Posts in "What Scares You" Category

Edith Maxwell, or Maddie Day, as you may also know her, makes me jealous every day with how prolific she is. She’s just releasing her 28th book, Murder in a Cape Cottage THIS WEEK! (Grab a copy here.) I can’t even imagine writing that many books!

She’s also wicked.

No, really, she is! I love her posts over at The Wickeds, where she and her fellow crime writers discuss all things crime writing.

She’s also a delightful person, which of course makes me want to know all the things that make her scream, inside and out.

So here we go!

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What is your greatest fear?

That something will happen to one of my sons. I have no basis for that, except that bad things happen sometimes. They are both in their 30s and well-adjusted, happy, functional members of society. And I worry!

What is your earliest childhood memory of fear?

By way of explanation, I’ve always had a rabidly overactive imagination. I wasn’t allowed to watch scary shows (Twilight Zone) or movies. But the family bookshelves were always open, and my mother loved crime fiction. I was a young fluent reader, and I soaked up Poe and Sherlock Holmes stories at age nine. As a result, I would gaze at my smooth white bedroom ceiling when the light was on and feel safe. The minute the light went out, however, I knew there was a grate up there and the speckled band was coming for me. Little me would lie there paralyzed with fear!

Do you believe in ghosts?

I don’t rule out the possibility of ghosts or other spectral beings. There is much we don’t know about the world, life, and other dimensions. That said, I try not to think about ghosts too much, per previous answer about my imagination. I’ve lived in a half dozen antique New England homes for the past forty years, and they have lots of unexplained noises. Which could be ghosts…so I don’t go there.

What are your phobias?

Ah, don’t laugh. I don’t like being closed in. I want curtains open whenever possible. I don’t wear turtlenecks. And I’ve been known to break into a run walking through a pedestrian tunnel so I don’t have to stay in there a second longer than necessary. I’m also a bit afraid of ledges and cliffs—not that I will fall, but that I might jump to see what it’s like. And nobody wants that—least of all me.

Do you have a recurring nightmare?

I often have flying-themed nightmares. Sometimes I’m at the airport and my passport is at home. Sometimes I’m on the plane with no prep, no luggage, no phone. Most times I’m traveling to China. The worst involve me actually flying the plane (Big plane! Holding lots of passengers!) when I know full well I have no idea how to fly a plane. In daylight, I wonder about these dreams. I have had a passport since I was seventeen and have traveled and lived internationally for many years (although never to China) and flown several times a year for most of my adult life. Go figure!

What’s something that most people are afraid of that you are not?

I’m not afraid of spiders. I don’t want them rappelling down over my bed, but they don’t send me shrieking. They’re good for the eco-system and don’t bother me (unless I unwittingly walk into a web in my garden).

What is your greatest fear as a writer?

I have written 33 novels. My newly released book is number 28. And I’m still afraid in the middle of each manuscript that I won’t be able to finish, that it will be awful, that no one will want to read it, and that my career as an author is over. Every. Single. Book. Luckily, it doesn’t stop me from blundering forging ahead and finishing.

What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read? Is there a particular scene that really haunts you still?

I had to stop reading Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series when her stories got too scary for me. I enjoyed them for a while, and I don’t remember which book it was that terrified me. I like a good suspenseful tale, but not when it makes me scared to go to sleep at night.

People often say death is their greatest fear. What are your feelings about death/dying?

I don’t fear dying. If I’m aware at the time that I’m going, I know I’ll feel sad about leaving family, close friends, and my writing, but not because the next phase is scary. Who knows, it might be a delightful new existence.

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Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day, she pens the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the new Cece Barton Mysteries. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Yasmin Angoe’s first novel, Her Name Is Knight, was all over the best-of and most-anticipated lists when it came out. The book features an “elite assassin heroine on a mission to topple a human trafficking ring and avenge her family.” Kirkus Review called it, “A parable of reclaiming personal and tribal identity by seizing power at all costs.” Now she’s got the second book in the series, They Come At Knight, releasing in a few weeks, so you have time to catch up if you haven’t yet read the first!

In the meantime, I am excited to hear all she has to say about the stuff she finds scary. Let’s do this!

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What is your greatest fear?

My greatest fear is waking up one day and having no story to tell. Sounds dumb or like something a writer would say, but I really mean it. It’s probably why I obsess so much about the stories I am telling.

What are your phobias?

I have a phobia of spiders and clusters of bubbles or holes. Just writing it freaks me out. Ick! 

What is your favorite urban legend (or one that’s really stuck with you/freaked you out)?

That would be Bloody Mary, I think. Or any story where if you repeat a name it comes to get you.

