In my spare time, I like to slaughter small children. Also husbands, wives, dogs … The dogs are the worst. I hate it when they whimper right at the end.
No, I’m not demented. I’m just a horror writer. Instead of horror stories you read, however, I write horror audio. Stories you listen to. In the dark. By yourself. Stories told in whispers … in screams …
*distant evil laughter*
Okay, seriously — listen up!
For the past three years, I’ve been honored to have my work featured in Chatterbox Audio Theater’s annual Halloween show, which is performed and broadcast live from the studios of WKNO-FM (Memphis) while the kids are out trick-or-treating.
Like all Chatterbox shows, the Halloween program is posted later to the website — and the 2011 show is now available for free streaming or download!
If you like horror, be sure to check out the mayhem and madness from previous Halloween broadcasts. Not into horror? Not a problem. Chatterbox’s ever-expanding catalog of shows includes adaptations of literary masterpieces, children’s theater shows, folktales and mythology, sketch comedy shows, original dramas, and speculative fiction.
Why do I write horror? Why should you?
Honestly, I’m not much of a fan. I skip most contemporary horror films and could hardly tell you who’s writing in the genre these days. So it was rather a big surprise to discover how much I love writing the scary stuff!
Part of it has to do with taking a reader/listener somewhere they seriously do not want to go. Into the dark. Across that narrow line that separates our safe and sane, if sometimes chaotic, “real” lives from a world of evil, disaster and madness. Into those shadowy, haunted places in the human heart and mind that we want to think could never exist in us.
But they do. And it’s our job as writers to go there. Some may choose mainstream or literary forms to explore the same areas. Writing within the genre simply focuses the work differently. The scary stuff takes center stage. We’re staring directly into the darkness and daring its monsters to stare back.
That’s the flip-side of the equation. I’m not simply taking the audience into some dark place. I’m exploring the dark places inside my own mind. It’s a powerful tool for a writer, not being afraid to go deep. Being able to admit to — and utilize — all the broken bits.
Horror also generates strong responses — and what writer doesn’t want to hear that their writing hit a nerve? When friends and family freak out over one of my Halloween stories, I’m thrilled. I do apologize, sometimes, if I know that I’ve really upset someone. But I also tell them straight-up, “It’s my job. This is what I do.” And I walk around with a big grin on my face afterwards.
As Bob Arnold, executive director of Chatterbox, once commented in an email call for scripts: “It’s hard to find anything more fun to write than radio horror.”
What’s your take on the scary stuff? Read it, write it, roll around it all day long? Lemme know in the comments!
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dh
