BLOOD AND BITE MARKS: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGE SIMON AND BRYAN D. DIETRICH

Good Morning, folks!

Today in the Madhouse, I'm sitting down with two of my favorite poets, Marge Simon and Bryan D. Dietrich, to discuss their upcoming poetry collection The Demeter Diaries. Now as a long-standing vampire fan--and a girl who has been mistaken for them about a half dozen times in her life--when I first found out about this book, I was turning-over-in-my-grave excited! I'm a sucker (ha) for those pale, suave monsters, and whether they're rocking a leather jacket like in The Lost Boys or dancing in candlelight like in Interview with the Vampire, chances are, I'm swooning and terrified somewhere in a corner watching it all happen. 

Now The Demeter Diaries is a record of love and longing and the inevitable horror that arises between the minds of Mina Harker and Vlad Dracula as they court one another in waking dreams. The dialogue, written in both poetry and prose, imagines a psychic connection that develops between the two even before Dracula arrives in England. As Dracula makes his way from Transylvania to Whitby on the doomed ship Demeter, the two would-be lovers transmit their thoughts across the waves and lands that separate them, alternately wooing and terrifying one another with the idea of love eternal and all the dark delicacies necessary to ensure it. Imagining the ultimate freedom of two beings bound together in darkness, the story reaches a very different climax than the one Stoker imagined. 

Needless to say, if fangs and blood lust are your bag, then you'll want to find a coffin, cozy up, and settle in because it's feeding time here in the psych ward.

With fangs, 

Stephanie M. Wytovich 

*SMW: Tell us about your collection. What gave you the idea to create in this world, and in your opinion, what does it represent at its most literal and figurative heights?

BDD: I have always been both fascinated and horrified by the image of the Demeter sailing blindly into harbor with no crew, its deceased captain bound to the wheel. Of all the films that have been made, based closely or loosely on Stoker’s original, none but Nosferatu come close to doing justice to the potential of such horror—a dead ship, a dead crew, a dead man at the helm, an undead power lurking in the hold. Later, tangential films come closer to the atmospheric possibilities: The Fog, Death Ship, Ghost Ship. But still, none of these have Dracula, a figure who embarks on this journey to find the love of his life, willing to risk his own, willing to crawl over the corpses of so many to get to a woman he intends to turn to the dark. At its best, this story becomes a metaphor for all love, divine or diabolic. We all want a partner with whom to spend eternity. We all want love. And love itself, when we find it, when we seek it, when we miss it, is always the same—a feeling that we’ve flown, fallen, been gifted, been cursed, been penetrated and slowly bled until the dull ache of longing saps us cold and sets our nerves on fire.

MS: I’ll never forget that moment – Bruce and I sat down on the pagoda deck after breakfast two years ago and Bryan came over for a chat.  We were all there at the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) in Orlando, Florida.  Out of the blue, he said to me, “How would you like to join me in a collaboration? I’ve this idea in mind, The Demeter Diaries –an alternative story not in the book, about the trip Vlad makes to be united with Mina. And you take Mina’s role.”  I had recently finished discussing Carmilla and a few other books of that era with my Literary Darkness Good Reads group. I was ready to roll!

*SMW: What was your favorite part of the collection to create and explore, and then to play devil’s advocate, what was the hardest for you?

BDD: Actually, I played the Devil’s advocate throughout. I was the voice of Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracula, the Dragon of Transylvania. Evil is a seduction, a wasting of will, an exercise of power outside the self, outside what we call human. Playing to that failure in all of us, that strength we want even when we know it isn’t what we think but want it anyway… That was delightful, particularly during these past two years when I myself felt truly helpless in the face of life events so bad they made me envy Renfield.

MS: My favorite part was building upon the setting (locale of Mina’s home) her language, the cultural mores of the Victorian era, as well as foreshadowing Vlad’s influence on her such as her lack of appetite, a growing fascination with blood, and fading affection for Jonathan Harker. This, of course, is an alternative plot to the original Dracula.   The hardest part besides waiting for Bryan’s response was getting the ending just right. We had to work things out via Messenger, which was not an easy feat.

*SMW: One of my favorite aspects of this collection is how well romance and horror build off of each other. When writing, how did you find a balance between the two genres?

BDD: My first collection of love poetry, The Monstrance, was a sequence of poems about the Frankenstein Monster and a gypsy. My second was titled Universal Monsters. The first dealt with falling in love, the second with falling out of it. It is no accident both of those books, and now this one, revolve around metaphors of the monstrous. I don’t know that there is ever a real distance between love and loss. We are all hemosexuals, bathed in the blood of what we want and what we cannot have, even when we finally, horrifyingly find it.

MS: Bryan’s Vlad was fresh and new to me. I knew that Bryan would use no clichés, I loved his poetry. And I had no preconceived ideas. Our characters developed as we went along. It was magic. I don’t think we did anything at all to balance the genres. The balance just happened. Of course, I write a lot of dark poetry and short fiction. Mina’s part is neither rhymed nor free verse. It’s prose poetry. With prose poetry, you can show rather than tell a young woman’s passion while revealing her secret thoughts. Plus, the form provides interesting contrast to Bryan’s part(s).

*SMW: Because this collection is made up of letters to and from Dracula and Mina, I’m curious—did you have to do any research for this book? For instance, did you re-read Dracula by Bram Stoker?

BDD: I have taught the book a number of times, as well as films based upon it. But, yes, I re-read it again and also re-watched many of the film versions, two in particular: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). The second was written by James V. Hart, but is deeply indebted to the first film of that name which was adapted from Stoker’s novel by Richard Matheson. Both are phenomenal in their own ways, particularly the second’s direction by Francis Ford Coppola, but both owe their deepest pathos to Matheson’s re-visioning of Dracula as a sympathetic character.

MS: Rather than read Dracula, I researched extracts and plot summary. I reviewed scenes from Lugosi’s Dracula, especially when Harker arrives at Vlad’s castle. I also watched the Gary Oldman version again. But our story departs from the original Dracula. As I mention in #1, I did more to research the times and locale, the fashions, customs, treatment for sleeplessness, etc.

*SMW: How was your experience collaborating with each other? Can you speak to your process a little?

