Russell James grew up on Long Island, New York and spent too much time watching Chiller, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Twilight Zone, despite his parents’ warnings. Bookshelves full of Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe didn’t make things better.
He graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida. After a tour flying helicopters with the U.S. Army, he now spins twisted tales best read in daylight.
He has written the paranormal thrillers Dark Inspiration, Sacrifice, Black Magic, Dark Vengeance, Dreamwalker, Q Island, and Cavern of the Damned. He has four short story collections, Tales from Beyond, Outer Rim, Forever Out of Time, and Deeper into Darkness.
His wife reads what he writes, rolls her eyes, and says “There is something seriously wrong with you.”
They live in Florida with two untrainable cats.
KR: Coffee?
KR: Could you tell me a little about yourself please?
I was raised on Long Island, New York. After a tour flying helicopters in the U.S. Army, I joined a Fortune 50 company and have been working there ever since. My day job is doing technical writing and creating training. When that’s done, I get to write the dark stuff for fun.
KR: What do you like to do when not writing?
I have a 1968 Camaro convertible named Dorothy in the garage, and I’m restoring her in my limited free time.
KR: What is your favourite childhood book?
The first books I remember devouring were Hardy Boys mysteries in second grade. I thought it was a big deal to read a hardback book that had zero pictures, real adult stuff. And the newer covers coming out in the late ‘60s were cool. I still have all of those on a shelf in the living room.
KR: What is your favourite album, and does music play any role in your writing?
My favorite album is Don’t Look Back by Boston. It came out when I was in high school and it was kind of the sound track to a really great 1978. It was also one of the first headline bands that I saw live, and that was an experience. But when I’m writing, I go for silence so I can concentrate. I get into the music, so it is very distracting.
KR: Do you have a favourite horror movie/director?
Alfred Hitchcock is without a doubt a master and there’s a fantastic body of work to prove it. He used to pre-plan every shot and every scene to the point where he said actually shooting the film was boring. That level of detail show in his films. Every angle, every move, they all have a purpose.
Recent favorite horror films are Split and A Quiet Place. These films really showcase suspense, and I think that is what makes a film scary. And the acting in both was fantastic.
KR: What are you reading now?
Right now I’m reading Damned by the Ancients by Catherine Cavendish. It is the third in a series of stories that revolve around a haunted house in Vienna. She does Gothic horror like no one else, and this book is even better than the first two.
KR: Who were the authors that inspired you to write?
Here I am a total cliché. King, Bradbury, Asimov. All three of them could suck me into a story and not let go. I also loved Dickens for his ability to handle a big cast of interesting characters so well.
KR: Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you?
Definitely a seat-of-the-pants writer. An idea strikes, and I see where it goes. A good example is when I was walking through St. Augustine, Florida and I passed what looked like a vacant store front. But in the window were individual pieces of paper, with one hand-written letter on each, that spelled MAGIC SHOP. But the place was empty. That was very creepy. I started thinking about who would open a magic shop, why, what would they really be doing behind the scenes. I sat on a bench and starting scribbling some notes. That was how my novel Black Magic was born.
KR: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
Since my work is fiction, most of my research happens while I’m writing. For example, Curse of the Viper King has giant spiders in it. That’s a nice idea, but I don’t want something in a monster book to be so outlandish that it can’t be taken seriously. (I’ll point you to Mothra as a prime example.) So I started researching spiders and found species that stuck to the ground, spit their webs like a gunslinger uses a Colt .45, and suck their victims dry. That was super-scary, and all I had to do was super-size it. The afterward in all my Severed Press books goes into all the real life species, living or extinct, that inspired the creatures in the book.
KR: Describe your usual writing day?
I’m an early riser and like to start writing before dawn. If I can get four or five hours in, that’s a great day. When everything you write seems perfect, that means you’re burned out for the day. Then I have the rest of day for the day job and everything else that the world demands.
KR: Do you have a favourite story/short that you’ve written (published or not)?
