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 1) Why write horror? As much as I wanted to get away from horror (it’s my mother’s love) I found myself dreaming up characters with their toes dipped in darkness. While I love to be more fantasy based, horror, in a strange way, is part of my home. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? My writing is much more character driven and psychological. My book, Last stop is about a woman who sees lost spirits and has to usher them to the afterlife. It deals with her struggles to accept her new role in life as well as the traumas felt after having a few wayward ghosts attack her mind. I love the journey of the character, of how they find a way to overcome the darkness. 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? L.A Banks is my all time favorite. Her work was so inspiring to me and a lot of readers have said that my work reminds them of hers. Which is a huge compliment to me! 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? I would have to say Lili Taylor. Something about the way she embodies her characters is so impressive. I still have random chills from her performance in The Haunting! 5) What's next for you? I’m returning to Vampires! I’ve missed writing them and I have a much darker story line in mind. I’m excited to go back to my roots! I do have several projects releasing in 2021 including The Rise of the Elites and Fairy tales of the FYP. Will also be continuing my Djinn Rebellion series. Bio
Jessica Cage is an International Award Winning, and USA Today Best Selling Author. Born and raised in Chicago, IL, writing has always been a passion for her. As a girl, Jessica enjoyed reading tales of fantasy and mystery but she always hoped to find characters that looked like her. Those characters came few and far in between. When they did appear they often played a minor role and were background figures. This is the inspiration for her writing today and the reason why she focuses on writing Characters of Color in Fantasy. Representation matters in all mediums and Jessica is determined to give the young girl who looks like her, a story full of characters that she can relate to.  For me, my favorite types of horror movies are the B movies. I feel that they focus more on character development and the story as opposed to scare tactics, making it so we actually care about the characters and want them to survive. Too many movies nowadays have cardboard characters who are killed off quickly and the audience doesn't care.
B movies don't get enough credit, although they do sometimes become cult hits. Evil Dead is considered a B horror movie and it got a revival as a TV show recently and movies like Fright Night got remakes. The monsters may be crappy looking or the CGI leaves a lot to be desired, but they make up for it in fun, clever one liners and excellent story telling. My favorite B movies have to be Tremors, The Blob and Vamp. I think they are all good examples of great characters and are very entertaining. I also, because this is a Women in Horror event, like the fact that the women in B movies are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and make excellent Final Girls. What are your favorite B horror movies?  1) Drew Barrymore in Scream
2) Grace Kelly in Rear Window 3) Janet Leigh in Psycho 4) Sarah Paulson in AHS 5) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween Who is your favorite Scream Queen?  1) Why write horror?
I grew up on Lovecraft and Poe and am obsessed with horror in all forms, short stories, novels, films, prose. Writing was just an extension of this...and it's tremendous fun. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? I'm rather greedy, I write in a few sub-genres - ghost stories, psychological horror, gothic, contemporary, humorous. 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Rice are some of my favourite writers of horror. 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? Laurie Strode is my Scream Queen, terrified in Halloween and then a much stronger, determined protagonist in the later versions. 5) What's next for you? I'm finishing the first draft of a psychological horror and collating a collection of horror shorts. 1) Why write horror?
