#12DaysofCreepfest Author Interview with Red Tash

WELCOME:
Welcome to the 12 Days of Creepfest; a celebration of Christmas spooks and horror and an opportunity to introduce you to some wonderful horror and Dark Fairytale writers. Firstly thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Treadway (@creepywalker) for organising this fun trip.
Today I am happy to welcome the brilliant Red Tash, Author of 'This Brilliant Darkness.'

BIO:Red Tash was born in a rain barrel behind the old aluminum barn on the back 40 of her parents’ Indiana homestead. After self-learnin’ herself to spell and type, riding side-saddle on a rusted-out, empty Silgas tank, she ran away from home to join the journalism circus, and began writing comic strips and 100% fabricated horoscopes for a network of local newspapers across These Here United States of America.

Eventually, Red tired of making up corny jokes and telling fortunes, so she retired from the newspaper biz to become a VJ on MTV. You might remember Red spinning out the hits between news reports from Kurt Loder, and the indecipherable jokes made by Downtown Julie Brown.

Then again, you might not.

Because some of the above was false.

The truth:

Red Tash knows that all you really care about is that she writes good stories. She does that. Red’s books make you think, make you wonder, make you laugh, and keep you turning pages. They’ve been known to keep hardened readers up at night, racing to the end of the book.

Presently, Red has one (count ‘em) one longform book available, entitled This Brilliant Darkness. It is the first in a series, and someday it hopes to be a graphic novel.


INTERVIEW:

In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Mother, fighter, kick-ass writer, newlywed and ex-rollergirl

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
Erudite, boastful, proud, ridiculously creative, generous, funny, dark.

Tell us more about your current work and projects?
Finishing a YA roller derby fantasy set in rural Indiana, starring a queer kid and a bunch of drug-addicted fairies and trolls. You know, popcorn stuff.

Which writers are your biggest influence?
Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Jo Rowling, Stephen King, Melissa Marr.

What is your favourite book / story of all time?
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. When I die, I'm going to the Yule Ball to dance forever.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
Christmas is an inherently dark time. I think the better question (for me) is "How do you bring the light, without making it corny?" In my personal life, I give myself over completely to the corniness. I sing Christmas Carols with the kids, I bake--but at the end of the day, I will weep along to O Holy Night, and I realize the reason I cry so hard is because of all those sad memories of Christmas. I know I'm not the only one who's had a real Severus Snape kind of childhood. It is what it is--there'll never be an appreciation for the goodness & light if one hasn't experienced the pain of what Christmas is supposed to be--and found oneself left out of that.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
Having all my family with me on Christmas morning, a lovely fire, a huge tree, everyone is happy with their gifts, and I don't have to clean up the mess!

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Jesus (it's his party, right?), T.S. Eliot, Einstein, Dumbledore, & Leonardo da Vinci

What are your New Year wishes?
Beyond the standard Peace on Earth thing, I'd love for everyone I love to be healthy. I'd also love to make a living from my writing. I traded a freelance career for this experiment in fiction, and I'd love for that gamble to break even.

Just for fun: TRIVIA

Christmas pudding or Stilton Cheese?
No idea. I'll go with the cheese.

Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
The Pogues

The Queen's Speech or Taking out your own eyeballs?
I'm going to pass!

Turkey or Ham?
Beans & rice! Animal food grosses me out. I eat it, but I can't think about it too much.

Brussel Sprouts or Carrots?
Sprouts!

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Super corny Holy Jolly. ;)

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#12DaysofCreepfest Author Interview: Annetta Ribken

Author Bio:

Annetta has been writing since words were carved on stone tablets with chisels. Not only does she write her own words, Annetta is also an accomplished editor. She lives just outside of St. Louis with her evil feline overlord, a rescued shelter cat named Athena


"Athena's Promise" synopsis:
Compared to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, meet Pallas, the heroine of "Athena's Promise". As the front desk manager of a hotel on the edge of Zombietown, Pallas is used to dealing with angry centaurs, surly trolls, and zombie housekeepers. The trouble really starts when one of her guests ends up dead. But that's not her only problem.

