Meet my character: Flynn Keahi from “Happiness and Other Diseases”

•August 26, 2014 • Leave a Comment

About The Meet My Character Blog Tour:

IndieReconNomineeI was invited to participate in the Meet My Character blog tour by Emmy Z. Madrigal, the author of Sweet Dreams.  Her blog is SweetDreamsNovel.com and you can meet her character, Rob Malloy there. He’s been nominated for an award at IndieReCon for Best Book Boyfriend, if you care to vote for him. Emmy asked for participants with something romance related, and I have a Dark Romance / Paranormal Romance kind of Dark Fantasy coming out, Happiness and Other Diseases, so I bit.

My blog’s topic is dark speculative fiction, focusing on horror, although I also write about dark fantasy, and apocalyptic and/or dystopic science fiction and other types of dark sci-fi.

Happiness and Other Diseases is also up for an IndieReCon Howey award, for Best Cover.

Meet the Character

Answer these questions about your main character from a WIP (work in progress)Happiness 5

Q.  What is the name of your character?  

A. Flynn Keahi

Q. Is he/she fictional or a historic person?  

A. He’s a fictional character. He’s in his mid-twenties, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Asian/Pacific Islander. He works at temp agencies at computer graphics and desktop publishing gigs. He loves video games. He’s a nice guy who has had a difficult life. He’s really easy going and patient with others, but he has a history of mental illness and self-esteem problems. Maybe he is more understanding towards others because he’s been through so much.

Q. When and where is the story set?

A. It’s a dark fantasy that takes place in two places. Part of it is set on Earth in the San Francisco Bay Area, mostly in Berkeley, California. The other part takes place in the Demos Oneiroi, which is a part of the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology where the dream deities reside. Because my central protagonists, Flynn Keahi and Charlotte Metaxas, are both diagnosed with mental illnesses and meet in a psychiatric hospital, there is a slight blurring of lines between the fantasy worlds and things that could be imagined, This gets cleared up pretty quickly.

It takes place sometime between the start of the recession in 2008 and the present.

Q. What should we know about him/her?

A. He’s had a hard time getting stable since he started to hallucinate and was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in his late teens. Getting sick forced him to drop out of college. He was homeless for several years. He’s just starting to get back on his feet again when supernatural enemies begin to interfere. He’s also pretty kinky, which is to say, he’s submissive and masochistic and he feels very embarrassed about his sexual proclivities. He’s uptight about his sexuality, but extremely laid back about just about everything else. He’s reached a point in his life where he is trying to accept himself and reach out to others.

Q. What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

A. He has to deal with internal and external conflicts.

In terms of internal conflict, mental illness has previously disrupted his life. He’s just getting back on his feet again and is afraid of a relapse and things falling apart. Before we meet him, he has had to drop out of college, and has been homeless. Now he rents a cheap place in Vallejo, a lower rent part of the overpriced Bay Area. Vallejo is practically next door to Napa, where we just had the Bay Area’s biggest earthquake in twenty five years. He works temporary jobs through agencies.

Because of his history, no one takes him seriously when he begins to experience problems of a supernatural nature. The Greco-Roman pantheon messes up his life. One of the dream deities who live in the Demos Oneiroi has been tormenting him in his sleep. When some of the gods intervene on his behalf, things get very messy. His fate becomes entangled in their conflict. They send a demigoddess named Charlotte to protect him, and the two of them fall in love.

Q. What is the personal goal of the character?

A. He just wants to have a normal life. Find a girl, hold down a job, maybe settle down and get married and have kids. He wants all of those things he thought he could have before he got sick. Now, he feels like he’s damaged and that they will all be difficult, maybe impossible to attain. Charlotte is in some ways a bit insensitive because she isn’t entirely human. She comes on too strong, and she’s a little intense. But her love for him is in some ways very ordinary. He wants that. He wants to be loved and accepted. His struggle with her is, can be accept the love of someone who is really less sensitive than he is. I think their courtship is very role-reversed.

He also wants to be noble and heroic, like the characters in the games he plays. He has a very nurturing attitude towards others, but he’s not that great at taking the best care of himself. Charlotte is very protective towards him, so in a way, she plays that knight in shining armor role. She’s worried about him because she thinks he gives himself away too easily. 

