Day 7 of my 7 day feature centered around Undertaker Books brings this spotlight series within the series to an end. From their "About" page:
Welcome to Undertaker Books, where our core values are integrity, professionalism, honesty, and transparency.
At Undertaker Books, our mission is to provide publishing services to indie authors worldwide, spotlighting new and unique voices within the realm of horror fiction. We strive to offer a seamless publishing journey from submission to publication while providing valuable feedback every step of the way.
We believe in collaboration between authors, publishers, editors, and designers to bring diverse voices to the forefront of the horror genre. Our passion lies in creating a long-lasting partnership with authors by focusing on the “less is more” concept: quality releases, not the quantity of them.
Undertaker Books is not limited to any specific theme or subgenre. Instead, we are dedicated to innovative storytelling and embracing the myriad voices that contribute to horror literature.
To our readers, we hope to bring you stories you’ll take to your grave.
Undertaker Books is a small press on the rise, and its Founder and Publisher Rebecca Cuthbert has everything to do with that. She has organized six of her authors to contribute to this week long feature and today, you get to meet Cyan LeBlanc author of the Undertaker Books novel Mastering The Art of Female Cookery. From the publisher:
Seven-year-old Cora Sweeney's world is turned upside down when her family becomes the gruesome entrée for a group of hungry cannibal women. But fear not, for this is not your average extreme horror story. This is a tongue-in-cheek memoir and fictitious cookbook all rolled into one.
From her transition from girl to cannibal to the obsessive and torrid love affair with none other than the woman who ate her family, Cora dishes out the details of her bizarre romance while serving up a buffet of twisted recipes. She’ll guide readers through the unique art of living as a human-loving foodie and becoming an aficionado of the most elusive ingredient—women.
Get ready to devour a tale that is both spicy and sweet, in a book that takes the art of female cookery to a whole new level.
Click here for more information about this book and to order. Before we get to Urieta's essay, a reminder that Cuthbert is also offering a giveaway this week-- Undertaker Books prize packs for 3 winners! Click here for the rules and details on how to enter (from a previous giveaway post). Get your entries in by 5pm Central this Friday (10/9) to be entered for the week's giveaway.
Now back to York and his entry into the Why I Love Horror series.
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Why I Love Horror
by Cyan LeBlanc
When I was nine years old, my father took my sister and me to the drive-in theatre to see the movie Friday the 13th. Not that I remember why. Maybe it was because we wanted to see it? I mean, it wasn’t in my gay father’s wheelhouse.
Nonetheless, I became exposed to horror through this movie and let me tell you, it scared the hell out of me. I was so traumatized by this film; my mother had to check under my bed for Jason and his machete. For years, I couldn’t watch horror movies. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the commercials and previews on HBO and Cinemax in the early days of cable. Heck, I even avoided the horror section of the video store I worked in.
I have this memory of being so frightened as child, that the feeling stayed well into adulthood. Fast forward to the mid-nineties. Drew Barrymore, my favorite actress, was featured in a new horror movie called Scream. I’d have to get over my fears in order to watch it—I’d seen every movie of hers, ever. I was twenty-five and I needed to suck it up.
Again, I was faced with a slasher flick… but this time, it was thoroughly enjoyable. There was nothing scary about it; yes, there were jump-worthy scenes but nothing to give me nightmares or fear for my life.
After getting over my initial fears, I tempted fate with the one film that had haunted my entire existence to that point. I rented the original Friday the 13th on VHS and to my delight, I was cured of my fear of horror.
Now, I had years and years of catch-up I needed to do. I rented everything and anything in the horror genre, from creature features to haunted houses to nightmares on various different streets. What I loved about this new (to me) genre was the fact that nothing seemed to be off limits. If they could make a movie about a possessed child who put a crucifix where it didn’t belong, then limits were only set by creators’ imaginations.
But I wasn’t a horror writer in the beginning because as much as I loved a good horror movie, I was addicted more to romance. Writing romance was my escape into a perfect world, and the more R-rated, the better.
In honing my craft of writing the risqué, I indulged in the writings of Marquis de Sade, such as his book 120 Days of Sodom, which features both sex and horror debauchery at its finest, or at its worst, whichever way you want to look at it. This brought darker undertones into my romance writing. And over time, those happy-ever-after endings faded away into not-so-favorable outcomes for my characters.
Horror was the next step of that progression.
When it came time for me to incorporate horror into my writing, I drove headfirst into the slasher tropes. That was my first taste of this genre, and it held the most power over me; even to this day, I prefer my villains to be human over paranormal. Looking back on 80s horror films and noting how sex was such a driving force in these movies, I see why it was an obvious choice for me: the blend of sex and horror.
For me, writing horror is a lot like watching a horror movie. I visual each story as I might see it on film, always looking for shock value. As I mentioned, the limit to horror is only that of my imagination, and I hunt for new ways to shock people while still delivering an engaging narrative.
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Bio: Cyan LeBlanc is a transqueer novelist who began writing in 2008 in a wide variety of genres including romance, erotica, thrillers, and most recently, horror. With over 18 novels and novellas under his belt, he's focusing solely on writing Sapphic characters and stories (women loving women), but there’s always an underlying love story, even when the main character is a flesh-hungry cannibal. Currently, Cyan lives with his wife and two furriors (cats) in Houston, Texas.
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