Following a varied career in sales, advertising and career guidance, Catherine Cavendish is now the full-time author of a number of paranormal, ghostly and Gothic horror novels, novellas and short stories. Now, in honor of Women in Horror Month, I talk with her about her interests in the genre, her writing process and her thoughts on her work.
Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general?
Catherine Cavendish: Hello and thank you for inviting me. When did I get into horror in general? When I was a child – firstly through reading a short story called The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, which is a classic British chiller. It was in an anthology of prose and poetry we were all given at school when I was around eight years old. It scared the living daylights out of me, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Me: Were you into genre films growing up? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?
CC: I wasn’t aware of being into genre movies; the term wasn’t even coined back in those days, but I did enjoy the Hammer Horror films of the Sixties and early Seventies, along with that wonderful classic, Night of the Demon which I still love to watch. The BBC used to have a classic ghostly short story every Christmas Eve and I thrilled to the likes of Whistle and I’ll Come To You, adapted from the M.R. James short story, and The Signalman, by Charles Dickens, among many others. I have always loved a great haunting and a well-told ghost story. The Haunting (adapted from Shirley Jackson’s immortal The Haunting of Hill House is another that got me hooked. From then on, it was onwards and upwards through Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and beyond.
Me: What was the starting point to become a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?
CC: I have been writing since I could hold a pencil and make contact with a piece of paper. I was the geeky kid who always cheered inwardly whenever the English homework consisted of writing an essay.
Me: Who were some of your favorite writers growing up? Do you try to take influences from their style with your own voice in your work?
CC: Once I got past Lewis Carroll, C.S Lewis, Tove Jansson and Enid Blyton, I was straight into the historical, gothic and ghostly. So that led me to M.R. James, Sheridan le Fanu (must read him again, haven’t done so for years), Emily and Charlotte Bronte, and a popular writer of the time - Dennis Wheatley. There were many others as well, some of whom, like Wheatley, are distinctly out of favour these days. I don’t consciously take influences from their work, but I am sure some of it has rubbed off. Oh, and it’s about time I re-read Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. What a genius he was.
Me: What is your writing process? How do you stay focused on writing?
CC: One idea overwhelms the others in my head, and I start to make a few notes, do some relevant research to immerse myself in the place and time, develop main characters and get the barest outline of a story before I start to write. At that time, I usually have no idea where I am going with it or how things will end. All of this is revealed to me by my characters, the plot and the end of the first draft. I then do multiple drafts over a period of time before sending the manuscript out to my trusted beta reader and adviser, Julia Kavan. She is amazingly gifted at homing in on any weaknesses, steering me off the paths of sheer folly, and generally providing vital help and suggestions. Every writer needs a Julia.
As for staying focused on writing: My writing time each day is sacrosanct. It’s the only way. No distractions. No music – unless it’s a sound effect, such as waves crashing over a rocky shore which I played when I was drafting The Malan Witch.
Me: Is there any specific style or format you prefer writing?
CC: My favourite is the full-length novel, although I enjoy writing short stories when the inspiration flows. Novellas too. Sometimes an idea hits me that is too complex for a short story but not lengthy enough to develop into 70,000 words or more. Each form has its own disciplines, and they are all quite different from each other. Variety is good for the soul, I find.
Me: How do you settle on and map out the plots for your novels and stories? What inspires you to focus on haunted history and location for your themes?
CC: Some of this I have touched on earlier but the idea that gets written is the one that screams the loudest in my head at the time. There are usually two or three clamouring for attention, but there is always one which emerges triumphant. Before I start on a first draft, there is usually little in the way of formalized structure to follow. I know many writers who plan and plot every chapter. I tried that once and gave up half-way through. I found I wasn’t paying attention to the detailed plot notes I had so carefully prepared. Even now, with minimal formal planning, I still veer off my intended storyline because a character or the plot is taking me in a different direction. These days, I am never rigidly formulaic because it doesn’t work for me.
