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Women in Horror Month: Black Girls Love Horror, Too

Michelle R. Lane 2 Comments

February is Women in Horror Month (#WiHM) and Black History Month, so I decided to feature Women of Color and Black women for a month-long series of posts about horror writing and the love of horror. Fact: Black girls love horror. This month I will feature some amazing horror and dark speculative fiction writers who started out as fans and turned their love of the genre into amazing stories that you should add to your TBR pile.

But first, let’s talk to die-hard horror fan, Dimi Horror (aka Diamond Rae Cruikshank), who has created a social media presence and podcast series examining horror and other speculative genres from the POV of a Black woman, Black Girls Love Horror Too. Her often unique and humorous approach to reviewing horror media provides a perspective that has traditionally been marginalized or completely invisible.

Dimi Horror’s Origin Story

I have been a fan of Horror since elementary school and a fan of the mysterious since I was atoddler. As a toddler, I found myself climbing into my Dad’s friend’s piranha fish tank and nothing happened to me. Not even one scratch was on me once I got out of that tank. I just wanted to swim with the pretty fishes, lol . My love for all things Horror came from watching A Nightmare On Elm Street numerous times with my older cousins during our cousin sleepovers. I loved me some Freddy Krueger played by the handsome and iconic Robert E. Englund. I even once dubbed Freddy my Horror husband until I recently got married in real life. I didn’t think it was respectable to call someone else my husband even if he was just a Horror husband, lol . Jaws is also a film that made me fall in love with the Horror world, and alongside that, finding my everlasting love for Sharks all at once. I had always been one to be creative and be inspired by amazing things that would leave an impression on me in my life, so blogging, posting, editing, creating content, photography, and podcasting is not new to me. In a previous relationship, before my marriage, I was inspired to create my Horror blog, it was a goal I always wanted to bring to fruition that finally happened during the process of that relationship ending. I needed an avenue to express myself. I’d normally keep behind closed doors due to my upbringing and being on my P’s & Q’s all the time. I also wanted to make a blog where people like me could come and feel seen, heard, loved, welcomed and respected. I wanted people to know that in this world we exist…the Akward Black Girls, the Family Black Sheep, and anyone who feels like they are categorized under “other”, or living in a society that always tried to force them into boxes to fit in with mainstream culture. That doesn’t work for everyone because we are all unique and different in our own ways. We live in this life while continuing to learn to be who we are as people. Horror and Nerd Culture brings all of us together. I also wanted people to know that being a Black woman doesn’t mean we only love the legendary and beautiful Beyoncé but we love our Horror too, there are levels to us.

I work most days so getting to post and create Horror content for my CreepSKWAD/My Horror Familia (Family) is something I look forward to be able to do as consistently as I can. I will be getting back to making more podcast content and starting my Youtube channel soon, but until then I’m always so elated and open to collab with my CreepSKWAD/My Horror Familia (Family) whenever they invite me to be a part of their creative journey and projects.

Five Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Dimi. Happy February 1! And, thank you for helping me kick off Women in Horror Month. In your bio you mentioned that A Nightmare On Elm Street and Jaws were the first horror movies that grabbed your attention. Would you say that you are mostly interested in horror movies from the 1970s – 1990s, or do you also enjoy the classic black and white Universal monster movies? What are some of your other favorite horror movies?

DH: Thank you, Michelle, happy to have been invited to Girl Meets Monster, such a cool name by the way! Happy February 1st, I can’t believe we are in February already! Sheesh time flies. It’s an awesome honor to be able to collab with awesome people in the Horror community and to be a part of this Horror month is amazing, so thanks for having me. I honestly love Horror movies from the 1970s -1990s but I also love older classic Horror films such as James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein as well as the newer Horror films like Jordan Peele’s Get Out. I definitely love all the many different spectrums of Horror for sure, I feel I’d be a lame Horror fan if I didn’t enjoy and get to know all the variety of Horror that’s out there. Thirteen Ghosts is one of my favorite films that’s highly underrated in my opinion.  I love that film and all the different ghosts’ histories and background stories. One of my favorite Horror film intros is Steve Beck’s Ghost Ship where everyone is having a splendid, dashing time and dancing then get cut into halves and the only one left standing is the little girl who was dancing with the Captain of the ship. However, Ghost Ship overall tanked like an anchor to the bottom of the sea. It had great potential with that intro, but it just ended up being mediocre. Bernard Rose’s Candyman is a terrifying favorite and I can’t wait for Nia DaCosta’s Candyman to finally come to theaters or streaming networks …looking forward to that and Scott Cooper’s Antlers as well. A few notable mentions (favorite Horror films wise) Halloween, Scream, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and It Follows was an absolute game changer story telling wise. The film was a totally different way of making Horror so creepy and nothing is scarier than an unseen villain that possibly never dies.

GMM: Who are your favorite movie monsters, and why? Are they the scariest in your opinion, or do really scary monsters fall into a different category?

DH: Jaws is one of my favorite movie monsters because I am a shark and Shark Week fanatic! Jaws ruled those waters and the Summer. No one was getting in that water without Jaws’ permission. To this day there has been no shark film in Horror to beat Jaws, close but no cigar when it comes to other shark films. Deep Blue Sea,  The Meg and Open Water are the best shark films able to compete with a classic film like Jaws.

In Creepshow 2, “The Raft” (Lake Blob) creature/monster was terrifying and pretty awesome. You couldn’t escape the “Lake Blob”, it was gonna take your friends out while hearing their screams as they disintegrated in front of you one by one. Then on top of that it saves you for last as you try swimming to the shore thinking you would survive, and it eats you alive anyway. Deep sea creatures are the best because we have only explored like 5 percent of the oceans on our planet and the possibilities of discovering dangerous yet beautiful never before seen species/creatures/monsters are endless. Mirror creatures like in the film Oculus and Mirrors are also my favorite because it’s terrifying when your normal perception of life becomes an illusion that leads you to your fatal end. Straight up mindfuck. You have the typical great classic Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, lab experiment creatures that went terribly wrong, Spiders, Sirens, Ghosts, Demons, and Aliens that all have their own categories and I love those monsters/creatures, too, but it’s the unusual ones that scare me even more than those do. In It Follows, the creature/monster was a walking paranormal STD, like you had no clue what the hell that thing is or its origins as to where it even came from. Similar to Jeepers Creepers, “The Creeper” who wanted to eat your peepers  was so horrid because it has wings, sharp teeth, can smell you in an animalistic way (forever knowing your human scent and if it liked your scent he was going to do whatever it took to find you and there is nothing you can do about it), it can regrow its limbs and is scarily intelligent, and also weirdly human like. The fact that “The Creeper” was based on a real-life serial killer gave it even more chilling vibes. It’s the unknown and never before seen elements to a creature/monster that gets anyone to shake in their boots.

