The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

Interview with Paul Danda and Chris Hedges
By Stephen W. Sommerville

Interview with Paul Danda and Chris Hedges
By Esteban Silvani

Horror Library had the chance to chat online with two twisted individuals—the editors of one of the best new publications on the planet, INSIDIOUS REFLECTIONS! Paul Danda and Chris Hedges were kind enough to shoot the shit with us. It's the first interview in which I was not escorted out for scratching my genitals excessively, though they are a bit bruised.

Now in print, Insidious Reflections, can be read anywhere (except places that don't have enough light, like inside a shoe).

Esteban Silvani of HL: So how did you too buckaroos meet up to form this IR thingamijig?

Paul Danda: Let's see. I used to hang out at this online writer's site called DarkLines.com, which went belly up. I distinctly remember giving Chris a hard critique on a story/novel he was writing and that was that. After DarkLines, we hung out at Dark Walls. Next thing I know, some shit hits the fan around there, and Chris and I are starting a 'zine.

HL: Is this true, Chris?

Chris Hedges: That's about the gist of it, although Dark Walls was The Dark Hall Chronicles at that time, then moved on to become Night Allusions, then Dark Walls. There was some bad blood going around so a bunch of the folks involved split. A few of us ended up in our own message forums and ended up starting the eZine...now magazine dubbed IR.

HL: How do you plan to make IR stand out from the rest of the heap?

Paul Danda: Well, that's a tough question. There're a lot of mags out there that cater to specific sub-genres, and a few that don't. Our first target was to create something that wasn't tied down with labels and sub-genres and all that. Just simply well-written Dark Fiction by the folks that can't seem to catch a break because of the high-profile mags out there that tends to only publish the big names. Basically, to be as open-ended as possible with whatever content we think is top-notch.

Chris Hedges: By offering the most twisted material we can come up with--as long as it's done well. We aren't in the business of publishing crap. This goes for all aspects of the magazine. Be it art, stories, articles, whatever. We try to put out there the stuff we would want to see. Also, we want to give aspiring writers a shot to be heard. That's why we started this. There are a lot of publications that just won't touch them. We're all about touching them, but that's another story. *evil grin* Really though, there's a lot of untapped talent out there just waiting to be discovered.

HL: Do you plan to keep IR a pretty "underground" horror mag for the hardcore fans, or are you looking for a balance?

Paul Danda: I'd love to cater to everyone, hardcore or not. We'd like to find ourselves at your local book store, and we think we'll manage that at some point.

Chris Hedges: Balance? None of us are balanced! If you mean, will we be publishing more well known authors along with the lesser knowns? Yeah. We will do that. If that's balance, so be it.

HL: You think giant bookstore chains, like Barnes & Noble would actually shelf IR?

Paul Danda: Damn straight!

Chris Hedges: B&N is a tougher sale, but I don't see why not. They offer a pretty wide range of material. We'll get there.

HL: Even with the chick with the burnt cross gracing the cover of Issue 4? I always think of those stores as too "PC" for that.

Paul Danda: Not necessarily. Have you seen some of the covers for Maxim Magazine? I think we'll be alright.

Chris Hedges: Have you ever seen some of the stuff they put on the racks? It's damn near porno!

HL: Touché

Chris Hedges: Our Goth Girl will fit in fine.

HL: Name some of the best "unknown" writers you've come across

Paul Danda: Josh Reynolds! Fran Friel! Robert Ford!

Chris Hedges: Josh Reynolds, Robert Ford, Pitts.

Paul Danda: Yeah, C.N. Pitts is great too!

Chris Hedges: That was off the top of my head...there's several more!

Paul Danda: Oh yeah!

HL: Which trends in the horror fiction scene do you see as being positive? Negative?

Paul Danda: Publishing new folks is all I care about. We've got some great authors out there that have been publishing forever, but very few new writers get the chance to try and make a splash. Leisure is doing a great job of getting some of these newbie's out there, but there's not nearly enough mass market horror publishers doing so. The small press is where it's at right now in horror for sure. Delirium is doing some wonderful things with picking the best of the best. Same with Bloodletting and Necessary Evil. We hope to be able to do the same in the future and bring some of these unknowns to the forefront!

Chris Hedges: On the positive side, it seems to be making a comeback. It was in one hell of a lull for a while, but it seems to be waking up. Negative, well, there seems to be a "click" in the horror community that if you're not a part of it, you have a hard time going anywhere. I'm only speaking for the writing side of this. It seems like to me, that if you can't spout that you're a member of the HWA or sold a bazillion books, folks don't take you as a professional. That's why the small press is so important. It gives folks a chance to shine.

HL: Ahhhh, plans to publish novels, eh?

Chris Hedges: Ahhhhh, cat's out of the bag, huh?

Paul Danda: Perhaps...

HL: Perhaps won't suffice.