Q.  Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

A. It’s called Happiness and Other Diseases. Here’s the book description:

Flynn Keahi has had a rough year. His nightmares are starting to manifest in reality, but no one believes him. Terrifying creatures are trying to cross out of dreams into the physical realm. Only Flynn can stop them – but doing so might cost him his life. Complicating matters further, one of these creatures cannot help wanting him — in every forbidden way. Will she be able to save him from his fate? Can she even protect him from herself?

It has a Facebook page here :https://www.facebook.com/HappinessAndOtherDiseases 

Q. When can we expect the book to be published?

It’s coming out October 18, 2014. You can preorder the eBook on Amazon, and soon on Barnes and Noble and Kobo as well. You can pick up hardcover or paperback editions on the day of publication. If you’re local to the Bay Area, there is book release party at The Dark Entry in Berkeley.

Next Week’s Meet the Character Authors

Serena Toxicat

Serena Toxicat slinks across the dimensions as a writer, translator, singer, dancer, actor, model,  painter, tattoo collector, peer counselor, group leader, cat socializer, NLP life coach, psychic reader, energy healer, and ordained priestess in the Fellowship of Isis. Published in anthologies and magazines, she wrote the books “Evangeline and the Drama Wheel” and “Paper Wings,” and award winning plays and poems in English and French. Her parallel recording projects are Starchasm and Catbox Theory.

http://serena-toxicat.livejournal.com/

Selah Janel

Selah Janel has been blessed with a giant imagination since she was little. The many people around her that supported her love of reading and curiosity probably made it worse. She writes in all genres, though she favors all types of fantasy and horror. Selah has three e-books through Mocha Memoirs Press, a short story collection published with SH Roddey, and her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Her new book Olde School, is the first in the Kingdom City Chronicles series and is out now

http://www.selahjanel.wordpress.com

Paula Ashe

A writer of dark fiction, Paula resides in the Midwest with her wife and too many pets. She has published a number of short stories, a novella, and two academic papers in two anthologies. She teaches creative writing, freshman composition, argument, and world literature at a community college. Paula is also a PhD student in the American Studies Program at Purdue University. She has a BA in Creative Writing (minor in Psychology), and an MA in Composition and Rhetoric (Women’s Studies graduate certificate) from Wright State University. While free time is fleeting, Paula finds time for horror movies, loud music, black feminism, and all things Hellraiser.

http://pauladashe.net/

Elva Nelson-Hayes

Elva Nelson Hayes is a native of Oakland California. She is the author of The Unnamed , The Island Love Song, and is currently working on her third book Love Lost and Lessons Learned. She hosts an annual literary event called The Ladies of Literature which promotes literacy and highlights women who write in Oakland and the Bay Area.  She is the founder of a book club called The Oakland Page Turners. She produces and hosts a local literary-themed television show called ‘Today’s Community Spotlight.’

http://elvanelsonhayes.com

Elisabeth Delana Rosa

Elizabeth Delana Rosa has always been a writer. When she first learned to write in kindergarten, she wrote about pigs who “groo” wings and became “butterfys.” She knew back then she would have a love affair with writing. Now that love flows over into writing blogs, reviews, poems and fantasy novels. Elizabeth is a big nerd. She loves Fantasy, YA, Paranormal Romance, and Sci-Fi books. Her dream is to promote authors and help them succeed, while writing her own YA and NA Fantasy Novels

htttp://www.elizabethdelanarosa.net

Posted in Announcements, Sumiko's Writing
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Flash Fiction Friday: Sumiko Saulson

•August 15, 2014 • Leave a Comment

HorrorAddicts shared my gruesome tail of sex, blood, and beg bugs for Flash Fiction Friday, go check it out!

Horror Addicts Guest's avatarHorrorAddicts.net

Bloodsuckers

By Sumiko Saulson

The hotel was seedy, but at least it was poorly lit. That didn’t sound like much of a perk, but helped obscure the water stains on the walls and the roaches in the corners.  Best of all, it had free wifi. Sure, it was slower than molasses. It was provided courtesy of one five IP address wireless router rented from the cable company. The management knocked on your door and complained if you stayed on it more than an hour.  But it was wifi.

Dennis used it to go troll the dating sites looking for a hook-up. That’s how he met Courtney, single white female, twenty two years old, brown hair, brown eyes. She was a cute girl, kind of chubby, but interested in casual. Casual was good. Very good.

