Cemetery Dance Interviews

Interview: Victoria Price

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Cemetery Dance Interviews

Victoria Price (Photo Copyright Robert Cushing)
Victoria Price
(Photo Copyright Robert Cushing)

Decades before the Dos Equis commercials, Vincent Price was “the most interesting man in the world.” Or at least, in my world.

I think I was six or seven when I first saw him on TV. Was it his guest appearance as a sinister archaeologist on an after-school rerun of The Brady Bunch? Or maybe some Saturday afternoon when the late, lamented channel 48 in Philadelphia showed House of Wax as part of Creature Double Feature? I can’t say for sure.

All I know is that he made an impression. Having grown up in a working class family where the dial was set to pro wrestling more than PBS, I wasn’t introduced to that many examples of erudite sophistication. And while Price’s filmography is certainly rife with camp, that wasn’t clear to me as a kid. What was clear to me was that Vincent Price played educated characters. Often artistic or scholarly characters. His film personas may have given me the first examples of such people.Continue Reading

Miles Hyman: Getting Graphic with Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”

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lotterygnModern horror wouldn’t be what it is today without the influence of Shirley Jackson’s writing. Her grandson, Miles Hyman, pursued a career in art and has worked on many books and graphic novels, including a recent graphic novel adaptation of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, published by Archaia. Now he’s releasing his graphic novel adaptation of “The Lottery,” out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 25, to scare new readers and show old ones a new way of looking at the iconic short story.Continue Reading

Exploring the Dark Side of Sci-Fi with Michael Bailey and Richard Chizmar

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YouHumanDark Regions Press has enlisted Bram Stoker Award-winning editor Michael Bailey to christen the new Dark Regions Sci-Fi imprint with You, Human, a genre-bending anthology of dark science fiction and poetry. The collection, featured as part of an Indiegogo campaign (which also seeks to produce Return of the Old Ones: Apocalyptic Lovecraftian Horror and The Children of Gla’aki: A Tribute to Ramsey Campbell’s Great Old One) is illustrated by world-renowned artist L.A. Spooner, with poetry and spot illustrations supplied by Orion Zangara.

The campaign is entering its final days, and stands very close to its funding goal as of this writing. We were able to send a few questions to Bailey and one of You, Human‘s contributors, Cemetery Dance’s own Richard Chizmar, about their journey into the dark side of sci-fi.Continue Reading

‘Con’ Man: Adam Cesare on Fans, Cons and ‘The Con Season’

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‘Con’ Man: Adam Cesare on Fans, Cons
and ‘The Con Season’

ConSeasonAdam Cesare’s new novel, The Con Season, is available to read for free right now—well, the first couple of chapters, anyway. If you want to read the rest, you first have to do your part in helping it get published.

Like many authors (such as Norman Prentiss), Cesare is testing the waters of the Kindle Scout program with his latest work. Readers can check out a portion of the book and throw a nomination its way if they would like to see it published. Cesare talks more about the program in our interview, but suffice to say that it’s another innovative approach to publishing made possible by today’s technology.

You can check out The Con Season at Amazon, but before you do, take a few moments and enjoy this chat with Cesare, who talks about the slightly unreal world of horror conventions, the mindset of horror film and literature fandom, and much more.
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Ramsey Campbell on bookstores, scary limericks, and 'The Booking'

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Ramsey Campbell on bookstores, scary limericks, and ‘The Booking’

booking-cover-mockupFor the third book in the Black Labyrinth line of psychological suspense novellas, Chris Morey, owner/publisher of Dark Regions Press, turned to a master of the form: Ramsey Campbell. It was a move Morey has long envisioned making.

“Ramsey Campbell was a must for the Black Labyrinth imprint,” Morey said. “I knew I wanted an original piece from Ramsey for the imprint on the day that the imprint first materialized.”

Morey got his wish, and earlier this week the preorder period for Campbell’s The Booking began. The story sounds like classic Campbell:

Kiefer is desperate for a job when he comes upon an opening at a curious bookstore in England, BOOKS ARE LIFE. He approaches the owner for a job and gets it, learning quickly that the owner is stranger than the books that he sells in the shop. As he continues to help the bookstore’s transition to the internet, he discovers oddities in the shop and has increasingly strange visions and encounters.

We here at Cemetery Dance Online were honored to get a few words from Campbell on The Booking and its inspiration.

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Ramsey Campbell on bookstores, scary limericks, and ‘The Booking’

Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsTags , , , , , 1 Comment on Ramsey Campbell on bookstores, scary limericks, and ‘The Booking’

Ramsey Campbell on bookstores, scary limericks, and ‘The Booking’

booking-cover-mockupFor the third book in the Black Labyrinth line of psychological suspense novellas, Chris Morey, owner/publisher of Dark Regions Press, turned to a master of the form: Ramsey Campbell. It was a move Morey has long envisioned making.

“Ramsey Campbell was a must for the Black Labyrinth imprint,” Morey said. “I knew I wanted an original piece from Ramsey for the imprint on the day that the imprint first materialized.”

Morey got his wish, and earlier this week the preorder period for Campbell’s The Booking began. The story sounds like classic Campbell:

Kiefer is desperate for a job when he comes upon an opening at a curious bookstore in England, BOOKS ARE LIFE. He approaches the owner for a job and gets it, learning quickly that the owner is stranger than the books that he sells in the shop. As he continues to help the bookstore’s transition to the internet, he discovers oddities in the shop and has increasingly strange visions and encounters.

We here at Cemetery Dance Online were honored to get a few words from Campbell on The Booking and its inspiration.

