I’m very privileged to have multiple Bram Stoker Award winner Lisa Morton on my blog. I’m currently collaborating with her and Rocky Wood on the non-fiction graphic novel Witches!, which will be published by McFarland in 2012.

In this interview I talk to Lisa about her writing, her Halloween expertise and her role as vice-president of the Horror Writers Association. So without much further ado:

What made you decide to take up writing as a career and what was your very first paid writing gig?

I’ve always written, but the thought of making it my career didn’t take hold until I was 15. At that time I’d been scoring very high in science aptitude tests, so as you can probably imagine my school
counselors were all horrified when I told them I wanted to be a (screen)writer. They all spent the rest of my school years trying to argue me out of it.

I started out wanting to be a screenwriter, so my first real money was made in that area, and was the sale of the screenplay (co-written with Tom Burman) for LIFE ON THE EDGE, eventually released under the title
MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS. My first real prose sale didn’t happen until a few years later, when Stephen Jones bought my story “Sane Reaction” for DARK VOICES 6.

When did this obsession with Halloween begin and how?

Strangely enough, it’s recent, and I’d call it more of a professional interest than an obsession. Obviously I always loved Halloween, but I’d never really thought much about it until after I did my first book
(about the Hong Kong film director Tsui Hark). After that, the publisher, McFarland, approached me about doing another book with them and asked if I had any ideas. I looked at their current catalog, saw
they’d just released a book called THE CHRISTMAS ENCYCLOPEDIA, and so I just sort of flippantly threw out THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA. They went for it, and that was how it started. I amassed so much material researching that book (and that book sold very well and received
wonderful reviews) that it just made sense to keep going with Halloween.

Over the years you have acquired significant amounts of knowledge on the history of Halloween and you update your encyclopaedias fairly regularly … is there really still more for you (and us) to learn?

One of the interesting things about Halloween is how malleable the holiday has been throughout its history. It seems to undergo pretty serious transformations every 10-30 years; just in the last 10 years alone we’ve seen the explosion of the haunted attractions industry to the point where Halloween and haunted houses are almost synonomous, and that would have been unthinkable just a few short decades ago.

Another thing that keeps it interesting are advances in research. The preface to the 2nd edition of THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA, for instance, talks about what a difference Google Books has made in just the 8 years between the two editions of the book. Information that in the past would have required a half-day trip to the downtown library and the assistance of research librarians can now be accomplished from
home in ten minutes. It really is amazing what’s available in digitized form online now.

What’s the appeal of Halloween in the US? Does anyone appreciate that Halloween is a lot more than just trick-or-treating?

Halloween serves a number of functions, and it even varies slightly on where you are in the U.S. In more rural areas, it’s still part harvest celebration and identified with trick-or-treat; in more urban areas, it’s now an adult celebration with an emphasis on haunted houses and parties. In either case I think it’s actually about empowerment – the thought of becoming someone else for a day is very freeing for most Americans, and perhaps moreso in these days when very conservative and repressive political ideologies are in the headlines nearly every day.

We’re also seeing the rise of Dia de los Muertos in many urban areas, brought here by Latin American immigrants, and that holiday is finding a real home as well. Dia de los Muertos brings with it a playful exploration of death as a real event, not something to be avoided and shunned, and it’s found a small but growing receptive audience here, north of the border.

Who were your biggest influences in your early days of writing? Do those authors still inspire you?

When I was a kid I grew up reading mainly science fiction – Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison – and yes, I still love those authors. Later on I discovered Philip K. Dick, and of course horror
authors like Dennis Etchison and King. It’s probably a wonder that I’m not writing science fiction.

The most recent Stoker Awards you’ve won were for The Samanach (long fiction) and the other for The Castle of Los Angeles (Superior Achievement in First Novel – joint winner). What were the inspirations for those works?

THE SAMHANACH came out of my Halloween research. I thought it would be interesting to create a work of fiction that also served as a mini-history of Halloween, and when I came across the notion of a shapeshifting, child-stealing Scottish demon called the samhanach, the rest just fell into place.

THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES was a much longer process. I’ve always loved the traditional Gothic novel, especially the works of Ann Radcliffe, and I felt that most of what’s labeled “Gothic” these days really isn’t – someone like Anne Rice incorporates a few Gothic elements, certainly, but she’s really not a true Gothic writer. I wondered if it was possible to use all of the tropes of the true Gothic novel – the orphaned heroine, the haunted structure, the strict caste system with an aristocrat as antagonist – in a genuinely contemporary novel. About the time I was thinking along those lines, I had friends who ran a small theater in a real place called The Brewery, which is the largest collection of artists’ lofts in L.A. Somehow those two thoughts just meshed, and CASTLE was born.

Give us an idea of how you approach your writing. One minute you might be writing a movie script, the next a short story or you might be doing some of the dreaded editing. Give us “A day in the life of Lisa Morton, multi-faceted writer”?

It’s all about deadlines! I know that sounds crass, but at this point it’s really true for me. I have to stagger projects according to what’s due next. Right now, for example, my priorities are two non-fiction projects: One is a Halloween history for the British company Reaktion Books, and the other is a non-fiction graphic novel (I just love that oxymoronic term!) for McFarland about the history of the witch trials, which I’m co-writing with Rocky Wood and working with a fabulously talented artist on! (Insert winking icon here…) I
recently pounded out a few works of short fiction for books I’d accepted invitations into, but otherwise my schedule will be focused on these two books for the next three months at least. And yes, there are already two fiction projects I’ve contracted for as soon as these are done, but I’m not talking about those just yet.

You’ve written non-fiction and fiction works. Do you enjoy them equally? Non-fiction is certainly more labour intensive?

Yes and yes. Although one of the hardest things I’ve ever written was fiction – that was my section of Steve Jones’s ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! shared world anthology. And to further complicate things, I still take
on the occasional screenwriting project, which these days mostly falls into the realm of uncredited script doctoring gigs.

What are you working on at the moment… any impending releases?

I’ve already mentioned the two non-fiction books (both of which will be out in 2012), so I’ll mention my big release for 2011: MONSTERS OF L.A. is my first fiction collection, and it’ll be launched at the World Fantasy Convention in October, published by Bad Moon Books. This is a collection of 20 previously unpublished stories which range from flash fiction to novelette, and all of which present classic horrors
in contemporary Southern California settings. Each story is accompanied by a little essay about its setting, so it’s pretty unique.

We’ve heard that you will be taking over the role of Vice President of the Horror Writers Association. Do you have any goals at this stage?

One of the Vice President’s jobs is to oversee the organization’s publications, and I’d like to expand our range there. We’ve done very well with both our guidebook, ON WRITING HORROR, and our anthology
series BLOOD LITE, but we can do more, including moving into e-books. I’m also excited by a project now underway to organize HWA’s chapters at last. I think our chapters are HWA’s most underused resource, and it’s time to change that.

How do you see the horror genre at the moment and overall publishing industry? Major booksellers are collapsing, some small presses are struggling and e-books are growing in abundance. How can the horror genre maintain its place?

Personally, I think the genre no longer needs to worry about merely “maintaining”, and is ready to seriously grow again. While it’s true that major booksellers are collapsing, independents are starting to come back. And I’m one of those who doesn’t believe that e-books will replace printed books; they’re going to exist comfortably side-by-side for a long time. It’s all good, and it’s all good for horror.

What are you currently reading now?

I wish I could report something great, but I’m basically reading nothing but research materials these days! I’m even reading non-fiction works that aren’t directly related to one of my specialties just to study styles.

The last novel I read was Gillian Flynn’s SHARP OBJECTS, and I did enjoy that very much. I can’t wait until I have time to read fiction for pleasure again!

If you could any advice to an up and coming writer, what would it be?

