Lisa Forget: Girls & Monsters - An interview with Author Anne Michaud

She who likes dark things never grew up. She never stopped listening to gothic, industrial and alternative bands like when she was fifteen. She always loved to read horror and dystopia and fantasy, where doom and gloom drip from the pages.

She, who was supposed to make films, decided to write short stories, novelettes and novels instead. She, who’s had her films listed on festival programs, has been printed in a dozen anthologies and magazines since.

She who likes dark things prefers night to day, rain to sun, and reading to anything else.

She is Anne Michaud....

Lisa: Welcome to my little corner of cyberspace Anne!!! I'm in the throes of reading your book. I'm loving it! Creepy, thought-provoking,enjoyable morsel of literature. Tell me, what sparked the idea to write Girls and Monsters?

Anne: I had a bunch of short stories either rejected by magazines or that were supposed to be part of anthologies that never saw the day, so instead of having them locked up in my computer, I decided to expand them into novellas. Actually, I got the idea after writing Misery of Me (Tattered Souls volume 2, Cutting Block Press), since I loved writing novellas, I decided to changed them all and group them into one collection.

Lisa: An ingenious way for us all to enjoy your dark tales - all nestled between two covers.

Now, the "Girls" of Girls and Monster face some pretty scary creatures, tell me what monster do you fear most?

Anne: Man. After wars, rapes, murders, hate and abuse, I think Man is the biggest monster of them all. What we can do when we're angry, how easily we can turn into monsters ourselves, this is what truly frightens me.

Lisa: No truer words could ever have been uttered.... How about the tales told in this collection of dark fiction, were any inspired by strange, yet true, events?

Anne: Well, Death Song and We Left at Night were both dreams I had a couple years ago, which makes them true in my life. I had a crazy neighbor growing-up, so the monster in A Blue Story wasn't hard to find. Black Dog was inspired by my first time in London living there, where I stayed in a youth hostels with a Churchill statue across the street. And Dust Bunnies is a mix of The Cure's Lullaby and Christiane F's (young Berliner prostituting for heroin), which could be considered true events – and sad, for sure.

Lisa: And would you say there's a message, in the stories featured in Girls and Monsters, that you hope to get across to your readers?

Anne: YES! Girls can be strong, can fight, don't need boys or adults to be in charge. Girls don't have to conform to society's perception of what they can and cannot do; they can be whatever they want. I want the girls who read this to understand we all make mistakes, we can all be weak at times, but in the end, we can kick butts.

Lisa: GIRL POWER!!! LOVE IT!! Any plans for Girls facing other supernatural entities?

anne: Of course, dear friend. I'm finishing up a soft sci-fi collection of novellas called Girls & Aliens, and the next one will be Girls & Ghosts. Dark and creepy would best describe these collections, methinks.

Lisa: Can't wait!

Well Girls and Boys....

She blogs http://annecmichaud.wordpress.com

She Facebooks: http://www.facebook.com/annecmichaud

She tweets @annecmichaud