She was in a white hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans when she came to the door…

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“60 Black Women in Horror” up for Howie Award

•August 9, 2014 • Leave a Comment

IndieReconNominee“60 Black Women in Horror” is in second place for IndieReCon‘s Howie award, in the Best Non Fiction category for 2014

VOTE FOR IT HERE

“60 Black Women in Horror” is a collection of bios and interviews, articles and short stories designed to bring attention to black women who write horror: both women and black horror writers are unrepresented in the genre.  It was something I put together in February for Women in Horror and Black History month. I think its an important work, and if you feel the same way, please vote for it. If you would like to read it, you can get the eBook free on Goodreads.and Smashwords. The paperback is only $5.50 on Createspace.

February is African American History Month here in the United States. It is also Women in Horror Month (WiHM). In 2013, as an Ambassador for Women in Horror Month. This list of black women who write horror. It was compiled by Sumiko Saulson at the intersection of the two. The booklet also includes interviews with nine of the women. The electronic (eBook) edition contains the following bonus materials: four short stories, and an essay, not found in the paperback.

Includes:

60 Black Women in Horror60 Black Women in Horror (List)

Interviews with Linda Addison, Darlene Black, Valjeanne Jeffers, Jemiah Jefferson, Briana Lawrence, Nnedi Okorafor, A.L. Peck, Eden Royce and Sumiko Saulson

David Watson article: On L.A. Banks and Octavia Butler

There is an associated print edition that does not include the following bonus materials found in the eBook:

Short Story: Amber’s New Friend by Crystal Connor
Short Story: The Last by Sumiko Saulson
Short Story: Rhythm by Eden Royce
Short Story The Funeral by Annie J Penn

Also Nominated

Valjeanne Jeffers – Best Adult Author of 2014

Greg Wilkey – Best YA Author of 2014

Emmy Z Madrigal – Best Fictional Boyfriend (Romance)

Sumiko Saulson – Best Book Cover 

 

Posted in Everything Else

Interview with Nuzo Onoh, author of “The Reluctant Dead”

•July 23, 2014 • Leave a Comment

The Author

Nuzo Onoh

Nuzo Onoh

Nuzo Cambridge Onoh is a British writer of African heritage. Born in Enugu, in the Eastern part of Nigeria (formerly known as The Republic Biafra), she lived through the civil war between Biafra and Nigeria (1967 – 1970), an experience that left a strong impact on her and continues to influence her writing to date. She attended Queen’s school, Enugu, Nigeria, before proceeding to the Quaker boarding school, The Mount School, York, (England) and finally, St Andrew’s Tutorial college, Cambridge, (England) from where she obtained her A’ levels. Nuzo holds both a Law degree and a Masters Degree in Writing from Warwick University, (England). A keen piano player, Nuzo also has an NVQ in Digital Music Production from City College, Coventry. She sometimes writes under the pseudonym, Alex Stranger-Onoh. She has two daughters, Candice and Jija and lives in Coventry, England. When not writing or haunting the Coventry War Memorial Park, Nuzo runs her own independent self-publishing house, Canaan-star Publishing, UK and is a regular guest on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio. Nuzo is a strong believer in re-incarnation and The Law of Attraction.

The Book

Covers.inddIn writing The Reluctant Dead, Nuzo pulled from her childhood experiences, growing up amidst the death and carnage that was the Biafran/Nigerian civil war, where the boundaries of life and death merged into a blurred line for her. She lost several family members in the war and her family house in Old Biafra is littered with the graves of her dead ancestors as well as the more recent graves of her sister, brother, niece, father, uncle, and grandmother. In fact, the stone-brick family house perched above the notorious Milliken’s Hill, Ngwo, Enugu State, is believed to be a haunted mansion. So, death and the afterlife have always played a big part in Nuzo’s life, hence her fascination with ghost stories and the mysteries of reincarnation. She hopes to bring the rich and unique culture of the Igbo race to a wider audience, using the medium of horror and mystery. Lovers of the Japanese Kaidan Horror tradition will love The Reluctant Dead, which adopts the same thematic approach as Japanese horror.

Her next book, Our Bones Shall Rise Again will be published in April 2015.

