If you like horror fiction you’ll like Jodi MacArthur. She writes dark layered narratives that draw the reader in with an efficacy and assuredness that is the sign of someone in control of their genre.

She uses mythology and a clever psychological subtext to evoke her readers’ fears.

She does it all with a deft touch and skill and she keeps doing it.

She has written two novels, ‘Xscents’ and ‘Devil’s Eye’.

If my opinion counts for anything she will be a household name.

She met me at The Slaughterhouse where we nailed a beating heart to the inside of a box and played pool with some eyeballs.

Then we talked about insects and fiction.

Do you think crime and horror fiction are more closely related than people realise?

Both crime and horror appeal to the dark side of humanity. It’s important to recognize the realities of our personal demons. And both of these do the job safely within the confines of a book. Horror is an emotion. Crime is an action. I think each are very defined, but are often blended.

With crime fiction we get to go over the edge and do whatever it takes to get what we want. We get that mad adrenalin rush when the jewel thief overcomes obstacles and the law to get that jewel. But in the end, he always loses, when we make ourselves more important than anything or anyone else, what we are stalking will stalk and consume us. It never ever ends well.  With crime there is a building up (how a thief steals a jewel and gets away with it) or a descent (the law catching the jewel thief). A jewel heist is exciting, but you won’t experience the emotion of horror when the alarm bell goes off.

Its not horror until it’s personal. We’d call horror a person chained to the wall in a doorless room being devoured limb from limb by a beast with sharp curved teeth, unless you are Roman in the first or second century. You’d call that an entertaining sports event. However, if a owl hooted three times in the dead of night a Roman might take it as a curse of the gods and pass out from fright, while we’d roll over in our beds and snore. So horror really in truly is taking societal and personal fears and turning it on its head.

So how do we mend the two together to get a good crime (a law that has been broken)/horror (the psychology or motivation behind the crime) story? True life bites harder than fiction. Let me tell you a personal story.

In my early twenties, I managed a low income housing complex. Right before I started, a woman had stabbed her husband in the stomach with a butcher knife. She was taken to the crazy house. The husband, after a week or two in the hospital, moved in with some friends. And their children, both under the age of five, went to Child Protective Services. We can look at that and say, huh, weird. A crime was committed, but you can’t call that horror.

Nobody paid the rent. Neither party was reachable. I started the eviction process. Weeks later. The day before the officer brought the eviction warrant, the husband showed up with a bunch of guys and a big van. They removed several items from the duplex. I talked with the husband about the eviction. He was well dressed, well spoken, and charming as ever. He told me he had no money to pay the rent, and that he didn’t care about anything inside. He said to trash it and gave me the address, where I could contact him. (Which I knew was a fake address, but what can you do?

The next day, what I saw when we entered the apartment and began to dig around was just surreal. It was unspeakable. The children’s bedrooms had locks. Urine and faeces were in the corners, smeared on the walls. Cardboard sat in the windows. A few toys and mattresses lied on the floor.

The master bedroom was covered in wall to wall pornography: magazines, photos, movies. Inches of it. (Later we rented a giant dumpster and actually shovelled it out the window.) The bathroom was littered with used condoms and sex toys. The smell? Indescribable.

This is bad, right? A person doesn’t have to be a detective to put two and two together. The children had been starved and abused. How? Every which way those kind of perverts do it (I spoke with social services later on).

So let’s come back to the original crime. Wifey stabs Mr. Prince Pervert Pedophile Charming in the gut with a butcher knife.

Why was she with him? Why did she stay? And what motivated her to try to kill the SOB? A normal person would think:

A: She was a victim from the start. A kind of person a man like that picks out. He beats her into submission, emotionally, physically, mentally. Fear, self pity keep her there. She turns a blind eye to the abuse her children suffer. Finally, the time bombed ticked and she stabbed him.

B: She was in on it, a fellow perpetrator. Women and men are equally cold hearted and/or narcissistic. How many cases have you heard of kidnap, rape, and murder with a woman/man team? One of my sisters was almost abducted by a man/woman team. I saw it with my own eyes. It happens. In that case, perhaps this woman had been planning on gutting him for months? Perhaps they argued? Perhaps there was a jealousy factor?

But really, who knows right?

The downstairs was trashed and nasty in general. I was pretty shaken. But nothing prepared me for the coat closet.

When we opened the door. It was dark and empty. The pull light didn’t work. The door locked from the INSIDE. We saw something on the walls. Got a flashlight. Scribbled in red crayon over and over everywhere on the walls were words. A simple sentence. This simple sentence has haunted me ever since.

“Amy is broken on the inside”.

Amy was the name of the woman who had stabbed her husband in the gut with a butcher knife.

Bam. There. Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, we have horror.

She was crazy. Psychotic. Multiple personality? Or (more politely and politically correct) Dissociative Identity Disorder? Schizophrenic? Who knows. Given a cool hearted, charming man like her husband and a psycho like her, most likely they worked as a team. The horror those little children went through is just unimaginable.

So is crime and horror the same? No. But do they go together? If you want to be scared shitless- hell, yes.

What are your views on President Obama and the last decades of American politics?

Are we still talking about crime and horror? If so, perhaps we should move to the moon where I shall reign as goddess. If that isn’t an option, then my personal views are these: Government was created to protect the people, not to control the people – to protect people from harm, abuse, fraud etc, not to protect people from themselves.  I believe in individual responsibility. I believe in giving to others out of kindness and generosity, not by force from the authorities. I believe the human spirit in order to flourish needs liberation and the freedom to make decisions and suffer consequences. If you don’t wear a seat belt, you can accept the risk that in an accident you might fly out the windshield and be decapitated. Should it be a law to wear a seat belt? If we are at the point of making stupidity laws for stupid people, the battle was lost long ago. We need the freedom to be stupid, as well as the freedom to be intelligent.

President Obama? No fucking comment.

What fascinates you about insects and are you going to be writing about them?

Their long spindly legs, the light hum of a wing, pinchers, polkadots, teeny tiny eyeballs… what is there not to be fascinated with? I have many memories with bugs, or critters in general. My earliest memory was at my grandmother’s. I had awakened at dawn due to nightmares. I wandered out of my room, sat down at the kitchen table and laid my cheek on its cool surface. I felt a tickle on my leg. I remember scratching it, then feeling more tickles over my thighs, ankles, stomach… I drew back from the table and to my horror found myself covered in hundreds! (dozens) of baby spiders. The egg sack had just hatched. I remember trying to scream, and not being able to breathe. When I finally did let out that yowl everyone in the house thought surely someone had murdered JoJo in the kitchen.