A cop with an attitude – can he be trusted to be more than just a pain in her ass or does he have a more sinister agenda?

A new Guest Services Manager, out for her job and ready to sacrifice anyone in his way – what does he really want?

The attractive maintenance guy, endangering the promise she made out of necessity to the Goddess Athena – does he know more than he's telling?

A mermaid diva, whose show at the Sparkling Butterfly must go on – or else. Pallas needs to find the killer, and fast, or she'll lose her job, her home, and the ragtag family she's adopted out of her crew of "critters". In the course of the investigation Pallas uncovers connections to a nasty Oddities dealer deep in the heart of Zombietown, forcing her to expose a trauma from her past which could threaten her future.

With everyone and everything she loves in danger, the promise made to the Goddess Athena may well damn her if she breaks it, but she is bound and determined to save her friends, her home, and everything she's built.

No matter what it takes.

INTERVIEW:

In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Silly, serious, loyal, focused, addicted to words. Professional hermit with a deep allergy to the Out. Cat lover, mother, grandmother, but only 19 years old in my head.

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
I am a driven workaholic with an overactive imagination and a number of storylines I'm trying to untangle. I love the creative process; it's exhilarating and amazing fun.

Tell us more about your current work and projects.
Every day is different, which is one of the things I love the most about my job. I have three editing projects going on in various stages; working with a client on a large project; poking around trying to get "Athena's Chains", the next book in my trilogy plotted; several shorts planned. A boss of mine used to say, "Busy is good." I agree.

Which writers are your biggest influence?
Stephen King and Robin McKinley. I think Stephen King is amazingly talented in the way he brings people to life. There are very few books I've read of his that I feel I could not recognize his characters were I to bump into them on the street. I admire that more than I can say.

Robin McKinley has a beautiful, lyrical style that really appeals to me. Her book, "Deerskin", moved me in so many ways. I love taking a fairy tale or established mythology and give it a good twist, which is what she does here without the usual happy ending. It's a fabulous book.

What is your favourite book / story of all time?
This is too difficult. I would say if I were on a deserted island and could only bring one book, it would have to be "Dragonriders of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
I like to watch Christmas movies like the Blade Trilogy, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Grinch is my hero before he gets all mushy. Christmas today is a whole lot different than when I grew up, and I don't like it much now. I try to avoid all the commercialism, the sales, the pressure to clean and cook and shop and wrap and bake and…well, you get the picture.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
My perfect fantasy Christmas day would start off by coffee served in bed by a naked minion, while another naked minion cooks dinner. My kids would be here with my grandson for a visit, and we would enjoy the cookies made by yet another naked minion.

Well, maybe not naked if my kids were here.

After a nice meal, everybody goes home. Go on. Get out.

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Nathan Fillion, Stephen King, Louisa May Alcott, Adam Levine, Queen Elizabeth I, Anne McCaffrey.

What are your New Year wishes?
Health, wealth, and happiness. Oh, and world peace. That would be nice.

Just for fun: TRIVIA

Christmas pudding or Stilton Cheese?
Cheese.

Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
Bing.

The Queen's Speech or Taking out your own eyeballs?
Taking out my own eyeballs. Or maybe taking out the Queen's eyeballs. Hey, I know! Eyeballs that talk with the Queen's Speech!

Turkey or Ham?
Roast beef.

Brussel Sprouts or Carrots?
Roasted Brussel sprouts. MMMMM!

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Jolly humbug. Heh.

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12 Days of #CreepFest: Author Interview with Stant Litore

WELCOME:
Welcome to the 12 Days of Creepfest; a celebration of Christmas spooks and horror and an opportunity to introduce you to some wonderful horror and Dark Fairytale writers. Firstly thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Treadway (@creepywalker) for organising this fun trip.

Today I am happy to welcome the brilliant Stant Litore, author of the series The Zombie Bible.

INTERVIEW:
In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Will stop on a blizzard day to help someone whose car is busted. Have an incurable phobia of zombies, jellyfish, and Westboro Baptist Church.

