Today I welcome Sèphera Girón, another friend and colleague, into the Library for 31 Days of Halloween. We work together on the Great Lakes Horror Company Podcast (which you can tune in to on iTunes or right here on Library of the Damned) and on other various initiatives for the Ontario Chapter of the Horror Writers Association, of which she’s our chapter head.
But most of you probably know Sèphera first and foremost as an author. As her bio tells us she’s “been writing creepy tales since she could hold a pencil” and I don’t doubt it. Her writing career formally kicked off in 2000 with the publication of Eternal Sunset (Darktales Publishing). It was followed by House of Pain (Leisure Books, 2001) and House Magic: The Good Witch’s Guide to Bringing Grace to Your Space by Ariana (Conari Books, 2001). Now, twenty-three published books later, she’s still working hard at scaring and delighting her readers. When she’s not writing, she’s a freelance editor, an actress and a tarot reader – though not necessarily all at once, or in the order.
Need to know something about your future, Sèphera can probably help you out. (She did accurately predict the sex of The Librarian’s unborn child.) Follow her on Twitter and Instagram and consider supporting her on Patreon (to get a look at her brand new, in-progress space opera).
And if you happen to live near Guelph, Ontario, both Sèphera and LotD’s own Librarian will be signing books from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the local Chapters bookstore this Saturday, October 22.
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31 Days of Halloween… with Sèphera Girón
Describe a time when a scene in a horror novel really unnerved you or caused you to turn on all the lights.
I usually leave at least one light on when I’m watching a scary movie or TV show. I even sleep with the TV on every night, especially after I became single again, because I’m kind of afraid of the total darkness. Actually it’s not the darkness I’m afraid of, it’s the “things” in the darkness and after ghost-hunting and tarot reading all these years, I DO see and hear things in the shadows.
In your opinion, what is the all-time scariest horror novel or short story?
There are a few. I think it depends on your age and your mood when you read or hear or see a story as well.
For me, The Shining was terrifying. So was The Exorcist. I read both as a young teen. The Tell-Tale Heart has tripped me out since I was a little kid. That particular fear was accelerated by the fact that there was a record released when I was a kid that had The Tell-Tale Heart on one side and I think it was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on the other. I don’t think I myself owned the record but my cousin in Maine and my childhood best friend in London both owned it and we’d sit in the dark playing it, freaking out. The cover of the album was scary with the guy under the floorboards and one red eye. The record was terrifying because of the heart beat and it was either Boris Karloff or Vincent Price reading it, I think. I could be wrong.
What’s the scariest scene and/or book you yourself have written?
I’m not sure. What is scary to me likely isn’t to others. I think some of my scenes in Hell in A Penny Saved are pretty creepy. I just finished a Ouija board novella and Ouija boards terrify me so that story was hard to write without actually actively using a Ouija board in the story.
Top three fears?
Death of my sons before me
Birds
Heights
Learn more about Sèphera and her work at sepheragiron.ca
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