The Interview

Q. Women, and especially black women in horror have been unrepresented. Do you think that’s beginning to change?

A. Definitely!! Anyone that reads the book, 60 Black Women in Horror Writing will realise how far Black women have come in that hitherto, White male-dominated world. However, as the book shows, there are few non African-American women writers and writers like Akua Lezli Hopes and Nnedi Okorafor who are of African descent write more on Fantasy than pure African horror with our mish-mash of cultures, superstitions and dark practices. I’m hoping to see more Black British and African female writers in future.

Q. What is African Horror, and how does it differ from the mainstream horror genre?

A. African Horror is a cesspool of terrifying supernatural entities and superstitions, which very few cultures can rival in their sheer volume and malevolence. Africa is a culture that accepts the supernatural as a normal part of everyday living. So for instance, here in the West, if a person dies, there can be only two main causes of death, natural causes or unnatural /unexplained causes, usually murder or manslaughter. But rarely are the deaths attributed to supernatural causes unless one lives in the era of the Blair witch trial or Bram Stoker’s Transylvania. But in African culture, in particular the Igbo culture about which I write, no death is simply natural unless it is an old person who has fulfilled all social and cultural obligations of marriage, children, productivity and a high moral compass. Otherwise, every death is viewed as suspicious, an act of the ancestors, gods, bad karma, ghosts, witchcraft, night-flyers, mamiwater, juju and a host of other supernatural causes. The type of death will generally determine the type of ghost that manifests, the level of malevolence exhibited and the degree of intervention required by powerful witchdoctors or Pentecostal prayer warriors. So, one can see that African ghosts always have some unfathomable agenda and that’s what I think makes the horror more unsettling and chilling than mainstream horror.

Q. What can you tell us about your recently released horror anthology, The Reluctant Dead? How does it fit into the African Horror genre?

A. The Reluctant Dead is a collection of six ghost stories, set in Old Biafra, part of modern day Nigeria. The stories depict core Igbo traditions, superstitions, practices and beliefs within the supernatural context. Most of the stories are themed around revenge and unfinished business, since unlike Western ghosts, African ghosts never just manifest for the sole purpose of scaring the wits out of lily-livered humans. They always have an agenda, good or bad and the six stories in my book explores Igbo myths and superstitions amidst hauntings, possessions and manifestations. I hope to create a narrative that is unsettling enough to satisfy horror fans and show that true horror does indeed transcend all cultural barriers.

Q. What are the underlying themes that join together the six stories in the book?

A. Restless spirits and hauntings, revenge, unfinished business and Igbo superstitions and beliefs within a supernatural context.

Q. You lived through the Biafran/Nigerian civil war. How did the experience impact you as a writer?

A. As some people may recall since it happened a long while ago, the Igbo race fought a bitter civil war with Nigeria commonly known as the Biafran War. It lasted for 3 years and saw over one million Biafrans killed, including several members of my extended family. I witnessed first-hand the horrors of death, sickness, abuse and violence and can say unequivocally that the war moulded my perception of life, death and the afterlife. While other children went to bed on innocent bedtime stories, we Biafran kids slept on moonlight stories of ghosts, witches and a host of other evil supernatural entities, made more believable to us by our daily interaction with violence and death. When you’ve carefully stepped over a few bloated, fly-infested putrid corpses on your way to the local stream, you learn to prepare yourself for the nightmares that will invade your dream at dusk. Yet, there was a perverse kind of comfort in those terrifying ghost stories, as they made the inexplicable normal and reassured us that if for some reason we became one of the bloated corpse by the wayside, all was not lost and we could still exist within our families as ghosts or with our loving ancestors in another realm. So, by the time, the war ended, I was already hooked on ghost stories and everything horror. A lot of my stories are from dreams I have which I then build upon. Others might call them nightmares, but to me, my dreams are part of my general make-up and I actively look forward to them as a vital source of writing material.

Q. How did your childhood experiences and the civil war influence your stories in The Reluctant Dead? What stories do they play a part in?

A. As I said, the Biafran war left me with vivid dreams that persist to date. While Haley Joel Osment sees dead people in The Sixth Sense, I dream of dead people almost every night…unfailingly. One of my stories, Night Flyer, is straight out of one of my dreams, with a bit more added to build the narrative. The tension between the Moslem North in Nigeria and the Igbo race till date, is integral to another one of my stories, Hadiza, even though it is still a story of revenge and unfinished business, where a scorned wife returns to wreak havoc on her faithless husband and mistress. Mention is also made to the war in A Good Student, set in the immediate aftermath of the Biafran war.