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
Knives flashing in the dark. Sometimes you have to cut deep to find the real beating heart of the story.

Tell us more about your current work and projects?
You’re going to want to check out The Zombie Bible. It’s a series of biblical tales retold as episodes of humanity’s long struggle against hunger and the hungry dead. Not your parents’ Sunday School. These stories have teeth. And heart. The most recent novel is set in second-century Rome and it’s about a priest who can bring peace to the walking, ravenous dead. But Rome might burn him for it.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
I’ll be honest, Christmas is the one day of the year that my mind is not dwelling on horror. In Hamlet, the guards describe how all the ghosts and bogeymen go to sleep when the cock crows at dawn on Christmas day. It’s the day when peace and goodwill lies over the earth.
But I will say this; While we eat our Christmas dinners and spend time with family, in many parts of the world children are starving, women in remote villages are walking ten miles to fetch a bucket of clean water while other women in crowded cities – right here in our own country – are working strip clubs under duress because if they don’t, they’ll have the shit beat out of them. Still other people are watching their homes be burned, or are packing in a hurry to get out. The dark side of Christmas is that a whole lot of people are suffering, and most of us aren’t thinking about them or acting to see justice done. Most of us are just breathing a sigh of relief that we managed to buy so many things before they sold out; in many cases, these are things manufactured in sweat shops and slave factories on distant shores.
I think if we really want to talk about wishing a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, we should have a moment of silence somewhere in the day and resolve to do what we can to make one hell of a difference this next year. Even if we just make a big difference for one person. Because otherwise, our Christmas dinner is a dinner served on the backs of broken and enslaved people and on the beaten bones of children, and the beautiful truths we tell ourselves about the season start to become lies.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
Now that is a happier question. I actually think I am going to skip over the first few hours of that perfect Christmas and not describe them at all, and as my beautiful wife would be intimately involved in those hours, I think she’d appreciate that. But later in the morning I would see my two girls opening gifts and playing together, and we would have family calling in or visiting in the afternoon, and a dinner with some glorious vegetarian options for my wife and the most delicious turkey or ham you can find, for me. There would be wine. There would be laughter. There would be pictures and old stories. Wouldn’t mind a bit of snow outside and warmth in the hearth. I suppose this sounds real lazy – someone interviewed on here is going to want to go sky-diving on Christmas Day, I just know it – but there it is. Just Christmas at home with the people who matter to me.

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Since it’s the Christmas table, I’d pick the famous people who knew how to party and how to laugh fit to shake the room. I’d want Hafiz there – I think he’d be belly-laughing over pretty much everything, and trying to get the rest of us to. I think Abe Lincoln, because I admire him and he really needed a break and some people to cheer him up, there toward the end. Think we might could do that; my family is a cheerful crew.

Let’s see, how many left, four? Anne McCaffrey. She’d be spinning yarns, and a Christmas dinner isn’t anything without a few good yarns. And, well, I miss her. How about Themistocles, the hero of the Persian Wars? Frankly, you need a veteran at the table. He’ll show off his scars, his voice will boom out when there’s a lull, he’ll belt out carols off-key, and he may well try to dominate the table, but we’ll enjoy having him there.

Also, I’m sure this is one of those ‘oh come on, you didn’t pick him’ answers, but let’s get the Rabbi Jesus there, too. We won’t run out of wine, and he always seemed to have just the right thing to say. And since I’ve got one left, Barack Obama. If you’ve seen the benefits dinners, you know. Man can tell a joke.

What are your New Year wishes?
I’d like to introduce a lot more people to The Zombie Bible. :) Seriously, though, I would really like to be a better father this year. I am acutely aware that my two daughters are growing fast, and I’m aware of how much of a man gets sunk into work and projects. My girls need me, and I don’t want to miss one moment with them.

Just for fun: TRIVIA
Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
Crosby for Christmas. But please give me some good Celtic music the next day.

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Jolliness. I’m not old and bitter yet. May I never be.

http://zombiebible.blogspot.com
http://zombiebible.blogspot.com