WHISPERS OF WICKEDNESS #11

THE ROUND ROBIN INTERVIEW

The contributors to Whispers of Wickedness #11 were asked to take part in a ‘round robin’ style interview, with the running order determined by pulling names out of a hat and each person asking a question of the one after them on the list.

What follows is the end result:-

Q – Neil Ayres: Pete, are there any contemporary British writers you think successfully use traditional horror to comment primarily on human society rather than the human condition? Most of the examples I can think of are either satire or blended with SF.

A – Peter Tennant: Short answer, no. Oh, you can find odd examples, such as a Kim Newman story of a few years back that drew an analogy between the ghosts of Victorian fiction and the urban poor, the social outcasts of the day, and another story I read in the gay ghost story anthology Queer Haunts about a homophobic and racist spirit who wasn’t going to have those people in his house, thank you very much, but they’re isolated incidents I think, rather than anybody primarily and consistently using traditional horror to address such issues.

There aren’t that many British writers doing traditional horror now anyway, at least outside of the Small Press and as the main thrust of their writing. Off the top of my head, Maynard & Sims, who used to be the masters at this sort of thing, have moved on. About Terry Lamsley, I’m not familiar enough with his material to hold an opinion and similarly, although I have the book, I haven’t yet got around to reading John Connolly’s Nocturnes. Steve Volk writes some excellent traditionally pitched tales, but it’s not his main concern. Probably the best of the current crop is Reggie Oliver, but commenting on human society as such doesn’t strike me as one of his preoccupations. Your best chance of finding social comment is in the work of writers like Ramsey Campbell and Joel Lane, who are steeped in the traditions of the genre and have assimilated its virtues, but put them to their own use. It’s not fair though to hang a traditional label on them or to limit their concerns in that way.

To oversimplify a tad, social change isn’t high on the agenda of traditional horror, much of which is deeply conservative, with the omnipresent subtext that if you stray from the path, if you don’t show appropriate respect to your elders and betters, if you don’t go to church on a Sunday or keep your hormones under control and your nose out of things that don’t concern you, then something bad is gonna git ya. Traditional horror is for the status quo and no messing, with the tale of Adam, Eve and the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge as the archetype. The great age of the ghost story was that of the Victorians, with all those tales of spectral vengeance as the secular equivalent of the hellfire preachers and their sulphur and brimstone sermonising, and in many ways I think we’re still struggling under the weight of that, haunted by the dead hand of the past just as surely as any Jamesian antiquary.

All of which might suggest that I’m down on traditional horror, but that’s far from being the case. The subgenre has its own virtues and the capability to address, if not society itself, the human condition in ways that elude other genres, and when you come right down to it human society is just the most recent codification of our understanding of that condition, the stage on which we act out the great drama of life itself. And, as a bottom line, there’s always the entertainment factor.

Q - Peter Tennant: Gavin you’re one of those obnoxious people who’re described as multi-talented. Not only have you had fiction and poetry published, but you’re also a musician and artist. I’d like to ask a two pronged question. Do you have any preference with regard to these various disciplines, and do you feel that your creative energies are spread thin as a result of being an all-rounder, or do skills picked up in one discipline help you in another?

A – Gavin Salisbury: Thanks for the question, Pete, and for the flattering comment that I'm multi-talented. I guess I do have a modicum of talent in a few directions, but how I feel about this depends a lot on how positive I'm feeling generally at the time.

I've always been happier when engaged in something creative in my life, and haven't generally been too worried whether it was art, writing or music. In negative moments I think it would be better to pick one and have a more concerted go at that and forget the other endeavours, but I can never bring myself to do it. I guess I have that stubborn kernel of arrogance underneath that I can do it all, just maybe not all at the same time. Or else I just can't commit to one direction and forget all the others!

In practice, I have phases where I do a lot of writing, and periods where I don't write anything. The same goes for painting and drawing. My least thing is music really, since all in all I've spent less time on that than the others. That's been more because it's something I can't do on my own, apart from just singing in the shower, and I've always found meeting like-minded people difficult.

