It’s so unfair that I just found out about this. Gris Grimly, illustrator of two very creepy books of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories (Tales of Death and Dementia and Tales of Mystery and Madness (reviewed here), now has an illustrated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, just out since August 27. Grimly was interviewed by Publisher’s Weekly about the process of re-creating, designing, and illustrating Frankenstein, a story which has been adapted and presented in many different ways (it’s a really interesting interview, and here is a link so you can check it out for yourself). One of the things I learned from reading it was that Grimly had blogged about the process as he worked through the book, created illustrations, got frustrated, made changes, and pulled it all together. For four years. How I missed knowing that a brilliant illustrator of both children’s and YA books was working on, and blogging about, this fantastic project for FOUR YEARS is crazy! I so wish the publisher had contacted us and offered a copy to us for review. Anyway, the blog he wrote as he was creating this book is a pretty neat look into the mind of an illustrator who is serious about respecting the author’s intent while also making the story his own, and here is a link so you can visit there. I loved Kenneth Oppell’s prequel to the Frankenstein story, This Dark Endeavor (reviewed here), which (at least in the Kindle version) was paired with the original novel, and is intriguing and gripping enough to motivate some kids into attempting the original. However, from what he says, Grimly takes what appears to be a much more direct, visual, and fantastic approach to the story, one that may draw in an entirely different audience of YA readers. But mainly, right now, I’m just bummed that, with the book four years in the making, and Grimly publicly blogging about it, that I didn’t know about it until now. And if you didn’t know about it before, and you see just the bits he shows on his blog, I suspect you’ll want to know more, too.
Interview with a Vampire Novelist: Kim Newman
As the announcement for HWA Vampire Novel of the Century drew near, intrepid reviewer Wendy Zazo-Philips approached Kim Newman, author of nominee Anno Dracula, for an interview, and he graciously answered her questions. Wendy asked some pretty interesting questions- you can check out his answers below.
Interview with Kim Newman, with an introduction by Wendy Zazo-Philips
I’m not sure if there has ever been a more prolific writer than Kim Newman. He is an English writer, journalist, and film critic whose works have spanned over four decades and have earned him many accolades, including the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. In horror fiction, perhaps his best-known novel is Anno Dracula, which was followed by Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron, and Dracula Cha Cha Cha. Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron have recently been republished by Titan Books. One of his latest works is Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles , which is a collection of short stories based on the characters of Professor James Moriarty and Colonel Sebastian ‘Basher’ Moran.
Wendy: When you adopt a well-known character like Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis, Professor Moriarty, you must satisfy two groups of readers: the fans (or potential fans) of your work as well as the fans of the character himself. Can you tell us more about how these two groups will be satisfied with your new collection Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles?
Kim: It’s a little presumptuous to assume these groups will be satisfied with the book, but I hope they are. I tend not to think too hard about how readers will respond to the work while I’m writing it – sometimes in revisions, I’ll change or delete things that strike me as too obvious or too obscure or generally in the way. I did know with this book that there would be a significant percentage of readers who are very familiar with the Conan Doyle stories, and so I salted through a lot of things that they might pick up – though I assume the general reader gets many of the Holmes jokes too. I did want to give my particular spin to the characters – and, like the Holmes stories as a whole, it’s a book about two characters rather than one – but it still derives from Doyle. I decided early on that I wouldn’t contradict anything Doyle writes in order to make things easier for me, though I do point out where he contradicted himself. I know there are people who follow my work, but I also know that I’m unlikely ever to attract the level of minute analysis that the Holmes stories have had over the years. I hope Thomas Hardy’s fans won’t be too upset by The Hound of the D’Urbervilles either.
Wendy: In the short story “The Adventure of the Six Maledictions” in Gaslight Arcanum: The Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes, one of the pivotal plot points is a recounting (with commentation by Moran) of “The Ballad of Mad Carew,” which was an actual poem written in 1911 by J. Milton Hayes. Was the poem the genesis of the story, or was it (and the Mad Carew character) added later?
