Today’s guest, Rochelle Campbell, is the author of the solo anthology The SciFi End of the Supernatural, and is currently crowdfunding her first novel, Fury from Hell. We had a lovely chat about both of these exciting books, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!
Please give Rochelle a warm welcome.
The Interview
Can you tell us a bit about your anthology, The SciFi End of the Supernatural?
What can I say about it? I love short stories. I love Isaac Asimov and Stephen King is my writing idol. Somehow, these two loves came together in a small tome of stories that I hope you, and your readers, will enjoy.
Which story in the book did you write first?
Funny enough, the last one was the first one written back in 2009: How Charlie Ray Saved My Life.
Why did you decide to publish these stories together in an anthology?
I had been hard at work editing a full-length novel, Fury From Hell, for over 2 months. My brain was on fire from the sheer magnitude of reading closely page after page. In addition, the last quarter of 2016 was particularly rough for my family as we lost three people in those last three months. My family and I were devastated. My writing, and editing, came to a standstill. My raison d’être came to the fore. I realized that the constant editing was a bit of a phobia. If I never finish the book, I can never be judged, right?
But, I was in a place with too much pain and decided to find stories I loved; that I felt good about. I scoured my hard drive and found 7 stories I loved. They all had science fiction in them, &/or some little bit of the supernatural. Within two weeks, I went from an idea of a book, to actually having the cover of The SciFi End of the Supernatural completed.
What was the hardest part of creating The SciFi End of the Supernatural?
Getting over the fear of not being good enough to finish Fury From Hell! Lol. I tell you. That is the book that I passionately love but am deathly afraid of it at the same time.
Seriously, the hardest part of creating SciFi End was the attaching of ISBN numbers! For some reason, I couldn’t get that tiny and usually very easy piece of self-publishing done. The cover had to be re-done twice to clear up this issue. But, thankfully, all is resolved.
What are some of your favourite anthologies?
Of course, the classic Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew. The Unquiet featuring J.D. Robb, Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan and Mary Kay McComas. And, The Turtle Boy by Kealan Patrick Burke. I know, I know – it’s not exactly an anthology. It is a novella that opened the Timmy Quinn series. Either way, Burke won a Bram Stoker award for The Turtle Boy.
If you could give an aspiring writer only one piece of advice, what would it be?
Find your true inner voice. That voice that is uniquely you. I don’t care if you think it sounds like your grandmother’s uncle’s teacher. If that’s what YOU sound like and it feels true to you – that’s your voice and it is most probably your writer’s voice, too. Go with it.
What are you working on next that readers can look forward to?
Hmmm – Fury From Hell! 😊
After SciFi End was in the publication process, I re-thought about my cop thriller with a heavy dose of graphic horror. I did not want to scrap Detective Jennifer Holden, a woman who only believes in her badge and a gun. I didn’t want to forget about Fury Abatu, a 700-year old demon that comes to Earth to avenge the wrongful death of women. However, being a denizen of the netherworld, Abatu must feed on human flesh while on Earth. I love these characters. I love how they came together in a story I could not have imagined writing 10 years ago. It took living life, and understanding that the good, the bad, the indifferent, the ugly – the beautiful – it’s all relative. If we don’t have a moral compass, some line in the sand that let’s us know what we feel is right and wrong, nothing really matters. This is the journey Det. Holden is on. It is only when this NYPD murder cop is confronted with things beyond her ken, does she even begin to query into life’s existential issues. Yeah, all wrapped up with some pretty scary scenes. Or, so my readers say!
I have decided to crowdfund Fury From Hell and is available for pre-order on Inkshares. You can check it out here: https://www.inkshares.com/books/fury-from-hell.
About The Author
Rochelle Campbell has a BA in Written Communications with an emphasis on Digital Media and began her career as a journalist and PR specialist. Her writing career spans over 20 years, and straddles both nonfiction and fiction. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, yet has had two stories published in literary magazines.
As an indie author, she has published “The Magic Seeds,” an illustrated urban fairy tale for middle grade readers (co-authored with her son), “Leaping Out on Faith,” a book of contemporary women’s fiction short stories which was followed by the publication of a full-length paranormal horror novel “Fury From Hell” in September 2014. With nonfiction as the marrow of her writing life, in March 2015, she published a personal finance title for teens and young adults called, “Making Dollars & Sense Work.”
Did you enjoy this interview? Purchase The SciFi End of the Supernatural or back Fury From Hell on Inkshares!