An Interview With James Dorr

James Dorr is the author of Darker Loves, Vamps, and Strange Mistresses. Welcome, James.

I’d be fascinated to know more about you.

Well, Susan, I’m a short story writer and a poet, working primarily in dark fantasy and horror with some journeys into science fiction and mystery, but mostly I write about whatever interests me at the time.  Ideas come hard to me, so what choice do I have?  In college my creative activity actually began in the visual arts where I was a cartoonist and illustrator, ultimately art editor, on the campus humor magazine, then in graduate school I moved more into writing as a columnist (and ultimately co-editor) on a campus underground newspaper, followed by editor of an arts newspaper, then technical writing/editing and business freelancing in the “outside world” before settling down into a proper flunkey job that allowed me to write more in the genres I liked to read, starting with SF, then migrating toward the dark side.  I also play music as leader and tenor in a Renaissance recorder consort and am a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism.  

All of this was and is cross-genre, as I also did some utility writing for the humor zine, illustrations for other college publications, pictures and words for the campus science fiction association (college and grad school, though different locations) and, in graduate school, now and again illustrated my own articles.  And, while I play “pre-classical” music now, I often use jazz as a theme for poetry and sometimes fiction. 

Tell us about your writing. 

I have two books out from Dark Regions Press, Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance and Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret, as well as an out-of-print poetry chapbook, Towers of Darkness, published by Nocturnal Publications.  The first two are multi-genre collections primarily of fiction, but each with a short poetry section at the end, including pieces first published in Aboriginal Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Asylums and Labyrinths, Bloodtype, Extremes 5, Fantastic, Gothic.Net, MarsDust, New Mystery, New Mythos Legends, The Palace Corbie, The Short Story Digest, Strange Attraction, Terminal Fright, TomorrowSF, Wicked Mystic, et al. (to give an idea of genres as well as range -- in total I probably have three to four hundred individual stories and poems in various magazines and anthologies).  Towers of Darkness, as it sounds, is horror, depicting life in a not-very-nice city and also introduces the vampiress Annchuck who later pops up from time to time in other poetry, often combined with musical sub-themes (the lady likes to dance), while the two larger collections introduce some (then) new material set in the “Tombs,” a far-future city with its environs which has served as the setting for other stories as time has gone on as well.  And then there’s Vamps (A Retrospective), a full size book of poetry just listed by Sam’s Dot Publishing -- in time to celebrate “Vampire Month!” -- of which I will have more to say a bit later (music up, rising tension....). 

What books or authors have influenced you, James?

I was once asked on a panel at a science fiction convention (to sneak into this sideways) what I thought was the best horror book of all time.  My answer was Dracula, especially when you put it in context, given its pseudo-documentary style,  in a society that might still not have been absolutely sure vampires didn’t exist -- at least in barbaric places like Transylvania.   But then I suggested if we could go outside the genre, the really best all-time horror was by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in The Complete Greek Tragedies.  I stand by that still, and don’t mind admitting I’ve borrowed from both of the above for my own work.  Then, as a kid, I was introduced to the Modern Library Giant edition of  The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (which I still own) and the works of Ray Bradbury, particularly The Martian Chronicles (I was a great science fiction fan at the time) and The October Country.  Then since I write poetry, along with Poe I’ll add Allen Ginsberg and Ezra Pound, with maybe a little T. S. Eliot, and from (as it were) left field, Bertolt Brecht including his theories on drama and “epic theatre.”  Those are a few, but as a fiction writer and poet I also read a lot of nonfiction:   travel books about exotic places, books about even more exotic people -- or people in general, books about myths and legends and folklore -- what people believe.  Books on fairy tales, plus the tales themselves of course, because in a way that’s what I’m writing too. 

How do you develop characters?