Ants. Ants fascinate me. And I’m not the first. There are references back in some of the earliest writings, fables, the bible, the Koran. Through the centuries their colonies/societies have intrigued mankind. Of course, one of the ways they communicate is through pheromones or scents they leave. This summer I researched the human sense of scent, and was fascinated to find that we ourselves emit different pheromones that people react to emotionally and physically as much as they would with body language or vocal communications. And yes, this includes sexual attraction. We talk about visual physical attraction but it seems we can be just as sexually attracted to someone based on his or her pheromones (or animal attraction). It was their scent you most likely noticed first. If you believe in love at first sight, then I’d suggest love at first scent (and guys I’m not talking about farts, so please don’t go fart at your potential romantic interests or your significant other for that matter). To get your man in the mood, a woman might light a pumpkin scented candle (essential oils) or dab on lavender. Do both at the same time for extra fun. For women, surprisingly, the smell of cucumbers and good & plenty candies create the strongest arousal. Licorice does it also for both guys and girls. Anti arousals: cherries, men colognes, and charcoal barbecued meat.

ANYWAYS, after a discussion with Jason Michel earlier in the year, I got to thinking about cautionary tales (fables and fairytales), where they come from, how they are formed. How people, religion, societies take a story and twist it from the author’s original intention, and re-spin it based on their own spiritual/political beliefs. People will do amazingly heroic or horrific acts for what they believe in. I wrote an article on it for a zine that had asked for some nonfic work. It was rejected because of form & style. Blah. Blah.  They wanted formula. Which I suck at.

An idea occurred while writing the paper to write my own fable about ants, then create a society which valued the story (which occurs in the village of Secretos, fictionally located in the northern mountains of Peru). Throw in some power hungry mongrels, coca fields (which I did extensive research on as well– cool plant!) thug wars, underground tunnels and factories, chained men running on hamster wheels, lust in a bottle (human pheromones mixed with botanical essential oils), warrior women in leather, a pied piper in a cat suit, a feverish priest declaring the fable a prophecy, and you’ve got yourself a real weird story that made itself into a novel over the last couple months.

So yeah, I wrote about ants.

Do you think people only wake from a dream when it becomes a nightmare?

I had a dream once that I was at my aunt’s. We were sitting at her kitchen table talking about her cats and kids. She asked me about my writing, and she said she’d do whatever I needed to help me with my dream. We had steamy cups of coffee and muffins. I remember telling her, “Sandie, I had the most awful dream that you’d died and I hadn’t found out for months later.”

She took a sip of her coffee and said. “Oh Jo, I am dead. I’ve been dead for awhile.”

I remember being shaken and I started looking around her home, and real life began to dawn on me. “You can’t be dead, we are sitting here talking.”

“This is a dream sweetheart.” She grabbed my hand. “But don’t worry, I’m here for you every step of the way.”

I remember feeling the tug of reality, of waking up. I burst into tears and said, “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you.”

“You have too much to do, Jo. Go back. We’ll catch up later.” Last I remember she was giving me a huge hug and told me never to forget.

I woke up in a pile of tears and my own messy life. My aunt has been gone for a couple years now. I’d given anything to go back to the simplicity of her home and warm laughter. SO, sometimes the horror is waking from a good dream to the nightmare that is your own life.

But let’s get to the heart of what you are asking. I think when we are set on a way of thinking, a life path, a belief, a religion it takes something juristic to change it, and yes, often a nightmare of sorts. You can be bouncing on your way through life, you make money, you got religion, you have wonderful relatives, the perfect spouse and your children are on the swim and dance team. Perfect. And then, one day, your child comes to you and says Grandpa has been touching him in certain places.

Thwap! (as an old Batman comic bubble might say)

What do you do? Something has been going on under the radar you hadn’t seen. You have two choices: ignore it, tell your child you are sure it’s nothing (so many people sacrifice their children for the sake of keeping their world the same) or follow the breadcrumbs to find more horror than you ever saw on tv or read in Stephen King book.

Problem is. There’s been signs all along, for some reason (and who am I to judge?) you CHOSE not to see it. So when the shit hits the fan, it’s decision time. Are you going to wake up and deal with it or are you going to fall back asleep into your perfect world? Herein, the horror lies.

Fiction is a safe place to expose and explore nightmares. To follow the paths of others who wake up, and watch what they do. Horror is so metaphorical and mimics true life. I choose to write nightmares because it also helps me deal with my own personal demons. Nothing brings me more joy than scaring the hell out of readers and making them smile at the same time. Sort of an oxymoron, but life is an oxymoron dammit!

The extremities of human psychopathology, be they war crimes or the nauseating acts of child molesters are caught deep in the throat of our collective consciousness. You say rightly that people wake up to such horrors after crafting a good life that is partly image and the revelations and ramifications that these revelations bring are too real for humanity and inhabit no fictional world. TS Eliot said ‘humankind cannot bear very much reality.’ Many people who have found that monster in their cellar acknowledge a lurking doubt, some body of observation where they suspended and pushed away a sense that something was wrong, why do you think people push their unconscious knowledge of these crimes away?

Oh geez. We all have our reasons don’t we? Acknowledging ‘these crimes’ requires us to CHANGE our perception of a person, situation or a relationship. I think one of the hardest things for we as humankind to accept is change. Nothing stays as it is, even the planet doesn’t hold still. It revolves, it goes through cycles, and so do we.

I heard once that the people who survived the concentration camps were not the extreme pessimists, nor the super duper happy positive thinking people, it was the people who accepted the reality of the horror of their situation but did the best with what they had. That doesn’t mean they lost hope or did not make plans for the future, but it does show willingness on their part to accept change/reality.

Psychology, my dear Watson, is afoot:

Remember the story awhile back, about the family that owned an apartment complex in Austria? A family of two parents and four children. The father began molesting one of his daughters at the age of eleven, when she was eighteen he lured her into the complex’s cellar. After raping and drugging her, he handcuffed and chained her in a dark room. He gave his wife (the mother) a running away letter “written” by the missing daughter. And his wife accepted it.

He kept his daughter there for twenty-four years, raping her on a consist basis. She birthed him seven children. Six lived. He burned the infant that had died (from neglect) in a kitchen oven. Some of the children he brought upstairs to his wife and said they had been dropped off on the doorstep by the missing daughter. The other children stayed with their mother in the cellar and had never seen the light of day.

Now you tell me, did the mother or siblings of this kidnapped girl ever wonder why daddy was bringing extra food to the cellar? Why he visited there so often? Did anyone ask why he was building and digging underground? Did NOBODY hear a sound, a scream, something?

