{"id":17680,"date":"2022-12-16T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=17680"},"modified":"2022-12-14T22:54:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T03:54:59","slug":"interview-eric-larocca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/interview-eric-larocca\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cemetery Dance Interview: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke to Eric LaRocca"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eric LaRocca<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eric LaRocca is an American author who burst onto the horror scene with his debut publication, <\/b>Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke<\/i><\/b>. The novella quickly went viral and forced many a reader to give pause and find out for themselves if all the hype was for real. Not only was the hype well earned, but in subsequent publications (<\/b>We Can Never Leave This Place, The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, You\u2019ve Lost A Lot Of Blood,<\/i><\/b> They Were Here Before Us)<\/i><\/b> LaRocca proves he is hardly a one-bolt-strike of polarizing lightning. The man writes as if possessed by a storm of collected maladies rendered by the universal subconscious of our darkest fears and twisted perceptions. What LaRocca does with the source of our lamentations is nothing short of brilliant. His artistic muse easily transcends the very label which defines genre and offers instead a peeled-back look at our bare selves in a world where showcasing what\u2019s truly inside is often controversial at best, feared and shamed or downright hated at worst, whilst compassion and understanding become virtues most discarded.<\/b><\/p>\n

With a bravado that is both rare and refreshing, LaRocca writes from the heart even as it bleeds everything he has to offer until we\u2019re moved to think in uncomfortable ways because the author understands discomfort is necessary for forward motion, for progress.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to sit down with LaRocca and dive into the makings of what makes him tick, what makes his work so damn infectious and, perhaps most importantly, what\u2019s next in line to stir our mind and heart.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

(Interview conducted by\u00a0Rick Hipson<\/a>)<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n

CEMETERY DANCE: Eric, like a lot of your readers, I first heard of you through your viral book sensation, <\/b>Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke<\/i><\/b>. I feel most folks want to be a viral sensation, but what does it mean when you have a book that\u2019s a viral sensation? I mean, other than infecting people with the nightmares you write about, what is a viral sensation when it comes to books?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\"coverERIC LAROCCA: Well, I think that term really was coined by the marketing department at Titan, which is putting out the book you\u2019re talking about, <\/span>Things That Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke<\/span><\/i>, but it\u2019s also being packaged with two other stories. So, the book is called <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes<\/span><\/i>. To answer your question, I think of books like <\/span>Bird Box<\/span><\/i> that was a cultural phenomenon, like with the movie, like any sort of media that has that kind of quality that just goes in, it kind of seeps into other communities and reaches as far as it possibly can. With <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse, <\/span><\/i>there were so many people who were reading the book who weren\u2019t necessarily in the niche horror market that it was written for, and that really surprised me because I would have people telling me, \u201cYou know, I saw your book on this random app. I saw your book being reviewed by this person that has no affiliation with the horror genre.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was really quite strange when that happened because <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse <\/span><\/i>was really kind of a niche project. It was published through Weirdpunk Books<\/a>, which is a very small micro-press based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they publish a lot of religious, dark, gritty, transgressive fiction. I think the reason why <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse<\/span><\/i> broke out the way it did was maybe a couple of things. It obviously was seen by the right people at the right time, so that people could have access to it and read it and formulate their own opinions, but I really do think the cover art was a big selling point. I think people were already familiar with Tim Jacobson, who did the cover art for the original edition of <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse.<\/span><\/i> I think that cover art really drew people in. I also think the title really drew people in. Moreover, the fact that the book was promoted as this nostalgic look at the interactions between two women in the early 2000s. I think nostalgia is really big. It was really big in 2020, 2021, so I feel like all of those elements combined and made the perfect storm of a book and a book release.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think those are really the key ingredients as to why the book became such a viral hit with people. That said, not everybody loved the book, and that\u2019s totally fine. Imagine if we all liked the same things, our world would be so boring.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cover art of the Weirdpunk Books release of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Exactly.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

People have very fixed opinions of the book, and a lot of those opinions helped the book go viral even more because a lot of people were saying, \u201cOh, it\u2019s trauma porn. Oh, it\u2019s fetishization of queer women.\u201d And those reviewers that reviewed the book and condemned it, in a way actually helped promote the book even more. I suspect they weren\u2019t trying to help promote the book, but in reality, negative reviews do help a book\u2019s success quite a bit, when you have reviews that are saying, \u201cThis is disgusting. This is horrible. This shouldn\u2019t be read.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forget, the first one-star review I got was for <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse<\/span><\/i> because it was essentially my debut novella with a press. I had released some material independently just through myself, but <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse,<\/span><\/i> for all intents and purposes, was my debut with a legitimate independent publisher. I remember the review said, \u201cThere are no words for how disgusting this book is.\u201d I was like “That\u2019s a rave review,” you know.<\/span><\/p>\n

