Christine Morgan is a versatile author who moves effortlessly across genres, from the depths of horror and the narratives of history, to superheroes and smut. With a penchant for crafting tales that blend the unexpected, she embraces the diverse spectrum of storytelling with fervor.
Where are you from and when did you first start writing?
My life has been a west-coast oval … I was born in the Los Angeles area, we moved to the high desert when I was six, went to Humboldt State University in northern CA, lived in the Puget Sound area with husband and kid, then moved to Portland (post-divorce, kid grown), until circ*mstances brought me back to Los Angeles to take care of my mother in the house that belonged to my grandparents, and since her passing I have relocated to the high desert again to stay with my father. *whew*
As for writing, the first I really remember was some time in grade school, where they’d keep giving us essay assignments like “how I spent my summer vacation” but that bored me, so I wrote a made-up story about talking foxes living under a bush in the park. I would also come up with elaborate storylines for my dolls or stuffed animals, and things like that.
I assume that people are surprised to find that you are a woman working in a genre that is often filled with eroticism and gore?
Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be AS much of that as there used to be, which is odd when you think about it anyway because women have always been tellers of horror stories; look back at the original fairy tales and nursery rhymes! But yeah, still, especially when I was starting out, I ran into it. Kind of similar to how it was being a gamer girl in the 1980s. It’s gotten much better lately, and the new crop of ladies is set to take us to even greater heights.
In my case, it’s more a matter of not only being a woman, but being a fat, fifty-something vanilla frump who “always seems so nice” and then people find out the sort of things I write and it tends to give them a little mental whiplash. I try to warn new acquaintances before they do a search and see some of my titles, which tends to go something like: “Ha, ha, oh you; I’m sure it can’t be THAT bad OH MY GOD WHAT???”
How did you get into writing in the universe of Edward Lee?
He emailed me to thank me for my many rave reviews, back in the day when The Horror Fiction Review was still a stapled paper ‘zine. We struck up a correspondance (once my fangirl brain stopped squealing full-blast). I had written a story (“Matt Brimstone, P.I.”) about a noir-era gumshoe who gets killed by a demon and ends up in the Mephistopolis, setting of Lee’s City Infernal and many others. I mustered my nerve and asked him if he’d mind me submitting it to an occult detectives anthology. He wanted to read it first, then gave his permission.
A few years later, after his book Luficer’s Lottery, which involves a diabolical plot to replace the contents of a reservoir in Hell with a lake on Earth, I became fascinated with the notion of what that would do to the environs of where the lake used to be. So I approached him about writing it, and he gave me the greenlight, with two conditions: he got to read it before I sent it anywhere, and he wanted a cameo appearance. Thus, Lakehouse Infernal came to be! Which then went on to win the Splatterpunk Award; definite highlight of my career!
Since then, I’ve done proofreading and edits for him, we’ve worked togeher on a few projects, he makes me watch some of the trashiest movies the world has ever seen, and he’s overall a total sweetie and one of the best people I know.
I read that you were a long time contributor to The Horror Fiction Review. Is it difficult to juggle being a creator and reviewing creators? Do you find that being a creator yourself, you were a little more forgiving in reviews?
Yes I was, for years and years; when it finally shut down, I just started posting them to my own blogs. I’m currently managing monthly batches of about five reviews each. It can be a challenge juggling, absolutely (all the more so because I do freelance editing and proofreading). But it’s also helpful; if I’m stalled on my own writing, I can work on edit-gigs or reviews and still feel productive.
When it comes to doing reviews, the HFR’s policy was always to try and keep it positive; Nick Cato, who ran the show, had a kind of “if you can’t say anything nice” policy and didn’t want to lambast authors. I got accustomed to that and it carried over; I mostly only do reviews of stuff I enjoyed, and keep the negative opinions and one-star rantypants to myself (well, or vent to a select few who understand).
My biggest beef about reviews is definitely connected to being a writer/editor myself and seeing something that is not well written, poorly-if-at-all edited, and probably only got “yeah it’s good!” feedback from the author’s friends or relatives who were too polite to say anything else. We all screw up sometimes, we all make mistakes, and we tend to be blind to our habitual bloopers, so it’s always good to get another set of honest, critical eyes on the manuscript. Of course, even then, things slip through; I had a collection (Buzzards and Bone) come out recently that I and a diligent fellow editor had been over and over, and wouldn’t you just know it, my dad found a typo in the very first story!