I have two short story collections Tales from Beyond and Deeper into Darkness where I have some short stories I’m really proud of. One of my favorites is Nora’s Visitor, a haunted house tale that you can read for free on my website here:
http://www.russellrjames.com/a-short-story-noras-visitor/
KR: Do you read your book reviews?
Absolutely. So remember everyone, when you write a bad one, you’ll hurt my feelings.
Seriously, I do read them to see if the story hit its mark, if it conveyed the concepts I thought it would. It’s great when someone totally gets it. For example, the Professor Grant Coleman books, including Curse of the Viper King, are consciously PG-13 horror, throwbacks to the same kinds of movies that inspired the Indiana Jones films. So when a review uses a phrase like “B-movie” or references that it isn’t overly gory, I’m thrilled because that was what I was shooting for.
I’ve been gifted with positive reviews for the most part. A few sour reviews are about price or some other item out of my control. But I take the legitimate negative ones into account as well. There’s some truth in each one and I think I should be open to reading that point of view.
KR: You can read our review of Curse Of The Viper King here
KR: Any advice for a fledgling author?
You need to read. You need to write. You need to do them in equal measure. You need to do them every day. You need to be prepared to have your work roundly rejected, and then return to the reading/writing schedule.
KR: What scares you?
Voodoo. I did a lot of voodoo research for my novel Dreamwalker. That stuff is scary because there really seems to be some dark power it can summon. It was so terrifying that it was banned in Haiti by law in the 1950s. No one has banned Ouija boards, because they are harmless. I join the people of Haiti in believing voodoo is not harmless.
KR: E-Book, Paperback or Hardback?
I travel a lot, so my Kindle is wonderful, but given a choice and a comfortable place to read, give me a hardback book. I love the feel of pages turning, the thud of the cover closing. I just tried reading a novel on my phone for the first time. The endless scrolling made me feel like I was reading off a treadmill and it made it so hard for me to stay focused on the characters and the story. Paper rules.
KR: Can you tell me about your latest release please?
In Curse of the Viper King, Paleontologist Grant Coleman and environmentalist Janaina Silva, lost in the Amazon rain forest, discover an isolated logging camp, and the chance to hitch a ride back to civilization.
But the workers uncover a fossil of a giant snake, almost fifteen meters long. Grant is thrilled, but the superstitious workers believe they have let loose a demon.
That night, the world begins to unravel. A mysterious creature attacks the camp, kills several men, and sinks the only boat that can get them home. Soon Grant and the others are in a battle against colossal spiders and a descendant of that great fossilized snake. The key to survival might lie in the lost pyramid of the Aztec Viper King, hidden deep in the rain forest. But they need to get there alive, and one member of the crew has an agenda that doesn’t include Grant and Janaina ever getting home.
I do a lot of horror conventions, and frequently have kids ask parents if they can buy one of my books, and I have to wave them off from some of the hard-R rated stuff. But I can direct them to the Grant Coleman series from Severed Press. They are not written on a kid’s level, but they don’t have any language or sex, and the violence is all Jurassic Park monster stuff. Fun for the whole family!
KR: What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on the final edits for The Playing Card Killer, a serial killer thriller being released in February by Flame Tree Press. In it, a young man named Brian Sheridan is plagued by nightmares of killing people. At first he thinks that it is a side effect of getting off his anti-anxiety meds. But when Brian sees one of the killings he dreamed of in a TV news report, he wonders if he’s unwittingly the killer, or somehow seeing it all through someone else’s eyes. A detective thinks it’s the former, Brian hopes it’s the latter, and finding out the truth might cost Brian his life.
KR: You find yourself on a desert island, which three people would you wish to be deserted with you and why?
You can choose…
a) One fictional character from your writing.
I’ll pick Professor Grant Coleman from Curse of the Viper King as my own fictional character on the island. He’s got a good background in science so he can help us stay alive. But he’s also got a good sense of humor (surprisingly like mine) and that will be important. Most of all, he’s lucky. He gets into some serious scrapes and gets out alive, book after book. I’d like a little of that kind of luck around.
b) One fictional character from any other book.