BDD: This process was collaboration in its purest form for me. True call and response. I would write a poem and Marge would respond. Marge would write a poem and I would respond. However, that oversimplifies the experience I think. Actually, Vlad would communicate with Mina and Mina would communicate with Vlad and both would communicate simultaneously somehow, as if it were really happening in some eldritch fashion. Further, I posed this project to Marge when I was in a very dark place in my life and my writing. I needed something, someone, to help. Marge/Mina came to my rescue and returned to me a spark I feared I had lost. In fact, the last several poems of the collection were first drafted during the month and a half I was in the hospital recovering from emergency spinal surgery. This book let me rise and walk again.

*SMW: I think at one time or another, we’ve all gone through a vampire phase. For me, it started in middle school where I would read every trashy, paranormal romance I could get my hands on, and then as I got older, I started to move away from the romantic archetype of the vampire and settle in with the anarchist bloodsucker. Where did your dance with vampires begin and how has it changed throughout your life?

BDD: I read Dracula first, then all of the Poe precursors, then Carmilla, and from the time I was five or six I watched every vampire movie ever made, but eventually it was Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire that shook me to my core. It has been hard to buy into most vampire stories since then. When the genre finally reaches the high mimetic, it has little room to grow. I hope our book pushes that envelope just a tiny bit further.

MS: Vampires! I published poems & stories for magazines like Alayne Gelfand’s Prisoners of the Night, as well as providing illustrations for stories & poems therein; I still sell my poems and flash fictions to Night to Dawn, edited by Barbara Custer. I have been illustrating vampire covers and stores for decades, but I try to take a different tack.  I am tired of seeing illo’s of vampires with long fangs tearing into a mortal’s neck. It’s soooo yawn.  Sure, I read most all of Ann Rice’s vampire series, as well as Nancy Collins’ Sonya Blue (Sun Glasses After Dark) series. Robert Steakley’s Vampire$ wowed me, but what Hollywood did with the plot was trash. Only recently, I’ve discovered Gary Raisor’s exceptional novel, LESS THAN HUMAN. Totally unique take on the nature of the Vampire.

*SMW: Besides Dracula, who is your favorite vampire and why?

BDD: Louis de Pointe du Lac, the xenomorph in the Alien films, Eli from Let the Right One In, Spike, Angel, and the various vampires from I Am Legend, Near Dark, The Historian, and The Passage. Using a trope, reimagining a myth is hard. This is why so many genre stories fail or simply slog along through cliché after cliché. The vampires listed here go beyond, they challenge the stereotype, they expand the archetype, and they teach us more about our lives, instead of simply feeding our appetites. We need to be more than just vampires.  

MS: My favorite vampire is not anyone on the Buffy series, but I loved the movie! Favorite probably is the vampire Lestat because of his captivating personality. Second would be Sonya Blue – what a tough gal, like Wonder Woman without that sexy patriotic outfit.

*SMW: I could talk about vampires in film until I take my last breath. Some of my favorite are Only Lovers Left Alive, The Lost Boys, Near Dark, Let the Right One In, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. What are some of your favorites and how have they influenced your writing now and over the years?

BDD: Well, I could repeat all of the ones I’ve already mentioned, but I have to go with Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu, and Alien (also the film that Alien was based on, Planet of the Vampires). All three of these trade more in mood and metaphor than in blood or bedlam. I hope that my writing, like these films, is made of more than Papier-mâché and plastic teeth. I hope it really is bone and brain matter and blood.

MS: Bryan -you’re the movie buff!  I enjoyed Nosferatu, the noir version.

*SMW: What is next in store for your readers?

BDD: Currently I am co-writing a book of poems set on Mars with Steven Erikson titled Under the Moons of Fear and Terror. I am also halfway through a new paranormal detective novel and have been marketing a horror novel titled Strawberry Girl.

MS: A collection of poetry and flash fiction with Mary A. Turzillo, VICTIMS, and more!

*SMW: What advice do you have for writers working in fiction or poetry?

BDD: Cultivate your masochism (it will be hard), your patience (it will be long), and your ego (it will take a beating). But, at the same time, develop your kindness and your humility. You will need all of these things in different measures to survive. Nothing worldly matters, not fame, not money, not prizes. If you are writing in service of these things, stop. Good writing, real writing is a calling. Believe in the words you serve, serve the words you love, love the world you are allowed to write such words within.

MS: READ READ READ. Books by writers you admire. Books by writers you never heard of. Join Good Reads discussion groups. Join the HWA, which offers on-line writing courses.  Attend Stokercon and take some of the Horror University writer/editor related classes. Good luck!

Blurbs for Demeter Diaries:

“Did you ever think that “Dracula” was a little biased against the vampires? And maybe if you heard the story from the other side, it might come out a little different? Well, Bryan Dietrich and Marge Simon show you the other side. And maybe it comes out a little different.  I charge you: read this one, and find out."—Geoffrey A. Landis, award-winning poet and science fiction writer

http://www.geoffreylandis.com

THE DEMETER DIARIES is an intriguing retelling of DRACULA in prose poetry form.

Original, compelling, concise, and precise as one might suspect from two top notch poets.

This is a must read for fans of the original novel. Highly recommended. —Gene O’Neill, The White Plague Chronicles

What a wonderful idea for a poetry collection! Bryan Dietrich and Marge Simon have collaborated on The Demeter Diaries, a conversation in poetry between Mina and Vlad from Bram Stoker's Dracula. Vlad's lines are suitably tight, classical, the use of enjambment tightly locking the lines together and emphasizing Vlad's considered choice of words--after all, he's had a few extra decades to think about them. Mina's lines are long and prose-like, evoking her enthusiastic romanticism with a kind of breathlessness. It's well-suited to her part in this dramatic dialogue, allowing her to show off her lady's education and quote from her reading (in this case segments of the poetry of Keats and Poe). Simon and Dietrich appropriately end the sequence with two poems in parallel, with short lines from each alternating down the page as the lovers call and respond. An impressive collaboration.  –Steve Rasnic Tem, Multiple Stoker and International Horror Guild Author

"A wicked read: sensual, romantic, transgressive.  Lovers dancing in a maelstrom of death and desire. This would be a great stage-play for the right two actors.  They'd have to be very thin, the woman very young, the man brooding and handsome, both pale, with very red lips." –Mary Turzillo, Nebula and Elgin winner, author of Bonsai Babies. 

“A cool and very creative interpretation of Bram Stoker’s voyage of the Demeter.” —Dacre Stoker, great grandnephew of Bram Stoker, co-author of DRACUL.

