Come Selahway With Me…

Rie Sheridan Rose was kind enough to put together some words about horror, and what a collection of words she’s put together! I love it when people are so enthusiastic about their passion for writing, but also the darker genres. It’s nice to find like-minded gals who aren’t afraid to say they love writing horror!

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From the time I was a kid, I’ve been a huge horror fan.  The Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies were some of my favorite collections. I bought Tales from the Crypt, House of Horror, and similar comics every month and devoured them. I even did a cutting from Carrie for a duet acting scene in High School. So, it was only logical that I should write some eventually.

As a matter of fact, I think my first professional sale was a poem about a vampire waiting for prey.

I love writing horror.

I have a series of humorous horror stories about a restaurateur named Bruce Vincent and his waitress Roxanne Rogers who battle the supernatural. They have the sort of camp aesthetic that was often found in the old comic books, which could vacillate between silly and terrifying in one issue. Of course, Bruce and Roxanne always come down on the side of silly. There are two chapbooks of stories featuring this pair available from Yard Dog Press, Tales from the Home for Wayward Spirits and Bar-B-Que Grill and Bruce and Roxanne Save the World…Again!

But, much fun as writing the silly stories can be, writing something seriously scary (or at least attempting it) is much more satisfying to me. I’ve written several short pieces that fall into this category. Some of these are found in the collection By Candlelight. My favorite serious horror piece to date though is Bloody Rain from Mocha Memoirs—this look at what might really have become of Jack the Ripper is something I’ve wanted to explore for a long time.

I have recently finished the second draft of my first full length horror novel, Skellyman. It isn’t easy to sustain the suspense for a long work. But it is a lot of fun!

If you are interested in trying a bit of horror on your own, I suggest reading extensively in the genre. Some authors I would recommend are Anne Rice—you still can’t beat her description; Charlee Jacob—dark is her speciality…; Tanith Lee—her dark fantasy often skirts the edges of horror; and, of course, Stephen King, who is still the Grand Master.

Writing horror requires a specific mindset. You have to immerse yourself in the darkness. But you must also remember it isn’t someplace you want to dwell eternally. You have to come out of the darkness and into the light when you finish.

Find out more about Rie Sheridan Rose at http://riewriter.com/