Women in Horror Spotlight #7 Click Here
Welcome to the February Women in Horror Spotlight Project, co-hosted by David Spell at The Scary Reviews, and Erin Al-Mehairi, Hook of a Book Media. We will be featuring many women over a short period of time with mini-interviews in which all were asked the same three questions. We urge you to get to know them and delve further into their work, whether they are a writer or editor. We will feature about three women each day that we have a post. This post makes #8 and 24 women profiled total, please go back and read them all!
Sephera Giron, Author
How do you define horror and what drew you to it?
I’m not going to get all university graduate about this.To me, horror means scary stuff. I’ll leave the debates about genres and emotions to the others.
Fairy tales terrified me as I tended to read/or have read to me, the original versions and they are pretty grisly and horrific. It was the whole “attracted to that which repels me” sensation that I craved.
I used to search for scary stories in the libraries and bookstores as a young girl but mostly found myself in the mystery section or the science fiction section. Alfred Hitchcock anthologies kept me amused.
Luckily, Stephen King was invented, and we had a proper way to find horror and speak about it. Obviously, people were writing horror since time began, but when King came along, all of a sudden it was easier to find.
What sub-genre(s) do you write in?
Horror
Erotic horror
Horror erotica
Erotica
Science fiction
Non-fiction – Occult/metaphysical
Non-fiction – Relationships and sexuality
What is your personal favorite part of writing or reading horror?
Reading: Being too afraid to close the book or put it down.
Writing: Sharing my strange visions with my readers and hoping they experience something from them, whether it’s horror, arousal, panic, fear, love, amazement, orgasm, humour, or any other sense of being alive.
Sephera Giron, Biography
Sèphera has over twenty-five published books under various names and a couple dozen short stories. Sèphera wrote four books with Leisure Horror: “House of Pain,” “The Birds and the Bees,” “Borrowed Flesh,” and “Mistress of the Dark.” Sèphera’s work with Samhain Horror includes “Captured Souls,” “Flesh Failure,” “Experiments in Terror,” and “A Penny Saved.”
Sèphera is mom to two adult sons and lives by the lake in Toronto.
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Monica O’Rourke, Author
How do you define horror and what drew you to it?
Doug Winter once said horror is an emotion, and I think that is the perfect definition. Horror has so many meanings, and it really means many things to many people. In other words, what might terrify me and send me screaming might barely move you. It’s also how you interpret the horrors in your life.
I’ve been a fan since I was very young. My grandmother absolutely loved B horror movies, and I would crawl in beside her to watch scary movies in the dark. She was also an avid reader, and I would borrow her books—which she never minded, no matter what the subject. I read, for example, “Jaws,” “The Exorcist,” and “The Amityville Horror” before I even hit my teens.
What sub-genre(s) do you write in?
I tend to write splatterpunk (extremely graphic) stories, and I often say I was writing torture porn years before it was called torture porn. Other than that, I’ll write whatever I feel like writing, in any genre. It’s not always successful … but at least I give it a shot. It’s all a learning experience anyway.
What is your personal favorite part of writing or reading horror?
The initial stages of an idea—that first glimmer of plot or character—still gets the juices flowing. That’s probably my favorite part, having the idea. The whole process is still fascinating, I think. Watching a plot develop …
Monica J. O’Rourke, Biography
Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than one hundred short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, Nasty Piece of Work, Fangoria, Flesh & Blood, Nemonymous, and Brutarian and anthologies such as Horror for Good (for charity), The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, and Eulogies II. She is the author of Poisoning Eros I and II, written with Wrath James White, Suffer the Flesh, and the collection In the End, Only Darkness. Her latest novel, What Happens in the Darkness, is available from Sinister Grin Press. She works as a freelance editor, writer, and book coach. Find her on www.facebook.com/MonicaJORourke.
Latashia Figueroa, Author
How do you define horror and what drew you to it?
My idea of horror is not the blood and gore, or the you can see it coming jump scares.
What I consider horror is not just the idea that there are possibly monsters out there, but that you can be the monster. When you feel for a character because of his humanity, even though he’s done awful things, that’s good horror. Horror, I believe, should be dreadful, yet intelligent– terrifying and lovely. Horror should terrify you for reasons that run deeper than your heart dares to explain.
I was drawn to horror at a very early age. My mother is a horror lover as well. She’d allow me to watch “Twilight Zone,” “Outer Limits,” “Night Gallery,” with her. Then we’d discuss the shows after. In seventh grade, my English teacher announced we had to write a report on our favorite book. I saw Pet Sematary by Stephen King in a book store and was drawn to the cover. My mother gladly purchased it for me. I’ve been reading horror ever since. Then, I was introduced to Edgar Allan Poe. His writing blew me away. I read other genres, but I always come back to my first love …horror.
What sub-genre(s) do you write in?
My stories have been described as thrillers with a touch of horror. And that’s because my characters are filled with perplexities.
What is your personal favorite part of writing or reading horror?
Writing horror: Writing dark stories has become a way for me to exorcise some demons. It’s curative, actually. I enjoy exploring how far I’m willing to delve into darkness. Reading horror: Exploring how far a writer will lead me into the dark, and how much I’m willing to follow.
Book Links
This Way Darkness: Three Tales of Terror
Ivy’s Envy (Want & Decay Book 1)
Latashia Figueroa, Biography
Latashia Figueroa gives two good reasons for her love of horror: her childhood home was believed to be haunted and Stephen King often told her bedtime stories. Pet Sematary was the first.
She began a career in New York City’s fast paced fashion industry, ignoring the voice in her head that whispered, Writer. Though the job was exciting, it was not fulfilling, and when the company downsized she used the opportunity to return to her childhood love.
Latashia embraces her peculiar fascination of the dark and macabre through her writing. Her stories have been described as “psychological thrillers with a dash of horror.”
She attends writing classes often, adores music and the arts, and is a self-proclaimed wine snob. Latashia is also addicted to riding roller coasters. She lives on the east coast with her very supportive husband.
Latashia Figueroa is the author of THIS WAY DARKNESS, and IVY’S ENVY (Want & Decay Trilogy,#1) Her short story, OUT FOR A HUNT, is featured in Dark Futures Annual 1 Anthology .
Contact Latashia
The Scary Reviews 
“Reading: Being too afraid to close the book or put it down.” I couldn’t agree with this comment more! Can’t wait to check out all of these – these interviews sold me! If you’re looking for another good horror read, check out “Lucifer’s Son”, http://www.mavrodisergey.com/. My friend is half way through, is raving about it, and I can’t wait for her to send it to me 🙂
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