The three basic elements for starting a story:  A being (or character) in a setting (or situation) who has a problem (wants something).  This is cribbed from Algis Budrys’s “Writers of the Future” workshops -- the basic story continues through the being’s attempts to solve the problem, getting in deeper, until a climactic all-out push either succeeds or fails, followed by a “validation” confirming that it’s been worth our attention (e.g., at the end of the original Star Wars movie, Luke and Han receive medals for blowing up the Death Star; in Cinderella, the narrator tells us Cin and the Prince live happily ever after).  So, given a problem what kind of character would be affected enough to want to solve it?  Does the setting/situation help define the character’s actions?  If a crime has been committed, is my character a detective?  An innocent bystander?  The victim?  Or how about the perpetrator (I do write horror)?  Now let’s make it interesting, “Vampire Month” and all, and suppose the character is a vampire, perhaps accused of illegal blood-sucking. . . . 

Well, that’s an exercise.  To continue it I usually try to put myself in my character’s head, imagine myself in her circumstances (let’s make it a female vampire -- they’re sexy) and try and imagine what I would do.  Now it happens I’m a heterosexual male, but I’ve known women, was married to one once.  What would my ex do?   Well, granted my memories may be prejudiced, but sometimes she could be conniving, so let’s imagine a conniving, but charming,  sexy female vampire who happens to be innocent this one time (but doesn’t want to explain herself too much to the police, because there may be episodes in her past when she wasn’t so innocent).  Or maybe it’s not the cops. . . .

How do you choose your setting?

So does this happen in Olde Transylvania or, say, modern Paris?  Well, I’ve written one that takes place in Paris, at Christmas, but it hasn’t sold yet, so let’s pick Transylvania, specifically in a heavily draped room in a castle, perhaps a dungeon but with a window through which one might peek to see the setting sun.  This is a flash piece, about 500 words long, and I won’t have much time for characterization so I’ll borrow traits from a 1930s movie called Dracula’s Daughter.  In my version, though, the vampire and her servant Sandor have survived, but Sandor still wants her to make him immortal (his motivation in the movie too, but this is my story) and so, while she’s sleeping, he’s managed to get her into a chair and chained her to the wall.  As night comes, she’ll need to have blood before dawn -- as Sandor reminds her, he knows her secrets -- and she can’t have it unless she does his bidding. 

Just that much setting, plus her remnder to him that “I am Countess Marya Zeleska, the daughter of Dracula himself,” gives enough, I think, to cover the three basic elements discussed above (regardless of whether you’ve seen or even heard of the movie).  The problem servant (not the cops this time), the setting, the Countess who must acquiesce to her servant’s demand -- something her pride will not allow her to do! -- or perish.  Or does she, conniving survivor that she is, have a secret that even Sandor may not know? 

What it comes down to is that the character(s) and the nature of the problem can themselves be involved in determining the setting -- even, sometimes, the setting itself may be part of the problem, may even have sparked the original idea.  As for the example above, “The Shackles” won third prize in the 2009 Ligonier Valley Writers Flash Fiction Contest and has been reprinted in the anthology The Hungry Dead (Popcorn Press, 2010). 

Tell us about your latest release.

Annchuck, who we’ve met above, joins with Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, “Guillemette” (née Mina Murray), Nadja, Nikki, a modern Medusa, a tourist who meets “Cape Man” in France (“... he had a tendency to change the subject when I asked him what he did.  Eurotrash, I suppose”), a competitive runner who races the sun, a woman who dreams of someday winning the Galactic Lottery, several survivors of unusual dates, a baseball fan who especially likes night games, a modern Carmilla who also likes jazz, and a future version of Kipling’s vampire (“a rag and a bone and a hank of hair”) in Vamps (A Retrospective), which has just come out from Sam’s Dot Publishing.  This is a full-sized collection of  75 poems, a little over a third of them never published before, and is illustrated by a friend and poet in her own right, Marge Simon -- so even if you don’t like poetry you can still buy the book!  The thing is, I’ve written poems about vampires, lots and lots of them over the years, so in a roughly chronological order (by date originally written, not necessarily published, and jiggered a bit for thematic reasons as well in some cases to make more efficiant use of pages) these are the highlights, ranging in length from a number of 3-line haiku to a 170-line and a 263-line mini-epic.  Some serious, some comic, some short, some long, some sporty, some sassy, some tragic, some sexy, some reminiscent, some even science-fictional, these are vamps for all seasons and tastes. 

Is it available in print, ebook, and Kindle formats?