A hundred percent.<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a review that will sell books. You\u2019ll get people\u2026 I mean obviously when I first got the review I was a little bummed because I was like, \u201cAh, shoot.\u201d One star doesn\u2019t feel great.\u00a0<\/span>But then when I looked at it and analyzed it and really saw, you know, really gave it some good thought, I was like \u201cOh, this review will actually help me quite a bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the blurb: <\/b>The most disgusting book you\u2019ve ever read.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly. That is a blurb. Then there were all these other reviewers who came out and said the book was trauma porn and fetishization and all of these things. And those reviews really made people interested and were like, \u201cOh, I really want to read this now.\u201d So, to get back to answering your question. A viral sensation, a viral hit with a book, I think it\u2019s any sort of book which is able to reach the furthest it can outside of it\u2019s intended readership. <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse <\/span><\/i>was written for a specific market, a specific readership, a niche, splatterpunk, transgressive fiction market. Those were the people I had in mind when I was writing the book, and then for it to blow up the way it did and move out into all of these different little niche communities in the reading community, I mean, that was just unbelievable to me. But it was also incredibly terrifying because to be mentioned and to be such a big hit with readers and to be talked about so much, it is kind of frightening. Going viral is really frightening, and it opens you up for a lot of abuse unfortunately, a lot of incorrect assessments of you, your character, your being, who you are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Right. How can anyone prepare for such a thing?<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s just what comes with it. I hope I\u2019m not making this all sound like super negative because it wasn\u2019t all negative. That book<\/span>\u00a0opened so many doors for me, and I met some incredible, incredible people through that book, people who read the book and then reached out to me and said, \u201cI\u2019m such a fan of your work.\u201d And a lot of projects I have coming out over the next couple of years are because of that book and the connections that I was able to make because of its success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, talk about kicking the door down straight out of the gates. I think that definitely goes to show you\u2019ve got a very healthy outlook on who you are, what your writing\u2019s about, how you intended to effect people by this, and that\u2019s great that you\u2019re not letting the naysayers get you down at all, obviously.’<\/b><\/p>\n

Totally. I said this yesterday on Twitter, because right now we\u2019re in the process of promoting another novella that\u2019s come out called <\/span>They Were Here Before Us<\/span><\/i>, and it\u2019s going to be released through Bad Hand Books<\/a>. A lot of early readers have expressed some — I guess concerns would be the only way I can describe it, saying to the editor that I\u2019ve been working with, Doug Murano, who is a Bram Stoker award-winning editor, \u201cThis book is going to upset a lot of people.\u201d A lot of people are going to be very, very upset by this book, and he stands by it. He stands by me. But I said to him over Twitter, I said, \u201cYou know, the worst kind of reaction to any piece of art is indifference or apathy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Absolutely.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"coverIf you consume any kind of media, any book, film, whatever, and your thought at the end of it was, \u201cWell, it was alright. I guess it was fine.\u201d You don\u2019t really have an opinion of it. That to me, that\u2019s a failure. That would be a failure for me as an artist, if I left you feeling indifferent to whatever you just read. I had failed in my capacity to tell a story that shook you and made you think and maybe disgusted you, maybe just made you feel something. That\u2019s what I try to do with any of my work.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I would rather be hated than just be somebody that people are indifferent about. You know what I mean? And I kind of have come to terms with the fact that I think my work for the rest of my life is going to be very polarizing with people, and that\u2019s totally fine because all of the great writers and great filmmakers that I absolutely love, they\u2019re polarizing people themselves. I\u2019m thinking of people like Peter Greenaway and Lars von Trier. Writers like Jack Ketchum. I mean he was beloved in horror, but there are people that still struggle with his works and the things that he wrote about. I think really dynamic and interesting art is polarizing. That\u2019s where I see myself existing as an artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean God forbid you\u2019re the kind of person who could drive by a horrific accident and just think, \u201cMeh.\u201d It\u2019s just another day. As much as you hate being behind the rubberneckers, at the same time that\u2019s the sort of thing which probably should get a reaction out of you. Maybe after you drive by a horrific accident, you know, go home, hug your family, be grateful they\u2019re there. Have the talk with your kids about don\u2019t drink and drive, or pay attention to what\u2019s around you. I mean fatal car crashes are horrible things, but they can have the capacity to affect people in a positive way as well.<\/b><\/p>\n