GMM: I love your cosplay pictures. Do you attend cons or other events where you cosplay? What characters have you cosplayed as in the past? What characters would you like to cosplay as the most?

DH: Thank you! Once things open back up, I would definitely love to attend my first Horror related Con, first Comic Con, and other Con events. I haven’t attended any Cons as yet, but in the future, I definitely will experience more than a few of the Cons. I did the Pink (Soulful) Power Ranger, Melanin Eleven from Stranger Things, Regina King’s Watchmen character Angela Abar/Sister Night, Bride of Frankenstein, and Teen Wolf’s Were Jaguar just to name a few, and definitely more to come in the future. Some of the cosplays I’d love to do is a female version of the gray suited Gary Oldman in Dracula. I’d love to cosplay as the villains from MTV’s Teen Wolf: Kanima, Oni, and Nogitsune, all female versions of them. And, it would be fun to recreate Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody,” inspired by classic Horror creatures, with a female twist to it. I love Cosplay but I’ll always put my own twist to it, and it will never be an accurate version of that Cosplay character. It’s more fun adding my own twist to my Cosplay character of choice. So many Cosplays to choose from and so little time. I’d try all of them if I could.

GMM: What does your family think of your interests? Were you discouraged from watching horror movies or participating in “nerd culture” while you were growing up? Does your husband share your interests?

DH: I feel that I’m definitely the Black Sheep in my family, and I’m honestly proud of that now. It took some time to really own, honor, and understand why I am the Black Sheep in my family. I’ve decided that being a Black Sheep is my own inner superpower and my path in life is my own path. No one could ever take that away from me.  No one in my family really likes Horror, with the exception of my dad, and no one in my family understands nerd culture and cosplaying. I believe for some time they really didn’t understand me and would try to change the fact I that I do love Horror and things connected to nerd culture. I was told by my grandma (my mom’s mom) that liking Horror means something is messed up in my head and only serial killers like Horror. My grandma is the diamond of my heart and she grew up in Trinidad and Tobago with a Catholic upbringing, so honestly our mindsets are very different from one another understandably, and the same goes with the majority of my family, including my mom. My dad’s mom, whom I am also super close to, has always been super accepting of my nerdiness and my love for Horror. She’s not a fan of Horror but she absolutely supports my love for Horror and the things I’m passionate about. It’s because of her that I love listening to scary stories on audiobook to peacefully fall asleep to, especially during rainy weather.

My love for Star Wars, Jaws, and films in general, comes from my childhood experiences with my dad and grandma (Dad’s mom). I watched Jaws as a child with my dad and fell in love with sharks from that point on. Everyone else in my family was terrified by sharks, and I was absolutely fascinated by them and any deep-sea creatures like the Kraken/The Giant Squid.

Nowadays, I’m far too grown to be told what I can and can’t do. However, back in the day, I’d get scolded and into trouble for doing what I wanted to do while growing up. Some of that helped me stay out of serious trouble and some of that blocked my growth, which also blocked my understanding that it is okay to be my own person even if I stand out in my family or elsewhere. To really learn about myself, I had to “crash into the wall headfirst” and give myself my own crash collision course to understand myself and what I’m about…what’s for me and what’s not. Growing up, I got into a lot of arguments because I wouldn’t allow someone in my family to have the last word over what I was going to do. Then, I learned how to pick and choose my battles and also learned that not everything had to be an argument or a battle. I usually went against the norm, and was always curious as to why I couldn’t do something. The whole parental authority attitude/mindset of “because I said so” and “I’m the adult you have to listen to me” or “when you get your own house and pay rent then you can do whatever you want to do” thing did not agree with me. Between family and some teachers, I had major beef growing up, but all were valuable life lessons. My husband, Cole, and I got together because of our similar passions, interests, hobbies, creative natures, and he loves Horror just as much as I do. Honestly, he’s the only man that I’ve ever been romantically linked to, who has loved Horror and films just as much as me. He’s a brilliant, rare, special, vibrant, and endlessly talented soul, and I love him so infinitely. We come from very different cultural backgrounds and upbringings, but Horror is definitely a major factor in our union/marriage. Plus, he’s hot AF! He’s really tall, has gorgeous eyes and is beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. He’s also tough/brave and served in the military. I am truly so grateful to God/the Universe/my Spiritual Family for bringing this union together because our bond is so mystical and out of this world. That’s enough mush for now.

GMM: What horror movies are you looking forward to the most in 2021 and beyond? What is your dream cast for a remake of one of your favorite movies?

DH: Horror films I’m excited to see are Candyman, Antlers, Halloween Kills, A Quiet Place 2, and Spiral. The non-Horror films I am excited to see are Batman, Sinister 6, and Suicide Squad 2. I’m excited to see The Conjuring world expand and the old-school Universal monster movies reboot and expand. The Invisible Man was an awesome start to that thus far. I am excited to see the new Blade and (my guilty pleasure) Fast and Furious (future) films. I heard that Jordan Peele is remaking The People Under the Stairs, and I’m excited because that’s also one of my favorite films and Jordan Peele is an amazing director/producer. I’m undecidedly excited for the rumored Gremlins remake and I’m PISSSED about the rumored Jaws remake. It can’t be done. It just can’t. Leave perfection at peace. As much as I’m a sucker for the Jaws film franchise, the Jaws sequels, should have taught people that Jaws doesn’t need to be remade because not all Jaws films were created equally, or skillfully made as the first Jaws (I still love all the Jaws films though, lol). It’s best to leave a film like Jaws perfect as is. Some remakes are awesome, but I feel that once a movie is already great it doesn’t need a remake, but if an original film version is crappy, it could possibly use a remake but it’s gotta be done well. It’s very risky making a remake or reboot. Even though I enjoyed The Meg, I really would have loved for Eli Roth to direct the movie like he was originally supposed to, with one scene directed by Quentin Tarantino like he did with Robert Rodriguez for Frank Miller’s Sin City. The Meg was a cutesy action-packed film. I WANT THE GORE AND HORROR on a similar level as the first Jaws and they can cast Samuel L. Jackson,  Naomie Harris, Zoe Saldana, Angela Basset, Taraji P. Henson, Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen (based of their chemistry in Watchmen), The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Idris Elba, and Kevin Hart for comical relief. Plus, Kevin and Dwayne are bffs in real life. It’s a perfect cast! A slightly comical, horrifying, and gory shark film, but with an almost all Black cast. No one has seen that in a shark Horror film. I would also remake Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark from top to bottom. Guillermo Del Toro would be the director and costume director/creator because that film was absolute TRASH! I wish that was a copycat version of the film and not the actual film…(however there are plenty of copycat films that are even better than the original, but not in this case AT ALL). The books are super scary and though it was introduced to me in my elementary school years, doesn’t mean the film needed to be directed at children. If anything, the children who grew up reading those books are all grown up now, and they needed to direct the film to the adults who grew up with the stories as kids. It was too cutesy. Those stories are still scary even though I’m an adult. However, great costuming done by Guillermo Del Toro as always.