BIOS:

Marge Simon lives in Ocala FL. She is a retired art teacher with an MA in Fine Arts and a minor in English Lit from the University of Northern Colorado. Her fiction and/or poetry has appeared in Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, Bete Noire, New Myths, and Polu Texni. Her works may be found in anthologies such as Tales of the Lake 5, Chiral Mad 4, You, Human and The Beauty of Death. Marge has won the Bram Stoker Award, the Rhysling, Elgin, Dwarf Stars and Strange Horizons Readers’ Awards; she serves on the HWA Board of Trustees, maintains a newsletter column, Blood & Spades. Marge is the second woman to be acknowledged as a Grand Master Poet of the SFPA, and is on the board of the Speculative Literary Foundation. She attends the ICFA annually as a guest. www.margesimon.com

Bryan D. Dietrich is the author of seven books of poems and co-editor of an anthology of superhero poetry. He has published poems in Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, The New Yorker, The Nation, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and many other journals. He has won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award, The Paris Review Prize, a “Discovery”/The Nation Award, a Writers at Work Fellowship, and has been nominated for both the Pushcart and the Pulitzer. Former President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, Bryan is Professor of English and Chair of the Division of Arts & Letters at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He is currently co-writing a book of science fiction poems with the author Steven Erikson. www.bryandietrich.com

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile: A Madhouse True Crime Discussion with Mercedes M. Yardley

I’ve always considered myself a bit of a true crime junkie. I read, watch, and listen to true crime on a fairly regular basis (shout out to Last Podcast on the Left and My Favorite Murder), have visited Death Museums in Hollywood and New Orleans, and last semester I taught my first graduate course in it at Western Connecticut State University. However, despite knowing about Ted Bundy prior to traveling to Utah in 2008, it wasn’t until I heard Al Carlisle (Bundy’s prison psychologist) speak about his interactions with him that I got hooked on the case.


How could this man kill so many women and get away with it for so long?
How could he escape prison...twice?
Why after all these years is his story resurfacing?

I was lucky to listen to Carlisle--who was a wonderfully brilliant and kind man, god rest his soul--speak twice during his life, and both times I left feeling absolutely terrified, especially after hearing a recording of Bundy after he’d escaped and called Carlisle to brag. I became more and more interested in the dynamics of the case, particularly later on when it began to resurface in the media, perhaps due to the success of projects like My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (2012) and its film version in 2017. Nevertheless though, 2019 has seen two film projects focused strictly on Bundy: Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (a documentary series) and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (a film).

Today, Mercedes M. Yardley--my fellow true crime gal pal--and I are going to talk about our initial impressions after watching Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and also speculate on why Bundy is “popular” again and what that means for our society as a whole.

SMW: Hi Mercedes! So what was your initial take on the film because my thoughts on this are a bit conflicted. I see some people (mostly men) talking about how this film is great and balanced because it shows that not all monsters look like monsters, and while I get that, the film also shows Bundy being (supposedly) railroaded for the majority of the movie, so much so that it’s like we’re supposed to sympathize with him and understand his part of the story, and then at the end when he confesses to Liz, that’s supposed to be the shocking, climatic moment for us, too. I mean, I even found myself waiting to hear him confess, and hell, I know the case. I know how this ends.


As a woman, I really didn’t like that. Personally, I felt like Liz getting gaslit throughout the entire film, and at one part, I found myself crying because I was honestly terrified. And I know some people are probably sitting there reading this going well it sounds like the film worked then, right? Why are you complaining? And it’s not so much that I think the film was bad or inaccurate--quite the opposite actually-- but I do think that if we take out all of the monstrous parts from the story that we’re playing into the it’s-not-that-bad mentality of what actually happened. This man was a murderer. He savagely killed and raped who knows how many women, and people should be afraid of him. I get that showing the “charming” side of him was a way to show the horror behind the mask, but he’s not going to be that monster if people aren’t shown just what a nice, educated, white man can really do to a woman. Now I’m not advocating for more gratuitous gore and violence in the film, necessarily, but the complete lack of it (aside from the pieces in the courtroom) was a little surprising to me.


Having said that, I think Efron totally nailed his character. He was narcissistic, charming, and over confident. Plus that reel at the end when they showed the costume shots of Efron and Bundy? Absolutely horrifying. Whoever did the set and costuming did a truly wonderful job.


MMY: I enjoyed the film, but it flipped back and forth so much that if I wasn’t familiar with the cases, I would have been completely left in the dark. They could have done much better with the timeline and adding gravity to the girls who were murdered. I understand and appreciate that the main focus of this was on Liz and Bundy’s relationship, and I very much enjoyed that aspect, but the mention of the murdered girls was almost...I won’t say “flippant,” but there could have been more horror there. Not to gore it up or be salacious, because this was one of the most respectful portrayals I’ve ever seen, but again, to add that gravity.


The acting was absolutely phenomenal. Zac Efron was chilling and such a likable guy. He nailed the mannerisms and I think really brought it home how Bundy could be an engaging guy who knew how to put on an act. Liz Collins had such a fragile look and I think she brought sympathy to Liz who is never portrayed in any sort of positive light. She’s always considered duped, weak, and wishy washy, but I think this helps demonstrate why we usually see her like that. I’m interested about whether Haley Joel Osment’s super adorable character is at all based in truth, because the scene where he talked to Bundy directly was quite powerful. Liz needed a shield between her and Ted. I’m going to look more into that, because I’m not certain if he was based in fact.

SMW: Yeah, I’m not familiar with that dynamic either, so I’ll be looking into that more as well. I did really love Lily Collins’ character portrayal of Elizabeth Koepfer’s, and I watched an interview with Collins and Efron about the scene where she slaps him at home and the two of them were laughing because I guess that particular scene took a lot of takes, ha.

Having said that, I did want to talk about the portrayal of women in general in this film (and I know some of this is fact, so I just have to accept that to some degree) but Carol’s need to please him, Liz’s waiting by the phone and her guilt at doing something wrong coupled with how she blamed herself for his escape after she stopped taking his calls and then the woman who “seduced” the police officer who was supposed to be watching Bundy in the law office...it just made it seem like women were both responsible and definite conduits for Bundy’s rage, almost like “oh well of course he acted out--look what she did!”


MMY: You’re right in that it did seem slanted against women. Ted was obviously the hero of this story, and not Liz. They tried to strengthen her at the end when she got the prison confession out of him, which was an amazing scene in the movie, but didn’t happen in real life. I don’t know if the director even realized how weakly the women were portrayed. It was obviously promoted as a story all about Liz, but she seemed to be a far distant second character.


