Stephen Graham Jones is to slashers what peanut butter is to jelly. Separately they are still awesome, but together they are perfection. With the popularity of the genre on the rise again due to movies such as Fear Street and the new Halloween Kills, and books from powerhouses such as Grady Hendrix, I got to sit down to chat with Stephen about his own latest release, My Heart is a Chainsaw.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Rayne King, New Kid on the (Horror) Block
You’re a lifelong horror fan and avid reader. You’ve dipped your toes into social media, followed some of your favorite authors. Now you have written your own novella and self-published it. Cue tumbleweed? Just how do you get yourself out there and seen? I sat down and chatted with Rayne King who has recently been through this very process. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Janine Pipe looks into Glenn Rolfe’s August Eyes
In which Janine Pipe talks to indie author Glenn Rolfe about his latest Flame Tree Press book, August’s Eyes, and what it is like to be the second most famous writer out of Maine.
Glenn was one of the first authors I stumbled across in the indie horror scene and he immediately became a firm favorite of mine. I have read almost all of his work (including some as-yet-unreleased manuscripts) and was positively frothing at the bit to get my hands on August’s Eyes, due for publication this August. It is always a pleasure to talk with Glenn, who selflessly shares his experiences with others and has been a much-needed mentor and friend. We sat down and chatted about the new book, the almighty Don D’Auria, and what might be next for him.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Ride or Die with James Newman
James Newman is that rare breed of storyteller where reading him is akin to being transported to the other side of his kitchen table as he recounts his latest experience. You can just about feel a cool breeze blowing in from an open window to carry his voice far beyond the written pages they were intended for. His natural, intimate writing style easily pulls in all who read him so that they’re not just enjoying his tales, but made to feel a part of them.
From his critically acclaimed debut novel, Midnight Rain, to several novels and novellas since including Ugly As Sin, Animosity, and Night of the Loving Dead, to the film adaptation based on his novella The Special (co-written with Mark Streensland), Newman continues to prove why he’s worth keeping a sharp eye on. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Barry Hoffman on his Silent Scream
Barry Hoffman is a veteran author who isn’t afraid to speak or write his mind when it comes to the darker, more troubled side of society’s core. Founder of the Bram Stoker award-winning specialty press, Gauntlet Press, Barry is well known for his Eyes series and several outstanding stand-alone novels such as Track of My Eyes and, most recently, Silent Scream. Never one to shy from controversy, Hoffman often pushes the envelope on the personal turmoil of his characters while navigating them through the streets of Philadelphia, whether it’s to track down human monsters or fight to survive a force that’s not quite human at all.Continue Reading
After decades of cranking out high-caliber, genre-smashing literature, and with a badass martial arts pedigree to boot, it’s remarkable that no one tackled a documentary about East Texas’ reigning champion of mojo storytelling, Joe R. Lansdale. Along came intrepid New York City filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer, a self-described fangrrrl who grabbed her camera and jetted to the source, joining Lansdale in his hometown Nacogdoches, Texas, to film All Hail the Popcorn King. It was a journey — what Lansdale’s rabid fans might call a pilgrimage — to East Texas, the site where the local color echoes through Lansdale’s masterful tales of blue-collar anti-heroes, two-bit criminals, and voracious monsters lurking in raucous honky-tonks, musty movie houses, and swampy bottom lands frequented by their fictionalized counterparts. Through her lens, Oppenheimer grants us an intimate visit with our favorite raconteur, inviting us into the oldest town in Texas, and the place Lansdale calls home.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Brian Keene Sinks His Teeth into the Vampire Genre
Brian Keene is a multi award-winning author of over fifty books in the horror, fantasy and crime fiction world. Heavily influencing the resurgence of current zombie popularity, he also writes comic books in the same DC and Marvel universes he grew up loving. He also organizes the charity event Scares That Care, is a family man who enjoys fishing along the borders of Casa Keene and routinely supports his fellow writers to usher in a new era of dark scribes to help keep this thing of ours trucking along.