I'm not sure whether one creative direction really cross-fertilises others for me, since I don't tend to be doing them all at the same time. I have had a few short 'high' periods (natural ones, I hasten to add), where that's happened, but they haven't lasted. My really creative highs tend to generate lots of ideas for projects, but of course they don't last long enough to see me through any of those projects! Then it's the slog that matters and the unwillingness to give up, even if some projects get shelved for long periods while I work out what to do with them.

Q – Gavin Salisbury: Marcia, Whisperers are familiar with your stunning artwork from D Press chapbooks, as well as past editions of the Whispers print zine, but I notice from your bio on the site that you also write poetry and fiction. Is it a conscious decision whether a particular idea turns into a story or a poem for you, or do you just get writing and see what appears?

A – Marcia Borell: For me everything has to do with an image. I am an artist first. I have to be able to see it before I can create an illustration, a story, or a poem. I have an off beat sense of humour that leads to interesting images. I was working with some young children on cartooning. I suggested that they use the weather for inspiration. They looked at me as if I was a crazy person (this happens quite frequently). I drew a rain drop. I then discussed several different kinds of facial expressions. I gave my rain drop a look of fear. Again I got the look. So I added the rest of the scene. The raindrop was plummeting into a very deep ravine. I explained that the raindrop had a fear of heights. OK . . . you sorta - kinda - needed to be there.
 

That is how it works for me. I get an image in my head. Then I choose the direction that will have the most punch or that will show the image I see to other people. Some times it needs to happen with a drawing, sometimes with a story, and sometimes with a poem that drives the image through crisp clean words that have a beat, a flow, or a way of tumbling the person toward seeing - the image - that I see - in their own head.

Q – Marcia Borell: Terry, does music add a beat to your writing? Consciously or unconsciously?

A – Terry Gates-Grimwood: I can't say that music actually adds a "beat" but I do look for a rhythm in a story, or rather in the way I tell a story. Sometimes the rhythm is there at the beginning, sometimes it has to be uncovered. I don't think it is always conscious, but until the rhythm is in place the story isn't right.

Music does play a part however. My novella, The Places Between was inspired by The Aquarium from The Carnival of the Animals, and a Led Zeppelin song had a lot to do with my Whispers tale Badda Ba Dum Dum Da. The play Tales from the Nightside took its title from a little ditty by Motorhead.

Q – Terry Gates-Grimwood: Dear Aliya, the famous Blue Pootle, I love your incisive wit, the seeming ease with which you produce that very funny and very pointed column.

Is it as relaxed and easy as it seems, is it a quick outpouring of thoughts and feelings or is it the result of hours, even days, of blood, sweat and tears?

A – Aliya Whiteley: That's the kind of question I like...

Have to say it's all pretty effortless really. A bit of a splurge on the keyboard, then I read it to Hubby and if he laughs a couple of times (he's a tough audience) then I scour the dictionary for a weird word and consider the column done. I don't decide a topic in advance: it just comes out, probably influenced by my murky subconscious, whatever I've been brooding about or seething over. It's a wonder the column isn't only about world peace, babies and olives. I've got this thing about olives at the moment. Can't get enough of them.

Q – Aliya Whiteley: When was the last time you really laughed out loud?

A – Sarah Dobbs: Right, the last time I laughed, really hard, out loud was watching the film Chopper the other night. I shouldn't have, I'm sure, because it's a disturbing film starring the normally delicious Aussie Eric Bana. But the wit and humour of the criminal Bana played was so wonky and weird, and downright unnormal, it just cracked me up - real bark like a donkey laughter. Anyway, I felt quite guilty afterwards, but it's an amazing film. Really well written & stylishly shot.

Q – Sarah Dobbs: Have you ever, intentionally or subconsciously, used someone else's ideas in your own fiction? I don't mean stealing! I just mean influences really.

A – Leo Siren: Yes, I'm sure I have. I am of the mindset that everything has been done already and I make no pretensions about the fact that I'm probably just
putting different spins on stories that have already been told. The fact that I'm a pretty "traditional" fiction writer style-wise doesn't help... but then I see a lot of stories out there that are "new and different" just for the sake of newness and difference and they tend to leave me feeling empty and bored. I like to think that good storytelling is good storytelling regardless of how familiar it feels to the reader.