GMM: Thanks again for stopping by, Dimi.

DH: Thank you for having me, it was lovely to do this Horror interview, wonderful and great questions.

Dark Blood Comes From the Feet: An Interview with Emma J. Gibbon

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Emma J. Gibbon is a horror writer, speculative poet and librarian. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies including Wicked Weird, Wicked Haunted, and The Muse & the Flame and on the Toasted Cake podcast. She also has a story upcoming in Would but Time Await: An Anthology of New England Folk Horror from Haverhill Publishing. This year, she has been nominated twice for the Rhysling Award for her poems “Fune-RL” (Strange Horizons) and “Consumption” (Eye to the Telescope). Her poetry has also been published in Liminality, Pedestal Magazine and is upcoming in Kaleidotrope. Emma is originally from Yorkshire and now lives in Maine in a spooky little house in the woods with her husband, Steve, and three exceptional animals: Odin, Mothra, and M. Bison (also known as Grim). She is a member of the New England Horror Writers, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, the Angela Carter Society, and the Tuesday Mayhem Society. Her website is emmajgibbon.com.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Emma J. Gibbon’s anthology of short horror fiction, Dark Blood Comes From the Feet. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of literary horror tales that put relatable characters under the microscope to show us the darker side of the human condition. Gibbon takes us to weirdly familiar settings that quickly turn macabre, like a strip club in Purgatory, a Lovecraftian orphanage, a day at the beach that would make Cronenberg proud, and a haunted house on a hill that I won’t forget any time soon.

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Emma. Congratulations on the release of your short story collection, Dark Blood Comes From the Feet, that comes out today! I really loved reading your stories, not just because they were well written, but also because I couldn’t help wondering where the stories came from. You write about a diverse group of characters from different backgrounds with different experiences and I kept wondering which of those characters were you. That might seem like a strange thing to wonder for some people, but because I write dark fiction as well about women of color, there is a part of me in each story. Some really terrible things happen to the people in your stories, but at the most basic level, they’re human. How much of yourself is in this collection? Where do the lines blur between you and your characters?

EJG: Thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! That’s a really tough question to answer because in a way, they are all from me but are separate at the same time. I’ve had an interesting and varied time on this earth so far, so it does sometimes feel like I’ve lived a lot of lives. There is no doubt that I use elements of myself and my life when I create characters, some on a surface level and some on a deep emotional level. When I do the latter, it’s often not a conscious decision but something I realize later, sometimes years later. For example, on a surface level, the narrator of “Cellar Door,” Karen, resembles me in that some of her memories she mentions are my memories and she lives in my house. That house is my house! That basement is real! I’m not convinced it was the best idea, it’s like I haunted my own house.  But personality-wise, she’s not like me. Janine in “Janine” is a character I have enormous sympathy for. She is someone who had the cards stacked against her from the start, who made some bad choices and has really suffered for them, much more than she deserves. I have the sense that I could have easily been someone like Janine, but I was just luckier.

Ultimately, there is a lot of me in this collection, probably more than I like to admit. Dark Blood Comes from the Feet, is a line from “Cellar Door” and it’s a reference to having old trauma that you have trouble letting go of. I have a lot of stuff that I psychologically scratch at, over and over, old wounds. They’re in my stories but I skew it and dress it up in monsters and distinct voices and the supernatural so that I don’t even recognize it myself at times.

GMM: While reading the stories, I compared your work to other writers in the genre, including Poe, Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Cronenberg, and there’s even a reference to Donnie Darko (Tolkien), which brought a smile to my face. Which writers have had the most impact on your own writing style? Whose stories inspired you the most?

EJG: I do love Donnie Darko! And thank you so much! That’s a very flattering and intimidating list! I definitely have a group of authors whose work has inspired me. I know I’ll forget a major influence but a very obvious one is Shirley Jackson, but also Angela Carter, Daphne du Maurier, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, M. Rickert, Kelly Link. I think Brooke Bolander is astonishing. I’m inspired by many people writing horror right now. More than that though, I think the key is I was an early and voracious reader who came from a family that weren’t huge readers. We didn’t go to the library. My parents bought me books, but there was no way they could have kept up with me. I read everything and did a lot of rereading (I’ve slowed down since then, I mean, the internet exists now.) I’d get books from car boot sales (the British equivalent of yard sales). Half the time I didn’t have to pay. I think people were a bit weirded out by this little girl carrying a stack of Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock books, I especially liked the ones with the yellow edges, so they just gave them to me. Because my reading was very autodidactic and random, I have a personal canon that’s my own. I had no sense of high or low culture (which I still think is nonsense anyway,) or genre or nonfiction vs fiction, so I’d read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest then V. C. Andrews, an anthology of classic ghost stories and Salem’s Lot with a book of feminist stories. Much later, I’d carry on this habit even as I specialized in English—Macbeth with The Mammoth Book of Vampires Stories, a nonfiction book about the cultural effects of tuberculosis with The Name of the Rose, Wide Sargasso Sea with The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. So all of these stories are all in there and they come out in my stories in a completely unconscious way.

GMM: You have an incredible talent for showing us the horror and reality of the settings in each of your stories. I’m an avid reader, but I also have spent a lot of time watching and studying films in many genres, which I think has had an impact on how I tell stories. Would you say that the written word, or film images have inspired your work more? What films have influenced the way you craft a scene?

EJG: Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me because I have aphantasia. This means that I don’t imagine or think in visual images. It’s hard to describe but I have a strong internal dialogue and think in concepts (almost as if my mind can feel the edges of a 3D representation that I can’t see.) Some of my settings are based on places where I have lived or visited—as I said, the house in “Cellar Door” is mine, the tunnel in “Bobby Red-Eyes” really existed when I was a kid (and Bobby is an urban legend in my hometown), the Black Shuck Tavern is based on a famous Hollywood nightclub. Others were research, I’ve never been to any of the places in “Whitechapel,” for example.