They also left out the total incompetence of the people around Bundy. They demonstrated that with the guard in the courthouse, but they didn’t mention that a woman (I think it was a secretary?) mentioned earlier that she felt uncomfortable with the open window in the courthouse and to keep an extra eye on it. By highlighting her alone, the movie could have showed how capable women could be. Bundy made several practice runs crawling around in the ceiling of the jail and other inmates reported it, but nobody took it seriously. All of the Chi Omega murders and sweet 12-year-old Kimberly Leach would have been avoided if people were diligent about their jobs. I spent years working in a sex offender home, and while we had certain types of clients, we also had certain types of staff. The number who were meathead power-hungry dicks were absolutely overwhelming. I had a much harder time with staff than the clients. I completely understand how a woman in that environment is undervalued and considered incapable when that isn’t the case.


SMW: It’s wild to think about how much of this could have been avoided had people been working together and listening to everyone’s concerns. And I think that was a big critique that came out when The Ted Bundy Tapes premiered because the general consensus was that Bundy wasn’t really that smart, but rather a privileged white male who was operating during a time when technology wasn’t at its best or most efficient.


This kind of brings me to my next point, which is the psychology behind Bundy’s relationships. The gaslighting that happens in this case is heartbreaking and definitely another reason why I think we’re all drawn to Bundy because he was walking proof of someone who did this to everyone he knows, and its effect on Liz was proof of emotional and mental abuse by a partner--something that is still unfortunately being questioned today.


“Promise you’ll never leave me.”
“Never lose hope.”


Liz was the one who held all that guilt, who apologized when he was arrested, when he escaped. She carried all this weight on her shoulders and it absolutely gutted me to watch it. He still made her a victim, even if he didn’t kill her. And the scene at the end when she asks “did you ever want to do it to me?” Damn.

MMY: Liz wasn’t the only person who called Bundy into the police, and I don’t like that it portrayed it as her responsibility alone. I know she felt deeply guilty about calling him in, but she was one of many. I see why they portrayed it that way in the movie for dramatic content. Also, Carole Boone thought he was innocent until the very end when he admitted his guilt to her face. As soon as that happened, she packed up their daughter and left. This is another important detail that is overlooked and underscores the strength of women. I don’t know how accurate the movie’s portrayal of her is, but again, since the book was written by Liz, there would be an obvious bias against Boone.

I’m interested in why Bundy and Liz stayed together for so long. He was having constant affairs and sleeping with (but not murdering) several women while with Liz. It’s interesting that they left this out of the show. I feel like it romanticized their relationship. “Don’t leave me, I can’t live without you,” and he was thinking of her while literally impregnating Boone. Was it obsession? Was she his cover? Was she really his sense of normalcy? She appeared to be such a weak person in a way, taking him back over and over, and I wonder as to their relationship. Love? Lack of self-respect for both of them? What was that dynamic, really?

You also have to consider that, at one point, Liz understood the gravity of the situation. She realized that Bundy had not only had numerous affairs, and committed the most horrific of murders, but he had decapitated at least twelve of the corpses and then had sex with the bodies. He revisited several of them over and over, stopping only when the putrefaction forced him to. Then he went home and had sex with Liz. At some point she realized that her boyfriend was having sex with murdered corpses and then with her, but she still stood by him for much of the trial. She must have wanted to scrub herself inside out with bleach. I want to delve inside her mind and see what she saw. Why did she stay with somebody so obviously toxic? But at the same time, isn’t that so incredibly human of her? How many of us have also stayed in these relationships that slowly killed us?

This was also an amazing exhibit of Bundy’s acting ability. He was able to say what people wanted to hear and manipulate situations easily. I felt like we just watched him put on game face after game face. I saw this constantly with the sex offenders I worked with. Those who were sociopaths didn’t have the feelings and empathy that most humans do, but they knew how to mimic emotions. Some of them, anyway. Some didn’t care enough to do so. But some, especially the ones who were better at picking up social cues, would patter away and say what they needed to say in order to get what they wanted. It was easy to fall for if you weren’t looking for it, but you could literally see them arranging their features to look interested, etc, while there was nothing there behind the mask. It was chilling. In fact, I still have nightmares.

I was also struck by how many times Bundy used the same lines. “We’ll get a house on the Sound with a dog.” It worked for Liz and it worked for Carole Ann. He used similar lines on the police. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t make out your car because of the headlights and I was spooked.” It makes me think about how a good-looking white guy who has intelligent patter can pull the wool over so many eyes. “He had charisma. He was charming. He didn’t seem like a guy who could hurt anybody.” Looks are so deceiving. I was also angry that this worked so well for him, as it does for others.





SMW: I agree--it’s absolutely terrifying, and after watching this movie, a lot of personal experiences and memories started to surface for me. For instance, that moment in the film when she wakes up after spending the night with him to see her child gone? It makes me think of the dangers of one-night stands with strangers and how we all tend to trust too easy. I remember one time laying next to a guy who I barely knew and thinking oh my god, how stupid am I? If I fall asleep, what’s to prevent this guy from killing me? Am I actually asking for it right now? Am I dumb enough to take this chance?

I actually used to hide switchblades in every room in my apartment when I lived alone because I was terrified of dating and I even kept a bat near my door in case I got attacked or someone broke in during the night.

MMY: But isn’t that what you deserve if it happens? Didn’t you consciously let a guy you don’t know into your proximity? I hope whoever reads this is taken back by those words. “Isn’t that what you deserved?” No, it isn’t. You don’t deserve it. There’s nothing you nor anybody else can do that makes you deserve this treatment, but this thought is SO CHILLING and SO INGRAINED IN US. My first #metoo was a boy I knew. He slid something into the window of my dorm so it didn’t close all of the way and lock correctly. I came home to find him lying in my bed, under my covers. I felt like it was my fault for befriending him in the first place, for not checking that the windows were truly locked, that I must have led him on somehow, etc. I felt I deserved what happened. That’s still ingrained in our society, although people seem to be just now getting a clue about victim shaming. The “What Were You Wearing” exhibits are wonderful at taking a cold, hard look at this. I’m so glad that we’re finally beginning to change the conversation about this.


SMW: You’re spot on and this is something else I’ve been thinking about, too: why is Ted Bundy getting popular again? Honestly, the more I think about it, I think it’s because of the #MeToo Movement, i.e. here we have a charming, white, educated male who committed horrible atrocities...and got put away for it (and got the death penalty, no less). He’s the unfortunate silver-lining story in all of this--proof that men who look and act like gentleman can actually be monsters--and this case is proof that yes, there is evil out there but we have the power to do something and put an end to it. Furthermore, it was women who gave the authorities his name, so again, it’s heralding that call that if we believe women, even one woman, we can save so many more.