Have a great day!

Q – Leo Siren: If your writing was a delicious cake, what flavour would it be and why?

A – Rhys Hughes: It would be a 'bolo rei' without the fava bean, bought for me by my lovely friend Safaa Dib (hello Safaa!)... I shouldn't eat it all in one go, but I might do just that, unless I was already full, in which case I'd share it with whoever was around at the time -- probably resenting them later for eating my cake and then I'd spend the following day planning different types of revenge in my head, none of which I would act on, because I lack the money and influence.

Having said that, maybe I wouldn't resent them later. I can't be sure because I don't know what sort of people they are, because they don't exist. I would like to eat the cake somewhere near a place where I could wash my hands afterwards, because the 'bolo rei' is a sticky cake, unless it was given to me on a plate with a knife and fork. While eating it I would wear a blue silk shirt, loose trousers and sandals, because it would be summer, even though the 'bolo rei' is generally a winter cake.

Q – Rhys Hughes: Hi Chris! Do you ever feel bothered by the general attitude that 'fantasy art' is not real art? Is it something that bothers you, or don't you care at all?

A – Chris Cartwright: Hi Rhys! Very interesting question. You know, I have never really had a problem with folks thinking of fantasy art being considered as "not real art" so much as "digital" art not being considered as "real art". A lot of traditional artists feel that way and I have gotten into a few flame wars over it, but it is a waste of time really trying to get people with closed minds to open up to something different. As for Fantasy art... there really wouldn’t be any art if it weren’t for our fantasies, would there??

Q – Chris Cartwright: Liam, my question to you is...and after browsing your site I have many but can only ask one...why is it that you hate "Vampires represented as romantic anti-heroes in modern fiction"?

A – Liam Davies: In theory, humanising the monster brings added depth to a story and blurs important boundaries. In Dracula, we recognise the motives of the villain – maybe even identify with a few (love, loneliness, anger). However, I think the old vampire fiction market has become saturated with romantic anti-heroes. It seems writers are in love with the idea of the immortal lover with a cross to bear and in the wake of Anne Rice there are so many about these days. Young studs (actually hundreds of years old) whining about living forever… lamenting the loss of their mortal lives… pissed off that they need blood to live – yada yada yada. I'm sure originally, one of these characters would have been fine; perhaps even an interesting avenue to explore, but now they’re everywhere. What about the ordinary schmuck vampire? One who actually doesn’t only kill ‘bad humans’? And why are they all trained assassins?

I just want the promise of something a little different, with depth and integrity, and without a protagonist called ‘Raven’! (make them the antagonist again... please). Otherwise, I’ll continue to hang garlic on my bookshelf.

Q – Liam Davies: Flo, what drives you to write? Do you write with publication in mind or is the pure act of writing, in itself, enough?

A – Flo Stanton: Ah, Liam. You've poked a dirty digit in Pandora's box. Not nice. What drives my writing?

1. a quintaplegic dwarf with a chauffeur's license.
2. 90-year-old absinthe.
3. I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag. It was a gas, gas, gas!
4. a telepathic alien earwig named Gerta.
5. the noisome urban beat of Skozey Fetisch.
6. the ghost of my Great-aunt Millicent who was curried by a tribe of cannibals in New Guinea ("Christians taste just like chicken!")
7. Liam, I'm trying very hard to ignore what the voices are telling me about you.
8. the same genetics that drive my twin adopted brother to unspeakable acts of depravity.
9. John the meat piston.
10. making my humble contribution to the decay of Western Civilization.

Obviously, I'm not in the least concerned about getting published, but it still keeps happening! Thank you for asking.

OR

Perhaps not everyone has the drive to create, but everyone has the need to express himself - even if it's only extending the middle finger or mooning off the back of a lorry.

If you write just for yourself, you're journaling. But if you do it with precision - power - intensity - psycho-linguistic efficacy, that's called professionalism. If I wrote only for myself, it would be pub blither. If I wrote just for publication, it would be patronizing - I'd be pandering to a demographic. I've done enough of that for a paycheck in the corporate world. That legacy will be unearthed by future archaeologists mining a landfill somewhere outside of what was once Kansas City.

