• Interview by Desi D.

1. What author do you admire? And explain how they helped you become a better writer.

Ellen Hopkins. I read her books as a preteen, and I will never lose the feeling her stories gave me. The way her verse stripped everything down to raw emotion, the way I could feel every fracture in her characters’ lives, how the words on the page seemed to pulse with their pain and desperation. I wasn’t just reading a story. I was inside it, living it, feeling it in my chest.

That’s what I want for my readers. Every single time I write, my goal is to make them feel what I felt reading Hopkins. Not just entertained or intrigued, but completely consumed. I want them to close the book and still feel the story reverberating through them. Hopkins taught me that the highest achievement in storytelling isn’t a clever plot or a shocking twist. It’s making someone feel something so deeply they carry it with them long after the last page.

2. What is it about horror and thrillers that fascinate you? How do they influence your writing?

I’m fascinated by human nature, and horror and thrillers strip us down to our rawest selves. They reveal who we really are when we’re terrified, desperate, cornered. But honestly? I also just love scary shit. I love that tingle you get, the way your breath catches at the height of the story, when the tension is so tight you feel like you can’t breathe.

That’s the feeling I chase in my writing, and I’m not afraid to go dark and gory to get there. The visceral, physical horror amplifies that emotional intensity. I want my readers to experience that full-body reaction, that moment where the story has such a grip on them that their body responds. Horror gives me permission to push readers to that edge, to make them squirm, to make them feel in the most primal way. It’s not just about shocking people. It’s about using that raw, unflinching darkness to create a connection where story becomes experience.

3. What is your favorite story? And why?

It’s a story my grandma told me as a child about the one-eyed boogeyman. The details changed a little each time, but no matter how many times she told it, we (my sister and cousins) would jump and scream at the scary bits.

I think it’s my favorite because it’s a fond memory, but also because it made scary stories fun for me. It taught me that fear and joy can exist in the same moment, that being scared can be thrilling instead of traumatic. My grandma showed me that storytelling is about connection, about gathering people together and making them feel something powerful.

4. What about the art of storytelling excites you? And of course, what is the next story we can look forward to reading from you?

I love writing feelings. When I get a dialogue exchange just right and it hits, there’s nothing better. I love creating the unexpected, those moments where readers think they know what’s coming and then I pull the rug out from under them.

What excites me most about storytelling is that power to manipulate emotion through the smallest details. A single line of dialogue can make someone’s stomach drop. An unexpected choice by a character can reframe everything they thought they understood.

Right now I’m working on something that’s my personal challenge to make as creepy as possible. I want readers to feel like something’s crawling under their skin. I want them unsettled in a way they can’t quite name.

Bonus question: What is it about the gray areas of life that fascinate you? How does this seep into your writing and your characters?

I love morally gray characters. People who do terrible things for understandable reasons. What fascinates me is how they make you question your own morals. You believe murder is wrong, but suddenly you’re cheering them on. You’re conflicted, caught between what you know is right and what you feel is justified.

That’s the gray area I live in as a writer. My characters aren’t monsters for the sake of being monsters. They’re people pushed to extremes, making choices that should horrify you but somehow don’t. Or they do horrify you, but you understand why they made them anyway. That conflict, that discomfort readers feel when they realize they’re rooting for someone doing something unforgivable, that’s where the real horror lives. It’s not just about the gore or the scares. It’s about holding up a mirror and making readers see the darkness they’re capable of sympathizing with.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Denver Horror Collective has been lurking around this summer, sowing our dark seed.

Are you ready to start getting your work published (or more frequently)?

DHC’s virtual fiction critique is on the third Monday of every month, at 6:30 p.m. MT, over Zoom. 

We accept both short stories and novel excerpts (we ask that the novel excerpts come with a full synopsis), 7500 word maximum, two story slots per session. The critiques are informal and friendly, with an emphasis on specific, constructive criticism. While the critiques are open to all skill levels, the goal is eventual publication. Genres are horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.

Stories critiqued in the group in the last several months have gone on to be published in the NoSleep podcast (more than once), Dusk, Stories to Take to Your Grave, A Procession of Faeries, Take a Breath: A Collection of Claustrophobic Horror, and DHC’s latest offering, Frontiers of Fright. Join our horrifying community today!

Email steeringcommittee@denverhorror.com to join!

–Interview by Desi D.

1. How have Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allan Poe influenced your writing? What is it about these authors that attracted you to their stories?

I think that brooding, shadowy atmosphere that Poe was so effective in creating has certainly influenced me. He was so strong in creating a sense of dread and how his characters were sort of trapped in that world of dread.

I don’t think Verne or Stevenson have particularly influenced my writing as much as their great adventure novels fired my imagination as a boy and inspired me to want to be a storyteller.What do you hope your fans will take away from your stories?

First, that the story was worth reading and their time was well spent. Second, that the characters they encounter are people they can relate to and care about. Third, they experience a sense of unease and discomfort that causes a few shivers up their spine. And fourth, that they enjoyed the story enough to want to read more of my work.

2. If you had to choose one, what would be your favorite creature/monster?

I’d have to say the Gill-Man from The Creature from the Black Lagoon. But that’s a nostalgic kind of thing – the Black Lagoon movies were among my favorites as a kid. I just watched Creature a few days ago with my daughters. We even went to the theater a dozen or so years ago and saw it in the original 3-D.

3. What is it about the art of storytelling that excites you? And of course, what is the next story we can look forward to reading from you?

It’s that combination of finding the right characters, the right language, and the right sequence of events to create a compelling plot. For example, how much descriptive prose versus how much dialogue. I have a story in my collection The Preparer of Death titled “The Depths-Chant,” which is told completely in dialogue between two people.

It’s also that, when starting out, trying to find the correct path to move the story forward. Then it’s a case of playing around with different scenarios until something clicks and the story starts to move forward in an interesting and desired direction. Characters can be very playful, so managing them is necessary. But you also have to allow them to express themselves, so finding that balance is important. Once the writer has made that level of peace with the story’s characters, then again, the story moves forward in a productive way.

I just uploaded my latest novel, The Archer’s House, onto Amazon. It’s an homage to Fritz Leiber and takes its premise from one of his classic horror stories, “The Dreams of Albert Moreland.” I finished a draft of it some years ago but it just didn’t work. After several fits and starts, I finally unlocked it and substantially rewrote it, and now I’m quite a bit happier with it.

Bonus question:

4. In a past interview you’ve said that stories choose the author, not the other way around. This is a fascinating idea. How do the stories you tell make their presences known?

Stories that I’ve written and completed each have their own lives. Usually a story starts with an idea – it can be a place, an event from my life, a dream I’ve had, something I’ve read or seen in a film or TV program – and then I look to finding the language that might best describe what is to happen and the characters to populate the piece. A story that I end up finishing is one that has really grabbed hold of me and demanded to be told.

COLD RAVEN MOON by Anthony Josephson is available now in paperback and ebook from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Raven-Moon-Anthony-Josephson/dp/B0F62992FX