Totally.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the same could be said for a lot of, like what you said, transgressive horror books which are really upsetting to people, but good! Let\u2019s get a reaction out of you. Let\u2019s talk about this. Why does it upset you? What can you do to create a world in which you don\u2019t have to have these real-life atrocities occur around you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Right, exactly. Any excellent book will make you react in some way, and that\u2019s what I try to do when I write. I\u2019m not trying to write<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>oh, what\u2019s the sickest thing I can think of I can write? I\u2019m telling a story. I\u2019m trying to tell a story with real, palpable, human characters who will make you react and reflect on your own life and your own morals and your own views.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first book of yours I read was <\/b>We\u2019ve Never Left This Place<\/i><\/b>. Where did this story come from? Did you wake up one day and see giant spiders in a flooded out apartment with a dead body laying on a bed in a nursery, and think hey,<\/em> t<\/b>hat would be a good story to tell<\/i><\/b>? What was the starting point for you for this book?<\/b><\/p>\n

This book had really a very unique journey that a lot of my other books have had. I went to Emerson College as a screen writing major for my graduate program, and I was there for two years. The program was a two-year conservatory program, and I had to write a full-length screenplay as part of my second-year curriculum. I was looking around, trying to gain inspiration. I knew I wanted to write something about grief and how we process grief and losing a loved one. I knew I wanted to discuss those things, and I started doing research, and I came across this really fascinating article. I forget what country it was specifically, but it was a group of people, like a small society of people, that whenever they would lose a loved one in their village, they would amputate a finger or a part of a limb, and it would be a physical representation of the loss they had experienced when they lost their loved one. It would be like a permanent reminder of the loss.<\/span><\/p>\n

So they would amputate their fingers, you mean? Or the fingers of the loved one?<\/b><\/p>\n

Of themselves. Yeah. Of themselves. And I thought, <\/span>Wow, that\u2019s so fascinating<\/span><\/i>. And that\u2019s right up my alley, because I love that kind of literal representation of something that\u2019s more figurative. You know what I mean? Cronenberg does a lot of stuff like that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s true.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

He\u2019s one of my favorites. So, I did some research about this particular village, this group, that was amputating parts of their body whenever a person in their village passed away, and I thought it was really interesting. That\u2019s where the seed of the story began. I developed it from there. I set it in this war-torn country, and I knew I wanted to focus on a young girl who was around fifteen or sixteen. The journey took me from there, but I wrote it as a screenplay first and I workshopped it in class and changed some elements, added a few more beats to the arcs, certain character arcs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"coverAfter Emerson, after I graduated, I was like, oh, okay, so I can either go to L.A. and pursue a career in screen writing, or I can stay on the East Coast and try to kind of make that work, but work on other projects too. At the time, my fiction writing was really taking off. I was working a lot more on fiction, and I had met my boyfriend who lived in Boston, and I was like <\/span>I don\u2019t really want to go to L.A<\/span><\/i>. So I just decided I\u2019m going to stay in Boston and see what I can do, how I can achieve my dreams here in Boston by not going to L.A. A year passed and then I wrote the first draft of those scripts, like 2019, 2018? And then when my fiction writing started getting acceptances to magazines, literary journals, and then eventually <\/span>Weird Punk<\/span><\/i>. I was like, ah, I should adapt this screenplay as a novella, you know, as a piece of fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

I started working on it, and it pretty much follows the same sort of trajectory that the original screenplay followed. The great thing about fiction is you can editorialize more, and you can fill in the gaps, and you can describe how people feel. You can\u2019t really do that in screenwriting, you know. It\u2019s all visual.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Exactly. A lot more narrative, and you can explore people\u2019s inner dialogues a lot better.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right. So, I felt like I had a good framework of the story because I have the screenplay to work from. But then I could really play with the relationship between Mara and her mother, and Mara\u2019s mother\u2019s hatred for Mara, and go into more depth with certain character beats I wanted to explore more. Essentially, it was a very quick writing process, adapting the screenplay to the novella form. Maybe a couple of weeks, not even.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are they pretty similar?<\/b><\/p>\n