What is your greatest fear as a writer?

What scares me most is writing something that people will hate. Like, the story just flops. That’s terrifying.

Do you have any horror movie dealbreakers?

I used to be scared to read/watch movies with the devil or possessions. I thought those could hit too close to home, being Catholic and all. LOL.

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I’m so excited to chat all things scary with my friend Christopher Swann today (pictured here after painting a ceiling last summer, or right before the authorities come to take him to a safe, locked room—your choice). Chris’s book, Never Go Home, released this month, and you need to get it right now. I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of the book and I will tell you if you love bad-ass female protagonists (and who doesn’t?) then You. Will. Love. This. Book.

But the most important thing is what terrifies the shit out of Chris. So read on, my friends!

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What is your greatest fear?

It’s a tie between being eaten alive and dying alone.

Is there any fear you’ve overcome in your life? How has that changed you?

Talking to large groups of people. I overcame it by becoming a high school teacher, where you have to, on a daily basis, engage groups of adolescents who may not want to be there. I still get nervous, but that fear energizes me rather than keeps me from talking.

What was your worst nightmare ever?

I had a nightmare where I was in an airport and my father walked past me, wearing a trench coat and a hat and carrying a briefcase. I called out for him, but he ignored me. I ran after him, but it was like running in slow motion—he kept walking, and I barely made any progress. I finally caught up to him when he was about to go through the metal detector. “Dad!” I yelled, and he turned around. But it wasn’t my father. It was Morgan Freeman, and he opened his mouth and had long vampire-like teeth. I woke up screaming.

What scares you most about the writing process?

Submissions. And writing a synopsis.

What is your greatest fear as a writer?

The fear that I’ll have nothing to write, or that no one will care about what I do end up writing.

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I was excited to catch up with Jackie Sherbow, managing editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine to chat about all things scary. Turns out Jackie shares my love of the best holiday ever (of course!) and the Bloody Mary urban legend. You may also check out their new small press, Thrash Press.

Read on for more awesomeness!

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Is there any fear you’ve overcome in your life? How has that changed you?

Yes. I used to have a constant fear upon parting with anyone that that would be the last time I saw them. Aside from that being a scary and depressing thought, it also put a lot of pressure on every single interaction I had. Now I give myself and others more grace, and I’m able to say goodbye without feeling awful.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I believe in ghosts—in a way. First, I want to believe in them, or at least in strange things we can’t quite understand. Second, I think it doesn’t necessarily matter if the ghost is real or not: If we believe in something, and it makes us afraid, it affects us all the same. I think different experiences, memories, and traumas in our life can act as ghosts for us. And I think that in a way society has ghosts as well, persistent hauntings that appear repeatedly throughout the years.

What is your favorite urban legend?

Bloody Mary. It always had a bit of the vertigo effect for me, the feeling people describe of being afraid of heights and then having the compulsion to throw themselves off the ledge. Bloody Mary only appears if you say her name three times. Why did I always want to say her name!? Or, I’d be afraid I would somehow accidentally say it or think it. The agency of the situation scared me, and I think that’s an interesting element of this one.

Do you have a recurring nightmare?

I have several recurring nightmares. I’ve noticed that, recently, most of my dreams are nightmares. There are the standard ones of being lost, trying to climb up a hill, or my teeth falling out. I also get sleep paralysis, and it tends to be seeing someone invade my home and not being able to wake up. Lately I’ve had a recurring dream that is a bit more mundane but still awful: Trusted people in my life turning on me.

What scares you most about the writing process?

Revising! I can sit down and write, but I am terrified to look back at my work. Am I afraid it will be horrible? Afraid that it’ll be great? Afraid that I will not have the energy or skill to make it better? Afraid I’m creating into a dark abyss? I’m not sure, but I’m working on it.

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Elise Kress is a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, which is how we met (on Zoom!) When I found out she was a Tarot reader, I knew she was my people—and when I found out she had ghostly encounters, I knew I had to have her as a guest on What Scares You. Read on for more about Elise, including her writerly fears, what she thinks about Halloween, and the spooky story that she and I share a great love for.

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What is the scariest thing you remember from childhood?

In 1968, a young woman was kidnapped and buried alive. The kidnappers rigged up a casket so she could breathe and eat, using small tubes inserted into the locked casket, running through the ground to the surface. She was buried underground in that casket for over 80 hours. What if something blocked one of her tubes? What if they never discovered where she was? After an agonizing three days, the police found her and dug her up. Our newspaper ran a series of detailed drawings of her casket and how it had been jerry-rigged to accommodate her breathing and eating tubes. Those drawings haunt me. Such a small. Space. For. So. Long.