Also, the fake news element? The blame on the media? It’s hard to argue that this doesn’t have relevance to our current climate.

MMY: I went to school for journalism and the current media climate makes me want to bite my tail in half. The entire concept of journalism is that you report the fact, and only the facts, without bias. Report the facts and let the citizen educate themselves and make their own decisions. Members of the media don’t become gods simply because they have a platform. They don’t have the right to spin information and mislead facts because it whips up excitement. People didn’t know what to believe about Ted Bundy because so many different opinions were coming out disguised as fact. The media uproar at the time, as well as now, only muddies the water. It’s shameful.

SMW: It was interesting to see this in the film, especially when him and Carol were discussing how to specifically handle the media, and then the fact that so many women were enthralled with the case and coming to witness him, crushing on him, questioning his innocence… I think that’s why the movie bothered me a bit because it felt like collectively, that’s what we as an audience were doing, too.

MMY: I grew up in Utah and have several unique ties to the victims, so I’m coming at it from a different point of view. So many people are saying, “Oh, Ted Bundy was cute. He was so handsome and charming. I doubt he really did it.” These people are taken in by Zac Efron’s affability and wonderful acting skills. There is undeniable proof that Bundy committed these murders. He was found guilty in a court of law. Examine the evidence yourself and come to your conclusion.

Bundy’s scars still last where I’m from. I had a teacher whose best friend was one of his victims. She mentioned it to me once and then refused to talk about it ever again. But I saw her face change when she said his name. She literally spit his name out. She hated that man and what he had done to somebody she loved dearly. That made such an impression on me.

My father’s friends discovered one of his victim while hiking in the canyon. He won’t talk about it. My husband bought my engagement ring in the same mall where Carol DaRonch was abducted. Ted Bundy’s initials are carved into a tree near my father’s work. His initials were cut down and taken away.

When we moved to Seattle, it was the same thing. We lived in his old neighborhood and in his old hunting grounds. My husband attended his old school. We walked the same mall. We frequented the same areas. My best friend’s mother told how she was terrified of this serial killer while she was in college. She and her friends changed their hair because he seemed to target brunettes with their hair parted in the middle.

There is no adoration for him where I’m from. There’s sickness and hate and seeing him for the monster he is. There’s a fascination about the case because it’s such an inhuman thing and we like to stare at monsters. But I come from a place firmly rooted in that disgust. I’m from a land where loved ones were forced to attend closed-casket funerals because this predator destroyed beauty and innocence and only left ravaged parts.

We learn about the case in self-defense, in a way. One of the most striking things about Bundy’s victims is that they didn’t fall into what you would generally consider high-risk groups. They weren’t sex workers, drifters, or victims who had fallen out of contact with their families. They were school girls. They were abducted from libraries and close to their homes. They were murdered inside of their beds. How horrific is that? He didn’t choose to prey on victims who wouldn’t be missed for a while. And Kimberly Leach? What he did to her was so horrific and depraved. She was a baby. He was also accused of murdering an eight-year-old neighbor when he was a young teenager, but he refused to talk about it. Prey is prey to a predator.

 

SMW: And a predator he most definitely was, and again, I think that’s why the movie surprised me because we didn’t get to see the predator as much. We got to see Liz’s grief and Bundy’s charm, which sure, showed a different type of evil than previous examinations of him had, but I’m not sure if this one was better or worse for it. Overall, I think the movie is definitely worth a watch, and like I previously said, the acting, costuming, and set design is beautiful, but I think the message might have gotten a bit lost in the process.

MMY: This is a movie for those already familiar with the cases because if you come in cold, you’ll have no idea what’s going on. I would in no way suggest this to somebody who wants to learn about the murders committed by Ted Bundy, because it very much glossed over them. There are solid documentaries that cover the cases and the women involved. I did love how they put the names of the victims up at the end, and left them there long enough to really be read. It was a strong statement. Crime reporter Billy Jensen did a wonderful job saying a few words about each of Bundy’s victims, reminding us that they were people with lives and dreams. It’s a shame that one encounter with a psychopath defined how they are remembered.

SMW: I, too, really loved that they showed the names at the end because I think so often with true crime, we as readers or viewers, get so caught up in understanding the monster that we sometimes forget the bigger picture. Those girls were someone’s daughters, girlfriends, classmates, etc. Seeing their names there and leaving them up long enough to read made a powerful statement for sure.
RESOURCES:

For those looking for more information on the case, we recommend the following books:

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
Violent Mind: The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy by Al Carlisle
I’m Not Guilty: The Case of Ted Bundy by Al Carlisle
The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth
For a brief Liz/Ted timeline breakdown, we recommend:

A Timeline of Elizabeth Kloepfer & Ted Bundy's Relationship Includes what Extremely Wicked missed
For Billy Jensen’s remembrance of the victims, look here.

PROM NIGHT: MY STOKERCON RECAP

Carrie by Stephen King was one of my favorite movies growing up and it remains one of my favorite books to this day. Most of you are probably familiar with the story: a young girl goes through some pretty scary transformations, gets bullied, puts on a prom dress, and then kills everyone for ruining that dress. As a kid, I remember cheering when Carrie lost it, and it was around that time that I knew I wasn’t watching horror movies like the rest of my friends were. I loved monsters, and later on in life, I started to create some of my own, and then later after that, I started sharing my monsters with the world, with all of you.

Being a Guest of Honor at StokerCon 2019 was a definite highlight of my career, and I honestly feel so inspired that truth be told, I want to just lock myself in my office for the next three months and do nothing but write (and I should because I have a ton of stuff in store for you all soon!). You see, our community is nothing like Carrie White’s was. It’s welcoming, it’s loving, it’s a family that gives you knives to play with instead of lodging them in your back when you’re not looking. We walk into parties covered in blood and when we accidentally throw a chair across the room, people cheer instead of running away. What I mean to say—telekinesis issues aside—is that with this group of people, our differences are celebrated, encouraged, and supported. Here, we’ve found our tribe: we’re home.

From the moment I walked into the Grand Amway Hotel, I was bombarded by hugs, and I don’t think that I stopped hugging people until I literally got into my cab to leave. It was a wonderful weekend filled with discussions about genre, diversity, and inclusivity, and I met so many brave people who were willing to tell their stories and share their experiences, both good and bad in hopes of making a difference.