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

A. Except to look out for my next book due out next year, with the working title, Our Bones Shall Rise Again. In the book, I narrate an African ending to the famous Igbo Landing tragedy of 1803 at St Simon’s Island, Georgia, USA, where a group of enslaved Igbos opted for mass suicide by drowning together in their chains rather than be taken into slavery. Their ghosts are said to still haunt the beaches till date. I am setting them free in my next book and returning their restless spirits back to Igbo-land, giving them their long-sought revenge in the process. In the meantime, The Reluctant Dead is available as both paperback and ebook on Amazon and can be ordered from most good book retailers. Reviews on Amazon will be highly appreciated. Thank you so much for this opportunity to showcase African Horror.

 Where To Find Nuzo Online

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NuzoOnoh

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nuzo–Onoh/1513133992243780

Posted in Everything Else

Marketing 101: How NOT to Promote Your Novel

•July 23, 2014 • 1 Comment

Things that every self-promoting writer – myself included – will do well to remember.

Posted in Everything Else

Cheap Reads

•July 18, 2014 • Leave a Comment

So many tales of the dead, and so little time…

dpwha's avatarHorrorAddicts.net

22436002The first book I want to talk about is a little different. Dead Aware by Terry M. West is a horror story told in screenplay format. This book is about a private investigator that can talk to the dead. He sees what awaits in the afterlife and it’s not pretty, you could say its driving him insane.

The P.I. named Dunlavey was messing with occult magic he didn’t understand and now his third eye is open and can’t be closed. In special cases the police use him to solve crimes and now a killer is exterminating victims and stuffing them with straw. Dunlavey may be the only one that can stop him.  The killer also has his sights set on Dunlavey and has his own powers that may end Dunlavey’s nightmarish existence and bring death to everyone he loves.

This was a chilling book with great imagery and would work…

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Posted in Everything Else

Deadlier Than The Male…Female Horror Icons Of Our Time

•July 15, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Horror Addicts Guest's avatarHorrorAddicts.net

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE…FEMALE HORROR ICONS OF OUR TIME.

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

PITT-obit-popupThe time? July, 2014. The place? Dublin, Ireland. The brief? Write a short- well, shortish– piece on female horror icons. Mission? Impossible. I can’t do it, I thought in a panic. In the whole history of cinema, there are too many to choose from. There would have been female horror icons as far back as the silent movie era, wouldn’t there? How can I narrow it down to just a few actresses whose contribution to horror cinema sets them apart from their peers and guarantees them a place for life in the horror hall of fame? It’s just not do-able. I tore my hair out and blubbered like a baby.

Pull yourself together, woman, I told myself then. I gave myself a mental shake and a severe talking-to, put on a pot of coffee and…

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Support Indie Authors – Get Free Stuff

•July 6, 2014 • Leave a Comment

I am happy to be a pat of the Smashwords Summer Promotion.

July Summer/Winter Sale
Specials for July 1–31

Legend of the LunaUse the code SW100 at checkout to get Legend of the Luna  for free during the site-wide promotion!

(Offer good through July 31, 2014)

Use the code SSW50 at checkout for 50% off Things That Go Bump In My Head during the site-wide promotion! That’s just 99 Cents!

(Offer good through July 31, 2014)

Use the code SSW50 at checkout for 50% off Solitude during the site-wide promotion! That’s just $1.50!

(Offer good through July 31, 2014)

Support other indie authors. Pick up free or discounted eBooks during Smashword’s Summer/Winter promotion – check out their page, which is https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/newest/1

Posted in Everything Else

Interview with Char Hardin, author of “Ogres of the Hickory Cottage”

•July 4, 2014 • 2 Comments

The Author

Char July 2014Char has been a indie horror film reviewer for the last three and half years. She has conducted over a 100 interview/podcasts with the men and women of indie horror films and with horror authors too. Most recently, she invited 15 horror authors to her online radio show Charred Remains for a Night of Storytellers. The show was a hit and has started a summer series. Each author was given an allotment of time to perform a reading from their current/upcoming novel.
Char’s love for writing began the moment her kindergarten teacher put a pencil in her hand and taught her to write her name, by the first grade, she was writing tall tales. All through school she wrote stories and enjoyed writing poetry. Char was first published in the 2012 anthology Dark Light published by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterflies. She was also featured in the follow-up anthology Dark Light 2.
Go to www.blogtalkradio.com/charred_remains for more information.

