Strange times. Strange times, indeed. A few months ago, I posted a blog here discussing all the spring events I was looking forward to. A few weeks later, I had to delete it because every single one of those events was canceled.
We are all sad, I know. All mourning the loss of something
and struggling to adjust to this new (hopefully temporary) way of living. For
me, I’m very sad that my son won’t go back to 2nd grade to finish out the year
with his friends and teacher, all of whom he loves. I’m sad that the writing
conventions, readings, and festivals I was going to attend are all vanished—poof!—some
of which, like the Edgar Awards, I was so very much looking forward to. I miss
my colleagues at work, I miss my favorite restaurants. I miss having lunch
dates with friends. I miss the luxury of wandering around a store for an hour
or so and just browsing for random things that I don’t need.
But in this moment of profound anxiety and loss, I know I
need to find things to be grateful for and things to look forward to. So I
thought I’d share with you a few cool things that I’m part of, since I can’t go
to events and shout about them.
First, on March 16, an anthology launched that I’m very excited about. It’s called The Swamp Killers, and it is a novel-in-stories by a great group of crime fiction writers and edited by Sarah M. Chen and E.A. Aymar. I’ve got the first story in the novel, called “Birthday,” about a depressed hit man who has to attend a child’s birthday party at, basically, a Chuck E Cheese kind of place.
Contributors include: E.A. Aymar, Sarah M. Chen, Hilary Davidson, Alex
Dolan, Rebecca Drake, Gwen Florio, Elizabeth Heiter, J.J. Hensley, Susi
Holliday, Shannon Kirk, Tara Laskowski, Jenny Milchman, Alan Orloff, Tom
Sweterlitsch, Art Taylor, and Wendy Tyson.
Another anthology I’m a contributor for hit the (virtual, I guess) shelves on April 7. The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, edited by Josh Pachter, features 26 stories inspired by Joni Mitchell songs. My husband Art Taylor and I wrote a story together for this book, based on Joni’s song “Both Sides Now.” The story we wrote is a series of letters back and forth by a husband and wife while he’s in prison. We included secret codes in the story, so we make you do a little work while you read.
If you purchase a copy of the book, one-thirds
of the author royalties will be donated to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in
Joni Mitchell’s name, so
snatch it up now!
Speaking of Art and me, we also did a podcast together
recently at the popular Dark
and Stormy Podcast, where we each talked about our Agatha-nominated works
(Art’s up for Best Short Story for “Better Days” and I’m up for Best Debut
Novel for One Night Gone.) You can hear us chat about our work right
here, and check out the other podcast interviews they’ve done for other Agatha nominees.
I also am excited to have published my first creative nonfiction flash piece over at The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. It’s called “Stochastic,” and it’s about my mom and grief and the randomness of life. It takes about 45 seconds to read, so I hope you’ll give it a go.
Finally, I want to give a shout-out to my favorite small
press publisher, Santa Fe Writers Project.
Publisher Andrew Gifford is tireless in shouting about his authors and getting
their works out to as wide an audience as possible. SFWP has been around for
more than 20 years now, and you can find a title in most any genre you love. You
can find my two short story collections there, Modern Manners For Your Inner
Demons and Bystanders.
Whenever I hear Adam Meyer talk about his stories, I am immediately interested. Maybe it’s the screenwriter in him, but he’s got a great talent for reducing down a plot line into a great pitch that hooks you in. I’ve bought several anthologies just because I heard what Adam’s story was about and wanted to read it.
Therefore, of course, I wanted to find out what creeps him out, since he does a pretty great job of creeping his readers out. Read on to find out…
Is there any fear you’ve overcome in your life? How has that changed you?
For a long time, one of my greatest fears was public
speaking. I can still remember standing up for the 4th grade
spelling bee and being barely able to speak, let alone spell! This fear stayed
with me into adulthood, and in my early thirties I decided to conquer it by
trying the scariest thing I could think of: standup comedy.
I took a class with a professional standup, and we worked on
our routines over several weeks. At the end we were supposed to do ten minutes
in front of an audience, and I almost bailed. But my classmates and teacher
were so supportive, and I practiced like crazy, and when the time came, I did
my ten minutes and had a blast.
I’ve done standup a few times since, and it’s always
terrifying and usually great fun. But when I get up in front of a group of
people to talk about writing? It doesn’t really scare me, not anymore.