Take it seriously or don’t bother. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Too many new writers think that they can get away with not knowing certain basics, or with only putting in a few hours, or with not rewriting. If your grammar’s not great, go away and study Strunk and White and then come back in a few months. Don’t watch five hours of television every night and think you can still write. Don’t send out your first draft and expect it to sell – it won’t, and may just end up embarrassing you with editors and agents. Approach it as you would any other job. It’s a tough business and there’s lots of competition, so if you go in with a slipshod approach, that’s what you’re going to reap.

For more on Lisa visit http://www.lisamorton.com/

Very excited to reveal that I have signed a contract to publish a new horror novella with Damnation Books!

The Noctuary is scheduled to be released in e-book format on December 1, 2011 with the paperback edition to follow shortly after.

The idea for The Noctuary came about during my mentorship program with Aussie horror author Brett McBean in 2009.

Here’s a bit of a blurb on The Noctuary, which means “Night Diary” or “Night Journal”:

Struggling writer Simon Ryan’s life has gone to Hell.

So I’ve returned from my first trip to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria.

What was initially a trip to attend the Continuum 7 convention turned out to be much more…a bit of a magical history tour.

Of course I didn’t just want to spend the whole five days attending the convention, I wanted to see the sights and catch up with some authors I had collaborated with over the years.

The convention was beneficial: I sat in on a few seminars and heard the speech of one of the guests of honour – fantasy author Catherynne M. Valente who delivered a short story that may or may not have been autobiographical about a science fiction writer’s place within the universe and the multitude of creation myths surrounding her. I even learned some new things about copyright law!

I met Aussie horror author Brett McBean – the guy who tutored me through the Australian Horror Writers Association’s mentor program and helped me achieve publication with Torment. Over lunch we shared our thoughts on writing and exchanged signed copies of our books.

Mark Farrugia, who I collaborated with on the comic strip story “Allure of the Ancients” also introduced himself to me and plans are already underway to create a sequel to the illustrated vampire tale.

But it was when I went exploring the city of Melbourne that I somehow tapped in to a cultural and historical wellspring that got the creative juices flowing.

A tour of Old Melbourne Gaol took me into a den of darkness, with claustrophobic jail cells, death masks of executed criminals – and of course Australia’s most infamous outlaw Ned Kelly. As part of tour I was “arrested and processed” as a criminal, which gave me an insight into incarceration and isolation. Good fodder for the imagination!

Next was the State Library of Victoria and the fates must have intertwined at this place. For months I’ve been in the realm of the Middle Ages for the graphic novel Witches! but only seeing it online or from the pages of a book. As I walked the steps to the Library I was greeted by a monument I never expected to see – Joan of Arc! Joan of Arc will feature in Witches! so I couldn’t resist but take her photo.

 

And finally, there was the once-in-a-lifetime Tutunkhamun exhibition at the Melbourne Museum (unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures here). It was truly amazing to see the treasures from the boy king’s tomb and to have a deeper understanding of more than 3000 years of history.

My novella Torment has received positive reviews from The Horror Fiction Review and Australian review site Horrorscope!

Nick Cato, senior reviewer at HFR said Torment described Torment as a “slick read” that “features some genuinely scary moments”. You can read the full review HERE at his personal blog (the review will feature on HFR in June)

Meanwhile Horrorscope, which is shutting down after six years 😦 has reviewed Torment (it’s last ever review). Matt Tait describes the novella as “a more than entertaining read” and that the “tried and true” formula is a “recipe that works” for “a debut author who is a genuine unknown…”  Read the full review HERE

You can buy Torment in e-book or paperback HERE

April saw the publication of two new tales of mine:

Short stories are always a fun challenge between longer works and any drawing projects I happen to be working on. Here are the details.

“Deluge”, an apocalyptic story about a horrifying rain event was published in Trembles Magazine #2 on April 1. It’s one of a number of tales by author’s from across the globe, inlcuding Aaron J. French and Charles A. Gramlich

You can buy a copy either in print format or e-book HERE.

On April 15, US e-mag The Absent Willow Review published my story “Human Resources”, a job interview that takes a strange turn.

You can read the story HERE.

