Exclusive Interview with Nancy Holder
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Nancy Holder is an award-winning writer and the author of 75 books and 200 short stories, essays and articles. Most of you probably know her through her tie-in novelizations of the popular horror TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Among her accomplishments is being a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association — that’s pretty impressive!
Even though both shows are off the air, sales indicate that readers are still hungry for more ink on the pair, so Horror.com sat down with the busy author to find out what’s new in Sunnydale.
Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: How did you get started in the genre?
I started writing when I was little, but I seriously started selling I was writing romance novels. I went to a convention for romance writers and I met Kathy Grant, who was married to Charles L. Grant. He was my idol — I just idolized him. He was a horror writer who did a lot of anthologies. She introduced me to him, and he bought my very first short horror story ever.
Then I started selling one horror short story a year, and I figured that’s all I could ever sell, because I could only come up with one idea a year. [laughs] Then Charlie’s father died and we had a big long talk, and he said ‘You should spend your time in this world doing what you love.’ I realized that I needed to make the switch and start writing horror full time.
So when you were a successful romance novelist, you were covertly reading horror?
I was a charter member of the Romance Writers of America’s San Diego Chapter, and I discovered quickly that the most-often named favorite writer of writers outside the romance genre was Stephen King by far. I think it’s because both romance and horror are very experiential genres. They’re very senses-involved. So, I think people who like romance also like horror. There’s lots of crossover.
I am currently writing a trilogy of women’s action-adventure books for Silhouette Bombshell right now… So I guess you could say I’m kind of back in romance in a way. It’s directly because of Buffy, why they were interested in me to write a strong woman character. The trilogy is called Daughter of the Flames, and they’re about a woman who has supernatural powers. It’s like Buffy, though there’s more magic.
Do you find there’s still a stigma with horror… even though there are so-called “paranormal romance” novels, no publisher wants to use the word horror in association with them.
I think that when people think of horror, they still think of splatterpunk and only splatterpunk. I think that they don’t realize that horror is a whole continuum of experiences. Charlie always said it wasn’t a genre, but a kind of a mood in fiction. I think when most people think horror, they think gore. “I’m not a gory person.”
A lot of people, even when they answer surveys anonymously, will still lie because they want to think well of themselves. “Oh yes, I do watch lots of PBS,” when maybe they don’t even know what channel it’s on. So they’ll say, “No, I don’t read horror,” when they may actually be reading and not owning up to it.
There are a lot of horror authors, and horror movies, that are well-regarded but not called “horror” per se.
I remember when The Silence of the Lambs won the Oscar and Jodie Foster said, “It’s not a horror movie.” But if you look at any top ten list that a horror writer would compile of books or movies, The Silence of the Lambs is always on there.
For awhile, if you said you had a horror novel to sell, [it was hard] because there was a boom, then a glut, and then a bust. A lot of agents would say, “Don’t call it horror. Call it a psychological thriller, or a dark fantasy.” It’s perceived as being this cheesy thing on TV at midnight on Saturday night — that’s horror.
Have you noticed a change in the book publishing world, now that horror is so popular in the movie theaters?
I was extremely happy to see that the Hot Blood book series is getting picked up again for another outing, so that’s great news. Nancy Kilpatrick and I sold Outsiders, which is dark, so that’s great news. To me, as a writer, the fact that anthologies are starting pick up and sell again is fabulous — that means yes, the genre is picking up again in publishing, not just in movies. That’s thrilling — I think we’re on our way back.
Are there different authors for the Buffy novelizations?
I have written most of the Buffy stuff there is outside of the show; in terms of books and short stories. Not the comic books. But yes, there are lots of Buffy authors. In fact, my co-authors on several projects were Christopher Golden and Jeff Mariotte. Jack Passarella, John Passarella, he’s done a couple of Angels also.
Do you have to compare notes with them, so that readers aren’t like, “Hey, wait a minute… this book says this, and the last one said…”
No, we don’t compare notes with each other. We hope that Fox and Simon and Schuster keep track of that. But we have laughed at things that have gone awry or neat serendipities. We put easter eggs in and make a little homage to each other in our books.
How did Buffy come about for you?
[A publisher at Zebra I knew] went to Random House, and she was bidding for the publishing rights to Buffy as it went on the air and she said to me, “I might get this show, it’s on at 8 p.m. on Mondays.” I knew exactly what it was, and I was so excited… but she did not get it. It went to Simon and Schuster.
Meanwhile, I told Christopher Golden and we decided to pitch ourselves as the writers together. We immediately got a hold of Lisa Clancy and Simon and Schuster and we faxed her our ideas. We got our green-light to go in less than 24 hours, and we had the first book written in 3-1/2 weeks. And we started working on it the same day my baby-sitter quit [laughs] but we made it, we did it!
The reason we got it is because I had some credentials as a horror writer, but I already had written a tie-in book for The Highlander. So they knew that I could do it.
How do you do that? Are books written in the exact same style as the show?
