Tag: David Lynch

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ramsey Campbell

megHan

Meghan: Hey Ramsey!! Welcome back to Meghan’s HAUNTED House of Books. It’s always a pleasure to have you here, and I thank you for taking time on this busy book-release day to join us here.

Yes, you read that right, everybody. Fellstones is out today.
You can pick it up by following the link below:
Flame Tree Publishing

Sorry about that. What were we talking about? Oh yeah… What is your favorite part of Halloween?

Ramsey: I have to say it has no great significance as a festival in Britain. There were attempts a few years back to situate it as an alternative Autumn event to Guy Fawkes Night, since it was felt there were too many accidents at private firework displays on 5 November. When I was a child it wasn’t celebrated locally at all, and so my only sense of it was through fiction—specifically, some of the great tales of Ray Bradbury. Ray made October uniquely his, both capturing its flavours and adding individual ones of his own. While you can read them at any time, they have a particular relevance to Halloween, and so I’ll name them as my favourite aspect thereof.

Meghan: Do you get scared easily?

Ramsey: No longer, but as a child I was—by films, by books, by my domestic life. I must have been three, maybe a little older, when I saw my first film, Disney’s Snow White. Elements in it terrified me—the unstable face in the magic mirror that doesn’t reflect the person in front of it, and even the sight of darkness beyond a window in the dwarfs’ cottage while they perform their song and dance, because I was sure something would appear out of the dark. M.R. James gave me many uneasy nights jut a few years later. As for my everyday experience, my parents were estranged when I was three but continued to live in the same house, which meant I hardly ever saw my father face to face—he became the footsteps on the stairs at night, the presence beyond a door that I dreaded might open. All this was exacerbated by my mother’s schizophrenic fantasies: for example, that he would poison us or creep into the bedroom to commit some terrible act. The neighbours were conspiring against her and writing a nightly radio soap opera that contained references to her and secret messages addressed to her, and so on. I had an interesting childhood, which has subsequently produced much literary material.

Meghan: What is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen and why?

Ramsey: Apart from Not I, that terrifying Beckettian tour de force performed by Billie Whitelaw (and enacted less intensely by Julianne Moore), all my candidates are the work of David Lynch. Some scenes in Fire Walk With Me affected me so profoundly I was close to leaving the first time I saw it, but I’ll go with Lost Highway, the first extended section of which in particular frightens me afresh on every viewing. I’ve concluded Lynch uses every element of film—lighting, camera placement and movement, staging, especially sound—as skillfully (if possibly instinctively) as Hitchcock, to convey the uncanny at its most indefinable and disturbing.

Meghan: Which horror movie murder did you find the most disturbing?

Ramsey: The protracted finale of Megan is Missing, a film I analyse and defend at length in Ramsey’s Rambles. The scene is appallingly convincing, not least in its banality.

Meghan: Is there a horror movie you refused to watch because the commercials scared you too much?

Ramsey: The trailer, do you mean? No, never. As for the other kind of commercials, I’d do my best to avoid any film interrupted by them and see it uninterrupted elsewhere.

Meghan: If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose?

Ramsey: Night of the Demon, my all-time favourite, since you can avoid falling victim to the demon if you know how.

Meghan: If you were stuck as the protagonist in any horror movie, which would you choose?

Ramsey: The same, for the same reason.

Meghan: What is your all-time favorite scary monster or creature of the night?

Ramsey: The original King Kong, the greatest of all monsters in the greatest monster film.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?

Ramsey: Alas, for reasons outlined above, I have none. Oddly enough, I’ve often been at World Fantasy Conventions in America over the season, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen signs of the celebrations. Ah, hang on—in Baltimore in 1980 all the check-in staff at the Park Plaza were dressed as witches and pumpkins and the like. I think it was a pumpkin who proved loath to let Steve King have his room because he presented not a credit card (he had none in those days) but cash.

Meghan: What is your favorite horror or Halloween-themed song?

Ramsey: Horror uncanny enough for Halloween—Schubert’s Opus 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZzIb_qqw2w

Meghan: Which horror novel unsettled you the most?

Ramsey: Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable—one of the books I celebrated in an essay in The Book of Lists: Horror. It may be a protracted cry from the afterlife, or a narration by a limbless body displayed in a jar on a street, or by something even more featureless. I read it in a sitting one afternoon and have been haunted by it ever since. If it isn’t horror, I don’t know what is.

