I am an Appalachian Gothic fiction writer who grew up in the coal mining community of Woodbine in southeastern Kentucky. My poetry, short stories, and other writing to date have appeared in the e-zines associated with the now-defunct 3Sides Literary Agency, the limited Stories from the Red Light District anthology, in various projects associated with Apex Publications, and in the Help anthology.
My stories, at least what I've written since 1996, take place in my own paranormal version of the gothic hinterlands of Harlan County, located in southeastern Kentucky. The great beauty of Harlan County contrasts sharply with abject, inherent strife. Its mountains are scarred by mining, and its people are quite often insular and distrustful. This landscape provides the backdrop for my writing and is often a character in its own right. I lived four years in the black heart of Harlan County, a placed mired in coal, ash, and blood, a land of coal seams and rhythmic discord that breed amity and illusion, all of which birthed the Harlan Vampire stories.
I started writing what would become the first in my Harlan Vampire Series in October 1996. (I learned somewhere around 2005 that the series had gained some strange infamy on college and university campuses as the "Hillbilly Vampires".) The characters in my stories are not your usual bloodthirsty Bram Stoker-type vampires. They are people with hopes and dreams, desires, drives, and life-crises - some major, some minor, but all of which help push the characters into growth and understanding. My works reflect a love of literature and music flavored by the darkness and magic residing in the Appalachian foothills. It only seemed natural to call that first story Midnight - so much imagery ended up woven all through the story because of that one simple word.
I am the editor of the Harlan County Horrors regional dark science fiction/horror anthology, published by Apex Book Company in October 2009. My first novel, Midnight, was published by Apex Publications in May 2014. Midnight is being re-released in July 2017.
I have lived away from the mountains and lived deep in the mountains. My current home is in Central Kentucky with my significant other and his cat. I am a mother and a not-grandmother.
I am known to dance with fairies and ghosts beneath full moons and wade barefoot in creeks and wild rivers. The mountains, their culture, their superstitions, their particular magics, will always be in my heart and my blood.
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