Author Interview with Todd Keisling

Welcome back to my author interview series. Many thanks to Todd Keisling for taking some time to answer these questions. Without further ado, let’s get to the discussion.

 

 

1. What made you start writing horror?

Horror’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mom was always reading horror novels and watching the films, and some of my earliest memories involve Evil Dead II, Maximum Overdrive, and Phantasm. It’s in my blood. Always has been.

 

2. What is your favorite tool (vocabulary, commas, dialogue, flashbacks, etc.) in your writer’s toolbox?

Probably dialogue, only because it comes more easily than writing narration.

 

3. Which Survival Horror video game monster would you least like to encounter in real life? 

Great question. Pyramid Head from Silent Hill comes to mind, but that seems too easy. Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 is pretty intense, as is the xenomorph from Alien: Isolation. But they’re tangible; you can run from them, even hide if you’re lucky. So, I’d have to go with something intangible, like the ghosts from Silent Hill 4: The Room or the Fatal Frame series.

 

4. What should readers know about your most recent work (or works) and where can they find your writing? 

My most recent work is also my new collection of short fiction, titled COLD, BLACK & INFINITE: STORIES OF THE HORRIFIC & STRANGE. It’s 16 stories that mark a 5-year period of my writing career. Three of those stories appear in print for the first time. And I managed to convince the inimitable John Langan, author of The Fisherman, to write an introduction. There’s a wide range of stories in the book, and it stands as a good place to start for readers who are new to my work.

COLD, BLACK & INFINITE releases on 9/26 from Cemetery Dance. For pre-order information, go here: https://www.cemeterydance.com/coldblackinfiniteKeisling.

And for more info about my work, visit my website: www.toddkeisling.com.

 

 

Author Interview with Robert P. Ottone

Welcome to my first author interview. I’m hoping these will become a recurring feature on my website. Many thanks to Robert P. Ottone for being my guinea pig. Without further ado, let’s get to the interview.

 

 

1. What made you start writing horror?

I started writing horror as a therapeutic exercise in dealing with my grief over losing my dad. From there, it turned into something where I could explore my own fears and insecurities about certain things, certain aspects of life, normal stuff we deal with every day, so, dealing with such heavy grief was the impetus.

 

2. What is your favorite tool (vocabulary, commas, dialogue, flashbacks, etc.) in your writer’s toolbox? 

I’d say dialogue. I’m a habitual eavesdropper, I pay very close attention to a person’s cadence, their vocabulary, their inflections, their mispronunciations, etc. I’m obsessed with language, with a language’s origins, its evolution. I’m actually in the process of putting together the silliest thesis paper on the commonalities between two languages that do not share a common root. I know I went off on a tangent there, but I guess dialogue, language and the evolution of language are things in my toolbox.

Along with coffee and cigars.

 

3. If your life was on the line, which iteration of Batman would you want to save you? 

Ben Affleck’s Batman. We’d never experienced true terror in looking at a Batman before him. He was enormous. Terrifying. Violent. Bruce/Batman should always be physically larger than Clark/Superman because Superman has never had to work out a day in his life, he’s just … Superman. Batman must be the physical embodiment of intimidation and terror, and to me, Affleck is exactly that.

Bruce and Clark need to be reflections of one-another, but the mirror has to be obscured differently for both. Bruce is a massive, physically perfect specimen, where Clark is a normal guy.

Affleck’s Batman nailed that.

Pattinson comes close, but we’re not there yet.

 

4. What should readers know about your most recent work (or works) and where can they find your writing? 

My most recent novel is The Vile Thing We Created, published by Hydra Publications. It’s available wherever books are sold, and I’m super-excited about it. AmazonBookshopB&N, everywhere.

 

 

In addition to the book links above, you can find all of Robert P. Ottone’s darkest secrets by visiting this link.

 

Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Sister, Maiden, Monster is the latest novel by Lucy A. Snyder, a horror writer whose work I adore. I’ve previously discussed her impact on my writer’s journey in my Women in Horror Month article from 2020, which is the same year I wrote an enthusiastic review of her short story collection, Halloween Season. Last month, while perusing my local Barnes and Noble on my birthday, I came across a copy of Sister, Maiden, Monster a day before its release. I went home and read it in a flash.

Spoilers Below

Broadly speaking, Sister, Maiden, Monster reminded me a little of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. That’s a novel that I think should be discussed more in horror circles, especially among cosmic horror fans, but I digress. Childhood’s End has a similar short, tight page count and deals with an end of the world scenario brought about by contact with an alien species. Furthermore, like Childhood’s End, Sister, Maiden, Monster grew out of a previously published short story (the 2012 Bram Stoker Award Winning “Magdala Amygdala”). That’s where the comparisons end though. Snyder’s work blazes with its own unique fire.

This novel is told in three sections which correspond to three different protagonists. The first section belongs to Erin, who is infected with a virus that transforms her into an eldritch beast. This section is the one expanded from “Magdala Amygdala.” The second section belongs to Savannah, a woman who gets off on death and does the bidding of the Old Ones who seeded the virus that transformed Erin. This part of the novel is also expanded from a previously published short story. Due to Sister, Maiden, Monster being mostly made up of two previously published works, I believe that technically makes it a fixup novel. That’s just an interesting tidbit for any writers reading this. In the last section, we get Mareva. Unlike the prior two protagonists, she’s much more reliable as a narrator, but she’s unfortunately chosen to be the brood mare for the Old Ones’ offspring and witnesses the end of days.

Okay, I just went through a lot. Hope you’re still with me. To sum it all up, this novel rocks. Snyder managed to craft a narrative where each protagonist’s section informs and connects to the next without getting convoluted. Both the Erin and Savannah bits focus heavily on sex and gore, while Mareva’s is relatively tame. This change in focus is partially due to the fact that Erin and Savannah revel in those things and Mareva does not. To be sure, Mareva’s section has gore, but there’s no sex to be found, which is a good contrast with the rest of the book. All the women in the novel undergo monstrous transformations, but whereas Erin and Savannah accept their change, as much as they can, Mareva rejects hers. This sets up a potential sequel in the post-apocalyptic wasteland left at the end of this work, and I can’t wait to read what comes next.

Okay, I better wrap this up, or I’ll spend another four paragraphs rambling about stuff I liked in this book. One last thought before I conclude, Snyder is a master of monsters. The eldritch beasts that the virus in the novel creates are a horrible form of life that is well thought out and believable due to the copious details Snyder provides about their workings and life cycle, which also reminded me a little of humanity’s fate in Childhood’s End. Okay, one more quick thing. If you’re a fan of Robert W. Chamber’s The King in Yellow, you’ll love this tale’s ending. In closing, I’ll say that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to enjoy virus-related tales post-Covid, but Sister, Maiden, Monster proved I still had room in my heart for reading about the collapse of civilization.

P.S.

I conveyed to Lucy A. Snyder how much I loved this novel when she visited Midtown Scholar on her book tour. Thanks to a little too much caffeine, I came off more manic than intended, but it was great getting to hear her talk about this story. One thing the interviewer (author Tara Stillions Whitehead) mentioned that I heartily agreed with was that Sister, Maiden, Monster is a novel without a saggy middle. It keeps ramping up from the first pages. If you’re into horror and cool with some gore and sex, you will love this novel.