Sumiko Saulson

This interview is being included in the 2013 Women in Horror Interview Series. Every February, Women in Horror Recognition Month (WiHM) assists underrepresented female genre artists in gaining opportunities, exposure, and education through altruistic events, printed material, articles, interviews, and online support.  You can find out more about WiHM here:

http://www.womeninhorrormonth.com/

The Author

Pamela K Kinney

Pamela K. Kinney is a published author of horror, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, and nonfiction ghost books published by Schiffer Publishing. Two of her nonfiction ghost books, Haunted Richmond, Virginia and Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales, have been nominated in the past for Library of Virginia Literary Awards. The others from Schiffer Publishing are her new 2012 release, Haunted Richmond II, plus from 2011, Virginia’s Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations. Also just released are two short horror stories, “Donating” in Inhuman Magazine, Issue 5 December 2011 and “Bottled Spirits” in BuzzyMag.com in June 2012, plus “Azathoth is Here” was reprinted in by Innsmouth Press in InnsmouthMagazine: Collected Issues 1-4 in Kindle and ePub formats. And of course, she has her horror and dark fantasy tales collected in one book, Spectre Nightmares and Visitations, published by Under the Moon.

Under the pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan, she has published erotic and sweet paranormal/fantasy/science fiction romance along with a couple of erotic horror stories. Her erotic urban fantasy, Being Familiar With a Witch is a Prism 2010 Awards winner and a Epic Awards 2010 finalist. The sequel to Being Familiar With a Witch, A Familiar

The Book:

Haunted Richmond II

Haunted Richmond II

Return once more to haunted Richmond, where no building is safe from supernatural happenings. Visit Stories Comics, which holds more than just comics within its walls. Step back in time at Henricus Historical Park where you’ll be welcomed by dead colonists, Civil War soldiers, and other haunts. Discover that not only is the Richmond Vampire out for your blood, but the Werewolf of Henrico waits for you beneath the full moon. It seems that the War Between the States is still being fought between ghostly Confederate and Union soldiers at Cold Harbor, Sailor’s Creek, Parker’s Battery, and Petersburg Battlefield. All this… plus a sea serpent, a lost city, ghostly cats, Bigfoot, a UFO, and haunted churches, parks, and colleges. So be sure to plan your visit now to a very paranormal Richmond. The dead don’t stay dead in this town!

The Interview:

Q.  You have an impressive array of genres under your belt, including horror, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, and nonfiction ghost books. When you write, do you decide what genre you are approaching from the outset, or do you just see where the writing takes you?

A. Well, the nonfiction ghost books are pretty set what you have to write. I actually do this one chapter at a time, then put altogether in the sequence I want the book to be. Plus they have due dates once I send in the contract. Fiction—it all depends what I want to write.  I have forced myself one book at a time. I have an urban fantasy finished and edited and critiqued by critique partners—now queries agents and publishers. Finished a YA paranormal next. Working on a supernatural thriller. Plus writing a short story here and there. I submit those to magazines, ezines and anthologies. I ended up doing a collection of short stories that Under the Moon, a small press, published, called Spectre Nightmares and Visitations.

Q. Your latest offering is a non-fiction ghost book – “what can you tell the readers of “Things that Go Bump In Your Head” about it?

A. Haunted Richmond II is several haunted spots in the Richmond, Virginia area (this includes not just downtown Richmond, but also cities and counties of Ashland and Hanover County to Henrico, Chesterfield, Amelia and Petersburg and Hopewell). Not just ghosts, but monsters, UFOs, Sasquatch, mountain lions supposedly extinct since 1900 in Virginia, and even non-paranormal legends of Richmond.

Q.  How does fiction writing differ from non-fiction writing in your opinion?

A. Fiction is from your imagination, while nonfiction can have the truth in it, along with facts (like history) and myths and legends that have been told for years.

Q. Is the amount of research involved in non-fiction much greater? Where do you get started when you approach researching a book?

A. Yes, you have to not only research from books and online, but contact people to interview and actually go to the places you will be putting in your books. I even got permission to lead paranormal investigators in some places in my new release, to see what we could find.

Q.  What advice would you give any aspiring writers who might be reading this?

A. To keep writing very day, even if it’s not for your manuscript, any writing keeps you doing it. To join a critique group or get a critique partner.  And once it is ready to submit, submit and not let rejection get you down, but just keep on submitting.

Q.  Is there anything you would like our readers to know that we haven’t covered yet?

A. That writing a book isn’t as easy as many think, but when you do write one, finishing it, there’s a feeling of accomplishment. And when it is published and you get the first copy or eBook for the first time, a thrill that others will be reading it and you are joining the ranks of authors you admire and read.

Where To Get It:

Haunted Richmond II can be found at Schiffer Publishing , Amazon, Barnes and Noble , Indiebound.org , Books-A-Million , plus many other online places and it can also be gotten at brick and mortar bookstores. If not available in the place, the bookstore can order it for you.

~ by Sumiko Saulson on October 5, 2012.

Posted in Interviews, Women in Horror Month, Writing Advice
Tags: Author, fiction, Haunted Richmond II, Horror, Interview, novel, novels, Pamela K. Kinney, scary, Women in Horror, Women in Horror Interview Series, Women in Horror Month