You can’t go 24 years without nobody knowing nothing. Someone knew, but chose to ignore, because acknowledging the horror, the truth of the situation, was too much of this TS Elliot quote to bear.

So. Humanity not only suffers at the hands of such sickos as this man, but just as much from people refusing to acknowledge such sickos exist. Why? Because it will change our perception of how we want things to be or stay. Again, truth bites harder than fiction.

How much truth do you think it is possible to put into fiction and how do you adapt truth as a writer?

I’d like to quote King for your question. He says, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” So let’s think about that. Fiction is like one giant metaphor for the truth. So there has to be truth in the metaphor because the metaphor is the truth. If we want to empower our reader’s imagination and take them on a journey, especially a dark journey, they will need to trust. And the way to build trust is to tell the truth. The way to tell the truth is to take a piece of life, say, a beautiful butterfly fluttering around enjoying its freedom, and stick it into the middle of a sticky spider web. We will all watch fascinated while the spider crawls out of hiding, climbs across its silk. The butterfly fights and struggles for its life. Will it get away or will the spider eat it? Depends on how strong the web is or how strong the butterfly’s wings are. Who wins? Who is good or evil? Depends on the slant. Depends on the characters. The jury (reader) ultimately decides this, as they should, because we as storytellers give freely and the reader takes away what he or she wants.

We do know, all of us together as one KNOW, one way or another the spider or the butterfly is going to get what it wants.  This is the truth. What happens next and how? That is where we as storytellers can weave our own fictional webs. It is where we seduce our reader’s minds. And once we seduce, once they know we are telling the truth, they can trust us to take them through the house of horrors…. And that is when the magic happens. Ha ha, and what is magic? Masqueraded truth used in a way to entertain, delight, and dare I say, frighten. In times past and even now, those who can perform magic are regarded as powerful, and sometimes I think artists think of themselves this way. But, I believe, storytelling isn’t about power, it is about humility. Without the audience or the reader, there is no magic. We as storytellers cannot physically grab a person and force them into our world. We seduce, we tell them the truth so they will trust, and only then will our worlds and imaginations collide. The reader can take and leave what he chooses. Free will. Even when it comes to fiction. It’s all about truth and trust. Just amazing. This is only one of the reasons why I am so enchanted and in love with this form of art.

Tell us about the significance of the number 13 in your life.

Well, for starters, it is the font number when I copy and paste your interview questions into my Word doc. It is also the size of my clown shoes. It is one inch more than a foot. I won a jar of jellybeans with the number 13 in first grade. It is the number of colonies that came together to sign the Declaration of Independence (which is quite lucky if you ask me).

The only thing that scares me about 13 or Friday the 13^th is the western collective conscience believing bad things will happen on that day.  A group of people putting out negative vibes as one great force of emotional power scares me way more than a simple number ever will.

Triskaidekaphobia (the fear of 13) can be traced back to Norse mythology. Odin throws a dinner party for 11 of his closest friends. Loki, mischievous as always, decides to crash the party making the number in attendance 13. However, in this story Loki’s mischief turns malicious when he orchestrates the murder of Odin’s beloved son Balder (the god of truth and light). The death of Balder was the real turning point in Norse mythology leading to Ragnarok.

Why do you think mythology is so important in the history of human civilisation?

We all have questions don’t we? Why? Where? How? When? Who? Every culture and society try to answer these questions with their own mythologies, legends, stories, fables etc..Again, they are a metaphor for truth or vice versa. Often times these tales become religion. And the religion sets the standards and morals of the society.

If I had four people hold you down on an altar and I used an obsidian knife to rip open your chest and tear out your beating heart, then later dismember your body and eat it: America would call that murder and cannibalism. I would get the electric chair or your tax dollars would go to keeping me well fed, educated, medically cared for and physically protected within prison walls for life. The Aztecs would call it sacrifice and for this great deed the world would keep spinning, and I would have pleased the sun as well as the rain god. Our people would be rewarded with rain for the crops, as well as personal blessings from eating the sacrificed body.

So it is different for every society and culture. The stories that have stuck around for hundreds or thousands of years have stayed because either there is a morsel of truth to them, or because of their truly entertaining/shocking nature. I think they are fascinating and there is something to learn from it all.

Mario Praz wrote the seminal study of Romantic Literature ‘The Romantic Agony’, exploring the links between it and early Gothic literature, which morphed into horror fiction. He explored decadence and morbidity as lying at the roots of the genre as well as graveyard fiction. To what extent do you think morbid eroticism and as Mario Praz saw it, the ghost of  the Marquis de Sade hangs over the modern tradition of horror?

I can’t agree with Mario Praz that decadence and morbidity lies at the root of horror. I’m not indulging in base desires because I have some kind of unnatural obsession with body parts and places I can stick them. To be honest, I think Praz is rather arrogant to make these assumptions.

As a horror writer, I am seeking the truths of the human condition. And the truth, what lies at the root of horror, is what has scared humanity since the beginning of time: Death.

We are afraid of pain. We are afraid of change. We are afraid of the Grim Reaper with his scythe and skeleton smile. We are afraid of what happens after death. Is there a god or devils or demons or angels or boogey men in the closets. Or is there nothing? Do we simply disappear and get sucked into some black void? We simply never really existed. Perhaps we are just scribbled words of something far bigger and greater than we are; a rough draft crumpled and tossed away.

We were afraid of this before Marquis de Sade entered the scene, and will be as long as humanity exists.

I do not have a MFA or PHD. I have not studied intensely on these subjects. I am not a philosopher or a theologian. I just want to tell a damn good story. To do this, I tap into the vein of humanity and draw out what I find. I write what I know, what I’ve experienced, and what I’ve imagined.

I wish I had some grander answer for you, but that’s about it.

You frequently refer to The Sea Of Imagination. Most recently it has come up in your pirate series. What is it and what are you talking about when you refer to it?

I believe everything that has been or will be exists in some kind of gigantic collective consciousness: an unseen world of possibilities and impossibilities. Every single one of us has access to it. You do not need to be Beethoven, Poe, Da Vinci or Britney Spears to drop a line and go fishing.. You can be some half assed crazy trailer trash white girl from nowhere and everywhere. A composer once said that he doesn’t create his music, he simply remembers a song he had never heard before, as if it had always existed and he is simply recalling it. That is how it feels when I write my stories.