I don’t think I made it a conscious decision. I fell in love with the macabre when I was a toddler, watching old Scooby Doo episodes on Cartoon Network. I recall the Chicago suburb I lived in had a ton of bats that we’d often see at sunset, and a coven of “vampires” (I wrote them into my novel Stake-Out, as a matter of fact). I fell in love with all things creepy and dark, and always have been, from music to TV and especially books. My mother bought me a collection of Poe’s work when I was 8, and it got me started down the horror rabbit hole. With horror, it can be combined with many genres (I like to combine it with high and urban fantasy). It’s not a one trick pony genre. It can even be added to romance (my pen name’s The Vampire Mistress, for example). Fear is a visceral emotion, and from birth, we have the capability to feel it. Sure, doesn’t a newborn baby immediately feel the fear of the unknown the moment it’s ejected from the warm, familiar comfort of the womb? Fear is universal, it is beautiful, it is eternal. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? I like a little bit of all of it, and I like to combine them. Gore is fun. You can often find me gleefully grinning as I peel the flesh from a hapless victim or gut someone and describe the way their intestines squirm and dance once free from their prison of flesh and bone. Gore is gross, it is violent, and it has a place and time. Psychological is more difficult, and I delved into mixing it with gore in my novel Never Again. The MC, Sean, suffers PTSD from being captured during WWII and held prisoner and, yes, tortured. I suffer from multiple psychological disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, chronic depression, insomnia, night terrors, PTSD, and am on the spectrum. When one’s body is betrayed by their brain, it can be alarming in an indescribable way. I try to describe that feeling, and make my readers feel it, too. 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? Of course Anne Rice and Shirley Jackson are up there, as is Anne Bronte. But I think Mary Shelley would have to take the top spot for her sci-fi twists and deeply psychological plot. Honorable mentions (because I read them when they still identified as female) are Z Brewer and Poppy Z Brite. 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? Unpopular opinion, but as a modern scream queen, I find Chloe Grace Moretz fantastic. I prefer the 60s horror mavens, such as Caroline Munro and Veronica Carlson. I adore black and white horror, as well as the 70s Hammer films (Christopher Lee was the man). They had beauty and grace few can emulate. 5) What's next for you? On March 20th I release a boxed set I compiled called Just A Little Wicked, which will feature my YA historical fantasy novella Morgana’s Revenge, featuring some impalings, stabbings, a memorable electrocution, and the encroaching fear of being hunted for no reason other than the fact that you exist. Over the summer I will enter a new genre: cozy mysteries, with the launch of the Paige Papillon Paranormal Mysteries Series, and have a YA horror novella called Dead Memories included in the boxed set Summer Bites. Dead Memories follows my Paranormal Detectives MC Angelica Cross when she’s sixteen years old, as she attends paranormal summer camp to socialize with the children of other supernatural dignitaries from around the world. While there, camp counselors and campers alike are brutalized by a mysterious creature, and she must figure out who or what it is and stop it. Finally, on Halloween, I will release Make Me Bad, a psychological, sci-fi horror novel about a half vampire and the insane mortal sect that seeks to use him as a test dummy for disease, torture, and much more.  I have been a fan of horror for years and I will share what I think makes a great female lead in a horror movie or book.
1) Why write horror?
My addiction to horror started when I was twelve or thirteen years old. By that time I was already head over heels in love with reading. But someone from school lend me their mother’s copy of Stephen King’s IT. I read this with a flashlight under the blankets at night. And that’s how it all started. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? I do write both. My first horror book has a scene in that made some readers complain that there was no trigger warning. But the rest is psychological horror. Even my sci-fi series contains elements of both. I think women are experts at psychological fear because of the world we live in. We have a natural ability to write it well because we experience it so often in the real world. 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? Anne Rice is my favorite of all time. She is a master at world-building, and using mythology in her books. This is something that I love. Shirley Jackson is a close second because of the way she finds the horror in everyday situations. Last year I delved into gothic classics and fell completely in love with Daphne du Maurier, Ann Radcliff and Mary Shelley’s work. Others I have enjoyed is JF Penn (Joanna Penn) and Sian Claven. 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? Jamie Lee Curtis birthed this term, of course. She will always be the first name that jumps to mind when you hear the term, but my personal favorite is Sigourney Weaver. I fell in love with her in the ALIEN franchise where she was part hero and part final girl. She has a gift to play the damsel in distress, but able and willing to fight her way out if she needed too. Other movies I loved her in: GHOSTBUSTERS, COPYCAT, SNOW WHITE: TALE OF TERROR. RED LIGHTS, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN. "There is no Dana, only Zuullllllll!" 5) What's next for you? I am currently finishing THE RIVER, book #2 in my horror trilogy THOMPSONVILLE. I dedicated most of early January to rewriting #1, THE WOODS. This is also the first of my writing that I’m translating into my native tongue, which is Afrikaans. After this I am editing and translating two Paranormal romances in my DARLING’S DAUGHTERS series. I wrote these last year, and will also translate them into Afrikaans. This is a shapeshifter thriller series set in a real town in South Africa.  1) Why write horror?
