Welcome everyone, I’m The Li-Bury-An, and today we have a spotlight on Stevie Kopas
There is nothing greater for me than when my great loves: Horror, Metal, and Books are combined. Stevie Kopas embodies all three. The managing editor of “Horror Metal Sounds,” Stevie is described as the Jersey Girl turned Floridian, raised on a healthy mix of good music, horror culture, and post-apocalyptic media. In fact, it was Kenneth Gallant, the creator of Horror Metal Sounds, and former writer for such esteemed publications as Fangoria, who introduced me to Stevie. He recommended her for Volume One of our Women of Horror anthologies. Stevie submitted her story, “The Darkness” which has been one of the most critically-praised stories in the book, and features one of her signature twist-endings that she writes so well. After a short hiatus where this wonder woman became a first time mother, we are thrilled to have Stevie back in Volume three with her story, “The Incident On Asteroid 4 Pandora.” It’s a tale that exposes sexism in the workplace in a frank but surprising way, as the workplace in question happens to be on a spaceship– and one which just happens to have discovered a new alien life form. Stevie blends a real-world problem with an exciting, gripping Sci-Fi/Horror tale, and the result is an important message delivered in a wildly entertaining format.
“The crew watched, stunned, as the purple gel disappeared entirely inside the rat. The rodent twitched a few times before finally lying still. As they were about to assume the poor thing dead, purple liquid began to ooze from its mouth and the rat twitched once before blinking rapidly and hopping onto all fours as if nothing had happened.”
From “The Incident on Asteroid 4 Pandora” by Stevie Kopas
Today, Stevie talks about how she came up with her story “Incident on Asteroid 4 Pandora” for THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY : Women of Horror Anthology Volume 3. Out now from Kandisha Press!
“The idea for The Incident on Asteroid 4 Pandora came to me while I was watching my husband play a video game called Carrion. Without giving too much away, you basically play as this alien/monster that kills and takes over human hosts as it moves through each of its objectives and tries to get out of this facility. So, as I was sitting there, I suddenly thought of the theme for the anthology and was like, hey, what if some asshole dude decided to purposely infect a woman with a mind control parasite to get her to want him… or something along those lines. I love horror and I love sci-fi, and I love space horror, so what better way to tell the story than to write my first space horror piece?
The story basically evolved into what it is because I also wanted it to speak to the ridiculous garbage that women not only have to deal with when it comes to obsessors, incels, or stalkers, but also co-workers, bosses, and in other professional relationships. A lot of women are not given their due credit in the workplace and a lot of the time there are men who are in admirable positions who have not gotten there through admiral ways. I also didn’t want to have my villain be the typical gross guy, I wanted him to stand as a symbol that the seemingly “nice guys” that are handsome and successful can also be just as problematic. I hope the symbolism isn’t lost on anyone and I hope I didn’t come on too strong, but hey, at the end of the day, it was a fun story to write and I love the end result no matter what.”
STEVIE KOPAS was born and raised in New Jersey. She is a gamer, a writer, reviewer, and an apocalypse enthusiast. Stevie will never turn down a good cup of coffee and might even be a bit of a caffeine addict. She is the author of bestselling dystopian series The Breadwinner Trilogy, Never Say Die, Slashvivor, and other bodies of work. You can follow her on Twitter @apacotaco, Instagram @theapacotaco, facebook.com/thebreadwinnertrilogy.
Her official website is http://someonereadthis.com. She currently resides in East Tennessee with her husband, son, and stinky old dog.
KANDISHA PRESS 
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