"Why do you write such terrible things?"

Succulent Prey has just been released by Leisure books. It is a violent little book It is violent even when compared to novels like American Psycho and Silence of The Lambs. Some will say that it goes too far, crosses boundaries that should not be crossed. What can I say to that?

I write horror. I write some of the most extreme, terrifying. violent, horrific horror you will ever read. Horror writers cringe at the horror that screams from my pages. Yes, I am one scary dude. But why do I do it? Why can't I write a nice paranormal Romance? Why can't I just write about angst-ridden metrosexual vampires? If I must write horror, why can't I write about creepy ghosts that do spooky things? Why does there have to be so much blood?

Because safe is boring. The mundane is too mundane. The ordinary is too ordinary. Fiction must be about extraordinary things, extraodinary people, and extraordinary depths of emotion, more emotional highs and lows than our work-a-day lives can provide. Horror gives us a look at the extraordinary. We see the horrible and the heroic. We see life intensified, magnified, and set free to tear shit up!

My life is extreme. Not in the way that my novels are. I'm not going to turn into a werewolf and rip your face off. I am a sensualist. I drink deep of existence. I have fought in some of the world's largest arenas. I have made love to women on three continents of all races and nationalities. I have recited poetry on stage at rap concerts. I have co-starred in an action film in Hong Kong. I have run marathons. I like my food so spicy it makes my eyes tear and my forehead sweat. I like art so staggeringly beautiful that you never want to tear your eyes away from it. I have experienced terrific highs and lows, the most intense emotion. I do not follow the usual path. Horror gives me a high I just could not imagine recieving from writing a western or a biography or chik-lit.

The world is a dark place. To create something darker and more violent than reality is a challenge but meeting that challenge creates a contrast that reveals the light. Put simply, what I write makes the world look like a nicer place. If you read my novels you quickly discover that the world in my head is not one you would want to reside in. The world where a communicable disease turns people into serial killers is probably much worse than anything you are experience during the current economic recession. Joseph Miles is worse than your boss or your ungrateful kids or those nosy neighbors. Being eaten alive is worse than losing your job or your house or finding out that your wife is sleeping with your best friend.

This is what fiction is about. It is escapism. It is a vacation from the vexations and trials of your daily life. If you can spend a few hours in sheer terror imagining what the librarian in Succulent Prey must have felt like as Joseph Miles tore into her with his blunt little teeth, trying to chew through layers of muscle and fat, then maybe your terror at that adjustable rate mortgage coming due might not seem quite so debilitating. Succulent Prey is real horror. Life? It ain't so bad.