept complaining to my college roommate about how bad it was. He finally got sick of hearing me complain about it and bet me a case of Bass Ale that I couldn’t write a better novel.”

Given a college students’ stock in a case of beer, Joe decided to take his roomie up on it. While moonlighting in a security booth on the opposite side of campus, he scribbled longhand into a legal pad, until he’d finished Riverwatch. Suffice to say, he won the case of beer, but he stowed the manuscript away in a shoe box for a decade.

He continues, “Eleven or twelve years later, my wife found it while we were moving from one house to another. She suggested I clean it up, type it into a computer, and send it off to a publisher.”

For Joe, that publisher was Pocket Books, and the rest was history. Now, seven years after its release, Droemer Knaur will release his new novel, Eyes to See. In this tale, Jeremiah Hunt gives up his sight to see through the eyes of surrounding ghosts so he can rescue his abducted daughter. Given the deep, personal undercurrent, I was curious to know how being a parent influenced the book’s direction. He says that being a parent not only influenced this book, but several previous works as well. He says, “I did a novella for Telos publishing in the UK, called More Than Life Itself, about a man who goes to the ends of the earth to save his daughter’s life.” He adds that the book was influenced by his daughter Presley, who was born with a hole in her lung, and all of the anxiety and fear that accompanied it. Then he adds, “It was a very scary and uncomfortable time in my own life, and it comes out very heavily in my writing.”

But being a parent isn’t essential to feel the full impact of Eyes to See, as Joe considers emotions to be universal. “People understand pain, they understand grief, they understand fear, regardless of what’s generating it. Whether they’ve experienced that particular angle in their own life, they can certainly understand what the character goes through and generate the needed empathy to deal with that and enjoy the book on an emotional level.”

Joe didn’t write the novel without undertaking some unorthodox research first. In fact, he wandered around blind for three days, to grasp Jeremiah’s limitations. He says, “It was a very interesting experience, and it showed me how much you rely on your other senses. You hear about how blind folks rely on their sense of hearing and smell, but experiencing it is a very different thing.” But he was determined to identify with Jeremiah, so he asked his wife to blindfold him.

Then he says, “I couldn’t write for three days. I couldn’t drive. It certainly gave me a sense of what Jeremiah would go through. And then, working with that, I tried to develop the rest of what goes on.”

Switching gears, I asked Joe about the German market. Eyes to See will first be published in German by Droem Knaur, but his first editions haven’t always been published overseas. He says, “My first foreign rights sale was to the Italian market when I sold Riverwatch. Around the same time, we received an e-mail from Droemer Knaur, who was interested in the German rights to Heretic, so we really didn’t have to do much work to secure that because he’d happened to have picked up the book in English and really enjoyed it.”

From there, Joe established a relationship with Droemer Knaur, has built on it, and the first editions of his novels are being published in Germany.

Like many horror authors, Joe’s work takes more forms than just the mass market novel. He writes numerous other works, large and small, to cater to the niche market. Right now, he’s promoting his novella, Babylon Dreams, to be published by Bad Moon Books, which is a prequel to the Templar Chronicles. In this story, Cade Williams of the Templar Chronicles meets Denise Clearwater, a central character from Eyes to See, to deal with a supernatural threat on Long Island.

He says, “In Eyes to See, I was thinking of the same landscape as the Templar Chronicles occur in, but I’d never thought of combining them until I re-read A Tear in the Sky. That one little throw-away line was a perfect plot point and I decided that I really wanted to continue it.”

Such a move places him in the company of such authors as Stephen King, and Gary Braunbeck, who have established a broad literary landscape.

Unlike the Templar Chronicles, and Eyes to See, Babylon Dreams will first be published in English. My first instinct was to ask how much a move would be received by his German fans that are used to getting the first crack at his newest novel. According to Joe, there’s plenty of hope for Babylon Dreams to find its way overseas. He says, “This is tailor-made for the specialty market, but I wouldn’t mind having my German fans enjoy it, too. If a foreign publisher wants it, there’ll be no objections from me.”

Also part of Joe’s specialty ventures is the comic field, as his six issue miniseries, Candace Crowe will be published by Arcana Comics. My first impression was that comics are moving rapidly in the direction of graphic novels, and that Joe is riding a profitable wave. But, he says, “I don’t think comics as a whole is moving in that direction, but they’re very popular and I have seen exponential growth in that area.”

Figuring that writing for comics must be far removed from writing a prose novel, I asked him how he approached a different medium. Because he considers his prose novels visual and cinematic, the script-writing has not been difficult, and his stories have adapted well in comic form. For Joe, the challenge has been in condensing his tales, as he says that graphic novels have little room for back story or characterization. Then he adds, “Comics and graphic novels are a visual medium by nature and artwork becomes a definitive part of the story.”

Before we wrapped up our chat, Joe told me that writing is far from his only passion in life, and I couldn’t hang up without asking what else makes him tick. He says that, having realized many of his goals, helping others reach theirs is also very important to him. To that end, he founded Xtreme Life Coaching, which helps people overcome the obstacles standing in their path, and has a focus on creativity.

He says, “You’ve always got people saying, ‘I’ve always wanted to write a book’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to sail around the world.’ What so many people fail to realize is that those things are attainable if they simply organize themselves and go after them.”

Trained as a life coach, he realized that his greatest joy has come from helping those with creative goals. In doing so, he knew he could help people through their difficulties in attaining their goals, whether they’re writing a novel, or painting a masterpiece. Then he says, “So, I took my life coaching business, and gave it a slight spin to focus on creativity. So, since that time, I’ve done periodic web seminars, and I work with individuals on a one on one coaching basis.” He adds, “It’s like being a personal trainer at a gym.”

Joe also explains that he teaches creative writing workshops on-line, such as his ‘Jumpstart Your Novel’ program, in which he teaches his pupils a new form of novel crafting. He does this because he has found success in writing novels in a manner that his different from the norm. This approach involves a roadmap of his novel, which enables him to bounce around the plot at his leisure. He says, “I don’t write in sequential order. I don’t write chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. With Riverwatch, I probably started on chapter forty two. Writing this way allows me to write something fresh, and to write whatever appeals to me that day. Sure, it’s a little harder to blend those scenes together, but that’s why I teach people how to create a roadmap for their novel.”

He says that he hasn’t stopped learning himself, as he has attended Borderlands Boot Camp to further hone his craft. Horror veteran Tom Monteleone’s honesty and wit have helped him reach a new level. “There’s no question I know how to write a novel,” he says, “but I can’t pass up the chance to learn more.”

