WiHM Special - Renee S. DeCamillis

An accomplished author with plenty of celebrated works to her name, Renee S. DeCamillis has made a strong impression with her work appearing in multiple formats, from anthology collections to her own collected work. Now, in honor of Women in Horror Month, I talk with her about her early interest in writing, her latest book, "Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand," and upcoming projects.

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?

Renee S. DeCamillis: Thank you for featuring me for Women In Horror Month!

A love of horror hit me at a very young age in my childhood, when I would watch shows like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and the sci-fi series Planet of the Apes with my Nana Josie. She also introduced me to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, whose work made me want to one day become a writer of the mysterious and horrific. My Nana Josie died two days before my 8th birthday—that’s how young I was when horror fiction first became my obsession.

The movies of my youth that increased my love of horror and stick with me, in no particular order, are Hellraiser, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, Carrie, The Shining, Amityville Horror…

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?

RSD: The writers I read most and who hooked me with horror when I was growing up are Edgar Allen Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and H.P. Lovecraft.

Yes, I am inspired by their work all the time, and often things arise in my own work that I did not consciously set out to pull from any of these writers, but it worms its way in through my subconscious mind all on its own just from living in every nook, cranny, crevice, and crease of my gray matter. And it is often not until I read the end product of what I’ve created that I see where some of my ideas grew from.

Me: What was the starting point of becoming a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?

RSD: I’ve been a writer since I was a very young child. It all started with song lyrics and poetry. I used to dance around the house while writing song lyrics on the fly. I sang all the time. Still do. I imagine I was probably quite annoying to be around as a kid, but I had a hell of a lot of fun being the weirdo others wanted to avoid. When I started writing stories in elementary school, I populated them with musicians from my favorite bands at the time. I found a few of those old stories saved in my mother’s belongings after she died, and holy crap, they are garbage. But it does show how much my mind obsesses about music as well as horror.

I wrote song lyrics and poetry the whole time as a child and as a teen, which has carried over into adulthood. Though I now write more song lyrics than poetry because I’m always writing songs and playing music with bands, and now my own band and whatnot. Taking my story writing more seriously didn’t happen until I was in my early 30s. Even though all my teachers growing up said I should be a writer, when my mother suggested that same thing to me, my answer—born from an immature and depression-ravaged mind—was quick and to the point: “No way in hell! I don’t want to end up a drunk or drug addict and dead by suicide at a young age.” So, instead of pursuing a college education for writing, I chose music and enrolled in Berklee College of Music instead. Yeah, that made sense.

During my late teens and twenties, I remained focused on music, playing in bands, and earning a college degree. It was drilled into my head growing up that I would never get a good-paying job without a college education. I grew up in a low-income Italian-American family, with many extended family members who were mixed up in some not-so-respectable “business ventures,” and I did not want that sort of life for myself. That made me laser-focused on earning a college degree and pulling myself away from that undesirable lifestyle. Raised by a single mom with four kids, one of whom was severely handicapped, I was the only one in my family to ever attend college, so I was determined to succeed. But Berklee’s tuition is insanely expensive. I had to withdraw after finishing only two years. I was crushed. But at the same time, I was a music business major at Berklee, with guitar as my principal instrument, and the most valuable lesson I learned studying that major and being immersed in the music scene in Boston 27/7 was that the music industry is majorly corrupt—as is the entire entertainment industry. It is organized to benefit the music executives, not the artists. And since I was an artist first, that enraged me and made me rethink my original career goals. So, though I was crushed to have to withdraw from Berklee, I am thankful for having the experience, and I see it as saving my life in a sort of way. I came away from that with a deeper desire to focus more on the artistic side rather than the business side when it came to music. I turned to performing instead, with a focus on independent work, playing in bands locally, with no more desire to “break into the music industry”. But I still wanted to earn a college degree, so I reenrolled in college and went on to earn my degree in psychology.

That is the long, winding road that led me back to my love of stories and horror.

My love of writing horror resurfaced with a vengeance during my time studying psychology and working in the mental health field and in the classroom with at-risk teens. I remember it very clearly: When I was working in a day-treatment high school program, as soon as literature class incorporated the works of Edgar Allen Poe, the need to write horror grabbed me by the jugular and screamed, “You need to write stories like this, you need to write horror, and you need to do it now!” I immediately started filling notebooks with poetry and story ideas. And me, as addicted to learning as I am and having grown up being told a college education is the only way you’ll ever earn a good living, I enrolled back in college and went on to earn a Literature degree and an MFA in Popular Fiction Writing. And I’ve been writing horror and dark fiction ever since. Now I’m buried in student loan debt, but I earned my degrees, and I’m doing what I love: writing and publishing horror and playing and writing tunes with my band, Scars Aligned. I’m still yet to see those college degrees lead to a good-paying gig, though.