I have a little wooden boat that I’ve patched together from my own life’s tool shed.  I have a fishing rod with a string and nightcrawler dangling from a hook. When I cast it into the sea, I honestly have no idea what I’ll catch. And when something latches and starts tugging there is always this “Oh SHIT!” moment. It could be a 30 ft hammerhead. How will that fit into my little boat? It could be a tiny minnow, boring and insignificant, but thriving just the same. It could be a Bowie knife snagged out of the hands from a huge WWF wrestler and you better believe he’s coming up after it. Or perhaps there is a shrewd woman who creates sex in a bottle and rules the world through lust addiction. Or perhaps there is a Captain Rueben Viper searching for the Cave of Ali Baba to win the heart of what he thought was his true love until the mysterious frogslinging Amazon goddess steals more than just his treasure map. Or perhaps a man whose soul was stolen by demons and his salvation is held in the hands of a little girl who possesses only shards of sanity- a gift of dried violet petals from her father…

In the Sea of Imagination anything and everything can happen. There are no limitations. There are no giant eyes in the skies watching our every move and ticking off points on the nice or naughty list. It is free for all and all for free with two stipulations. One: Like the wind, you must believe in it, although you cannot see it with your physical eye. Two: If you have the balls to bait a hook and throw it in, you must be brave enough to deal with what you’ve caught. There is no excuse for cowardice. Catch and release is for sissies. And the world has enough of those.

On the sea of imagination, there are great islands brought up from volcanoes of great minds. Their names are Defoe, Poe, Dickens, King, O’ Brien, L’engle, Koontz, Keats, Benson, Stroker, Shelly, Palahniuk, Lewis, Harper, Golding, Dickenson, Suess, Steinbeck, Marie De France, Grimm, Wilde, Ash, Salvatore, on and on…

Their characters play out lives on these islands and I am delighted to be able to anchor my boat off shore and watch these brilliant catches. And what an amazing thought to think my characters create their own volcanoes and islands for others to enjoy.

Thank you Jodi for giving an outstanding and thoughtful interview.

Thank you so much for the Chinwag and showcasing at the Slaughterhouse, Richard. It’s been a mind-bending and absolute delight engaging with your keen and perceptive mind.

J links:

Pillow Talk, Spindled Souls, Weeping Stones (scroll down), Rabid, WILDCARD, Painted Black (scroll to last story), and there be me beloved thievin’ piratical series, The Wicked Woman’s Booty. For the daring and not easily offended you can explore my random rants about life and writing here. 

Chris Rhatighan is a highly intelligent crime writer.

He writes cutting edge hard boiled crime that never fails to deliver.

He’s a journalist who knows his game and he is as sharp as a razor.

If you don’t believe me check out one of his stories.
He delivers fine Noir.

He met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about crime and paranoia.

Do you think killing and fucking are related?

Definitely.

For better or worse, it’s the logic that sustains almost all of American entertainment. And often the two aren’t just related, but overlapping and mixing and becoming indistinguishable from one another. Like Xenia Onatopp from the James Bond movie Goldeneye–she’s the villain who kills men by crushing their skulls between her legs, a femme fatale on crack. To me, she’s one of the most memorable characters in film–a perfect union of killing and fucking. (Can you even use the term victims? Didn’t those dudes want to be there?)

Or the phenomenal TV show True Blood, based on the series by Charlaine Harris. Most of the show focuses on people with death wishes who like to have extremely violent sex with vampires. It’s this strange kind of symbiotic relationship. And it’s endlessly fascinating in a grotesque way–all the people in the show who aren’t  having sex with vampires are always thinking about…. you guessed it, having sex with vampires.

So why are killing and fucking related?

Don’t know. I suppose both are primal urges. And the most direct way to prevent another person from fucking the person you want to fuck is by killing them.

Or perhaps it’s because both are at the extremes of human experience. You don’t get much more intense than killing and fucking.

But whatever the reason is, I think Quentin Tarantino hit it on the head talking about the movie Hostel: “It’s like a Resse’s peanut butter cup. It’s got boobs and gore, two great tastes that taste great together.”

Who are your literary influences?

For the last several months, I’ve been almost exclusively reading short stories and flash. I love both these forms, and they’re what I’m trying to write. So, many of the writers who have influenced me aren’t the old masters like the Chandlers and Parkers and Thompsons of the world (who I do love), but newer authors.

Paul Brazill has been a huge influence. That guy writes fearless. I was talking with a writer buddy the other day about how there’s a strong tendency among short form writers to imitate Hemingway. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Hemingway–he turned me on to the short story in the first place. But he’s deceptive. You read his stories and think, “Fuck, I could do that. It’s just this minimalist kind of thing. No problem.” But you can’t. Sorry.

Anyways, Brazill is kind of a response to Hemingway. His work is loaded with personality and force. It’s just alive. Both are economical, but approach writing differently. To use a just awful, hackneyed metaphor, Hemingway is like ice and Brazill is like fire.

Along those same lines, Jimmy Callaway is one of my favorite writers. Like Brazill, he’s hilarious and crafts sizzling dialogue. I recently read all of his work at A Twist of Noir–each one is a gem. Every time I read one of his, I think, “Dammit. I wish I wrote that.”

Matthew C. Funk is another writer who has found what works for him. He writes these gritty crime stories based in New Orleans and hits a home run every time he steps to the plate.  His stories aren’t that similar to one another, but it’s more that he’s found these themes–the bleakness of urban poverty, the tenuous ties between friends and family in a brutal world–that he weaves into each one of his stories.

So, I want to write stuff like these guys write–with electric prose, a breakneck pace, oozing with personality, and no bullshit.

Do you think men and women have different styles of killing?

Certainly men and women have different styles of killing in fiction of all forms. Men tend toward the more “business-like” murders– contract killers, assassins, and mobsters all populate the make-believe scene. Their murders tend to be quick, efficient, and emotionless. Usually for money. (Although I guess the serial killer genre would be a strong challenge to this.)

Women tend to kill for more personal reasons (see any movie on the Lifetime network as an example… not that any of you watch Lifetime. You’re much too cool for that.) and, consequently, they’re more likely to stab their victims or bludgeon them with something… or use their legs to crush the victim’s head!

One thing I like about the neo-noir writers (I hesitate to use the prefix neo- but there it is…) who are turning these conventions upside down. Take Ian Ayris’s work on “Stars” or “The Argument Bunny” or “By the Dim and Flaring Lamps.” All these are about men who kill for very personal reasons and in sloppy ways, making for very visceral material. I tend to like these kinds of stories more–where the characters are emotionally invested–than those of the stoic hit man.

In reality, I would assume men and women have different styles of killing, as we’re both always performing (or, at best, fighting against) prescribed gender roles. However, it’s kind of hard to tell, as the only way I hear about murder is through the media. And, as a reporter myself, I know that we only hear about the stuff that’s deemed newsworthy–the mother who drowns her children or the guy who sprays a Van Maur’s with machine gun fire. In other words, it’s a biased sample and difficult to draw any accurate conclusion from.