*A big thank you to Krystal Hammond for putting together the "When Your Life Becomes the Horror Story: Writing Through Personal Tragedy" panel, and hugs and thanks to my fellow panelists Brian Keene, Cnythia Pelayo, and Mary Turzillo for their strength and bravery. I'm happy and blessed to know all of you.

Thursday was filled with a quick nap after we got in and then appropriately followed up with lunch/beers with Brian Kirk. Which reminds me—have you read Will Haunt You yet? If not, you should fix that! I then got to see more friends later on that night after the opening ceremonies and was thrilled to see so much of the RDSP crew there. Lisa Morton did such a wonderful job welcoming us all to the conference and I want to take a moment here to thank her for being our fearless leader these past four months. She was and remains an absolute rock star.

Friday was a total blast because I got to spend more time with Kathe Koja, Josh Malerman, Robert R. McCammon, and Kaaron Warren (who can karaoke better than anyone I’ve ever met!). We talked about how horror is the original literature, and then I told everyone about how I mummified a cat when I was 17 for my graduation capstone. This sparked a lot of laughs and a lot of questions, and when McCammon wants to know more about your mummification process, well, you stop and tell him about your mummification process. Talk about an ice breaker!

Saturday was filled with panels about film and poetry, about mental health and feminism, and I got to sign a ton of books and even share a reading slot with friend and colleague David Cowen (whose poetry you should also read). I also particularly enjoyed being on the Dr. Caligari panel with Andy Davidson, Jonathan Lees, John Skipp, and Amanda Trujillo. Talk about a great discussion! A big thanks to Nicholas Diak for being a fantastic moderator (and for hooking me up with some new music).

After that, it was time to change for the Stokers and sneak in a drink with some old friends before the banquet. Dinner was great and full of laughs, and Jonathan Maberry killed with his opening speech—seriously, I was in tears—and he also dropped news that the new vision of Weird Tales is going to go live in July. I’m super stoked about this because I’ll have a selection of poems appearing in the first issue: “Erasure,” “A Woman Who Still Knows How to Die,” “Outside the Shells of Horseshoe Crabs,” “Due to the Memory of Scars” and “What Waits in Trees.” I also got to present the award for best first novel (congrats Gwendolyn!) and watch Raw Dog Screaming Press accept the Specialty Press award, an award that they are so incredibly worthy of that it feels my heart with joy. Plus, add in that my editor Eugene Johnson won best non-fiction with It’sAlive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life and phew! It was a wonderful evening.

Needless to say, Sunday was (and is always) a bittersweet day because it’s time to head home, but I welcomed the sleep and a few quiet moments to think about all the memories that were created this weekend. I got to chat with my friends and clients about new books and ideas, finally got to meet Gabino Iglesias, Saba Razvi, Becky Spratford, and Brian Keene, and made a ton of new friends who I’m excited to get to know better and share lots of book recommendations with.

I have a lot of fun stuff coming up and out for you all this year, so keep your eyes and ears open! I will say that my next poetry collection The Apocalyptic Mannequin is coming our on August 15th from Raw Dog screaming press, and you can read more about it here. I'll be sure to update you all with the cover reveal and some other fun announcement as soon as I can.

Again, a big thank you to the HWA, to Brian Matthews, Lisa Morton, Rena Mason, Brad Hodson, all the volunteers, and all of you for your love, your friendship, and your support. This past weekend was a surreal, beautiful dream, and I felt like a Prom Queen.

With pig's blood and flowers,

Stephanie M. Wytovich

[WE] WILL HAUNT YOU: Wytovich and Kirk Discuss Surrealism and Horror

Hello and Good Afternoon, Friends and Fiends!

Today in the Madhouse, I’m hosting one of my favorite people alive: Brian Kirk. Now Brian and I first met in Vegas at the 2016 StokerCon and it was pretty much friendship at first sight. In fact, as I’m writing this (and as you’re reading it) we’re both off to StokerCon 2019 in Grand Rapids, MI where we’ll be running around and laughing (way too loud of course—have you met us?), so please be sure to drop by, say hello, and join in on the fun!

However, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Brian and his work, he is an author of unsettling stories—and I do mean unsettling. In fact, his story from Gutted: BeautifulHorror Stories (“Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave”) still creeps into my head and haunts my days from time to time. His debut novel, We Are Monsters, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in the first novel category and his short fiction has been published in several notable magazines and anthologies, such Behold! Oddities, Curiosities, andUndefinable Wonders, which won a Bram Stoker Award.

His latest novel is a work of surreal horror titled Will Haunt You, which has been called one of the most anticipated novels of 2019. And let me tell you folks—that’s not an exaggeration. I was lucky enough to be a beta-reader for this novel, and I can actually remember saving it to my desktop at work and reading pieces of it throughout the day. I say throughout the day because I literally had to put it away from time to time because paranoia was a very real thing for me while I was reading this book. In fact, this is the type of novel that slowly seeps inside of you and makes you question everything. But that’s the beauty of horror and surrealism, and while he only (swears) he kills his characters, this book will certainly have you checking over your shoulder just in case.

Now I wanted to switch things up a bit today and instead of the regular Q&A session that I like to do with authors, Brian and I hare going to discuss the intersection of horror and surrealism and how they tie into his book Will Haunt You. Inside you’ll get some background insight into his process, tons of book/movies recommendations, and a couple embarrassing stories, too, for good measure.

So sit back, join the tea party, and get ready to go to Wonderland!

Stephanie M. Wytovich

SW: Alrighty, let’s kick things off with hearing about the book a bit. What gave you the idea to create in this world, and in your opinion, what does it represent at its most literal and figurative heights?

BK: Will Haunt You is a book created by a mysterious figure who preys upon the people who read it. The idea was inspired by the story of a neighbor of mine who disappeared after discovering a strange book in her home. I witnessed her terrifying ordeal unfold on a community website called Nextdoor(dot)com, and managed to capture screen grabs of the posts she created, which can be viewed here. I’m not sure whether or not these posts are authentic, but the OBSIDEO book featured in the posts is what inspired my novel Will Haunt You.

My view on Will Haunt You is that it is more of an experience than a story.

SW: I could not agree with you more. This book really does read you in a lot of ways, so much so that years later, I can still vividly remember reading it for the first time. I’m curious though, what was your favorite part of the book to create and explore, and then to play devil’s advocate, what was the hardest for you?

