Steve Vernon lives in Halifax, where he's Nova Scotia's only professional horror writer. Even if he wasn't, he'd still stand out head and shoulders above the rest. His stories range from comical to downright chilling, and his works have appeared in magazines and anthologies ranging from Cemetery Dance, Corpse Blossoms, and Deathgrip 3: Exit Laughing to A Dark & Deadly Valley, Hot Blood 13, and Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror. He's also the author of Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories of Old Nova Scotia. 2008 will see the release of a novel, Gypsy Blood, and a new novella, Plague Monkey Spam, as well as other projects.

Steve, welcome to FearZone. As always, I like to start with some background information. Your bio states that your mother was the 'storytelling lady of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.' Was she a professional storyteller, or was this something she did just to entertain people?

My mother was a librarian at the Yarmouth Public Library for many years. As such, one of her duties was to travel to retirement homes and schools and read stories. After a time at this, she began to be known as the Storytelling Lady. When she retired she was asked to continue telling her stories over a local cable television network, however, no money was offered and my mother turned the offer down. We Maritimers don't write for free.

You've said that in addition to your mother's stories, you grew up surrounded by storytellers - your grandfather, and the men who worked the railroad in the small town you lived in. Do you attribute you early predilection for creating tales to this environment, or do you think your imagination would have led you down that road no matter what?

I've always felt that my real storytelling ability stems from my childhood. I grew up in the Northern Ontario town of Capreol. I didn't have an awful lot of playmates and would spend a lot of time in the woods and surrounding hills, playing by myself - making up whole adventures and dreaming out loud the whole day long. I was raised by my grandparents who were too old for the usual games of tag and hide and go seek. Their interaction with me - aside from the usual "Do your chores!" or "Have you done your homework?" mostly consisted of sitting and telling me stories. My grandmother told me The Golden Arm and my grandfather told me work lore and tall tales. We didn't have cable television and the closest we had to a video game was Pong. All we had were books and memories and the sound of our own voices and we learned to make do.

Most writers have held an interesting mix of jobs in our lives, but yours is especially eclectic: field worker, tree planter, roustabout, woodworker, fiddlehead picker (Note: fiddleheads are young ostrich ferns, eaten like vegetables), blueberry raker, and more. How has this varied background influenced your writing?

I guess I'm either tremendously versatile or else I get bored easily. My varied career often was a direct result of my innate moxie. If I thought there was work I'd go and try my hand at it. When the circus came into town, I walked up and asked if they were hiring. That's how I got a lot of my jobs, most of them in fact. I have walked across entire industrial parks, beating on doors of factories and warehouses, trying to find the work I needed. I drew unemployment for a few weeks, but quit to go back to work because I hate paperwork more than any other man. This diversity of enterprise has added a lot of depth to my storytelling. I also believe it has contributed to my general all-around work ethic. If a job needs doing, I get to it.

Currently, you work as a professional palm reader and tarot reader. A fun fact that a lot of our readers might not know is that the creator of the Necronomicon Tarot, Donald Tyson, is also from Halifax. (Tyson also is the 'author' of the Necronomicon book you can find in most book stores, and has written several occult lore books.) Do you use a self-made tarot deck, the popular Rider-Waite deck, or the Necronomicon deck?

I use the standard Rider-Waite deck. I prefer its starker simpler images. I have learned to read the cards by telling stories - with each picture on each card representing a simple iconic tale. I have interviewed Tyson and read his interpretation of the Necronomicon and have reviewed it for Hellnotes recently.

Halifax, and Nova Scotia in general, has a lot of great qualities, including its varied cultural offerings, but it's not known for a friendly climate. There is fog or mist more than 100 days per year, and the average hours of sunlight is less than 5 in the winter, and less than 8 in the summer. In fact, the Halifax website actually states that it has 'Disturbed, changeable weather throughout the year.' Interestingly enough, that's how I would describe a lot of your stories! Do you think that living in a place that's frequently gloomy, dark, and fickle influences the types of stories that you write?

Halifax, being such a coastal community, feels a little as if it's perpetually trembling on the edge of fantasy. The Atlantic is all about our peninsula. Our changeable weather is deeply influenced by the tides and Atlantic weather fronts. I have always yearned for a more southern locale and have often fantasized that I would somebody pull up my roots and retire in New Mexico. I have had my share of Nova Scotian winters. Actually, as I type this now I have just come in from shoveling a long old sidewalk full of freshly fallen snow plus a driveway's worth. My arms feel like over-cooked pasta. I am certain that Gumby could successfully whip my ass in an arm wrestling match. If you live where it snows, don't buy a corner lot.