You’re also known for Viking-themed horror? That’s a new genre for me. What lead to that involvement?
VIKINGS!!! Where several of my longtime obsessions (fantasy, mythology, history, pirates, graphic bloody violence, and rich language laden with over-the-top purple prose) intersected with a soul-jarring *click*. Can thank, or blame, Bernard Cornwell for part of it; picking up the audio book version of his The Pale Horseman on a whim at the library one day, and being utterly blown away. Likewise, the Viking metal band Amon Amarth; lyrics like “I rip the axe from the head, covered in blood and brains” for example. And Professor Michael D.C. Drout, whose virtual courses on Anglo-Saxon history, Tolkien, and rhetoric did more for me than any English or writing class I ever took.
I even went through a phase for a while where, every time I saw a cool themed anthology call and wanted to submit a story, I’d see if I could mix the theme with Vikings, just to make it more of a fun challenge. Our family also went on a cruise through Norway once, seeing the fjords, visiting a living history Iron Age farm, the Viking ship museum, and I spent most of the trip just soaking it in like a sponge.
You write in a lot of genres, what drew you to Weird West?
Okay, that one, we can likely blame/thank my dad for the origins of; he loved dragging us to places like Calico and Bodie, always had a real interest in the era and western memorabilia. Eventually, he discovered Civil War reenacting and dove in headfirst, but there’s plenty of overlap. His house, where I’m currently living, is one big cabinet of old-timey curiosities.
The rest was similar to the Viking thing … intersection of several interests, history, the mythologized/folklore aspect of the Wild West, and most of all, the language. The style of speech, dialect, singular descriptive imagery; it’s a whole mood, and can mix well with so many other genres. For me, the weird/horror/paranormal is just a natural fit.
Didn’t hurt that I adored Bruce Campbell’s Adventures of Brisco County Jr.; that and Silverado were always faves, to be joined by Deadwood. Lately, now that I’m here with Dad, he’s been catching me up on a lot of classics I’d missed; we sit down together for a movie every night.
Can you describe the defining characteristics of weird western fiction for those who might be unfamiliar with it?
Oops, kind of got into that a bit in the above, but, okay … a straight-up western is its own thing, with its own signature elements and tropes and style and feel. Maybe some larger than life figures and epic action, but staying within the sane boundaries of known reality, that people believe because it really could have happened that way. Then there’s a fuzzy kind of borderland, when mysticism and spirituality and superstition may start seeping in, but can still be comfortably explained away.
Then, well, then, once you bring in the undead, aliens, dinosaurs, cosmic horrors, what-have-you, all bets are off and anything goes … BUT it’s still got to be a western, it’s still got to have that feel and those tropes and the language to be genuine.
How do you approach world-building in your weird western narratives? What are some key considerations when creating an alternate or fantastical version of the American West?
I cheat and fudge it and blur as much as I can get away with, so as not to anachronistically or geographically shoot myself in the foot. For instance, in The Night Silver River Run Red, I never specify what year it is or what state we’re in, thus making it harder for a reader to catch me in a mistake. I also tend to be vague in references to, say, types of guns, because I know bupkus about guns but I also know there are plenty of people who know EVERYTHING about guns and will be only too glad to get on my case about it.
Admittedly, some parts of the past are tricky, unpleasant, and difficult from our more modern perspective. When I was working on White Death, my pioneer-days blizzard book (with snow monsters), I had to leave myself notes like “add more racism” and figure out how I was going to approach some of the language, sexist attitudes, etc. But then, that factors into other eras and genres as well. A character may have prejudices or use slurs I personally despise; how to balance that with being true to the character requires some tightrope-walking.
How do you balance historical accuracy with creative license when writing in the weird western genre?
Again, same as above … I fudge and blur as much as I have to, with the goal of making it seem plausible, or at least actively not outright wrong. And not just in the westerns; I keep that in mind for all my projects. Even a setting completely made-up, like a fantasy world, has to have its own inherent consistency.
The funny thing is, though, how easy it is to forget or not even think of what ELSE might be going on in the world at the time. My dad told me that, during the Civil War, the king of Siam (as in, The King and I king, like the Yul Brynner movie) offered to send President Lincoln elephants to aid in the war efforts, but Lincoln turned him down. ELEPHANTS. If Lincoln hadn’t politely declined, there could have been Union Blue elephants. It sounds too crazy impossible, easy to scoff and laugh off, but, there you go!