BK: My favorite part of the book came while I was experiencing the OBSIDEO narrative that preceded the novel. I’ve always been fascinated with urban legends, and this felt like I was being sucked into one. When the Story of OBSIDEO was released to the public, it sparked the imaginations of many people following along, prompting readers and writers to contribute their own elements to the story. All of a sudden, there was a collective of people improvisationally collaborating on a story being told in real time. The story felt like it took on a life of its own, which was fun and exciting to be a part of.

The most difficult part of creating a book, for me, is everything that comes after I’ve written it. There’s a saying that goes something like, “I hate to write, but love having written.” I’m basically the polar opposite. The act of writing is what I love most, despite how hard and agonizing it can be. What I struggle the most with is everything that comes after a story is finished. The submissions, the contracts, the waiting, the reactions. My work tends to be highly polarizing and, at times, inflammatory, which is very different from my actual personality. Reconciling the opposing reactions I get as a person, and as a writer, is a challenge.    

SW: I feel similar to that with my poetry. There’s always a lot of anxiety for me at first when it goes out into the world, especially as it’s gotten more personal over the years. But lately, I’ve been reading (and fumbling through writing) some pretty weird, surreal stuff, especially as I finish up my next collection The Apocalyptic Mannequin. How do you define surrealism? How does horror fit inside that definition?

For me, it’s horror that takes something non-threatening and adds a nightmarish quality to it that forces it to become disjointed, dreamlike. It uses a lot of bizarre imagery and weird associations. What immediately comes to mind are artists like: Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington (her art and her writing), Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), and a lot of David Lynch’s art/movies, specifically his short films and Eraserhead. I also think of The Nightmare On Elm Street movies because 1) it’s dealing with dreams/nightmares and 2) Kruger lives for those absurd moments when he turns a telephone into his mouth, tries to grab people through the wall, etc. Comedy and erotica also features heavily here and that leads me to think about how the id, ego, and superego works, particularly so when we’re unconscious and living out repressed desires in our dreams.

BK: I love all of those references. Especially Freddy Krueger sticking his tongue through the telephone. YES! I see surrealism as being the voice of the subconscious. As you mentioned, dreams are very surreal. The situation is often totally confusing and bizarre, and yet we know there’s a logic, however inexplicable, driving the experience.

Here’s waking logic: I’m afraid to speak in public so I’m going to spend extra time rehearsing my speech.

Here’s dream logic: I’m afraid to speak in public so my teeth will start falling out during dinner while meeting my new boyfriend’s parents for the first time.

There’s a style of writing called stream of consciousness. Surrealist fiction, to me, could be called stream of subconsciousness. It’s daydreaming from the same realm we visit at night, with its disjointed rhythm, bizarre scenarios, and hallucinogenic imagery. To that end, it often makes for effective nightmares.

Surrealism is strange and perplexing. It confounds the intellect, which is constantly striving to establish order. While surrealism is my favorite type of art, I find it to be the most frustrating and often dissatisfying at the time of consumption. After watching David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive for the first time, I wanted a refund, but that movie burrowed a wormhole into my brain like nothing that has followed. The story now resides in some subterranean part of my mind where my subconscious is still puzzling over it, and I find that effect very compelling.   

SW: I really love your examples of dream logic vs waking logic. It reminds me a lot of the mental hulahoops that I have to do when I’m reading stuff like Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis or William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. What will absurdist literature fans see that’s familiar and how then how did you challenge them?

BK: The inspiration for the surreal aspects of this book were derived more from film, art, and even music than from literature. The narrative style of David Lynch was a big influence. As you mentioned before, so were the otherworldly images of Salvador Dahli. Also the abstract lyrics and live performances of David Byrne. Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland was certainly influential from a literary standpoint, as was Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That harrowing boat ride through the tunnel:

“There's no earthly way of knowing

Which direction we are going

There's no knowing where we're rowing

Or which way the river's flowing…”

I think there is an impulse in surrealist art to create something that has never been seen before, therefore it repels impersonation. Or, at least, attempts to. It’s like going to sleep desiring last night’s dream; you’re never going to get it.

Executing a work of surrealism, and to what effect is subjective, requires implicit trust in one’s subconscious imagination, and the silencing/gagging of one’s editorial critic.

I saw an interview with David Lynch once where he was complaining to a producer of the third season of Twin Peaks that they were too rushed for time, which didn’t allow enough time to “dream.” He didn’t say “brainstorm” or “improvise,” he was very deliberate in using the word “dream,” which is an inherently subconscious function, different, I believe, from basic creativity.  

SW: It took me a long time to get into David Lynch, but I would definitely call myself a fan now, without doubt. A couple summers ago, in fact, I saw a great documentary on him titled The Art Life and it really hit me hard as an artist. Same thing with his book Catching the Big Fist: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. I also picked up his bio Room to Dream last year, and I’m really looking forward to checking it out because I love seeing his thoughts on art and film and how the two intersect, which speaking of, how does surreal horror literature differ from art and film for you?

BK: Good question. I’m not quite sure, actually. I’m not nearly as versed in surreal horror literature as I’d like to be. I imagine much of the contemporary work is being classified as “bizarro,” but I don’t know that for sure. I’d love some recommendations of modern works of surreal horror to read if you can think of any.

SW: I’d recommend reading The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington. They are WILD. Her short story “The Debutante” is a great place to start--one of my favorites and there is such beautiful depth to that piece). Japanese writer Kobo Abe is another good writer for this. I read Kangaroo Notebook a few years ago and it felt like someone dipped my brain in acid and then bandaged it up with cotton candy.

BK: While surrealism has an identifiable aesthetic, it is, in my opinion, more about the feelings it evokes than what it looks like. So that’s what I went for when approaching the more surreal elements in Will Haunt You. I experimented with pacing, tone, sentence structure, text, and imagery in an attempt to evoke that same feeling of obscure discomfort I get when experiencing something surreal.

I think much of it comes down to subverting expectations and eliminating reference points so that the reader/viewer feels somewhat abandoned and unmoored. Which is tricky, because the aim is not confusion for confusion’s sake, but to produce a premonitory fear from feeling out of one’s natural element. What is even trickier is trying to confuse one’s senses in a way that’s entertaining. I could see a book with a page ripped in half during a crucial scene as producing the effects one gets from surrealism. But the seller would be mobbed with people returning the book and demanding a refund.

David Lynch (sorry, I know I keep going back to him, but he’s the master) once said that one of the scariest images he can imagine is a wobbly car tire that’s rolling in a circle about to topple over but never does. He spent several minutes in the infamous eighth episode of the return to Twin Peaks showing a long, continuous explosion. It was boring and riveting at the same time.

