Author: Ruschelle Dillon

Articles / Interviews

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The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Elyse Russell

The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Elyse Russell

By Ruschelle Dillon

 

Ruschelle: This oppressive and swampy summer, The Horror Tree would like to welcome Elyse Russell. She is a writer of comics, short stories and a curator of anthologies. Her latest works include Grey Mother Mountain, Sentience and The Fell Witch. There are also a few ‘secret’ projects going on which we might be able to pry from her lips. I promise not to use the crowbar and rib spreader again. Way too messy. So, without further a-don’t, I set a seat for you, Elyse, on the chunky root next to our best bug eating toad! He’s better than any fly swatter out there when you’re visiting during summer at the Horror Tree. His name is Greg. Just don’t turn your back on him, we know where that tongue has been. Now, let’s get real. 

You have been writing since you were a wee little tadpole. Why did it take you until 2021 to dip your flippers into the murky waters of publishing ?

Elyse: Thank you for having me, Ruschelle (and Greg *pats*). Well, unlike our amphibious friend here, I can’t swim. But finally, after years of telling myself “I’d love to get published one day,” I just woke up and decided “IT WILL BE THIS DAY.” I’m not entirely sure what the impetus was, but I’ve been working my butt off ever since and it’s making me happy. 

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The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Gwendolyn Nix

The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Gwendolyn Nix

By: Ruschelle Dillon

Ruschelle: Welcome to the Tree, Gwendolyn! Pull up a nice sturdy branch but watch the thorns and poison sap. The Tree has some trust issues. You know how Horror Trees can be. I’m brewing some wonderfully strong coffee with a hint of spirits, so let’s dish. You are not only a fantastic writer, releasing your dark fantasy novel, ‘I Have Asked to be Where No Storms Come’, in July, but a fantastic writer who has worn a lot of tremendous hats! You have been an editor, a casting producer, a shrimp wrangler, a scientist, and a social manager! I know, I added something to your vitae, but we won’t tell your newfound fans what it is. Let ‘em guess. LOL. How have those awesome hats contributed to everything you have written; the novels, the trilogies, and the short stories you’ve been penning?

Gwendolyn: So happy to be here, thank you for the opportunity! I’ll try not to get sap and bark all over myself, but promises promises…

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Articles / Interviews

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The Horror Tree Presents an Interview with Liian Varus

The Horror Tree Presents an Interview with Liian Varus

By Ruschelle Dillon 

 

Ruschelle: There are times an interviewer comes across a writer so intriguing, offbeat and creative that it would be remiss to NOT get to know this author. This is one such author. Today, I welcome Liian Varus to one of the twisted branches on the Horror Tree. Liian is a poet and vloggist (Is that a word? Let me steal a line from Debbie Jellinsky from the Addams Family Values movie, “It sounds filthy. I like it.”) who has the body of a man and the head of a crow. True story! His current tome of dark poetry entitled, ‘Good Night, Titan Arum, And Farewell’ as well as ‘Oh, To Be Human’, ‘Is Stranged’ and the highly anticipated adult picture book, ‘Open the Big Top’, are available all over the www. So, spill the tea or umm…shred the carcass since you’re part crow- when did you first delve into the bowels and viscera of dark poetry?

Liian: ‘Good Night, Titan Arum, And Farewell’ was published a year and a half ago so I wouldn’t really consider that current. And I promise you, nobody was anticipating that piece of literary garbage – ‘Open The Big Top’. You should also know that I am 100% crow. I just have some limb deformities that make me look like I’m part human. It’s something I’m super sensitive about and would rather not talk about it. Thanks. Well, this interview is off to a hot start. What else you got? Your hair looks soft. Can I brush it? Okay. Maybe later. I winked at you.

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The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Rus Wornom

A big welcome to Rus Wornom here on a sturdy, splinter-free branch of The Horror Tree! A scrivener of Fantasy & science Fiction, Rus’s works include the 2013 short story ‘In the Mountains of Frozen Fire’, and ‘Puppy Love Land’, a novella which was nominated as Best Novella on the Preliminary Ballot for the Horror Writers of America awards. Most recently, Rus has copyedited books and RPG (role playing games- if you were wondering) for Troll Lord Games. He’s written three TSR books under a pseudonym, two of which made the best seller list at Waldenbooks. Awesome! His most recent work, Ghostflowers, will premier July of this year.

