It’s a dreary Monday morning here, but meeting new authors and anything involving books always brightens my day. Inspiration can come from just about anywhere and today’s author proves it. She based a character in her book on a person she saw on the TV show Hoarders – who kept used body pads from funeral homes in her trailer. Welcome Sue Rovens!

Would you rather sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a haunted house?

Hmm. I think I’m going to have to go with the haunted house. I’d curl up somewhere and basically just hide until morning. There’s something unsettling about being IN a coffin – not just because of the lack of space to move around, but the sense that I don’t belong in one (at this time). It’s almost like tempting fate.

Has a movie or book scared you so much you…

Sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a haunted house? This author has a quick answer for that. Skip the coffin and send her the address of the haunted house. With the eerie experience she had in an abandoned hospital years ago, you’d think she wouldn’t be so eager. Guess again. Welcome Laya V. Smith!

Would you rather sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a haunted house?

Oh, that’s easy. Spending the night in a haunted house is a genuine goal of mine. If anybody knows of any, please send me the address. It doesn’t come out at all in my current release, but I am obsessed with ghosts, and let’s just say I have had one or two experiences that have left me cautiously optimistic about the possibilities. When I was a teenager, my then boyfriend and I…

Hello, SE readers. In my prior post, I wrote about inspiration. Today I continue along that same path and compare how one experience might spark inspiration for either a memoir or a novel.

In a sense, all writing is fiction because memory is never totally accurate. For example, when police consider the accounts of everyone at an accident scene, the differences are notable. Even the most obvious detail, such as the color of the cars, can vary wildly. The smaller details, of license plate numbers or the year and make of the car, are rarely consistent.

Perhaps a simple story will help clarify my point. Here goes. Imagine sitting at an outside table of a busy neighborhood bar. There is much laughter as toasts are offered, drinks held high. Then suddenly everything changes.

Two cars collide in front of the bar. When the police arrive, most folks have dispersed but…

Any witch fans out there? I don’t mean the Hocus Pocus kind (although they’re an undeniably awesome coven). Today’s author brings us a story based on a real married couple from the mid 1600s – and one of them is accused of witchcraft. Nearly forty years before the Salem Witch Trials began! Welcome Jean M. Roberts!

Would you rather sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a haunted house?

I think I’m going to have to go with the coffin, unless I had to sleep with the lid closed. Did you ever see the Vincent Price movie, Pit and the Pendulum, where the girl is buried alive in a casket, hooey, scary. I’m not sure I’d survive a haunted house, depends on the ghosts. What are the odds I’d get Casper?

Has a movie or book scared you so much you couldn’t sleep? Which one?

I’ve been a fan of this author’s Cassie Tam series from book one and have today’s featured book waiting on my Kindle (read my most recent review of book 3 HERE). While I’m sad to say goodbye to Cassie and Bert (the coolest gargoyle familiar you’ll ever meet), I’m hoping she gets her happily ever after with girlfriend Lori. Read on to learn how this author spent time in a coffin – and it wasn’t by choice. Welcome Matt Doyle!

Would you rather sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a haunted house?

Haunted house, definitely. I’m not consistently claustrophobic, but I can get jittery in confined spaces. I’ve seen a fair few coffins in my time, because my Dad’s an undertaker. I’ve been in one too, though not thanks to him.

We have a haunted fort one town over from me, and they…

I am so pleased to have Fellow Story Empire member and author Marcia Meara with me today. She is here to discuss Book Three of her Emissary Series.  Marcia the floor is yours. (Well, the walls too.)

Thanks so much for having me here today, John. I’m pretty excited to be sharing the news of my latest release with you and your followers, and I’d like to take a moment to chat about angels in today’s fiction.

I don’t know how many of you have noticed, but angels on book covers in recent years do not look like they did when I saw pictures of them in Sunday school. Nope. Not at all. For one thing, they aren’t wearing robes and carrying harps. Mostly, they’re bare-chested with those washboard abs that are so admired these days. This always leaves me wondering how they have time for typical angelic duties, what…

Today’s author made his debut at Bad Moon Rising last year with his horror novella, Reaper. If you’re not afraid of basements, his novella proves why you should steer clear of them. I was so excited to be an early reader for the sci-fi horror short story he’s featuring today. Cerebral uploading is nothing to sneeze at people – guard your brains. Welcome Jonathan Pongratz!

Has a movie or book scared you so much you couldn’t sleep?  Which one?

Yes! The Descent rocked me to my core when I first watched it, and I was terrified of those sharp-toothed, cave-dwelling monsters coming to get me. To this day it still gives me goosebumps, but at least I can get a night’s rest after watching it.

Would you rather use a Ouija board or participate in a séance?

You know, I’ve tried a Ouija board before without results, so let’s…