What are your
phobias?
Claustrophobia is my big one! It doesn’t often come up, but
sometimes I’ll be in the backseat of a car or on a long bus ride and before I
know it, whoa! I feel like the walls are closing in, and my heart races, and
I’m white-knuckling it the whole way.
My other phobia is dogs. The neighborhood where I grew up in
New York City sat against this huge stretch of wild marsh. My parents had
forbid us from going in there, so naturally my little brother and I went in
there all the time! These wild dogs would roam around, and I can remember one barking
fiercely and chasing after us. In retrospect, this scraggly mutt was probably more
scared of us than we were of him, but the fear I felt that day has stayed with
me.
These wild dogs would roam around, and I can remember one barking fiercely and chasing after us.
What is your
greatest fear as a writer?
Like almost every writer I know, I fear the blank page. Starting
a project always scares me, even if I have a good sense of where it’s going. What
if it’s no good? What if I run out of ideas midway? What if people read it and
think it sucks?
After the first few pages, that fear usually drops to a low
murmur. But as much as I fear beginnings, I also fear endings, especially on
longer projects. What if I can’t stick the landing. And what’s the next project
going to be?
All of this said, I like to be scared when I write—that’s
how I know I’m challenging myself, and that’s where the fun lies.
What’s the
scariest thing you’ve ever written?
My first novel, The
Last Domino. There’s nothing supernatural in it, but it’s about a school
shooting and is told from the point of view of the perpetrator and his best
friend. I remember writing the scene late in the novel where the shooting
unfolds—I did it several times, throwing it away and starting over.
The last time, I put myself into a kind of trance, imagining
myself in that school with bullets flying. It all seemed so real that I wrote
down what I felt and saw and that was the version that made it into the final
book.
A colleague told me that when his teenage daughter read it,
she was traumatized … which I feel badly about, and also take as a compliment. My
own daughter is seven now and she’s asked when she can read The Last Domino. My wife told her not until
she’s sixteen. I say when she graduates college … maybe.
What’s the
scariest movie or TV show you’ve ever seen?
I can remember so many from when I was a kid, maybe only ten
or twelve years old. In Search Of,
hosted by Leonard Nimoy, is a favorite. The stories of ghosts and aliens were
all supposedly true and that added to the delicious scariness.
I also remember my brother and I had a babysitter who’d let
us stay up late on Sarturday nights to watch Tales from the Darkside. The opening titles alone were terrifying!
Later, I watched the original Halloween on VHS in our neighbor’s basement. The masked face of
Michael Myers, the eerily repetitive John Carpenter score. I was terrified and
hooked.
But the absolute scariest thing I remember watching as a kid
was A Nightmare on Elm Street. Those images
of Freddy Krueger have stayed with me for over thirty years now, and if I put
on that DVD late at night, chances are I’ll have nightmares. But so worth it,
because I still love that movie.
How do you deal
with fear?
For years, I was terrified of the dentist. Sitting in that
oversized chair, feeling the scrape of metal on my teeth, hearing the whine of
the drill …
This is a somewhat common fear—Marathon Man, after all—but I took it seriously. I long avoided the
dentist whenever possible, and when I finally had to deal with some problem
teeth, I vowed to face my fear instead of running from it.
What I did was learn to meditate. It’s a great tool. Incredibly simple, but it’s been a lifesaver for me, and I use it in almost any situation where fear comes up—including at the dentist’s office, where I now go for regular checkups. Of course, it helps that my current dentist is a super nice guy … and looks nothing like Laurence Olivier.
—
Adam Meyer is a fiction writer and screenwriter. His
latest short stories appear in the anthologies Crime Travel, the Joni Mitchell-inspired The Beat of Black Wings, and Seascape:
Best New England Crime 2019. He’s written several true-crime TV series and
TV movies, including the upcoming film Deadly
Ransom. He’s also the author of the novel The Last Domino and is currently finishing his second novel, Missing Rachel.
I mean, it’s Friday the 13th and a global pandemic, so what better day to post another round of terror?
Carol and I have bonded over many things, but perhaps the most significant moment was when we discovered our mutual love of The Kraken. She’s a delightfully dark and wicked writer, and the more I get to know her, the more I love her.
