Author Name: James Dorr
The hero or heroine in your latest book is asked to decorate for a Halloween party. What does he/she use?
Again using the title story of the collection, “The Tears of Isis,” Copper, the protagonist, is a sculptress and so she would see the whole room as a three-dimensional space. She would first hang it with spider webs, so thick as to give an almost a cave-like appearance. Instead of walls, she’d think in terms of forms, curved and organic, with softened corners, using perhaps foam plastic for this, with perhaps additional shapes like tombstones, but not quite in focus. The lights would be dim, of course, but thinking of her own home studio in San Francisco, she might well add a fog machine, slowly adding an atmosphere of mystery as guests arrive. Several mirrors would be on the walls too, carefully placed to give an impression of additional space as well as glimpses of one’s fellow costumed partiers, but the lighting would shift, dimming, pulsing, so nothing could quite be seen as a whole, or dwelled on too long. There would be space for dancing, perhaps with a moon-like globe for light in its center, mostly a wan yellow but with accents of red from time to time, and also shapes — again reflecting the idea of tombstones or possibly small mausolea — nearer the walls that lead one to drinks and refreshments. Perhaps the mausoleum an entrance containing the bar, with a shadowy archway behind it exiting to the kitchen, and other rooms in the house beyond.
What is your favorite Halloween or autumn decoration?
Several years ago, about five days after Halloween, I ran across a large, black “posable” spider in a discount cart at Kmart. The thing was somewhere between 18 inches and two feet across, with bendable legs, and I knew right then that I had to have it. Not to mention, the price was great too.
That spider has since become a year-round decoration hanging from a hook on my front porch, slowly turning or swinging in the wind. I’ve had to replace the string it hangs from once or twice (there are actually two so that, if one breaks, the other will still hold it until I can replace the first), but the spider itself, its legs made from heavy wires covered by a fuzzy black material, has held up through all kinds of weather.
Of course, in the fall, it’s at its best, as leaves blow from trees, the nights grow darker, and clouds scud silently across the moon, letting anyone who comes to visit know that Halloween cannot be far away.
Links:
Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/James-Dorr/e/B004XWCVUS/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1380306038&sr=1-2-ent
Blog:
http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/james.dorr.9
Featured Book Title: THE TEARS OF ISIS
Purchase Links:
Amazon:
Publisher (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing):
http://perpetualpublishing.com/the-tears-of-isis/
Blurb:
Art and creation, sculpture and goddesses, blood-drinking, plots and paranoia, musical instruments made from bone, Cinderella and sleeping beauties, women who keep pets, insects and UFOs, ghouls as servants and restless undead. And Isis herself as both weeping mother and vulture-winged icon of death and destruction. These are among the subjects you’ll meet in the seventeen stories (plus opening poem) in James Dorr’s Stoker Award® nominated collection THE TEARS OF ISIS.
Others have praised THE TEARS OF ISIS:
“I like a different spin on dark themes and mythology and every story has one. Each tale has a killer twist, deep dark intrigue and/or something disturbing to make you shiver.”
–Natasha Ewendt (South Australia)
“These stories aren’t for the fainthearted. James Dorr knows how to spin a tale of horror. It’s not just in the gore or the odd characters, but the way he can twist the plot and shock you with the frightening truth. Dorr has a quirky style that makes this collection unlike any other.”
–Christine Rains (Indiana)
“The Tears of Isis is a collection of skillfully crafted dark fiction by a wordsmith that knows how to make you smile while you shiver.”
–LaValley (NY)
“I love these stories! Tears of Isis is a keeper.”
— Margaret B. Boston (Florida)
Excerpt:
(from the title story, “The Tears of Isis,” Copper, a sculptor, revisits one of her older works)
So many lovers. Frederico, the hot-blooded Los Angelino who, after she’d thrown him out, went back to Columbus Avenue and slashed his old girlfriend. Wilhelm, the German boy, subject of “Parsifal, Slain by Dragons.” And others, not models. Some not even boys, like Michelle, her roommate back when she’d been in college in Boston, across the country. Before she’d decided she liked boys better.
And dark-haired Consuela. Hot, dark-eyed Consuela, so much Copper’s twin, who’d moved out to Phoenix and bought The Vampire for the Heard Museum’s new expansion. She owed her a visit — they did keep in touch, unlike her and her brother — and Phoenix was less than two days drive away. Much less, if she pushed it.
And driving, especially on the second night, through the desert, helped Copper collect her ideas together. Thus it had always been, she thought, the bleakness around her blending into a whirlwind of reds and tans, yellows and grays, as she pushed her Mercedes up to its limit, crossing the last of the mountains at twilight — even on trips, especially on trips, she liked to sleep during most of the daytime — and taking the worst of the desert in darkness.
And then morning, Phoenix, and Consuela’s arms for old times’ sake. But only a little. “I’m working on something,” she explained that night while they were out drinking.
“I understand,” Consuela said. “Tomorrow, though. We will go to the museum. Would you like to see your exhibit?”
Copper nodded. Yes. Often she didn’t like to see her sculptures after they’d been sold. She preferred, rather, to put them behind her. Just like her lovers.
But some, like Conseula. . . .
Who’d persuaded her boss at the museum to buy The Vampire, in spite of their love rather than because of it.
The sculpture stood alone in its own room, darkened by velvet drapes. Track lights shone on its focal figure, that of a teen-ager, tender and white-skinned, a hint of the plumpness of pre-pubescence still on its smooth features. And yet, above, shadow. The shadow of . . . something.
The lighting was clever — it never was quite seen. The eye didn’t linger. A bat-like construction of wires and metal, but drawing the eye down and back to the focus, this time to soft lips that just started a half grin.
One sharp tooth just showing. . . .
She’d drunk blood herself before it had been finished. She’d mixed with the crowd on Columbus Avenue and Broadway, the would-be Satanists, and, after that, so they’d both see what it really would be like, she and Frederico had opened each other’s veins.
Only a little, though. Not like after, when the police had broken Frederico’s girlfriend’s door down and found her throat slashed open, bloodied lip prints over her chest and arms. One breast half bitten off.
Author Bio:
Midwestern writer and poet James Dorr’s THE TEARS OF ISIS was a 2013 Bram Stoker Award® nominee for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Other books include STRANGE MISTRESSES: TALES OF WONDER AND ROMANCE, DARKER LOVES: TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET, and his all-poetry VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE). An Active Member of HWA and SFWA with nearly 400 individual appearances from ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE to YELLOW BAT REVIEW, Dorr works largely in horror and dark fantasy with occasional forays into mystery and science fiction. He also harbors a cat named Wednesday, for Wednesday Addams of the original 1960s TV show THE ADDAMS FAMILY.
Social
Great decorations! I would love to read more.
Enjoyed the excerpt and I look forward in reading your works.