They\u2019re very similar, yeah. They\u2019re very, very similar in that they follow the same story. The original draft of the screenplay didn\u2019t include — I guess we\u2019re going to go into spoiler territory, if that\u2019s okay?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, absolutely. So if anybody doesn\u2019t want to get spoilers, now\u2019s your chance to go get a coffee, go pee, go outside, or scroll to the next question.<\/b><\/p>\n

Alright, so now that we\u2019re in spoiler territory, the original draft of the screenplay didn\u2019t include the giant talking vermin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No kidding?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I wrote them as circus performers, as extravagant characters coming into this house, and I remember workshopping it and my professor was like, \u201cThis story is interesting but it needs another layer to it. It needs something that gives it more of an <\/span>umph<\/span><\/i>.\u201d It\u2019s hard to receive that note because you\u2019re like, what the hell can I add to it already?<\/span><\/p>\n

I can imagine.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right. But it changed me organically. I don\u2019t even remember how the idea came to me, but I decided one day, what if they\u2019re all animals? What if they\u2019re all vermin? And I pitched it to the professor, and he was like, \u201cOh, I love that. I love that.\u201d That\u2019s when I locked it in, and I was like this is the story I\u2019m telling.\u00a0 I knew I wanted to keep it for the novella because I think it works. I think it works beautifully.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, a hundred percent.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, the way Mara processes her grief and her inability to cope with what\u2019s going on around her, it makes total sense her trauma would force her to see home intruders as otherworldly, like talking vermin. You know what I mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

I think I do. She\u2019s been so traumatized, it\u2019s almost like she\u2019s trying to put securities wherever she can. Whether or not it\u2019s from her own delusions or whatnot. Those delusions create such powerful images. I\u2019m glad that you gave that confession, that spoiler, because, honestly, I thought that was one of the strongest aspects of this book.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I kept wondering is this really a giant spider? Or is there a supernatural element to it? Is this really what\u2019s going on? Is Mara crazy? What else is being described that isn\u2019t quite as it seems? And I\u2019m sold. I\u2019m all in. I\u2019m all in on this one because I have to be. I\u2019m constantly trying to interpret situations and read between the lines in case there\u2019s anything else I should be picking up on.<\/b><\/p>\n

I hope people will go back and reread the book after reading the ending and knowing the reveal. I hope they\u2019ll go back and experience the book again with knowing what they know and seeing the gradual build up of everything. So, yeah. Maybe I shouldn\u2019t have confessed that, but I just want to be honest with readers, and let them know that the writing journey, it\u2019s not a perfect journey. Sometimes to get from A to B you have to go to H and then back to D, and then forward a little. There\u2019s no perfect writing journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No, not at all. I mean I\u2019ve heard of authors writing the complete end of a story, and then they\u2019ll write everything else to try to lead up to that point.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right.<\/span><\/p>\n

For them, the exercise is, \u201cOkay, how do I get there? I already know how it\u2019s going to end.\u201d Which I think is kind of boring, but to each their own.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. I mean, whatever works for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I guess the next natural question, Eric, considering you\u2019ve got a screenplay for this bad boy sitting in your desk somewhere, hopefully not collecting too many spiders and vermin, is what kind of plans might be up your sleeve to bring any of your work to the screen?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how much I\u2019m allowed to talk about it, but for <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse,<\/span><\/i> I definitely talked about it on Twitter a little bit. We are trying to move forward with a film adaptation of that book, and things are lining up. We\u2019re getting closer and closer every day to making a deal and getting it greenlit and getting it into production, but that is the major thing that I\u2019m working on right now as far as film adaptation. I do have the script for <\/span>We Can Never Really Leave This Place<\/span><\/i>. It’s on my hard drive on my computer. So, I would love to eventually pitch it to a studio or any interested party. I have a manager whose like my film\/tv representation, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve let him read it yet because we\u2019ve been so focused on getting <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse<\/span><\/i> off the ground, but I think once we get that out of the way, and we get that going in the right direction, I think we might talk about something like this being done because I would love to see this on the screen. I would love to see it as a kind of claymation animated film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, that would be cool, because then you can have the giant spiders and the giant talking cockroaches and the snakes.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019d like to see it like Coraline<\/em>. I\u2019d love to see it like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