Seriously, I enjoy writing maritime tales and as you know, I have completed two collections of ghost stories - Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories from Old Nova Scotia and Wicked Woods: Ghost Stories from Old New Brunswick (Nimbus Press). I am contracted with Nimbus to write a third collection that should be out by the spring of 2009. So my writing is steeped in Atlantic shadows. I walk by the waves and they talk to me and tell me their secrets. Sounds glamorous, I know, but we writers like to talk that way.

Speaking of changeable, you've got a new novella coming out from Bad Moon Books (Plague Monkey Spam), which sounds very off-the-wall; it involves spam email, demonic possession, and different dimensions within a computer. Where did this idea come about?

The idea was actually born when I wondered who sat down and dreamed all of those badly written scam spam e-mails that we all seem to receive far too often. You know the ones - "Deer Friend, I have eight million dollars in a bank account and if you send me your name and your birth date and your credit card information and the soul of your first born and the paw print of your pet Chihuahua we can make you rich beyond avarice." Who sits and types these endless looping e-mails and what can they possibly hope to gain from them. When I stirred in all of the Anansi stories that I have heard and told and added a sock monkey to the mix this story began to grow. I believe I was channeling a little Bob Burden and a little Burroughs.

A fair of bit of it was inspired by own spam attempts. Over the years I find myself posting on many message boards and websites saying - in effect - BUYMYBOOKBUYMYBOOK!!! A part of me wrote this wild little novella to get in touch with my inner carnival barker.

So get on out there and buy my book.

Although you've published more than 50 short stories and several novellas, this year will see the publication of your first novel: Gypsy Blood. What made you wait so long to write one? Is it that you prefer the short story / novella medium?

I do have a lot of fun with the novella - however I am also currently marketing several other novel manuscripts. It basically took me this long to sell my first novel. I have a lot to learn about the marketplace, but I'm getting there.

Still, The novella form seems to really suit my sense of pace. I like to sprint, I'm not one for farting around.

Most of the time.

Gypsy Blood has a palm reader/Tarot reader as its central character. How much of you did you put into this character?

Heh. I did put a wee bit of myself into this character. His name is Carnival and he's an actual card-flipping, palm reading son of a Gypsy. He keeps his heritage close to his heart - in fact, he keeps a lot of things close to his heart. In a cage.

You can meet this Gypsy in issue #12 of Dark Discoveries, where he'll appear in a separate story, dealing with a fractal demon and the world's largest madam.

The Gypsy in Gypsy Blood shares one thing in common with myself and an awful lot of my characters. He is a man in search of his father. I was raised by my grandparents and came east to meet my mother. I rarely met my father, spending at the most two or three weeks with him in total. I loved the man, although he didn't always understand me. I'll spend my days chewing on the meatloaf of regret for all of the things I didn't get to say to the man.

Meatloaf of regret. What in the hell am I smoking?

What did you read growing up as a child and teenager?

The Hardy Boys. Doc Savage. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Edgar Allan Poe. As a teenager, my Uncle Glen hooked me on Don Pendleton's 'Executioner' series. And an awful lot of comic books. My grandmother bribed me to go to church every Sunday by buying me a comic or two on the way home. I used my paper route money to keep myself up on the more expensive Eerie and Creepy magazines, not to mention Famous Monsters of Filmland. I found a real piece of heaven in a Sudbury used bookstore that helped me hunt down an awful lot of cheap pulpy horror and war yarns.

Do you read a lot of horror/dark fiction now? Why/Why not?

Well, one of the jobs I tried on for size was book reviewer. Back when Brian Freeman was pumping out a Cemetery Dance Online newsletter, I applied as a book reviewer. So over the last two years I have read an awful lot of review copies of dark fiction from all over. These days I've been cutting back on my horror reading, just for the sake of variety. I still dig a good monster yarn, but I'm a little eye-weary these days.

You've got a new novella coming out as part of the Four Rode Out collection from Cemetery Dance. Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon, and Tim Curran are the other contributors. How did it feel when you learned you'd be fourth in that lineup?

