Interview (Part II) with L. Andrew Cooper, Publisher and Editor, Horrific Scribblings
My first interview with Andrew focused on all things Horrific Scribblings, chronicling the past year or so of his publishing journey. Afterwards, I realized that I wanted to rewind the tape a bit and get some insight on what led him there—his early interest in horror, his Ivy League education on the topic, and how he finds the time to continue writing…
What initially drew you to horror?
I’ve answered this question in many ways over the years because I truly don’t remember ever not being drawn to horror. The Count was my favorite character on Sesame Street when I was age-appropriate. I think I dressed as a vampire for Halloween the first time when I was four. If it was supposed to be scary, I wanted access to it even though until age nine I couldn’t handle much scary stuff and had dreams of the sort that today would probably be diagnosed as Night Terrors (yes, they included semi-lucid sleepwalking). Why? I don’t know. Early trauma? Genetics?
You decided to study the horror genre at Princeton and even wrote your dissertation on the impact of horror fiction on modern culture. Did your research in that space have an impact on your fiction writing? If so, what was it?
“The impact of horror fiction on modern culture” is the more user-friendly subtitle of the book based on my dissertation, which has a yucky academic subtitle but the same main title, Gothic Realities. Yes, the research had an impact on my fiction, and a complete explanation of how would be longer than your readers’ patience. I wrote two novels while working on my dissertation circa 2002 – 2004, the first, Curiosity, still unpublished and the second recently republished in a second edition revised to be more like what I wrote in 2004, Descending Lines. Curiosity is grounded (i.e. nothing supernatural/fantastic) and brutal, about the titular emotion and its impulses, which I found at the heart of eighteenth-century Gothic as I studied it. I have no plans to publish Curiosity–it’s incredibly personal–but I used most of its main characters and refer to its main events in my recent series The Middle Reaches (which is supernatural/fantastic). Descending Lines began with a short story, “The Fate of Doctor Fincher,” which I wrote while studying ghost stories for my dissertation. I decided I wanted to write a ghost story that followed some conventions but violated others somewhat radically. The resulting story became the seed for a universe of interconnected short and long fiction featuring Dr. Finhcer and/or his book The Alchemy of Will. The book is in Descending Lines. As a side-note, Descending Lines is also an experiment in combining major elements from the great triad of nineteenth-century British and Irish Gothic, Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula. Fully explaining how would involve too many spoilers.
Some of your novels fall under the splatterpunk subgenre. What piqued your interest in that type of horror? Do you remember the first thing you wrote that would qualify as splatterpunk?
I’ve published one, maybe two splatterpunk novels. The published novel from a first draft written most recently is Alex’s Escape, and it’s definitely splatterpunk, about as hardcore as you can get. Other recently-conceived published works, novellas Father Is Pleased and The Skinner Effect, are also clearly splatterpunk. My most recent publication, the recently revised second edition of my novel Descending Lines (which, as I mentioned, I first drafted in 2004), might be splatterpunk… it’s nowhere close to Alex’s Escape, but it’s still out there. Even though I now realize I’d read some foundational works, I didn’t know what splatterpunk was in 2004, but by then I’d written my unpublished Curiosity, which would qualify as splatterpunk, as well as my short story “Charlie Mirren and His Mother,” which kicks off my collection Leaping at Thorns, currently out of print. However, I’m working on a new version–based on the expanded, award-winning screenplay adaptation–that I’ll include in my forthcoming collection of short stories and novellas Antisocial Personalities. What piqued my interest? When I started doing interviews with authors on a regular basis (which I no longer do) back in 2023, an early interviewee recommended that I interview Monica J. O’Rourke and called her the “queen of torture porn.” I’d written scholarship about torture porn in cinema, and I was intrigued… and her writing turned out to be so brilliant that I wanted more like it. I moved on to her co-author on Poisoning Eros, Wrath James White (seen in this post’s feature photo), whose writing also turned out to be brilliant, and I discovered more brilliant splatterpunk authors and works through (digital) introductions, and I got first hooked then inspired.
You once told me that you read (or at least referenced) What to Expect When You’re Expecting while writing Descending Lines. What would you say is the weirdest thing you’ve done for one of your books?
Oh, I read What to Expect When You’re Expecting cover to cover! I wanted to get as far into Megan Anderson’s head as I could while chronicling her pregnancy! Some people have thought that, considering that I have no personal/spiritual investment, I’ve spent a weird amount of time studying the Bible not for one but for two books, novels Burning the Middle Ground (out of print) and Crazy Time (recently published in a new edition). I’ve disconnected from these roots, but I grew up in the American South, and one side of my family (now mostly dead) was extremely Protestant, very much looking forward to the Rapture. Burning the Middle Ground is set in a small Southern town in which the population is… divided… and two of the main characters are opposed Protestant preachers. Writing from these characters’ POVs, I knew they would think in Biblical references, so I had to write in Biblical references. Well, a kind NYC agent, when rejecting, noted that it would only sell as Christian horror because it was so Bible-heavy, but it was too horrific for that market (especially since there’s no pro-Christian message). I cut about 100 pages from the manuscript before I published it. Crazy Time braids together so many sources that it’s… well, crazy… but because the main character, Lily, finds that the universe is out to get her and determines to fight back, and God is the traditional face of the universe, and the Judeo-Christian is the face she knows, the story involves the Bible. Writing the first half of that book, I had internet copies of the Book of Job and the Book of Revelations open at almost all times.