Kim: Yes, I started with the poem – though it was a way to get into the recurrent 19th century motif of the cursed jewel or object. The initial idea was that the component stories of Professor Moriarty would all arise from a collision of Doyle’s world with that of another writer – Zane Grey, Anthony Hope, Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, etc. – and Hayes certainly isn’t as famous or well-remembered as they are. The poem is obviously influenced by Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, which is the best of the cursed jewel of Empire stories (Doyle’s “The Sign of the Four” is another key entry in the cycle), but that takes place a bit before the 1880s/90s time period of Professor Moriarty. I also wanted to make something of the character of Carew.
Wendy: You mentioned in a previous interview that there are people that will claim not to enjoy reading or watching horror stories, but yet almost everyone has read or seen (i.e.) A Christmas Carol and/or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. What is it about horror stories that draw people to them, and why do you think people are generally skittish about admitting to liking them?
Kim: Horror is one of those forms that thrives on being disreputable, and probably needs to be in order to do its job – which ranges from just being harmlessly spooky to addressing the deepest, darkest material there is.
Wendy: There has been a deluge of young adult vampire novels in recent years, to the point that we had to launch a sister site, Reading Bites, for those reviews. Can there be such a thing as oversaturation of the vampire genre?
Kim: As someone interested in vampire fiction, I think there is now such a proliferation of material that I find it impossible to keep up with. In the reissue of The Bloody Red Baron, there’s a new novella (“Vampire Romance”) which was written partly to address developments in vampire fiction since I last worked on the Anno Dracula series.
Wendy: You’ve mentioned a couple of times before and in your biography that you used to work in cabaret, but (at least where I’ve read) you never discussed it in detail. Did working in musical theater affect your writing process?
Kim: In the early 1980s, I wrote plays and musicals and performed with a group called Club Whoopee. Based in Somerset, we appeared at Arts Centres, pubs, a few parties, etc., under the aegis of an organization called Sheep Worrying, which published a fanzine, put on stage shows, prompted local bands, issued a few tapes and records and did other vaguely countercultural (the buzzword of the time was “alternative”) things. One of the groups we toured with evolved into P.J. Harvey’s band. We weren’t very successful or, frankly, very good, though we did generate some good material. Some of my later fiction grew out of things I wrote for the stage, and I’d like to work in that medium again sometime (I’ve enjoyed writing plays for radio in the last few years). I certainly grew as a writer while doing this stuff, and a couple of odd things stay with me – in the musicals I wrote, I was working with a large group of people with a range of ages, talents and commitments but I learned to make sure that everyone in every show had some bit of business (a funny line, a character trait) that let them show off a bit. I did this because I noticed other people didn’t, and that small-part actors (who still had to show up all the time) got fed up with just standing about feeding nothing lines to the few “stars” in a show. Now I try to make sure every little character I write has something going for them, even if it’s very small. I enjoyed the technical stuff: writing to cover scene changes or contriving the action so it all takes place in a single space, directing the audience’s attention to one part of the stage to set up a surprise somewhere else, etc. One of the things that made it fun also led in the end to me moving on – you have to rely so much on other people, whereas writing prose it’s just your fault.
Wendy: I read with delight about the “Peace and Love Corporation,” which was a company of writers that included you, Eugene Byrne, Stefan Jaworzyn, Neil Gaiman, and Phil Nutman. What was that like?
Kim: Being in a small room throwing jokes at each other, with someone designated to take notes and write up the articles. We mostly wrote humorous pieces, firstly for men’s magazines and then for a short-lived comedy magazine called The Truth, though Neil, Eugene and I fiddled with some fiction projects that didn’t get finished, and Neil, Stefan, Phil and I worked up film outlines that didn’t get bought (I turned some into novels – Bad Dreams and Orgy of the Blood Parasites). The last real P&L project was Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock – a parody of rock musicals (music by Brian Smedley) that Eugene and I wrote, with a few scenes and songs involving Neil.
Wendy: More and more, we are receiving requests to review independent and self-published works. How do you see these changes in the industry, and what do you think the future holds for authors?