What is your favorite urban legend?

There was a road out in the country near my hometown called Cold Soul Road. We heard that a woman who lived in a house on the road was cheating on her husband. He discovered the betrayal and one night dragged her from their house up the hill on the road into the trees. She begged him for mercy with outstretched arms but he savagely beat her to death.

The story went that if you stopped your car at the bottom of the Cold Soul Road hill and put your car in neutral, the murdered woman would drag it up the hill in her grieving arms. I went there with friends late at night and there was a lot of screaming in our car as it drifted up Cold Soul Road hill, backwards.

Have you ever had any paranormal experiences or premonitions? How did you deal with it?

As a Tarot Reader you might think I have a lot of paranormal experiences. But when I’m reading the cards, my words come tumbling out and to me it feels normal.

I do believe in after-death communication. My father sent me a message after he died. He and I had discussed art and nature often. He was fascinated by the geese who visited the exact same field in our town each year. After he died, just as the Rabbi began chanting the graveside prayers at his funeral, a flock of geese flew straight up in the air, wings battering, from the field behind the cemetery. They flew over his grave and over our heads. In that moment I knew it was a wave of greeting from my beloved father.

What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read? Is there a particular scene that really haunts you still?

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

It is the story of an elderly couple and their grown son who entertain an old friend who has returned home from exotic travels. The friend has brought back a singular souvenir: A monkey’s paw. This bizarre object is said to have the power to grant three wishes, but in a disturbing way. The family pays no heed to the warnings of their guest and decides to make a wish. The father wishes for £200 holding the paw aloft. As he speaks, the Monkey’s Paw moves in the father’s hand. He drops the paw in fright, but nothing else happens. Until… you read the rest of the story. I think your heart will pound as much as mine.

The severed paw wriggling in the man’s hand still sends chills up my spine.

What is your greatest fear as a writer?

What if my writing is a cliché-ridden, trope-filled bore? What if I never write anything worthy of being read?

Do you like Halloween?

So many things scare me, but I love Halloween. I love children dressing up and going door-to-door. I love the crisp air, the ghosts and goblins, pumpkins, and skulls. I love scary stories, macabre music and black bats and cats. I love how Halloween gives us a chance to toy with our fears.

What is your greatest fear?

I fear that I will leave this world never realizing that I was alright.

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Elise Kress is a professional Tarot reader and musician (Irish Flute, penny whistle and vocals). Her company, Celtic Music for All Occasions, employs well-known Celtic musicians for weddings and other live events. She has read Tarot cards professionally for fifteen years, specializing in private readings and readings at parties and other celebrations. Elise is at work on her first mystery novel about an amateur detective, a Tarot reader who uses the cards to solve cases.

Richard Thomas’ new story collection, Spontaneous Human Combustion, looks terrifying and wonderful. A blend of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, the collection has been praised as “simultaneously lush and terrifying” by A.C. Wise and got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.

On another note, I’ve been doing these Q&As now for almost three years now. I feel like I learn a lot about each person from their answers, and their experiences and emotions fascinate me. But no interview has given me chills the way this one has. Read on, my friends. You are in for a treat!

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What is the scariest thing you remember from childhood?

I was hiking in downtown St. Louis with my Boy Scout troop, and we saw a man parachute out of a small plane, land briefly on the St. Louis Arch, and then plummet to his death right in front of us. We tried to run up the stairs, as one of our leaders was saying, “We can save him, we can catch him!” He bounced, like ten feet in the air. I’d never seen so much blood—a sheen of it as wide as a leg of the arch. I often wonder if that’s why I started writing horror stories.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I do, because I’ve seen a ghost. My friend Martin passed away at an early age. He was only 52. Before he died, he told me he had been dating this woman who was a witch. If anything happened to him, he said, it was her. And then he died. It was quite unsettling. What shocked me was that one day he appeared to me in shadow, dark, and translucent. And he was angry. I wasn’t expecting that. I told him I loved him, and that he had to move on, that he was freaking me out. I blinked, and he was gone.

Have you ever had any paranormal experiences or premonitions?

In addition to the Martin story, my son once did a photography project with candles and a pentagram he drew. I didn’t know this. When he was done, he asked what to do with the drawing. I was obviously not happy with this. We tore it into four sections and then drowned it (flushed it down the toilet), thew away part of it in the trash, buried part of it, and burned part of it. That night I woke up to a shadow standing over my bed. That happened a few times. My son didn’t think it was funny after that. We eventually smudged the house, and it seems to have moved on. Did not enjoy that, no.

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