Interview with Author Michael Tyree
Interview with Michael Tyree
1. Thank you so much for joining me! Let’s talk a little bit about The Pale Horse, your short story collection. For those just learning about your work, can you tell us a little about this project?
The Pale Horse, my second collection, is made up of two novellas and four novelettes. It’s based on the mythology of The Reaper, and the deconstruction of death. Some stories have characters who meet an unfortunate end, but rather than pearly gates or brimstone, they are offered another chance as vengeful avatars. Other stories have you question the weight of taking a life. In Necessity, a young man is car jacked on his way home and forced to drive to a remote location. He makes a split-second decision that will change his life forever, whatever is left of it. A Glimpse of the Last Hours, the last novella, dissects the barrier between the living world and whatever mirrors that. It’s a surreal head trip, and the first story to begin tackling my universe’s mythology. TPH has some gruesome moments, but I leaned harder into the grief horror and social commentary with this one. I tell people, if they want to be emotionally wrecked, this is the one for them.
2. Out of the six stories, do you have a favorite?
My favorite in The Pale Horse is Cherrywood Hearts. That was the most difficult story to write, but I feel like it was worth the heartache. I’m happy with the ending. Sometimes stories end and I feel like I could have done more, but not this time. People messaged my after they read it, saying it gave them nightmares, brought them to tears, even rethought what they would do if they lost a loved one. My editor told me, even though he had already been through that story twice before, the third read through still gave him anxiety. As story tellers, all we could hope for is to get the desired emotional response from a complete stranger. It’s a rewarding feeling when it does happen.
3. Were any of the stories particularly challenging to write?
Going back to the previous question, the hardest story to write was Cherrywood Hearts. For starters, this story is pulled from a deeply personal event that I didn’t speak about often. A little over ten years ag, my wife had a miscarriage, on Valentine’s Day, as if it couldn’t be worse. If you take out the witches, golems, tree sex, and the fact that we’re both still alive, Cherrywood Hearts is the story of what happened to my wife and me.
Just like with any important, and difficult topic, I wanted to write a story about infertility in order to maybe spark some of those difficult conversations. But the problem I had was tip toeing around such a sensitive subject. I wanted to be respectful, but honest. My hang ups about the subject made me scrap and rewrite this story until I had worked through close to 5 different versions. Originally, I thought it would be shitty to tackle the subject head on from my wife’s point of view, not sure if I could speak for her. I planned on telling the story from my experience in the situation and how that loss affected me. But I put a stop to that. I got cold feet and figured even though I’m trying to be honest, it’ll probably come off as mansplaining PCOS and ectopic pregnancy, despite my sincerity. The original draft had Sandra die and Damon struggling to live without her. I thought it might be kinda cheap to write about infertility and kill the one woman within the first ten pages.
The next few versions were closer to the final story. Damon would die first, or Sandra does not die at all. I had an ending reminiscent of Midsommar, where Sandra inadvertently joined this Stepford Wives cult within Zelda’s support group. But I squashed that one when I realized Sandra was way too smart to pack up everything and move to the suburbs with all the sketchy white women. I had a version where the witch takes the form of a young twenty something and seduces Damon before later sacrificing him in the same “life for life” ritual. The first problem I had with that version came about once I really fleshed out Damon as a character. I’ve killed a lot of horrible people in my stories and some not so horrible. Either way, I usually don’t put much after thought into them. But Damon felt different as a character. Not only did it feel like “he” wrote his own dialogue, but he dictated his own moral fiber. When I started hashing out scenes with him running around on Sandra with the witch, under spell or no spell, it never felt right. It almost felt like a character assassination. Even in the final version of the story, during the car crash scene, I actually felt remorse for that character, which is weird for me.
4. What are the themes of this collection and why did you gravitate towards them?
The main theme is centered around The Reaper, literally, figuratively, and philosophically. The title story, The Pale Horse is straight and to the point with the personification of Death as someone disarming, who convinces the main character to let her walls down for a time, just so they can have a conversation on life. In Cherrywood Hearts, the protagonist loses everything but her own life. In her grieving, she learns how to figuratively live with the dead through the memories she clings to. In Survivor’s Guilt, the protagonist lives with the actual dead, as he carries the collateral damage of his past. Imagine an ex-politician/war criminal, suffering from something similar to Mary Winchester’s curse.
