What is your name and what are you known for?
My name is Cheryl Low and I write violent things, usually about primordial monsters, relationships pressed up against impossible situations, and bloodshed.
Tell us about one of your works and why we should read it.
The Wicker Witch is a fast-paced story about a legend that turns out to be all too real, bringing a reckoning of hunger down on a small mountain community. Childhood friends, Rebecca and Charlotte always thought the mountain belonged to them, only to discover too late that they, and the mountain, belong to something else.
What places or things inspire your writing?
I read and watch a lot of horror, to the point where it starts bleeding into reality. Everything and anything can inspire me. The other night I was sitting on the bus, and it has this accordion center, so from my seat near the back, when it takes a turn, there’s a second where the person sitting mirror to me in the front disappears from sight. Every time, I’m holding my breath for them to vanish or change when the bus straightens out again. So far, it hasn’t happened, but if I can put that into a book someday I will.
What music do you listen to while creating?
I’m definitely a writer with a playlist. I have different playlists for different projects but tracks from Xtortion Audio’s Frightmare make all of them. The songs are like background music to your worst nightmare and puts me right into the headspace I want.
What is your favorite horror aesthetic?
This question is agony! I love aesthetics and lose my mind over them. Folk horror. Space horror. Ocean horror. Jungle horror. Shoebox horror—I’m so impressed when a creator pulls off a story in a small space with a small cast. But I think my absolute favorite is a curse. I love a curse, especially those stories where someone makes a deal and has to pay up, but also the ones where someone just crosses a line they shouldn’t have and now there’s no way out.
Who is your favorite horror icon?
Xenomorphs. I get an incredible amount of glee when I see them. I love the details, the stealthy creepiness, the cleverness, and the ruthless survival of a xenomorph. It thrills something childlike in me that’s definitely reminiscent to when I was little watching the raptors in Jurassic Park.
What was the scariest thing you’ve witnessed?
I once saw a person eat an apple from the bottom to the stem, core and all, and then the stem too. It was chilling and they did not understand why I was surprised. They had somehow made it twenty plus years in life and never seen how a person eats an apple.
If invited to dinner with your favorite (living or dead) horror creator, who would it be and what would you bring?
I spent so much time thinking about this question. I am so introverted that the gift of getting to sit down with a favorite horror creator of mine is also sort of a punishment. I’m definitely going to get tongue-tied and make a fool of myself, or just completely blank on asking something I should have. Because of the “living or dead” option, I’d choose Anne Rice. She seemed like such a genuinely kind and interesting person even outside of her work, I would love to have met her and just held a conversation with her. I would bring my husband because he would die happy and, having given him that gift, I would win every argument from now to the end of time.
What’s a horror gem you think most horror addicts don’t know about? (book, movie, musician?)
There was a horror tv series called The River in 2012. I think about it sometimes and miss it. I really wish it had caught on and that there had just been more space for horror in tv. We get more horror shows now that we have streaming and everything is bingeable but it was a really fun idea.
Have you ever been haunted or seen a ghost?
If I did, I would refuse to acknowledge it. Being a horror fan has taught me not to talk to ghosts. The dead are like the living, you can’t trust anyone.
What are some books that you feel should be in the library of every horror addict?
Everything written by Stephen Graham Jones, T. Kingfisher, James Brogden, and Mira Grant. I jump on their books when they come out and reread specifically Mongrels by SGJ and Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant at least once a year.
What are you working on now?
I’ve always got a few projects going. I’m sitting on a zombie apocalypse manuscript because who doesn’t have one of those in their trunk? I’m working on a Christmas horror because I’m definitely one of those people who look for holiday horror in November and December every year. And I’ve got another monster slaughters small town story out on query. Fingers crossed.
Where can readers find your work? (URL #1 place for them to go.)
Thank you so much for the interview and the great questions, they were so much fun to think about and answer.
HorrorAddicts.net 