You know the movie <\/b>MAD GOD <\/i><\/b>\u00a0that came out?\u00a0 Claymation is back. I guess it\u2019s more of a stop motion, but still.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right. I\u2019m totally game for that. That\u2019s probably my biggest aspiration right now is to get a movie made in animation, like claymation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that would be pretty fantastic. I\u2019d love to see something like that, too, and it\u2019s nice as well because you can have the same setting for most of the scenes since the story unfolds in the same place, in their apartment.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right, exactly. Even if you did it like a full production which wasn\u2019t animated, it would still, well, you know, the CGI for the animals might be a little much, but I feel like it wouldn\u2019t be that expensive of a film to produce. But I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ll have to let my manager deal with that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you far enough along where they\u2019re talking about directors and potential people they can put in there, or is it more a matter of this is feasible, how do we get the financing for this, and the initial stages?<\/b><\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m just going to tell you that we do have a director. The director has signed onto the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, good.<\/b><\/p>\n

And we\u2019re working together on finalizing what we want to send to other production companies. So, a director has signed on. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m allowed to say who it is, but yeah, we do have a director, and we\u2019re on a really tight deadline now with getting it out in front of people. So, I\u2019m excited. I feel really good about it, and the script is\u2026 I say it\u2019s better than the book because I feel like I\u2019ve added so much more character, and I\u2019ve filled in so many blanks which were left in the original novella. I feel really proud about this screenplay even if it doesn\u2019t get made in the end. I feel like I really delivered some quality work here.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got a couple more things coming up. I know you\u2019ve got a collection of short stories that I think you\u2019ve announced. Then you\u2019ve got another novella that\u2019s coming out in what? October, I believe.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yup. Late October. That\u2019s through Bad Hand Books. It\u2019s called, <\/span>They Were Here Before Us<\/span><\/i>. But prior to that, in September, I have <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes<\/span><\/i> coming out through Titan Books, and that\u2019s the original novella <\/span>Things Have Gotten Worse<\/span><\/i> and then two other novellas packaged with it, and these novellas have\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Will it be a different cover?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, a different cover. These novellas have never been published before, so they\u2019re brand new material for people to enjoy. And then I have a little bit of a break, which is good. After those stacked book releases, and then in March 2023, I\u2019ve got <\/span>The Trees Grew Because I Bled There<\/span><\/i> collected stories, which is a collection of short stories that was originally published in 2021, and it went out of print and now it\u2019s being re-published through Titan books.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to release too much content and then have people struggling to keep up with reading my material, so once 2022 is over and we hit 2023 and 2024, I think you\u2019ll see a much more methodical and staggered approach to my releases. There\u2019s definitely a reason behind it, is what I\u2019m trying to say.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, I know the first novel I put out into the world may not be a big hit like <\/span>Thing\u2019s Have Gotten Worse<\/span><\/i> was, but it\u2019s going to be the book that people are like, \u201cOh, yeah, that was Eric\u2019s first novel. That was his debut novel.\u201d I knew that I wanted a press that I was going to be able to really have not only a professional publishing relationship with but a personal connection with, you know what I mean? And I found that with Clash immediately, and they are the best people to work with. They\u2019ve edited the book. They\u2019ve really raised the bar with editing this book, and we\u2019ve had such high standards. The book went through two different editors. It\u2019s been like the equivalent of editing a book with a big four publisher, but just at a small publisher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s incredible. That\u2019s a lot of dedication on their part. I mean, obviously it\u2019s a business, but it\u2019s a business that they\u2019re passionate about too, it seems like, which I\u2019m happy to hear.<\/b><\/p>\n

Totally. And we\u2019ve worked with a bunch of different cover artists and we\u2019re still not where we want to be with the cover. We\u2019re working with a new designer right now, and fingers crossed that we get the cover we\u2019re looking for. They\u2019ve put so much time and energy and love into this book that even if it flops, I know so much love went into this book and so much care that any negative outcome is going to be overshadowed by the fact it was such a pleasurable experience to work on this novel with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Going back then to the book that I came to know your writing through, <\/b>We Can Never Leave This Place<\/i><\/b>, there\u2019s two questions I wanted to ask you. You did mention it\u2019s very transgressive which I definitely understand, and I have my own opinions as to why that it is, but what do you think it is that brings in folks who don\u2019t normally read things that are that provoking and that disturbing, and what do you think it is about this story that pushes through those genres and reaches a wider range of folks who maybe aren\u2019t quite ready for your writing as they thought they would be?<\/b><\/p>\n