Paul Danda: We'll be trying our hand at some chaps and novellas to start and work our way to full length novels in the good ole tried and true limited edition market. It's expensive, so we'll take it slow.

Chris Hedges: It's a new venture, we'll feel it out.

Paul Danda: Exactly.

HL: How about the movie biz? Is IR gonna get more involved?

Paul Danda: I'd love to! Been wanting to write screenplays for some time, just never got around to it!

Chris Hedges: That would be an excellent adventure; I see that as far down the road, if at all.

HL: Did both of you start out as writers before ever considering entering the world of publishing?

Chris Hedges: Actually, IR was kind of born because we wanted to write. That's why we were on message forums to begin with--to talk to other writers. There is a need for that correspondence between writers. One day, I woke up and IR was grinning at me from across the room. That's how fast it happened.

Paul Danda: I sure did. I went through a point in my life as a child where I wrote little things and was very into horror. When I hit my teenage years, it went by the wayside and I got into sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. Eventually, I slowed down and got back into reading dark shit. I thought, "Hey, I can do this!" That's what got me to start looking for places to be critiqued because I knew I sucked, and ended up at DarkLines.

HL: With whom would you rather perform the Humpty-Hump-- a half-squid/half-horse figure, a jagged soda can, or the corpse of some deceased pope?

Paul Danda: Ooh! The corpse of the Pope! I was raised a Catholic. 'Nuff said.

Chris Hedges: The squid would have the perfect texture, but the pope, well; I guess it could qualify as a religious experience. Any chance for a threesome?

HL: The squid would count as a threesome, seeing it's both squid and horse

Chris Hedges: Dang. Okay, I'll take the squid then. The horse can have seconds.

HL: Greatest three books ever written?

Paul Danda: The Stand by Stephen King, Ushers by Ed Lee, and The Books of Blood by Clive Barker. Why? Because I fucking loved them and I'm not into the classic lit they shoved down my throat in high school.

Chris Hedges: Ohhhh, you're putting me on the spot. I'll give you my 3 favs from the past 20 or 30 years. The Stand, Swan Song, and Intensity. I'm sure I'm out of line on that, but those are the ones that stick out for me.

HL: Swan Song?

Chris Hedges: Robert McCammon. Great book. Paul hates it.

HL: Me am weeetawd, sorry.

Paul Danda: I loved the story! But the writing bothered me!

Chris Hedges: Damn editors.

HL: What about the writing?

Paul Danda: POV shifting is a big no-no in my book. By switching POV's in the middle of a section, and even by the paragraph, you're forcing the reader out of the story for a moment to figure whose head they're in. That's just bad writing. You HAVE to split up POV changes by section changes. Swan Song was littered with this.

HL: Chris?

Chris Hedges: Me, I was too into the story to care. We've agreed to disagree on this one.

HL: Greatest three films?

Chris Hedges: The Exorcist, Lost Boys (not great but great from my childhood) and...Man, my mind just went blank. Don't let it end with The Lost Boys! How embarrassing!

Paul Danda: Eraserhead by David Lynch. The Lord of the Rings series (and yes I consider this one film, don't get me started!) by Peter Jackson, and Dogville by Lars Von Trier.

HL: Do you guys ever get into fights about which stories to publish and not to publish?

Paul Danda: All the time!

Chris Hedges: All the time! That's good though, we need that.

Paul Danda: Yeah, it keeps us from publishing the same shit over and over.

HL: And what are some common phrases that may be tossed around in these situations?

Chris Hedges: "Dude! Did you even read the story?"

Paul Danda: "Dude, are you REALLY sure you don't want to accept that story!" "You're fucking nuts!"

Chris Hedges: "You're fucking nuts," comes up often enough.

Chris Hedges: "Are you sure you LIKED that story?"

HL: Which stories that you've pubbed do you think would potentially translate into great film?

Paul Danda: The Bus to Hell by River Clayton. It's in IR Issue 4. It's about what happens after you die. It's quite creepy, very cerebral and ultimately heartbreaking.

Chris Hedges: I think Sabretooth by David McGillveray could be a good one or Free Ride Angie by Robert Ford could be a freaky one.

Paul Danda: Ooh, I just remembered another one that would be great. Iniquities at Her Feet by Bryan Eytcheson! Total zombie shit all the way!

Chris Hedges: Why the hell didn't I think of that one!? PERFECT one to adapt!

HL: How is it juggling "day jobs," family life, etc with IR?

Chris Hedges: Tough, brother. I work 12 hour shifts at night, so when you mix in having a wife, 2 small children and an older one with putting out the magazine, well, let's just say, you should see my house! There's not time for much else. If I don't do this thing for love, I do it because I'm fucking nuts!

Paul Danda: Very tough. I don't have it as bad as Chris with a family to support. But it is hard to pay the bills on my measly salary AND pay to publish the mag. It's quite taxing. Plus, time gets sucked away at work when I should be working on what I love to do.