It matters little what drives you to write, or paint, or drive a race car, or throw a basketball, or run for office. Perhaps the question should be, "What drives you to the bloody edge of your capacity, and then to reach beyond it?"

I could say it's the basic need to connect to other human beings. I could say it's contempt for being misclassified - misunderstood- dismissed. I could say it's turning my objective's face to me before I land a blow. And I wouldn't entirely be lying.

For me, it's simply enough to know that it's there. If I could name it, quantify it, lay it out for you so you could identify it, perhaps that exposure would piss it out of existence. But we do tend to recognize each other - a wink and a nod at someone who has the same brain worm. And that's reason enough to crawl out of bed and yank the cap off the pen tomorrow.

Q – Flo Stanton: Carole, what drives your art, and where will it take you next?

A – Carole Humphreys: I believe a major impetus behind my producing art is the constant desire to do better and the wish to take my art to another level. It’s true to say that any satisfaction I feel over producing something I’m pleased with is short-lived and I need to push myself further. Having the respect of my peers is another factor – I enjoy receiving positive feedback from them and even find myself considering whether a piece I’m working on will meet with their approval. Another driving force has to be the ideas that are burning away in the back of my mind awaiting the opportunity to be realised.

There is something in the act of making art that I find to be self-affirming, reminding me this is what I do best and what I need to do in my life. My studies and part-time employment takes me away from my art; all the more reinforcing that my time should be spent making art.
 

While I’m passionate about poetry, writing poetry isn’t able to give me the same sense of fulfilment that I gain from art and yet I love the challenge of writing it. I’m a creative person through and through and need to feed those creative urges on a regular basis. I guess it’s an addiction.
 

With regards to where my art will take me next, this is a question that’s very much on my mind at the moment. I will have completed my MA in Creative Writing at the end of September 2006 and I need to decide if I can bear the idea of full-time employment – the prospect fills me with horror; but my student loans will need to be repaid. I don’t want my art and writing to be considered hobbies and I feel strongly that I want to spend at least thee or four days of each week on my own projects and working part-time might be a solution.
 

My first two ventures in creating graphic novels haven’t reached fruition due to time constraints and I no longer have the same belief in those projects. I do have a short story which I’d love to develop further and turn into a graphic novel and I do hope this project will be high on my agenda come October.
 

I’ve made a decision these past few months to cut back on portraiture work. I had found this type of artwork to be no longer pleasing for me as an artist as it was offering me little challenge.
 

I intend to continue my illustration work and hope I can pick up some lucrative commissions in due course.
 

I have started working in oils and this is one area I’d love to develop and become competent in. It feels very liberating to work on a larger scale for a change.

Links to recent works:-

The party at the end of the world http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/27156375/

Arachne http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/28440107/

Sierva Maria http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/29162996/

My other works can also be viewed at http://www.fagashlil.deviantart.com/

Q – Carole Humphreys: Alexis, I was blown away by your website and I'm most impressed with the way you have showcased your poems with visual imagery as a backdrop. Congratulations on creating such a great website, and the accolades you've received are well-deserved. I think I would like my question to give you the opportunity to talk about your site more in depth. What were your intentions when you put your personal site together?

A – Alexis Child: Thanks Carole. I appreciate the wonderfully encouraging words. The idea behind creating my personal website was to showcase my writing talents in various forms and to experiment with website design. I see the site on the whole as a museum or gallery with special exhibitions that portray a bizarre, beautiful and surreal montage of fear and despair where restless souls may wander. This voyage of the damned is rather an indulgence in desolation; but, nonetheless, sometimes the brutal truth can be liberating.

Guided into the muck to come up with something compelling was challenging in terms of site layout: content, design and navigation; but, I continued to dive into the chaos which made sense in some cosmic way. Getting my work out there in the public arena was both enthralling and terrifying all in one sweep; however, I felt it my duty and privilege as a writer to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.:}

Granted, there are millions of sites out there that cater to one's individual tastes, but simply knowing others are visiting my website, reading the work, and providing positive feedback has bolstered my confidence and renewed my creative urge. It's been a charge and I’m a self-confessed happy addict for a malcontent. =) Nothing like a little creative catharsis to set things right again!

