MMP Celebrates Women in Horror Month: Amy Braun

Mocha Memoirs Press has long since celebrated and embraced diversity in speculative fiction. Join us as we spotlight our talented female horror authors throughout the month of February. Follow us on twitter @mochamemoirs to get daily tweets and more.

Amy Braun (@amybraunauthor) brings fresh, fantastic horror to the table at MMP. We love her works so much, we've published her twice, with a third story coming in Avast, Ye Airships!

Whenever I tell someone I write horror, they give me funny looks. “Really?” they say, “you don’t look like you’d be into that kind of thing.” Vampires, witches, werewolves, zombies, demons, blood, guts, and brain matter– Not everyone’s cup of tea to be sure. But I love it. I have since I was a kid, reading the Goosebump books by R. L. Stine and Choose Your Fate stories, reading fast paced adventures where the main character (or you) would be chased by all kinds of nasties. How could I not love something that made my blood pound and roused my curiosity about what bumps in the night?

But when people look at me, they see a short brunette with innocent eyes and a welcoming smile. I’m one of the last women you might expect to write horror fanatically, and yet when people read my award winning short story Dark Intentions And Blood, they’re stunned at the madness I can unleash. That’s why I’m so proud to be a female horror author. No one suspects us, because it’s not a genre women typically favor. I don’t know why­– horror is simply so much fun to write. Building the suspense as your character enters the haunted house and knowing they won’t escape unscathed. Creating a demon straight from the pits of Hell and unleashing it on the fools who summoned it. Or, in the case of my Mocha Memoir short stories, resurrecting the ghost of a crazed assassin and struggling to contain him again, or searching desperately for your missing fiancée only to find a hotel with more secrets than answers.

Another reason I chose to write horror was because there are so many ways to do it. Call From The Grave was a story I wrote that holds a fairly quick pace near the end, focusing on the main character’s burdens as she endures servitude she didn’t want. Fast paced horror is the kind I do best, since I tend to enjoy horror stories with an explosive ending. That being said, there’s nothing quite like subtle horror. With my second Mocha Memoir short story, Hotel Hell, I aimed for a less life-or-death battles and concentrated on unnerving the reader. I wanted to place them in that hotel, and send shivers up their spine. Granted things got a little insane at the end (I have to be me), but there were no exploding body parts or decapitations or anything truly abrupt or disgusting. The idea was to disturb, and I must have done something right, because I even creeped myself out.

Many of my role models in horror are male. Everyone from Stephen King and Scott Sigler to lesser-known names like David Moody and Alexander Gordon Smith has given me inspiration to continue writing horror. But one can’t forget that a woman created Frankenstein’s monster, one of the most infamous monsters of all time. I have the feeling that no one suspected she was capable of creating such an iconic creature, or that the story would stick with us almost a century after it was written. That’s why I love coming across horror written by women. They surprise you when you least expect it, and aren’t afraid to push the boundaries of their beloved genre. There are women out there like me, who prefer their vampires bloodthirsty and ravenous instead of whiny and disco-balled. We want our werewolves to be savage creatures that lose control at the slightest provocation. We like our haunted houses to be filled with corpses, ghosts, and death-traps.

No one will ever suspect me for writing a violent, twisted genre. That’s why when they tell me so, I smile and simply say, “I know. That’s why I do it.” 

The Anticipation Versus The Bang

There's a famous Alfred Hitchcock quote that sticks with me every time I write a horror story: "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." The man could not have been more right, especially when it comes to dark fantasy when it mixes with horror. Obviously this applies to the horror genre, building up the atmosphere until the scary monster leaps out from the shadows onto their victim, but with dark fantasy there always seems to be more in the way of atmospheric scares than splatterfest gore.


Think of any scary story you've ever read. Imagine reading it alone at home one night. You're unable to go outside because there's a huge thunderstorm crashing around your house. Thunder and roaring winds make the windows rattle and the blinding lightning is making you blink, your eyes seeing the shadows take new, towering shapes.

You shift on your couch and try to make yourself more comfortable, wrapping your blanket around you as though it will protect you from whatever tricks your mind is playing. You tell yourself that it's just a stupid storm, and go back to your book. In it, the main character is moving toward the attic to find out what they heard. Their hand is shaking on their flashlight, their footsteps creaking the on the attic stairs. Past the wooden groans and their pounding heart, they hear the raspy breathing coming from the attic. Your own pulse begins to quicken. You know something is up there, and you want to tell them to turn around. But they won't. The storm rages beyond you. 