PSA to the kids: College does not always lead to a good-paying job. Do what you love, not what you’re told you need to do. And if what you want to do is make art, put every bit of yourself into creating.

Me: Is there any specific genre you prefer to write? Is there a style or format that you find easier to get into, even if you don't have a preference?

RSD: I am obsessed with supernatural horror and dark mystery-suspense thrillers. I mean, Poe, come on, of course I am. Stories about hauntings, ghosts, demons, stories that ask, “Is it mental illness or a real haunting, or a real demon, or a real possession?” I love that stuff!

I also love cosmic horror and satirical dystopian sci-fi horror-esque stories in the realm of Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury. And then there’s my love of magical realism and dark crime fiction. I don’t write magical realism—yet—but I have been practicing my chops a bit, so people will probably see some form of magical realism come from me at some point in the future. As for a style or format I prefer, I gravitate to stories with unreliable narrators, stories written in the first-person point of view, often in the present tense. I also like stories written in a circular story format, ones that the narrative circles back to the beginning of how the story opened. Stories not written in chronological order are fun! And I love when an author surprises me with an experimental format, which is something I want to try with my own stories. At the end of the day, I want to read and write stories that not only make me feel, but also make me think, stories that delve deep into the subconscious, ones that make me do mental work to find the meaning and understand what’s happening.

Me: Having contributed to various anthologies and short story submissions early in your career, what tools and skills do you acquire working on those that transferred to future projects?

RSD: Meeting deadlines and following submission guidelines, but learning that didn’t transfer to my writing. They are just very important lessons to learn if you want to submit stories to publishers. In reference to what I learned that transfers to my writing, I’d have to say getting to the point with minimal words, which isn’t always easy. Not for me, anyway. I love to delve deep into character, and short stories do not always allow the space to do that.

Honestly, I write longer fiction than short stories. I mean, I have a bunch of short stories written, but to get them published…Most anthologies and other short story submissions I see are all themed, and I do not write that way. Even when I see a theme I’d love to write about for an anthology looking for stories, I do not write fast enough to start a brand-new story and have it finished and edited in time for the short submission window. So, I am sitting on some stories that need to be unleashed onto the world, but if they don’t eventually find a home with a publisher’s themed anthology, I will eventually publish them in a short story collection, along with the short stories I have already released through publishers.

And speaking of themed anthologies—I don’t buy many anthologies because of them all being themed. I don’t want to buy a book of stories that are all about the same theme. I want variety. I want to be surprised. I mean, yeah, it’s fun to see where different people take the same theme, but still…Having a bunch of writers write about the same theme, to me, seems more appropriate for the classroom and writing workshops for practicing and learning the craft of writing stories, not for a book collection for people to buy. But that’s just my opinion, my preference. To each their own. Where I do see themed anthologies as something of interest are charity novels about social and societal issues that need attention and support. Those types of themed anthologies are certainly books I want to read and buy.

Another thing I learned from subbing short stories to publishers is that there is a bottomless ocean of submissions that publishers need to choose from. And with that realization comes the realization that my story may have never been read at all before I received a rejection. This revelation can discourage many writers, and though it is quite discouraging to me as well, it also boosts my motivation to get my work published. It also taught me not to take submission rejections personally. I now more easily brush off the rejections and focus on making my work as strong and engaging as possible.

As I said above, I focus more on writing book-length stories, and that’s because subbing a lot of short stories early in my writing career has convinced me that the payout is better for books, not the money payout, but the publication process works better for me with my longer fiction. Rather than focusing on multiple short stories and hoping I can find open submissions to send those stories to, and then all the waiting that goes along with each submission, I focus more on writing books, and not needing to worry about my work fitting a theme in order to submit it to places. Publishers don’t tend to set a theme with the books they are open to accepting during open submissions, or at least if there is a theme, it is much broader and easier for my work to fit, so I can find more submission opportunities for books than I do for short stories, which ups my chances to publish my work. Also, if I focus a lot of time and energy on writing short stories, work that may never find an open submission it fits into, that takes up my time to write books.

Me: What is the general process for getting involved in these projects?

