"ALL HORROR STEMS FROM YOU AND YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS.": THE ESSENTIAL HORROR'S JOE R. LANSDALE

.Joe Lansdale's multi-genre career started with horror. Tachyon Books recently released The Essential Horror, celebrating both his four decades in the genre and the range he has has in. It's a dark, bloody, harrowing and even sometimes funny greatest hits that makes for perfect Halloween season reading. I asked Joe some questions about working in the genre and a recently published short story he and his son, Keith, wrote for a collection inspired by Alfred Hitchcock.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: What made horror a good way to start your writing career?

JOE R. LANSDALE: I was always interested in it, though more in science fiction with

horror elements when I was younger. I really started with crime. Wrote ACT OF LOVE and before that a few crime stories for MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Oddly, I wanted to be a science fiction writer early on and have written science fantasy, but horror and mystery and suspense are very close cousins. So when that market boomed, I let my interest in horror come to the fore.

S.M.: What do you get to do in the genre as a writer, you don't get to do with others?

J.R.L.: You get to go places a lot of literary markets wouldn't consider. I also think the level of fun writing the material is higher. I've written for literary markets, and enjoyed it, but a genre engine driving a story works best for me.

S.M.: Which story was the most challenging to write and how did you deal with that challenge?

J.R.L.: NIGHT THEY MISSED THE HORROR SHOW, as I was dealing with dark material, trying to show the buffoonery of redneck racists, and at the same time give it humor which makes the impact of the story even darker and more relevant; the buffoonery turns into something hard and real and disturbing. Point made.

S.M.: What is your favorite horror trope?

J.R.L.: The Alamo idea, where defenders are holed up against some sort of dread, and the pursuit trope, where something follows.

S.M.: You and your son Keith contributed the story "Coat Check" to Birds, Strangers, and Psychos, Maxim Jakubowski's tribute anthology to Alfred Hitchcock? How did you two approach a story that was to tip a hat to The Master of Suspense?

J.R.L: We kicked around an idea, and then we developed it, and wrote it back and forth and then we both polished until we had what we wanted. It was fun.

S.M.: What major tip would you give to a writer who wants to take on a horror story?

J.R.L.: Just go for it. What scares you, what makes your skin crawl, or what makes you feel uncomfortable, disturbed. All horror stems from you and  your subconscious, at least as a writer. The real stuff stems from humans.