At least in some formats.  Vamps (A Retrospective) should be available as you read this in trade paperback form from www.samsdotpublishing.com.  Also, while I’m not sure about Kindle, I  understand it may become available as an electronic book through Smashwords, either directly or via a link on the Sam’s Dot webpage.  

Can you tell us about current or future projects, and where can folks look to find out more about them, James?

Moving away from vampires, there is one setting that’s been an element in a number of  my more recent stories, that of the aforementioned “Tombs,” a vast necropolis on a far-future, dying Earth and the cities and lands that surround it.  About a dozen Tombs stories are already published one place or another, including one in my Strange Mistresses and three in my Darker Loves collections,  and more of these should come in the future, along with a possible novel involving stand-alone Tombs segments with other material somewhat in the manner of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles or Christopher Barzak’s The Love We Share Without Knowing.  In addition, “Vanitas,” a story that originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s in the 1990s, will be out in electronic book form in the very near future from Untreed Reads Publishing, to be joined hopefully by more as time goes on, while, partly as a response to the recession, I’ve been increasing efforts to get other reprints out both electronically and in print, along, of course, with new stories and poems. 

For these and more, readers are invited to visit
http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com for ongoing information, leavened with occasional sample poems and stories, movie comments, bibliographical information, and resident cat Wednesday’s personal webpage. 

J.M. Cornwell: Among Women

J. M. Cornwell lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where she shares bits and pieces of her past in Chicken Soup and Cup of Comfort anthologies and searches for the perfect place to build a cabin by a lake.

Welcome, J. M. That setting has to be inspirational!

It certainly is, Susan.

How many books have you written? In what genres?

There are 14 books: two novels and 12 anthologies. 22 if you count the eight books I ghostwrote before I decided to write my own books, and one bio-bibliography, on Charlton Heston, that never was published because the company was bought out and the series shelved. I worked for a year on that book.

What books or authors have influenced you?

Almost everyone I read influences me in some way, sometimes with what not to do, but most especially Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Michel Montaigne, and Algis Budrys. They took the time to let me know what was good and bad about my writing – often in great detail – and became good friends, except for Montaigne, who is a little before my time.

What are your writing goals?

To keep writing and publishing until I close my eyes for the last sleep.

What is your most rewarding experience during the writing process?

When everything is effortless and I can hear and see everything going on. It’s what Andre Norton called looking at the inside of the donut. Telling a story is like standing in the middle of a donut. Whichever way you turn you see or hear or sense something new and the writer’s job is to get it all down.

Tell us about your latest book. Is it available in print, ebook, and Kindle formats?

Among Women is my latest novel and is available in ebook from Smashwords, Amazon and Barnes &Noble and will be out in print this week.

Among Women is about a woman who is stranded in New Orleans. Everything she owned was stolen and she is homeless, but she keeps going. Just when she’s about to make it back into the mainstream she is arrested and put in jail without a lawyer or having gone before a judge. She doesn’t know how long she will be stuck in jail and she’s scared. A murderer reaches out to her and offers to help. As she gets over her fear, she begins to see all the women are really not that different than she is and she begins to listen to their stories. Pearl becomes a modern Scheherazade telling her own story and the stories of the women in order to survive.

Do you think your writing has improved since your first attempt?

I should hope so. I’m no longer eight years old and I have lived a bit. Even what I wrote a few years ago is different than what I write now because I have changed. The most obvious evidence is in Among Women. I’ve written and rewritten the story dozens of times in the past 30 years, but this time it finally came together.

Were any of your books more challenging to write than the others?

Every book provides its own challenge. Finding the right voice, the right format to tell the story, researching and getting the details right. I check calendars for books that have a more contemporary setting and I read a lot of science and history to get the little details right. It’s all in the details. That’s what sets a good book apart from a mediocre book, when the details are so real you are transported to whatever world or period in history and you believe in what is being written. Of all the books I have written, and I include the eight books I ghostwrote for others, Among Women was the most challenging because I had to let go of the facts sometimes in order to make the story more interesting and to make it work. I stuck pretty close to the real events, but I did allow myself some license in going off the track. Merging fact and fiction and making it into a good story was my biggest challenge. Once I was able to get lost in the story, it finally came together.