Why do you think gun culture is so integral to the American psyche?

Americans definitely have a fascination with all things guns. We glorify the individual in America, and I consider the gun culture to be linked to that. Being able to carry a source of overwhelming physical force means you never have to rely on anyone else.

And, obviously, fear is another big factor. Americans are afraid of virtually every threat out there. Pedophiles, gangs, terrorists–you name it, Americans are afraid of it and convinced that it’s happening in their backyards. A gun provides the illusion that one can control these forces. One push of a button (or, in this case, a trigger) and the problem is conveniently eliminated.

On a side note, the gun culture here provides an interesting challenge for crime writers. Nigel Bird recently commented here at The Slaughterhouse that British crime writers have to be more creative in deciding how to kill off their characters, as Britain is a gun-free culture. Certainly with the prevalence of guns in TV, movies, video games, etc., it’s where my mind goes first when I’m thinking about a story with violence. This is lazy thinking/writing, so I feel the need to thoroughly interrogate why a character has (or uses) a gun.

You’re given a sum of money to carry out a hit.  How do you do it?

Oooh.  Twisted.

Well, I have two answers to this. Real-Life Chris wouldn’t have a clue of how to actually carry out a hit… so that would be one stupid client who paid him all those bucks. And even if Real-Life Chris did know how to do it, he would probably just end up crying or something. Besides, Real-Life Chris makes a lot of sound when moves, which I would imagine wouldn’t be a good trait for a hit man.

Bottom line, he doesn’t have the guts for that business.

But Fictional Chris is very badass. Fictional Chris not only gets the job done but makes you say, “Shiiiit. You don’t fuck with Fictional Chris!”

So you want to know how Fictional Chris does it? He can’t tell you. Cause then he’d have to kill you.

But here’s what happened to his last victim:

Fictional Chris went deep into the jungle. He caught a poisonous tree frog with his bare hands. He sucked the venom right out of it. (He didn’t die cause Fictional Chris is too manly to be killed by a tiny frog.)

With that venom, he fashioned a poison dart. Just one, because that’s all Fictional Chris needs. And he took a stalk of the finest bamboo and lined the inside of it with palm oil, which Fictional Chris knows is a superior lubricant.

Then, as the unknowing victim sat at home eating his cookies and drinking his milk, Fictional Chris soundlessly opened the sliding glass door (which was left open cause the victim was the trusting type and thought he lived in a good neighborhood) and shot him with that dart.

What do you think distinguishes a serial killer from other types of criminal?

I once heard a definition of a serial killer as someone who kills specifically for sexual pleasure. This is definitely the idea one gets from most media sources, but I think it’s a bit limited. I would say a serial killer is someone who targets their victims for a specific reason and derives some sort of pleasure from the act of murder. That seems a bit broader to me.

I’m not a fan of the current serial killer craze in entertainment. There are some good examples (Joe Konrath’s novels and the Dexter novel/TV series), but plenty of bad ones (the TV show Criminal Minds, which is freaking dreadful, or anything James Patterson has written–or whoever is writing his novels now). For whatever reason, there’s a fixation on them. I guess people like a lot of violence and a lot of sex and, preferably, both at the same time.

But, to actually answer your question, I think serial killers differ from other criminals in that they’re not really in it for personal gain. Most other criminals are looking to get ahead in some way–looking to make money or gain prestige. But the serial killer just wants to keep doing what they’re doing. Like Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me, serial killers have the sickness. So I guess serial killers tend to resemble drug addicts or pedophiles more than they do other murderers.

Elias Canetti in ‘Crowds And Power’ commented ‘behind paranoia, as behind all power, lies the same profound urge: the desire to get other men out of the way so as to be the only one’. To what extent do you think this is true of politics and also crime and if so how related are politics and crime?

I don’t think it’s necessarily true of politics. Though politics is always a game with winners and losers, it’s fundamentally a group game. You have to have allies to win. And according to network theory, which I sort of buy, he with the most informal connections (not the strongest or the most influential—just the highest number) is always more likely to advance his position.

So to me, the goal of politicians is to be at the top of a hierarchy with all others in subordinate positions. Perhaps in that sense a politician is seeking to be the only one—or at least to be part of the reigning group. If you don’t have that mentality, you probably don’t get into politics. But to be alone at the top? That seems to be only for the truly ambitious, those willing to sacrifice their personality to climb the ladder.

But even then, are you really seeking to be the only one? Politicians thrive on the existence of their opponents. They thrive not only on actual competition, but also on the existence of an opposing view that they can point at and say, “We’re not that.”

For example, the publisher of a popular conservative magazine said that after Barack Obama won the election in 2008 their circulation skyrocketed. In this sense, politicians are define their identities more by what they oppose than what they support. That’s why negative political advertising is so overwhelmingly successful. Or could you imagine Bill O’Reilly without the Left? Or Stephen Colbert without Bill O’Reilly?

For crime, I think that statement holds more true and certainly is strongly linked to paranoia. Revenge is a prime example of this. What is revenge other than trying to eliminate all those who pose a threat to what you value?

By its very nature, crime turns people into loners and turns them against each other. I recently read Ken Bruen’s The Max—a bunch of low-life criminals double-crossing each other at every opportunity, a story that fully embraces Otto Penzler’s definition of noir. All these people trying to be the last one left standing.

But maybe it’s broader than crime and more about human nature. People almost always fail Prisoner’s Dilemma.

Do you think Iowa would lend itself to its own style of crime writing?

I don’t think so. I grew up in Connecticut and moved out to Iowa City three years ago, so perhaps I’m not qualified to answer that, but I find Iowa pretty unremarkable. Mostly giant soybean/corn farms and a few lackluster cities. Iowa is not unique, which I think is necessary to foster a style of crime writing.

There are very few crime writers from here. Off the top of my head, I know Max Allan Collins went to the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and John Kenyon currently lives in Iowa City, but I can’t think of anyone else.

Certainly there’s a “rural American” style of crime writing that parts of Iowa could be included in. I recently read Christopher Coake’s beautiful short story “All Through the House” and although it was set in Indiana, it could’ve easily been one of hundreds of dying rural towns spread across Iowa.

Do you think the lust for power is behind a criminal’s psychology?

Yes.  I was going to qualify that answer, but there are so few instances where the criminal isn’t seeking power that it isn’t even worth mentioning. Certainly criminals frequently seek more than just power–money or safety or satisfying an impulse–but all of that kind of links with power as they’re seeking to insulate their position at someone else’s expense. This is one of those areas where fiction and life are aligned.

