Author: Selene MacLeod

WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions with Sarah Gribble

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror.

Great to be here! I live in dreary Ohio. I think we’ve had two days of sun in the last month and it’s currently fifteen degrees outside, which is great for a horror-writing mindset, but not so great for going outdoors, which is another thing I love. I have a menagerie of pets and am currently fighting my cat for keyboard rights.

I’ve been into horror since I discovered my first Goosebumps book. It was a love affair from then on. As I got older and read more mature horror stories, I started to realize horror wasn’t all about jump scares and spooky things. Most horror has an underlying theme and points out some seedy underbelly of society that needs to be changed. I try to keep to that in my stories.

Why is Women In Horror Month important, and what do you say to someone who says ‘Oh, I don’t care if it’s by a man, a woman, etc., as long as it’s a good story’?”

To anyone who just looks at how good a story is, I say good for them! It’s refreshing. Though I also wonder if it’s quite true. There’s bias when you look at book covers, whether you know it or not. Female authors are less likely to be successful in the more “male” genres, like horror. I know quite a few women who use pseudonyms or their initials for their byline so as to not advertise they’re female. Luckily, I’ve seen some change in this in the past several years. More women are refusing to hide their real names and forcing people to get over the fact that a woman wrote a horror story. That’s one of the reasons it’s important to celebrate women in horror: to support these women and to acknowledge that gender plays absolutely zero role in producing a good story, no matter the genre.

The other reason I love Women in Horror Month? It showcases horror in an empowering light. Unfortunately, there’s a bias against horror writers in general. People tend to think we’re going to hex them or somehow associating with us is going to get them a one-way ticket to hell. Seriously. At least a dozen people have told me this. Some members of my husband’s family doesn’t acknowledge that I write at all because they don’t want to discuss the fact that I write horror. We’re “icky” and “weird’ and I’ve heard the line “why would a nice girl like you want to write that trash?” more times than I can count. I love what I do and the bad rap horror gets really bugs me. So this month is a time to say “hey, I write horror and I’m not a horrible person.”

Who are some Women In Horror (or other women) who have influenced your work, and why?

Mary Shelley, Ania Ahlborn, and Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire). I remember reading Frankenstein in 10th grade and getting so furious at how the monster was treated. I wrote an entire book report on it that was basically just four pages of ranting about how people are the worst. I don’t think a book has ever affected me that much. I don’t necessarily write my stories to make people jump up in a fury and march into the street, but I do try to add a bit of that injustice in there when I can. And Ania and Mira/Seanan are just amazing and their books scare the crap out of me. There aren’t many things that can get my heart racing, but these ladies’ books can.

2020 will probably be remembered as a TERRIBLE year for many of us; tell me something GOOD that happened in the past 12 months.

My dark fantasy book, Surviving Death, was published! Which was stressful and scary, but overall a great thing. It was a #1 New Release for over two weeks!

What have you got planned for Women in Horror Month, and the coming months of 2021?

I normally do giveaways and things like that, but I’m super busy at work this month, so I don’t have a ton planned for my readers. I am sharing any work I see from women in horror to my fans. I have very loose plans for the rest of 2021. I made a ton of plans for 2020 and that was a bust, so I’m toning it down a bit this year. Lower the bar, you know? What I do know is I’ll be finishing two books this year, and one’s a gothic horror novel.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers? Thanks for participating in Women in Horror Month!

I’ve been following Horror Tree for years now and I’ve become friends with a lot of you that lurk around here. I’m so happy to be part of this awesome community! Keep reading and writing horror and don’t let the naysayers get you down. Oh, and go buy a book by a female horror author you’ve never read. (And leave a review!)

Bio:
Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She released Surviving Death, her first novel, in 2020 and is currently working on her next book. Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.

Website: https://sarah-gribble.com.

WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With Scarlett R. Algee

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror. 


Hi! I’m Scarlett R. Algee, and I’m the managing editor of JournalStone Publishing and Trepidatio Publishing—you may know us from our releases such as Gwendolyn Kiste’s The Rust Maidens and Sarah Read’s The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, both Bram Stoker Award® winners. I’m also an executive producer and writer for the podcast The Wicked Library, and I write the odd bit of fiction in my spare time.

 

My interest in horror goes back a way, though I was a college student when I first started seriously reading horror fiction (I had a fairly conservative upbringing, and horror wasn’t really a part of my childhood). I have a deep fascination with the visceral and the disturbing—I was that biology student who actually enjoyed dissection!—so it’s been really nice to discover first the genre of horror, and then the community.

Why is Women In Horror Month important, and what do you say to someone who says ‘Oh, I don’t care if it’s by a man, a woman, etc., as long as it’s a good story’?”
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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With Pippa Bailey

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror. 

 

My name is Pippa Pilgrim, although I still write under my maiden name Bailey. I’m from England originally (born in Oxford), but I was a Royal Air Force brat, so we moved around a lot. I’ve been living in the Scottish Highlands for the last three years, with my fellow author and husband, Myk Pilgrim. 