Kim: I still think it’s difficult to reach an audience without a conventional publisher – they have publicists, etc. – and I personally value the process of editing that tends to get skipped in self-publishing. I think the future will be difficult, but it’s never been easy for most authors. George Gissing’s New Grub Street (1891) is still horribly pertinent about how hard it is to earn a living as a writer.
Wendy: Was going to the library a part of your childhood? Do you still go?
Kim: Yes. I spent a lot of time in libraries as a kid, a teenager and in my twenties – I even went through a staying-out-of-the-cold-and-reading-a-novel-off-the-shelves-in-an-afternoon phase when I was really poverty-stricken. I’m afraid I don’t go these days – I have more books here than I can possibly read, and even when not using the internet to research I tend to track down and buy reference books for particular projects. I passionately believe in the importance of libraries and think that there’s no real replacement for them.
Wendy: If you could suggest one or two books for librarians to purchase to introduce their patrons to Kim Newman, which ones would you suggest?
Kim: My novel Anno Dracula and my non-fiction book Nightmare Movies, both recently reissued in expanded editions.
Wendy: The purpose of our website is to help librarians make well-informed decisions about which horror-genre books to purchase for their collections. What books written by other authors do you feel are “must have” titles for libraries?
Kim: I’d cite two other books with my name on the spine – Horror: 100 Best Books and Horror: Another 100 Best Books, edited with Stephen Jones, which each contain a hundred essays by horror authors on their favourite horror titles and an extensive list of further reading suggestions by me and Steve.
Wendy: What projects are you working on now?
Kim: I’m doing a new Anno Dracula novel (the long-delayed Johnny Alucard) and pondering some other long-in-the-works projects, a novel called An English Ghost Story and a 1920s schoolgirl adventure called Kentish Glory. Just now, I’m writing a new novella (set in swinging London) to go in the reissue of Dracula Cha Cha Cha.
Wendy: Is there anything else you’d like librarians and readers to know?
Kim: Just that I appreciate them very much.
Women in Horror Month: Interview with Lisa Morton
Lisa Morton is a gifted writer of horror fiction. In just the past year three of our reviewers independently chose to review her book The Samhanach, and she got a special mention in our Top Picks list for 2011. With 2012 just getting going, her collection Monsters of L.A. has been nominated for a Stoker Award. Reviewer Rhonda Wilson met Lisa this past fall and was able to get an interview with her just in time for Women in Horror Month.
Rhonda: Hi Lisa! This is the 3rd annual Women in Horror Recognition Month and I could think of no one better to interview for MonsterLibrarian to recognize this month. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions of mine.
Lisa: Thank YOU, Rhonda. And I think you’re a pretty darn good example of Women in Horror month yourself.
Rhonda: Let’s start with some easy questions. How did you get your start in the writing industry?
Lisa: I studied screenwriting in college, and so my first few sales were tiny little options on various screenplays and teleplays, but it wasn’t until I sold the screenplay for MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS (which I co-wrote with Tom Burman) that I had what I’d call my first real sale. That happened largely on the strength of Tom’s name; he’s one of the great grandmasters of special makeup effects, and we tailored the script (which was originally titled LIFE ON THE EDGE) to include a lot of makeup effects, which Tom offered to do at basically his cost (and I think he even may have lost a little money on them!). My first prose sale, though, was to Stephen Jones and David Sutton for DARK VOICES 6. I’d met Steve at a convention and we’d hit it off, so he invited me to submit.
Rhonda: Going along with the previous question… who were some of the most influential authors for you when you were starting out? And also today?
Lisa: I wanted to become a screenwriter when I saw THE EXORCIST at the age of 15, so I’d certainly have to list William Peter Blatty. Then the writer who made me really want to write prose was Dennis Etchison, who remains one of my favorite writers.
Rhonda: How do you go about your writing process? For example, how do you go about your research, what kind of timeframe do you give yourself for writing, what kind of setting do you place yourself in to write?