Even the professional hit man or the mobster is probably attracted to that lifestyle because it gives them power over other people. Take B.R. Stateham’s character, Smitty, or Christopher Grant’s character, Greta–two very memorable characters. Though they’re pros, they like exerting power over other people.

So all crime fiction has to have a power dynamic—or at least it seems that way to me. This simultaneously makes it more interesting (struggles between characters, the stakes are always high) but also presents problems.

Personally, I veer away from the sheer “game” of crime in fiction–where it’s more about who wins and who loses than it is about the characters. To me, this is part of the reason why some mainstream mystery novels have gotten stale and boring, especially in the thriller genre. I gravitate toward stories that are more personal and, ultimately, about how a character changes.

Although I look at some of my work and it’s just about the game. And I adore Michael Crichton’s work and he didn’t write a single interesting character in his career . . . so there are exceptions?

Do you think humor and crime belong anywhere near each other?

I don’t know if it’s my obsession with contrast or what but I really dig humor in crime fiction. Joe Konrath, Jimmy Callaway, Paul Brazill, Harlan Coben, Elmore Leonard, they all use humor very well. It makes for fast reading and (in my opinion) makes the dark parts darker. I’m starting to work humor into my own writing more, but it’s harder than I thought it would be.

I think my fondness for humor-crime is linked to my former career as a reporter. You just hear about so much weird shit every day (even in the small towns and cities I worked in) that you become calloused. (Or you use jokes to pretend that you’re calloused–I don’t know, something like that. Or maybe it’s because everyone assumes that because you’re a reporter, you’re scum, and then you meet that expectation.) Anyways, reporters make literally everything into a joke. In fact, the more gruesome, the better. There was one dude at my office who was fantastic with one-liners. Gotta have something to get you through the day.

Thanks so much for having me Richard. I’m honored to be a Chin Wagger!

Chris Rhatigan’s fiction has been published in A Twist of Noir, Mysterical-E, Yellow Mama and Pulp Metal Magazine, and has work upcoming at the brand-spanking-new Pulp Carnivale. His blog, Death by Killing, is all about the world of short crime fiction.  

Yelena Sabel is an actress and film director with vision and passion. Her film ‘Sex, Blood and Fairy Tales’  is a tightly plotted, brilliantly written and totally professional work and having had a sneak preview I will tell you watch this space for her name. She makes dark films. She knows what she is doing and delivers great drama. She has been a model, but she is first and foremost an actress. She is versatile and can play comedy as well as serious roles, her style is highly expressive and she can reveal a range of emotion through a physical style of acting that doesn’t need her to speak. She met me at The Slaughterhouse where I served her a bottle of Chateau Lafite and we talked about the fashion industry and the film industry.

Click below to watch a trailer from her film ‘Sex, Blood and Fairy Tales’.

Do you think the modelling and fashion industry is inherently misogynistic?

The word “Misogyny” is an angry word since it translates as Hatred of Women.
When you think of the Fashion Industry, what first comes to mind? The Beautiful Clothes that are designed for Women, to dress them up and make them more beautiful than they already are. So what does Hatred have to do with it, right?

Well, maybe we should ask a Size Zero Super Model who starves herself because she’s afraid to death of losing her job if she gains another ounce. But no, it’s not hatred, it’s a “Sacrifice”, we all put up with a lot pursuing our careers. Or, maybe we should ask a Super Model who just turned 30 and she was told that a 30 is a new 50 in the Modelling Industry, and that she should hurry and do liposuction, boob implant, lip filling until it’s too late.  Maybe we should ask them.
Better yet, let’s ask the Fashion Designers who  mostly consist of Gay Men what does a Beautiful Woman should look like? The description might be umm… she should look like a young boy? I’m sorry, I have nothing against gay men, I love them, I have many gay friends, but really, what does a woman with no breast, no ass, and no hips look like to YOU?

Karl Lagerfeld once said: “Curvy women have no place on the catwalk. No one wants to see curvy women”. Here comes the question: had the Gay Men Designers truly appreciated a healthy, normal woman’s body, would they prefer having sex with men in the first place?
Since when have women of size 6, 8, 10 and UP stopped being considered beautiful enough to model clothing and walk the Runway? Are you trying to tell me that clothes do not look good on her in order to model? Also whoever builds a Runway should consider a woman’s safety and make that “Catwalk” less slippery so when a Model walks on it in heels she doesn’t fall! I’ve seen so many of those “Oups” blooper moments when a model trips on a Runway and falls, while everyone applauds and laughs.

Today, the goal of most Fashion Magazines is to shove down your throat that whatever you see on the cover is beautiful, and everything else is unfit. All I see are the advertisements of how to lose weight so you can look like that anorexic supermodel with a big smile on her face. All I see are the ads of plastic surgery clinics. But of course, a breast that doesn’t look like a weapon and doesn’t feel like a plastic sex toy is not considered beautiful anymore!

For me personally Fashion comes from within. My dress has to match with my mood.
I have nice clothes, bags and shoes, but I buy what I feel like wearing and what goes with my personality (I have quite a few of them) and my inner world (it constantly changes) and NOT what the Fashion Magazine tells me to buy. Dear designers and marketing people, just because you want to sell something by convincing me it’s a piece of art, I do not necessary feel that it is.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ Hester Prynne becomes outcast from a provincial religious community because she is beautiful and independent. In Victorian patriarchal society if a woman was intelligent and beautiful she was resented and deemed threatening, do you think that things have changed, and do you think a beautiful and intelligent woman is more resented by women than men?

Times have changed and things have changed but what hasn’t changed and will never change is that a beautiful and intelligent woman is and always will remain a threat to other women. But anyone can be a threat, regardless of gender. What about attractive and successful men? Aren’t they resented by other men? Even more so! Here is an example: Attractiveness and Intelligence give you Power. A Powerful Man can have any woman he wants while a Powerful Woman still cannot have any man she wants! Why? Because a Powerful Man is only intimidating to other men less powerful; and a Powerful Woman is intimidating to BOTH women AND men. So from any way you look at it, it is always harder for a Woman.

Interesting fact but I’ve never felt resentment from women, and I consider myself beautiful and intelligent. Instead, I get a lot of support from women of all kinds:  actresses, models, dancers, nurses, housewives and even women soldiers.  I respect women, I understand their mentality. I know how hard it is out there for a sister, and when I cross my paths with another female I never strike. I never want to take something from her that isn’t mine. I’ve always been this way, and maybe that is why women feel comfortable around me. A woman feels threatened by another woman simply because she’s afraid to lose and feel small next to another, and I understand that.