The dedication to his craft certainly shows in his release schedule. For his European fans, he has at least two more books coming from Droemer Knaur after the release of Eyes to See. The Witch’s Hammer will be published in mid 2009 and The Books of Coming Sorrows should see the light of day in early 2010. He has a few new surprises for his American fans, too. Joe is the latest writer to lend his talent to Gold Eagle’s Rogue Angel series, with The Lost Tomb having just been turned in to the publisher and Yin and Yang due later this year.

Perhaps the most anticipated news concerns his celebrated Templar Chronicles series, however. Not only have all three books in the original trilogy been optioned for Hollywood production, with a screenwriter already attached to adapt Heretic, but by the time this interview goes live, contracts should also be signed to bring books two and three in the series A Scream of Angels and A Tear in the Sky, out in English-language limited edition hard covers.

That might seem like a lot of writing for the next couple of years, but if you ask Joe, he’ll tell you he’s just getting started.

You can learn more about the Templar Chronicles by visiting the series’ official website. Information about the rest of Joe’s work can be found at his author website. 

Gary Braunbeck is the author of 20 books and over 200 short stories in the horror, thriller, science fiction and mystery genres. His work has garnered several Bram Stoker awards and an International Horror Guild Award for Long Fiction. As an editor, Gary completed the last installment of the popular Masques anthology series created by Jerry Williamson, and recently acted as co-editor (along with Hank Schwaeble) of the Bram Stoker Award-winning anthology Five Strokes to Midnight.

Much of Gary’s fiction takes place in the fictional town of Cedar Hill, Ohio, a blue collar, working class town full of terrible forces and dark secrets. In this exclusive interview with Dark Scribe Magazine, Gary talks about the origins of Cedar Hill, the work that goes into creating such a rich, complex mythology, and whether or not he is ready to bring it all to an end.

Dark Scribe Magazine: What was the first Cedar Hill story? At the time, did you know it was a “ Cedar Hill ” story?

Gary Braunbeck: That would be “A Death in the Day Of,” which originally appeared in The Horror Show. At the time, I knew it was set in a fictional town in central Ohio, but had not yet named it; the first story in which I actually named Cedar Hill was the novella “To His Children in Darkness,” which originally appeared in the J.N. Williamson Special issue of Cemetery Dance.

Dark Scribe: Did you set out to create this whole Cedar Hill mythology, or did it evolve over time?

Gary Braunbeck: Cedar Hill started out as simply a place to set my stories. Most of my stuff focuses on mid- to lower-middle-class blue collar characters because those are the folks I grew up around and with. But over time, as I did more research into the history of Newark, Ohio (the city where I grew up, and on which most of Cedar Hill is based), I discovered a lot of legends and myths that had been all but forgotten by everyone except a few local historians (most of whom are now no longer with us, dammit, because man, did they have stories to tell me!). It seemed a shame to me that such rich, creepy, tragic legends should be forgotten, so I began incorporating a few of them into the fictional Cedar Hill. As soon as I began doing this, a greater, more complex history of the town began revealing itself to me. That was, believe it or not, a tremendous surprise, and a serious shot in the arm to my imagination.

It always seemed to me that if a writer is going to create a fictional universe in which to set most of their stories, then he or she needed to dive in head-first and drown him- or herself in the place. I mean, look at what Charles de Lint has accomplished with his Newford stories; damn near everything he’s written has been set there, and tends to focus on a central cast of characters, and with every new Newford story or novel, he reveals something more about the place and its people.

That’s what I am attempting to accomplish with the Cedar Hill stories: creating a complete, whole, rich, ever-unfolding universe as seen through the eyes of a central cast of characters.

Dark Scribe: How did you go about building Cedar Hill, the town?

Gary Braunbeck: As I said before, a majority of it is based on the Newark, Ohio, I knew while growing up and through my teenage years, but some of it is also based on Dayton, Ohio, and my current home, Columbus. But the heaviest portion of its influence is definitely Newark.

Dark Scribe: Were you influenced by other authors who have connected their stories through a common location and characters, such as Stephen King with his Castle Rock stories?

Gary Braunbeck: Yes and no. Writers such as King, Ray Bradbury, and the dearly-missed Charles Grant all had their fictional towns, and their creations were unquestionably a consideration and influence when I finally decided to try my hand at it, but they were not the first writers to do this; I was also strongly influenced by Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio and the phenomenal John O’Hara’s Gibbsville, PA stories. For my money, Anderson and O’Hara wrote the template for this type of series/story cycle.

Dark Scribe: Do you keep a detailed chronology or history of Cedar Hill to refer to when writing?

Gary Braunbeck: I keep one now – I started keeping one about twelve years ago, when characters from Story A started showing up in Story H and so on. The chronology and mythology of Cedar Hill has now very much taken on a life of its own, and sometimes the town’s secrets and those of many of its inhabitants sneak up and surprise even me.

I did not keep this chronology at the start because, twenty-odd years ago when I wrote “A Death in the Day Of,” I didn’t know that I was going to devote half of my life (thus far) to creating and maintaining this town. That’s why, with the Cedar Hill collections from Earthling Publications (Graveyard People: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories Vol. 1 and Home Before Dark: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories Vol. 2), I have been revising and in some cases massively re-writing past Cedar Hill stories so that they now fit neatly into the cycle.

Dark Scribe: In both collections of Cedar Hill stories, as well as in your new novel Coffin County, there are excerpts from a “ visitor ’ s guide ” to Cedar Hill. Have you ever considered publishing a concordance or other reference-type work related to Cedar Hill?

Gary Braunbeck: Funny you should ask. Yes, a Cedar Hill concordance is in the works. Sometime between now and next fall’s release of the next Cedar Hill novel, Far Dark Fields, an official Cedar Hill website will be going live, documenting all of the characters who’ve appeared in the novels and stories, detailing the myths and legends of the town, listing the stories and novels in which characters from different stories cross paths, offering histories of many of the settings, more visitors’ guide excerpts, and even noting stories and novels by other writers where Cedar Hill, Ohio, has been mentioned. It’s already been an exhausting process, but I think it’ll be worth it.

Dark Scribe: Is there going to be a final Cedar Hill story – one that concludes the cycle? And if there is, do you already know what happens?

Gary Braunbeck: Yes. It’s entitled “This Dark March,” and it will appear in the next collection from Earthling, The Carnival Within: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories Vol. 3. I know almost exactly what’s going to happen – I never plan a piece beyond the halfway point, because in 99% of the cases, by the time I get to the halfway point, some character has stepped in to tell me what he or she is going to do, and I have to obey the story, not my intentions. I can tell you that this will be the story where the real identity of The Reverend will be revealed, as well as the exact nature of the strangeness that defines Cedar Hill.

