SLASH-HER Celebration – it’s Cina Pelayo Day!!!

Cina is one of my most favourite people as well as being amazingly talented and driven. She is loyal, supportive and often brutally honest. You can always trust her to bring something different and worthwhile to the table. Remember her name…

Why did you want to write a slasher story and do you feel you brought something different to the table?

Honestly, I may alienate some folks with this, but hey, I’ve never done anything to be liked by people. I hate slashers. I really do. So I wanted to do something where I could add some freshness to the genre, because as of now, I just don’t find them inspiring for myself to consume. Of course, we have the icons like Jason and Michael Meyers, and the Scream franchise, but those works never really fascinated me. It’s a guy with a knife. Big deal? How complex can you really get? So, in writing a slasher, I wanted to sort of dissect and deconstruct the genre.

Do you have a favourite slasher story/movie?

It would have to be A Nightmare on Elm Street. I do like its supernatural slant, and how you can’t escape this predator because he essentially infects you.

Why is it important to you to have a woman led press like Kandisha?

Historically, horror stories driven by women narratives often surrounded a woman in a big, cold, crumbling house, and something to do with a man, and her having to flee, and how boring is that? Yes, I’m talking about you, Rebecca. I know we often praise older texts over and over again, but sometimes I wonder how much of that are we doing because of repetition, because other people are saying it? Or, because we’ve heard others say it throughout the years. I hate the message some older texts sometimes convey, of a damsel in distress. To hell with that.

I want women writers and women run horror presses to obliterate what we previously thought were standards and conventions of horror. I don’t need to be saved. Let’s stop writing that story. It’s a dusty and old tale that really should be killed. Let’s write some powerful women in horror, and I know that’s what Kandisha is doing.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on my next novel in the Chicago saga, and then I do have another one that’s half written (completely separate from the Chicago saga) that I will be jumping right into to complete. This year, I’ll have a new poetry collection, Crime Scene, published by Raw Dog Screaming Press and a few horror short stories.