Lisa: It depends on what I’m writing. Over the last few years I’ve switched back-and-forth almost equally between short fiction, long fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays, and I take slightly different approaches to each. For short fiction, I’ll get any research out of the way, work it out in my head for a while, then just dive right in. For book-length stuff, though, I have to outline in advance, or I lose track of where I’m going (and since endings are often what I come up with FIRST, it’s important for me to keep track of how I’m getting there). For non-fiction, of course, the research can be insane; I spent around two years on THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA. And of course with screenwriting, everything’s often set for you – including those deadlines.
As for setting…I tend to sprawl on the couch at home with my netbook. I’m not one of those people who can go sit in a coffee shop or some other public place; the last thing in the world I want to deal with when I’m in the writing groove is the inevitable, “Oh, are you writing?”
Rhonda: I’ve read all of your fictional novellas and your novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, and noticed that every book had a very powerful female lead. I even noticed this in some of your short stories. I was wondering what made you choose this personality for your characters?
Lisa: First off all – thank you for reading everything! That kind of blows me away, frankly.
That use of female leads hasn’t really been a deliberate choice. I think part of it stems from the situations in the stories – in THE SAMHANACH, for example, because I was dealing with a creature that stole children, it made sense to focus on a single mom. In CASTLE, so much of it was taken from my own experience in small theater that it just seemed unthinkable to make the lead something other than my own gender. In my last novel, MALEDICTION (which is still being shopped by my agent), there’s a theme of a powerful, destructive antagonist going up against a nurturing protagonist, so again – the circumstances kind of dictated the sex. As to why so many of my stories seem to thematically involve feminine attributes…well, I guess that’s just who I am.
Rhonda: Your collection of short stories, Monsters of L.A., includes a special feature section detailing a bit about where the ideas for your stories came from. Do you come up with the ideas for your longer fiction in this same manner typically?
Lisa: I think so. Los Angeles has obviously been a big part of my life and a source of inspiration again and again, be it short or long fiction.
Rhonda: You have done a lot of non-fictional work on the history of Halloween. How did you gain such a fascination with this holiday and how did you get involved with writing The Halloween Encyclopedia?
Lisa: This is kind of a disappointing story, because it really wasn’t some lifelong obsession or something! Back in 2001, I’d just finished my first non-fiction book – THE CINEMA OF TSUI HARK, about the godfather of Hong Kong movies – and the publisher asked me if I’d consider doing another book with them. I looked at their current catalog at the time, and saw that they’d just published THE CHRISTMAS ENCYCLOPEDIA. I had a small collection of Halloween books I’d acquired as a sort of mild interest, so I said, “How about THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA?” They said yes, and that’s how it really started. I accrued so much material researching that first Halloween book that it made sense to roll it over into more.
Rhonda: Going back to this being Women in Horror Recognition Month. It seems that the fictional horror genre has an abundance of male authors compared to females. I had wondered if it was due to the fact that more male authors tend to push the boundaries on the genre with the excess gore, mutilation scenes, etc… Do you have any thoughts on this or do you have any idea why the percentage of female horror authors would be less?
Lisa: It’s something that’s been discussed a lot over the last few years, and I think the answer’s kind of complicated. For one thing, a lot of women writers are enjoying tremendous success with paranormal romance and urban fantasy, and making a lot more money writing those than they would horror (and I don’t mind confessing that I sometimes _wish_ I could write in those areas, but I just don’t have it in me). Now, here’s where I’m going to say the bad things: That fiction you’re mentioning, the stuff with the excessive gore and mutilation – take another look at those books, and you’ll see that they center on violence directed at women. Rape is often central to these books, and so is referring to women by a variety of derogatory terms. If a lot of women writers are looking at this stuff and saying, “Uhhh…no thanks,” who can blame them?
Rhonda: Adding on to my comment above regarding many male authors writing such gruesome stories nowadays… Your latest novella, Wild Girls, also has quite the dark side in it compared to your previous work. What made you choose to write something with quite a bit of mutilation included and was it harder for you to write in this fashion compared to your typical style?
Lisa: I really think of WILD GIRLS as a very dark satire. I wanted to take those cliches of rape and mutilation and excessive gore and flip all the genders, primarily as a way of pointing out how silly some of that stuff becomes. Given that I was approaching it as almost humor…it was actually pretty fun to write!