I am very influenced by film too. I grew up in the peak-VHS 80s with very little screen supervision, so we watched a lot of horror films. My big ambition as a teen was to be a music video director. I was a double major in college in English and Art History but most of my art history classes were the history of film or film theory and honestly; it burnt me out a little. A lot of my favorite films are before then. So films like Heathers, The Lost Boys, Donnie Darko, Amadeus, The Faculty, Beetlejuice, The ‘Burbs, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nightbreed and May have had an enormous impact on me. Despite the aphantasia, it’s the colors of the scenes that I often remember and the way they affect mood.

That said, I’ve been influenced and inspired by all kinds of things—personal anecdotes, scenes from my own life, books and movies, music videos, songs, photographs and other pieces of art, TV shows and video games. It’s the story that I’m always most interested in, not necessarily the format.

GMM: I enjoyed reading all of the stories in your collection, but I have a few favorites, including “Devour,” “Cellar Door,” “Whitechapel,” and “St. Scholastica’s Home for Children of the Sea.” Which stories in the collection are your favorites, and why? Which were the most difficult to write?

EJG: As far as being hard to write, two stand out particularly. “Cellar Door” because it was the kind of story I have always wanted to write and fear of failure meant I couldn’t get out of my own way for the longest time. In the end, I made it a NaNoWriMo project and got a good chunk of it done by not looking back as I wrote. “This is Not the Glutton Club” was hard because I hand wrote it while bedridden with pneumonia! It was also the story that needed the most research, and my Facebook friends really saved the day on that one!

It’s really hard to have favorites, they’re like children (I’m guessing). What is nice is that I’ve got enough distance between them all that I like them all. I don’t regret putting any of them in there. I do really like “Sermon from New London.” It was a lot of fun to write. Should we get to the other side of the apocalypse, I think there are worse ways to survive than being part of a matriarchal cult based on punk music. It was first published on the Toasted Cake podcast performed by the editor, Tina Connolly, and there had to be a language warning because there is so much swearing in it. What really makes me laugh is that when I played it to my husband, he didn’t notice, which I think tells you about the level of discourse in our house!

GMM: While you write from the POV of both male and female characters, your strongest characters seem to be women and girls. And, even though terrible things happen to them, not all of them are victims. Many of your female characters make the most of the bad situations they find themselves in, and become survivors. Would you say that feminism has had an impact on how you create your female characters? Or, are you simply showing us the strength of the human spirit? Rarely, do your stories have what I would consider a happy ending, and I really appreciate that. How would you describe your writing style to someone who has never read your work?

EJG: Feminism definitely plays into it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind straight white guys, I even married one! But they have had their time being at the center of stories. They’ve had centuries of being the heroes and saving the day. I’ve made a conscious decision to give people who don’t traditionally get to be the protagonists take center stage or have the happy ending—women without children, women who are not straight, trans women, working-class women. Part of it is being a woman from a working-class background who has not conformed to social convention and having mainstream fiction just not resonate with me at all because of that. I still have a way to go. My writing is far too white, for example, and that is something I have to work on—my experience of the world is not a default and I think the more that I reflect the world as it is, the more powerful it is when I tilt it somewhat. Something that is at the core of who I am is that I will always root for the underdog, always. There is never a time when I’m on the side of the people with all the power so that’s going to come through.

I’ve had to pull myself up from the ashes a few times in my life, start again from nothing and reinvent myself. I’ve seen people, especially women, do that again and again and I like to reflect that in some of my stories. It makes you stronger, like tempering steel, but it has a cost, you can get brittle and break. Even the phoenix has to go through the fire.

Describing my writing style is difficult. It’s one of those things where I would be interested to know how other people describe it. A lot of it is instinctual. Once I get the voice of a story, it usually pulls me along. That said, I like to challenge myself to see if I can write in a wide a range as possible—can I write a nested story in the voice of a Victorian gentleman? What if I had an unreliable narrator talking to someone who wasn’t there? Can I write a speech in mostly misheard punk lyrics? What would Shirley Jackson do? I think that is what it comes down to mostly: What would Shirley Jackson do?

Fiction Fragments: Nelson W. Pyles

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Happy Beltane! I’m sending you virtual hugs, kisses, and maybe an inappropriate grope or two. After this week, Fiction Fragments will be taking a short hiatus until July. But, look for other posts here at Girl Meets Monster in the meantime, and contact me if you’d like to be featured in Fiction Fragments.

Last week, I spoke with Bram Stoker Award winner, Sarah Read, about writing a first novel and productivity under quarantine. This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes Pittsburgh writer and voice actor, Nelson W. Pyles.

headshotNWPNelson is a writer and voice actor living in Pittsburgh PA. His latest novel, Spiders in the Daffodils, is available from Burning Bulb Publishing. His first novel, Demons Dolls and Milkshakes, was re-released in 2019, and the sequel is in progress. He is the creator and original host of the Wicked Library and has stayed on as an executive producer and voice of “The Librarian.” He has written and performed on The Wicked Library, The Lift, The Private Collector, and Wicked Fairy Tales podcasts. He is a member of the HWA.

For more information please go to www.facebook.com/nelson.pyles

Twitter – @nelsonwpyles
Instagram – @nelson.pyles

Three Questions

GMM: Hello, Nelson! Welcome to Girl Meets Monster.  We’ve only interacted in person once I believe, at an HWA Pittsburgh Chapter meeting, but I’ve slowly gotten to know you through social media. Tell me about The Wicked Library. How did it get started, and what was your role as The Librarian? Also, how did you get started as a voice actor for the multiple projects you’ve worked on? What advice would you give someone who is interested in pursuing projects like The Wicked Library?

NWP: Hello, Michelle! Yes, that was the first time we had met. You and Stephanie Wytovich had a live reading together which I absolutely regret missing. I’m hopeful to see both of you at the next meeting! And yes, we share a lot of the same interests like excellent 80’s new wave. It also prompted me to get your book Invisible Chains, which if you pardon the fanboy moment, is absolutely amazing.

The idea for The Wicked Library really came out of a desire to help independent authors promote their work with an audio version of their short stories. Having a background in theatre and performing I thought I could do a decent job with narration. I solicited everyone I had appeared with in an anthology and asked them for permission to read their work. In turn they could download the story and even sell it as I wasn’t making anything off of the work.

The Librarian began as an homage to the Crypt Keeper from the old DC comic books from the fifties. Eventually he got a life of his own (so to speak) and became his own character with a background story and several spin off shows. All my voice work really came as a result of narrating the show from the early days and then moving on to narrating a few books and voicework on other podcasts. It all just kind of happened out of necessity and then boom!