Meghan: What is the creepiest thing that’s ever happened while you were alone?

Ramsey: The room next to my workroom (where I’m writing this) has seen various uncanny manifestations over the decades we’ve lived in this house, and here’s the most extreme. Jenny and I had discussed befriending the room by spending the night up there together. During one of my attempts to let her sleep without my snoring I wakened at about two in the morning to discover that she’d decided to try the experiment. It was only when I opened my eyes and reached for her that I realised the silhouette next to me, its head on the other pillow, wasn’t Jenny. I tried for a very long time to move and cry out. Apparently I achieved the latter. In our bedroom on the floor below Jenny heard me make some kind of protest, but I’ve often exhorted her not to wake me if I’m having a nightmare, because I believe these dreams contain their own release mechanism, and I resent being taken out of them before the end. Jenny headed for the toilet on the middle floor, and when she returned I was still making the noise. Perhaps I was dreaming, in which case it had to be the longest nightmare, measured in objective time, that I’ve ever experienced. It consisted purely of lying in the bed I was actually in and trying to retreat from my companion. I admit to never having been so intensely terrified in my life. After minutes I found myself alone in the bed. I made myself turn over and close my eyes, but had a strong impression that a face was hovering very close to mine and waiting for me to look. Meanwhile, downstairs, Jenny felt an intruder sit beside her on our bed.

Meghan: Which unsolved mystery fascinates you the most?

Ramsey: I believe the Marie Celeste.

Meghan: What is the spookiest ghost story that you have ever heard?

Ramsey: I heard Graham Watkins tell this tale onstage at an American convention. He investigated haunted places, and had arranged to spend a night at a deserted mansion notorious for manifestations. He chose an upstairs room as his base of operations, and for several hours he heard ordinary domestic noises from downstairs—people talking, kitchen sounds and the like. After some hours he lost patience with them, as I recall, and declared as much aloud. At once there was silence, and he realised he’d alerted whatever was there to his presence. And then all the noises recommenced—directly outside the room he was in…

Meghan: In a zombie apocalypse, what is your weapon of choice?

Ramsey: My brain.

Meghan: Okay, let’s have some fun… Would you rather get bitten by a vampire or a werewolf?

Ramsey: A vampire, since it might give me a chance to experience immortality until I tired of it. A trip to Vasilema should do the job.

Meghan: Would you rather fight a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion?

Ramsey: Aliens—the less boring option, I’d hope.

Meghan: Would you rather drink zombie juice or eat dead bodies from the graveyard?

Ramsey: Neither. I find disgust nothing except tedious.

Meghan: Would you rather stay at the Poltergeist house or the Amityville house for a week?

Ramsey: Amityville if I wanted a quiet time, since the entire thing was a cynical hoax (which I said in a review as soon as I’d read the original book).

Meghan: Would you rather chew on a bitter melon with chilies or maggot-infested cheese?

Ramsey: I’ll take the melon.

Meghan: Would you rather drink from a witch’s cauldron or lick cotton candy made of spider webs?

Ramsey: If the cauldron conferred magical powers I’d take the risk.

Boo-graphy: Ramsey Campbell was born in Liverpool in 1946 and now lives in Wallasey. The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes him as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”, and the Washington Post sums up his work as “one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction”. He has received the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature. PS Publishing have brought out two volumes of Phantasmagorical Stories, a sixty-year retrospective of his short fiction, and a companion collection, The Village Killings and Other Novellas, while their Electric Dreamhouse imprint has his collected film reviews, Ramsey’s Rambles. His latest novel is Fellstones from Flame Tree Press, who have also recently published his Brichester Mythos trilogy.

Fellstones takes its name from seven objects on the village green. It’s where Paul Dunstan was adopted by the Staveleys after his parents died in an accident for which he blames himself. The way the Staveleys tried to control him made him move away and change his name. Why were they obsessed with a strange song he seemed to have made up as a child?

Now their daughter Adele has found him. By the time he discovers the cosmic truth about the stones, he may be trapped. There are other dark secrets he’ll discover, and memories to confront. The Fellstones dream, but they’re about to waken.

