Author: Willow Croft

I’ve hopped on the train to meet up with GG Collins, where we not only have tea, but I eat my fill of red-chile-doused enchiladas!

GG Collins (she/her) loves the southwestern US where many of her stories are located. She can be found hiking through ruins of the ancient Puebloans and enjoying New Mexican cuisine. When not traipsing about, she makes up stories with great friendships, quirky characters and, oh yeah, dead bodies. In real life she shares her time with a man, several neurotic—and psychic—cats and the ongoing struggle to grow a garden.

Whether you enjoy scary paranormal mysteries or cozy cat-populated puzzles, Collins delivers. The Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mysteries are steeped with shamans and spirit animals. Although Rachel tries to avoid becoming the headline, she often finds herself smack in the middle of the story. This series contains elements of horror, violence and the supernatural.
Review: “Collins has done her research into Native American culture and values, and it shows. I highly recommend Anasazi Medium. Trust me. You won’t be able to put it down.” — Mark Scott Piper, Reviewer

The Taylor Browning Cozy Mysteries are more traditional. Taylor, a mystery editor at a publishing house, does a little sleuthing on the side. She really should stay in the office or at home with her cats Oscar and Cheddar, but Taylor seems to find clues and bodies regardless. Although Jim, her friend and art director at the publisher, and Det. Sanchez at the Santa Fe PD try to keep her out of trouble, well … . An inconvenient truth: she can’t edit her way out of real murder.
Review: “My favorite character, hands down, has to be the cantankerous cat, Oscar.” — Marcelle Valentine, Reviewer

Both series are inspired by the American southwest, its many cultures and Native American traditions. Collins has worked at a book publisher where she learned the ins and outs of bringing books from manuscript to bookstore. Her Taylor Browning Cozy Mystery series offers an inside look at book publishing from the eyes of a mystery editor. If you enjoyed “The Magpie Murders” on PBS, you’ll fit right in to Taylor’s world.

After her stint as a publisher she went on to reporting. The Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mysteries explore history and contemporary issues in the Southwest with a journalist who is torn between her fact-driven reporting job and the spiritual realm where she reluctantly finds herself propelled. Along with best friend Chloe, Hopi shaman friend, intuitive kitty Chile Pod and the mysterious white wolf, she solves mysteries linked to both the quick and the dead.
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For this edition of the Spooky Six, I’m having tea with Suzanne Craig-Whytock, and, yes, I’ve made a whole plate of cookies shaped like bones!

Award-winning writer Suzanne Craig-Whytock (she/her) found her passion for writing at an early age and had her first poem published when she was eight years old. She studied English Literature at university and was a high school English teacher for almost 25 years. She is the author of three previous novels, Smile, The Dome, and The Seventh Devil, and one short story collection, Feasting Upon The Bones. She is a member of the Canadian Authors Association and the Writers’ Union of Canada. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals, and she regularly publishes essays focused on life’s absurdities under the pen name mydangblog. She’s also the editor of DarkWinter Literary Magazine, an independent online publication of poetry and short stories out of Ontario, Canada, which publishes both emerging and established authors. Her second short story collection At The End Of It All is due to be released on February 7, 2023 by Potter’s Grove Press, and the sequel to The Seventh Devil is under contract to be released in 2023 by Bookland Press. Most recently, her second novel The Dome (winner of a Canada Book Award) was translated and published in Arabic by Arab Scientific Publishers in Lebanon and has been enjoying success overseas. Suzanne lives in a small town in Ontario, in a large rambling Victorian home with an acre of property that she and her husband have spent a lot of time rejuvenating. Her favourite things are her family, her black Lab Atlas, crows, white wine, antique clocks, and writing. She is a strong advocate and ally for LGBTQ+ people and believes that everyone deserves to be happy and live their own best lives.
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This edition of the Spooky Six features none other than Tim Waggoner . . . and a fragant pot of unsweetened herb tea!

Author and editor Thomas F. Monteleone has called Tim Waggoner “One of the best horror writers of his generation.” Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and since then he’s published over fifty novels and seven collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. He’s written tie-in fiction based on Supernatural, Grimm, The X-Files, Alien, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Transformers, among others, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Halloween Kills, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and The Writer’s Chronicle. He’s the author of the acclaimed horror-writing guide Writing in the Dark, which won the Bram Stoker Award in 2021, as well as its follow-up Writing in the Dark: The Workbook. He won another Bram Stoker Award in 2021 in the category of short nonfiction for his article “Speaking of Horror,” and in 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award in Long Fiction for his novella The Winter Box. In 2016, the Horror Writer’s Association honored him with the Mentor of the Year award. In addition, he’s been a multiple finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award, and a one-time finalist for the Splatterpunk Award.

His fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and he’s had several stories selected for inclusion in volumes of Year’s Best Hardcore Horror. His work has been translated into Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, and Turkish. He holds BS Ed. and MA degrees from Wright State University and has taught college English classes since 1987. For nine years, he served as a faculty mentor in Seton Hill University’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. Along with writing fiction and teaching, he’s worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, copy editor, and developmental editor. For the last twenty-six years, he’s been a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.

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I’m having a cup of tea with none other than Priscilla Bettis for this edition of The Spooky Six!

Priscilla Bettis (she/her) read her first grownup horror story, The Exorcist, when she was a little kid. (Because, if you think about it, The Three Little Pigs is also a horror story.) She snuck the grownup book from her parents’ den. The Exorcist scared Priscilla silly, and she was hooked on the power of the horror genre from that moment on.

Once she grew up, Priscilla attended The University of Oklahoma. She worked as an engineering physicist and a swim team coach, both admirable professions, but what she really wanted to do was write, or die trying, probably at the hands of a vampiric wraith. She retired early and picked up the pen.

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For this edition of The Spooky Six, I headed off with my thermos of piping-hot tea to watch the stars with author, publisher, and astronomer, David Lee Summers!

David Lee Summers (he/him) became serious about writing in 1983 when Ray Bradbury took him aside at the end of a high school assembly and said “submit your story to a magazine now!” As it turns out, the story Ray Bradbury referred to wasn’t ready for publication, but David persisted and published several stories and even his first novel with small presses in the coming decade. While all of this was going on, David went to New Mexico Tech, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and began a career in astronomy. In 1990, he married Kumie Wise. David has worked at several observatories, including the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island, the Very Large Array Radio Telescope in New Mexico, and Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. In 1995, He moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico and became the primary technician for New Mexico State University’s 1-meter telescope on Apache Point.

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Joining me for tea today is veteran journalist and speculative fiction writer, Ray Van Horn, Jr.!

Ray Van Horn, Jr. is a veteran journalist and photographer and author of the short story collection, Coming of Rage, released in 2022 through Raw Earth Ink. He spent 16 years covering music and film for outlets such as Blabbermouth, AMP, Pit, Dee Snider’s House of Hair, Music Dish, DVD Review, Horror News.net, Fangoria Musick, Metal Maniacs, Noisecreep, Unrestrained, Impose, Caustic Truths, Pitriff, and many others. In this time, Ray interviewed more than 300 musician, actor, and horror director personalities and he wrote more than a thousand media reviews. Ray contributed essays to Neil Daniels’ music biographies on Iron Maiden and ZZ Top. Ray’s former blog, “The Metal Minute” won Metal Hammer magazine’s “Best Personal Blog” award.

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