Mocha Memoirs Celebrates Women in Horror Month-Carole Ann Moleti

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.

I never considered myself a horror writer, but one day found that Aramis, the main character in The Ultimate Test, had decided that she didn't want to star in an urban fantasy. She wanted to plunge deep into dark magic and take everyone else with her. As I wrote, I struggled to 
understand where were all this was coming from. 

My nonfiction themes often parallel my fiction writing--and The Ultimate Test was no exception. 

Many of the events in the story are based on real experiences. When I started to scare myself at the intensity of the story, I turned to my fellow horror writer friends for advice and support. 

Writing teacher Michaeala Roessner encouraged me to keep going, to not hold back--that to write compelling fiction an author has to push the limits or their characters won't be interesting and the story will fall flat. My longtime critique partner Andrew Richardson, who writes  supernatural horror, echoed her advice urging me to stay true to the character. Rayne Hall, an 
editor and writer, whose tag line is dark* dangerous* disturbing is an expert on making stories scarier and thus more compelling. Rayne "invites readers to think, to probe their own consciences, to ask themselves what they would have done in this situation, to explore what is right and what’s wrong. The dark corners of the human psyche are far scarier – and more interesting – than chainsaw massacres." 

The Ultimate Test took many years to find a home at Mocha Memoirs Press, likely due to the dark, disturbing, and dangerous protagonist's actions. In my work in progress, a very gritty urban fantasy, I'm finding it easier to turn off my conscience and separate myself from the character—which any writer will tell you is hard to do. Like doting parents, we may give life to them, but inevitably they must make the choices of what to do with it. Mark Cassell, a cross-genre writer like myself sums it up. " There's a darkness everywhere, and as writers we have the tools at hand to show it in its rawest form. We can scare -- indeed, we can horrify -- our readers at whatever level we choose. As long as we're honest."

Thanks to my friends for sharing their insights and their talents with me on a regular basis. Thanks to Nicole Kurtz for giving The Ultimate Test a fine home. Thanks to all of you for celebrating Women in Horror Month with Mocha Memoirs Press. I invite you to share our stories and let us know what you think.

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.”