RSD: Well, as I said for anthologies, I have a tough time finding themes my work fits into. And I do not write for an audience. I write for myself. A few anthologies I’ve published work in were invited by the publishers, so that’s always nice. I wish that would happen more often because general submissions are a nightmare. But even those anthology invites were themed. So, there’s that, again. Those invites came from networking with other writers. One invite came partly because of my work as a performing musician, combined with the positive feedback I received for my first published book, The Bone Cutters. (That right there shows that I started with publishing book-length work. My strength lies in writing longer fiction.) A fellow horror author and musician, who is also the previous president of The Horror Writers Association, John Palisano, referred me to the publisher who was looking for authors to invite to his anthology project. Based on John’s feedback about me and my work, the publisher, Mark Tullius of Vincere Press, invited me to contribute a story. Since the music theme fit my obsession perfectly, I had a blast writing that story! That work led to that same publisher inviting me to write a novel for his press as well. He loved the way I wrote The Bone Cutters, was impressed with the short story of mine he published, and we work very well together, so that book project was also a success. That one is actually my most recent novel publication, and it’s called Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand.

Some of the other stories I have published, though not all, also happened through people I have come to know in the field of writing and publishing. Working well with others, getting along with people, not being difficult or pushy or judgmental—all of that helps tremendously in this field. Yes, the work you produce is of utmost importance, but no one should forget all the other aspects that go into having success in this field.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the process that has helped me publish my short works may not work for everyone. When I go the traditional route of subbing work to publishers I do not know, I am in the same boat as everyone else, trying to steer my boat with one paddle and no motor across a bottomless sea of other authors’ stories. It’s a tough business. There are tons of writers and tons of stories seeking publication, and your work needs to stand out among them to ever stand a chance.

My long-winded answer leads to a big piece of advice I have for all writers, something I have learned working in this field—a big key to success apart from the written work you produce is Don’t Be An Asshole. And when subbing your work, follow the publisher’s guidelines to a T. Meet deadlines. If your work gets rejected, don’t take it personally. Allow rejections to motivate you to keep going, keep writing, keep submitting. Rejections show proof of your perseverance and hard work. No one fails until they quit. Don’t be a quitter.

Me: That brings us to your latest project, “Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand.” What can you tell us about the book?

RSD: Try Not To Die By Your Own Hand is the book I mentioned above that I was invited by Mark Tullius of Vincere Press to write. It was released on September 10th —World Suicide Prevention Day—2025. It is a charity novel, with all profits donated to Maine’s Mobile Crisis Line to support suicide prevention and mental health awareness.

The story depicts the real-life horrors of a protagonist who struggles with suicidal ideation. The book is written in a choose-your-own-path format, where every decision is left to the reader; it is the reader’s job to make the right choices for the protagonist to help her survive until the end without taking her own life.

Here is the back cover synopsis:

When you're your own worst enemy, survival is the hardest choice of all.

At 37, Dahlia thought she’d be stronger. But years of trauma, addiction, and self-doubt have left her broken. Every decision she makes could be her last—and you're the one making them.

In this raw and emotionally charged entry in the Try Not to Die series, you're in control of her fate. With six harrowing paths to darkness, only one leads to survival—and it demands brutal honesty, inner strength, and the will to keep going.

This isn't horror for entertainment.

This is horror born of real pain.

It’s not just a book. It’s a fight for survival.

Some Wounds Are Invisible, But They Still Bleed.

And the feedback I have received for the book has been stellar:

* “A beautiful, powerful, un-put-downable novel that dives deep into music, despair, literature, abuse, love, and—above all—hope. Read it, share it, read it again. You won’t be sorry. It just might save your life, or someone else’s.”

~ Elizabeth Hand, author of Generation Loss and A Haunting on the Hill

* "Try Not to Die By Your Own Hand is a harrowing, disturbing, honest, deep-dive into all-too- real horrors, ably demonstrating that the right choice isn't always so easy to make. Renee DeCamillis pulls no punches and writes with integrity and a survivor."

~ Paul Tremblay, NYT Bestselling Author of Horror Movie and The Cabin at the End of the World 

* “In Try Not To Die By Your Own Hand, Renée S. DeCamillis offers not one, but many cautionary paths away from enacting permanent solutions to temporary problems. I had an ever-growing pit twisting in my guts the entire read. I’ve never been more relieved to find my way out of a story. Most importantly, Dahlia’s story explores the devastating effects that making such a choice can bring, offering hope and a lighted path out from the bleakness.” 