Who knows what will come of the whole experiment? We write our own stories and each time we know the end, well, clearly we do not. Once we let go of the wheel, we hopefully end up where we belong. Ultimately, I'd like to have a poetry chapbook released in the near future and having the website as a launching pad will hopefully lead to that final goal. I intend to showcase horror fiction on the site quite possibly at some point and will update the poetry page periodically. Check back for frightening new graphics and gore coming soon! The guillotine shall continue to gush forth with blood...

Q – Alexis Child: Hello Alison. I read your macabre masterpiece, Pretend That We're Dead in WoW #11 and found it great fun! I agree, playing dead is an art form and I admire your expertise as death's apprentice.

Now if I may axe, axe away. Just don't lose your head!

Out of morbid curiosity, do you feel that writing about death in intimate detail tends to increase one's confidence in the notion that someday this is what we all must face?

For all the mystery, there seems to be no glowing certainty if on death's doorstep. In your opinion, do you find there is a certain reluctance for some to look upon the future with anything but dread in terms of decay?

I'm now heading off to follow a trail of blood leading into the woods. You are more than welcome to come along.

Many thanks for taking time out to tackle some gruesome questions!

A – Alison Littlewood: Good question, Alexis, thanks – and I'll follow anyone anywhere who refers to my work as a "macabre masterpiece!"

Ultimately, I don't think that writing about death makes it more comfortable as a subject because none of us really know where we are going afterward (if anywhere). The great unknown = fear, I guess.

Maybe there's some comfort to be had in the whole cycle of life – our molecules going on to be something else – but, really, I'd rather hang on to them than give them up to the next generation of cockroaches or whatever...

I do think that people are reluctant to think about decay. It's all very well outlined on great detail on CSI – but thinking of that happening to your own body is a bit different. Personally the thought doesn't worry me overmuch as I'm hoping I'll have bobbed off somewhere else by then and won't need it anymore – but who knows!

My character is, really, a lot braver than me when it comes to thinking about death (or just plain nuts).

I would like to play a dead person on TV though...

Q – Alison Littlewood: You talk in your article about writing as catharsis, as a means of coming to terms with the past. It sounds as though you got a lot out of your system in Nicolo's Gifts and used pent-up emotion to good effect.

I wondered to what extent the past has influenced your writing since Nicolo's Gifts – do those emotions still feed into and inform your writing? (A case of writing what you know maybe?) Or have other things taken over?

Also, a lot seems to be said about writing as therapy. Do you believe in writing as therapy (intentionally or otherwise?)

A – Neil Ayres: Hi, Alison. I feel like Nicolo's Gifts helped me purge a lot. Twenty One Again, my story in The Elastic Book of Numbers (Elastic Press), was more drawn from childhood observations than experience. Other tales tend to be about extrapolation and exploring my interests. I focus a lot on relationships, and how to make them work, especially in contexts that have multiple effects. On the other hand, sometimes I just have fun with words, but even in my silliest work, I always attempt to have a strong, serious subtext. My emotions are informed by my intellectual frustrations--a lot of my stories start as a dialogue between two opposing internal viewpoints. I use them to try and reach conclusions--but these are rare. Possibly why my stories sometimes have yearning endings, no more how tidy their resolutions.

As for the therapeutic benefits of writing, I view them in the same way as any creative activity, meditative, Zen-inducing. Music, cooking, carpentry, painting and thousands of other things can have the same effect. Psychologically, it depends on the issue at hand. I'm a well balanced man, and fairly gregarious too. I've a more than passing interest in behaviour and ethology, and believe psychology is limited if treated as a solitary sport, so overall I don't put much stock in it, despite the benefit it served me in the past. It would have been a less stressful and far shorter process if I'd had somebody to listen to me and discuss what I was going through. On top of that I wouldn't have had to deal with publishers!

Feedback on the ‘round robin’ interview is welcome here.