What do Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Golden, Del Howison, Ellen Datlow, Deborah LeBlanc, Scott Nicholson, David Wellington and I have in common?
We’re all part of a terrific interview author Jonathan Maberry did this month called “Still Scary After All These Years” that went live this morning over at his blog – and just in time for Halloween too!
Jonathan asked the eight of us to examine such questions as “What defines a horror story?”, “What makes readers shy away from modern horror?” and “Who’s writing good horror today?”
If some of the names above aren’t familiar to you, here is a quick sketch of each of the contributors:
DEL HOWISON is a Bram Stoker award winning horror editor, journalist and author. Along with his multiple Bram Stoker Award nominations he has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Black Quill. His editing includes the Dark Delicacies anthologies (the third of which comes out sometime in August 2009) and The Book of Lists Horror. His short fiction has appeared in Midnight Premier, Traps, Midnight Walk, The Anthology of the Living Dead (set to come out in August or September), and Hot Blood 12 (for which his story was bought and used as the premiere episode of the NBC series Fear Itself). He has appeared in over a dozen film projects as an actor and owns Dark Delicacies – America’s Horror Book and Gift store in Burbank, Ca. He can be found at www.darkdel.com
JOE LANSDALE: Joe R. Lansdale is the author of thirty novels and numerous short pieces, both non-fiction and fiction. He has won numerous awards, including THE EDGAR, seven BRAM STOKERS, and many others. His novella, Bubba Hotep, was filmed under the same name. His most current novel is VANILLA RIDE, a new Hap and Leonard adventure.
RAMSEY CAMPBELL: The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild. Among his novels are The Face That Must Die, Incarnate, Midnight Sun, The Count of Eleven, Silent Children, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Overnight, Secret Story, The Grin of the Dark and Thieving Fear. Forthcoming are Creatures of the Pool and The Seven Days of Cain. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead and Just Behind You, and his non-fiction is collected as Ramsey Campbell, Probably. His novels The Nameless and Pact of the Fathers have been filmed in Spain. His regular columns appear in Prism, All Hallows, Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the British Fantasy Society and of the Society of Fantastic Films. Ramsey Campbell lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny. His pleasures include classical music, good food and wine, and whatever’s in that pipe. His web site is at www.ramseycampbell.com.
DEBORAH LEBLANC is an award-winning, best-selling author from Lafayette, Louisiana. She is also a business owner, a licensed death scene investigator, and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams.
Deborah is the president of the Horror Writers Association, president of Mystery Writers of America’s Southwest Chapter, and president of the Writers’ Guild of Acadiana. In 2004, she created the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual, national campaign designed to encourage more people to read. She is also the founder of Literacy Inc, a non-profit organization whose mission is fighting illiteracy in America’s teens. Deborah’s latest release is WATER WITCH.
For more information, visit www.deborahleblanc.com and www.literacyinc.com.
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, The Boys Are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, and Of Saints and Shadows. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including Poison Ink, Soulless, and the thriller series Body of Evidence. He co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire with Mike Mignola. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies The New Dead and British Invasion, among others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, the online animated series Ghosts of Albion (with Amber Benson) and a network television pilot. Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts , where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com
SCOTT NICHOLSON is the author of seven novels, six screenplays, five comic book series, four children’s books, three story collections, two epitaphs, and a parched ridge of bad poetry. When not writing, Nicholson is an organic gardener, guitar picker, paranormalist, comic book and sports card dealer, father, and lover, in addition to portraying his cartoon self The Digger. His virtual existence resides at www.hauntedcomputer.com.
ELLEN DATLOW: Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for almost thirty years. She was co-editor of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and has edited or co-edited many other anthologies, most recently The Coyote Road and Troll’s Eye View (with Terri Windling), Inferno, The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Nebula Award Showcase 2009, and Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Forthcoming are Lovecraft Unbound, Best Horror of the Year, Volume 1, Tails of Wonder and the Imagination (an all-genre cat story reprint anthology), Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, Volume 2, Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas), and The Beastly Bride (with Terri Windling). She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” My blog is at: http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/
RAY GARTON has written over fifty books, including the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Live Girls, and more recently, the novels Ravenous and Bestial. Some of his work, including Live Girls, Lot Lizards, and the novella “Graven Image,” are in the works as movies. In 2006, he was made a Grand Master of Horror. In February of 2010, Leisure Books will publish the paperback edition of his novel Scissors. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn and is currently at work on a number of projects outside the genre, as well as Lorelle’s Place, the sequel to The New Neighbor.
DAVID WELLINGTON: David Wellington is the author of seven novels. His zombie novels “Monster Island”, “Monster Nation” and “Monster Planet”(Thunder’s Mouth Press) form a complete trilogy. He has also written a series of vampire novels including (so far) “Thirteen Bullets”, “Ninety-Nine Coffins”, “Vampire Zero” and “Twenty-Three Hours” (Three Rivers Press). In 2004 he began serializing his horror fiction online, posting short chapters of a novel three times a week on a friend’s blog. Response to the project was so great that in 2004 Thunder’s Mouth Press approached Mr. Wellington about publishing “Monster Island” as a print book. The novel has been featured in Rue Morgue, Fangoria, and the New York Times. David is also doing one issue of Marvel Zombies Returns, this September’s big comic book series, and my first werewolf novel, Frostbite, will be in stores in October. For more information please visit www.davidwellington.net
