I had the opportunity to interview author Wrath James White about his upcoming novels, what makes real horror, and why it is that we respond to things that go bump in the dark.

LT: Tell us about your latest book.

WJW: I have two novels coming out this year. The Resurrectionist is coming out in hardback from Cargo Cult Books and as a mass-market paperback from Leisure books. It’s about a serial killer who can bring his victims back from the dead with no memory of their deaths. The story centers around Sarah Lincoln, a woman who lives across the street from the killer and who begins to have nightmares every night about she and her husband being murdered in their sleep. When she begins to find clues around her house, bloody sheets in the laundry, blood stains on the mattress, clean spots on the carpet, she begins trying to piece the mystery together in time to save herself from being murdered… again.

I also have a novel coming out from Necro books called Yaccub’s Curse. This is the story of Malik Black, a teenage enforcer for the local drug kingpin in his little North Philadelphia neighborhood. When Malik is ordered to murder a crack-whore and her newborn baby he has a revelation that leads him to believe that his employer is really Satan and that the crack-baby that he has been ordered to kill is the second-coming of Christ. Malik then finds himself in the middle of a battle between good and evil, salvation and redemption, the violence of the streets and the power of the occult.

LT: Some of the reviews I have read of your previous works describe your writing as “extreme horror”. Do you feel this description is correct?

WJW: My writing is certainly not tame. I would never be accused of writing Quiet PG-13 horror. I go all out on my descriptions. I don’t hold anything back. A lot of writers believe in leaving things up to the reader’s imagination but I don’t believe in that. I believe that the reader buys a writer’s book to see what’s in the author’s mind. They want to be entertained by the writer’s imagination. Not their own. They want to see things as he sees it. So I give them that. I describe all the violence as I see it. If there’s sex in it then I describe that with all the detail that I describe a sunset or a rose garden. Not all of my novels have sex in them but when they do it’s graphic just as the violence and gore is graphic.

LT: You have previously written with Maurice Broaddus (Orgy of Souls) and Monica J. O’Rourke (Poisoning Eros). Do you have any future projects planned with other authors? Why or why not?

WJW: Brian Keene and I have been talking about writing a novel together for a few years and I’ve got one hell of a story in mind for us to collaborate on. It’s just a matter now of finding the time. We’re both very busy. Maurice and I also have a post-apocalyptic novel in the planning stages. Hopefully, I’ll get to both novels next year.

LT: What kinds of ideas inspire your stories?

WJW: Arguments. Debates. Anytime I find myself struggling to explain an idea to someone it has a good chance of becoming a story. My stories are often just long hypothetical situations to illustrate some concept or idea I want to communicate.

LT: Is there anything that you’d like to change about earlier novels, or things that you’d like to try in a different way now?

WJW: Honestly? No. Each novel that I have written was a moment in my life, a state of mind that can’t be duplicated. Every one of those novels would be different if I wrote them now because I’m different now, as a writer and as a person. Better is some ways and worse in others. After I deal with a subject matter in a certain way I move on. I may revisit that subject matter but never in the same way.

LT: What authors do you admire?

WJW: I admire anyone who has found a way to make a living in this business. If you have managed to do this full-time and support yourself and your family than you have my respect and I mean that. This is a hard business. I can’t imagine what I would be writing if I had to support myself this way. I have a certain freedom because this isn’t my fulltime gig. I don’t rely on my novels to feed my kids. If I take some wild artistic gamble and it flops my kids still eat. It takes a lot of guts to stay true to your art when failure means the bills don’t get paid. The guys who can remain innovative under that kind of pressure are my idols.

LT: Do you think your stories would lead well to screenplays?

WJW: Absolutely. My writing is so visual that it would be easy to add live imagery to them. The level of emotion that I put into my work would probably be a blast for an actor to portray.

LT: What fears— real or imagined, belonging to you or others—would you like to explore in your writing, which you haven’t tapped into yet?

WJW: I think I’ve hit most of them or I’m at least in the process of doing so. I have a lot of work on the drawing table that addresses some of the things I haven’t explored yet or have not explored in detail or from all available angles. There’s the end of the world, body horrors like disease and mutation, vampires, all types of fanaticism like religion, greed, and patriotism, fear of “the other” as in racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia, fear of nature, fear of technology. All of these have the potential to and have historically lead to great evil and that’s fodder for a good horror story. There’s so much evil out there in the world I don’t think I’ll ever run out of material.

LT: In your opinion, what is the major ingredient that makes a story frightening?