HL: How far does IR have to go for you to be satisfied?

Paul Danda: We've got some serious ambitions. Aside from getting the mag and our books into everyone's homes, well........ I can't say. It's top-secret. Can't give away our prize goal.

Chris Hedges: I'm not sure I'll ever be satisfied. There's always the goal of having the next issue be better than the last. That will be ongoing and I think we've achieved this so far. I'll be happy to see it succeed, but I don't think I will ever be satisfied.

Paul Danda: Me either

HL: Lovecraft, Poe or Stoker?

Chris Hedges: Stoker, although Poe was a twisted soul.

Paul Danda: Poe, then Lovecraft, then Stoker. They're all very good. Stoker was one twisted fucker. His stuff was seriously messed up, but Poe was just deep. He got into your head.

HL: What was the first book or story that scared you?

Chris Hedges: I started reading horror early on, but the only time I actually looked over my shoulder while reading was when I read the Exorcist for the first time. This was about 10 years ago. The movie scared me when I was young, but the book was just as freaky in my adult years.

Paul Danda: Intensity by Koontz. Fucking had me on the edge of my seat. The stuff I read when I was a kid was that silly stuff they put in the school libraries aimed at children. Never got to me. But when I read Intensity, boy I was fucked!

HL: How many submissions do you read on a weekly basis?

Chris Hedges: HA!

Paul Danda: 20, maybe?

Chris Hedges: I carry a 3 inch thick stack of submissions with me everywhere. I don't count them I just read till that stack is gone and print some more.

Paul Danda: It depends on what's going on with the mag. Sometimes we have to stop reading them in order to read books for review, and, well, to put the mag together and make sure everyone is getting done what they need to have done in time.

HL: With all that do you find that you're desensitized, or do some stories still really get to you?

Chris Hedges: If it's good it does. That's what we're looking for! Get to us and you get into the mag.

Paul Danda: I'm somewhat desensitized. But there still are those ones that suck me right in. I know for sure that I've learned a lot about the craft simply by reading some of the dreck that makes it into those piles.

HL: Do you have a rule when reading, like we'll give you one page to convince us, otherwise...out the window?

Paul Danda: I sure as hell do. I don't have the time to read 5000 word stories straight through if I know in a page that it's not right for us.

Chris Hedges: I try to read them all the way through so I can tell the author WHY I'm not accepting the submission. Unless it's so poorly written that it doesn't have a chance in hell. Then I stop and tell them nicely it needs a lot of work.

Paul Danda: I try to read it all, but sometimes it's just bad writing, or there's no hook to suck me in.

HL: Paul, always looking to get sucked.

Paul Danda: Damn straight!

HL: As writers, what stuff have you been published in?

Paul Danda: I've been featured on this very site, the Horror Library, as well as a collection called Embark To Madness and in another collection called Goremet Cuisine. That's about it.

Chris Hedges: I haven't been published much. Just a couple of long lost things from my childhood and I have a short story due to publish next year in the Raw Meat anthology. Other than that, the book I was working on is rotting on my hard drive as IR is an all consuming beast.

HL: Tell your average reader of Stephen King, Koontz, Rice, etc...why he/she should read IR?

HL: Sorry, that wasn't a question, but a DEMAND...

Paul Danda: Well, those authors sure know what they're doing (aside from Rice, I don't what her deal is), but the small press is really where new ground is being broken. Fresh stuff with fresh ideas that isn't just rehashed and stale. It's imperative to read publications like ours in order to keep the horror community alive. It's the very thing that opens up the door to the mass market for these folks so they can be heard.

Chris Hedges: Because it's something different, damnit! There are so many brand name authors taking up shelf space that the general public doesn't get a chance to experience the authors that are slugging it away every day to keep this genre alive! Unfortunately, if those readers don't find their way to the Internet, they probably won't hear of half of these authors. It's sad really.

Paul Danda: Indeed it is sad. But god bless the Internet! Or we wouldn't be here right now.

Chris Hedges: It's not just for porn anymore!

HL: Any...final words to our loyal Horror Library sicko readers (whom we love very much...er, don't know where that came from, never actually met one...)?

Chris Hedges: Yes, don't walk, RUN to your nearest Internet connection and order a copy of IR. Its release date is Oct. 1st. Also, don't forget to check out these so called "underground" authors! They may just surprise you. They sure have surprised me.

Paul Danda: Keep on truckin'! You are the folks that get the point of what this stuff is here for. Thanks to you, horror, and dark fiction in general, is going to continue to thrive. And damnit, buy the mag! You know you want that hot Goth Chick to stare at while you touch yourself at night.

HL: TAKE THAT BACK!!!!!!!!!! SHE'S MINE!!!!!!!!AHJGKKUYKT@B&*(!@#^(*$&%B#YGDR!K&#KDG!#

Paul Danda: We can all have her, dude! Chill! I've already soiled my copy, you want it?