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Norman Prentiss on "Odd Adventures with Your Other Father"

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Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

Author Norman Prentiss has taken his decidedly unconventional road trip/horror novel, Odd Adventures with Your Other Father, and brought it to audiences via a new, non-traditional publishing route: the Kindle Scout program. A little over a month after its official publication on May 31, it looks like the book—and Prentiss’s chosen method of publication—can be called a success: early readers responded favorably to the book, and now it’s opening up new audiences for the talented author. Recently, Prentiss took a few moments to speak to Cemetery Dance Online about his recent Odd Adventures.

(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)Continue Reading

Norman Prentiss on “Odd Adventures with Your Other Father”

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Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

Author Norman Prentiss has taken his decidedly unconventional road trip/horror novel, Odd Adventures with Your Other Father, and brought it to audiences via a new, non-traditional publishing route: the Kindle Scout program. A little over a month after its official publication on May 31, it looks like the book—and Prentiss’s chosen method of publication—can be called a success: early readers responded favorably to the book, and now it’s opening up new audiences for the talented author. Recently, Prentiss took a few moments to speak to Cemetery Dance Online about his recent Odd Adventures.

(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)Continue Reading

Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride: Collaborating on 'The Narrator'

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Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride:
Collaborating on The Narrator

The Narrator eBook

The Narrator, written by Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride, was first released by Cemetery Dance in 2014 in a trade paperback edition. Now it’s back in a new digital edition, and the authors took this chance to sit down and look back on their work together.

The Narrator: The children in Julia Linder’s sixth grade class have grown increasingly agitated. The symptoms are spreading and the source seems to be stories that seize upon the children’s deeply seated fears and intensify them….  

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An Interview with Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman: Talking "Odd Numbers" and "How the Wind Lies"

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An Interview with Richard Chizmar
and Brian James Freeman:
Talking “Odd Numbers” and “How the Wind Lies”

In April, Keith Minnion’s White Noise Press is publishing a “flipbook” of two stories: “Odd Numbers” by Richard Chizmar and “How the Wind Lies” by Brian James Freeman. White Noise Press produces beautiful, hand-crafted chapbooks in very limited numbers, attractive to own and collect. And as the line-up for this latest chapbook attests, readers get great fiction from well-known genre authors.Continue Reading

An Interview with Damien Angelica Walters: Taming the 'Paper Tigers'

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An Interview with Damien Angelica Walters:
Taming the Paper Tigers

Dark House Press will release Damien Angelica Walters‘ new novel, Paper Tigers, on February 29. An author’s life is always extra hectic when a new release is close, so we at Cemetery Dance Online were glad to snag a few minutes with Walters to talk about her latest book and her approach to the craft of writing. We invite you to spend some time with Walters today, and check back on February 22 for an exclusive excerpt of Paper Tigers.Continue Reading

An Interview with Richard Chizmar: Looking Forward to 'A Long December'

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An Interview with Richard Chizmar: 
Looking Forward to A Long December

LongDecemberRichard Chizmar is perhaps best known as the founder of Cemetery Dance magazine and Cemetery Dance Publications. He is also an accomplished writer, with fiction appearing in dozens of publications, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. HIs fiction has netted him several prestigious awards, including two World Fantasy Awards, four International Horror Guild Awards, and the Horror Writers Association’s Board of Trustees Award.

Recently, Chizmar announced that Subterranean Press will be publishing A Long December, a massive collection of thirty-five stories spanning his career. The book comes twenty years after Chizmar’s first collection, Midnight Promises, itself a finalist for a World Fantasy Award. Advance buzz on A Long December has been strong, with novelist Scott Smith (The Ruins, A Simple Plan) saying, “…Chizmar does a tremendous job of peeling back his world’s shiny layers, revealing the rot that lies underneath. His stories feel like so many teeth: short and sharp and ready to draw blood.”

Read on for insight from the author about this upcoming collection, including what was behind his decision to publish it through a press other than his own.
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An Interview with Mark Miller: Bringing Joe Lansdale's 'Steam Man' to Comics

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An Interview with Mark Miller:
Bringing Joe Lansdale’s “Steam Man” to Comics

Giant robots, albino apes and invading Martians? It’s a tale tailor-made for comics. Mark Miller worked with the Joe Lansdale, author of the short story in question, to adapt The Steam Man for Dark Horse Comics. Recently, Miller was kind enough to answer a few questions about the process for Cemetery Dance Online.
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An Interview with John Skipp & Andrew Kasch: Telling 'Tales of Halloween'

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An Interview with John Skipp & Andrew Kasch:
Telling ‘Tales of Halloween’

TalesHalloween2One Halloween night. Ten interlocking tales. That’s the premise of Tales of Halloween, the new anthology film scheduled for limited theater and nationwide video on demand release on October 16. The movie boasts an impressive lineup of creative talent, including directors Lucky McKee (May, Red) and Neil Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers), and the writer/director combo John Skipp and Andrew Kasch.

Skipp and Kasch were kind enough to take time away from their hectic pre-release schedule to talk about their segment of the film, how it all came together, and what it was like to film a Halloween movie in the middle of the Christmas season.Continue Reading

An Interview with Chris Morey: Staring into the 'ABYSS'

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An Interview with Chris Morey:
Staring into the ABYSS

AbyssArtDark Regions Press has been a staple of the dark fiction publishing scene for 30 years, releasing works from authors such as Clive Barker, Joe R. Lansdale, Rick Hautala, Tim Waggoner, and many more. Owner/publisher Chris Morey takes great pains to lead his team in not only finding great stories, but in presenting those stories in impeccably designed editions. His latest project is I AM THE ABYSS, an anthology featuring ten novellas focused on the afterlife. Recently, Morey took a few moments away from preparing for the launch of the book’s Kickstarter campaign to talk to Cemetery Dance Online.
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