Dark Scribe: After the third volume of Cedar Hill stories comes out this year, will there be anything left uncollected? Will there be more forthcoming?

Gary Braunbeck: Yes, there are still a lot of Cedar Hill stories that haven’t been collected, but these are stories that fall into the various gaps in the timeline set up in this first section of the cycle. My intention all along has been to establish a timeline – this is where it all started, this is what happened in the interim, and this is how it all ended. I have deliberately left holes in the chronology that I intend to go back and fill in, so even though this part of the cycle is nearing its conclusion – after nearly 25 years – it does not mean that Cedar Hill is done for. Not by a long shot. But Paul Miller (of Earthling Publications) has given me the opportunity to document all of the benchmarks in the town’s history, and the three collections will serve as a solid foundation for its history for new readers.

Dark Scribe: Are there any plans to collect the Cedar Hill stories that aren't included in the three Earthling volumes?

Gary Braunbeck: Not yet, but I wouldn't be opposed to it. There are several novellas set in Cedar Hill that have not been collected simply because of their cumulative length. I would have dearly loved to have included "The Ballad of Road Mama and Daddy Bliss" (from Destinations Unknown), but it's nearly 50,000 words.

My hope is that this third collection will prompt readers to clear out Earthling's remaining copies of the first two volumes, and then, maybe someday, we'll see Volumes 1.5 and 2.5.

Dark Scribe: Stories in both Cedar Hill collections have been tweaked and altered from their original form. What was the reason to do this? Will this also be the case in volume three?

Gary Braunbeck: I mentioned before that the revisions of pre-existing material were necessary in order to better establish and maintain the chronology, but these revisions also allow me to smooth over stories that have some fairly rough (read: written when I was much younger) prose and to see if any of the background characters were actually people I’ve since met along the way.

And yes, the reprinted stories in The Carnival Within will all have been tweaked to some extent. It’s been easier this time because, as I’ve written and published the stories, I’ve kept in mind their place in the cycle. The Carnival Within will also contain more original stories than the first two volumes combined. Right now it’s looking like there will be at least forty thousand words of new Cedar Hill stories. This portion of the cycle is going out with a bang, not a whimper.

Dark Scribe: Are you writing the Cedar Hill material chronologically now? Or will you always go back and fill in gaps in the timeline?

Gary Braunbeck: Thanks for asking that, because it gives me the opportunity to repeat something vitally important: this is not the end of Cedar Hill. I will be going back and filling in the gaps in the timeline.

Dark Scribe: If Cedar Hill were a real town, what would its motto be?

Gary Braunbeck: It already has one, one that’s popped up at least four times in various stories: “This is Cedar Hill. Weird shit happens here. Get used to it.”

To learn more about Gary Braunbeck, visit his official author website.

For more information on The Collected Stories of Cedar Hill, visit the publisher's website.

Read the DSM review of Gary Braunbeck's latest, Coffin County.

Greg Lamberson and I have been acquainted through message boards for years, and we live just fifteen minutes apart, yet we’d never met until we sat down for lunch. I knew he was responsible for films such as Slime City, but I didn’t realize his literary potential until I read the cover blurb for his forthcoming Medallion mass market paperback Johnny Gruesome. I decided it was a book that I simply must read. Once I picked up some more info on his first novel Personal Demons, and his forthcoming non-fiction book Cheap Scares, I knew Lamberson was an author whose brain I wanted to pick.

I made the first move by contacting him for an interview and, when he graciously accepted, we set up the where and when. We agreed to meet at Buffalo’s landmark tavern, The Anchor Bar, inventors of the original Buffalo wing, to chat about Johnny, his extensive resume, and his future.

When Lamberson’s Nissan pulled up next to my Intrepid outside of the Main street establishment, he greeted me with a Johnny Gruesome poster and a bumper sticker that reads “Johnny Gruesome, Zombie President ’08.” Heading into the bar, our conversation started casually since I was curious to know why a filmmaker felt compelled to join the literary brand of horror. Opening the door, he started with his upbringing in Fredonia, New York. His mother didn’t have a car and he didn’t see as many films as he would’ve liked to. “I ended up doing a lot of reading instead,” he says.

Our server seated us in a room adjacent to the bar area, where Lamberson noted that he was heavily influenced by Ghost Story and ‘Salem’s Lot, but he added that movies were still very special to him. He remembers that “HBO was new when I was just starting high school, so I could see movies like Carrie and The Omen that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”

Like most writers, Lamberson was a voracious reader, which enabled his switch to literary writing. His life in New York City afforded him a wealth of time to read. “When you’re taking the subway every day, an hour and a half each way, you get a lot of reading done,” he says. “I made a conscious decision when I moved to Buffalo, after twenty years in New York, to try something different. I said to myself: the filmmaking thing isn’t happening, I have three unsold screenplays, and tons of ideas I’ve worked really hard on so I’m going to turn them into novels.”

When our server arrived with a Diet Pepsi for each of us, I decided to get down to business and I asked him what inspired Johnny Gruesome. Location was significant for him, as he recalled his roots in Fredonia. “The blizzards of ’76 and ’77 were very big events in my life because there was no school for two months. I lived in a ranch house and there was a snow drift that was almost as wide as the house, but smaller than the house.”

Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, which is set in Western New York, continued to inspire him, as Straub so perfectly described the area where Lamberson lived.

“Ghost Story was made into a movie,” he continues, “and it was one of the few horror movies that I did see while I was in high school, but they cut out this huge subplot involving two teenagers. I thought they should take the material they cut out and make a sequel of it one day.”

Straub’s Ghost Story wasn’t the only inspiration for Johnny’s story, since Lamberson was also inspired by a movie poster he found while managing a theatre in New York. The poster depicted a juvenile delinquent holding a knife to the throat of a fellow teenager, with a buxom blonde watching. He tacked the poster on his wall and pondered the story behind the image.

Returning to Fredonia after several months, determined to hammer out a screenplay, Lamberson was greeted by Western New York’s cruel winter. When he moved to Buffalo five years ago, he began thinking about his favorite teenage zombie again.

In Johnny Gruesome, a murdered heavy metal teenager becomes a vengeance-crazed zombie, and it was the commercially-viable novel he wanted to write. Shaking Johnny from his mind was impossible. “I knew I had to get this out of the way, one way or another.”

Still, transplanting Johnny from his screenplay format to the novel form came with its share of challenges. Lamberson explains, “When I decided to turn this into a book and it was twenty years later, something that made me hesitate was asking ‘How do I make this story about teenagers relevant and interesting to me now?’”

Deciding that he didn’t want to write a period piece, he chose to embrace the influence of Marvel Comics and the 80’s horror films that Johnny’s story is supposed to be about. Lamberson adds that, “with the cover art that Zach McCain did for Bad Moon Books’ Limited Edition of Johnny, no one could look at this and say ‘this is literary dark fiction’ and be disappointed. Everyone would know what it’s supposed to be and so the people it’s meant for will read it.”

When our server returned with a double order of hot wings, with celery and bleu cheese for each of us, I decided to switch gears and concentrate on his non-fiction work. His book, Cheap Scares, to be published by McFarland and Company later this year, is a how-to for the low-budget horror film rookie.

Cheap Scares, in which he offers advice on screenwriting and the business and other useful tidbits, is based fifty percent on Lamberson’s own filmmaking experiences. But he’s quick to add, “I wanted the book to be more than the ranting of a person who’s only made three low-budget horror films.”

When he notes that the second half of the book is comprised of in-depth interviews with other low-budget film veterans, I became curious about how he chose who to include. Dipping a wing in his bleu cheese, he explains. “About half of the people I chose are people that I know, either from working on films, distribution, or just from going to conventions. Larry Fessenden is someone I know from New York and I really wanted a smart filmmaker in there. Bret Piper is someone I don’t know. Scooter McCrae, who did Shatter Dead, has a lot of the same friends I do, but we’ve never met.” He adds, “It was interesting seeing his film and being blown away by it then talking to him on the phone for three hours. All of my interviews for that book were just as long and I had to cut them by fifty percent.”

Enjoying our wings, I asked him how the experiences of other filmmakers have differed from his own. He took a moment to ponder then he told me that age comes into play. Noting that, although Bret Piper isn’t much older than others in the book, he says that he’s old enough not to have experimented with a Super-8 camera when he was young. “So, he dropped out of high school,” Lamberson says, “then he went into construction, and because of that he says he has a very blue collar mentality.” Larry Fessenden, by contrast, comes from a wealthy family and has a more “bohemian artist” outlook on filmmaking, according to Lamberson.

Lamberson notes that Cheap Scares is comprised of more than just filmmakers, as it includes a distributor, marketing people, and an entertainment attorney. “There’s definitely a broad scope,” he says of the diversity of filmmaking talent sharing their expertise in the book. “I wanted to make sure the book would be interesting, but I also wanted the target audience to really get something out of it.”

Overall, Cheap Scares emphasizes storytelling and marketing - which, according to Lamberson, is where many aspiring filmmakers fail. He adds that the book is a comprehensive tool for anyone wanting to write, direct or produce a low-budget horror film.

After Lamberson had mentioned his first novel, Personal Demons, which was originally published by Broken Umbrella Press, I meant to ask him why he chose religious-themed horror. Wrapping up our interview, I decided to chase after the answer. He told me that he doesn’t consider Personal Demons to be a religious-themed novel, at least not in the Judeo-Christian sense. “It’s not dogmatic,” he says. “Two themes in the novel are religious fanaticism and scientific fanaticism. It’s got multiple villains: one is a billionaire doing scientific research, another is an angel, and the other is a demon, and they’re all after the same thing, like in The Maltese Falcon.”

For Lamberson, illustrating how religion can be abused was important, particularly in the wake of 9/11. Noting that he isn’t religious, he says he supports stem cell research and other scientific possibilities for healing, adding “I’m waiting for the day America believes in science again.”

To him, the book is much more film noir in horror and crime drama with some science and religion. He says it’s “a real hodgepodge, kitchen sink approach.” He hoped to tap into the pacing of the television show 24. In this sense, he feels that Personal Demons differs from Edward Lee and Michael Laimo’s religious-themed novels, which emphasize Judeo-Christian mythology.

Though Personal Demons is Lamberson’s proudest achievement, he was frustrated at being unable to take his novel to the next level. He took out full page ads in Fangoria and Rue Morgue, knowing he wouldn’t recoup the money he spent. “I considered it a worthwhile investment at the time because it was a tax write-off and it helped me make a lot of sales at conventions.” Then he adds, “I wouldn’t recommend small press authors spending money on advertising, but it worked according to my plan.”

Lamberson will have a second chance to take Personal Demons to the next level as it will be published as a mass market paperback for the first time by Medallion in 2009.

Polishing up our wings, our server brought us our bill, and I decided to ask some random questions about zombies and FearZone.com. Concerning the zombie sub-genre, I was anxious to get his thoughts on its viability in today’s publishing climate. Lamberson says that he doesn’t consider the sub-genre dead, and that it even shows strength in some areas. “Permuted Press seems to be doing very well with it,” he says. “As long as it doesn’t degenerate into the crappy romantic stuff that happened with vampires, it should be fine - I don’t see that happening.”

Adding that most contemporary zombie novels are spin-offs of what Romero did in the movies, he says that he would like to see new interpretations of zombies, apart from the “shoot ‘em in the brain, flesh-eater” living dead. “If you can’t do Romero better than Romero, why try?”

Asking him about his gig a FearZone.com, Lamberson mentions that he was the only candidate, out of 750 applicants, to be considered for the editor-in-chief position. For him, it’s the perfect part-time job for a stay-at-home dad. “Very often I’ve been conveniently been laid off from a job or have quit to make a movie, and there was always something out there that was just right for me, that utilized my vast wealth of otherwise useless knowledge.”

Noting that he’d hit a point where he and his wife had run out of money, he says that he received an e-mail from a friend in New York City who had the inside scoop on a new horror website. Even though they were looking for someone from New York, he decided to apply for the position anyway. He says, “It’s a good situation because I can do it from home and it is decent money for the amount of time I put in.”

He wanted FearZone.com to be more than just a horror movie site, and he has turned it into so much more. The site offers feature interviews, book reviews, and video game reviews with literary tie-ins.

Stopping in the parking lot, Lamberson fills me in on his hectic upcoming schedule. Medallion is flying him to Los Angeles for Book Expo America, where he will be doing several book signings. Returning east, he will be appearing at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in Secaucus, New Jersey. From there, he will move north to Toronto for Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear ahead of Johnny’s October paperback publication.

For Lamberson, it isn’t just the comp trip to L. A. that has satisfied him, but it’s also the faith that his publisher has entrusted in him. “It’s nice that someone else is doing the pushing, not me,” he says, “and it's evidence that they really believe in the book.”

For more about Greg Lamberson, check out his author website or stop by his MySpace page.

Read DSM's review of Johnny Gruesome.