Well, actually I was first in that line-up, being the fellow who originally put the collection together. I wouldn't exactly call myself the editor, though. I'm leaving that onerous duty up to the good folks at Cemetery Dance. I'd sort of call myself the head-pitcher. I originally contacted Brian, Tim, and Tim and asked them if they'd want to take a shot at the weird west genre. Lebbon had done a great weird western for Necessary Evil and Tim Curran of course had written the wonderful Skin Medicine and Keene - well, Keene just writes great is all. I love the man's sense of character - his characters all seem to breath and bleed on the page. It's an honor to be working with this line-up and I'm really looking forward to seeing this book in print.

Once I had the gang rounded up I contacted Rich Chizmar at Cemetery Dance and he jumped at the chance. It's all in his hands now.

Although a lot of your stories take place in Nova Scotia or other parts of Canada, Four Rode Out isn't your first toe-dip into Western horror. Your novella, Long Horn, Big Shaggy is currently out from Black Death Books. Is Western horror a particular interest of yours?

I have always loved a duster. I owe that to my grandfather who hooked me on John Wayne in particular and westerns in general. And I've always loved the notion of bringing the two genre together. I love me a good stew, I does, a little of this and a little of that. Throwing the western and horror genre together just makes for good eating, it does.

Several of your novellas and short story collections are out of print, or soon will be. What are the chances that we'll see a Steve Vernon collection anytime soon?

I have been thinking about marketing a short story collection, perhaps with a novella or two but I haven't marketed that idea all that much. I am hoping that when the time comes the right publisher will contact me. In the meantime, I'm going to keep on selling just as many short stories as I can. There are worse ways to spend your time.

People who aren't die-hard Steve Vernon fans might not know that your horror writing isn't limited to fiction. You've published poetry, and you have your two non-fiction ghost story collections. I've read a lot of regional ghost story books, partly out of interest and partly for research purposes. What are some really chilling ghost stories from Nova Scotia?

There are an awful lot of ghost stories around Nova Scotia. I think that comes from living so close to the ocean. In the old days and even now, living near the water can be an awfully precarious situation. A fisherman's family never knows when they're saying good bye to their dad in the morning if he's going to make it back home alive. Coastal residents learn to make friends with instability early on. A storm can rise up and roll in any time it feels like it. It can all get washed away just that fast.

Chilling ghost stories? I'd have to say my favorite is the story of the Phantom Oarsman, from off of Sable Island. Catch me at a horror convention some night over a beer and I'll be glad to tell it to you.

The success I've met with in working in this ghostly genre has encouraged me to go on and explore my Canadian roots. I am working on a couple of manuscripts with Canadian markets in mind, specifically the YA field. I work with kids a lot in schools and I feel as if I've got a knack for capturing their voices. I keep them in a mason jar just next to Stephen King's gall bladder.

As you mentioned earlier, you're currently finishing another non-fiction book: Wicked Woods: Ghost Stories of Old New Brunswick. What kind of research goes into those books? I'd imagine it's a lot more than just the internet. How many different libraries did you have to visit? Did you also draw upon the tales of your mother, and other local storytellers?

There's a lot of research goes into the writing of one of these collections. I live in the archives and the old libraries. I prowl old bookstores and make friends with local storytellers. And then again I learn an awful lot just by osmosis. When I tell a tale in an old folks home there's always one old boy or lady who'll sidle on up to me at the end of the tale-telling session and fix me with one hard eye and say those wonderful words - "Have you ever heard this one, by...'?"

I visit libraries and schools all the time, being a working member of the Writers in the School program. I have told my stories to kids in classrooms and once entertained a whole gymful of kids from grade four to eight, (maybe 500 of them in total), for a straight hour. That was a shining moment for me, holding the attention of that many kids for that long without a single disturbance.

While you might consider yourself an old-fashioned storyteller, your feet are firmly planted in the modern world. In addition to a website, you have a message board, live journal, and MySpace page. How important do you see these types of marketing and communication becoming in the next ten years or so, in terms of being essential to writers?

You have to meet your reader and there aren't a lot of horror conventions I can get to, so the internet is indispensable for me. Small press writers need to rely a lot on any form of exposure they can manage. I am hoping to break through into the mass market in the next couple of years and then maybe I can worry a little less about how high I raise my internet profile. There's a wonderful feeling about knowing that my regional books, such as Haunted Harbours, continue to sell themselves all by themselves in bookstores across the Maritimes.

Your wife, Belinda, also does some writing - fiction and adult faerie tales. Do you two ever collaborate, or review each other's works? Or do you keep your writing separate?