I wanted to put the ideas of living and dying, coexisting with the dead, as well as carrying the weight of grief under a new lens, and hopefully through that, break down some cultural norms.
5. Where can readers find you online?
Folks can find me at the usual haunts. I’m on Twitter (or whatever they’re calling it these days) as @MSTyree1 and Instagram @Michael_Tyree13.
Interview with Horror Author Chris DiLeo
Interview with Chris DiLeo
1. First, congratulations on your Stoker eligible book The Hands of Onan! For those just discovering this story, can you share with us what it is about?
The Hands of Onan is about a writer tasked with rescuing his friend from an all-male masturbation cult. To do this, he must confront his own addiction to onanistic pleasures.
Author Chris DiLeo
2. What was the inspiration behind this story?
Few things terrify me more than religious fanaticism. I’d explored the dangers of cults previously in the book Children of Fire, which is about an ex-detective who must save a child from fire-wielding zealots. Almost as a parody, I thought up the most outlandish and ridiculous cult I could imagine: masturbation worshippers. Much to my delight and horror, I found actual biblical passages to support my imaginary cult. Check out The Book of Genesis (if you dare!).
3. Was there any scene in this book that was challenging to write?
There were many times while writing the climatic (pun intended) sequence at the end when Mike confronts the supernatural power behind this cult when I wondered if it was too gross and repulsive and then I dared to be even more disgusting.
4. What would you say is your writing “brand?” What type of horror do you write?
I write stories that are visceral, emotional, engaging, and even thought-provoking.
5. Where can readers find you online?
I’m everywhere as @authordileo
Interview with Author Lillah Lawson
Interview with Author Lillah Lawson
1. First, congratulations on your upcoming Stoker eligible book Tomorrow and Tomorrow, co-written with Lauren Emily Whalen! Could you tell us a little about the book?
Thank you! Tomorrow & Tomorrow is a gender-flipped, dark contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, set in the Athens, GA music scene! It has all the things you expect from Macbeth – ghosts, witches, prophecies, and plenty of murder most foul – but it also has lots of band drama, beautiful locales (both in North Georgia and Scotland!), a badass heroine or two, and if I say so myself, a truly terrifying villain.
Author Lillah Lawson
Lauren and I are both massive Joan Jett fans, and we knew we wanted her and The Runaways to be the unofficial muse(s) of this book. So, it’s very feminist, very rock n’ roll, but without sacrificing any of that dark, psychological horror of Shakespeare’s play. It turns out that the story of a Mad King full of hubris and drunk with power leant itself very well to an adaptation about a small-town band trying to break into the scene. It’s all about networking and backstabbing – basically power, and what people will do to get it. Anyone who has been part of a local arts scene will be able to see the parallels!
I know there’s been discourse about the term “cozy horror”, but I think our book applies. It’s scary as hell, but it’s got a comforting quality to it, and dare I say, it’s really fun. I’m so proud of this book and I hope people love it.
2. How did you and Lauren Emily Whalen end up teaming together on this project?
Lauren and I have been friends for over ten years, and we’ve been on this writing/publishing journey together for most of it. Our writing careers have followed similar ebbs and flows and we’re both fans of each other’s work. We’d been talking about writing something together forever, but pretty much only in the abstract; just sort of daydreaming. But during COVID, we found ourselves talking a lot over increasingly lengthy voice messages and just started bouncing ideas back and forth for a book. Lauren has done a number of Shakespeare retellings, and she’s excellent at them. I’ve always been a “bard bitch”, but I never had the guts to try an adaptation. Finally, I was just like, “What if…what if you did Macbeth? And I helped?” I knew I could bring the darkness! We talked about it for months and ended up with this amazing plot and characters, and had the whole thing mapped out before we ever set pen to paper. So when we finally sat down to write it, it came out of both of us so easily. It was one of the most enjoyable and easy experiences I’ve ever had writing a book. We enjoyed the process so much we’ve talked a bit about doing a second book together, but that’s all under wraps for now!