The advice I would give for anyone looking to start their own podcast of their own is to research as much as you can, find something that you bring to the table that no one else has and make sure it’s one hundred percent fun otherwise it gets old really fast.

GMM: I absolutely love the title, Demons, Dolls and Milkshakes. What inspired the title of your first novel, and without too many spoilers, can you give us a synopsis of the book? Is this the first novel you’ve written, or just the first novel you published? What motivated you to finish writing the novel and what was your experience with getting it published?

NWP: The title wound up being the very last piece of the puzzle as it really summed up everything in the story. A woman in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh prepares to get snowed in by a blizzard, so she gets movies, snacks, and a huge milkshake before it starts. She gets home to find a creepy doll in her bag from the movie store. She thinks it’s a gift from her friend at the store, but it turns out to be a demon who is trapped in the doll looking for a new body. One of my beta readers suggested the title as a goof, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. The tone of the novel is very tongue in cheek although it does deliver on the spooky when it arises. It was the first full length novel I had written and the first one published as well.

The book took forever to write because it was also around the time I started having kids which as you know, tends to make what we do interesting if not challenging. I actually sat on the first twenty pages of it for about six years and they decided it was time to put up or shut up. I sent the book to a metric ton of publishers and agents all of whom shot it down. Finally a groovy small press which I’m sad to say isn’t around anymore published. What was great is that I was able to get my current publisher Burning Bulb Publishing to release a really nice second edition with bitching new art.

Getting published isn’t easy but it’s not impossible either. I think there is a certain amount of tenaciousness and thick skin needed. When I got it published it was because I had a good relationship with the publisher whom I had worked with on a few anthologies. Relationships aren’t a guarantee, but they do help in good ways especially for getting feedback.

GMM: Holy shit! I need to read the rest of “Muerte Con Sabor a Fresa” (Strawberry Flavored Death) STAT. I’m dying to know what happens. As a former resident of Pittsburgh, I love any story, especially horror stories, set there. It feels like coming home. Although I lived there for sixteen years, and love reading about fictional Pittsburgh, not a lot of my own fiction is set there. How do you decide on setting? Do most of your stories take place in and around Pittsburgh, or have you done some creative world-building and invented places? Who are some of your favorite Pittsburgh writers, past and present?

NWP: For “Muerte,” it seemed destined to be set somewhere in Pittsburgh and I drew a lot of inspiration from friends of mine. The doctor in the story is named directly for my friend Phoebe because, who doesn’t want to know an actual Phoebe? And the title came out of boredom; I thought it was funny in English, but it sounded ominous and in Spanish.

I am a Pittsburgh transplant by way of New Jersey. I’ve lived here for almost twenty years now and it’s really a great area. I love it a lot and certainly it does show up in my work quite a bit, but not always. My second novel Spiders in the Daffodils, is set in mostly East Texas and is apparently in a genre called “Splatter Punk Western”: which is kinda cool. I’ve really taken to my adopted city and I guess I’m a pseudo-yinzer. I created a couple of false Pittsburgh locations for an upcoming book set in the universe of Demons Dolls and Milkshakes — sort of Fox Chapel and Squirrel Hill-esque but I tried to keep the actual locations as real as possible.

I had read a few Pittsburgh penned works when I was in high school and college from John Irving and some plays from August Wilson. Also, I was very aware of the history of horror in Pittsburgh which made it much easier to move here to be honest. The current Pittsburgh writers I read actually includes you and the other amazing writers in our HWA chapter which really, is very much a who’s who in horror! Stephanie Wytovich, Sara Tantlinger, Gwendolyn Kiste, Mike Arnzen…seriously, it’s very much the coolest. I’m very fortunate to not only know all of you folks, but to also be fans of your works as well. In some cases I already knew some folks like Stephanie. But there’s something really enviable having access to such an amazing and talented pool of writers. It’s one of the few times that an introverted person like me can talk to other people where we all speak the same language if that makes sense. It’s been the least dysfunctional kinship I have ever had.

Thank you so much for having me on Girl Meets Monster! Hope to see you soon!

(This is an excerpt from the story “Muerte Con Sabor a Fresa” (Strawberry Flavored Death) in THE WICKED LIBRARY PRESENTS: 13 WICKED TALES from 9th Story Publishing 2019)

The most unusual part of the paramedic rescue call for Priyanka Choudhry wasn’t what the victim looked like, although that in and of itself would trigger future nightmares for the foreseeable future. It was just how much the victim weighed.

The general statistics about the victim, Daryl Madison, were that he was five feet six and roughly about a hundred pounds. However, it took three paramedics and two firemen a tremendous effort to get Madison onto the gurney, and even then, they had to roll him onto it. They never raised it up; they had to shuffle it out of the apartment requiring additional help to load him into the ambulance, which nearly buckled under the weight.

Rolling the man onto the gurney proved to be nearly impossible. Madison was nearly flat. Most of his bones were broken in the most unusual ways, as if he had been crushed under something. How he was still alive and breathing was nothing short of miraculous.

Pri had determined from the amount of excrement around the body that he had been on the floor of his bedroom for nearly a week. The woman who had called nine-one-one had said that Madison had been missing about eight days. By rights, due to the injuries and the excrement, Madison should have died from dehydration at the very least.

In looking around the apartment, for anything vaguely resembling a clue as to what could have happened to him was nonexistent. The woman, Ms. Turner, said that she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary at all. From her description, the apartment was dark, and she had heard Madison crying out softly from the bedroom.

It seemed to be the only thing that made sense.

Pri sat on the edge of her bed and shuddered. She closed her eyes and saw Madison’s tear-streaked face. His expression hadn’t changed; of course, how could it? The bones in his face had all been crushed, and he’d looked like a rubber Halloween mask without a head inside it. A deflated head that was still alive and suffering in a most unimaginable way.

She had left the hospital once they had managed to find a room (and a bed) that could hold him. There was another call she and her partner had gone to from there, but she knew that she wasn’t going to stop thinking about Daryl Madison for quite some time.

She crawled into bed and shut off her light. She waited a long time for sleep to come.

*

The research and development lab in Pentacorp’s own industrial park was tucked away in a large facility in Eastern Pittsburgh. It was a half hour from Monroeville and quite a lot of the employees lived there, game for the heavy commute. Truth be told, the job was challenging and difficult but, most would say, rewarding, especially financially.

Georgie opted to not live in Monroeville, however, and lived in a semi-quiet complex in Penn Hills. The town was full of “yinzers” who got good and liquored up on the weekends and most weeknights. But the rent was inexpensive, and there was a guard at the door to keep the riff-raff out…and some of it in, so to speak.