How did you end up in New York making films?

I have watched hundreds of movies and only a few left an epic mark in my heart and soul. I remember how I felt watching those movies. First, I was in love with the visuals and my mind was so intensely focused on devouring those visuals that I wasn’t able to follow the story. That made me come back to watch the movie again this time for the sake of the story. The story was so intense that it made me come back to watch the movie again and this time to absorb it as one. And each time I was back it opened up new things to me that I haven’t seen there the last time. This feeling reminds me of Love, when you want to come back to the same person and each time you know it will be a different experience. Watching those films I wasn’t just being entertained munching on a pop-corn and sipping coke, I was experiencing a rainbow of the most intense emotions, and movies that carried subliminal messages had such a powerful effect on me it helped me to change into a better person. My biggest dream is to create something as intense and powerful to not just entertain people but rather take them on a journey they will never forget and will always want to come back to….

The media is full of stories of miscarriages of justice, families are torn apart when loved ones are murdered while the offender walks free, conversely innocent men and women are arrested. Do you think it is possible for an individual to bring someone to justice without using the law and if so how?

You’re kidding, right? You think that if highly paid and highly educated attorneys still make “well-planned” mistakes, you think a common person can do a better judgment? Give me a second, because I’m rolling on the floor in agony of laughter now, forgive me.  Well, okay you might say “lawyers are greedy”, okay I must agree with that to some extent but if you put justice into the hands of a commoner we will have chaos and anarchy. And, come to think of it, do we really want another Robin Hood?

As a film maker what ingredients do you try to put into your films?

Writers are like Chefs: the better ingredients they have the better, the heartier meal / story they’re going to cook.

One of the Ingredients is the Emotional Depth of the story.  If your heart starts aching while watching the movie that means you’re relating to what’s happening on the screen and you trust me as a writer to be experiencing that with me.

The next Ingredient is the Sense of Truth. No, you don’t have to believe that aliens or zombies will walk the Earth but I want you to believe in my characters and feel that whatever has happened to YOU has happened to them too or is happening now.  I want you to feel that they’ve been there, they have felt it and now you’re watching the Aftermath of your hardships and love stories on the Big Screen in a more beautiful and glamorous way.   Oh my God, did I confuse you?

Another Ingredient is the Story Paradox. I strongly believe in Paradoxes and I encourage them.  In Life we try to follow logic and common sense. But how many times when you do your best and hardest to complete the task and you’re not slacking in any way but things still go wrong? Or vice versa, when you’ve done everything wrong and went against all the proper routines and even yourself, things start looking up? How can you explain that? I stopped asking this question and I opened the door to Paradoxes.

The next ingredient is the Payoff and it is a very sensitive subject to me.  Think about the time when you’re watching the movie and it’s so intriguing, so captivating and intense, you’re enjoying every second of it. Actions switch one another, major things are happening, major topics are being brought to the table and then it…ends. Well of course it ends because you’ve just spent two hours in a movie theater and you can’t be there forever, but you feel like…what the fuck was that? What has just happened? You’re trying to rewind the film in your head and think like …all these actions and intensity sum up to…THIS? How can this BE..?  Well, you should ask a person who wrote the story. Ask them why they have held you hostage for two hours and tortured your brain and then in the end they decided to get rid of you. I’m not saying that every story has to have a resolution and it’s great to remind the audience that everything doesn’t have to be resolved and many things are better left unsaid. BUT I strongly insist on giving a loyal hard-working viewer a great Payoff! God! Don’t they deserve it? And in my movie I’m going to give them more than enough, in the end there will be three payoffs they don’t expect. A Payoff does not mean a “Happy Ending” but a Payoff is a REWARD to a viewer and I’m going to be very generous and gong to give them what they want, to all of them!

So these ingredients must be a Shock Value and a Wow Factor. I want my viewer leaving the theater thinking: “Wow!!!” and “Damn, that movie is crazzyyyyy!!!” and “I want to see it again!!”

That would be a fair emotion.

Another Ingredient is a character driven by the Power of Love. A character that is driven by Love will never be boring or dull.

How important are dreams to you?

Dreams are very important to me as they take me on a journey into an imaginary world.
I almost never have nightmares, even after I see a Horror movie, I go to bed and still do not have nightmares. I read about that when people grow up they stop seeing dreams in color and some barely even have any dreams at all. I have dreams every night and not only they’re full of color they’re also full of this  light I can’t describe how it looks, it looks like a mix of shades of blue, silver and purple colors, and,  most of the time  I see that light around the happening actions within the dream. Sometimes before I go to bed I “order” a particular I want to see dream as if there was at the Movie Theater. Sometimes, I even know that I’m dreaming.  It’s called “Lucid” dreaming when you’re aware of that you’re having a dream, and you can stop the dream at any time. I did that just the other day when the synopsis of the dream was me at the 15th Century going to be hanged because I was accused being a Witch. (haha). So I knew I was dreaming and made the dream stop. Now I kind of regret that, I don’t know why either…The way my Life is it often doesn’t hold any logic, just like the dreams. Sometimes when I go to bed I focus on getting a much needed answer from the dream I’m going to have. And at times I do get the answers. Lately, I’ve been having dreams as if everything was perfect, just the way I wanted, but then I wake up disappointed that it was only a dream…

What are your darkest thoughts?

Every day I think about the same thing: what if my parents won’t live long enough to see me make it big? I would really love to see their faces when the big day comes and my Movie, my Art, my Vision will be expressed on the Big Screen and I would really love them to be there at that moment and see me shine. All my life they wanted me to have a “real job” as a nurse or a doctor and they were always against me becoming an Actress but then one time they saw me performing on the stage in a theater in New York City and I remember my Father said: “Yea, now I see you are for real” and they finally gave me their blessing. Every other day we talk on the phone and I share so much with them about how my production is progressing, what I go through, sometimes I cry on the phone and they support me so much and I am so happy that we’re on the same page now!

My other Dark thoughts come  when someone wrongs me really bad and the person I am I never strike first, I don’t ever want any harm to anyone, but there is so much jealousy around and negative energy coming from people and I can feel it. Sometimes I think about the bad things aka Revenge I would do to them, I even plan it in my head but I NEVER go through with the plan…I’ve noticed that those who wish me harm somehow down the road get in trouble on their own and it never comes from me. So I guess I have God, Karma and Faith on my side!