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: William Becker

megHan

Meghan: Hi, William. Welcome to Halloween Extravaganza. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

William Becker: My name is William Becker. I currently live in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. My second novel, Grey Skies, released on June 9th, 2019. I was adopted from Saint Petersburg, Russia when I was only eight months old. Outside of writing, I produce and direct film with my best friend,Travis Hill, and together we have formed Becker Hill Films, our first work being the music video for Bury Me In Black’s song Pharaoh, which can be found on YouTube currently. I listen to a ton of really experimental music, which partially inspired Grey Skies. I read semi-regularly, kind of dabbling in whatever book happens to catch my interest. Beyond that, I practice meditation nightly.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

William Becker: I enjoy Stephen King, but he is in no way an inspiration to me stylistically or with what I write about. When I tell people that I don’t know that I’m a horror writer, they always immediately jump to, “so like Stephen King?” No, not really, sorry.

I love studying religion. A lot of people say that and just focus on one, but any religion is pretty interesting to me. While I’m not personally very religious, I find any religion fascinating. I’ve made it a goal to go through the holy books of a lot of the major religions and just try and learn as much as I possibly can. I think if there’s one thing that can be expected from me in the future, it’s that I’ll write about the concepts of religion.

People assume I only listen to metal, but my music taste is really varied. I can go from listening to something like Dillinger Escape Plan or Behemoth, back into bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, then into stuff like Colter Wall, Johnny Cash, or Eric Church, then flip on some Tyler, The Creator, Śuicide Boys, or Ghostemane

I love poetry that isn’t by Robert Frost.

I’m really passionate politically but I have no desire to shove my positions down anyone’s throat.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

William Becker: Oh gosh, probably Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. I didn’t read it, but my mom read it to me every night and would get me to read a long. I remember reading Goosebumps at a pretty decently young age.

Meghan: What are you reading now?

William Becker: I just finished Midnight by Dean Koontz.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

William Becker: I LOATHE self-help books but I really enjoyed The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I think it’s basically eastern philosophies dressed up for millennials and with lots of swearing and modern examples. I think a lot of people who are younger/very stressed out by life should check it out at some point. It’s certainly not for everyone, because some people find the book obnoxious, but there are some valuable lessons about how many fucks one should give.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

William Becker: I think the first dive into writing is when I was 12 years old. I had a really big crush on this girl I had just met. I wrote really angsty stuff that I didn’t entirely feel to impress her. In a classic way, she didn’t like me back and ended up with some asshole that I hated and was really awful to her. My work became more depressing and something that I felt more, and I quickly stopped liking her. Not long after, she became one of my best friends.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

William Becker: Adaptability is everything. I love to write in school, probably more than I like writing at home. Just the chaos of everything kind of prevents distractions in a strange way. I’m not likely to dick around and end up reading threads about Donald Trump on reddit if I don’t have too much flexibility. Anywhere that’s busy always works well for me.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

William Becker: I stop every few paragraphs, re-examine them, send them to a friend or two, often rewriting sentences and doing research on tiny details that probably don’t matter. It can sometimes take obnoxious amounts of time for me to write a page.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

William Becker: My answer to this will change almost every time I write something new, but Grey Skies gets that title. The symbolism, the subtle details, the ciphers, the ending, and the buildup make the story really interesting to re-read. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but in a way, is completely able to stand on its own. I remember posting the story on Wattpad way back when and watching everyone struggle to comprehend each new chapter, as if people were gazing upon a newborn child. I recognize how pretentious that sounds, but people’s reactions to the novel have always been so interesting to me. It’s a confusing, complex, and weird piece of work, but it’s currently my favorite thing that I’ve ever done

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

William Becker: Of Mice and Men really influenced my writing style. The way that John Steinbeck writes each scene has been my basis for a while. He writes his work like a movie, describing the setting at the beginning of each scene and rarely interrupting the action with description that doesn’t matter. Of course, some people find that overwhelming, which is completely understandable, but it’s always kept things organized for me.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

William Becker: A good story is like any other piece of good art: it must either provoke or entertain the audience. A great story can do both.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