The Book

Cover6 copyOgres of the Hickory Cottage is a serialized story she created was based on her experiences managing her family’s used bookstore. She had created a tale involving ogres living in the attic to scare children whose sole intent was to trash her bookstore. The end result has become a serial story, Ogres of the Hickory Cottage.

Synopsis:

The Hickory Cottage Book Exchange has begun revising their policy in the hiring of Ogres Boris and Lon. Since the two Ogres started working at the Ponchatoula used bookstore, three children and ten cats have been reported missing.

Book seller Charley is caught in a maze of books, murder and betrayal. To stay one step ahead of the law, she must betray two friends in order to protect her employees Boris and Lon, which happen to be two ogres who have a magical connection to Charley are at the center of a maelstrom involving murder and magic.

The Interview

Q. Your new story “Ogres of Hickory Cottage” features a family bookstore, Hickory Cottage Book Exchange. How do you think local family stores like that are doing in the age of the eBook? Do modern challenges to the local bookstore work their way into your story?

A: Very good question. The reason the original Hickory Cottage Book Exchange (yes it is based on a real store that I ran for 12 years) closed October 2013 because we could not compete with Amazon, Kindles and Nooks. My customer base took in all ages with a whopping higher percentage of retirees. The ease of downloading their books won out over getting in their cars or depending on family/friends to bring them to our bookstore. Basically the convenience of downloading killed my business.

 

It is a very sad day when the local bookstore closes. I still see former customers who did belong to the “Downloading Books” Club and they always say the same thing, “So sorry to see that you closed” or “Since have closed, I have to go to the library and I am forever on a waiting list for the new books” and so on.

 

It broke my heart to have to close a business that was over 30 years old. My father bought in 2001 one week after 9-11 and to see it close just 12 years later was rough. That downloading killed it is a tough pill to swallow seeing how my first book is only available in e-book form. This will surprise many of my customers, especially those who do not download, but the way of publishing and books is going…no, I take that back, it has gone the way of e-books and I can either adapt or forget it. I want to share my stories for years to come, so I have adapted. I hope that my former customers do not see this as a sell-out but a way to share 12 years of fun times and crazy times that I spent serving them at the Hickory Cottage Book Exchange.

Q. How did your personal experience working in your family bookstore help inspire your writing?

A: Oh boy, working for the public inspired all sorts of ideas and storylines. The customer is always right and even when you know they are wrong, they are right and some left a lasting impression so much that they are featured in my stories. Some characters are obvious if that person is reading them and others share certain characteristics of customers who came to my store.

I am a people watcher and I pick up things that others would overlook. I may have looked like at times, I was shelving books and just blending in with the maze of books, but I was listening and absorbing so many stories that gave birth to notebooks full of ideas to incorporate into my stories. I have my customers to thank for many things one is sharing their stories with me.

Q. Your book is about children, but do you think it is appropriate for children? What age group is it targeted at?

A. Oh, I wouldn’t say my story was all about children. There are many things going on at once: missing children, decrease in the city’s cat population, magic, ogres working at the local used bookstore, love, profiling, and self image issues to name just a few. Children are a part of the story yes in a horrific way. I would say age 16 to adult. This is a fairy tale of sorts but it is an adult fairy tale and not one I would want a child to read. If I could stress one thing to readers, the cover is cute, but it is not a fluffy children’s fairy tale. It is a dark fantasy.

 

I used the category of urban fantasy because the characters are coexisting with Ogres. They are not imaginary, they are real. And as the story moves along, other entities will pop up: ghosts, witches and in the next book a tree spirit. The story is based on my experiences working in the Hickory Cottage Book Exchange aside from tree spirits and ogres which are fiction some things like witches and ghosts actually happened in my store. So no, I would not say this is a children’s serial, but more for the mature minded.

Q. Do you think kids love scary stories as much as adults? What were some of your favorite scary kid’s stories growing up?

A. I can’t speak for all kids, but I loved scary stories. I was a voracious reader as a child and still am. I discovered Bruce Colville in elementary school and loved his stories. By junior high I was reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, John Saul, V.C. Andrews, and Dan Simmons, which could not be found in the children’s section. I read what I could get my eyes on and if it happened to be adult horror, and I could get a copy, I read it. Horror was my favorite. I loved the Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews.

