READ: Spotlight on Nancy Kilpatrick. PDF, EPUB online free reviews.

After the rousing success of Group Hex Vol. 1 at its recent launch party in Toronto, I’m more than happy to continue shining the spotlight on its featured authors.

It’s an absolute honor for me to welcome Nancy Kilpatrick to Bloody Bookish today! She shares insight into her story included in the anthology, as well as a sneak peak at her upcoming new novel!

Can you start off by telling everyone about your background – when you first started writing and what you write.

I began writing when I was around 7 or 8 years old because my grandfather, who adored me and loved to give me presents, brought me a little manual typewriter. I pecked out tiny poems on that thing. In my teenage years, I wrote angry essays about the injustices in this world that the major deities allowed to happen. I began writing fiction in my 20s. I also wrote non-fiction back then, for newspapers and magazines. And over the years have authored stories in comic books, a couple of graphic novels, co-wrote a stage play, advertising copy, two radio scripts, taught writing, and many other writerly offshoots, including editing 15 anthologies. I have very much been open to all sorts of work in this field and of course have plunged in where angels fear to tread, meaning, I knew nothing about, for example, writing for comics, or for theater, but that didn’t stop me from trying!

nEvermore, one of the many anthologies edited by Nancy Kilpatrick

Tell readers about your story in Group Hex Vol. 1.

“The Shaft” is a reprint of a story that was published quite a while ago. I won’t talk about the plot, which might give too much away and remove some of the suspense and hopefully enjoyment of the story, but it takes place in an apartment a young woman has just moved into alone, leaving her family for the first time. The story is set in the bathroom. That bathroom is the bathroom in the apartment I lived in for more than 15 years in Toronto. I have lots of real-life urban horror stories about that air shaft!

What inspired you to write the story?

I was writing a lot of short fiction back then and found a publication I thought the story idea was suited to. It also fit the sub-genre I was mostly interested in at that time.

What stories/books are you working on next?

At the moment, I’m working on Volume 2 in a new novel series called Thrones of Blood. The book title is Sacrifice of the Hybrid Princess. I’m also working on a new short story for a futuristic anthology.

The first novel in the Thrones of Blood world is Revenge of the Vampir King and the ebook is a pre-order on Amazon from January 15th and goes live February 1. The print book is scheduled for April 2017. At the moment, there are 6, possibly 7 novels planned for this world, with an over-series storyline, although each novel has its own plot that concludes.

If there was a decidedly Canadian “voice” in horror fiction, how would you describe it?

I don’t think there’s a Canadian voice, though there is something Canadian about the fiction created in this country. Don Hutchison, who was the editor of the wonderful anthology series Northern Frights, always said it was a ‘sense of place’.

Most writers at some point tend to write about their environment and Canada is quite different than environments in the US and UK (in English) and France (in French). This is a cold climate temperature-wise, with long winters and a lot of isolation during those winter months. Also, Canadians love the outdoors, ice skating from the minute they can walk, skiing, canoeing, hiking, etc. Not all Canadians, of course, but enough that the stereotype seems to be a relatively accurate description. The way a writer lives and his or her interests have to filter into the work.

Do you try to bring a particularly Canadian perspective to your work?

I don’t try, but it’s frequently there.

Do you have any parting words to share?

Recently, I was writing on a friend’s wall about the late Robert Bloch, the author of the book Psycho on which the movie was based (among his many other works). I was at a Canadian convention in London, ON in the early 1990s and on a panel with Bloch and 3 others, but none of the other panelists showed up, just Bloch and me. Naturally all the Q&A questions were directed at him, but he was the ultimate gentleman and always turned to me, a writer with only short stories published in the dark fantasy field and a first novel in the pipeline, and said, “Nancy, what do you think?” I was flabbergasted. He was so kind to me, and encouraging when we spoke briefly later. Bloch was a well read man and I was most impressed that he’d read so many books in so many genres, including literary and non-fiction. He just devoured books.

The one thing I remember him talking about was that writers should read…everything. And not just in the genre they like to read and what they want to write. Having a worldly knowledge adds depth to writing and also allows the writer to present their work in a more universal way and to a broader audience. And, of course, if you love writing, you probably love reading–the wider the scope, the better the work. I encourage anyone who wants to be a writer or is a writer to read read read.

In this Women in Horror month coming up, Bloch is one of the men in this field who encouraged women, and to this day I thank him and feel warmly towards this giant in the field who I did not know but who put his ego aside to include me. I’d love for more men to take up that challenge. Men are good at promoting themselves, women not so much, and frankly, for a lot of women, self-promo feel both awkward and very chintzy and Kardashian in nature.

We need more men who value women, and value women writers to support women in the horror genre which is weighted heavily on the male side (but for supernatural romance). Find a woman to support that you aren’t trying to lure into bed. Yes, altruism is called for. Helping someone because you can and because they need it, and the reward is to feel good about doing something that contributes towards helping the planet become a better place for all of us.

As mentioned above, Nancy’s newest book is set to launch in 2017.

Revenge of the Vampir King – Volume 1 – Thrones of Blood will be available in ebook on February 1st. The pre-order is live NOW and ready for you! Just head to AMAZON to secure your copy!

The paperback version is set to launch in April 2017.

About Revenge of the Vampir King

Volume 1 – Thrones of Blood

Vampires and humans are at war!

Moarte, King of the Vampirii, is a prisoner of his Sapiens enemy. The beautiful Sapiens Princess Valada, believing that Moarte killed her mother, tortures him, even to the point of breaking the bones in his wings so he cannot escape. She intends to incinerate him to ash in sunlight, but Moarte escapes.

Moarte hungers for revenge. When, through an act of betrayal, Valada is captured by the vampirii, his first instinct is to drain her blood and annihilate her. But he realizes he can get revenge in other ways, using her as a tool to gain the upper hand in this conflict. But who is manipulating whom? Both want revenge, and control of the other, and Moarte wants to drink Valada’s blood. Dark desires lead down a path neither had envisioned, a threatening spiral that can destroy empires.
Hunter and hunted change places again and again in this novel of twisted, violent passions. Seeds of deception are sown amidst love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, obsession and indifference, in an erotic tale of warring races, foes since the beginning of time, and two unlikely adversaries aligning to battle a common enemy.

About Nancy Kilpatrick
Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published 18 novels, over 220 short stories, 7 collections of her stories, and has edited 15 anthologies, including the recent nEvermore!Tales of Murder, Mystery & the Macabre, a finalist for both a Bram Stoker Award and an Aurora Award, and winner of the Paris Book Festival’s best anthology of the year award. Recent original short works are included in: Nightmare’s Realm;Black Wings 6;Black Wings 5;Searchers After Horror; The Darke Phantastique; Zombie Apoclaypse: Endgame!; Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women; The Madness of Cthulhu 2; Innsmouth Nightmares; Stone Skin Bestiary. Two new graphic novels are: Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampyre Theater and her story “Heart of Stone” in Tales From the Acker-Mansion. Thrones of Blood is a new novel series. Volume 1, Revenge of the Vampir King, will be out as an ebook February 1 (pre-orders are live now) and a print book as of April. Volume 2, Sacrifice of the Hybrid Princess will be released later in 2017.