Author interview with Amanda Bergloff

/ dragonqueen3

Dragon Soul Press had the chance to interview Amanda Bergloff, an author featured in The Fear Doctor: Volume One anthology.

  1. Introduce yourself.
    • Hi, DSP readers! I’m Amanda Bergloff, and I’m an author and artist of the dark and macabre, as well as twisted fairy tales. I live in Denver, Colorado and am a shameless collector of Halloween props, toys, comics, and over 4,000 vintage horror books. I also paint or write daily and am obsessed with surrealism in my art and the weirder things of life in my writing. 
  2. What prompted you to begin writing?
    • Being a lifelong book and film addict, both things prompted me to want to start telling stories of my own. 
  3. Do you have a favorite story or poem you’ve written? What’s it about?
    • I wrote a story titled, “Happily Ever After,” originally published by World Weaver Press in their anthology, Frozen Fairy Tales, that was inspired by a quote from Orson Welles, ““If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” I took that idea and wrote a dark fairy tale that incorporated 25 fairy tale tropes. If the reader stopped reading whenever the story said, “and they lived happily ever after,” they had a happy ending, but if they continued to read what happened next, the story would take a dark turn that was anything but a happy ending.
  4. How many projects do you have planned over the next few years? Tell us about one.
    • I have many short stories in the works to submit to various upcoming anthologies over the next year, but the different project I’m working on is a graphic novel that combines my illustrated work within a horror anthology framework like the EC Comics tales from the 1950s.
  5. What is your writing process like?
    • First, I write my short story ideas down physically in a notebook, and when I’m ready to write, choose one and work in a completely quiet room. I picture the story like a movie in my mind, and describe what I’m “watching.” I usually write the first and last paragraph at the same time (so I have a guide to know where I need to end up within the short story framework.) I then write a detailed outline and work from there for the middle of the story. Rarely does the first and last paragraph get edited once they’ve been written, but the rest of the story can be fluid and details can change as long as it starts and stops where I want it to.
  6. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
    • This varies for me. I can be inspired by a photograph or artwork I’ve seen, music, a conversation with a friend, a personal memory, observing things in nature, and the prompts on submission calls. Certain films also inspire short story ideas. The strong visuals in the 2018 film, Mandy, directed by Panos Cosmatos, along with the cinéma vérité style of writer/director Larry Fessenden’s horror films, Habit and Wendigo can be influential in generating new ideas and perspectives in my work. Also, the storytelling in any anime series by Shinichirō Watanabe is off-the-charts inspiring.
  7. Who is your favorite author / what is your favorite book?
    • This is a tough question since I have a large collection of books, and I strangely feel like they’re all my favorites. Richard Matheson, Ursula K. LeGuin, Dan Simmons, Poppy Z. Brite, Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, and Clive Barker, are favorites on any given day depending on my mood. Same thing with books. Picking a favorite is almost impossible, but one that influenced me a lot is the Edward Gorey illustrated Dracula by Bram Stoker which combined the wonderful gothic artwork of Gorey with Stoker’s iconic vampire. (By the way, I was always on Dracula’s side.)
  8. What is one goal you have for your writing future?
    • It’s a simple goal: to finish and submit as many short stories as possible. 
  9. What do you hope readers enjoy most about your work?
    • I would love for readers to find something in my tales that they want to talk about and share with someone else…be it a character, concept, scare or bit of humor that they take away after reading. Plus, I want them to consider that the world is full of dark, unexplained wonders that elevate our reality.
  10. Where can readers learn more about you?

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