How do you develop characters? Setting?

I see situations and the characters are developed from that initial idea. The same for setting which is inextricable from the characters. I’m working on a new novel set in Victorian England that began as a question about why Dr. Jekyll decided to split himself in two to get rid of his darker nature. Robert Louis Stevenson never gave a motive, and that always intrigued me. I asked what would make a man want to get rid of his emotions and the answer I kept coming back to was a woman. Delilah Makepeace was born.

In Among Women, I was dealing with personal experience and telling the story of women I had met, so the process was a little different as the book was born of my own trials and tribulations in New Orleans in 1984. There is quite a bit of fact in the book, but also a healthy dose of fiction.

Can you share how you name your characters?

Baby books. For instance, I wanted a Korean name for one of the characters in Among Women so I went through pages and pages of Korean names and came up with Joo-Eun, which means Silver Pearl. In some ways, she is a mirror for Pearl Caldwell, the protagonist, in that she, like most of the women, has been betrayed by her brother. Pearl is betrayed by her lover and in both cases the charges are false.

What are your protagonist’s strengths? Flaws?

Pearl is from a middle class background. She has had it easy and she thinks she knows how to survive, but it all comes from books. She begins by seeing people in black & white until she opens up and begins to listen. Her curiosity and desire to right the wrongs she sees are flaws as well as strengths and they lead her deeper into the lives of the other women. It is her need to know why things happen and what she creates out of them that are her salvation and her biggest flaw because she gets to a low point where she just wants to go to sleep and never wake up. Pearl is compassionate even though she is afraid of the women and she is also a bit of an elitist when she wakes up in jail because she sees the women as faceless and not worth her time. They scare her almost as much as they begin to intrigue her.

Do you have specific techniques you use to develop the plot and stay on track?

I just keep writing and then go back through when I’m finished and reread everything. I also have a great editor who reminds me when I have gone off the path or lost a character somewhere. It was easier with Among Women because I already knew the story, but I had rewritten and edited so much from the initial draft that I did get a little off track. I know whatever story I’m writing from start to finish because I can see the whole donut, so that makes it easier, but the characters do sometimes surprise me and take me off in different directions. Then I just hold on and follow them.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

I’ve always said that if you want to know what an author is like, just read their stories. My curiosity and what interests me at the moment are in everything I write, especially when I blog. I write from experience and passions and the pique of the moment. It goes back to what I said about my writing changing because I’ve changed. Everything I read, experience, see, sense, hear, and do gets filtered into the writing and into the characters, most of whom are extensions of me, a sort of what if I had done this instead of that. They are a way to explore different avenues and try on different lives without actually having to change everything.

We all know how important promoting our work has become. How do you get the word out both off and online?

I’m learning more about how to do that because I tend to be more interested in writing than promoting. I’d rather have someone else do it, but especially with Among Women, which is self-published, I’ve had to be more proactive, like contacting reviewers and interviewers and asking if they’d be interested. I’ve done podcasts and I bore people silly with posts about the writing and publishing process, about subjects related to the work and I beg people I know, like you, to please interview me. I also comment on blogs and make a nuisance of myself whenever possible, but not to the point of being truly obnoxious, just mostly obnoxious.

Can you tell us about current or future projects?

I have several books outlined, but the one I need to finish first is Whitechapel Hearts; that is the story of Jekyll, Hyde, and Jack the Ripper and the woman who was responsible for it all: Delilah Makepeace. After that one is done, I’m going into the future with a post apocalyptic vampire story unlike the usual vampire fare. My vampires come from two different mind sets. One is as protectors of humanity during a long nuclear winter that has lasted 400 years and the other vampires breed human like cattle for food and to make their lives easier. The latter vampires live in domed cities while the other vampires, called Memories, live underground with humans, guiding and protecting their knowledge for the future when humanity can re-emerge on the earth and being living above ground again.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events, J. M.?

I keep blogs in several places, but the main spot is my author blog on Red Room at http://www.redroom.com/authors/jm-cornwell. That is also where I have links to all my books for sale, podcasts, and of course blog entries.

