Micro-Interviews for Shiver Horror Authors Ziaul Moid Khan, Jessie Small, and Sam Sumpter
Interview with Horror Author Ziaul Moid Khan, Jessie Small, and Sam Sumpter
Q.1. What was the inspiration for your story (The Two Bio Lab Skeletons)?
Ziaul Moid Khan
Ans. I was deputed on the invigilation duty during a home board examination in the academic institution I serve as an English instructor. It was a biology laboratory, situated in the basement of the school, where I spotted two human skeletons and suddenly conceived an inspiration to work on this project. So I — at once — took a blank supplementary sheet and began to scribble down the outlines of this work, simultaneously titling it. As the last bell rang and the exam of the students got over, the first draft of The Two Bio Lab Skeletons was finished.
Q. 2. Have you ever had a chilling experience in the cold?
Ans. Yes. I must be eight or ten years old when I first read the Hindi translation of Bram Stoker’s mammoth work, Dracula. It was a winter night. I was in my blanket with a kerosene lamp beside me. And I was reading about the three witches, who were trying to suck Jonathan Harker’s blood. I was scared to my bones as I read the text and it was literally a chilling experience. I had to put down the novel to read it the next day, for I feared to read on at that moment.
Q. 3. The Abominable Snowman is hunting you. How do you defeat it?
Ans. By promising it that I would like to write its story and tell it to the whole world. It would definitely like this idea and befriend with me, for everyone and everything is virtuous deep down the heart. I agree with Selma Lagerlöf’s point of view that the essential goodness in a human being can be awakened through love and understanding. This could be true with a snowman too, I opine. Death comes only once in life, so why to be fearful of it, by the way. Moreover I try to win people and not to defeat them. And a snowman is after all—a snow(man).
Q. 4. Where can people find you online?
Ans. Here and Here and Here too.
Interview with Horror Author Jessie Small
Question: What was the inspiration for your story?
In the before times, I had been feeling a little homesick for Nebraska. A friend took me out for coffee and shopping. At one point in the day we found ourselves in a metaphysical supply store. I was picking out some incense and found a small white rabbit hiding on the shelf. It didn’t have a price tag so I set it back down and moved on. By the time I made it to the cashwrap, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I went back to find it and asked if it was for sale. The owner asked me why I wanted this particular rabbit (I hadn't noticed it at first but there were a bunch decorating the store). I told her it reminded me of home. She wrapped it up and gave it to me. I wrote the first draft of Bad Bunnies that night.
Question: Have you ever had a chilling experience in the cold?
I grew up in an old farmhouse so the only heat source was a wood burning stove. It was right next to the front door, which was perfect because when you came inside it warmed you up immediately. Even better, the floor in that room was all tile and brick, so if the wood stove was roaring hot the floors would retain heat. I remember my family coming home late one night after our school Christmas concert. It had been snowing and blowing for a few hours. The wood stove was ripping hot so I peeled off my boots and winter clothes to warm up next to it. About a foot away from the stove, the size of a dinner plate, there was this spot that was freezing cold. Everywhere around that spot was warm to the touch. No one had been in the house for hours, nothing had been sitting there prior, it was just this ice cold spot on the floor next to the stove. After a few moments it was just as warm as the rest of the floor.
Question: Would you rather spend Christmas in Antarctica with RJ MacReady (The Thing) or spend the winter with Jack Torrance at the Overlook Hotel (The Shinning) and why?
Antarctica, for sure. Christmas in solitude even with MacReady, no problem. The Overlook has too many doors and surprises behind them.
QuestionWhere can people find you online?
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter
interview with horror author Sam Sumpter
What was the inspiration for your story?
Sam Sumpter
In December 2019, I was driving by myself from Seattle to my family’s cabin in rural Idaho. The drive takes you over a couple mountain passes then into this big high valley. The last part of the drive is off the main highway, using straight dirt roads that cut through flat farm and ranch land. Something about the mountains and the atmosphere often holds clouds down over that flat valley land, over the cows and things. That December, there was the usual couple feet of snow on the ground around the highway, but the road itself was clear and there hadn’t been much falling snow during the drive. It was starting to get dark by the time I got into the valley, and it started really snowing. When I turned off the main highway onto the backroads, it almost instantly got SUPER foggy. I couldn’t remember ever seeing such dense white fog in the winter — whiteouts from snow, yes, but not fog. Between the fog, snow, and setting sun, I couldn’t see more than a car-length or two in front of me, it really felt like driving through a dream in the spookiest and best way. That single stretch of road was such a Big Vibe that it really stuck with me, and when I was writing The Pass, I started out knowing I wanted to end up there.
Have you ever had a chilling experience in the cold?
Honestly, so many. I grew up in Colorado, Nebraska, and Idaho, so I have a lot of cold weather and remote places to choose from, and I’m also a deeply anxious person with an imagination directly tuned into a vast library of worst case scenarios. A lot of the chilling experiences I can think of are times I (stupidly) drove through very bad weather on poorly-traveled windy roads. One non-driving experience is actually the tail end of the foggy drive that inspired The Pass. At the time, I was working on finishing grad school, and had been making next to zero progress on my dissertation while working full time, so I decided to spend a week holed up alone in the mountains to try and finish writing a chapter. I went with just my dog, who is a very confident but ultimately 0% intimidating elderly french bulldog. I joked with people before I left that either my dissertation was going to kill me, or an axe-murderer-slash-monster would, but I didn’t actually expect to be scared by being alone.
When I got in it was fully dark out. The cabin has one main room with a porch that wraps all the way around it, and the curtains on the windows are impossible to completely close. I couldn’t stop imagining that a variety of murderers were standing on the porch peeking through the curtains. To try to relax before going to sleep, I was watching TV on the couch with my dog sitting next to me. Normally she’s really chill and sleepy. But the little jerk (who I love) kept randomly perking up on high alert and barking directly at the door like she’d heard something on the porch. I had a miserable time falling asleep, and in the middle of the night there was this loud crashing noise right outside the wall behind my head — exactly the kind of noise you would expect a league of murderers to make while breaking into an isolated cabin. (In the morning I realized it was a big drift of snow falling off the roof.)
What's your favorite hot beverage to sip while reading a cold-themed book?
My go-to is rye whiskey + lemon ginger tea + a lil honey.
Where can people find you online?
Twitter (which I dislike and rarely use)
Website: samsumpter.com