~ John Palisano, Bram Stoker Award-Winning author of Requiem and Ghost Heart

Me: How did you settle on the plots for your books? With the variety of tones and styles you publish, what type of prep-work goes into making sure they fit into the previous book in your catalog?

RSD: That’s a tough question for my panster approach to writing. I don’t typically plot my books in advance. I start with a bunch of ideas for its theme, but that’s about it. I sometimes write a rough plot outline at some point after the writing has already begun. And besides The Bone Cutters Series, I don’t really try to make the plots of my books fit with previous books. If they do align with them, it is unintentional.

I write about topics my mind obsesses about. So, I guess I could say that life plots my books for me, and my life experiences provide the preparation for the writing.

The theme of my Bone Cutters Series came to me by way of a nightmare. The opening chapter of Book 1, The Bone Cutters, pretty much sums up that dream and builds from there, pulling in a lot of inspiration from my time working as a psychological technician at a dysfunctional psychiatric hospital. That book is written in a slightly different style than Book 2, Chisel the Bone. Because the protagonist, Dory, is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and under the influence of unneeded psychotropic medication, the doctors and nurses force themselves on her through much of the story, I wrote it with an unreliable narrator tone. The unreliable narrator is carried over to Book 2, though not as heavily, and that stems from the mental health troubles Dory struggles with rather than the effects of drugs or medication. Supernatural elements worm their way through Book 1, lurking between every line, building and building up until the final scene. That story is a psychological thriller with supernatural horror elements. This storyline clearly represents my love of putting science up against the supernatural.

Chisel the Bone’s supernatural elements hit the ground running from the very first chapter. And Book 3 in the series, which I am currently writing, also clearly incorporates supernatural elements from the very first chapter that are carried over from the first two installments. Since I wrote Dory, the protagonist, as someone who struggles with suicide ideation, the fearlessness and honesty I display in writing about such an emotionally tough subject matter is what led to the invitation I received to write my third book, Try Not To Die By Your Own Hand. Focusing on the theme of suicide ideation and mental health struggles stems from my own struggles with those troubles when I was younger, as well as my years of experience working in the mental health field. I have also lost loved ones to suicide, one of whom was a dear friend who lost their battle 2 months before Mark Tullius invited me to write the book. TNTD: BYOH is written in a completely different format than my other two published books, in that it is written in a choose-your-own-path format, as I already mentioned. That is the format for all the books in the Try Not to Die Series, so I adapted my writing for that book to fit that style format. It certainly was a challenge, especially given the subject matter and the drastically different format, but I learned a lot and gained some great experience. Plus, I’m always up for a good challenge.

Me: With the interactive nature of the series, what type of obstacle, if any, did that provide as you started writing? Were there any kind of instructions about what to include in the book before being left to your own creativity to finish it?

RSD: Organizing the chapters for TNTD: BYOH was the biggest obstacle for me. That story involved writing 6 potential endings for the same story, each at a different point in the narrative. I actually ended up writing the entire first draft in the wrong format; I wrote the whole story, and then I left all the different potential endings for the very end scene, rather than placing those different options throughout the protagonist’s journey. That realization hit me with immense frustration, but after revising it and finishing the final draft, I now know exactly how to format that style story for potential future projects like that one. As for instructions, I talked extensively with Mark throughout the whole process about what to include and how to organize and format the story. He provided me not only the professional support I needed to finish that project, but he also provided the emotional support I needed along the way, given the heavy subject matter. I absolutely love working with Mark! He is a talented writer and editor, and a wonderfully supportive human being.

Me: Is there anything while writing the characters that you were surprised by in telling their stories?

RSD: When thinking of all three of my books, what surprised me the most is how easy it is to make the wrong decision in any given moment, no matter how strong they are, how intelligent they are, or how good a person that character may be. Sometimes their bravery when faced with mounting obstacles surprised me, too.

Me: What is your writing process? How do you stay focused on writing?

RSD: During the work week, my typical writing process involves getting up at 4 am, before the rest of the house wakes up, and writing for about an hour. Then, when I get home from dropping my child off at school, I either write for another hour or spend that hour editing or revising what I’ve already written before I move on to my work editing books for clients. Saturday mornings, I get up around 5:30-6:00, and spend most of the morning writing and/or editing and revising my work. And though many other writers listen to music while they write, I typically do not listen to music while I write. Sometimes I’ll listen to meditative instrumental music to help me stay focused, but anything more than that pulls me out of the writing and makes me want to get up and sing and play/write music.

