Women in Horror Month is here! I have been featured on S. K. Gregory’s Storyteller Blog today, so if you get a chnce, check it out!

WiHM9 Interviews Amanda Leanne Boyce

A bit from the interview:

S.K. Gregory: Why is horror writing important to you?

Amanda Leane: I have an interesting theory about horror and what it does for me. I had a difficult childhood and have dealt with depression and insomnia (mine as well as that of my family) for a good amount of my life. Books became a staple for me at an early age. I learned to read when I was four, thanks to a determined uncle who saw my young fascination for books , and had read my first horror by the second grade. My mother loved Stephen King and Anne Rice, and so those books were quite plentiful. With insomnia, mom would be up late watching horror movies on one of the old random channels that played classics. And so the reading and watching gave me an early introduction, respect and love.
With horror, I feel it is more relatable to life. I’m not, nor ever have been, a fan of happy endings. I feel that if something goes horribly wrong, it can never be completely righted. I also feel that horror can embody issues worse than my experiences and fears, thus giving me proof of a darkness much bleaker than any I have dealt with. When I write horror, I get to control that. I am in control of the darkness. I decide how deep it can go, what it does , if it is able to be overcome and what it will leave behind. I can create worlds worse than any depression I have had and yet at any time I can tilt it another direction.
Horror is also necessary, in my opinion, to show the depths of depravity the human mind is possible to have. It also allows us to indulge in the faux pas aspects of being human in a lawful world without breaking any morality or personal vindications. You can delve into the mind of a cannibal or sympathize with a real monster and its okay. In horror, you can face your fears or bask in the darkness and close the book at the end without changing your place in the world. Horror allows us to confront and embrace so much on our own terms.