Her latest dark fantasy story is “Deal with the Devil” in Across the Universe: Tales of Alternate Beatles. This “what if” anthology—edited by Michael A. Ventrella and Randee Dawn, from Fantastic Books—shows The Beatles in alternative world situations and has received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly and Analog, and a starred review from Library Journal.
But the important reason why we’re here? To discover what scares the hell out of her. Here we go:
What is your greatest fear?
Losing my identity or my mental capacity is my biggest fear.
I took both my parents through Alzheimer’s, and they each turned into some other
person who forgot they even had family, even though I went to care for them
every day. Our own identity, mental capability, and memories are what make us
unique and different from the animals. Being left without the ability to
properly understand, think, and reason is a terrifying thing.
I’m slowly working on a piece of my memoirs about this
period and the aftermath—of facing the fear of getting Alzheimer’s—because
there are actions we can take to keep our brains in good shape.
What is your greatest fear as a writer?
My greatest fear is writing something that doesn’t reach
people on a deep level, whether it’s science fiction, horror, mystery, or even
women’s fiction. One of my beta readers told me that my writing tends to “punch
you in the feels” and, while that may be a bit of a dated analogy, it made me
really proud.
What’s the scariest movie or TV show you’ve ever seen?
Why?
The first science fiction show that I likely ever saw—as well as
one of the first ones on television, coming a few years after Twilight Zone
began—was the initial episode of The Outer Limits, “Galaxy Being.” It aired on September 16, 1963 when I was six years
old.
I remember that I was in the TV
room all by myself, and it came on after some show that my parents deemed safe
to watch. They were in the kitchen out of earshot and had no idea what this
next show would be like.
Suddenly, the screen was filled
with squiggly lines and test patterns, with eerie, compelling music. An ominous
voice proclaimed,
“There is nothing wrong with your
television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling
transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we
wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. … For the next hour, sit
quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.”
Well, okay, I was a well-behaved
six-year-old who did what I was told, especially if it meant I got to watch
more TV past bedtime, so I sat and watched—and believed. This first episode
launched into a story about a radio station manager who was investigating
electro-magnetism and somehow drew an alien life force into the station. It was
the creepiest thing I had ever seen; the alien was a guy in a rubber suit who
was filmed
in reverse negative and super-imposed on the other footage, making it glow from
inside with eerie effect.
The alien was only trying to help people and get home, but
it caused radiation burns and electrocuted everything around it. Eventually, it
sacrificed itself to save the people in the area.
Well, as this was going on, I was getting more and more
frightened of the creature, as it was hurting people, but I also felt so bad
for it because nobody would listen to what it was saying. My parents eventually
found me on the couch, curled up and hiding under a towel so the alien couldn’t
see me, or reach out and zap me.
I had nightmares for years afterward, even still getting
scared in fifth grade when the baseboard heat came on in our next house. The
pipes expanded and made clunking noises as the hot water approached my room—I
just knew it was that alien’s footsteps, coming to get me!
Watching this show was a very formative moment, as I
remember feeling so bad for the creature, far from home, while at the same
being terrified of it touching and zapping me. In everything I write now, I try
to do the same thing, and reach into the heart of my characters so the reader
gets more than just an adventure story. The show explored the human spirit
confronted by dark, existential forces—isn’t that a significant concept to
explore?
What is your favorite type of monster? Why?
I’m a huge fan of cephalopods—octopuses and squid are
intelligent and fascinating, boneless and mutable, and aren’t always scary
monsters, but when they are … yikes!
I think it’s in part because humans are already at a
disadvantage when we are in the water, and thus the fear factor is amplified. And
they can do so many things we can’t.
Picture yourself submerged and floating in the dark, cold, ocean.
You can feel the pressure of the water on every part of your body.
Breathing—something we take for granted on land—is dependent upon some external
device that may not be under your control. You can’t hear or see things the way
you are used to.
A flash of movement scuttles along the edge of your field of
vision. Suddenly, you feel a gentle touch on your leg as something slides up
and wraps around your ankle, then the other one. Suckers grip your flesh.
It’s an intelligent creature that’s decided to make a wish,
and you are the wishbone.
It’s an intelligent creature that’s decided to make a wish, and you are the wishbone.
What’s worse: closed-in spaces or heights? Why?
