Julie, I'm thrilled to have you as one of our featured creators on Haunted Trails' #31DaysofHaunting this October!
It’s a pleasure to be here.
Please tell us about yourself.
I’ve been writing short stories and novellas since the early 1990s. I’ve had a lifelong
obsession with horror and the supernatural so it was a fairly natural progression to start
writing it. In my youth I co-created various fanzines – as a child in the late 1970s I’d made a
very primitive skateboard zine, moved on to a couple of punk zines before playing in a few
bands and then I began writing fiction. I’ve also written features for the gay press in the UK
and the US and co-produced another zine – a punky, lesbian affair - a few years back. And
I’ve just bought an electric guitar as I need to make some noise/music again!
We'd love to hear about any recent projects you released or completed.
One project I was honoured to be involved in was to write a story and introduction to “The Contagious Magick of the Super Abundance: The Art and Life of Ian Johnstone”. Ian was a fabulous artist, part of his work involved making costumes and designing album covers for
Coil, an English avant-garde/electronic band, as well as producing a large body of his own
work. He was also my friend for the last few years of his life, so as you can imagine, I was
deeply touched that his partner Mikel asked me to write for the book. I was then asked to
write a further story for a zine type insert in a very special edition of the book. Both pieces
were very earthy, dark fantasies. The publisher, Timeless Editions, describes it better than I
can:
“In a dream Ark Todd [Ian’s performance alter-ego] instructed his partner Mikel, who
effectively created the edition under Ian’s guidance, to ceremoniously bury all of the “Brass
Wounds” [brass plates created by Ian, based on his series The 23 Stab Wounds Of Julius
Caesar] on the Winter Solstice of 2019 in the exact place where their apiary used to stand.
The Spanish soil worked its magick on the resurrected Brass Wounds. The wooden box
holding the Wound was handcrafted by Mikel using the actual wood, oak for the box and
chestnut for the lid, of the apiary. The book itself is contained within the box in a pouch
handsewn using all IJ components, e.g. a rich dark green velvet from Ian’s curtains. The final
testament and a loving homage to a great artist and a special human, gone too soon.”
I have one of these boxes, and I can tell you that it’s a beautiful and very meaningful item. At
850 Euros it’s also by far the most expensive thing I’ve been involved in!
What's next for you? Are you working on anything new right now?
I’m usually working on a few projects at any one time, albeit slowly. My first screenplay -
Charcoal, a folk-horror tale with a Surrealist element - is coming on. It’s a massive learning
curve, both in the technical aspect and in having to tell a story in a very different way to
writing fiction. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for decades so I’m happy to be finally
getting on with it.
A new story, A Visit From Someone Dear, is coming soon (this year I hope) is Montag Press’
Time and Propinquity: An Anthology of Fiction and Philosophy. I’m fortunate enough to be
asked to submit stories to publications from time to time and this story is one of my most
bizarre, so I’m looking forward to seeing it out in the world. I have at least half a dozen
finished stories sitting around, I have to have a really specific vibe about a publication before
I’ll submit something, for me it’s about the transformative/spiritual process of writing, from
whatever strange place a story idea comes from to articulating it in black and white. I’m also
currently working on a new story, The Ladder Acrobat’s Ascendency To Heaven which is
quite different to what I’ve done before with little horror in it, although I’ve made up for it in
Yes, No, Goodbye, another recent tale, which was disturbing to write as part of it is based on
real events.
And in true punk spirit I’ve been asked to co-write a couple of songs for a friend’s
forthcoming album, even though I’ve only been playing guitar for a few weeks, so I’m trying
to get my playing up to speed with the ideas I have in my head. I’m a better guitarist now
than I was first time round, even at this early stage. Exciting times!
Horror is widely varied with a variety of sub genres that includes supernatural, folk,
psychological, slasher and many more. Which sub-genre are you most drawn to and why?
It would have to be the supernatural. I grew up in a house haunted by a malevolent spirit
and have had numerous encounters since then, including having a ghost in my current home
that the local wise women had to dislodge, so it’s always been part of my life. Folk-horror is
up there, too, as it feels very natural to me; I’ve had readers compare my work to the likes of
The Wicker Man, which is praise indeed, and probably the result of growing up watching the
otherworldly children’s dramas on British tv in the 1970s.
Is there anything you'd like to see more or less of in the Horror genre, and is it something you
try to reflect in your own work?
I don’t read much fiction, but I’m aware of how open and diverse the genre is these days.
When I began writing in the early 1990s I came across some pretty depressing attitudes,
certainly in the UK scene and so I focussed on North America and found some very good
homes for my work there, in particular at Wapshott Press in Los Angeles. I’m very much out
of mainstream society so that’s always been reflected in my writing, so I feel it’s more that
the genre is catching up with us outsiders.
You have a fascinating selection of work, Julie! I'm delighted for the chance to share it with others here during #31DaysOfHaunting. Since we're Halloween obsessed here on Haunted Trails, there's a few more things we need to know!
Favourite films and books for the spooky season?
The spookiest story I’ve ever read, I think, was The Vampire Of Croglin Grange, by
Augustus Hare, written in the 1890s. It blurs fact, fiction and folklore and still gives me the
chills decades after I first read it. I’d probably go for Hallowe’en III: Season of the Witch as
one of my favourite films for this time of year. I love how utterly different it is to the rest of
the series and it’s a great commentary on consumerism.
Who would be your perfect squad to go trick or treating with?
I think Charles Fort would come in handy should anything bizarre occur e.g. frogs raining
from the sky, but I’d like Clive Barker’s Harry D’Amour along, too, in case anything
demonic appeared. And a whole gang of black cats.
Forget costumes, you can swap bodies with your favourite horror character for Halloween.
Who is it?
The Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth. Guaranteed to freak everyone out, thus resulting in
lots of sweets as a bribe to go away.
What's the one Halloween candy that you'd rather fight the scariest of monsters than hand it over?
Belgian chocolates, without a doubt. If you’ve tried them, you’ll know why.
Give us one song that should be on everyone's Halloween playlist.
Werewolf by UK Decay. They were a punk band, one of the more obscure forerunners of
the Goth scene, writing songs about Edgar Allan Poe and J G Ballard stories. Werewolf
scared me when it was released in 1981 and still has a great atmosphere to it.
Finally,what's your ideal way to spend All Hallows' Eve?
I’m nearly always alone, which is fine by me. I tend to try and be open to visitors of the ghostly kind. One year someone close to me who’d passed came to visit. It was a wonderful
experience.
Thank you so much for being a part of #31DaysofHaunting here on Haunted Trails and we look forward to checking out your work!
Happy Haunting!
To find out more about Julie's previous and forthcoming projects, you can visit https://julietravis.wordpress.com/
