Lilly Luchesi

1. Who has been the biggest influence on you as a female horror writer?

I honestly don't know. I have written horror since I was a child, love the genre, and never once thought that it was odd that I was a woman who wanted to write horror. I never knew it was a male-dominated genre because I didn't care. I have a lot of influences, but to say they influenced me just because of my gender would be lying. I never thought of myself as "a female horror author", just as "a horror author". And I still do.


2. Do you think the style of horror differs between women and men authors? E.g. psychological vs gore?

Maybe once, sure. Men wrote gore and women wrote psychological. But now things are different. I can name ten horror authors off the top of my head who are women who write gore with the best of them. And also name at least five males who write excellent psychological horror. The indie community has really shattered the gender norms in this genre and it is wonderful to see. For me, personally, I love psychological horror but I am better at writing violence and torture. I have scenes in my book Right To Silence that made readers feel sick, which I am very proud of. I have a psychological horror short coming soon as well, in the anthology Lurking In The Mind, but I think I'll always stick with violence. I like it.


3. Do you have a main subject that your write about? I.e. certain bad guys or themes?

I love vampires. I have since I was a toddler according to my mother. So oftentimes my books and shorts will focus on them. Other themes I enjoy working into my books are those of being true to oneself, those of mental illness, and social issues like racism and xenophobia. While my stories will often focus on mythical creatures, they will always have a sense of reality grounding them. In the Paranormal Detectives Series, I have characters with mental illness (depression, anxiety, and PTSD), I have characters who are victims of false judgment due to their appearance, and characters who are xenophobic. I believe adding in real issues to horror can make it a bit easier to get into as a reader and also enhance some of the motives of the characters.


4. If you could have dinner with a famous horror writer, living or dead, who would it be and why?

This is going to be a repeated response, I bet, but Stephen King. Not only has he had a career that spanned over forty years, more than fifty books and hundreds of short stories, but he has remained true to himself. Nothing changed him, nothing got to him to modernize him. I love that. He has the same style he always did and still managed to become famous while being himself and writing what he wants.


5. Favorite female horror writer? Why?

You know, it's funny, I never really read female horror authors (not counting the Big Three: Rice, Shelley, and Jackson) until recently. The first woman who wrote creepy fiction I read was Terri Garey, though her books weren't strictly horror. The frightening scenes, however, almost made you forget that they were romance books. They gave me chills and still do even when I reread them.
For strictly horror, I really love A. Giacomi, a new indie author I have the privilege of working with. Her books always manage to freak me out while making me care for the characters and want more after each book ends.

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