Heights! I was actually never afraid of them until I was a
new driver, heading across a bridge, and my mom confessed her own fear of
heights. Suddenly, I could picture just driving off the edge—down, down, down.
I had that same reaction recently when I was hiking out in
Utah in Arches National Park. I was by myself (I know, I know, that’s not good)
and was walking along a tall fin of rock that was about ten feet wide and a
hundred feet high. I sat down in the sun and just looked around me for a long
time, down each side and into the distance, becoming one with the world around
me. Eventually I pictured myself just stepping off into the void and hightailed
it out of there!
I was relieved to learn that both of those are actually
considered healthy reactions. It’s called High Places Phenomenom (HPP) and the
basic thinking is that we have to recognize the danger of plummeting to our
deaths in order to affirm our desire to not go over the edge. The French call it L’Appel du Vide, or call
of the void.
What’s worse: clowns or spiders? Why?
Oh man, clowns are WAY worse. Spiders are perfectly
natural—they do what they are supposed to do. But a clown? Nothing natural
about it. The face is obscured and made to look like a caricature of a certain
emotion. Masks free up the person to do or be something else— something other—and
can remove their sense of moral connection. Did you know that some of the major
recreational parks (such as Great Adventure in NJ) hold Halloween events but
don’t allow people to wear masks that obscure the face?
And granted, all that is assuming there actually is a
person inside the clown costume, anyway!
You are driving alone on a road at night and your
headlights illuminate a man standing alone with a lantern in the middle of the
road. What do you do? Also, is it more or less scary if it’s a little kid in
pajamas?
Nope, nope, nope. We’ve all seen the movie and yet, they
never do the right thing. Turn around and get the heck out of there. Go hang
out in the garage where all the chainsaws are! That’s gotta be safer.
Of course, the little kid already has me wrapped around their finger. What could go wrong?
—
Carol Gyzander creates sci-fi, dark fantasy and horror … and a little mystery! She’s the editor of the Writerpunk Press anthologies; their latest, Taught by Time: Myth Goes Punk, contains punk stories inspired by myth, folklore, and legend and releases early April 2020. Her story contributions to WP include cyberpunk Shakespeare and Lovecraft, steampunk Poe and Tom Sawyer, and a biopunk myth of Echo and Narcissus. Recent horror short stories appear in Stories We Tell After Midnight from Crone Girls Press, and Hell’s Highways, edited by April Grey. “Runt of the Litter” is in Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse from Camden Park Press, March/April 2020. Carol lives in northern New Jersey with two felines—neither of which are battle cats, except in their own minds. Her work, including Across the Universe: Tales of Alternate Beatles, is available on Amazon.
Shannon and I have never met in person, but I’m pretty sure we’d be fast friends. For one, we’re both awesome…..I mean, both writers. Writers of creepy things, interested in creepy things. And I think we both have a similar sense of humor (or, at the very least, I find her hilarious online.)
I loved her book, Gretchen, which was one of the most original and surprising and downright scary books I’ve read in a long time. And I definitely wanted to know more about what terrifies her. She graciously agreed to share.
What is your greatest fear?
Insanity, the kind in which you don’t know if you’re insane
and you take harmful actions in reality that have real consequences. I have
always, I think ever since I watched the Kathleen Turner film, Julia and Julia, had this unrelenting
fear. I was too young to watch Julia and
Julia, I think I was 14 or 15, either that or my developing brain seized
and froze on the absolute darkness of the film. In adulthood, with what I think (hope) is finally a fully formed
front lobe, I can contextualize and rationalize the plot of Julia and Julia. But frankly, I’ve never
been able to truly shake it. If you haven’t watched it, it is by far the
darkest film I’ve ever watched, and that’s saying a lot since in my adulthood,
I gobble (and even write) psychological horrors. In it, Turner plays Julia, a
widow, who imagines (or is it a paranormal experience?) her dead husband and
son are still alive. She flits back and forth between this fantasy and reality.
She becomes so twisted between fantasy and reality, she kills a man in reality
and winds up in the final scene in a hospital for the mentally unwell. It is
never clear if her turns in fantasy-land are real or not, but to me, the
watcher, there is no doubt that Julia was suffering psychotic episodes
throughout and didn’t know it. Anyway, this, this type of insanity, the type in
which you act out and harm another in reality, but don’t realize how upside
down you are, that is the most frightening thing in the world to me.