Running Horrific Scribblings likely monopolizes most of your time at present. Do you have time to write for yourself? Is there anything on the horizon for you as an author?
I haven’t touched it in over a month, but as I mentioned, I’m working on a collection called Antisocial Personalities, but it’s only sort of new work. Mostly, it’s a labor of reverse adaptation: I’m taking some of my more decorated (yet, alas, unfilmed) horror screenplays and converting them into prose fiction. It’s shaping up to be a big book. Three of the works I plan to include will be novella-length. And they’re extremely grotesque and bizarre!
If you could co-author a book with anyone, who would it be and why?
A tough question, both because I admire so many contemporaries and because I’m very shy about sharing imaginative space. If I had to choose, though, I might say Jonathan Butcher because two of his collaborative efforts are two of my favorite books from recent years. The first is the novella Your Loved Ones Will Die First, for which he got material from stars Megan Stockton, Stuart Bray, and Ryan Harding (all of whose individual work I’ve read and enjoyed), and the second is the phenomenon Motel Styx, which he co-authored with Michelle von Eschen (whose individual work I’ve also read and admired). Both books taught me a lot about style and structure in splatterpunk.
There are plenty of people out there (like me!) who have started their creative writing journeys a bit later in life without any formal education or experience. What advice would you give them?
The timing and formality of education and experience aren’t necessarily relevant. Breaking into paid publishing, especially at the mainstream (“Big 5”) fiction level, may be a little easier for the young due to the ageism common to all sectors of the entertainment industries, but then again, authors’ careers don’t have the durability they used to, and youth tends to show unfavorably in prose, so more seasoned writers may command more attention. Education in literature and/or creative writing can provide insight, but it can also instill a sense that certain methods or conventions are necessary and by doing so stifle the innovative spirit a writer needs to stand out from the crowd. Whenever you start and however you learn, you have to read and you have to write in order to master the craft of writing. If you haven’t done much of either, you might have some catching up to do… but like in most jobs, if you’re older and have more General Life Skills, you’ll be able to make up for lost time. Study your craft. Practice your craft. Understand that rejection is the fire that forges almost all but the nepo-babies, get yourself forged, and never stop creating in a way that’s you because that’s the only way that will set you apart.
More of Cooper’s Picks: Three Gruesome Short Splatterpunk Stories
It’s that time of the week again. I’ve talked with Andrew yet again, this time discussing a horror subgenre I’m quite new to: splatterpunk. A literary movement whose name was coined by author David J. Schow, it got its start in the 1980s as a response to social ills of the era and the at-the-time prioritization of what we now call “quiet horror.” The following are a few of the stories Andrew drew inspiration from when he began writing in the subgenre.
“An Experiment in Human Nature” – Monica J. O’Rourke (2007)
“Monica was the first to show me that Sadean themes and structures don’t have to be boring. This story blends queer eroticism with sadism in a taboo way that resonates with my novel Alex’s Escape, and it frames torture with experimentation in a way that resonates with my novella The Skinner Effect. I can’t say I consciously thought of this story while writing, but it’s in my recently formed literary bedrock, so who knows how much credit I should give it?”
This story is collected in In the End, Only Darkness.
“First Person Shooter” – Wrath James White (2019)
“You kind of have to experience Wrath’s writing to understand how powerful it is. Like much of his stuff, this story combines hardcore sex and violence with critical reflections on race, gender, media, and violence itself. It’s a smorgasbord of takes on topics I’ve been obsessing over and writing about since I started grad school more than 25 years ago. It’s also a model of what the best of splatterpunk accomplishes: ripping apart culture while ripping apart bodies.”
This story is collected in The Ecstasy of Agony.
“Angelbait” – Ryan Harding (2020)
“Ryan is arguably the most experimental of these three authors. Many of his stories within Transcendental Mutilation are interconnected, and connected to his writing elsewhere. While getting into splatterpunk, I was thrilled to read someone weaving worlds with so much bizarre slaughter! “Angelbait” isn’t about that so much, but I choose it from the collection because it exemplifies extreme violence as a conduit for metaphysical reflection, something I’ve done for a long time but never knew could have a home. With this Splatterpunk Award-winning story, Ryan proved it has a home in the subgenre.”
This story is collected in Transcendental Mutilation.