Well, Belinda hasn't much time for her own writing. She is Nova Scotia's busiest bellydance teacher, with a studio with nearly two hundred students, as well as the President of Dance Nova Scotia, but she's always glad to find time to proof-read my manuscripts. She has a sharp eye and a keen memory for continuity. She's my secret weapon and I give thanks to the gods of blind fortune that I was smart enough to marry such a wise wild woman.

One of your professions is Oral Tradition Storyteller. What exactly is that? What traditions/stories are you trying to keep alive? Who do you tell them to?

As I said, I tell the old stories to kids in schools right across the Maritimes. I try and tell them the stories and teach them how to enjoy the art of tale-telling in general and writing in particular. I've got a big old voice and I'm not embarrassed about acting out the tales and drawing the kids into the storytelling and it seems to catch a fire in their collective imagination - from grade 2 to grade 12. I also tell stories in retirement homes and hospitals and pretty well any gig that comes down the pipeline. I've always seen myself as a natural born storyteller. I'm lousy at making conversation, I'll always be the quiet guy at any party or gathering, but when you put me in front of a campfire or a microphone and ask for a yarn - then a part of Jekyll and Hyde's out of the dark cave of my imagination and begins to dance.

Writing is an ongoing process, and a good writer never stops trying to get better or trying new things. How is your writing different now than it was ten years ago? Twenty?

I think I've only really begun to get serious about my work over the last two or three years. I spent an awful lot of time working at making a living and not necessarily tending my campfire. These days I have a stronger voice and a better feel for dialogue. My early stories tended to be a little more old-fashioned and expositional. These days I just let the stories tell themselves and they seem to flow a lot smoother. You pick up a copy of Hard Roads and crack that open and tell me the prose doesn't gallop and drag you on through like the wind rush of an oncoming semi diesel.

What other projects can we look forward to seeing from you in 2008?

Well, as you've mentioned I'll have a new ghost story collection, Wicked Woods: Ghost Stories from Old New Brunswick, due out this Spring in April or May. I have a brand new story scheduled to appear in Cemetery Dance #59 and a novelette earmarked for the fifth edition of CD's popular anthology series Shivers. I've got an article on the Phantom Ship of Chaleur Bay appearing in an upcoming issue of FATE magazine. I've also got a story and an interview in Dark Discoveries #12.

In the summer of 2008 I'm really excited to see the release of my first novel, Gypsy Blood. In the Fall of 2008, Magus Books is bringing out a novella of mine entitled Leftovers.

I've made myself a set of New Year's resolutions this year. By the end of 2008 I want to weigh in under 200 pounds. I'm currently at 202 pounds, down from 235 in the summer - so this one is a pretty safe bet. I've also resolved that by the end of 2008 I will have a mass market contract lined up for 2009. I'm still working on that one.

10 Quick Questions:

1. What were the first horror book and movie you ever read/saw?
First horror book - Dracula
First movie - Billy the Kid Meets Dracula


2. Who are your 3 favorite writers?
Bernard Cornwall
Stephen Hunter
Charles Bukowski

3. What is your favorite drink?
Egg Nog, straight up.

4. Name 3 things you'd like to change in the horror publishing world.
#1 - I'd like to see a few more honest-to-god monster books out there.
#2 - I'd like to see the return of the horror section in retail bookstores.
#3 - What else? More Steve Vernon books.

5. If you couldn't be a professional writer, what would you be?
Circus geek or Snake Oil Salesman - you name it, I can get it.

6. If you could go back in time and interview 1 person, who would it be, and why?
I always wanted to talk to Charles Bukowski and Milton Acorn. I talked to Al Purdy once and got along just fine. I would have liked to have met Richard Laymon as well, he seemed like such a good all around fellow.
7. What do you see as the next big trend in horror?
A reality television program - so you want to be a horror writer???

8. Who are 3 up-and-coming writers who you think people should be reading?
John Little, Tim Curran, Mike McBride

9. What kind of horror do you prefer - traditional, supernatural, psychological, extreme?
I'll take door number five, Monty. I prefer "well written" horror. On the whole I dig the rubber suited monster book the best. Owl Goingback's Crota is the example that springs to mind.

10. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Robert Mcammon's Stinger

Any last words for aspiring writers?
It's a long hard road. Don't give up. You're going to better five years from now. It's always the first inning. The shit just never stops coming down.

Thanks for talking to us!

My pleasure.

For more information on Steve Vernon's books, stories, and novellas, and to find out about his upcoming projects, visit his website, where you can also access his message board and live journal.