What are your phobias?
I am scared of stairs (falling) and of grapes (choking).
Do you have a recurring nightmare?
How timely this question. My worst nightmare and the most
recurring is one I’ve had since about 10 or 12. And it is so vivid and tangible
in my mind, still, at age 46, that I just wrote an entire novel around it (this
is my current WIP, The Peculiar House of
Fearz).
Here’s the dream: I’m seated, somehow confined to this seat
somehow, at a bare wooden table. Next to the table to the right is a window
with a single potted plant. To my left, and in the interior of the room, is a
rolling, grinding machine, which serves as a threat from my unseen tormentors
(and who are they? The dream never reveals). The looming threat is that I will
be “squished” in the rolling, grinding machine.
Who the hell knows what this dream means, or why it is
recurring. No idea! I just know this. To this day, I sort of cringe when I’m in
a room that is as bare and pastoral, old, antiqued like this one. Now, I grew
up in a house full of antiques, but there’s a certain unique quality about this
one that is hard to explain, and I have, indeed, encountered from time to time.
THE WINDOW PLANT OF TERROR!!!!
And I positively cannot tolerate single potted plants on
windowsills. I don’t put one on any of mine, and I cringe if I ever see that. I
know. Weird. Super weird. But that dream ruined plants on windowsills for me.
So watch out for Peculiar Fearz,
because this dream sunk in me so deep, I baked it all in that novel.
What scares you most about the writing process?
The knowledge that I will work myself into a sure panic with
every book every time I send it off and wait for the reaction. And knowing I
must endure the wait and the panic.
What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever written?
I have an entire horror manuscript, named GOAT, in a drawer.
The simple explanation is that it’s based on the mythical goat man, but it
layers on that family traumas and a significant, physical assault on the main
character when she’s only seven. This manuscript has been fully edited twice,
gone through reads by my agent and her staff. I have notes to edit it further,
but I honestly just can’t do it. It’s been in a drawer a few years now. My mom
won’t read it; she says it scares her too much. And once, when I was in the
thick of the last round of editing it, I wound myself up so much, nightmares
and all, I feared a demon was talking to me through the NEST camera. It was
really just my husband playing a joke on me, but the fact that I allowed myself
to believe a demon for even a second, and the fact I didn’t just immediately go
to the logical conclusion that it was obviously my husband pranking me, led me
to seal GOAT away in a bottom drawer, and under several layers of file folders
on my computer. Not sure if I can ever return to it.
I have an entire horror manuscript, named GOAT, in a drawer.
Who is the best villain, fictional or in real life?
The best “villain” is Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ VEEP character,
Selina Meyer. My absolute favorite genre across everything is irreverent
satire. And VEEP is the apex pinnacle of irreverent satire. The Meyer character
is sooooooo totally a villain, the satirical representation of all the
horribles in modern U.S. politics. She is malignant narcissism; the only thing
that matters to her is winning the next election. Her wardrobe, like for all
excellent female villains, is absolutely fantastic. Honestly, the tip-top best.
She is a flat-out brilliant character, hilarious, and you hate to love her and
love to hate her all at once. The very best.
What’s worse: closed-in spaces or heights?
Closed-in spaces!
You are driving alone on a road at night and your
headlights illuminate a man standing alone with a lantern in the middle of the
road. What do you do? Also, is it more or less scary if it’s a little kid in
pajamas?
A little kid in pajamas is far more scary than Old-Man
Rivers with a lantern. The latter I’d pull over for and follow into a swampy
forest, allowing him to lead me to some haunted mansion. Thrilled for the
experience. The kid in PJ’s is obviously a ghost-demon meant to trap me in some
ninth layer of hell.
Not a ghost-demon…just Shannon and her son messing with photo filters. (Hopefully.)
Shannon Kirk is the international bestselling and award-winning author of Method 15/33, The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall, In the Vines, Gretchen, Viebury Grove, and short stories in four anthologies: The Night of the Flood, Swamp Killers (TBP, 2020), Nothing Good Happens After Midnight (TBP, 2020), and Border Noir (April, 2020). Shannon is also a contributor to the International Thriller Writers’ Murderers’ Row. Growing up in New Hampshire, Shannon and her brothers were encouraged by their parents to pursue the arts, which instilled in her a love for writing at a young age. A graduate of Suffolk Law School in Massachusetts, Shannon is a practicing litigation attorney and former adjunct law professor, specializing in electronic-evidence law. When she isn’t writing or practicing law, Shannon spends time with her husband, son, and two cats.