So, because of her proximity to the R&D facility, she had no trouble getting there before anyone in the department, and simply waited for whoever the first person was to arrive.

And unfortunately for Phoebe Armstrong, it happened to be her.

“Well, good morning, Dr. Armstrong.”

Phoebe gasped and dropped her coffee. It splashed onto her beige pants, and she yelped as the coffee poured onto the white tile floor. Her face went from shock to quick anger as she saw Georgie, feet propped up on the lab table. Next to her feet was a familiar-looking plastic container.

“Jesus H tap-dancing Christ, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to ask you some questions, and you had better have some really good answers for me.” Georgie took a foot and kicked the plastic container off the table and onto the floor. “For question number one, why the fuck was this in one of our employees’ apartment?”

Armstrong looked at the container and her eyes narrowed.

“Daryl,” she muttered through her teeth.

“Oh, don’t you mean ‘Big D?’”

Armstrong blinked and glared at Georgie. There had been a long-standing animosity between the two women, but it absolutely was about to get to worse.

“First of all, fuck you. That’s first. Just want to get that out of the way.” Phoebe folded her arms and leaned to one side. “Secondly, we were authorized to start human testing. You authorized human testing, so what do you think human testing means?”

“Human testing means finding volunteers or college students to sign waivers and giving them a few bucks here and there. You know, so if something bad happens they can’t sue us and aren’t attached to the corporation. Daryl was a fucking employee.”

“Daryl is still alive, apparently, and he’s also an adult who also happened to sign the aforementioned waivers. I’m not stupid, Georgie. All of the bases were covered.”

Georgie kicked her feet off the lab table and stood up. She walked slowly towards Phoebe. “Except, of course, for the base where the subject stays in the goddamn testing facility to be monitored and not massively overdose on the test drug because it’s a goddamn test drug.”

Phoebe sank slightly. “Well, okay. You got me there.”

“When I found Daryl, he looked like a deflated balloon.” Georgie pulled out her cell phone and showed Phoebe a picture.

“Oh, balls,” Armstrong said.

“Indeed. But it took several people to get him onto a gurney. He was unbelievably heavy.”

“Like, how heavy?”

“It took five men to get him into the ambulance. Why?” Georgie asked.

“That’s pretty heavy, yeah.” Phoebe said, and turned away. She whirled back around to Georgie. “We have a problem.”

“I would love to hit you right now,” Georgie said quietly.

Phoebe ignored it. “We need to get Daryl here to the lab ASAP.”

“Is this something you can fix?”

Phoebe looked at her and frowned.

“I’m just hoping it’s something that can be contained.”

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Nick Cato

Michelle R. Lane 2 Comments

Last week, I spoke with Corey Niles about how identity shapes our fiction. And this week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes horror film aficionado Nick Cato.

Nick CatoNick Cato is the author of Don of the Dead, The Apocalypse of Peter, The Last Porno Theater, The Atrocity Vendor, Uptown Death Squad, and Death Witch. His debut non fiction film book, Suburban Grindhouse, will be released in February 2020. He has edited the anthologies Dark Jesters (with co-editor LL Soares) and The Gruesome Tensome: A Short Story Tribute to the Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Nick has had fiction published in many anthologies and writes a film column for the recently revamped Deep Red magazine.

Nick also oversees things at the long running fanzine/website The Horror Fiction Review and occasionally hosts the Suburban Grindhouse podcast.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Nick! I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t picked up a copy of Suburban Grindhouse yet, but I’m really looking forward to reading it. Can you give us a synopsis of the book and maybe tell us what inspired you to write it? This is your first non fiction film book, what challenges did you encounter while switching gears between fiction and non fiction? Do you have plans for any other non fiction books?

NC: Suburban Grindhouse is a collection of columns (along with a bunch of new bonus material) originally published on a film site called Cinema Knife Fight. The columns are part film review, part memoir, as I often explain what audiences were like at certain theaters both in my hometown of Staten Island, NY, as well as in Times Square and some NJ theaters. I always found some audiences could actually shape the way you ended up feeling about a film, and this idea eventually became my column. When I pitched it to one of my favorite film book publishers (the UK’s Headpress) I was thrilled their editor had been familiar with my column and eventually bought my manuscript and added it to their amazing catalog.

It wasn’t difficult to switch gears as writing about film is something I do to “take a breather” while I’m working on a novella or novel. I find it a great way to get my fiction muse back. I’ve written about film since 1981 in various horror and cult film fanzines, so I had somewhat of a background when I decided to try it more seriously.

My second film book is currently being considered at another press, and I’m in full swing on a third.

GMM: The titles of your books are humorous, but you’re writing horror. Would you consider your work  bizarro or weird fiction? Are they the same thing? What are the elements of your fiction that sets it apart from other horror stories?

NC: I originally wrote what would be considered “humorous horror,” but in time I think the majority of my fiction became weird or bizarro. I always try to bring in something unusual or try to turn a trope on it’s head. As subgenres, if you will, weird and bizarro are different, in that “weird fiction” was pretty much what Lovecraft and his like were considered, whereas “bizarro” usually follows more absurd/surreal and less fantasy-like ideas. Not always, but mostly. It’s surely a fine line. Lately lots of “Lovecraftian” or “cosmic” fiction is simply being labeled as weird fiction.

I think the main element that sets my stories apart is I bring in the bizarro element later on, be it during a short or longer story. Most of my tales are told in three sections (even my shorts), and I try to bring the strange in toward the end. Most of the stranger things I’ve come up with haven’t been “forced,” but rather came out naturally for me. In high school one of my friends used to say, “Nick doesn’t need drugs to be weird.” I always got a kick out of that. Weird ideas seem to continually pop up in my head, and the more witty ones I try to convert into fiction.

GMM: A few years ago I interviewed horror writer and academic, Michael Arnzen, and he talked about the connection between horror and humor. One of his quotes really spoke to me: “I think laughter bonds us, even though we’re all doomed.” I really like that statement as a worldview. What’s your philosophy on the connection between horror and humor?

NC: Mike would surely know. I loved his short story collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories. In fact it contains one of my all time favorite humorous horror stories, “Domestic Fowl.” Humor and horror have always gone hand in hand with me. Laughing…and I mean really cracking up, like the first time most people see a film like Blazing Saddles… is an experience that can make you feel naturally high. I’ve experienced that several times in my life through films and certain comedians. Same with horror. When I was 13, I saw the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time in a theatrical rerelease. I had never been as terrified by a film before, or since to be honest. The feelings of sheer terror and “cracking up” laughing bring some of us to a place we both love and dread. That’s powerful. Some films tried to combine the two genres, but only a few succeeded. I’ve tried to combine both to an extreme degree but have yet to come up with something I’d say strongly captures both emotions at the same time. A couple of writers I admire have come close. I continually have my eye out for that inevitable short story or novel that will scare the crap out of us while simultaneously making us laugh till we cry.

