Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings everyone! Here we are with another author spotlight, and this time I’m grilling the formidable Candace Nola! She’s one of the fabulous authors in the line-up for The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, and it’s my pleasure to get to speak to her.

Candace Nola is an award-winning Pittsburgh author, editor, and reviewer with 4 novels currently on Amazon. Breach, Beyond the Breach, Hank Flynn and Bishop. You can find her short stories in Secondhand Creeps and The Baker’s Dozen anthologies. She is the creator of UncomfortablyDark.com, which hosts her own work but focuses primarily on promoting other indie authors in the industry with weekly book reviews, interviews, and special features. Uncomfortably Dark Horror stands behind its mission to bring you the best in horror, one uncomfortably dark page at a time!

Kayleigh: Welcome, Candace! Can you tell us a bit about your story in The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood?

Candace: My story was centered around the day my older brother committed suicide and how I felt that day and in the days after. Interestingly enough, my brother did appear to us the night he died and continued to linger at my parents house for more than ten years.

Kayleigh: Wow… I think I speak for everyone here when I say I’m so sorry for your loss, and also, it’s really brave of you to take an experience like that and create art out of it. I think a lot of us horror folk can relate to using the worst that real life throws at us. Can you remember what first inspired you to write?

Candace: I have been writing as a personal outlet since I was twelve, mostly free verse poetry. I began experimenting with short stories around fourteen but did not make any attempt to become an author until 2019.

Kayleigh: I think my first “books” were home-made ‘flap books’, as I called them. What would you say was your gateway into horror?

Candace: Edgar Allen Poe, followed by hefty amounts of Hitchcock, King, Twilight Zone, and bad horror movie VHS rentals on Friday nights.

Kayleigh: I’ve only just started reading Poe! Do you have a favourite author or book?

Candace: Anything written by Poe will always be counted among my favourites, as well as King. As far as more recent years, I now include Blake Crouch, Jonathan Maberry, S.A. Cosby, Kristopher Rufty, Gemma Amor, and Megan Stockton among my favorites.

Kayleigh: I LOVE Gemma Amor. Do you have a favourite piece of your own work?

Candace: Currently, Desperate Wishes is a favorite as I consider it my best work to date, however Breach and Beyond the Breach will always be special to me.

Kayleigh: Can you name a book that you wished more people talked about?

Candace: One of my own?  Breach and Beyond the Breach.  From another author: The Vampire of Plainfield by Kristopher Rufty. It’s creative as hell and downright creepy.

Kayleigh: Are you currently working on something new?

Candace: I am always working, usually on 3-5 WIPs at any given time. There are two novels in the works, several short stories for my collection, and various anthology stories that need to be written.

Kayleigh: Outside of writing, can you tell us something interesting about yourself that people might not know?

Candace: I’m actually pretty funny, very socially awkward, terrified to speak in public and afraid of the dark.

Kayleigh: Oh, I’m with you on socially awkward! I love the dark though. Finally – most crucial question of all – what is your plan for when the zombies inevitably turn up?

Candace: Same as every day, be the kindness in the dark, remind people to hydrate and oh yeah, carry a flame thrower and a big gun. I fully intend to lead the masses to safety, been planning for it since I was nineteen. I have a list….

Kayleigh: YES! You wouldn’t believe how many people haven’t prepared for such a thing. I’m adding you to my Apocalypse Team – it’s a very serious business. Thank you for being here with us goats!

If you’d like to check out Candace Nola, more of her work, or buy a copy of The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, there are some links below for you (pics have links embedded):

CANDACE NOLA’S CORNER OF THE WEB