Gord Rollo’s writing career didn’t start with the discovery of an unexplainable talent. Like many, he started with some ability and the determination to be successful. In the years to come, he took this mold and acquired the skills and direction necessary to make the big time. Now, the forty year old real estate agent from Dunnville, Ontario has achieved some well-deserved success in the horror field. This summer, Leisure Books will publish his novel The Jigsaw Man as a mass market paperback. Though he claims to feel more comfortable writing novels, his short fiction has been published in many anthologies and magazines, and his novella Lost in Translation was published by Nyx Books in 2007.

When Gord and I realized we were booked on the same Southwest flight to Salt Lake City for the World Horror Convention, I was quick to ask for a more formal talk about his success. He graciously accepted and we talked about everything from his oldest writing memories, to the most personal experiences he has put on paper.

Gord arrived at my home before dawn so we could catch a 6:40 flight to Salt Lake City. U.S. Customs and the New York State Thruway was a breeze, leaving us time to talk horror. When we checked our luggage at the Buffalo airport, the conversation turned serious. As we waited in the security line, Gord asked, “How much would I have to pay for your right arm?” I paused, uncertain how to answer. Then he asked, “What about your right leg?” At first, I didn’t take him seriously. When his expression didn’t change, I knew I was in trouble.

He assured me that he didn’t want to buy my right arm, but the question was no less serious. Hearing the question from a radio DJ had sparked his imagination and he began asking himself the proverbial what if? “So, I started asking my friends the same question,” he said as the plane took off for Chicago. “The answers were always different, but never boring, and before long, I had the plot for The Jigsaw Man. In my head.” He said he realized that big opportunities have big consequences and he was amazed at what his friends would give up for two million dollars. I told him I was happy to keep my limbs attached.

The Jigsaw Man is about a man who sells his arm to a scientist for two million dollars but can’t help wondering what he’ll do with it. Though the novel is a modern-day Frankenstein tale, the emotional undercurrent is derived from reality. Gord explains, “In 1995, my daughter Amanda was born with terminal liver disease called Biliary Atresia and her only chance at life was with a liver transplant. She ended up having three liver transplant operations before her first birthday.” He says his daughter is now 12 and doing well but “I could never forget. That pain and suffering always stays inside you. The story has nothing to do with little girls, and nothing to do with livers, but is has everything to do with my daughter and what my family went through.”

The book - originally titled simply Jigsaw - was published by Delirium Books in 2006, but Rollo resolved not to stick to only the small press. He says, “I knew that Delirium was highly respected and the small press was a key stepping stone for bigger and better things for me.”

He believed in The Jigsaw Man enough to submit it to Don D’Auria, Executive Editor of Leisure Books. He first met D’Auria at Horrorfind weekend in 2002 and has been “getting in his face ever since.” He adds, “It’s always important to meet editors, so they can see that you’re serious about your craft, are willing to promote your work by attending conventions, and that you can behave like a profession should.”

For Rollo, persistence and hard work paid off. He inked his first deal with Leisure just before last year’s World Horror Convention in Toronto, Canada. Leisure has since accepted his novel Crimson, which was published by Prime Books in 2002. However, D’Auria’s interest had a catch. Crimson was not accepted until Gord cut fifteen thousand words from a manuscript that had already seen a fifty thousand word facelift. “Consider this a lesson,” he says. “Even when you think you’re done with a story, you might not be. Your writing can always get better.” He considers this version of Crimson to be “leaner and meaner” than the original and for the collectors out there, Rollo has just struck a deal with Roy Robbins at Bad Moon Books to make a deluxe limited hardcover version of Crimson available by the end of this year.

When we landed at Chicago’s Midway airport, we were both hungry for some breakfast, and the food court was loaded with breakfast temptations. We sat down with our bagels, and Gord recounted his beginnings in the writing field. I first asked him what his biggest obstacles were.

“That one’s easy: Juggling my day job with my writing commitments. It’s hard to work all day, pick up the kids, make supper, help the kids with their homework, then go write the next great blockbuster novel.”

I was curious to know what inspired him to write and how his craft has evolved into his current work. He said that his first crack at creative writing came long before The Jigsaw Man or Crimson. He claims to have come by his predilection for writing honestly, citing that his father, James Rollo, is also a writer. Rollo Sr. still actively writes and has a Western novel currently being considered by Leisure Books. This familial talent struck him early enough that he wrote his first short story when he was ten years old. Rollo didn’t limit himself to short fiction, having written a sixth grade play that was performed before his entire school. His first horror story, titled “Weekend Of Terror” was written that same year. “Those were kid things,” he says, “I got serious about writing in college and had finished the first few chapters of a novel by 1988.”

Once he had finished some short stories, he needed a place to submit them. He noted that much of his early writing was in the pre-Internet days, so he turned to Writer’s Digest for market information. His first publication was in Black Petals, a low-budget horror ‘zine. “It was one of those black and white magazines that looked like it’d been photocopied and stapled together,” he says.

That first sale, however small, spawned into a host of new opportunities. When Crimson was published, he tackled the role of associate editor with Prime Books, having edited the first books of Stoker nominated authors Lee Thomas and Nicholas Kaufmann. This editorial experience gave him the wings to become an anthologist by editing Unnatural Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares and Dreaming of Angels (with Monica O’ Rourke). Though the first collection was compiled by invitation only, he was overwhelmed because he still had to turn away some big name writers. More challenging was learning how to suggest revisions to the name writers who remained. “Who am I to tell Brian Lumley to change something?” he remembers asking. Still, the experience proved successful as Unnatural Selection made it onto the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker award for superior achievement in an anthology and was a finalist for the EPPIE Award in 2002 for Best Anthology.

Pushing forward and paying his dues didn’t come without other obstacles. He needed an agent, but finding one who would take him seriously was a challenge. He recalled a pitch session that barely lasted fifteen seconds. The standard “thanks but no thanks” or “we don’t feel that plot suits our current needs” became routine. Often, the queries he sent to New York agencies went unanswered. That changed after his deal with Leisure Books. Though he has since landed both a book agent and a film agent, the same agents who ignored his queries have come looking to offer representation. “Unbelievable,” he says. “Where were these people three years ago?”

Perseverance isn’t the only imperative in writing to him. As we grew more excited about the upcoming convention, our conversation turned to the networking and camaraderie that helps a writer, but we had to cut our talk short to catch or connecting flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City.

Once we were squeezed into seats on our fully loaded plane - complete with singing flight attendants, no less! - we discussed Gord’s influences and his dreams for the future. A writer with his first taste of true success can’t help dreaming of what comes next. When I asked him where he saw himself in five years, he laughs and says, “I want to say rich and famous, but who doesn’t? A writer needs to be lucky and flexible at the same time. I would need to write for the mass market and the small press and get lucky enough to sell some foreign books rights and maybe get some film deals too. Bottom line is I would like to write full time. That’s my ultimate goal.”