3. Since Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about an all-female rock band, did you develop a playlist as inspiration for this book? If not, what songs or bands would be a part of this book if it had a soundtrack?
Oh, yes. I make extensive playlists for every book of mine; I start them long before I ever begin writing, and I’ll listen to them for weeks to get in the right headspace. I think Lauren does something similar. One of the first things we started doing was making a playlist, and since we’re both such music nerds (with somewhat different tastes), it was a very, very long playlist – well over a hundred songs. We recently cut the playlist way back (let me tell you, that was agonizing for me) to make an “official” playlist, which we’ll be releasing during our Hype Week in October at Sword & Silk Books (our publisher). So stay tuned for that!
The playlist is a secret ‘till then, but I can tell you it’s a perfect blend of goth, classic rock and pop that’s dreamy and dreary and a little bit spooky. Obviously there’s Joan Jett, and some Athens locals like Tears for the Dying and Lera Lynn. And as with anything I do, Ghost and Queens of the Stone Age are involved. And you can trust Lauren to bring the Taylor Swift! Something for everyone!
Lately I’ve been on an indie/outlaw country kick and I’ve been daydreaming hardcore about Joan Jett doing a song with someone like Lera Lynn or Tyler Childers for the soundtrack. I’m just sitting over here manifesting!
4. In addition to Tomorrow and Tomorrow, you also have a short story eligible for the Stokers called “Oblong Objects in the Mirror (are Closer Than They Appear)” which was published in the anthology Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic by Cosmic Horror Monthly (May, 2023). What inspired this story?
If I’m being honest, I was nervous submitting this story, and I assumed that it wouldn’t make it through the slush pile. It’s a deeply personal story, probably the most personal one I’ve ever written, and it skates on the borders of horror. The experiences described within are definitely horrific, but they are told in an abstract, fuzzy-memory style that’s full of symbolism and a lot of self-loathing prose. It’s basically sitting inside the mind of someone who has been utterly broken as they try to put themselves back together again.
I’ve written versions of the story many times over the years, adding pieces of poems and going back to edit certain parts. I used to think that PTSD and trauma, once worked through, were just gone; all better. But one thing I discovered during a particularly low period during the pandemic is that PTSD and trauma don’t just disappear when you “do the work”. Yes, you get better, but healing is not a linear process. My favorite book is The Great Gatsby (I know, I know) and the last line of the last page – boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past – always makes me cry. It’s been my favorite since I was a teenager, but I never applied it to my own life until recently. Healing from trauma is a two steps forward, one steps back sort of situation. You get better, you have a setback. It’s a lifelong journey, and some days you just feel like Humpty Dumpty, fallen off the wall and shattered, your yolks running out all over the place. Messing up somebody’s floor, a total embarrassing inconvenience. So yeah, it’s a story about the messy, cracked-egg parts of healing, and how it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. A lot of it is terrible, horrific. Not pretty at all. And that’s okay.
Woof. I feel like I got way too heavy there. Everybody have a sip of iced coffee! Anyway, I have to thank the excellent Jolie Toomajan for accepting the story and including it in the wonderful anthology Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, published by Cosmic Horror Monthly, proceeds of which go to The Chicago Abortion Fund. Jolie was also kind enough to blurb Tomorrow & Tomorrow! I can’t thank her enough. And I strongly encourage everyone to grab a copy of Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic. Not only does it benefit a wonderful cause, but every single story in the anthology is incredible – not a dud in the bunch.
5. Where can people find you online?
You can reach me in the usual social media places – I’m on Instagram, Twitter (I refuse to call it “X”), for now anyway, Threads, BlueSky and Facebook, all under the handle @ LillahLawson. I’m also on Goodreads! I do have a website, but I’m woefully bad about updating it. Still, if you’d like to give it a visit, it’s lillahlawson.com.