The character enters the attic. They step onto the floorboards and see nothing, but the tortured breathing is louder than ever. It's coming quicker, moving from shadow to shadow. Your mind is telling the character to run back down, but they take another step. The trap door slams shut behind them. They spin around, choking on their scream, and lift their flashlight when they see–

The door of your house slams open. You jump and scream, the book flying out of your hands as you whirl around–

And see your husband standing there with a bewildered look on his face.

Not a true story, but I had you going, didn't I?

While I was writing my latest Mocha Memoir novella, Hotel Hell, I focused on heightening the tension. The story revolves around a young man named Milo who searches for his missing fiancee, only to come across a hotel with dark, disturbing secrets. Concentrating on the creepiness of the hotel was key. Adding in little situations where Milo and the readers know something isn't right, but they can't figure out what. Even when I was planning the story, I knew I had to write it as though the hotel itself was a character with a mystery, and that its employees were just as terrifying as the building itself. Creating the horrors inside the hotel was the funnest part, and I think it made the impact of the climax so much more frightening. It's amazing what you can imagine if you take an ordinary object, and twist it into something that Neil Gaiman would create.

For me, dark fantasy and horror tend to go hand in hand, as they both concentrate on the anticipation of the danger. Both genres want to set off warning bells in your head, even though you're dying to turn the page and see what lurks behind that corner. They feed each other, one building on fear in the readers heart through romantically twisted scenarios while horror weaves itself into the cracks, like glowing red eyes through the slits of your closet. Don't worry– I'll save that story for another time. 

Happy Halloween! 

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Amy Braun is an aspiring urban fantasy and horror author addicted to monsters and mythology. When she isn't writing, she's reading, watching movies, taking photos, or gaming. She was the recipient of April Moon Books Editor Award for "author voice, world-building and general bad-assery" in 2014.

Her current work includes the novellas Call From The Grave, Needfire, and Hotel Hell, and has short stories in the Lost In The Witching Hour anthology (Charlatan Charade) and AMOK! (Dark Intentions And Blood). She also has two more short stories that will be featured in two different anthologies, as well as her first full length novel releases in 2015. More information on these releases and Amy can be found online through her blog, Literary Braun, or followed on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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First Impressions

What's the most exciting thing for a new author? Having your first short story accepted by a professional publishing agency. To say I couldn't stop smiling for thirty minutes straight is not exaggeration. I'm unbelievably excited to be one of the authors in Mocha Memoir's upcoming Toil, Trouble, and Temptation series, and thought I would introduce myself a bit and talk about my story, how I came up with it, and what it was like to write.

One of my best friends told me I have an overactive imagination. He was more right that he knew. I'm the kind of author who will literally come up with ideas out of the blue. I once came up with an idea walking to Walmart, listening to music, and thinking two words sounded cool put together. I write best when I let the ideas flow like this, naturally and without effort. Once I know what sort of idea I want to explore, I can't let go until it's a completed piece of work.

As soon as I saw the submission guidelines, I knew I wanted to participate. At first I was forcing out ideas, trying to think of something to write and coming up with half-hearted, unoriginal ideas. Nothing I knew I could have fun with or experiment with or test myself with. So I took a step back, and just didn't think about it. Two days later, that little lightbulb in my head flicked on, and this is what shone through:

A necromancer summons an assassin for the mob. Here's a more detailed description:

Tessa Sterling is a necromancer having a bad night. She's kidnapped and confronted by the most powerful gangster in Boston, then ordered to resurrect his most ruthless contract killer. When those she cares about are threatened, Tessa has no choice but to comply.

But the spirit she raises quickly uncovers the truth about his death, and his rage is insatiable. Hell is about to break loose, and Tessa is the only one who can put the spirit back in his grave, if he doesn't put her in one first...

What could be more dangerous than an undead assassin with anger management problems? The trickiest part for me was the setting. For some reason, all the gangsters I pictured were dressed like they'd just walked off the set of the Godfather. The first idea was that Tessa would be a poor girl from that era and dragged unwillingly into the crime life, finding out that her mother had been murdered by the very people she was working for. I liked that idea and really tried to make it work, but I wasn't as in love with the concept as I originally thought. So I changed things around, went with a more modern setting, and it flowed a lot better. I was writing so hard I thought my fingers would fall off.

The funnest part for me was deciding on how Tessa's gift work, what she needed to do physically and spiritually to summon a spirit from the grave. I think I came up with a really unique concept, and maybe that was part of the reason Call From The Grave was selected for the Toil, Trouble, and Temptation series by Mocha Memoirs Press.

I had a great time writing this little story. The more I think about it, the more proud I am, and I can't wait to see how the final product is received. Hope you all enjoy it, and have a terrific Fourth of July weekend!

Amy