Interviews

Hailey Piper: "Lovecraft Feared the Other; I Am the Other'

November 16th, 2020

Hailey Piper’s new novella, The Worm and His Kings, takes cosmic horror to subterranean levels of nightmarish multitude. An oppressive worm cult occupies the deceptive tunnel circuitry beneath NYC, relying on their Skeksi-esque henchmen to abduct the vulnerable and curious in order to play out their deadly celestial drama. I caught up with Hailey to discuss the book, Manhattan’s “mole-people,” the problematic shadows of Lovecraft, while dissecting the anatomy of our fight/flight instincts.

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Writing About the Light: A Conversation with Thriller Writer Elizabeth Splaine

November 12th, 2020

Photo courtesy of the author Elizabeth Splaine has lived a lot of lives. Healthcare executive. Parent. Opera singer. And now thriller writer. Splaine is also more than those things. She is a seeker of truths, a believer in spirit, and a voice for kindness and compassion. It is Splaine’s effort to integrate these elements of her life into a singular story about death, grief and forgiveness, that has culminated in her deft and twisty new novel Devil’s Grace.

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Cathartic Experience: A Conversation with Crime Writer Matt Fitzpatrick

October 8th, 2020

Photo courtesy of the author I was thrilled to talk with Cape Cod author Matt Fitzpatrick about his new crime novel, Matriarch Game (the second in his Justin McGee series), as well as family, autobiographical writing, the state of the world, and giving up everything to become a writer. Full-disclosure, I’ve been working with Fitzpatrick to craft these books and support his efforts to get them out to the public.

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Interview: Crime Fiction Editor Jim Thomsen

October 1st, 2020

Photo via Jim Thomsen Creative It's a humbling process. Feverishly typing out our breakthrough story, coming back to it a week later to self-edit, revise, and give it one victorious last pass, only to have someone who really knows their craft and has no emotional connection to the project tell you to re-write the whole thing.

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Blood in the Gears: Jeremy Robert Johnson on "The Loop" & the Craft of Writing

September 29th, 2020

Jeremy Robert Johnson is the acclaimed author of Entropy in Bloom, Skullcrack City, and In the River. Chuck Palahniuk has praised him as a “dazzling writer.” His new novel, The Loop, has been described as, "Stranger Things meets World War Z." A "heart-racing thriller" about a group of teens who "attempt to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong." It is available now through Saga Press. 

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Chandler Morrison: Being Better Than the Demons

August 28th, 2020

Photo courtesy of the author Quickly rising as one of the more prolific and unique voices in transgressive fiction, Chandler Morrison's latest novel, Along The Path of Torment shows us an underground Los Angeles ensconced in the shadowy hills above its moth-to-flame neon wasteland. Where the desensitization of wealth and its warped circuitry of power is fueled by the sacrifice of youth—the first and last frontiers for the repugnantly corrupt.

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Always Hustling: A Conversation with Thriller Writer Lee Matthew Goldberg

August 26th, 2020

Photo courtesy of author I recently had the opportunity to talk to New York City author Lee Matthew Goldberg about his new thriller The Ancestor, as well as his thoughts on empathy, the attraction of doppelgängers, his writing process, and making it in Hollywood. Full-disclosure, I’ve been supporting Goldberg’s efforts to bring this book out into the larger world and I’m honored to do so.

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Interview: Arthur Nersesian on "The Five Books of (Robert) Moses" and New York novels

July 30th, 2020

What feels like a million years ago but I think was more like ten, it was suggested by a publisher and editor I really respect to check out Arthur Nersesian's novel Suicide Casanova. I loved it and immediately read another of his novels, The Fuck Up. I've since become a huge fan of his work and even got to see him a few times in NYC. When I heard he'd written an epic novel in size and scope called The Five Books of (Robert) Moses, I was super excited and reached out to him for an interview. 

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Kathe Koja on Godmothers of Horror: Emily Brontë & Mary Shelley

July 17th, 2020

I recently re-read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë because KATHE KOJA kept on raving about what an innovative and wonderful, rebellious book it is. I had read it before, as a teenager, and loved the gothic moody tone, but it was eye-opening reading it again, after having submerged myself in the horror genre, realizing this is not strictly a love story. It is an expertly told ghost story.

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Blake Butler on "Alice Knott" and the Creation of Challenging Art

July 6th, 2020

If you enjoy the type of non-traditional fiction Blake Butler produces, I'm assuming you are already aware of his existence. If you enjoy but are not yet aware, you are in for a treat. Maddeningly surreal at the level of the sentence, Blake's work reveals itself from afar, coming alive when taken as a whole. His manipulation of language is a thing of wonder, and the emotions it inspires are more akin to what a person feels while listening to an intricate piece of music as opposed to reading a book.

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