And don’t forget you can download my FREE ebook collection Midnight Theatre: Tales of Terror from any of these sites:

Smashwords (multiple formats)
Barnes & Noble (for your Nook)
I-Books (for Ipod touch/Ipad)

Fellow Damnation Books author Fiona Dodwell and I have decided to reveal what inspired us to take up dark fiction on our respective blogs…

Here on my blog, Fiona discusses which books and films have influenced her work over the years, my influences will appear on her blog very soon… take it away Fiona:

Susan Hill has created one of the most elegant, subtle and unsettling ghost stories of all time. Set in the Victorian era, The Woman In Black tells the story of solicitor Arthur Kipps, who has to attend the funeral of his elderly client, Alice Drablow. After the funeral, Arthur has to search the Drablow property – and this spine tingling ghost story explores the sinister past of Alice – and the many spirits who refuse to rest there. What I love about this book is the simplicity of the story. Set mainly on the property, alone by the salty sea marshes, solicitor Arthur Kipp is left to the isolated house and its secrets. It is sinister, subtle, unnerving. This is one of the few books that genuinely scared me. I believe Susan Hill is a master of suspense, and, set in an old English manor house, it gives the reader a real feeling of life in the Victorian era. I can’t recommend it enough.

What would you do if you could bring your loved one back to life? This masterful novel, written by Stephen King, explores the moral dilemma of one family man, Louis Creed, who has to decide if he will meddle with nature and play God. Should the dead rise to life again? What are the consequences of such actions? This is truly a disturbing, frightening read. I have been exposed to many horror novels, from an early age, but this is one that ranks as the scariest. Some of the scenes are so terrifying that I felt I had to look away from the page – that is how scary it is. King is already known and respected as one of the world’s greatest horror writers, and I feel this novel displays King’s power. This story is one that I return to again and again.

The movie was good. The book was great. Blatty did with The Exorcist something that most horror authors want to achieve – he took something homely, familiar, comfortable, and turned it into something ugly, grotesque and evil. I’m sure many of us know this famous story – a twelve year old girl becomes possessed by a demonic entity and turns her life, and the life of those she loves, into a living hell. This book transformed my life – and I say that with honesty. Blatty delivers this story with such vividness that one feels they are there, part of the horror as it unfolds. As somebody who has been fascinated with the idea of demons and possession since I was a teenager (after reading this book and watching the movie!) I can honestly say this has been one of the most masterful and haunting books on the subject that I have ever read.

Fiona Dodwell lives in the United Kingdom, where she works part-time in psychiatry. She has studied, over recent years, psychology, drama, film studies and theology. She has been passionate about writing since she was a child – particularly writing horror stories. Her first novel, The Banishing, was released in March this year with publisher Damnation Books, and her second horror novel, Obsessed, is going to be released this September with the same publishing house.

Visit the author’s website here: http://www.fionasfiction.wordpress.com/

So the first review of Torment has arrived.

http://bookonaut.com/2011/03/ebook-review-torment-by-greg-chapman/

As well as his in-depth analysis of the work, he gave Torment 3 out of 5 stars on my Goodreads page!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10871196-torment

I hope to share more reviews of Torment here soon.

So Naomi Clark, author of Demonized and Afterlife were trying to find a new way to promote ourselves on our respective blogs and we came up with something that was a lot of fun to do!

We decided to do interviews of our main characters, but then realised that it just wouldn’t work. Instead we got fictional reporters to do the interviews for us (where I play the part of the reporter). So here’s The Sun’s interview with Naomi’s possessed private investigator Ethan Banning. Let’s just say things get a little … awkward…

And stay tuned for the interview with my character Jessica Newman from Torment on Naomi’s blog very soon!

Torment is now available in paperback and e-book editions from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Some encouraging peer reviews are coming in which is great, but there’s still more promotion to do which is why I’ve been doing the rounds on other authors blogs.

Mostly I discuss Torment, but I also reveal how I got into writing and even dissect one of the scenes in the book. I’m very grateful to those authors who leased some space on their blogs! Below are links to my guest blogs and/or interviews:

The Dark Fantastic

Vivid Sentiments

Dreams of the Damned