Our featured writer for the month of October is Teri Jacobs. Teri has been thrilling readers with her classical style of prose that describes horrific scenes of torture, debauchery, and outright terror. Her first novel was the Leisure Books title The Void published in 2002. Her second novel The Secret of the Bones, published by Wildside Press in 2005, certified her status as one of the best and most talented hard-core horror writers on the scene.

While Teri knows how to deliver shocks throughout a novel-length piece, perhaps it is her short fiction that represents her best work. Compressing her imagination into short story form creates heart-rending and unforgettable results. In fact, it was her story "The Harlequin" in Surreal #2 that first caught my eye.

Q1) How old where you when you knew that someday you would become a horror writer?

13, the perfect coming-of-age for a spooky writer.  I'd been chosen by my teacher to represent our school in a summer writing program and had written my first graphic scary story in the workshop.  Unlucky for the other young writers, we read my story before lunch.  It killed their appetites.  But it made me very happy to elicit such a strong reaction, and I knew then the power of horror.

Q2) Your prose reads in a classical manner, eloquent and vivid. Rather unique to today's crop of horror authors. How did you come about this style?

Blame Edgar Allan Poe.  As well as my university studies in English Literature.  I've a fondness for atmosphere, language, metaphor, simile and symbolism, all the lyricism and romanticism of classical literature.  And, you know, the demon's in the detail!  I love writing descriptive passages, painting the imagery with words.  The images in my mind inspire the story I'll tell.  Through the years (decades really) I've received praise from professors and readers, and this positively reinforced the distinctive flourishing style I've adopted.

 I've gotten none yet.  Perhaps if the works reach a wider, more mainstream audience, the (ab)use of children may offend.  So far, the reaction has been great. I'd read "Wild Things" to a college class during one of my guest lecture visits to UK.  After I'd finished, the students sat in silent shock for a few minutes.  Then they applauded.  I loved it!!

Q4) Tell us a little bit about the mythology surrounding your two novels.

In The Void, I bastardized Mayan and Aztec mythology and created my own MesoAmerican Mythos.  The Mayans had a deep-rooted fear of death, and both cultures sacrificed human victims and performed ritual bloodletting for appeasing the gods in exchange for blessings and gifts such as rain, abundant harvests, or victory in war.  Xilbaba, the Mayan dangerous underworld, literally means a place of fright.  In this place, demons, death gods, dark lords, and grim traps await the journeying soul, or, in the case of The Void, several of my characters.

The Secrets of the Bones has complex mythological and theological backgrounds.  I studied books on necromancy, Enochian magick, Freemasonry and the history, culture and beliefs of the Caananites, Phoenicians and Babylonians. Even borrowed facts from Biblical archaeological findings.  The Book of Enoch and other Gnostic texts proved rich in information about angels (dark and light), Heaven and Hell.  Mainly I focused on the Grigori, a sect of fallen angels who'd fathered the giants of the Old Testament.  These sons had voracious and violent appetites, devouring all the plants and animals, so God destroyed them with the Flood, and the Archangels trussed the Grigori in chains. Secrets of the Bones begins with the Grigori escaping Heaven's prison and returning to modern earth with the intent to father ogrish sons again. 

Fans who are fascinated by vivacious authors will certainly have more curiosity and motivation to part with their money and time.  I'd say my personality factors into generating a following. Doubtful my charms win everyone, but I know if I stood quietly in a corner, nobody would see/know me to show any interest in my work.  You have to speak to be heard.  And you sometimes have to sell yourself before you sell that book off the shelf.

I love, love, love the works of Storm Constantine, Charlee Jacob, Jacquiline Carey (currently reading her Banewrecker) and Tess Gerritsen.  Other female writers I admire include Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Higgins Clark, Anne Rice (before the hype!), Poppy Z. Brite, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Jane Yolen, Anne Bishop, Juliet Marillier, Mary Snyder and Patricia Cornwell. 

I admit I've not read much horror lately.  But I think Jeffrey Vandermeer, Cheysa Burke, William Gagliani, John Everson, and Jeremy Robert Johnson (and so many others I've forgotten) will break out of the small press and earn mass-market deals and fame. Tor publishes Vandermeer now.

Q8) I'm trapped overnight in a haunted Victorian era mental hospice with Jack Ketchum, Ed Lee, J.F. Gonzalez, and you. Which one of you scary folks will cause me to lose my bladder during storytime inside the ECT room?

Despite their solid reputations, I would because the tale of haunting I'd tell would be real.  The Horrorfest crew had planned a midnight tour through a haunted cemetery for us horror authors.  By the end of the tour, the guides offered me a job as a clairvoyant. 

Imagine what lurks in the haunted mental ward.  Imagine what I'd sense, what secrets I could unfold for you.  Madness Lovecraft-style.

Q9) This must be a common question, but I have to know: what does your family think of your horror fiction?

Only my husband, parents and brother have even read any of my dark fiction.  My mom and brother loved The Void, but my dad wanted to know where I learned all those big words. (Hmm, the private Catholic high school and college education he paid for comes to mind).  However, even though my grandma has never read a single written word of mine, she believes I will go to Hell for it. 

Q10) An interesting twist to much of your work are the erotic undertones you give to pain and torture. Tell us a bit about researching this aspect of your fiction?

The erotic undertones stem from my desire to disturb the reader through arousal (mental or physical).  By equating pleasure with pain, beauty with the hideous, the alluring to the repulsive, the reader's concepts and standards get skewed.  It might make him or her think s/he's demented, perverted, sick too.  And that bothers people!

I've researched books and internet articles (I love Google!) on all forms of torture and the instruments used (Medieval's my fav; I used the Breast Ripper in The Secrets of the Bones.).  In NYC, I'd attended an underground, risque cabaret act and two fetish clubs, and have interviewed D/s (doms and subs) in the BDSM scene.  Of course, as a writer, I had to know firsthand some of the experiences.  I'll let your imagination take over now.

Edgar Allan Poe. He is the master of terror, of atmospheric works that haunt you forever more.

Q12) The Myspace phenomenon: what draws you to it?

I'm drawn to the aspects of a broader audience and network system.  MySpace makes marketing and networking fun and flexible too.   I love the diversity of this online community. Through MySpace, I've met many individuals who share my interests or at least have an interest in my work and who I am beyond the byline.  My appeal isn't limited to my fiction.  If a person feels a friendly connection to another, s/he might feel more inclined to support efforts, personal and professional.

Q13) What's the most painful death you have put down on paper?

Mind you, I might guess wrong because I've never experienced any of these deaths to know for certain, but I'd say either being skinned alive (The Void) or being devoured alive by Fallen Angels and still feeling their teeth long after your flesh had been consumed (The Secrets of the Bones).

I'm a walking barometer.  I suffer severe chronic migraines and cluster headaches, and weather is my main trigger.  I'll feel a low-pressure system coming three days in advance sometimes.  So, I know it takes three days for the storms of Kansas to reach Ohio, two days from Chicago, and hours from Indianapolis.  In my twenty-two years of pain, I've never been wrong in my predictions. 

I'll suffer the 666 Apex paper cuts and take my chances on surviving.  Paper cuts, whilst stingy, generally are very shallow and bloodless.

Expect my short story, "The Ovid Project," in a forthcoming issue of InHuman Magazine.  Ghostship Films, an independent film company, has optioned the sci-fi thriller for a movie, and production begins in October! 

Unfortunately I've nothing hitting the shelves because my third novel is still a work-in-progress.  However, I will have a screenplay to market sometime this year and plan on converting the script into either short story or novel form.