It’s hard to lurk around the Facebook groups that are dedicated to horror authors and not read Craig DiLouie’s name. He’s a wildly popular author of thrillers, apocalyptic/horror, and sci-fi/fantasy.
In hundreds of reviews, Craig’s novels have been praised for their strong characters, action, and gritty realism. Each book promises an exciting experience with people you’ll care about in a world that feels real. His books have been nominated for major literary awards such as the Bram Stoker Award and Audie Award, translated into multiple languages, and optioned for film. He is a member of the HWA, International Thriller Writers, and IFWA.
I’ll say it…the dude is impressive and he’s Canadian! Well, not really. But he lives here now, so he’s ours - SO BACK OFF!
I’m very excited to get to know this guy a little more.
Let’s get to it!
Tell me a little about yourself.
I'm a middle-aged writer living in Canada, though I was born in New Jersey and lived in New York City for many years. Growing up on a farm outside a small town, I spent a lot of hours with my imagination, and when I discovered the works of Robert E. Howard in my teens, I knew I wanted to be a writer, not just a reader. Since then, it's been a long, gratifying, and humbling journey with fiction, which finally found success in the last fifteen years first with zombie fiction, then with multiple horror and other spec fiction novels published by the likes of Hachette and Simon & Schuster. At the same time, I've worked as an advertising executive, magazine editor, and more recently as a journalist and educator specializing in the construction industry. Besides all that, I have a wonderful partner--a horror author herself--and two wonderful children. I'm a lucky guy.
Why write horror? What is it about writing terrifying scenes that excites you?
I grew up on the disaster and apocalyptic movies of the seventies and have always been fascinated by stories of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. The psychology of humans in crisis, seeing what they're really made of.
When I lived in New York, I had a very personal taste of this when the woman I was married to at the time was working on the 87th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when it was hit on 9/11/01. For hours, I feared the worst, and then she showed up covered in dust, shaken but alive. My first horror fiction--apocalyptic stories with zombies--was I think really me processing the emotions of that day.
My zombies books are grimdark, violent, gritty, and deal with the emotional pain of losing everything, not wish fulfillment. Published by two small presses, these books were bestsellers in that little genre, which promptly exploded with self-publishing as hundreds of authors tried their hand at it. Things were getting saturated, but I was ready to move on anyway, finally gaining an agent and getting my first fiction placed with a Big 5 publishers, in this case Simon & Schuster.
Over time, I changed agents and scored a beautiful relationship with Hachette, which has published four of my works, the latest being EPISODE THIRTEEN, a novel of found-footage horror that is doing very well. One thing I think readers would say about my work is I'm always trying something new, that I'm willing to take creative risks. Looking back, I'm not sure if I found horror or it found me, but I couldn't be happier. It's a small genre but with a terrific devoted fan base, and the community of authors is warm and welcoming. It's also a ton of fun imagining the worst--and, as always, seeing what people are made of when confronted by horror.
Describe as best you can the first or most significant success you’ve had in your writing career. First book published? First good review from someone you didn’t know? It can be anything. But it has to be personal. Something special to you.
In publishing, success is really about having the right book at the right time and then hopefully getting a whole lot of luck. It's also whatever you decide it is. And it's a long game, with success not an on/off switch so much as a ladder with a whole lot of rungs. Me, I'm what is called a mid-lister, a reliable seller in the publisher's stable but no Stephen King. Still, I couldn't be happier with how far I've come.
So I'd have to say the whole last 15 years has been a wonderful success, as all the angst and endless hard work finally paid off, I'm able to earn an income and audience doing something I love, and I've finally put in enough hours at this game to feel like I really know what I'm doing. You asked about reviews...
Along the way, I've seen a lot of reviews of my work, some that gave me life and others that wrecked my world. Then that one review comes along, that one beautiful review where someone not only liked my stuff but showed a spot-on understanding of exactly what I was trying to communicate. The magic of fiction in action, where you have something in your head, you translate it into symbols, and then somebody else sees the exact same thing in their head. Anytime I feel bummed, I see a review like that and I think, Thank you, I'm gonna keep writing, and this next book is just for you.
What’s the scariest book you’ve read? And why?
The first truly scary book I read was THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, and part of what made it so terrifying was at the early age I read it, I believed the claim it was a true story. For the young, the willing suspension of disbelief is very willing when it comes to horror! Since then, books honestly don't scare me that much, though Orwell's 1984 might be an exception to that. Mostly, I look for horror fiction that titillates me with a sense of dread and wonder. Those are my favorites. One I can point to as one of my absolute favorites, which I recently gave a fresh read, is THE DESCENT by Jeff Long. It's a horror story, an adventure story, a mystery, and more all wrapped in an overarching narrative with an epic feel. The novel is packed with interesting ideas and places and events that evoke wonder.
What are you working on now? Is it a standalone? Part of a series?
Right now, I'm wrapping up final edits on HOW TO MAKE A HORROR MOVIE, a standalone horror novel, which might be described as FINAL DESTINATION meets Netflix's A BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR.
In a nutshell: "A slasher film director wants to make a horror movie using a cursed camera that kills anyone he cares about. The scream queen he loves wants to survive the night. Together, director and Final Girl, they’re about to make movie history." No publication date yet, but it will likely come out from Hachette in 2024.
I'm also self-publishing a novel titled DJINN in June 2023, an adventure/horror story that redefines the witch for the War on Terror. And I'll be self-publishing a novel about Bigfoot late in the year.
Where can we find you?
A huge thanks to honorary Canadian, and incredibly talented Craig DiLouie. Thank you sir for absolutely crushing my five measly questions! The bar has definitely been raised my friends. Take note!
Craig’s latest book EPISODE THIRTEEN is sitting where it should, high in the Amazon charts and the reviews are astounding. Check out some of the heavy-hitters dropping blurbs.
A beautiful Russian doll of a story… Episode Thirteen hooks you, creeps you out, and then it overwhelms you. It’s House of Leaves meets Haunting of Hill House, in all the best possible ways.”
―Peter Clines, NYT Bestselling Author of The Broken Room
“Episode Thirteen does not go where you think it will…instead it offers bizarre twists, devious reveals, and unexpected shocks. Deeply satisfying and a hell of a lot of weird fun!”
―Jonathan Maberry - New York Times Bestselling Author of Patient Zero
"An epistolary descent into a living nightmare . . . well-written and genuinely unsettling. Fans of paranormal documentaries, ghost-hunting shows, and found-footage horror will lose their minds over this one."
―Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Kin
These interviews have been a labour of love. I love learning about the lives of fellow horror writers. Where did they grow up? What jobs have they done? Or still do while they create these amazing stories? What scares them? What they’re reading? What drives them to create the stories we all love to devour? So thanks again to Craig for letting us peek behind the curtain on the life of an amazing talent!
If you are a horror writer who would like to be featured on MASTERS OF HORROR for some free publicity just click the link below, answer the 5 Questions as fully and completely as possible and soon, you too, will be a MASTER OF HORROR!