The captain came on the intercom to tell us we were cruising at 40,000 feet and heading into strong head winds, meaning our trip was being slowed, but that didn’t stifle our convention excitement. I thought to ask Gord how conventions have helped to shape his career. He says that they haven’t always affected his craft, as he credits much of his learning to reading authors who are better than him. He says that attending panels were definitely helpful, but the networking opportunities have been more valuable than anything. “It’s relationship building at the cons that I think really helped get me to a higher level,” he says. “There is something so powerful about being in a room with so many people who think exactly like you and care about the same things you do. It’s an amazing thing and it really draws me to conventions.” He adds: “Some of my favorite people are writers I’ve met at conventions and who I only see once or twice a year…Gene O’Neill, Michael Laimo, Brian Keene, Weston Ochse, J. F. Gonzales. A few hours talking with those guys totally recharges my batteries and teaches me ten times what I might learn in any writing textbook.”

When the captain announced our final descent into Salt Lake City, I asked Gord to reflect on his biggest influences.

“I read all of the King and Koontz I could get my hands on, naturally, and Robert McCammon was also a favorite of mine, but my biggest influence back then was probably Richard Laymon. Being from Canada, I was able to get all the British versions of his novels long before the United States gave him a chance. What I loved most about Laymon was that his writing was not too literate, not too stuffy. It was straightforward and accessible without all the drawn out and padded character development. Something about it kicked ass and made me think it was possible I could write like that some day. I was in awe of his talent. Still am.”

Gord also credits Gene O’ Neill, author of Confessions of St. Zach and Burden of Indigo as his most significant mentor. “He took me in during my first convention when I didn’t have a pot to piss in and gave me a room to stay in,” he says. “Gene’s like a Father figure to me, a great friend, but more importantly, he’s a superb writer and has taught me so much about the craft of fiction writing. I’d never be where I am today without his guidance and kicks in the ass to keep reaching for higher levels in my work.”

Our excitement almost reached a fever pitch when we landed. There was a pause before the flight attendants opened the cabin door, but we couldn’t wait to get off the plane. Though our plane arrived slightly behind schedule, we were at the Salt Lake City airport in perfect time to meet Gene O’ Neill, who was flying in from Oakland, at his gate. Gord met his mentor with a big hug and an unspoken promise to add more fun times to a collection of good convention memories. The three of us shared a cab to the Radisson, which was home to World Horror Convention 2008, while admiring the majestic, snow-capped mountains.

Utah wasn’t the only stop in Gord’s travel plans this year. He will be a featured writer at this year’s Canadian Book Expo in June, and he will also be a guest at Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear in Toronto this August. Later that same month, he will appear at Baltimore’s Horrorfind weekend, then move south for Dragoncon in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. He also plans to do several local Canadian book signings, as well as a book tour through California this coming October or November.

“If my readers haven’t gotten tired of me by Christmas, I’ll have to start promoting Crimson, which will be released in April of 2009. Things are going to get hectic and crazy, for sure, but I honestly wouldn’t want it any other way. Why would I?”

Pre-order Gord Rollo’s Jigsaw Man.

Rick Reed is a busy guy. Probably the busiest guy in dark genre fiction right now. With an astounding four novels slated for release in 2008 alone, the man Unzipped magazine once called “the Stephen King of gay horror” has nary the time to take a breath in an unconventional literary career that’s now bearing fruits aplenty.

Reed’s professional writing career began in the early 90’s with the publication of two novels under Dell’s popular horror imprint, Abyss. Obsessed, about a serial killer who believes he’s a vampire terrorizing Chicago, and Penance, which concerned street kids in Chicago’s uptown and the pedophile who preys upon them, went on to sell an impressive 80,000 copies and suggested great things to come for the Ohio-born dark scribe. 2000’s A Face Without a Heart, Reed's modern-day take on the Oscar Wilde classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, further cemented his growing reputation as a literary voice on the rise.

In October of 2006, Reed relocated from his longtime home in Chicago to Miami with his partner, Bruce, and their Boston Terrier. Judging from his fiction output in the few short years since that move, it would appear that the sunny skies over Miami had the effect of a caffeine drip on his writing. His short story collection, Twisted: Tales of Obsession and Terror, kicked off that year and was followed by In the Blood, a tragic vampire love story that followed a streetwalker / artist in parallel storylines set in the abstract expressionist art scene in 1950s Greenwich Village and modern-day Chicago.

In 2007, Reed released IM, the story of a gay serial killer who uses internet hook up sites to lure his victims – which I called “the gay version of S7ven” in my review for the horror site Unspeakable Horror. The book was well-received by fans – straight and gay alike - and attracted the interest of Daniel Farrands, noted screenwriter (The Girl Next Door, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers) and documentary director (the History Channel’s documentaries on the Amityville Horror and the upcoming comprehensive documentary on the iconic Friday the 13^th film series).

And in 2008? One needs a scorecard to keep track of Reed’s projects this year. He began with the supernatural thriller Deadly Vision, a story with his patented blend of serial killers and the supernatural. High Risk is Reed’s latest, an updated Fatal Attraction-like tale that takes the idea of desperate housewives to an entirely new level, and he’s found time to appear in a new four-author horror collection featuring three of his short stories called Like a Chinese Tattoo . Still to come: a dark love story called Orientation that takes on reincarnation and ponders the idea of an emotional love overriding the hard wiring of sexual orientation and Dead End Street, Reed’s first foray into the young adult market.

In between his days spent with the gay serial killers, psychic lesbians, reincarnated lovers, and desperate housewives of his macabre dark fiction, Reed finds time to blog regularly and interacts with his readers via his very active MySpace page. It’s not uncommon to find sexy anecdotes, politics, and humor thrown in between new book announcements that seem to come weekly.

Somewhere between writing, blogging, partnering and parenting, and loving life (we’ve determined he can’t possibly eat, drink or sleep), Reed sat down poolside in his tropical paradise of a backyard to chat with DSM and share the secret of how he pulls it all off.

Dark Scribe Magazine: You’ve been quite a busy guy lately. Let’s start off with High Risk. Tell us something about the new book.

Rick Reed: An early reader compared High Risk to Fatal Attraction, except from a female cheating spouse’s point of view. I liked that comparison, because I think Fatal Attraction was probably one of the best suspense movies I’ve ever seen. Of course, in my version, the cheating spouse doesn’t get off as easily as Michael Douglas. Pun intended.

