I’ve officially sold a horror story, due to come out this fall!  People sometimes do a double-take when they hear I write horror.  I guess I don’t put off some sort of expected vibe, whatever that may be.  I’ll admit I was a skittish child, although I was raised by choice on a steady diet of dark animation.

As far as my exposure to creepy and twisted literature, I can still remember one of my sisters telling me about the classic story “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs.  She spoke about it spoiler-free, but its impression upon her, complete with shudders and wincing, intrigued me.  I had to seek it out.  Reading it made quite an impression on me, a radical departure from my sheltered reading list as a sixth grader!  When this same sister told me about Roald Dahl’s adult short stories a few years later, I immediately got a collection from the library.  I’ve never forgotten how haunting some of those works are.

Then came Edgar Allan Poe.  A high school English teacher read us some of his works in October—and it’s no wonder that as an adult I decorate my living and dining rooms for Halloween every year in Poe themed décor.  In college I read “The Fall of the House of Usher” right before I went on a Halloween flashlight tour of the nearby Winchester Mystery House, which made the outing extra memorable.

Fall is such a perfect time for horror, so keep your eye out later this year for the horror anthology Nothing’s Sacred Vol. 4.  My story “My Little Sugar Plum” will be included.