“The Bowl,” by Nick Cato, was featured in his latest collection “The Satanic Rites of Sasquatch and other Weird Stories,” published by Bizarro Pulp Press (Journalstone)

Harold Anderson stared out the bedroom window, restless thanks to his wife’s snoring. The occasional bat fluttered by the street light, casting distorted shadows on his ceiling.

“Come on, honey,” he said, pushing Helen onto her side.

She half-consciously rolled over and fell right back to sleep.

Although his plan worked, it was the silence that now kept him awake. He decided to watch a late re-run of the Tonight Show, but was still alert when it ended.

3:30 a.m.

He sat up, looking at the clothes he’d neatly laid out for tomorrow (today, actually). When he laid back down, his stomach gurgled loud enough to make Helen shift.

“Whoa,” he said, rubbing his belly. “I shouldn’t have had that second helping.”

He stepped into his #1 Dad slippers (a Christmas gift from Danny), slid on his bathrobe (a birthday gift from Nadine), then padded toward the bathroom. With each step, the need to expel last night’s dinner became more severe. Where had this come from? Four and a half hours of trying to fall asleep without so much as a fart, and now…

He reached into the darkness and felt for the switch. He dropped his robe as soon as the lime-colored bathroom was illuminated. The toilet—situated strategically between the sink and shower—seemed to beckon him. After pulling the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly from a magazine bin, Harold dropped his boxers and perched himself on the cool porcelain.

He read through the entire film review section before finishing his business. He broke the silence with two courtesy flushes along the way.

“That’s the last time I let her talk me into Mexican on a work night,” he said, washing his sweaty hands and face with lukewarm water. He put the robe back on, then gave the room a few cinnamon-scented blasts of Glade, making the place smell like a combo of Big Red Chewing Gum and ass.

He turned to walk back to bed. Someone said “thank you” in the blackened hallway.

Harold jumped. He flicked the bathroom lights back on, expecting to see Danny or Nadine up for a late-night pee. But on second thought, the voice was too deep for a five- or eight-year-old.

He checked his children’s bedrooms, happy to see them both asleep.

Man, do I need some shut-eye. Harold turned off the bathroom light and scratched the top of his auburn head.

He crawled under the blankets next to Helen, and within five minutes joined her in slumberland.

#

“You look bushed! Tough time last night?” Mr. Davis asked.

“I had a bit of trouble falling asleep. My stomach did backflips for a while.”

“Glad to see you’re here—you know we have that meeting with Tucker right after lunch today?”

“That’s why I’m here, even if I got less than three hours of sleep,” Harold said, taking a swig from his third cup of coffee.

“That’s the spirit!” Mr. Davis patted him on the back. “This is why you’re my number one man.”

At 11:43, Harold felt a sudden need to visit the restroom. He closed the file he was working on and headed to the lavatory.

He sat on the toilet, feeling disgusted by the prospect of doing this in a $600 suit. He experienced feelings of emptiness. Coldness. He couldn’t wait to finish. His heart began racing, as if he was having a panic attack.

He soon felt relieved to be rid of whatever was inside him, and to be off the office toilet; just knowing two dozen people shared it gave him the willies.

“Mr. Anderson? Call on line one.”

“Thank you, Margaret. I’ll take it in my office.”

“Please hold one moment,” she said, smiling as Harold passed by.

“Hello, Harold Anderson here.”

Silence.

“Hello, may I help you?”

Silence. Then, “Thank you.”

“Excuse me?”

Silence. A rusty click. “Thank you.”

Harold leaned forward in his plush leather chair. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Who is this?”

“You know who this is, and I know what you just did.”

Harold slammed the phone down. “Freaking lunatic!”

Immediately, the phone rang in the lobby. He heard Margaret answer, then page him on the intercom. He accepted the call.

“Hello? Anderson here.”

“If you ever hang up on me again, I’ll destroy your wife and kids.”

“Okay—who is this? What’s your problem?”

Silence. Deafening, painful silence. Then the distinct sound of a toilet flushing. “Have a good day. We’ll discuss this later.”

“We’ll discuss what later?”

The phone went dead.

The voice was familiar, but Harold couldn’t match it to a face. He walked around his desk, anticipating another call.

It never came.

He left the office shortly after 5:00 p.m., still haunted by the menacing telephone conversation. Even the successful meeting with Tucker Industries couldn’t keep his mind off that voice. He spent the forty-minute drive home trying to figure out who would first thank him for something, then threaten to kill his family in the next breath.

Must be a prank. Harold tuned into a classic rock station as he hit the highway.

Do you have a fragment you’d like to share with the world? Send it my way at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: EV Knight

Michelle R. Lane 2 Comments

Last week, I talked with Ronald J. Murray about cannibals and erotic horror. I know! If you haven’t read last week’s post, you should totally check it out. This week, I have the pleasure of welcoming EV Knight. I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of her soon to be released debut novel, and I can’t say enough good things about it. And, I’m proud to be sharing a table of contents with her in The Monstrous Feminine: Dark Tales of Dangerous Women.

EV ColorEV Knight writes horror and dark fiction. Her debut novel, The Fourth Whore, will be published in 2020 by Raw Dog Screaming Press. EV’s short stories can be found in The Toilet Zone Anthology by Hellbound Books and Siren’s Call magazine and the anthology Monstrous Feminine from Scary Dairy Press. She is also cohost of the podcast Brain Squalls with Knight and Daigh. She enjoys all things macabre; whether they be film, TV, podcast, novel, short story, or poetry. She lives in the cold northern woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with her family and two hairless cats.

Three Questions

GMM: Congratulations on The Fourth Whore. Without giving away too many spoilers, can you tell us about your debut novel? And, maybe share some of what your experienced in the process of getting your first novel published. Do you have any advice for other writers?