Denise Verrico's Cara Mia

My special guest today is Cara Mia author, Denise Verrico. Welcome, Denise. Tell us a little about yourself.
I was born in New Jersey, but grew up in western Pennsylvania. I started writing in High School. I wrote comedy sketches and song parodies with a friend of mine, just for fun. I majored in theater at Point Park College in Pittsburgh and moved to NYC to pursue an acting career. After I graduated from college, I started writing plays, but I didn’t get serious about writing until I was in my thirties. Around the time my son turned two and started to be a bit more independent, I felt a strong urge to do something creative again. I wrote a couple of plays and had an original one and an adaptation produced. Cara Mia developed in those years. I read a lot of Anne Rice around that time. Vampire stories have been a passion since I was a little girl and a fan of Dark Shadows on TV. After Rice killed off a favorite character of mine, I had a dream about a female vampire and this inspired my heroine, Mia.

I currently live in Ohio with my husband of twenty years and my teenaged son. We’re all roller coaster fanatics and spend a lot of summer weekends at amusement parks. Our vacations usually consist of hopping from one park to another in two or three states. When I write, I like to sit curled up on my sofa with my laptop and a couple of my seven parrots.

Tell us about Cara Mia.

Cara Mia, Book One is the prelude to the Immortyl Revolution. It’s an urban fantasy with a rather strong science fiction component. The story deals with Mia becoming a vampire and her struggle to survive as a modern woman in an ancient culture. Along the way she meets another slave, Kurt, in whom she finds a sympathetic friend and lover. She and Kurt steal the secrets of immortality from their Immortyl masters and strike the first blow for freedom for the downtrodden of their society.

Mia and Kurt’s story brings together two people who have “suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. Both are in their sixties when they finally pair up, so this definitely isn’t a teenaged relationship. The strong bond that develops between these two characters is very important to the entire series. In Book Two, Twilight of the Gods, Kurt rises to become a charismatic rebel leader and Mia, as his consort, is forced to navigate a minefield of vampire politics.

My publisher is L&L Dreamspell, and it’s been a very positive experience to work with them.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?
Great question, Susan. My ethnic background is a very important part of my life. My Dad was a first generation, Italian-American and my Mom’s grandparents came from Germany. I love to flavor the dish with tidbits of Italian culture and phrases. Some of Cara Mia is set around Naples, where my grandmother was born. Mia is a very earthy heroine with strong passions. On the other hand, Kurt is pragmatic, methodical and logical. He likes to use the occasional curse word auf Deutsch.

My theatre background pops up a lot in my writing. You’ll find lots of theatre and art references in my work. Mia was an actress in New York in the 1950’s and Philip, her kinsman was an Elizabethan actor. Kurt is a musician. Mia is performing in Ibsen’s The Master Builder when her master Ethan first encounters her. This play is an important thematic element in the book.

What are your protagonist’s strengths? Flaws?

Mia is fiercely independent and smart, with a strong sense of justice. Nothing bugs her more than the strong preying on the weak, which is the way of most of her kind. She will risk her life to protect others. On the negative side, she’s cantankerous. Mia flies off the handle, makes hasty decisions and is prone to rather acerbic comments that make her prickly. Kurt brings out the best in her. He understands that her tough exterior is a protective skin and loves this complicated woman for who she is.

How do you develop characters? Setting?

I fall back on my theatrical training and create a complete backstory for each major character, even if it never is meant to be in the book. I find out everything about this person, such as likes and dislikes, relationships to others, deeply held beliefs and moral philosophy, all the way down to their favorite foods and clothing. Quirks are what make a character come to life for me. Mia and her kinsman Philip tease one another a lot. He calls her “wench” and she calls him “an Elizabethan artifact”. These little relationship details make a story real.

I always think of my vamps as people, even the really bad ones have driving passions. The trouble ensues when the heroine and hero get in the way of the villains’ agendas. I like to give my villains interesting quirks or make them charming in some way. The most important part of developing a character and a story for me is to be able to articulate in a single sentence that character’s internal conflict or what we call in the theatre, the “super objective”. Mia is a vampire who wants to walk again in the sun.