As someone else’s fictional character, I’m wishing for the father from Swiss Family Robinson. He’s got an impeccable resume for this kind of thing. Tree house building, living off the land, tricking pirates into leaving his family alone. I want that skill set working for me.
c) One real life person that is not a family member or friend.
As the real life person, I’d resurrect Abraham Lincoln. He was a fascinating, complicated person. I’d pump him for Civil War trivia, and I think that his insight on a lot of things in life would be fascinating. Plus he was reputed to be a great storyteller, and we’d need some entertainment.
KR: Thank you very much Russell.
You can find out more about Russell by visiting his official website www.russellrjames.com
Follow Russell on Twitter @RRJames14
Russell’s author page can be found here
Paleontologist Grant Coleman and environmentalist Janaina Silva, lost in the Amazon rain forest, discover an isolated logging camp, and the chance to hitch a ride back to civilization.
But the workers uncover a fossil of a giant snake, almost fifteen meters long. Grant is thrilled, but the superstitious workers believe they have let loose a demon.
That night, the world begins to unravel. A mysterious creature attacks the camp, kills several men, and sinks the only boat that can get them home. Soon Grant and the others are in a battle against colossal spiders and a descendant of that great fossilized snake.
The key to survival might lie in the lost pyramid of the Aztec Viper King, hidden deep in the rain forest. But they need to get there alive, and one member of the crew has an agenda that doesn’t include Grant and Janaina ever getting home.
Will anyone survive the curse of the Viper King?
You can buy Curse Of The Viper King from Amazon US & Amazon UK
In this magic shop the magic is real. And the trick is on you.
Citrus Glade is a dying town that needs new businesses, but the one that just opened is doing much more harm than good. Stranger Lyle Miller’s magic shop seems to only stock what its select customers desire. When four outcast boys buy common party tricks, only Lyle knows what those tricks can really do. As subtle changes occur around town, a few residents realize that something is amiss…and getting worse. But it may already be too late. Lyle’s black magic has empowered more townspeople to help him execute his Grand Adventure, a plan that will reduce the town, and half the state, to rubble.
You can buy Black Magic from Amazon US & Amazon UK
Two realities. One hope. What if you lived in two worlds, and could die in either? Pete Holm can. He is a dreamwalker, able to travel to the realm of dreams, including the devastated world of Twin Moon City, where an evil voodoo spirit holds living souls in terror with his army of the walking dead. In the waking world, drug lord Jean St. Croix knows only the power of the dreamwalker can stop him, so St. Croix vows Pete must die. Pete is the only hope to rescue the lost souls in Twin Moon City…unless St. Croix kills him first. Can anyone survive when two realities collide?
You can buy Dreamwalker from Amazon US & Amazon UK
Eight tales of terror from acclaimed writer Russell James, author of Dark Inspiration, Sacrifice, and Black Magic.
A serial killer stalks America’s interstates. A naive boy signs aboard a slave ship. A woman adopts an elephant with a dangerous past. A Special Forces veteran searches for two lost boys at a mysterious Honduran plantation. An author discovers the route to writing true horror. These, and more, are all Tales from Beyond.
You can buy Tales From Beyond from Amazon US & Amazon UK
Russell James returns with a second collection of thirteen horrific short stories.
* A mysterious pinball machine arrives at the mansion of an aging porn king. He finds that this gift has itself a gift to give. Accepting both may be his last mistake.
* In rural Alabama, Crystal Caverns, an old roadside attraction, gives new meaning to being billed as a family experience.
* A Central Pacific Railroad executive sets out to San Francisco through newly finished Tunnel Number Six, where an entombing, catastrophic avalanche is just the start of his nightmare.
* Timmy Wayne, a magnet for good fortune, is living large on a stream of Las Vegas winnings, but it looks like his luck has finally run out.
* One couple tests the limits of what they’ll do to care for their pet dog.
* Someone is desecrating the graves of World War II veterans as they die, veterans who discovered something unholy outside the gates of Auschwitz.
These and seven other tales document Russell’s descent Deeper into Darkness.
You can buy Deeper Into Darkness from Amazon US & Amazon UK
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