EVK: The Fourth Whore is what I like to refer to as feminist horror. My protagonist is Kenzi, a street hardened survivor and my antagonist is Lilith, first wife of Adam/demoness come back for revenge. Lilith is furious with men: God, Sariel (the angel of death who trapped her in a talisman), Demons of Hell who tortured her for many years, and humans whose myths characterized her as a demonic child-killing whore. All she ever wanted was equality with her husband. When Kenzi accidentally releases Lilith from the talisman, Lilith plans an apocalypse neither the world nor Heaven could even imagine. Rather than gathering the four horsemen of the apocalypse, she gathers her four “whores”—women who have suffered similar abuses/biases as she. She leaves a trail of blood and horrors in her wake while assembling her wrecking crew. Kenzi must decide to join Lilith as her fourth and final whore or try to save a world that never cared about her pain.

I think every writer’s publishing process is unique to their experiences. I knew when I started writing the novel that my dream publisher was Raw Dog Screaming Press. I became a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and attended StokerCon. I met so many amazing people and many representatives of small presses. I was so impressed with the personal touch and the down to earth approach they took with their authors; I knew I wanted to be a part of the Raw Dog family. When I sent my manuscript to them, I wasn’t sure they (or anyone for that matter) would accept it. It has some hardcore gore, a political bent, some liberties were taken in rewriting some biblical stories, and as I said, this novel is strongly feminist (but I need to stress, it is not man-hating). Basically, as a debut novel, it comes out swinging. But they took a chance on me and agreed to publish.

As for advice for writers, get out there in your genre community. Get to know writers, publishers, agents, etc. Go to Cons and offer to buy someone a drink in exchange for a friendly chat. Writer’s, I have found, are some of the most caring and nurturing people. They want to help you succeed and they will introduce you to their friends. When people get to know your name and/or face, it may just move you up in the slush pile. And sometimes, you even get an invitation to send your manuscript just from having a drink together and telling them about your work.

GMM: I haven’t had a chance to listen to your podcast, Brain Squalls with Knight and Daigh. When did you begin working on the podcast? How would you describe the content? What is your favorite episode? Where can we listen?

EVK: Brain Squalls was born from a game my husband and I play on road trips all the time. We both enjoy making up stories and often times, stories start with the most mundane observation or prompt. I got my start writing by working my way through Mike Arnzen’s book Instigation: Creative Prompts on the Dark Side.

Matt and I had been throwing ideas around about a podcast since we met. On our way home from last year’s StokerCon (where we attended a couple panels on podcasting), the idea came to us.

At the beginning of each episode, we use a prompt to get us started on a story and throughout the next hour, we literally work out a story from start to finish. We flesh out characters, we discuss plot and backstories. We discuss what we as the writer would know and what we would let our reader know. It’s a “live” walkthrough of creation in process and we ask listeners to send us comments on how they might have told the story differently. Its been a lot of fun. And completed our first season with a special Christmas episode. Our very first episode titled “Warm Vanilla Sugar” and our last Christmas episode are my favorites but I was really happy with all our stories. Next season, which begins in January, we’ll be bringing on guests to tell stories with us. We’re inviting writers and other creatives to come play. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Maybe you’ll join us, Michelle?

You can find Brain Squalls on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, and Youtube.

GMM:  I loved your fragment. It gave me the creeps. Telling a horror story from the POV of a cat is interesting. And, I’m dying to see what that tentacle belongs to. Have you written other stories from the POV of animals? How does it differ from writing from the POV of people? Or monsters for that matter?

EVK: I have in fact. I wrote one very near and dear to my heart which I haven’t sent out for publication yet because I am waiting for the perfect submission request. It’s from the POV of a research chimpanzee. I have several more written from the POV of a cat or a group of cats. I think, for me, an animal is the ultimate reliable narrator. We as humans put personalities to animals and certainly, they are individuals, but a lot of what they do is instinctual. Their feelings are tied to that. For instance, Milo is a pet but he is an outdoor cat. He loves his family and he knows they love him but he can’t help that he feels called to be outside. He is not bad, just feels that call of nature and it gets him in trouble. I love trying to think in that free way. No ulterior motivations, no blocked emotions, you know? It’s fun to write and just allow a character to be and to feel in the moment.

Humans can’t be trusted in that way. We all have secrets, we all have motivations that affect our behavior. A monster by typical definition is usually a creature with harmful or malicious intent. Even the scariest of animals, aren’t evil, they may be predators but its all instinct, primitive brain and I love digging deep into mine.

*Excerpt from a short piece titled Milo about an indoor/outdoor cat who likes to bring his people spoils from his outdoor adventures. Only this adventure may just be his last.

The best way to deal with this usurper of his dinner was to tear it apart. He bit into one of the snake husks and pulled. He felt a tear and pulled harder. Thick, aloe-like ooze squeezed out of the bite marks and dripped down Milo’s chin. This ooze was black and it smelled like decay. He wrinkled his nose but he refused to let go of the thing. He pulled, and the whole creature rolled itself around him.  The tiny worms bit at his chest and belly. Its beak was snapping feverishly, so close to Milo’s nose that he could smell the chipmunk’s blood. The piece of tentacle in his mouth loosened. There was no choice but to swallow it quickly and grab another purchase of the slimy thing. This time, he unleashed the wildness inside him and tore at the thing with his front claws, all the while pulling back with his head. It came loose. The beak let out a high-pitched squawk. The thing, which was definitely not a fungus, somersaulted completely over, lifted itself up on the husks it had left, and limped away, leaving a stinking, steaming trail of thick, black muck behind it.

Milo, satisfied with his heroic revenge, dragged the spoils of war back to his home. It seeped and dripped the black sap onto the ground and Milo’s tongue. It had a sort of numbing sensation that Milo did not like much. He wanted to get rid of the thing. He was going to give it to his people, and he might even spend the night in the house. All of a sudden, he didn’t feel like being an outside cat anymore. At the front door, he dropped his find on the stoop and scratched and yowled until they answered.

“My God, Milo, what have you brought this time?” the female said. He pushed it toward her. She crinkled her nose. “Ugh. Sick! Bad Kitty! Where did you find a tentacle out in the woods?”

Milo meowed. He wanted her to pick it up and examine it. This was not your common gift, plus it had made him feel quite sick. He rubbed his face against the bristly mat in front of the door.

“Oh, you stinky cat! That thing is positively disgusting. I didn’t know Octopus had black blood.” She leaned down and poked it with a finger. “Or maybe that’s ink. Ooh, and I didn’t know they stunk so much. Milo, that is just gross.” She kicked it. It squished under her shoe and puffs of yellow stuff came out of the little bumps all over it. Milo sniffed at it again. It didn’t smell so gamey anymore. Now it just smelled sickeningly sweet. He followed her into the house.

“If you’re coming in here, you’re getting a bath,” his person said.

Maybe you have a fiction fragment hiding in a drawer that you’d like to dust off and share. If so, send it my way at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!