One hopes. Yes, they’re definitely written for the fans of the show. Sometimes people who haven’t been fans of the show will pick up a book out of curiosity to, quote, “see what the show is like”, which is a great responsibility on the part of a writer. But they basically spread the universe out farther, so in all cases when we write tie-ins we serve the vision of the show creator.
It’s not the other ways around. Sometimes fans will go, “Why didn’t you have Buffy do this, or that?” Well, that’s not up to me. I am serving the vision of another creative individual. So I like to bring what I can, but it’s not my original property so I have to keep myself within the parameters of what I can and cannot do.
Can the books go a little bit further into the horror aspects than the primetime TV show did?
In the beginning of Buffy, there were two different lines of books: There were young adult, and adult. The YA’s were a little lighter on gore and a little less extreme, but even the adult ones are still pretty light on horror per se. They are still in the Buffy universe. So as with the Buffy show, the Buffy books really aren’t very gory and extreme.
What is it about Buffy that keeps you wanting to write about her? I mean, the show is off the air.
When Buffy came on the air, I started watching and I burst into tears. I just felt like, “Oh my gosh. I get this!” I can’t explain it further than that, but what I can say is that the newest book, Why Buffy Matters by Ron de Wilcox, explains exactly why I had that reaction. A lot of fans felt the same; there was something that intensely moved me about Buffy and I thought, “I was made to have something to do with this. I really need to be involved.” When I got the gig, I was in the stratosphere. It was one of the highest moments in my life.
There was just something about it that I connected with in a visceral way. I really felt like I “got it” — now, maybe some fans will disagree, but I’ve been working with Buffy ever since it went on the air and continue to have books to write, after it’s off the air. So it’s been a huge part of my life now. My daughter was just a tiny infant when it came on the air and she’s going into the third grade now.
The last three or four projects have always been, “Oh, this is going to be the last one.” But Queen of the Slayers (released June 1) went into what happens after the TV series ended. Now I really thought, “I’m done.” But happily, I am going to write another book. It’s set earlier. It’s set in Season Two. I think it’s wonderful that I get to continue.
It sounds like you still have a great passion for the subject, which seems like it would be hard to maintain for most writers.
I never get tired of it. It’s just like I would never get tired of being around my daughter. I love my daughter, and she’s endlessly fascinating to me. And that’s how the Buffy universe is for me.
When you’re writing your books, do you actually picture Sarah Michelle Gellar and all the show’s actors?
Yes. It’s very eerie. It’s like Buffy lives in my head 24-7, only in small compartments. And when I’m writing her, I just open up that compartment and it fills the rest of my head. I catch myself speaking the dialog aloud, so it’s just a little creepy… but it does become real for me. But I think that’s what happens for most writers when they’re at work — it really does feel like you’re actually there.
Have you met some of the actors who were on the show?
Yes. I have encountered all of the actors, but I wouldn’t say I’ve actually “met” Sarah; I’ve spoken to her, but we’ve never been introduced. I’ve met or interviewed just about everybody, though. It was a wonderful experience. When I worked on the Angel and Buffy Companion Guides to the shows, we interviewed all the actors. So that was really cool.
If I didn’t actually speak to one of then, then Jeff or Chris or Mary-Elizabeth — one of us — did interviews. I went to the set a lot, and I felt quite at home. I was never there so long that I was a nuisance, but I did get to know some people pretty well.
I understand that apart from your new Buffy book you also got the Outsiders anthology coming out?
I don’t have a story in it, but I co-edited it with Nancy Kilpatrick and it’s coming out around Halloween.
We got a deal, collected our stories, and it’s a really awesome anthology — I am stoked. Twice I thought, “This is not working, it’s not going to happen,” and
I noticed that Poppy Z. Brite has a story in it. But she has been pretty vehement about distancing herself from the horror genre. So what gives?
Well, the original concept for this anthology was that it would be gothic. Goth. It was actually originally titled Gothica, but then a movie came out… [laughs]… and we discovered that people like Poppy did not want to be in it if it was called Gothica. We took our problems and concerns to [writer] Stephen Jones, and he said “Why don’t you just broaden your idea?”
So the concept became “outsiders” — not necessarily horror people or spooky people, but people who are outside. People who are in sub-genres, or sub-cultures. And so Poppy turned in a story about the restaurant world. It’s not a horror story at all, and some of the others aren’t either — no supernatural, or anything to do with paranormal things. Some of the stories are very dark, some are horrific, and some are just about people who are not on the mainstream.
And I see you’ve got some other great authors, like David J. Schow, Tannith Lee, Jack Ketchum…
And Kathy Koja. I was thrilled to have Kathy in — she and I [are friends]. For years at every World Horror Convention, we’d have an arm-wrestling tournament and I’d always try to psyche her out, but Kathy won! [laughs] Anyway, Roc is publishing the book in trade paperback.
You’ve got a lot going on for this Halloween, don’t you?
Yes. I’ve got a short story in Dark Delicacies, which will be out in October. That’s the premiere volume from Dark Delicacies Book Store [aside from their charity books], so that’s pretty exciting.
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Nancy Holder will be doing a signing at Dark Delicacies Book Store (