1. Tell us about yourself and your most current project/s?
I’ve been writing horror and dark fiction for about 25 years now. I got a late start (I was 30 when I got going) but I’m still pretty happy with what I’ve been able to accomplish so far! I don’t have one specific subgenre I prefer to write. I’m all over the board but I don’t do splatter/excessive gore usually and I refuse to kill any animals in my writing.
I’m one of the founding members of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers. Most of us are from Michigan but we have members from all over the country. I write movie reviews for two different websites, too. I’ve been with Cinema Headcheese since...oh man, the early 2010s! And I also write for Malevolent Dark. I’m more a newbie there but they let me revive my Drunken Monkey Movie Review column and that makes me so happy.
I don’t like to talk about anything I’m currently writing (call it superstition, call it paranoia, whatever) but I can tell you about 2 new releases I have. One is called Bits & Pieces. It’s a collection of all micro fiction (drabbles, flash, few sentences, that sort of thing). And the other is Here There Be Horrors. It’s a collection of nearly all the stories I’ve had published (so far) through GLAHW. We do a themed anthology every year and only members can submit. And I’m proud to say I’ve had a story published in all of them! But I have already included a couple in some of my other publications so this collection has 12 of them.
2. Where did the inspiration/idea come from this project?
Like I said, I don’t like to talk about current projects. But inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere. Vampires are my favorite monsters so I wrote a book about Chinese energy vampires. Most of my short stories come from news reports, overheard conversations, a specific theme driven collection, cultural lore and mythology, etc. There’s inspiration everywhere!
3. What does the writing process look like for you?
I don’t have a routine if that’s what you’re looking for. Sometimes I’m sitting at my home computer and typing. Many times I have a notebook with me and start scribbling. This happens a lot at conventions where I’m vending and there’s some downtime.
4. How do you handle writer’s block?
With the two novels I’ve written so far, I always get about 3/4 of the way through and get stuck. I might have an idea of how I want the story to end but I have no idea HOW to get there. So I put it away and I work on something, anything, else. Usually another writing project but sometimes just going for a walk, listening to music, cleaning the toilets, whatever will break my thought process and steer it in another direction. It may take me a couple years to get back to that original project, but sometimes it just takes a long time to break the block and wrap things up.
5. How do you feed your creativity when feeling drained?
Booze helps. Seriously, though, I do like to do other creative, crafty things. I started to learn to sew during COVID and have some really lovely and fun wearable garments. I love to paint and sometimes make little clay figures. I actually painted a wall in a spare room in our house where I have all my sewing stuff. It’s like with writer’s block. Find another battery to feed your creative side.
6. What advice would you give writers who feel stuck or uninspired?
This is something that’s inevitable. It happens to all of us! It’s hard to learn to step away from something that’s not working or you’re just stuck. You want to finish what you started, right? Well, sometimes you can’t finish on your schedule. Your brain has other ideas. Your story has other ideas. You characters don’t want to cooperate. AND THAT’S OKAY. That’s why you need to find another idea that DOES inspire you. Or find another creative outlet, like painting or crochet. Or go outside. You don’t necessarily have to interact with anyone but train yourself to observe as much as you can. You’d be surprised how much inspiration can some from some of the simplest things in life.
7. Have you ever thought about giving up writing? If so, what pulled you back?
Not yet!
8. How do you keep your voice or ideas fresh over time?
Not sure I have any answer for this one. I never look at what’s trending or popular and try to fit my style to those things. I don’t write about zombies (or whatever) because that’s what people are gobbling up at any given moment. That just opens the door to forcing myself to write about ideas I don’t like and that guarantees my work will suck.
I honestly don’t think I could change my voice even if I tried. Because it’s my voice. If I start monkeying around with that, then it’s not really me anymore, is it?
9. What do you wish more people understood about the creative process?
It’s usually never linear. You want to write a book? You may think you’ll start at the beginning, go through the middle, and stop at the end. Sometimes it’s backwards. Sometimes it’s like navigating the winding roads of Pittsburgh. And doing anything creative is hard work. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it because you’re having so much fun. But it takes time and effort, plus quite a bit of frustration, anger, disappointment, exhaustion, to the point you wonder if you’re ever going to come out the other side. But you will. And once you get there, you’ll want to do it all again.
10. What is the most honest thing you’ve ever written - and did it scare you?
Probably one of my early short stories, Honor Thy Mother. It was may be my second or third story I ever wrote. It was basically my way of exorcising the demons I had about my mother’s death. She died from cancer in 1990 three months after her diagnosis. In the story, my main character has given up her life to take care of her dying mother and she’s harboring a lot of hate about it all. I never felt that way about my mom but I was surprised that I was able to create a character in a situation similar to mine but who dealt with it in the opposite way. I didn’t realize I could see things that way and then put it into writing.
How can my audience find you?
I have links to everything on my website.
I’m also on Facebook and IG