I was introduced to horror at a young age. It started with the old black and white hammer horror movies like The Mummy and Frankenstein and quickly moved to movies like An American Werewolf in London and Alien. My favourite shows were The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, probably why my stories nearly always have twists at the end. When I was twelve or thirteen my brother gave me a Stephen King book to read, I became addicted and didn’t stop reading all his books. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological, etc? I write many subgenres of horror like sci-fi, paranormal, occult, and comedy. However, I really enjoy extreme horror and these are my most popular stories. I like to push the boundaries a little and chuffed when the reviews come in from readers. I tend to focus on the stories and action rather than the characters. To me, too much character development can be boring. Yes, you have to know what drives them, who they were, etc, but if it doesn’t help with the plot, what’s the point, right? 3) Who is your favourite woman in horror author? I have a few with the obvious classics like Shirley Jackson and Mary Shelley. I prefer the indie authors of today e.g. Lee Franklin and Sea Caummisar...gore is good. 4) Who is your favourite scream queen? It has to be Jamie Lee Curtis. She doesn’t just sit there, scream, and get killed, she attacks too. Her role in the latest Halloween movie was awesome, she was a total badass. 5) What’s next for you? I have so many stories in my head (some being sequels), I don’t know what to do. I’ll probably focus on my third in my Celtic Curse stories - The Púca (or Pooka in English). It’ll be a while though, with work and family, I don’t get much time to write.  Porcelain Copyright F. B. Hogan I was in the kitchen washing fruit when the doorbell rang. I wiped my hands on the paper towel and made my way to the front door. Early. She wasn’t expected for another half hour at least, I thought she would find it difficult to locate the house but then again, she had been here before, hadn’t she? Short, dark hair; a pixie cut, they used to call it. Young, younger than me. Although, half the population must be younger than me now. She looked slim in her smart, navy, suit jacket and matching tailored trousers. She wore lipstick, not the expected blatant red but a nude shade, understated but glistening. Perfectly made-up, even for this. Cosmetically armoured and self-assured, standing on my doorstep, her hand held towards me as if we were still living in a world with social niceties. I invited her in, what else could I do? I had orchestrated this little tête á tête, here in my house, on home turf. I knew she wouldn’t be able to refuse to come, that curiosity would get the better of her. How could she pass up the chance to see face-to-face, the woman in the picture frame on his office desk? Up very close and personal. A well-known photograph, almost iconic now, given my fame and his high profile. I liked to think I had evolved since that wedding portrait, grown into myself, become a different, more valid person but then again who was I to say what changes time had wrought? It had brought me here to this moment. Brought her here to me. It’s funny to think of the things that flit across one’s mind in these strange times. She followed me into the kitchen, murmuring compliments about the house and its décor. Bland words issuing from her bland, beige mouth. She sat across the table as I poured the coffee - freshly brewed French Roast for her, instant decaf for me – I needed to keep my wits about me. She refused one of the homemade cookies I had artfully arranged although she did comment on the plate upon which they sat. ‘Oh, how lovely, I have this same design at home, your last collection, I believe?’ I nodded. It was a strange world where the mistress followed and even supported the wife’s career. When a little mandatory conversation had passed I directed the flow of our words to the matter at hand. I told her I was amenable to a divorce, that I wouldn’t stand in the way of Jacques’ happiness. She had heard a version of this during our first conversation, on the phone. It was easy to save her number from his contacts – a silly, sloppy mistake on his part, he should have known how I checked his messages. It was my duty, not one I particularly relished but one I had come to accept with the passing of years. And so, here we were. When I called her up, she was surprised, then defensive followed by distrustful and rude. But once I invited her to come and discuss our little situation, she jumped at the chance, quickly letting slip her eagerness to meet the woman who had been married for over three decades to her boss and lover. I spoke without emotion, as if it were a mere business transaction, telling her it was only a matter of getting my solicitor to arrange things. When Jacques