As for haunted history and my chosen locations, I have always loved studying history, especially social history, and I feel happy setting my stories in different past times. I have chosen locations such as West Yorkshire (The Garden of Bewitchment) because I grew up in Halifax, not many miles from Bronte country, and used to spend hours up on the windswept moorland near my home. The contrast of the bleak, heather-strewn moors, the lonely cry of the curlew, the driving rain and the feeling of complete timelessness are addictive. I chose Vienna (the setting for much of the Nemesis of the Gods trilogy, which began with Wrath of the Ancients) because I have spent a lot of time there and know certain parts of the city pretty well. Other locations such as Egypt, London, Edinburgh, Orkney and Wiltshire are among places I have visited and, certainly in the case of Edinburgh, Orkney and Wiltshire, fallen in love with, having explored them quite extensively. I have found great traditions of ghosts and hauntings in all of them, and these have proved inspirational.
Me: Is there any part of your real self injected into your characters and their situations?
CC: Yes, undoubtedly. Some of my reactions will have come out in certain characters in many of my stories. The most obvious though is Nessa in In Darkness, Shadows Breathe. I am not particularly like her in character but we both share the same cancer operation! Writing that brought a lot of rather painful memories flooding back. Mind you, unlike her, at least I didn’t have a supernatural scare to deal with on top of everything else.
Me: Your most recent novel, 'In Darkness, Shadows Breathe,' was just released by Flame Tree Press. What can you tell us about the book?
CC: The two main characters, Carol and Nessa, should never, under normal circumstances, have met. Carol is housesitting an exclusive apartment on a complex built on the grounds of an old asylum, workhouse, orphanage and hospital. Nessa has a rare form of cancer and must have radical surgery in a modern hospital built on the same grounds. Unfortunately, an evil presence that was there before has persisted. Through the words of a long-dead woman, Lydia Warren Carmody, the two women are drawn together. Time is not linear and a portal exists in the hospital, leading directly to the previous building as it was in its own time. There, each woman encounters her own demons. Carol, in particular, learns things about herself she never knew, or understood.
There is a deadly battle being waged for their bodies and souls. They need answers and to find them, they must search the darkness.
Me: Was there any special significance to making the characters Carol and Nessa connected throughout time?
CC: I always knew they had to be because of the way the story develops. A twist of time and fate brings them together. Time isn’t linear in this story, and that matters because it is how the two of them are able to meet and interact with the evil that is built into their surroundings.
Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process to having it published?
CC: I am fortunate enough to already be published by Flame Tree Press (The Haunting of Henderson Close, The Garden of Bewitchment) so I sent the finished manuscript to my editor there, Don D’Auria, crossed my fingers and hoped. He liked it, signed me up and here we are a year or so later.
Me: What else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers?
CC: I have just signed a new contract with Flame Tree Press for Dark Observation, which is mostly set during World War II in blitz-torn London.
In 1941, typist Violet Harrington works in the subterranean, top-secret Cabinet War Rooms, where Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the key decisions that will dictate Britain’s conduct of the war. Up above, the people of London go about their daily business, unaware of the life that teems beneath their feet.
Night after night the bombs rain down, yet, in that fateful spring, Violet has far more to fear than air raids.
She and her friend Tilly share a house with the strange and distant Sandrine Maupas di Santiago - a woman who doesn’t belong there; a woman who is hiding something. Where does she go at night – and what secrets lie behind that too-perfect exterior? When they decide to dig a little deeper, Violet soon discovers some secrets are best left alone
At home, and at her place of work, she cannot escape from the menace closing in on her. Increasingly isolated by events she cannot control, every day brings fresh fears. A mysterious man and a room that only she can see, memories she can no longer trust, and a best friend who denies their shared past... Something is targeting her.
Tragedy strikes, and little by little the web is unraveled, but the truth is more extraordinary than Violet could ever have imagined.
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!
CC: Never be put off. Never think you’re not good enough. Saying that though, you must always strive to be the best you can. Read voraciously, not merely your own genre, but others as well. Finally, don’t be impatient. It can be so tempting to self-publish something that isn’t ready for a wider audience but, once it’s out there, it’s out there, so make sure everything with your name on is something you will still be proud of in ten or twenty years’ time.
Thank you so much for having me here today. All the best to all of you, not just during Women in Horror Month, but through all your writing endeavours and wherever they may take you.
To follow Catherine Cavendish and her works, check out her links:
In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is available from:
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