I love the idea of inserting something weird into our daily lives, and tend to write a lot of speculative fiction, and supernatural horror. Whether that be origami that folds space and time in “The Un-making of Jennifer Hawkins” (Released in 13 Wicked Tales by the Wicked Library) or a book that allows you to make a wish, based on what you draw within it (yet to be titled but due for release in the next year)

Most my work has been released through my co-owned publishing company Pugnacious Press, or through the amazing Wicked Library podcast (which you should most definitely check out, with my latest story release, and the season 10 finally being, “Close your Mouths and Clench Eyes Tight” a Haitian bogey man story – here’s a free link to the audio adaptation by Guy Fortt.) https://thewickedlibrary.com/1020/

 
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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With Trish Wilson

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror. 

My name is E. A. Black and I have written numerous short horror stories for various publications. I’ve also conducted interviews for The Horror Zine with my real name, Trish Wilson. I’ve loved horror since I was a child. I snuck my grandmothers Alfred Hitchcock books like “Stories That Scared Even Me” and I devoured all of them. I grew up on Creature Feature and Ghost Host on late night TV, which introduced me to Hammer Films which I love to this day. I also grew up in Baltimore, where Edgar Allan Poe lived for a few years and then mysteriously died. You can’t grow up in Baltimore and not get exposed to Poe. It’s practically a rite of passage, LOL.

I also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and makeup artist including FX for TV, movies, stage, and concerts. I did FX makeup for a forgettable indie horror film about a vampire. The movie was supposed to highlight local bands in Chapel Hill, NC, where it was filmed. The one band that made the big time was Squirrel Nut Zippers, which caught on during the swing craze of the 1990s. I did lighting for the movies “12 Monkeys” and “Die Hard With A Vengeance”. I was a makeup artist for the critically acclaimed TV series “Homicide: Life on the Street”. I had always wanted to work in the movies, and my degree in art gave me that opportunity.

 
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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With Catherine Lundoff

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror.
Hi there! Thanks for including me! I write a fair amount of horror and horror-adjacent work, including a lot of ghost stories and classic tale retellings, often seen through a queer lens. You can find my collected horror and dark fantasy in a collection called Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic (Queen of Swords Press, 2019). You can also find my work in publications like American Monsters Part 2 and Fireside Magazine and in media tie-in anthologies for World of Darkness games such as Vampire the Masquerade and Wraith. In addition, I write “horror-adjacent” work such as my Wolves of Wolf’s Point menopausal werewolf books and vampire erotica as Emily L. Byrne.

Apart from that, I’ve always loved certain kinds of horror – ghost stories, the kind of monster stories that hum along just below the surface of fairy tales and thoughtful smart horror like Ginger Snaps and Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter. I like the snark and diverse representation of new shows like The Dead Lands (2020) as well as Victorian-style horror books and films like Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black and Del Toro’s Crimson Peak. I like a good scare, but am not big on gore.

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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions with Selah Janel

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror.

Thanks so much for having me! I write in a few genres, but horror and dark fantasy hold a special place in my heart. There’s just so much possibility in horror, so many what-ifs, that it really opens itself as a genre to unlimited opportunity for ideas. There’s something really interesting about exploring visceral, terrifying situations (that may or may not be possible) and the emotions they provoke in a relatively safe way. My background is in theater, and I’ve built and designed costumes for about twenty years, so creativity and the love of story has always been part of me. Growing up, I was the biggest scaredy cat, but there was still something about horror that fascinated me. I’d sneak books here and there or read the back of video boxes in the rental places when my parents weren’t looking. It all bothered me, but a lot of the concepts fascinated me, and that dual reaction really made me wonder what was going on. Later on, as I grew up and really started reading and watching more, I was impressed by just how many subgenres there are and how they play on your mind in different ways. Everyday life can be scary, especially now, but there’s something cathartic about taking that same fear and putting it into a different situation that you either won’t go through, or you at least know/hope that things may work out, Even if a story doesn’t end happily, there’s still that release, that catharsis, that I think we don’t always get in our own lives.

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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With Kala Godin

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror.

I’m 23, physically disabled,and I typically write poetry. I didn’t know that I was interested in writing horror until I worked on Teeth. Which was a short, multi-authored story. To be honest though, I didn’t think I would be publishing poetry either. I knew I wanted to be an author, but I thought that I would be publishing YA fantasy.

 
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WiHM 12: Quick Six Questions With A. F. Stewart

Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thank you for participating in Women In Horror Month. First, tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in horror.

I’m from Nova Scotia Canada, and I write under the name A. F. Stewart. Most of my horror writing so far has been in short fiction, although I do have a novella out, with another in the works, and some darker fantasy novels as well. I prefer writing in the mythological, supernatural, or psychological side of horror, although I’m not shy about the body count or the gore if need be. I love exploring the darker side of human nature and mixing with things that go bump in the night. I also never set out to write horror, but I tried it one day and enjoyed it and I’m still creating mayhem.

Why is Women In Horror Month important, and what do you say to someone who says ‘Oh, I don’t care if it’s by a man, a woman, etc., as long as it’s a good story’?”

I think Women in Horror month is important because of the prevalent dismissive attitudes towards female writers. Personally, I hesitate to call my stuff paranormal in part because I’m female and the possible assumption about “oh, she must write romance”. There’s still this viewpoint that women cannot write dark and gritty, that we’ve all must pen fluffy love stories. As to what I’d say to ‘Oh, I don’t care if it’s by a man, a woman, etc., as long as it’s a good story’, I’d reply, ‘Good for you, I wish everyone felt that way.’

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