Staying focused on writing has been more difficult for me lately while the whole country—and the world—rages in its dumpster fire of corruption. But when times are not so drastic as of late, staying focused comes naturally for me. My story ideas constantly swirl around my mind, demanding attention almost constantly. What is more difficult for me to focus on are the daily responsibilities of life. I’m constantly pulled out of conversations and activities with others because my creative ideas always scream at me for attention.

Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process for having it published?

RSD: Getting my work published is one of the toughest parts of this gig. First, I need to find publishers with open submissions. Then I need to figure out if my work fits their submission guidelines. With short stories, as I already stated above, it’s difficult to find submission calls with a theme that fits what I have written. If the publisher does not accept simultaneous submissions, that poses a whole new problem that holds up my story for an unknown period of time, causing me to miss out on other potential opportunities while that first publisher takes the time to get to my submission. And then they may never read it before rejecting it. This whole process is quite maddening! And it can be extremely frustrating.

For books, it starts the same, but the wait is often much longer before hearing a final decision from the publisher. And many publishers will never take the time to tell you if they rejected your book or not. It’s up to me to send them a query at the time they say it is okay to send that query, only to then sometimes have them tell me, “Sorry, it just doesn’t work for me.” No explanation. Nothing. And then I’m stuck not knowing if my book just doesn’t fit their taste, or if they think the book needs more work before receiving an acceptance. And many publishers have different submission guidelines, and it takes a lot of time to format everything differently for different submissions. And I need to keep track of everywhere I subscribed to, what their turnaround time is, and when I can query if I never hear a decision from them. Honestly, it’s all quite maddening, and I seriously need my head examined for choosing to work in this field. But I need to write. I need to create. It’s in my blood. If I stop, depression takes over. So I push through. I keep going. I never give up doing what I need and love to do.

When my book gets accepted, it typically takes a year to prep the book for publication. The publisher’s editor goes through the book, and then they send it back to me for approval of their edits and discuss any potential changes or adjustments they think it might need before being released. I go through it, approve what I want to approve, fix what I need to fix, and then it goes through a proofreading process. There also comes a point in the process where a cover artist comes into the mix. Then I work with them and the publisher on how the cover should look, sending ideas back and forth until we get to something we all fall in love with that will work well with the story and the market. After all that, it’s time to prep for the book launch, which is a whole boatload of more work, and probably, for me, the toughest part. I’m an indie author, an artist, and my knowledge and experience are not in marketing and promotions. Add in the fact that I do not have an advertising budget to work with, and this process becomes even more difficult. If people don’t know about my work, they will not read or buy my work. This is a constant battle for me, as well as many other indie authors. That’s why I always try to share other indie author’s promo posts for their work on social media; I know how hard it is to get the word out. At the end of the day, I hope other authors will do the same for me. After all, we’re all in this together. Plus, promotional work takes a lot of time—time I should be spending on writing and submitting my next story. It’s all a perpetual cycle of madness.

Me: What do you do to keep your creative energy flowing?

RSD: Breathe. Meditate. Dance. Sing. Spend time in nature. Read work that excites me. Listen to

music that speaks to me, that lights a spark within me, and makes me move. Go for walks in the

woods. Spend time outside near flowing water. Spend time among the trees.

Me: What else are you working on that you’d like to share with our readers?

RSD: I am currently writing Book 3 in The Bone Cutters Series. It’s not yet near the submission process, so I do not want to share the title right now.

I am also shopping a different novel around to agents. It’s called The i In Every Hand, a post- apocalyptic cross-genre tech-horror-thriller about the dehumanization and destruction of our species through the obsessive use of cell phones and the internet. If any agents happen to read this and want to know more, please contact me. Let’s talk.

Me: Lastly, being that this is our Women in Horror Movement, 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!

RSD: Be brave. Never give up. Take risks. Don’t self-reject your own work. Never pay a publisher to publish your work. Don’t be afraid to promote your work. Network with as many other people in the industry as you can. Don’t be an asshole. Be careful of AI bots promising to gain readers and social media followers for you while also asking for you to pay them. Not only do AI bots do this, but there are many scammers out there who do the same thing. Don’t let their ego-stroking fool you—they only want your money.

Now, go out there and be bold; howl with the wolves. Your voice needs to be heard. Don’t let anyone silence you. Ever!

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