My husband, Art Taylor, is one of the most stable, rational, smart people I know. So I was excited to read his responses here, since I always wondered what rattles him (besides eyeballs…I know that from watching horror movies with him).
We’re also celebrating the release this month of Art’s much-anticipated collection of stories, The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74, which you can buy right here. The collection includes all his award-winning stories, including “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” which won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 2019.
Let’s see what he has to say about fear.
What is your earliest childhood memory of fear? Or the scariest thing you remember from childhood?
Like a lot of kids, I was always one who stared suspiciously at the closet door or at the tree outside my bedroom window (one of the reasons why the movie Poltergeist impacted me so strongly). But beyond those common fears, one memory jumped immediately to mind as soon as I read this question.
Woods and fields backed up against the small neighborhood where I grew up in Richlands, North Carolina, and the boys next door and my brother and I spent a lot of our days tromping around out there—exploring the wilderness, cutting down small trees with our axes and machetes, building forts. One day, some group of us were climbing over a fallen tree by a small creek, and after I jumped from the trunk back to the ground, I turned around and saw that I’d landed near a snake hole—with a snake’s head peeking out, suddenly staring me down. The other boys still up on the tree trunk urged me on in different directions. Just step away slowly! Just jump back as fast as you can! Neither extreme seemed appealing—and so I just stood there, waiting for… what? I didn’t know. Petrified is the word that stands out—not only as a synonym for fear but also because I felt completely frozen, like I shouldn’t, couldn’t, move. Finally, one of the other boys crept up behind the hole and quickly covered it with the flat part of his own machete. But that snake’s eyes…. I remember them well.
Side note: Those fields and those boys next door were part of the inspiration for “The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74”—though this specific memory wasn’t included in the story.
Do you have a recurring nightmare?
For many years, I dreamed pretty regularly about tidal waves—with one or two specific images recurring: either a large wave rising high toward a tall building on the coast (as if I was an onlooker to what was happening) or else water crashing against the downstairs of my family’s house at the beach, pushing through the windows, flooding everything, and me in the middle of it all this time, fighting not to drawn in the onrush.
I’m not sure why these images have haunted me so consistently. Something about loss of control maybe, of being overwhelmed? There’s definitely a helplessness I felt whenever the nightmare hit.
I’d landed near a snake hole—with a snake’s head peeking out, suddenly staring me down.
How do you deal with fear?
Take a deep breath, and push through as best I can. Hope for the best. Be ready for the worst.
When I was in elementary school, I became inordinately panicked about a doctor’s visit—crazy upset with fear about having to get a shot, crying, thrashing around, even to the point of almost fighting against my pediatrician. Rose Pully was her name—a legend really in our part of North Carolina—and Dr. Pully wrestled me to the exam table one visit when I was upset about a booster shot, held me tight, looked me straight in the eye, and told me, firmly, sternly: “When it hurts, you can cry all you want. But until then, until it actually hurts, you don’t cry, you understand?”
Her words—the sternness behind them—startled me into silence. And those words have stayed with me these many decades later. (I’ve told this story to our son over the years as well, and now he quotes it back to me as well.)
What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever written?
When you first read my story “Parallel Play,” you told me two things: You thought it was the best story I’d ever written, and you never, ever wanted to read it again. At its core, “Parallel Play” is about being a parent, protecting a child, and how far you’d go to protect your child. Would you die for your child? Would you…?
I have to admit that I didn’t realize myself how disturbing the story was—not until you told me. (Not sure this is the kind of “scariest” you meant with the question, Tara, but….)
What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read? Is there a particular scene that really haunts you still?
In my teen years, I went through a period where I read everything I could by Stephen King—and Pet Sematary troubled me to no end. The idea of love and loss and grief and wanting to get your loved one back—and then getting your wish, but not how you expected. Completely engrossing, and ultimately scare-me-senseless horrific.
Who is the best villain, fictional or in real life?
As I’m writing this, a news alert just popped up that the Trump administration is proposing changing school menus to allow more potatoes and pizza and fewer vegetables and fruits—and it crossed my mind that his particular brand of villainy too often seems like caricature, parody, an Onion article: Dastardly Dan stroking his mustache.
