Horror authors get inspiration from several things. How did growing up at a house in a cemetery inspire you with your stories?
Well I guess not many people can lay claim to growing up in a house in a cemetery, and having the first name, ‘Shaun’, it must mean I’m the real Shaun of the Dead. Okay, you can groan, but I’m keeping that one. Lol.
Strange as it is, some of my earliest reading material would have been gravestones, mainly because the graveyard was my playground. Whether this shaped me as a person or writer I’ll never know, but unlike preconceived perceptions, graveyards are actually very peaceful, serene places, and nothing exciting happens in them – at least not until the dead arise.
How often do you place yourself into the story as one of the characters or an experience you may have had?
To be honest, lots of times. I only have my own experiences to go on, and I have my own values, which often filter through into my fiction. It’s the old adage ‘write what you know’ and although I may not have ever killed anyone such as the characters in my novel, The Kult, I can instil my own thoughts and fears into the characters, even though a lot of the time they want to do their own thing anyway.
With everything that can go on in one's life, how do you find time to write?
Like anyone with a family and a full time job, it’s hard. I have to just squeeze it into my spare time where I can, somewhere between keeping fit at the gym and my Tae Kwon Do. I’m not a very committed writer, in that I can’t sit down and write uninterrupted as I’m forever checking emails or Facebook or any other of the hundreds of myriad websites. While technology is great in many respects, making life easier, it also provides more distractions to cope with.
What do you feel is the scariest short story you have ever written?
That’s a tough question. What may scare one person may not scare another, but a couple that I think are quite chilling are ‘The Watchers’, which is about a couple that get involved in the dogging scene, where people meet in designated places to watch others have sex, but in my story there’s something more sinister behind it, and ‘In Darkness’ that appeared in the last issue of Cemetery Dance, and which is about a blind woman who reads the things around her like Braille, but her interpretation is how shall I say, warped.
Where can people find some of your short stories?
Most of my stories have been published in magazines or anthologies, but I did have a collection published entitled, Voyeurs of Death. That collection has now been republished with extra stories as a lettered edition hardback by Dark Regions Press. It should also soon be available as a trade paperback and hopefully eventually in ebook too: http://www.darkregions.com/products/Voyeurs-of-Death-by-Shaun-Jeffrey.html
Can you tell us about your book Deadfall?
Deadfall is about a team of mercenaries lead by a woman called Amber Redgrave that are duped into a rescue mission, but their real purpose is to field test a zombie horde with the intent of being able to use zombies as a military application.
Where can people find Deadfall?
It’s available to order from any bookshop and most online venues in either print or ebook. It’s also available direct from the publisher: http://www.leucrotapress.com/JeffreyDeadfall.html
How do you feel about your book The Kult being made into a movie?
It’s been an amazing experience. The Kult is in the vein of Saw and Se7en, and it involves a group of friends who kill someone, but to get away with the murder, they blame it on a serial killer who then tracks them down one by one. It’s part horror, part mystery, part thriller. I was lucky enough that the production company flew me out from the UK to the US to see some of the shoot and it was a surreal experience to see characters I’d essentially created speaking my words. The film is currently in post-production and so I‘m hoping to hear release details in the not too distant future.
Where can people find out more about The Kult the movie?
For anyone interested there’s a website and a Facebook site: http://www.thekultmovie.com/
http://www.facebook.com/thekultmovie
Where can people find out more about you?
I have an online presence where people can find me at: www.shaunjeffrey.com and I can be found lurking around places such as Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665480388 and then there’s my blog: http://shaunjeffrey.blogspot.com/
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