returned from Europe I would tell him. It was all very amicable. Of course, the house was mine to start with, and I had no designs on his fortune with my own very successful business. So, he would be free to move out of my bed and into hers whenever he wished. I even mentioned another man, throwing her a bone that she began to gnaw with vigour. She started to act as if we were now friends – friends whose paths converged at my husband but were now taking opposing routes. I stood up from the table, signalling that our time together was at an end. She followed me, again admiring the ceramics on the wall, the green man, the faeries and other creatures whose images I had skilfully captured from clay. She stopped at one face, a beautiful but tortured visage in pale-blue bone china. ‘She’s my favourite,’ she said reverently. She put out a hand to touch the face but pulled it back at the last minute. ‘Here,’ I took down the sculpture and allowed her to run her fingers over the smooth surface. ‘It’s tougher than it looks, bone china.’ I replaced it on the wall and turned to face her. ‘Would you like to see the workshop before you go?’ ‘Oh, yes, I’d love to.’ She followed me like an eager puppy. It was as easy as that. I slipped the latch on the door behind us, locking us in. She started to stumble so I made sure she didn’t fall against anything that might break. It didn’t take long, mere minutes from coffee cup to mouth, to her central nervous system. She seemed surprised, even apologized until realization hit and then came outrage. She fought me, trying to scratch my face but only getting my neck and arms as her strength gave out and although she screamed and raged, my steady grip was soon unnecessary. She had slipped into unconsciousness well before I even got her into the kiln. There wasn’t much to put in the bin bag, a pair of sensible office heels, slightly scuffed, the knock-off designer bag complete with a selection of keys, pens and other miscellany – her phone accompanied her into the kiln, it just seemed one less thing to worry about. I drove her car into the city and left it in a dark corner of the underground car park at the busy shopping centre. Disguised in my husband’s jacket, old gardening trousers, a hat pulled over my hair and sunglasses, I slipped out a side entrance. I took the bus home, walking a few miles to the long lane that led from the road to the house. The phone was ringing when I turned the key in the lock and when it stopped the answering machine cut in. I sighed and then smiled as Jacques’ familiar accent filled the room, telling me his plane was delayed. … The sound of the refuse lorry making its way down the narrow lane jolted me awake. Startled I checked the time and was surprised to notice I had been out for eight hours solid. At best I was granted three to four hour’s reprieve, five on a very good night. The last few days had stripped my energy reserves, but the night had seen fit to reward me with a sound rest. I launched myself from under the duvet and peered around the curtain to watch the large, black truck reverse into the drive, a bearded man in a reflective jacket hopped down and lifted the handle of the bin. I peered around the side of the curtain until the bin was lifted, emptied, and replaced at the bottom of the drive. The truck moved on past the house going back the way it came. I showered and changed, applying fresh cream to the scratches and descended the stairs. In the kitchen I prepared a late lunch of cold cuts, a green salad, and sliced the crusty, homemade bread Jacques loved. I put the food away and washed my hands. All was in readiness. No dirt, no dust, no loose ends. Jacques was coming back - he always came back. And I had lied - there were no other men for me, never had been, never would be. With a little time to spare before his arrival I went out into the yard. All was bright and shining after the rain, clear and clean. Fresh. The way I liked it. In the workshop I picked up a few sketches hastily drawn from memory, a few scribbled lines that captured a twisted face, a portrait of pain. From this agony I would bring forth beauty. I already had a concept for my next piece. A centrepiece for my new collection of bone china. I would call it Rebirth. Bio
F.B. Hogan lives in the rural midlands of Ireland, she masquerades as a sensible adult and mother but lives and breathes purely for horror. She has compiled three books of dark fiction and gothic horror. And although she dabbles in many genres from humorous fiction, romance, dark faerie to contemporary literary fiction, it's horror that feeds her soul. |
 
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About the Author:S. K. Gregory is an author, editor and blogger. She currently resides in Northern Ireland. “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” 
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