Rhonda: In addition to yourself, what other female horror authors would you recommend to our readers?
Lisa: Wow, there are a lot these days, and I’d say I’m pretty equally split between male and female writers in my list of favorites. I loved stuff by Roberta Lannes and Lisa Tuttle and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro before I even started writing prose. More recently, I’d name Sarah Langan, Alex Sokoloff, Gemma Files, Kaaron Warren, Allyson Bird, and Maria Alexander as writers whose works I’ve enjoyed. And I’m thrilled to meet young female writers at conventions and online and see their talent and dedication, so I expect that list will grow considerably soon (aside from the fact that I’ll probably think of a dozen more names I’d mention as soon as I hit the “send” button on this!).
Rhonda: Time for the dreaded question! Of all your books, which is your favorite and why? And, this could be the same answer, but, which of your books did you most enjoy writing?
Lisa: Hmmm…hard question…okay, I’m sorry to do this, but it would probably have to be a book that hasn’t been published yet: My first novel, NETHERWORLD. Up until I wrote that book, I really wasn’t sure if I could write a novel or not; I was so used to short form things (including screenplays) that writing something fiction-wise that was 90,000 words long just seemed impossible. But I finally sat down to do it, and it was great, and I had a blast writing it, and I wanted to write more. I’m sorry my agent hasn’t been able to get a deal on that one yet, because it would make a great series and focuses on another of those strong female leads: A 19th-century British noblewoman named Lady Diana Furnaval, who travels the world (and other worlds as well!) fighting evil and inadvertently advancing the cause of suffragettes. It’s a really fun story, and I still remain hopeful of it finding a good home someday.
However, of the works I’ve published…I’ll probably go with THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES. It’s the book that bears the closest resemblance to my real life, and it was also great fun to create the Castle and the mythology behind it.
Rhonda: Would this book be the book you would recommend to new readers of your work or is there a better starting point for someone wanting to check out your writing?
Lisa: I’d probably go with CASTLE.
Rhonda: Not only are you an amazing writer, but you also have experience in the fields of movie, tv, and theater. Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement with these industries?
Lisa: I’ve covered them a little already, but I’ll add here: Screenwriting is something I’ve come back to throughout my life, largely because it pays off my bills in ways that fiction hasn’t yet! I’ve made some good friends and good connections in the film industry, so I still get called up every once in a while. There is, for example, right now a cable mini-series involving pirates that’s looming as a possible job for 2012…
Rhonda: Can you give us a sneak peek into any upcoming projects you are working on?
Lisa: One fun book I’ll have out later this year is a collection of autobiographical essays called ADVENTURES IN THE SCREAM TRADE. I’ve had some pretty bizarre experiences working in the movie business (hey, how many writers can claim to have literally blown a roof off?), and for years friends have been telling me I should write this stuff down, so I finally did. It’ll be Bad Moon Books’ first non-fiction title.
I also have a non-fiction graphic novel (yes, I know how that sounds) coming this year from McFarland – WITCH HUNTS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE BURNING TIMES, co-written with my friend Rocky Wood and illustrated by a very talented young Australian named Greg Chapman; and my first narrative history of Halloween, TRICK OR TREAT?: A HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN will be out from Reaktion Books.
Beyond that…there’s a deal pending right now that I can’t say much about yet, but it would combine my film and prose writing and be possibly the biggest deal of my life. And it involves working with people I adore, so I’m very hopeful that’ll go through…even though it will eat my life for a long, long time!
Rhonda: Where is the best place for our readers to find out more about you and keep up-to-date with future releases?
Lisa: I try to keep my website, www.lisamorton.com, up to date, but for the very latest, I welcome anyone to follow me on Facebook.
Rhonda: Thanks again for your time Lisa! It’s been fun interviewing you for Women in Horror Recognition Month. Keep writing!
Lisa: Thanks again, Rhonda! And I’ve got no choice on that “keep writing” part!
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