Q.  You have a lot of fiction and non-fiction podcasting experience – what can you tell us about that?

A. Podcasting I started in 2011 when I was writing for a horror site, http://www.horrorphilia.com. It was a means to meet the filmmakers of Indie horror films and I seemed to have a knack for setting folks at ease during an interview. I was schooled by several people in the indie horror community and once I was finally able to record and edit my own shows; I was off and talking.

 

I like meeting people and talking about their careers, goals, and inspirations. Podcasting gives entertainers, authors, musicians a platform to get their messages out to those fans who love their particular line of work. I have done over a 100 podcasts and loved each and every experience.

 

I know once a film, novel, music CD is made that the easy part is over now the artist has to market and drum up interest and through the use of social media is not enough. I firmly believe that bloggers and podcasters are the way to go in getting an artist’s name out there. It’s not enough to build a brand/image/persona, one has to break out of their comfort zone and do whatever they can to draw attention to their product.

 

I have been told that my promotions helped many filmmakers get their name and film’s name out there by my writing reviews and just talking about them on my shows. I think that is just peachy keen. I love promoting and do it every time I log onto the Internet. Pay it forward for the next person. Someone did it for me and I try to every day to pass that on by paying it forward to someone else.

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

A. For the last four years, I have devoted many hours to watching indie horror films and reading horror novels to write reviews on them. I have launched several podcast series that have all be successful. Through blogging and podcasting, I have helped many people get their names and films noticed by other blogger reviewers and fans that otherwise may not have ever heard of them. I can look back on all that I have accomplished and smile.

 

Now, that my bookstore is closed and I am not working, I find myself with a lot of time on my hands. I look at my file cabinet full of notebooks with ideas and stories and smile. I have countless stories to tell and the hardest part is deciding on which story I want to write. I am retiring from writing reviews and look forward to going into July knowing for the first time in a long time, I am writing something that I created. I will write a few reviews here and there, but from this day forward I have Ogres to write about and coming behind them are more mystery-suspense, erotica, and a teen serial dealing with TP House Rolling. I look forward to meeting new authors and connecting with readers and yes, I will continue podcasting for as long as anyone wants to listen.

 

Thank you, Sumiko for giving me this time, to share a little about myself and my writing. Shout out to the Facebook group “Ladies of Horror”, I have met some wonderful ladies in there and just want to say thank you for being welcoming and helpful. I appreciate your guidance and friendship.

 

Where to Find Char Online

The book link on Amazon: Ogres of the Hickory Cottage

The podcast: Charred Remains for a Night of Storytellers

Facebook page: Charred Remains

 

Posted in Interviews, Women Writers

Listen to me read zombie haiku on the [internet] radio

•June 23, 2014 • Leave a Comment

You can listen to the episode here:

http://thedinnerpartyshow.com/2014/06/ep-79-youre-the-guest-mono/

bumpheadcover

Zombie Haiku

This is what bestselling novelists Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn said the show was about:

Zombie haiku! Crazy pick up lines. A MOMMY DEAREST reboot? A pill that might prevent new HIV infections. It’s all on the table on this edition of YOU’RE THE GUEST. Christopher and Eric field a deluge of voicemails from the show’s Party Line (323-PEZ-TDPS), and the resulting topics are far-reaching, wide-ranging and insanity-inducing. (Also, Christopher spends most of the show making every topic about him.)

This is what I said about it:

Thank you, thank you…. everyone needs to listen to this show and hear my on the air reading of zombie haiku from “Things That Go Bump In My Head” – if you click on the affiliate store before you buy my book, then TDPS will get their 2 cents or whatever from Amazon, I think. I’m not sure. “Science”. I should probably ask Jordan Ampersand.

If that isn’t enough Sumiko Saulson for you, they answered my question about writing (which has to do with how to get your characters’ voices out of your head between writing projects, and Taletha Wagoner recommend the book I’m writing (which she describes as alien porn – it’s not, but there is at least one freaky qualifying sex scene, I suppose). And Amy Bellino is on the show asking about Eric and starting cat fights too.

This is the link for the aforementioned affiliate store.

http://thedinnerpartyshow.com/store/

Although my books aren’t there, if you click on another book and just kind of toss mine in the shopping cart, they’ll totally get the commission. The paperbacks are like $10 or $12 bucks and the eBook is $1.99.

 

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