Dark Scribe: No gay or lesbian main characters? A bit of a departure from previous efforts. Conscious decision or just the way the cards fell in terms of the story?

Rick Reed: No, I didn’t sit down and say, “Now I will write a book that will not have gay characters in the main roles.” Goofy as it sounds, my characters come to me, wanting me to tell their stories. And this time, the central characters just happened to be an adulterous housewife with too much time on her hands, playing Russian roulette with sexual partners. She was so obsessed with guilt and worried about ending up with HIV that she hardly even saw it coming when a very handsome—and very psychotic—man came into her life and turned it upside down.

Dark Scribe: Deadly Vision also hit bookshelves this past January. This one was told through the POV of a lesbian protagonist, and quite well, I might add. How did you get inside this particular character’s head?

Rick Reed: Thanks, Vince. I hate to sound all mystical, but I got inside my lesbian protagonist’s (Cass’s) head just like I get inside any other character’s head: I just sit down and start writing. I always seem to kind of slip under and start seeing the world through the eyes of whatever character I’m writing about. In the case of a lesbian woman, I think I can write through her eyes because we’re both human and both share many of the same feelings, longings, hopes, and disappointments. I have had people ask me about writing a “lesbian” book, but I pretty much assert that I am not writing books about gay men, or lesbians, or straight women, but about people. Their sexuality is just one aspect of their personalities. Just like in real life! I think we have far more things that bond us together as human beings than we have things that set us apart.

Dark Scribe: How have lesbian readers responded? Are they impressed with the character’s authenticity as well?

Rick Reed: From the time I read the prologue at last year’s Golden Crown Literary Society’s annual convention in Atlanta to when the book first came out on StarCrossed Productions’ website and immediately sold out, I think lesbian readers have been very happy with this effort. Both the convention I mentioned and the website are devoted to lesbian fiction. Of course, the book is really a suspense novel, and the fact that the main character is a lesbian is only secondary to the narrative drive of the story. Cass’s sexuality may play a larger role in upcoming books about her.

Dark Scribe: Next up, you’ve got Orientation and your first young adult novel, Dead End Street. What can you tell us about these projects?

Rick Reed: Orientation comes out next month and I’m very excited about it because it too is something of a departure for me. Although it has aspects of the paranormal (reincarnation), it is really a love story that asks some deep and probing questions. Aside from the strange love story between the two main characters, a gay man and a lesbian, this is the first book in which I confront the horror of AIDS in its early days and another plague on the gay community: crystal meth addiction. Early readers and my editor both have told me the book made them cry, which is always affirming to hear that you’ve affected someone on such a deep level.

Dead End Street is also different (gee, do you think I like to fool around with lots of different genres and forms…I’m kind of a promiscuous slut when it comes to writing, huh?). It’s my first young adult novel. It’s about five misfit kids who form a Halloween Horror Club in which they tell scary stories in an infamous abandoned house in their small town. The house has been empty since an entire family was murdered there years ago. But the kids, as they start to find out, may not be alone in the house. The dread builds slowly but surely. Some of my early YA readers have blessed it with their “read it in one sitting” suspense seal of approval.

Dark Scribe: How difficult was it transitioning from the more overt bloodiness and sexiness of your adult novels to writing for young adults? Any YA writers out there lend some support or words of wisdom?

Rick Reed: It wasn’t difficult because, again, my characters did the work for me. And they were all around thirteen or fourteen years old. So, writing through their eyes helped me keep the narrative on track and to make it appealing (I hope) for readers in that age range. I didn’t get any help from any YA authors because the writing process for me is a pretty solitary endeavor. I usually don’t show any of my work to anyone until it’s finished and polished. I have a fourteen year old niece, Mallory, back in Ohio who, whether she knows it or not, helps keep me attuned to what works for readers in that age group. Mal is a voracious reader (and loves horror!) and I do take note to what she’s reading and what she likes (most recently Stephanie Meyer’s excellent Twilight books).

Dark Scribe: Four books in twelve months’ time. Do you eat, sleep? Seriously, what’s your trick to such a substantial output?

Rick Reed: It’s all smoke and mirrors, honey. Actually, since I’ve been so fortunate lately in getting things published, people ask me that question a lot (even the sleep and eat part…and believe me, I never miss a meal or my eight hours). The truth is that a lot of good things have come together for me all at once. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve written every one of these projects all at once. Some of them were written, put away, revised, sent back out, put away, revised, sent back out. You know how it goes. So, having four books out in a year does not mean I’ve written four in a year. You also have to consider that it can often take a while for a book to go from submission to being for sale in a bookstore. But I will say that I have learned over the years to be very disciplined about my writing and where, once upon a time, I would let months pass where I didn’t write, I now write faithfully almost every day.

Dark Scribe: Your books often cross (and re-cross) genre lines. Is it difficult for you to straddle the line between genres?

Rick Reed: It’s difficult for me to straddle a picket fence (and I have the scar to prove it!). Genres…not so much. My writing is about telling the kind of stories I want to read (and that I hope someone else will want to as well). I can’t say that I start out with a genre in mind. I start out with a situation, a conflict, and some characters. A story develops from those things. I let someone else decide what labels go on each story. Some people call IM a “mystery;” others a “thriller;” still others, “horror.”

Dark Scribe: Sexuality also plays an important part in your work. How difficult is it to maintain a balance between the horror/suspense elements and the sexual elements in your books? Is there an imaginary tipping point between the horror/suspense and all-out erotica?

Rick Reed: Again, it goes back to my characters and their stories. I would hope that sexuality grows organically out of their relationships to other characters. I don’t ever stick it in (sex, I mean) just because I think it would be titillating or that the story needs some hot action. I think there is a tipping point between erotica and horror/suspense, but I don’t think I ever reach that point because I’m more interested in concentrating in the horror/suspense…the sex is just an added dimension for me. For other writers, it’s the opposite.

Dark Scribe: Somewhere between multiple novel projects, you found time to join David Thomas Lord, JA Konrath, and Cullen Bunn for the Like a Chinese Tattoo anthology from Dark Arts Books. What can you tell us about your contributions, and how was the experience working with this relatively new press?

Rick Reed: Bill Breedlove, the editor of Like a Chinese Tattoo, was kind enough to contact me and asked me to be one of the authors in the book when he was putting it together. I was honored, but initially leaned toward turning him down because I really didn’t have time. But he assured me that whatever I submitted would be in (which was a new experience for me and extremely flattering) and that I could submit one previously published story. I gave him one of my darkest—and best, I hope—previous stories, which was “Moving Toward the Light.” The story originally appeared in The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams, an anthology edited by James O’Barr, who created the original Crow graphic novel upon which the films were based and featuring the works of people like Iggy Popp, Henry Rollins, Andrew Vacchs, Nancy Collins, and other terrific writers. I’m glad that story will reach some new readers. I also included a story that’s my take on one of literature’s most famous vampire hunters, and a little preview of another upcoming novel, a short story that’s very twisted, called “Stung.”

