I have always written - in grade school I wrote sci-fi stories in homage to my favorite authors at the time, like Isaac Asimov and Clifford Simak. In high school, I wrote a lot of songs and poetry and decided I wanted to be a journalist -- so I wrote for the school paper and even published my first short piece of fiction there. But I suppose I became "an author" when I first really focused on writing short fiction, and began sending it out to national magazines. That was back in 1993. My first two stories appeared in print in the first weeks of 1994 in two small press magazines -- Gaslight and Eulogy. Over the next few years, I published dozens of stories in magazines and anthologies.
• What was your inspiration to write horror/sci-fi novels? It's kind of funny - I grew up reading science fiction, the classic "Golden Age" space opera stuff. But that's not the kind of stuff I seem to be able to write, even though it inspired me. Whenever I had ideas for short stories, they always seemed to turn out with dark twists, and rarely ever involved science or aliens or the like (though I have written a few SF tales). My early short stories were very influenced by Richard Matheson, who worked with both science fiction and the macabre. Some of those pieces appear in my collection VIGILANTES OF LOVE, from Twilight Tales Books.
After I wrote and published my first couple dozen short stories, I got inspired in the mid-90s to start my first novel based on a newspaper clipping. It was about a bar in Britain near a cliff...and about how this was the most popular spot in the country for suicides. The article made me think about what sinister force could have "really" been behind the suicides...and that was how COVENANT was born (the premise behind my book is that a spirit inhabits the cliff and has a secret "covenant" with the townspeople to protect them -- at the cost of periodic sacrifices). It took almost a decade from the time when I first thought of the concept and wrote the first words until the novel was actually published at the end of 2004. And in the summer of 2005, the book actually won a national award -- it received the HWA Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a first novel!
• Do you think that in the future one of your novels could possibly become a feature film? I hope so! Obviously movies help raise the exposure of an author's work. I'd like to get my stories to as many readers as I can. A couple of Hollywood scriptwriters have looked at COVENANT, but so far nothing has happened there. But in addition to COVENANT, I have a novelette out called FAILURE (about three teens who get involved in an erotic plot to reincarnate the spirit of a witch) and two book collections of my short fiction out there (with another on the way), so there are plenty of chances for one of my pieces to get adapted! I've obviously written a lot more short stories than novels, but quite often a short story forms a better basis for a movie than longer novel-length works.
• Is there a title that is your favorite? I think every artist likes his most recent work the best! I have a new novel and a sequel to COVENANT that's coming out from Delirium Books in early 2007 titled SACRIFICE. So I'm really excited about that right now. I also am putting together a new short story collection for release next year with Necro Publications, a publisher I've always wanted to work with. I think some of my best short fiction will be in that book. And as far as my artwork, I think I like the cover to SPOOKS! a ghost story anthology I co-edited and designed the best - it features a ghostly image of my wife on the cover!
• What are your plans for a future project?
I'm in the midst of finalizing edits for SACRIFICE and stories for the next short fiction collection...so I can't see much beyond those right now. But I do want to begin a 3rd novel once those projects are complete. I just have to decide what. I have a handful of different novel-length stories I'd like to tell!
• Tell me about your latest book?My latest book is CANDY IN THE DUMPSTER, a 4-author anthology that I published through my own Dark Arts Books.
It was released at the World Horror Convention in the spring as a sampler of all of our work (each of us have 3 stories in it).The book includes one of my most popular short stories that's been reprinted a few times, "Pumpkin Head," as well as a previously unpublished story "The White House." The other authors in the book are Jay Bonansinga, Bill Breedlove and Martin Mundt, and they all contributed some amazingly twisted (and often disturbingly funny) pieces to the book.
My most recent solo book is FAILURE, a small pocket-sized novelette that came out in January of this year from Delirium Books.
I also got to do the cover art for FAILURE (I've done several book covers and web site designs over the years, since I dabble as a graphic artist as well). The book has received great reviews (including one in the most recent Cemetery Dance magazine). Here's the publisher's description:
"Raymond is such a failure, he can't even kill himself and get it right.
Cindy just plain doesn't care; she'll get on her knees for anyone beneath
the football field bleachers to score a nickel bag hit. And Sal is a
frustrated goon with a hook nose and an attitude so sour he can't nail a
girl even with the lure of free dope and a getaway car. When these three
desperate teens meet Aaron, a failed practitioner of the dark arts who
offers them the best high they've ever smoked in exchange for some kinky
sexplay inside his pentagram, things can only go from bad to worse. Aaron
hopes to ensnare and re-birth the spirit of a late witch, to capture her
power from beyond the grave for his own. Soon, they'll all learn the
darkest, bloodiest, most terrifying definition of Failure."
My next book titled SACRIFICE, will be out soon and as I mentioned, it's a sequel to COVENANT. It revolves around a sexy serial killer named Ariana who is using ritual erotic sacrifices to open the door to our world to a race of sadistic spirits. Joe, the reporter and lead character from COVENANT teams up with a demon and a young witch to follow the trail of Ariana's murders to try to catch and stop her before the world can be overrun with demons.
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Thanks for your interest in my work, and I hope you'll stop by my website to see more of my "Dark Arts" at:
