One of the brightest names in the genre at the moment, author Michelle Renee Lane has built a solid foundation on several anthology contributions as well as her novel Invisible Chains. Now, in honor of Women in Horror Month and Black History Month, I talk with her about her early writing experience, her anthology writing and the novel itself.
Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general?
Michelle Renee Lane: There were always horror novels around when I was growing up. My grandmother collected all of Stephen King’s novels in hardback until she died, and my mom always had paperbacks lying around the house. So, I remember the original paperback covers for Salem’s Lot, IT, Cujo, Ghost Story, Flowers in the Attic, Rosemary’s Baby, and a bunch of other books by horror writers in the 70s and 80s. My mom loved those books, so about a year ago, I picked up a copy of Paperbacks From Hell for her, signed by Grady Hendrix, and she loved it.
Me: Were you into genre films growing up? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?
MRL: Absolutely. My whole family loved horror movies and TV shows, so I watched a lot of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, and Saturday afternoons, I watched Creature Double Feature religiously, which gave me an education in classic horror movies from both Universal and Hammer, and also a lot of the atomic age movies, like The Blob, THEM, Godzilla, etc. But my favorites were Vincent Price and Christopher Lee movies. I had seen Bela Lugosi as Dracula when I was young, but then I started watching all of the Hammer Dracula movies and their other vampire movies like Vampire Circus, which is one of my all-time favorite vampire movies.
Then, when I hit my pre-teens and teens, I became obsessed with slasher movies and watched as many as I could either on cable, or what I could pick up at the local video store. Some of my favorites, are Black Christmas, Terror Train, My Bloody Valentine, and Happy Birthday to Me.
Me: Who were some of your favorite writers growing up? Do you try to take influences from their style with your voice in your work?
MRL: Growing up, I would say popular horror writers that I liked were Anne Rice, Stephen King, Peter Straub, but I was one of those weird kids who also really loved Hawthorne, Poe, Irving, and even Lovecraft. When I first started writing, I thought that I wanted to write like Anne Rice, but then I started reading the work of authors like Toni Morrison, Jewelle Gomez, and even Alice Walker, and then horror started to mean something different to me.
Me: What was the starting point to become a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?
MRL: I always loved stories. All kinds of stories. And, I knew that I wanted to tell stories as a kid, and I wrote some short stories and plays when I was in grade school, but I didn’t start writing seriously until I was in high school. I wrote a lot of poetry and short fiction that was really about expressing some of the emotions I couldn’t share with people. Growing up as a person of color in a small rural white setting can be challenging, and I experienced racism and microaggressions the whole time I was growing up. I needed an outlet for the anger and sadness. So, I wrote poems about killing people and dove headfirst into vampire narratives.
Me: What is your writing process? How do you stay focused on writing?
MRL: That is an excellent question. I’m not sure I have a good answer, because I don’t always stay focused on my writing. I’m a single parent, I work full-time, I responsible for a lot of things that distract me from sitting down to write. However, some of the things that help me are the fact that I belong to a writing group that meets monthly and we all have to submit flash fiction based on a prompt, so that keeps me motivated. I also have goals in mind each year to submit a certain number of stories, and I have a few longer projects that I want to finish. Ideally, I would like to have a regular schedule time each day when I write, but that just hasn’t happened yet.
Me: Is there any specific type of genre you prefer writing? Is there any style or format you find easier to get into even without a preference?
MRL: I consider myself a speculative fiction writer, so there are usually elements of fantasy, horror, sometimes sci-fi in my work. Sometimes I think I am writing Magical Realism, but I’m never really sure about that. I write about women of color and monsters. And, sometimes those women fall in love with monsters, or at the very least, lust. So, I tend to combine horror and erotica. I just had a story released in the anthology, The One That Got Away, that is a blend of horror and erotica, “Josephine.”
Me: Having contributed to various anthologies early in your career, what tools and skills do you acquire working on those that transferred to future projects?
MRL: In some ways, I feel like I came at this a little backward. My first novel, Invisible Chains, was my thesis project for my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. The success of the novel and the positive responses that I initially got from reviewers, opened a lot of doors for me in terms of being asked to submit to anthologies. So, even though I wrote short fiction, I didn’t have any published until after my novel was published (give or take a month or two). And now, I’m getting good feedback on my short fiction, too. In some cases, I had stories that I thought were going nowhere, and then an opportunity to refresh a story, or come at it from a different angle, allowed me to develop a better sense of how to edit and repurpose older pieces that fit with the theme of a particular anthology.
Me: What is the general process for getting involved in these projects?
MRL: So far, in most cases, people have invited me. I’ve also submitted blind to anthologies and was fortunate enough to have one or two of those stories published. But I also receive my fair share of rejections.
Me: How did you settle on the plot for your novel Invisible Chains?
MRL: Invisible Chains started as a short story with a very different ending in mind. The plot evolved around the characters as they developed and interacted. And, a lot of the research I did for the novel also helped me deepen and expand the story. The characters changed quite a bit as I was writing, and with the encouragement of my mentor, Lucy A. Snyder, Jacqueline got stronger and stronger each time I sat down to write. The more I learned about slavery in America, the more horrific the plot became. In the short story, Jacqueline becomes a vampire. And, I thought that she would end up as the love interest of Carlos Velasquez. She needed to be more than that. Carlos needed to be a monster and she needed to fight him.
Me: Was there any special significance to making the setting during the Antebellum period of history? Did this bring about any unexpected fountains of inspiration while writing the book?
MRL: Well, since the book is a supernatural slave narrative, it had to be set in Antebellum New Orleans. There were certain limitations I needed to set for my characters, specifically my black characters. This time-period provided a wealth of obstacles for my characters to overcome, and slavery itself is the most horrific aspect of the novel.
Me: Was there any part of your real sense injected into the character of Jacqueline? What were some of your favorite memories writing for her?
MRL: I had a weird moment of clarity while writing the interactions between Jacqueline and Carlos. I was dating a narcissist at the time but didn’t realize it until Carlos started to behave more and more like the guy I was dating. My vampire became more of a monster because I was dating one. As Jacqueline got stronger, so did I. I ended the relationship soon after I finished writing the novel.
Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process to having it published?
MRL: I pitched it at StokerCon in Providence, RI to John M. McIlveen of Haverhill House Publishing. You have about eight minutes to pitch your book, and I always rambled when talking about the novel. I guess I said enough of the right things to interest him, and he requested the first fifty pages or something like that during the pitch. When I got home from StokerCon, he had sent me an e-mail asking for the whole manuscript. I couldn’t have asked for a better working relationship for my first book. Haverhill House is amazing, not only because of how supportive John is, but all the other people who publish with him made me feel like I was part of this extended family of writers. I wouldn’t change a thing about that experience.
Me: How did moving from short story to full-length novel challenge your writing skills?
MRL: Writing a novel was a challenge for many reasons. First, I’d never done it before, which is why I applied for the MFA program at Seton Hill University. I wanted to learn how to write a full-length novel, and I wanted to write genre fiction. That program – the curriculum, faculty, mentors, students, staff – all helped make that possible. Second, I had a beginning and an ending (that changed three times), but I struggled with that pesky middle bit of the novel. I didn’t know what I was writing until I was more than halfway through. I’m a pantser, so the idea of planning or plotting didn’t work for me. I did some outlining as I wrote in order to map out what should happen next, but the characters drove me more than anything. Honestly, though, writing longer pieces of fiction is often easier for me than writing a short story.
Me: What else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers?
MRL: My big goal for this year is to finish a first draft of the sequel to Invisible Chains, which I am currently calling Blood Work. Aside from that, I’m also hoping to finish a novella-length project that is the first book in a series I’m working on. And, I plan to write as many short stories as my brain will allow this year.
Me: Lastly, being that this is Women in Horror Month, what special message do you have for any women out there looking to join in the industry in any capacity as you are one yourself? Thank you again for your time!
MRL: Write the stories you want to write. Write stories about people who look, act, and feel the way you do. Craft stories that fit within your chosen genre, or theme of an anthology, but don’t feel like you have to mimic the styles of male writers in order for your work to be published. Write what you know and tell your story, because someone is waiting to hear it.
To follow her writing, check out her official site:
This interview ran as part of our Women in Horror Month celebrations. Click the banner below to check out all of our reviews and interviews about the occasion:
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