Other Dark thoughts torture me a lot…and they are about…what if…what if….I am an extremely sensitive nature, I’m an Artist and even though I’m clever, people do take advantage of me often. Yes, I say a lot that I’m tough but…the reality is I am …very soft and I cry a lot at night, but nobody knows. Well I guess after this interview is published everyone will know and so be it, I don’t mind. A lot of people jealous of me, they think wow this girl is something else, she grabbed Life by the balls, but reality is that the Life grabbed me by the throat and keeps testing me and testing me on how much bullshit I can take, and…I keep taking it. And every night when I go to bed I think: what is tomorrow going to bring? I try my hardest; I sacrifice everything to make something. And those dark thoughts come to me to remind that it’s not over yet, it’s only just the beginning….I am a Writer, Producer, Director and Actress and I am strong and I don’t have time for failures!

Tell us about your film ‘Sex, Blood and Fairy Tales’. How much of it is a fairy tale?

I’ve always loved reading Asian Mythology. The concepts of the tales are simple but yet very involved and beautiful so they’ve carried their subliminal messages through centuries to our days.  I discover them in everyday life in metaphorical ways. One of the Influences is the Fox that represents a Woman. If the Fox is treated nicely she is a loyal friend and a faithful partner for life. If the Fox is treated poorly she becomes a thief and steals from you. If you’re cruel to the Fox she’ll act by impulse and murder you and yea, she’ll regret it later.  The Fox is a beautiful animal, so the question is: why treat it with cruelty?

I’ll give a bit of introduction of what the movie is about but there won’t be any spoilers and the payoff in the end will knock your socks off so don’t worry.  Vera lives in Russia and her purpose in life is to become a wife to a good man and live happily ever after. But as they say: the timing is everything.

She kills her fiancé on the Engagement Night right after he kneels to propose, puts a ring one her finger and…confesses that he was unfaithful to her “a few times”.  Why didn’t he confess before the Engagement Night? Because he was scared she’d never marry him after that. If he had Faith in her forgiving nature it could’ve saved him his life!

(By the way, the Russian name Vera means “Faith” in the Russian language)

Can a coward survive in a jungle? And our life is worse than a jungle…

Did he deserve to die? No. But betrayal feels like death which she has experienced after she found out that the “other woman” was her sister who Vera cannot even confront because she has recently died in a car crash! From the audience I wish to hear equal comments such as “Asshole deserves to die!” and “Crazy bitch overreacted!”

By Faith Vera’s lawyer happens to be a person she grew up with and he helps her avoid prison by introducing her to a 62 year old Russian Businessman who desperately needs to please his 30 year old wife by getting her a Mythical treasure that is located in a certain place where Vera will go not only to escape a homicide trial but also to get a hefty reward. Is the Russian Businessman pathetic for trying to please his gold-digger wife or is he simply in love and trying to do whatever it takes to make her happy?  Is the lawyer who helps Vera escape conviction corrupted and evil or does he go against his principals to stand by his friend’s side? And does Vera really escape the punishment?  The audience will find out what happens to Vera on her journey, when she, transforming from a housewife-to-be into a free bird in a Free Country, the USA, gets a job in the place where anything goes and that is run by the deadliest in the world Yakuza mafia.
Vera meets Lori who helps run business for his father, a Yakuza Boss. Lori develops feelings for her. But in his world being soft and caring is considered a weakness and a deadly flaw.  Therefore, he constantly doubts himself if it’s okay to have feelings. Meanwhile, Vera who has always dreamt of love followed by marriage and children becomes a Man-hater and is haunted by Guilt. Here comes the symbolical Fairy Tale part when Lori tries to help Vera overcome the Guilt by teaching her strong beliefs he lives by: the body is the Dove and the brain is the Serpent, we are just like animals and one of the animal’s instinct is killing but….Animals Experience No Guilt.

Which directors and actors do you like and why?

In 1989 I saw “Santa Sangre” a Mexican-Italian surrealist film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky that blew my mind. The film was bizarre, twisted and brilliant. When I saw it for the first time I couldn’t understand the meaning of the film but I was so drawn to the visuals, I knew it was changing me forever. I was too young to understand that film in 1989 so I came back to it few years later only to realize that the way the movie was made to understand it was not a mandatory because the purpose of it was to give a freedom of the choice.

Then I discovered Quentin Tarantino. I love him because he’s fearless. He takes the best classic movements and turns them into caricatures! He is brave and daring. Although, the most pathetic critique I heard about him is that “he teaches kids violence”. Please, people get a life! His “bloody” movies are the least of your concerns. If the violence is the only thing you see in his movies, it is because of your own lack of perception.

Next is “Babel” is a drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu  who has also directed my another favorite movie “Amores Perros”.

And of course, a film that I watched 23 times no less “Slumdog Millionaier” by Danny Boyle.

The film “Chocolat” an adaptation of novel by Joanne Harris in 1999.

I love Woody Allen with passion. I love him for his way of portraying human nature. I love how his characters interact with each other, how they talk and what they talk about, and how it can be both funny and sad at the same time.

In making films, how much is money important to you?

My long-term goal is to keep making films that will take a viewer on a journey of delicious pleasures of intellect. I am an extremely demanding viewer, I get bored and annoyed very easily and I know what I should do to keep a viewer of any age, gender and race excited through teasing their eyes and senses, through manipulating their minds and tickling their souls. This is what I want to do 24/7 every day the rest of my life: I want to go beyond the visible and represent a new style of vision that comes from my vivid self.

I want to have a lot of money. They say “money does not buy happiness” but money gives you the tools to build happiness, and if I’m able to do what makes me happy I’ll be building happiness for people by hiring them to do what they love to do and paying them well for it! I don’t need money to buy $6.000 bags, but I’m full of ideas, my brain never stops producing and I consider that both Blessing and a Curse. I write all my ideas down and they’re just waiting for their turn to become live.

I’ve recently opened a Production company. Royal Blade productions, LLC is taking its baby steps to one day turn into a powerful force. I know many talented amazing actors who struggle, their lives are very difficult but they have so much to offer and I would always include them in my projects and I would really love to see how their lives change from struggles to success and I’d really love to sit in a front row and see them doing it big on a Big Screen in my movies!

I would love to build animal shelters in the Ukraine. The streets there are full of abandoned starving cats and dogs. Every time I visit the Ukraine my heart bleeds when I see those poor animals that look like skin and bones. I’m not going to give a big cliché speech about how I would change the World because I’m not running for President or Miss America, but I want to do what really IS possible!

I have enough ideas to give jobs to an enormous amount of people.  But it all takes MONEY.

Thank you Yelena for giving a great and honest interview.

Thank you Richard for taking the interview!

And also thank you for the bottle of Chateau Lafite  : )

You can find out more about Yelena and ‘Sex, Blood and Fairy Tales’ at her website here.