More seriously: I’m gonna skip the more villainous villains (Darth Vader, Hannibal, Voldemort) and go with Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith’s novels. Protagonist? Villain? Ripley’s a complex and compelling figure. As Tom says in the brilliant movie adaptation in 1999 (played there by Matt Damon), “whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn’t it, in your head? You never meet anybody that thinks they’re a bad person.”
What’s worse: closed-in spaces or heights? Why?
I know you expect me to say heights because I have such tremendous anxiety about them; between atrium hotels and some hiking adventures that have taken us too close to cliff-side, I’ve had more opportunities for that fear to show itself. But it completely ruins me to read a story or see a movie where someone is buried alive in a box—that’s truly terrifying.
“To see a movie where someone is buried alive in a box–that’s truly terrifying.”
What’s worse: clowns or spiders? Why?
Clowns. They thrive on being unpredictable, and too often an undercurrent of madness or malice shimmers beneath all that face paint, no matter how wide the smile. (Don’t get me started on Stephen King’s It.)
—
ART TAYLOR is the author of The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense, to be published February 28. His previous book, On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. His short fiction has won an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, and several Agatha, Derringer, and Macavity Awards. He teaches at George Mason University.
A Finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, Agatha Award, and Lefty Award
“A subtly but relentlessly unsettling novel.” —TANA FRENCH, author of The Witch Elm
It was the perfect place to disappear…
One
sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal
Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds
herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild
parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and
before the summer is up, she vanishes.
Decades later, when
Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach
during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh
after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious
disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the
gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that
long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all…
I can’t remember when Ed Aymar and I became friends. One day, he was just suddenly there, like a fungus. However, if you’re going to get a fungus, Ed’s probably the best one out there.
In addition to being such a good friend that I have no problems comparing him to a spore-producing organism, Ed’s also a great writer. His latest book, The Unrepentant, is the kind of thriller I wish I could write. It’s non-stop, gasp-worthy, and keeps you turning the pages until the very end.
Ed’s also terrified of EVERYTHING. Want to know more? Read all about what scares him….
What is your earliest
childhood memory of fear? Or the scariest thing you remember from childhood?
I had a dream, when I was very little, of three women’s
heads sitting on a table in our living room. I don’t know how young I was, but
I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have been older than five or six. I remember walking
past the heads, and they stayed still. But when I went outside, the heads had
turned to watch me.
I’ve since had scarier dreams and experiences, but that’s my
first memory of a nightmare.
Do you believe in
ghosts? Why or why not?
I mean, I’d kind of like to? The idea that our loved ones
are nearby, and that there’s something mystical and maybe wonderful after our
lives end, is powerful.
And I never want to say that I don’t believe in ghosts because
I’m always afraid a ghost will read that and decide to scare me. Like, the
ghost is saying, “Believe in me now, motherfucker!”
So maybe I do. I dunno. But this question reminds me of a poem by Marie Howe (“Buying the Baby”) that has remained with me for years, and seems the perfect answer to your question:
Sometimes I prayed so hard for God to materialize at the foot of my bed it would start to happen; then I’d beg it to stop, and it would.
So I guess I do believe.
(I bet you didn’t think I read poetry but I do. It’s one of
my layers.)
“I had a dream, when I was very little, of three women’s heads sitting on a table in our living room.”
Do you have a
recurring nightmare?
I had terrible sleep paralysis growing up. I would lie in
bed as a child, believing I was awake, but then realize I was still asleep. I’d
hear (actually, dream I heard) people around me, sitting next to the bed and
talking, but I couldn’t move. I would strain to lift my arm or pull the covers
over my face, as some sort of meek protection, and then discover, in fact, I
was still asleep. But discovering I was asleep made me believe I was actually
awake, and the process would begin again. It was exhausting and frightening.
Sometimes the people talking were my parents, sometimes they
were strangers. Sometimes it was a figure standing at the foot of my bed,
watching me. And I would try with all my might to wake up, to pry one eye open.
I remember groaning, hoping that my parents would hear me and come wake me…but
even those groans were part of the dream. In reality, I was lying in bed,
entirely still. And the room was empty. And I was fighting and screaming in
silence.