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The Horror Tree Presents…an Interview with Lee Murray

Please welcome author Lee Murray to our little haunted hollow at the Horror Tree. She is a stellar author who is as skilled in the art of short fiction as she is novels. Recent works to have gained acclaim are the anthology: ‘Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women’ and fiction collection Grotesque: Monster Stories. Her work also appears in ‘A Vindication of Monsters’, a book of essays due out in May. She is not only a two-time Bram Stoker Award winner, a twelve-time winner of the Sir Julius Vogel Award, three-time winner of the Australian Shadows Award, she’s New Zealand’s only recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award. Fantastic! She is also in demand as an editor. 

Ruschelle: Wonderful to have you here, Lee.  Your catalogue of dark stories is very impressive. What drew you to pen the darker side of life and death instead of other genres? Was it a book, a movie? A family curse, maybe?

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The Horror Tree Presents….An Interview with Tade Thompson

The Horror Tree Presents….An Interview with Tade Thompson

By Ruschelle Dillon 

 

Ruschelle: Welcome to Horror Tree, Tade. Grab a sturdy branch and let’s dish on your upcoming novel: The Legacy of Molly Southbourne, the film deal for the Molly Southbourne series, your prestigious Arthur C Clark award for Rosewater, and your career as a hospital psychiatrist! I’m certain there’s so much more going on in your life so, how do you balance all the pieces of Tade? 

Tade: Hi Ruschelle! I’m glad to be here. 

Balance is not a problem. 

I think anything I am (doctor, psychiarist, writer, anthropologist) is a part of my identity, and that’s just because I don’t see identity as being composed of removable parts. Atomised me would still contain all those parts in tiny amounts.
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The Horror Tree Presents…An Interview with D.T. Neal

The Horror Tree Presents…An Interview with D.T. Neal

By Ruschelle Dillon

 

Ruschelle: Today in the darkest part of the Horror Tree Forest we welcome author D.T. Neal who released the third book in the Wolfshadow trilogy, Norm, this past October 31 from Nosetouch Press.  A Halloween baby!  But a scant month before Neal rolled out the blood red carpet his re-vamped edition of Suckage. Great works from an author to be plucked from Amazon and Barnes and Noble! Before we wrestle with the werewolf let’s discuss your fresh bloodletting of Suckage. What made you decide to re-release it on the unsuspecting public? 

D.T.: I love vampires! When I first wrote SUCKAGE, people were still suffering from a very TWILIGHT-infused cultural hangover. I wrote that book as a reaction to the trend of sparkly vampires at the time. Now that what I would consider toothless vampires have come and gone, the time seemed right to exhume SUCKAGE and let it afflict a new bunch of readers. For me, it’s a very Gen X kind of vampire novel, mixing dark humor with horror.

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The Horror Tree Presents an Interview with Alexandrea Weis

The Horror Tree Presents- an Interview with Alexandrea Weis

By Ruschelle Dillon

 

Ruschelle: Alexandrea, welcome to the Horror Tree, where you will find all sorts of fruit, nuts and meat sacks hanging for you to snack on. Watch out for the disgustingly bloody ones. They’re not quite ripe yet. It’s great to have you here. You have a fantastic selection of books out there for your newfound fans to feast from. Many take place in your hometown of New Orleans which has seen more than its fair share of destruction from hurricanes, Ida being the most recent. At the penning of these questions, there are still swaths of Louisiana that are still without electricity and are digging out of Ida’s wrath. Has the devastating weather played a part in inspiring your books? Horrors can beget horrors.

Alexandrea: Honestly, the response in the aftermath has been fantastic compared to what we went through with Katrina. Then we had weeks without running water, power, gasoline, or food. It was a nightmare and very horror worthy. We’ve been fortunate this time. I got my power back in six days. A big THANK YOU to the line men and women who came to restore our electricity. They are a godsend!

 

Ruschelle: New Orleans has such a rich history. What are some aspects of NOLA that you must include when writing your stories? Conversely, are there nibblets that you find trite or just flat out wrong that you refuse to put in black and white? (I liked the word nibblets. I am also hungry for corn right now…)
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