Most recently, I sat down with Brian to discuss his newest novella, With Teeth, a breakneck vampire tale several years in the making. Along the way, we also discuss the inner workings and eventual conclusion of Keene’s own Labyrinth mythos, what he’s working on next, his favorite vampire, and a whole lot more.Continue Reading
An Associate Professor at OCAD University of Toronto, George A. Walker is an award-winning Canadian wood engraver, teacher, book artist, author and illustrator who resides in Toronto, Ontario. Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art for his contribution to the cultural area of Book Arts, George has exhibited his wood engravings and limited-edition books internationally for over twenty years through such presses as Cheshire Cat Press, Porcupine Quill Press, and Biting Dog Press. George has also created highly collectable, revered works such as The Mysterious Death of Tom Thompson (2011), Book of Hours: A 9/11 Story (2008) and The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe (2005) among many others. George continues to carve his visionary style and prowess into the woods of Canadian Maple, often making his paper by scratch, and inspires awe and wonder with every groove of his engraving tools.
Most recently, I sat down with George to discuss his design work on Necronomicon: A Manual of Corpse Eating, written by Martin Llewellyn. Originally published in 2019, it’s promotional push was interrupted by our current pandemic, but a proper launch party is planned for the near future. Sit back and enjoy as George and I discuss what drew him to this morbid and fascinating world of sacrifice and scientific controversy. Continue Reading
Martin Llewellyn is a graduate of King’s College in London, UK, where he studied literature and earned his doctorate. His novels include House of the Missing and Necronomicon: A Manual of Corpse Eating, which I was fortunate enough to chat with him about.
Necronomicon is a metafictional representation of Abdulah Alhazred polarizing medical practices as he evolved into ritualistic religious practices which eventually drove him insane during his pursuit to communicate with the Old Gods and achieve life beyond death.
Join Martin and I as we discuss teachings and inspirations surrounding his newest book, poignantly illustrated by the award-winning wood engraver, George A. Walker.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on The Cemetery Dance Interview: Max Booth III
Max Booth III is the editor-in-chief of Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, the managing editor of Dark Moon Digest, and the host of two podcasts: Ghoulish and Castle Rock Radio. He’s the author of We Need to Do Something, Touch the Night, Carnivorous Lunar Activities, and several other novels. Bylines include LitReactor, CrimeReads, the San Antonio Current, Fangoria, and Film 14. Follow him on Twitter (GiveMeYourTeeth) or visit him at TalesFromTheBooth.com. He lives in Texas.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Douglas Wynne Talks Technology and Terror
Douglas Wynne wrote his first novel as a teen, but his creative path detoured through the music industry before returning to his literary calling. He now crafts dark fantasy that indulges the author’s curiosity in shadowy cults, conspiracies, and the occult, including his SPECTRA Files series (Red Equinox, Black January, Cthulhu Blues), The Devil of Echo Lake, and Steel Breeze, which pitted resilient characters against malevolent forces inciting catastrophe. Wynne’s work flourishes from a postmodern approach to eldritch tales, where elder gods and demons infiltrate the contemporary world and wreak havoc on twenty-first century life, often through song, a devilish way for the writer to remain connected to his musical roots. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: Discussing Damage and Dread with Kevin Quigley
Massachusetts pop culture scribe and novelist Kevin Quigley’s career began in 1996 at the age of twenty-one when he established his own Stephen King fan site, Charnel House. There he wrote about King’s work in all its various shapes and forms. From there he went on to pen articles and books on King (such as Ink in the Veins: Writing on Stephen King and The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book, which he co-wrote with Hans-Ake Lilja and Brian James Freeman) for Cemetery Dance Publications. In addition, he has contributed essays to other writers’ works, such as Stephen Spignesi and Michael Lewis’ Elton John: 50 Years On, Brian James Freeman’s Reading Stephen King, and Anthony Northrup’s forthcoming Stephen King Dollar Baby: The Book, just to name a few. He has also written a book-length study of Blitzen Trapper’s 2008 album Furr. Despite these impressive accomplishments, Quigley’s true passion is writing fiction.
