Creeping Shadows is a collection of three novellas by Alan Draven, Brandon Ford and Jessica Lynne Gardner, and features stories about Jack the Ripper, a brutal fictionalized account of a real-life event and a series of curse-fueled murders. All three stories are excellent, though if I had to pick a favorite, I’d have to go with Ford’s nonstop, brutal Merciless. The book’s a solid 4/5, and I thought it would be fun to get all three authors together for an interview. So, without further ado:
LC: How did the idea for Creeping Shadows get started? Were these particular stories included from the start, or was there a submissions process?
AD: I’m a big fan of novella collections so I thought it’d be a great idea to publish a book featuring three novellas from three different authors. I’ve known Brandon for a couple of years now and am a fan of his work so I asked him if he’d be interested and he was so all we were missing was a third partner in crime. Since a lot of today’s independent writers are women, I figured it’d be a nice addition to our trio to have Jessica come onboard with us. She accepted my invitation and it grew from there. I gave Brandon and Jessica the very large theme of stories about monsters—whether they be supernatural or not—and a few weeks later the project was a go.
LC: Alan, I love stories about Jack the Ripper, my all-time favorite being Richard Laymon’s Savage. Yours is different in that the Ripper is actually haunted by a ghost, a novel idea that I don’t think I’ve seen in any other stories about Jack. What made you think of it?
AD: I’ve been fascinated by Jack the Ripper for as long as I can remember. The idea for the story actually came to me in a very vivid dream where I was an ethereal bystander witnessing Jack the Ripper murdering a prostitute and seeing her ghost rise from her slain body only to come back and haunt him later on. I did a little bit of research to find out if something similar had been done before and it seemed no one had spun that twist in a Ripper story, so I went ahead and began writing.
LC: Brandon, your story, Merciless, is based on a true story. Can you give us some of the background on this?
BF: Merciless was inspired by a real-life kidnapping that took place in California back in 2002. Two teenage girls were abducted at gunpoint and savagely assaulted several times throughout the night. Their captor, a family man, was known by his friends and neighbors as a sweet and kind individual. But, as those closest to him came to find, alcohol altered his personality drastically. He’d become often times violent under the influence, but never had he done anything as vicious as this before. This kidnapping was the first to utilize the Amber Alert system, which proved to be incredibly effective, as it played a key role in the girls’ rescue.
LC: All three of your topics appear to be research-heavy. What were some of your experiences doing the research for your stories?
AD: I’m not big on research unless it’s a subject that I’m really enthralled about. For Vengeance is Mine, my story in Creeping Shadows, I immersed myself for two months in a Jack the Ripper bible and a handful of reliable websites. I read Ripper resources exclusively for the duration of that period of time, scribbling furiously in a notebook all the details of the murders; street names, times of death, conditions in which the bodies were found, etc. When I was done with my research, I felt like I knew the historical aspect, facts, and all the theories on Jack the Ripper like the back of my hand. I was in a very dark state of mind at the end of this, having bathed in the subject for such a long period of time. I then made up my own mind about what had happened, meaning who I thought would have most likely been Jack the Ripper based on everything I’d read. I added to that the angle that he was haunted by one of his victims and I had a historical horror tale on my hands.
BF: I first learned about this incident through a 48 Hours: Hard Evidence special. I then did a lot of online research for further details I could use in the piece. However, I tried not to put the case under a microscope, as I wanted to put my own spin on what happened. So, even though a lot of what is in Merciless actually happened, a large portion of it is pure fiction.
JLG: I’ve always loved researching different cultures. I was one of those kids that adored history and theology and my nose was always stuck in a book on ancient societies so it wasn’t that difficult to get me to read about Mexican superstitions, history and culture! I think Dia De Los Muertos, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead that my story revolves around, is a beautiful tradition because they view death so much differently. They honor the lives of the dead and do not fear death-instead they see it as a cycle of life. To further understand the holiday I actually got some recipes for sugar skulls and candied pumpkin (both are Dia De Los Muertos staples and are featured in Sugar Skull) and made them for my own family and friends. A writer should experience as much of what they are writing about as possible and I like to use all of my senses.
LC: Jessica, you have stories featured in a lot of anthologies from the last couple of years, but Sugar Skull is your longest published work that I’m aware of. How did writing Sugar Skull compare to the other work you’ve done?
JLG: Sugar Skull is my longest published work but I’ve actually been writing longer works from day one. As a child I worked on fantasy novels (which never saw the light of day) that I would give to my family and friends to read. This continued well up into my teens until I took my AP English class my senior year of high school. It was there that I wrote my very first short story. Because I’d never fully completed my novels (I think I was too young to focus properly) I decided to try my hand at short dark fantasy and horror. It was challenging at first to write shorts but it taught me much about writing and editing. Sugar Skull was a bit between both worlds but it made me get back into my novel writing groove and with all the experience I’ve gained from my short publications, it was a lot smoother and an easier transition. Now I’m back to writing novels! What I love about the longer works is the ability to have so much room and creative reign with the settings and plot. I feel that short stories are more about characterization and the details are limited. Being a detailed oriented person I love to spin a nice long tale filled with history, plot turns and lavish descriptions.
LC: What can we expect to see from the three of you in the near future?
AD: I currently have a Halloween short story titled “The Rattling Man” in the Horror Zine’s first annual anthology—And Now the Nightmare Begins. In March, The Odd Mind radio show’s Lesa Trapp will be publishing a book on writing titled Indies On Writing for which I wrote the Foreword and a piece on writing about the importance of self editing. And there is a chance that a collection of novellas and short stories of mine will be released in late 2010 titled Nocturnal Offerings through Pixie Dust Press.
BF: My third novel, Pay Phone, will be released by Arctic Wolf Publishing towards the end of March. Set in the late ‘90s, it concerns a serial killer that uses the public phone located across the street from his building as a way to lure his victims. Watching from his third floor window, he dials strangers on the street and lures them into his web. It’s definitely the darkest out of the novels I’ve written so far and the one I’m most proud of.
JLG: Since I’m back in my favorite element with longer works, I have a newly finished supernatural horror novella based on master-builder legends and am finishing up my first novel and beginning a dark fantasy novel series. So hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot more from me very soon!
Living Shadows is a collection of twenty gritty stories spanning roughly 35 years of an exceptional career in speculative fiction. As well-respected as Shirley is in the business, he still isn’t getting the recognition he deserves (i.e., his own dedicated shelf in every bookstore in the world), and he proves it with every tale in this book.