WJW: If you can imagine it happening to you. If it’s personal. If readers can’t relate to it then they won’t be scared by it. The more you can ground a story in reality, in the mundane, before you introduce the horror element, the greater the potential for fear. That’s why most horror takes place in the dark because we all spend a good portion of our lives in the dark. You can watch “Alien” and when you take away the spaceships and the distant planets you have a big scary thing jumping out at you from the dark. So the next time you get up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water or a midnight snack you’ll be in the same environment that Sigourney Weaver was in when she was attacked by the Alien. Not on a spaceship. In the dark. Now if you add to that and put it in even more common surrounding like a parking garage, a bedroom, or a basement or attic in your own home, you’ll get them every time. Add in other common fears and moments of discomfort, being stopped by the police or some other authority figure, being alone with a stranger, the death of a loved one, undergoing surgery, making a mistake or a bad decision that hurts someone, having sex, giving birth etc. and you have the perfect theater for your horror story.

LT: Can you give us a release date/ publication information for the latest books?

WJW: Yaccub’s Curse is due to be released in September. The hardback of The Resurrectionist is due in October 2009 and the mass-market paperback in December 2009.

©2009 Lori Titus

I remember it well, my darling. You were so excited about your swimming lessons that you wouldn’t take off your bright orange arm bands. Weeks before you made me blow them up and place them onto your arms, then you raced around the house playing shark attack, acting like you were splashing your dad. You jumped off the sofa onto the mat that was the colour blue just like the ocean. You told me that the mat was your swimming pool.

On the morning of that day, you woke early and dressed yourself quickly. When I came into your room you were sitting on your bed with a huge smile on your face. You asked me when it would be time to leave.

After breakfast I got you ready, and packed up your bag with those bright orange arm bands, your swimming costume and a big towel I could wrap you tight with, keeping you safe and warm after your lesson.

We arrived at the leisure centre and went straight to the changing rooms. You were impatient, dancing around on the spot. I had to hold my tongue and not shout at you, knowing it was only your excitement and that you would soon calm down. At the poolside I sensed your excitement grow. When I held you in my arms and carried you, I felt the pounding of your heart as we got closer. I set you down at the waters edge and watched you gaze at the older children splashing in the water, some of them wearing bright orange arm bands to help them swim.

I told you to stand still for a minute while I went to find the life guard to enquire what time your lesson would start.

I only talked for a few minutes, holding those bright orange armbands ready to blow up any moment, but when I returned you had disappeared.

My heart began to pound. Not with excitement - with immense fear.

I ran around the poolside screaming your name, hoping you had gone to talk to a friend - that you were with another parent, waiting patiently for me to return with your bright orange armbands. I ran through the changing rooms shouting for you, now angry you had not listened to my instructions and had wandered off.

Then I heard a scream. I froze. With my heart in my throat I prayed that the scream was just someone getting splashed. I hoped that another child was simply getting a telling off for soaking their mother. But instinctively I knew it wasn’t so.

I raced through the changing room tunnel, back to the poolside where I was met with a lot of commotion. The pool had been evacuated; three lifeguards huddled by the edge, parents gathered around, pulling their children closer, kissing them and stroking their hair.

Then I found you.

I watched them pull your tiny lifeless body from the water. Your skin was pale as snow. Your lips were tainted blue, like ink smeared across your mouth. I watched, not able to move or make a sound as they lay your body down and tried to bring you back to me, my baby. I cried silently as the seconds turned into minutes and now ten had passed and you didn’t call out to me. I dropped to my knees and held my breath.

Slowly your light faded and life escaped your eyes. I screamed. They shook their heads. I would never feel your heart beating again. Never would I see you in your bright orange arm bands. Never would I see you follow your friends into the water to learn how to swim. Never would I be able to show you how wonderful and grown up you are; how proud you make me everyday.

Now I sit, here in your room night after night, staring at an empty bed, an empty room, breaking my empty heart. Some nights when the moon is full, its light shines through thick clouds and plays tricks with the shadows. For a moment I think I can see you watching me, smiling, not fully understanding where you are, but knowing that I am here.

I apologise for leaving you alone that day. I should have held your hand and kept you with me. I am sorry. I remember it every day, how can I forget?

I should have put on your bright orange arm bands…

©2009 S. E. Cox

I have been writing for ten years and have two books published. One is the first book of a vampire romance trilogy ad the other is my short story collection. I have previously been published in paganimagination. I have also been interviewed by Black Hound Publishing,  Ben Eads on the Dark Fiction Spotlight and Yolanda Renee on Book Talk. I am the creator and editor of the House Of Horror ezine and through the work that we produce in print issues and anthologies, I raise money for Birmingham Childrens’s Hospital here in the UK.