I do a lot of research on history and cultures. I like to create characters from periods that I find interesting, like the Civil War or the Holocaust. Kurt was imprisoned in Dachau as a boy of fifteen. His experience there has filled him with an intense desire to right wrongs and protect others.

In choosing my setting, I couldn’t think of a better place to set an urban fantasy than Manhattan. I spent many years in the NYC area and it is my favorite place. New York after dark is a character in her own right. The rich ethnic and cultural tapestry gives a writer a lot of material for settings and characters. Even though I now live in Ohio, I go back to NY at least once a year to take photos and do research. The art deco building across the street from a friend of mine’s apartment inspired “The Vampire State,” the building Mia and Kurt use as the base for their revolution.

Book three, Fearful Symmetry, which I’m putting through my critique group. It’s set in near Calcutta, India. I had to do loads of research, but I’m still hoping to get there!

Were any of your books more difficult to write than the others?

Well, the first was a challenge because I’d never written fiction before, but I’d have to say Fearful Symmetry. Cedric MacKinnon the POV character is a nineteen-year-old prostitute, dying from AIDs. He’s playing his guitar in the London underground when his master finds him. Raj plucks Cedric from the streets and makes him immortal. Cedric typifies the lost boys and girls of my books. To me, the vampire is a metaphor for man’s inhumanity to man. Kids and young adults are trafficked in horrible ways in the real world by the human “vampires” that prey upon them.

Raj takes the boy to India where he is trained as an adept of the ancient arts. An adept is an Immortyl temple dancer, singer and courtesan in the service of a tantric cult of the goddess Kali. Because of Cedric’s profession there is quite a bit of sexual content, but it’s not written for purposes of titillation. Sex is part of the tantric religious rituals, but the boy is used as a political pawn in the chief elder’s intrigues. Cedric often suffers abuse from those he entertains.

The scenes aren’t explicit in a clinical way. What is going on in Cedric’s head is the important part. Although he’s a rather irreverent lad, his story has a tragic element. It’s a fine line to tread. On the other hand, I’ve found the challenges of writing this book to be an enjoyable experience. I really have to give some credit to my writer’s group, the North Columbus Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers for helping me to develop this one.

Current projects?

Book Two of The Immortyl Revolution, Twilight of the Gods will be out this fall. I’m currently working on it with my marvelous editor Cindy Davis. I’m doing revisions on book four, Ratopia. I’m also working on two other novels outside of the Immortyl Revolution series. One is a magic-based urban fantasy with lots of paranormal creatures and the other is a paranormal romance parody, called Betti Loves Yeti.

Where could folks learn more about your books and events?

I’m at www.deniseverricowriter.webs.com

www.ImmortylRevolution.blogspot.com

I’m on Facebook almost daily: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Immortyl-Revolution-Fans-of-Denise-Verrico-author/290431344200?ref=ts

Signed copies of Cara Mia are available for sale through links on my website and blog. My books are found in trade paperback and multi format e-book, including kindle at Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Borders and Fictionwise websites.

Thanks for the information, Denise, and I wish you the best of sales!

It’s been a pleasure visiting with you today, Susan! Thanks for this opportunity.

Folks, here's more about Cara Mia:
Reviews of Cara Mia:

With delicious descriptions and characters that the reader can really sink his or her teeth into, this story is page-turner. Denise Verrico cleverly incorporates unpredictable plot lines that weave through tones of the ordinary and provocative. The novel has a lot of meat to devour and I enjoyed the twisting journey of the characters--Hot Gossip Reviews

A great number of the novels that focus on vampires fall prey to certain cliches. Cara Mia is a wonderful exception with an intricate, unpredictable, and intelligent plot and well-developed characters--author of Midnight Reflections, Katrina Michaels

If you like your vampires with a mix of science fiction then Cara Mia Book One of the Immortyl Revolution by Denise Verrico is the book for you. The story begins with a fast pace and holds the reader until the end- -Lexington Vampire Examiner.

It was a thrilling read that kept me glued to the pages. I cannot wait to see more from this author- My Immortal Stories

The characters are well written and the story is different from what I usually read which was a nice break from the norm--Paranormal Haven.

It's been a pleasure, Denise. I wish you well.