Is it comforting to write in such an esoteric genre, or do you feel the pressure of the “weird west” aficionados?
When I started out, I worried and fretted and felt the pressure all the time, but that may have to do with the fact I started out writing traditional fantasy, and it wasn’t where I belonged. The conventions I went to were all fantasy/sci-fi based, the panels, the other authors, and comparatively speaking, I hadn’t read and wasn’t familiar with most of those works. I was writing fantasy because I was a gamer and most of our campaigns were your typical D&D thing with elves and dragons and wizards.
And there I was, the odd duck out, the one who read HORROR. Who had been reading primarily horror since I was eight. Horror kept sneaking into my fantasy stories. Why wasn’t I writing horror??? TBH, the first time I was asked, I choked, thinking about King and Saul and Koontz and McCammon and who the heck was I to aspire to that level … but then I realized I didn’t have to aspire to this or that; I should just write whatever the hell mades me happy and let me have fun, without worrying about what might sell or what others had done or might say or might think.
So, nowadays, that’s my priority: to write what I want, and have fun with it, and if anybody else happens to get a kick out of it, hey, bingo, so much the better! It’s a lot less stressful this way. Freeing. Relaxing. Finally finding and falling in with the right tribe of weirdos helped, too.
Can you share any insights into your creative process? How do you develop your characters and plotlines?
I never know how to answer this one, except to say, most of the time, I don’t. I don’t have a process, I don’t have a routine. I spent many years working the night shift in residential psychiatric facilities, writing on the company clock, which meant I never knew if it’d be a quiet shift where I could get a lot done, or if I’d be dealing with actual work stuff and constant distractions. I took what opportunities presented themselves and was glad for them. The idea of having a designated writing time from this-o’clock to that, or a mandatory word count goal for the day, weren’t possible. And, thinking back, also just would have been more stress, more things to mentally fret about and beat myself up over.
My approach to plotting is the same … most of the time, I don’t. I’m a ‘pantser,’ I wing it, I let the story run away with me. I don’t do outlines, and if I did, I’d probably go off the rails very quickly. I prefer to come up with some characters, chuck them into a situation, and see what happens. Often, they take over and surprise me and I’m just along for the ride, to chronicle the results. I may start a book with ideas about which characters will survive or not; sometimes I’m right, other times I’m sitting at the keyboard thinking, “well damn, didn’t see that coming.” I love those moments, though.
Are there any particular authors or works within the weird western genre that have inspired or influenced your writing?
I hadn’t read many westerns, weird or otherwise, at all before I’d started writing them, unless you count Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books. I mean, I’d read King’s Dark Tower series but actually never liked them much, despite loving most of his books (sorry, Steve; I tried!).
It may not ‘count,’ but Sharyn McCrumb, who I first discovered by way of Bimbos of the Death Sun — a must-read for every gamer geek, cosplayer, and con-goer! — did a bunch of mysteryish-thrilleresque novels set in the Appalachian Mountains, drawing heavily on folklore and the rustic way of life, with some paranormal elements. Even though they’re the wrong era/locale for westerns, something about them spoke to and influenced me, and her use of language was just superb.
Of course, though, speaking of use of language and westerns, once I got into it, I learned that what everyone said was true — Joe freakin’ LANSDALE for the win.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers interested in exploring the weird western genre?
The exact opposite of “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” Phooey on that; the more the merrier! It’s such a rich, vibrant setting, with so much potential to go in so many different ways, thousands of perspectives to explore. I’d suggest (well, Joe freakin’ LANSDALE, obvies) checking out a wide variety, seeing what some of the possibilities and approaches are. Anthologies are great for getting a feel for it, like sampler packs of a dozen authors with their own styles, ranging from serious to absurd. Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t. And, most of all, do what makes you happy, HAVE FUN; the rest will develop over time.
What are you working on next?
Things have been pretty hectic around here, what with moving and living situation stuff, so I haven’t been making as much progress on the big projects as I’d hoped. Been working on getting some of my backlist into ebook format, self-pubbing some collections of short stories, writing for some anthology invites.
For the big projects, though, I’m about halfway through a novel called Babydaddies of the Damned, a sequel to Spermjackers From Hell. After that, I’d like to write some follow-ups to The Night Silver River Run Red, because those characters have some tales left to tell. And my sister’s been after me for years to do a sequel to Murder Girls. No shortages on the to-do list around here!
