BIOGRAPHY

I was that annoying little girl whom parents dreaded seeing headed up their front walk carrying a pillowcase, ready for the big sleep-over.  By two a.m., at least one of the other little girls would be weeping hysterically and begging to be sent home. This was because I was the kid who told those awful old horror stories.  You remember:  "The Hook", "The Dead Babysitter", "The Golden Arm", etc.  And if my tales didn't provoke sufficient terror, my final option was to wait until everyone had settled down to sleep, then sit up, point to a dark hallway and utter in a strangled tone, "Oh, my God!  Who is that man?  And why does he have a knife?"  Guaranteed pandemonium every time.

Why did I do that?  I don't know...  Because it was fun, I guess.  And it's still fun, only I don't get invited to many sleepovers these days.  So I write scary stories.  I don't require anyone to understand, although, if you're reading this, you probably do.  Bless you.  I can't tell you how boring it's become to encounter those worried expressions that hover above the question, "Why do you write that stuff?"  I.  Don't.  Know.  Why do some people write romance novels and courtroom sagas?   They're never asked why. I just enjoy horror.  I've enjoyed it since my first movie, The Wizard of Oz, at four.  I wasn't afraid of the witch or the flying monkeys.  But the tornado.  Jesus, it must have freaked me out on a molecular level, because I still have terrifying tornado nightmares.  Then, when I was six , I snuck out of bed and watched King Kong by myself in the middle of the night.  Yep, I still have gorilla nightmares.  When I saw the 1951 film, The Thing, it was all over for me.  I was going to be a horror fan for life, much to my parents' dismay.  No matter what they said or did, I was going to see every horror movie and TV show, and read every horror magazine and novel I could get my hands on.

On one particularly hot summer day during my 11th year, I spent my whole week's allowance on a paperback collection of short stories titled Shock! by Richard Matheson.   I sat down in front of the store and began reading while I waited for my sister and her girlfriend to return from the roof of the store, where they were sprinkling Lick 'em Aid on the heads of oblivious shoppers down below.  They forgot about me and went home.  I forgot about everything and finished the entire book without looking up once.  When I closed the back cover of that paperback, my knees were cooked raw from the sun and my mind had tilted permanently toward a direction I would follow forever: The Dark Side.  And Richard Matheson had become my literary idol.

I've been very lucky.  My work has been published in most of the horror anthologies I admired, and I have hooked up with the coolest late night Horror Host who ever showed a B movie, Count Gore De Vol.  He was my TV hero during the 70s, and now I'm his devoted TombKeeper, reading and recommending great books on the show.  I also get to interview great genre guests in an area called The Vault Guess who I interviewed recently?

Richard Matheson.

Life is good.

So what am I up to now?  Well, I've got three novels written that need to be brushed up and sent out.  I'm busy with CREATURE FEATURE, THE WEEKLY WEB PROGRAM, and I'm looking forward to attending my second convention, Horrorfind2, in Baltimore this August with Count Gore De Vol and the rest of the Creature Feature gang.  I can't wait to see the good friends I've made in the horror trade, and I'm trying to stay focused on necessary life stuff other than horror.

But it's not easy.