The people at Dark Arts have been some of the most supportive I have worked with in terms of marketing and getting behind the book. For example, at last month’s World Horror Convention, they debuted the book and held an all-night long pajama party in honor of its release.

Dark Scribe: IM – your gay serial killer novel – has been optioned for film. If you were to land the job of casting agent on the film, who would your choices be for the key roles?

Rick Reed: Wouldn’t that be a great gig to have? Casting agent? Imagine the power and the fun you could have. Casting agents probably would beg to differ, but the grass is always greener. Anyway, my dream cast would include Macaulay Culkin as the serial killer, Timothy Bright, Jake Gyllenhall as the tortured detective, Stockard Channing as Aunt Helene, and I would hope a bevy of up and coming out and proud actors jostling for position as the victims. Well, I can dream… But Daniel Farrands, the guy behind the possible film, has been talking with some interesting indie-type people about the possibility of casting some of the roles.

Dark Scribe: Unzipped magazine once called you “the Stephen King of gay horror.” Has that blurb helped or hurt in terms of reader expectation? Has it limited/relegated you in any way to the role of “gay horror writer?”

Rick Reed: I am so happy Unzipped made that little comparison. I have probably gotten more mileage out of that than any other quote. Since I have been a huge Stephen King fan since I was a kid, it’s a great honor to me to even be mentioned in the same breath with him. I don’t think the comparison has been limiting and, as I’ve mentioned before, I leave labels to those who do the labeling. I’m just a storyteller.

Dark Scribe: You maintain a very active MySpace blog, one that’s seemingly quite popular with your fans. Some of your entries are quite personal and political in nature. Do you ever fear that this level of familiarity with Rick Reed, the person, might detract from the effectiveness of Rick Reed, the author?

Rick Reed: I’m too old to worry about such things. I’m also too old to be too concerned over what people think about me. I like to think that my blogs help people get to know me better as a person (and that includes my personal life and political and ideological beliefs). I don’t ask that people agree with me, I just want to show them a side of me they may not get from reading my fiction alone. And I believe that this level of familiarity can only help the effectiveness of Rick Reed the writer, because I think people respond to someone who’s honest and willing to share with them as individuals and not just potential readers.

Dark Scribe: There are many naysayers out there who roll their eyes at celebrity opinions on politics or issues outside of their particular craft - whether acting or music or writing – and take the stance of “who cares what they think?” As a notable craftsman in your field, why do you think people are interested in your views?

Rick Reed: As I said, I don’t put forth my views with any expectations that people will agree with me. I’m just one person, with opinions on many different things. My biggest hope for my blogs is that they make people think, or laugh, or, hopefully, remember me. But no, I don’t believe my opinion on most topics carries more weight than anyone else’s.

Dark Scribe: While we’re on politics, let’s detour for a moment. If the Democratic candidates actually listen to their constituents and combine forces, would you rather a Clinton-Obama ticket or an Obama-Clinton ticket? Why?

Rick Reed: Now, see, my feeling is first: why would anyone care what I think about this? The truth is, without going into a lot of why’s, is that I would prefer the Clinton-Obama ticket. But I also would be extremely happy if it went the other way—I think either combination would be unbeatable.

Dark Scribe: You’ve embraced the use of book trailers in promoting your novels. As a marketing tool, how effective would you say these videos have been for you?

Rick Reed: I have no idea, honestly. They’re fun to help put together with the producer I use and I think they work well as a visual representation of what my books are about. These days, I think such visual representations are important…as well as having a presence on uber sites like YouTube.

Dark Scribe: Is there such a thing as “queer horror?” Which is more important to you as a writer – the “queer” or the “horror?”

Rick Reed: Neither. The story and the characters are what matter. Queer and horror inform my characters and my stories because they’re so enmeshed in my personal life that they’re impossible to sort out.

Dark Scribe: What’s life like for Rick Reed, the person, when not hunched over a computer screen writing?

Rick Reed: One thing I’ve come to realize over the course of the years is that family is the most important thing in life. And that’s where I am when I’m not writing…with my partner, Bruce, and our spoiled Boston Terrier, Lily. I also love to make opportunities to see my son, Nicholas, in Montreal, and my sisters and their families in Ohio.

Dark Scribe: Looking back, what’s the biggest mistake/regret in terms of your writing career?

Rick Reed: (begins to croon) “Regrets, I’ve had a few; but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do, and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course; each careful step along the byway, but more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

(laughs) Sorry for the lapse into channeling Frank Sinatra. I don’t really have a lot of regrets. Sure, there have been mistakes and things I might have done differently - and better - but everything I’ve done along my own path was a learning experience, and both the good and the bad contributed to who I am today…good or bad.

To learn more about Rick R. Reed, visit his official author website.

To say that Christopher Rice’s entry into the world of commercial fiction was made easier by his famous literary lineage would be both with and without merit. Certainly, his “Son of…” delineation afforded him access to major media outlets few debut writers even dream of in promoting their first books. But when it came to the words on the page – his words, his pages – it was this same flawed line of reasoning many skeptics used to dismiss Rice right out of the gate. After all, how could the then twenty-two year old offspring of gothic novel queen Anne Rice possibly be judged on his own merits without the inherent skepticism leveled at celebrity children attempting to step out on their own?

Answer: He couldn’t. And didn’t.

Despite his inability to avert the caustic red pen of critics, Rice managed to establish himself as a bonafide literary draw with his debut novel, 2000’s A Density of Souls. Set in the familiar Rice turf of New Orleans, Density grabbed readers from page one with the story of four best friends and their ill-fated journey through high school and beyond. Fraught with adolescent jock lust, betrayal, murder, homophobia, and a shot of rape and incest for good measure, Density read like a gay, gothic Melrose Place and won the fledgling dark scribe legions of fans who helped the book shoot onto the New York Times bestseller list. The fact that in Rice’s fictional world the boy did indeed get the football player – or two or three – didn’t hurt his standing in the gay community either.

Rice followed up in 2002 with another atmospheric psychological thriller, The Snow Garden. More of the same, only this time set in a snowy, fictional New England-esque college town. Again, despite being an easy target for reviewers, Snow Garden went on to win the prestigious Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Mystery and dispelled the notion that he was a one-hit wonder ri