Honestly, it has to do with I think, once again, the cover art. I think that cover art draws people in, and I knew when I saw that painting, I was like, this is what I want to be the cover of this book. It was a painting I saw on Instagram from this artist who I absolutely love from Greece. The painting is called “Fever.” I was like, oh, that\u2019s perfect for this book because the whole book is kind of like a fever dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

A hundred percent, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

I think it has to do with the artwork initially that draws people in and makes people curious, but then I think hopefully this doesn\u2019t sound conceited for me to say, but I think the way in which I present some of this content, I feel makes it a little bit easier to digest because there is a lot of care that goes into constructing each passage, each sentence. I\u2019m a big student of Clive Barker and his branding, and how beautifully poetic and lyrical his work is. He can write about the most vile, disgusting, just gruesome content, but it\u2019s delivered in such a poetic and beguiling manner.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s beauty to it for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s beauty to it, and I try no matter what I\u2019m writing to capture a semblance of beauty in anything I\u2019m working on. Anything which is really grotesque and gruesome, I try to make it complex and interesting but also make it somewhat palatable. I feel like when you deliver these kinds of gruesome scenes to people but you present it in a really poetic and lyrical way, I feel like people are not as easy to dismiss it and, you know, say, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going to DNF this book I can\u2019t get into. It\u2019s too much for me.\u201d I think people are really compelled by beautiful, intricate sentences, and I think it compels them to read further. And I really hope that doesn\u2019t sound conceited or anything, but\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

No, not at all. Not at all. I got the same feeling from reading you.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read so much of Barker and Michael McDowell, who is another openly gay author. His work also is in the same vein as Barker, where he just writes about very gruesome, grotesque things like the horrors of humanity, but he presents it in a really palatable and beautiful way. I would say my writing is really influenced by three writers, and it\u2019s Clive Barker, Michael McDowell, and Tennessee Williams.<\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t read Tennessee<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tennessee Williams, for those who don\u2019t know, he was an American playwright in the \u201840s and \u201850s. He had a lot of Broadway hits like <\/span>The Glass Menagerie<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>A Streetcar Named Desire, Night of the Iguana<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Summer in Smoke<\/span><\/i>. He had hit after hit, and his writing, he writes a lot of Southern Gothic, but his language is just so poetic and so decadent that it really captured me from a young age. He was one of the first writers that I was like, I want to be a writer because of reading this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s amazing.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s where I draw a lot of my inspiration from is those three writers. And I\u2019ve noticed that all three writers present really shocking things, but they do so in a really palatable, beautiful way, and I try to replicate that in my own work.<\/span><\/p>\n

is there anything in particular you can put your finger on and say, <\/b>That\u2019s what I want people to walk away feeling or thinking about with your particular brand of work<\/i><\/b>?<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a great question. I think it varies depending on the book.\u00a0 At the end of the day, I\u2019ve realized it\u2019s not my place at all to instill in people <\/span>I want you to think about this. I want you to react this way. I want you to think of me like this, when you think of me as a writer.<\/span><\/i> People will have their impressions of you. They\u2019re entitled to their opinions of you, and all I can do is present myself in such a way that I know my truth and I know who I am as a writer and what I want to be as a writer. So, I\u2019m just so grateful people are reading my work at the very least. That to me is a win. Anything else, any other conversations the book sparks, any controversies the book sparks, those are all the cherry on top. For me, I am grateful that people are reading the words I put down on paper. I can\u2019t thank people enough for letting me into their mind and sharing a little bit of time with me. I think I want people more than anything to know how grateful I am they\u2019re reading my work. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rick Hipson is a Canadian genre journalist living in Kitchener Ontario with his partner in crime, young spawn and two cats who insist they aren\u2019t vying for world domination. For over twenty years Rick has written for a variety of small press publications in print and online which no longer exist through, assumably, no fault of his own. He continues to share his love for dark culture entertainment through his film and book reviews, interviews and articles, which can be found through\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Rue Morgue Magazine, Cemetery Dance\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Hell Notes<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric LaRocca is an American author who burst onto the horror scene with his debut publication, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. The novella quickly went viral and forced many a reader to give pause and find out for themselves if all the hype was for real. Not only was the hype well … Continue Reading! “The Cemetery Dance Interview: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke to Eric LaRocca”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[2228,307,2207],"class_list":["post-17680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-eric-larocca","tag-interviews","tag-rick-hipson"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cemetery Dance Interview: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke to Eric LaRocca - 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