Quigley has only published two novels, I’m On Fire and Roller Disco Saturday Night, although he claims to have written another thirty that are unpublished. At this point in his fiction career, it’s his short fiction that he’s best known for. His short stories have appeared alongside the likes of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ramsay Campbell, Richard Chizmar, and Clive Barker in the anthologies Shining in the Dark (edited by Hans-Ake Lilja) and Halloween Carnival: Volume Five (edited by Brian James Freeman). He has published two impressive short story collections (both with Cemetery Dance), This Terrestrial Hell (2012) and Damage and Dread (2020). His stories are masterful and cover a lot of ground in terms of scope and tone.
With this in mind, I sat down to talk with Kevin Quigley about his fantastic new collection Damage and Dread and all things writing.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Dead AirLeave a comment on Dead Air: The Company of the Mad – The Stand Podcast 
2020 was a hell of a year to be reading Stephen King’s 1978 novel, The Stand….never mind devoting an entire podcast to it.
Jason Sechrest thought the same thing — in fact, he was reading it when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. He took to Twitter with his thoughts about the book, and with a dream about examining it in detail in a podcast, and before he knew it he’d assembled an amazing lineup of co-hosts: director Mike Flanagan, author Tananarive Due, and journalist/author Anthony Breznican. The result is a six-episode podcast that is entertaining, informative, and incredibly timely. (You can WATCH The Company of the Mad: The Stand Podcast at TheStandPodcast.com, or LISTEN on Apple Podcasts here.)
With the final episode set to go live on January 20, Sechrest took a few moments to talk to Cemetery Dance about the origins of the project, and what he and his mad company learned along the way.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on Interview: John Urbancik’s Dark Walk
John Urbancik has kept the ink flowing across the blurred lines of dark fantasy and horror with well over twenty books to date and counting. His rich style invokes a strong sense of cautious wonder even as you fear what lurks beyond the next page. From a book of poems and stunning photography (John The Revelator) to his non-fic book on the inner workings of his craft (InkStained: On Creativity, Writing And Art) to the recent release of the apocalyptic tale of terror he co-wrote with Brian Keene (Nemesai), Urbancik’s craft is limitless in its boundaries.
Included in Urbanick’s body of work is a six volume DarkWalker series which kicked off in 2010 with DarkWalker (re-titled as DarkWalker: Hunting Grounds when re-published in 2017). The series follows the journey of Jack Harlow, a man who’s been kissed by a ghost and gifted the ability to walk among creatures of the night, untouched, absorbing the powers of each entity encountered. Barely understanding his own capabilities, Jack traverses through hell to save his soulmate before fighting every being imaginable within unimaginable realms until he encounters The DarkCrawler. The evil force is more powerful than anything Jack has faced and threatens to destroy everything he ever cared about. It’s this poignant series that brought Urbancik and I together for the conversation you’re about to read.Continue Reading
Barry Hoffman is a former inner city school teacher who founded Gauntlet Press Magazine, which focused on topics of censorship and controversial subject matters of the day. Barry is currently the founder and editor of Gauntlet Press Publications, a Bram Stoker award-winning independent specialty Press with numerous titles from legendary authors such as Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and Jack Ketchum., and is also an author in his own right with several titles to his name including the ongoing acclaimed Eyes series.
I recently sat down with Barry to discuss Gauntlet Press’s most recent title, Hope And Miracles: The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile (Two Screenplays By Frank Darabont). This signed limited book is due to release in December and, as of this writing, there is now a waiting list for the platinum edition signed by Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Frank Darabont and Stephen King, among others; the edition also comes with a replica rock pick carved from a tree felled from the very set of The Shawshank Redemption.
Join us as we chat about this latest specialty release, certain to become one of Gauntlet’s crowning achievements. Barry details what it took to put this cinematic celebration together, what it means to have done so, and more. Continue Reading
Copyright © 1988 - 2024 Cemetery Dance Publications / Performance Website by 2C