I think writing something surreal--using nothing more than typed letters on paper--might be trickier than producing something more visually driven, but I don’t have evidence to back that up.

What do you think?

SW: This is tricky for me, too, and I guess the first thing that comes to mind for me is that with film, you can show a string of images—related or not—and pair them with music and that will let you tell a visceral story in and of itself. With writing, it’s a little bit different because you have to create those visuals and sound spaces with words…which doesn’t always have the same effect, especially because everyone will be interpreting them differently. Film, at the very least, projects the same picture for everyone to start with, even if they end up in different places.

Speaking of where readers/viewers end up, your book is titled Will Haunt You and the initial page starts with a warning: “I read a book much like the one you’re holding now. And this is what happened to me. Don’t make the same mistake. Please, put it down. Or better yet, throw it away. This is your last warning. Turn the page, and you’re on your own. Actually, that’s not true. Turn the page and he’ll be there, watching you.”

What I like about this, and the promo material that you did for the book is that you’re directly calling out the reader, making the horror more personal and the tension more...well intense. How does this POV shift feed into the central conflict of the book and how is this individualized horror, this curse, working within the confines of surrealism?

BK: Well, I can’t get too deep into that without revealing spoilers. What I can say is that the urban legends that scare me the most are the ones where there’s an explicit threat on my own well-being. It’s one thing to know that Slenderman is out there, showing up in other people’s pictures. It’s another thing to face a mirror in a dark room and attempt to conjure Bloody Mary. I’m the one standing there ignoring the warnings. I’m the victim if something goes wrong.

SW: YES! Ah, I can remember being in elementary school and walking into the bathroom at recess, and right before I came out of the stall, a group of girls came in and turned off the lights and started chanting “Bloody Mary.” I remember sitting on the toilet and thinking “what a bunch of idiots” and closing my eyes, ha.

BK: I also think talking directly to the reader is largely discouraged in writing guidelines, as it’s guaranteed to turn some people off. It has the potential to pull some readers out of the story by making them feel too self-aware. It works on me, though. The degree to which it works, I think, depends on how willing one is to suspend disbelief, and, in the case of Will Haunt You, how susceptible one is to feelings of superstitious dread. Maybe it’s due to my OCD, but I’m naturally superstitious, and therefore vulnerable to superstitious fears. I don’t like breaking mirrors or stepping on cracks. There’s no way in hell you’d ever get me to interact with a Ouija board. In many ways, this book was an exercise in me exploring all of my gravest superstitions in an attempt to frighten myself. There are things I did while writing this book that I will never do again.

SW: I think that’s really brave. I try to do that a lot with my poetry and I know it’s not easy. This book got inside me in weird ways, so I can’t imagine what it did to you while you were writing it!

Probably my favorite (and most memorable) scene starts on page 43 when Jesse starts going through the hallways and sees the wallpaper pattern, the unfinished window/recess, the trophy room, the fire, and then most notably, hears “The Story None of Us Should Ever Know.”

BK: Ha, mine too! As related by an anonymous female narrator to me while being cooked alive.

Definitely one of the more surreal sections in the book. It’s when you, as a reader, know you’re not in Kansas anymore. You know I actually wrote most of that section while at the StokerCon in Vegas where we met? The bad Vegas juju definitely helped fuel that nightmarish scene.

Vegas. Talk about surreal.  

SW: Ha! No way! That’s amazing. I spent some of that trip thinking I was lost in a velociraptor forest, and I mean, you know something is working when you’re mistaking flamingos for dinosaurs. Time to cue Hunter S. Thompson: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”

BK: Ha, I love it! And thank you for hosting this discussion. I’m very glad we’re friends.  

SW: Oh, it’s always my pleasure, and I’m beyond thrilled to have this discussion and forever support you and your art. Having said that, I gotta’ ask! What’s next in store for your readers?

The very next thing is a story titled “Chisel and Stone,” which is being published in an anthology called The Seven Deadliest, where seven authors each tackle one of the seven deadly sins. My story explores Envy. And then the 2nd edition of my debut novel, We Are Monsters, which was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, is being released through my current publisher, Flame Tree Press. Aside from that, I have two completed novels in various stages of development--one of which will almost certainly come out next year--and am presently collaborating on an exciting new novel with my friend, and fellow author, John F.D. Taff.

SW: Consider all of the above added to my TBR pile. I also need to get my copy of We Are Monsters signed (hopefully at StokerCon if I remember to bring it). And last but not least, for all the aspiring horror writers out there, what advice do you have for writers working in fiction?

BK: Write what scares you most and strive to expand your comfort zone. Also, try and focus more on the work itself than whatever might result from it. Let writing be the reward.

About the Book:

You don't read the book. It reads you.
 

Rumors of a deadly book have been floating around the dark corners of the deep web. A disturbing tale about a mysterious figure who preys on those who read the book and subjects them to a world of personalized terror.
 

Jesse Wheeler―former guitarist of the heavy metal group The Rising Dead―was quick to discount the ominous folklore associated with the book. It takes more than some urban legend to frighten him. Hell, reality is scary enough. Seven years ago his greatest responsibility was the nightly guitar solo. Then one night when Jesse was blackout drunk, he accidentally injured his son, leaving him permanently disabled. Dreams of being a rock star died when he destroyed his son's future. Now he cuts radio jingles and fights to stay clean.
 

But Jesse is wrong. The legend is real―and tonight he will become the protagonist in an elaborate scheme specifically tailored to prey on his fears and resurrect the ghosts from his past. Jesse is not the only one in danger, however. By reading the book, you have volunteered to participate in the author's deadly game, with every page drawing you closer to your own personalized nightmare. The real horror doesn't begin until you reach the end.
 

That's when the evil comes for you.

How to Order:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Will-Haunt-Fiction-Without-Frontiers-ebook/dp/B07PGQF8K2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1556911601&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/will-haunt-you-brian-kirk/1129683656?ean=9781787581364

Book Blurbs:

“A genuinely weird and powerful vision, Will Haunt You delivers on its titular boast, in spades.” –Gemma Files, author of Experimental Film

“Rest assured, this is no breezy melody. It’s a dark arrangement, a terror chorus. It will sink into your bones and shake you.” –Rio Youers, author of The Forgotten Girl and Halcyon

“An example of psychological horror at its best. Open this book carefully. It might be the last thing you do.” –Stephanie M. Wytovich, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Brothel