I still get hit by sleep paralysis – not frequently, usually
when I’m exhausted. And it does worry me. Not so much for me, but for my son. I
hope he doesn’t have to go through that as he grows up, at least not as
frequently as I did. I hope he’s not scared that same way, calling for me to
help him, and I don’t come.
How do you deal with
fear?
This sounds like
a brave answer, but it’s not because I’m not: I have to face it.
That’s not to say I’d be the type to charge headfirst into
battle or walk down the stairs to confront a killer. But the idea of not
knowing a danger, and have it out there and waiting, isn’t something I can
distance myself from. That type of haunting will remain with me.
So a fear has to be confronted, but that doesn’t mean I’m
charging into a dark room, biceps flexed, roaring “BRING IT ON!” I’d have the
cops go first, then peek over their shoulders.
“Twitter is a long field of people being loudly tortured for their sins…”
What is your greatest
fear as a writer?
This time in social media is so threatening to people. Every
day someone makes a mistake, and social media is relentless in its reprisal.
Twitter is a long field of people being loudly tortured for their sins, and I
would hate to be one of those people. Some are made for it, and they navigate
that ground easily, casting insults and proclamations and brushing off
comebacks. I’m not one of those people. The minute someone yelled at me, I’d
probably just delete my account and join MySpace or something.
Strangers yelling at you, often stupidly, isn’t really the
fear, of course. The fear is that it’s deserved, that you do something wrong
worth exposing, and that every element of nuance is brushed aside. That your
life is suddenly and irrevocably yanked from your control.
All of my answers in this interview, I now see, touch on something that’s imperative to my happiness – a sense of control. Most of us have fashioned our lives to our liking, or we’re attempting to. We can prepare to have that taken from us but, when it does happen, it’s violent and unexpected and, often, not what we anticipated. I think that’s where fear preys. It’s what we can’t imagine, but is often inevitable. Like the end of a good story. Or the end of a life.
—
Of E.A. Aymar’s The Unrepentant, Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “Readers who appreciate depth of character alongside gritty nonstop action will be rewarded.” His newest thriller is the novel-in-stories anthology The Swamp Killers (in which he served as co-editor and contributor with Sarah M. Chen). He has a monthly column in the Washington Independent Review of Books, and he is also the managing editor of The Thrill Begins on behalf of ITW; he also serves on the national board of that organization. He was born in Panama and now lives and writes in the D.C./MD/VA triangle.
So, um, I’m having a week. On Wednesday morning, upon opening my email and seeing my name listed as a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, given out at the Edgars, I started to cry. Not just because I was a finalist, though that’s super exciting, but because the other authors on the slate are so magnificent. CHECK IT OUT:
Carol Goodman (THE NIGHT VISITORS)
Catriona McPherson (STRANGERS AT THE GATE)
Emma Rowley (WHERE THE MISSING GO)
Hank Phillipi Ryan (THE MURDER LIST)
I adore these women. I adore their writing. I read their books and aspire to be like that someday, and so to have my book snuggled up next to theirs for such a prestigious award–well, of course I got a little emotional. (I mean, I also cry when I watch dog food commercials, so I have a low threshold for emotional stuff, people.)
Anyway, I’m quite excited to go to the Edgars again (my husband, Art Taylor was up for–AND WON–an Edgar last year, so we get to go two years in a row, lucky us!).
If anyone wants to go dress shopping, let me know.
How exciting to announce that One Night Gone is a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel! I’m thrilled to be in the company of these fine debut novelists: Connie Berry, S.C. Perkins, Ang Pompano, and Grace Topping.
Also, massive congratulations to all the other finalists, many of whom I call friends. One special shout-out: My husband, Art Taylor, is a finalist in the Best Short Story category for his story “Better Days,” which appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine last year. Yay!
You can see the full list of finalists right here! The winners will be announced in early May at the Malice Domestic convention in Bethesda, Maryland.
So pleased to find out today that my first novel, One Night Gone, is a finalist for the 2020 Lefty Award for Best Mystery Debut Novel from Left Coast Crime. What an honor to be recognized, especially in the company of fellow debut authors Tori Eldridge, Angie Kim, John Vercher, and Carl Vonderau.
Much congratulations to the other finalists as well, many of whom I’m lucky to call friends. To see the full slate of finalists and categories, see the LCC web site.
