Rita Kruger Q & A

1) Why write horror? 

My addiction to horror started when I was twelve or thirteen years old. By that time I was already head over heels in love with reading. But someone from school lend me their mother’s copy of Stephen King’s IT. I read this with a flashlight under the blankets at night. And that’s how it all started.
 
2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? 

I do write both. My first horror book has a scene in that made some readers complain that there was no trigger warning. But the rest is psychological horror. Even my sci-fi series contains elements of both.
 
I think women are experts at psychological fear because of the world we live in. We have a natural ability to write it well because we experience it so often in the real world.
 
3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? 

Anne Rice is my favorite of all time. She is a master at world-building, and using mythology in her books. This is something that I love. Shirley Jackson is a close second because of the way she finds the horror in everyday situations. Last year I delved into gothic classics and fell completely in love with Daphne du Maurier, Ann Radcliff and Mary Shelley’s work. Others I have enjoyed is JF Penn (Joanna Penn) and Sian Claven.
 
4) Who is your favorite scream queen? 

Jamie Lee Curtis birthed this term, of course. She will always be the first name that jumps to mind when you hear the term, but my personal favorite is Sigourney Weaver. I fell in love with her in the ALIEN franchise where she was part hero and part final girl. She has a gift to play the damsel in distress, but able and willing to fight her way out if she needed too. Other movies I loved her in: GHOSTBUSTERS, COPYCAT, SNOW WHITE: TALE OF TERROR. RED LIGHTS, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN.
 
"There is no Dana, only Zuullllllll!"
 
5) What's next for you? 
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I am currently finishing THE RIVER, book #2 in my horror trilogy THOMPSONVILLE. I dedicated most of early January to rewriting #1, THE WOODS. This is also the first of my writing that I’m translating into my native tongue, which is Afrikaans.
After this I am editing and translating two Paranormal romances in my DARLING’S DAUGHTERS series. I wrote these last year, and will also translate them into Afrikaans. This is a shapeshifter thriller series set in a real town in South Africa.