William Becker: It’s always more realistic to have characters be in a morally grey area. People who are evil for the sake of being evil or are overtly good for no reason are boring. I don’t have to be in love with the main character to love the story. Walter White is a fantastic example. He has good motivations in the beginning, but he’s inherently selfish and kind of a manipulative jackass to Jesse. I think that to truly love a character, they have to be relatable in some way to the audience, or at least interesting. James Carver from THE WHITE SHADE, which is one of the two stories attached to Grey Skies is relatable, even though he isn’t considered a good person by the end of the novel.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

William Becker: Answering this will put me in jail.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

William Becker: I personally can’t stand covers that just feature some person standing in front of a backdrop or some abstract symbol. There was so much potential in books like A Game of Thrones to have a great, really interesting looking cover, but they always seem to cheap out and use something that isn’t very interesting. Maybe I shouldn’t talk, considering my first novel is just a picture of a house edited to look like Texas Chainsaw, and it’s shallow to judge a book by its cover, but still, there’s so much potential with covers. It won’t put me off from reading a book, but it’s certainly pretty lame. There are very few books that I look at and think, “wow, what a nice cover!” However, The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge has one of my favorite book covers of all time.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

William Becker: That not everyone is going to like your work, especially as you go in a more experimental direction. Don’t do it to please others, do it because you love it.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

William Becker: Very few scenes are hard to write. Sometimes, making complex description interesting is nearly impossible, especially considering a lot of people tend to skip over description that they find overwhelming.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

William Becker: It’s weirder, more complex, and more confusing. It’s a lot less straightforward than most horror and has a lot more symbolism.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

William Becker: The name is both literal and figurative. I’ll try and make it as condensed as possible. Most of the book features rain, Grey Skies bring rain. Rain is more of a metaphor for torment. Drowning and asphyxiation are important to the central idea of the novel. As is the whole “fingerprints don’t show well in the rain” idea.

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

William Becker: Short stories are more fun and way easier to do, but I always feel more proud of my novels. Life is so short and it takes a lot of dedication to write a full piece of work. It always feels like I achieved something great whenever I finish a novel. They’re much longer, more packed full of characterization, etc. Don’t get me wrong I love my short stories (most of them can be found on Wattpad) but there’s something that feels amazing about finishing a novel.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.

William Becker: Anyone who has an open mind or just wants to read a good story. I would love to say that no one under 18 should read my story, but I worked on most of my first novel when I was 14, so you can honestly do whatever the Fuck you want.

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

William Becker: I am such a perfectionist that I never write anything that I can’t even attempt to use. Usually, the “deleted scenes” get scrapped before they’re written.

Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?

William Becker: There’s a few hints in Grey Skies (cough, cough, the only picture in the entire novel).

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

William Becker: Expect nothing, then you’ll be always pleasantly surprised. I have no plans to stick with any genre. My only consistency is that my work will stay dark and close to the heart.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

William Becker: I have two Instagram accounts (one and two), and I have a Goodreads account which is just my name.

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

William Becker: Don’t do drugs.

William Becker is an 18-year-old horror author with a mind for weirder sides of the universe. With an emphasis on complex and layered storylines that tug harshly on the reader to search for deeper meanings in the vein of Silent Hill and David Lynch, Becker is a force to be reckoned within the horror world. His works are constantly unfathomable, throwing terror into places never before seen, while also providing compelling storylines that transcend the predictable jumpscares of the popular modern horror.

His first novel, Weeping of the Caverns, was written when he was 14. After eight months of writing, editing, and revising, the story arrived soon after his 15th birthday. During the writing sessions for his debut novel, he also wrote an ultra-controversial short story known as THE WHITE SHADE that focused on the horrors of a shooting. Living in a modern climate, it was impossible for THE WHITE SHADE to see the light of day. Following a psychedelic stint that consisted of bingeing David Lynch movies, weird art, and considering the depth of the allegory of the cave wall, he returned to writing with a second story, THE BLACK BOX, and soon after, his second novel, Grey Skies.

Weeping of the Caverns

A man is arrested after a strange series of barbaric animal killings in the Rocky Mountains. He is taken away from his family, and then placed behind bars, but not even the solid confines of prison can save him from the hellish nightmare that begins to unfold.

Grey Skies

Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

Enter Hell with two bonus short stories: The White Shade, an ultra-violent look into the mind of a mass shooter, and The Black Box, a psychedelic dive into weird horror.