Super fun one today! I’m a big fan of our 3Q’s guest. She delivers some fantastic dark poetry, some bleak fiction and makes me smile and laugh with her fun Tik Tok/IG videos!

Please do welcome Jessica McHugh!

Steve:  What does your writing time look like? Do you try and write at the same time each day? Do you have a word count you attempt to hit?
Jessica: It’s changed a lot over the years and varies depending on what project I’m focusing on. If I’m working on fiction, I’ll typically work in the evenings after I get off from my day job. If I have the day off, I’ll devote most of my day to creating. I especially love writing and making blackout poetry in bars, so I might head out for happy hour and allow the beer and boisterous surroundings to inspire me. I don’t tend to have a starting/ending time. It’s usually just writing ’til I can’t writes no more! And unless I’m doing something like nanowrimo, I don’t focus on word count. I’d rather focus on making my words count. If I’m working on blackout poetry, my productivity depends on what stage I’m in. If I’m finding/writing poems, I can do that anywhere, anytime, and will as much as possible. If I’m in the art portion, I need to have all my supplies, so it’s a little more difficult to carve out time. But if you live in my hometown, you know it’s not strange to see me stomping down the street with my big briefcase of art supplies to work on poetry at a pub.

Steve: You decide to host a writer’s retreat. One weekend in a luxury house on an island. What three other authors do you invite to come along?
Jessica: This is incredibly tough because there are so many amazing authors with whom I’d love to run away to a writing retreat. 3 just isn’t enough! But since the questionnaire is forcing me…Stephanie Wytovich, Gemma Amor, & Danger Slater. Then I’d break the rules and invite 12 more!

Steve: Tell me about your newest release (novel/story/poem/novella) and why someone should read it!

Jessica: In September, Ghoulish Books released the start to my bonkers horror series, The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy. The first book “Rabbits in the Garden” follows 13-year-old Avery Norton as she’s accused of murder and incarcerated in Taunton Asylum in the late 1950s. Grappling with her overbearing–and allegedly homicidal–mother Faye, and being separated from her first love, Paul, Avery is forced to question her own innocence at every turn, which leads to a familial showdown that continues in the 1975 cult horror sequel, “Hares in the Hedgerow” due to be released on November 15th. The sequel has some fun new characters as well, including the enigmatic Mother Agnes and her spiritual family, the Choir of the Lamb, as well as an intriguing new kind of therapist attuned to Avery’s specific malady.
If you dig intense, sometimes disturbing, stories of family drama/trauma with shocking twists and turns that span decades, you will probably dig the mad adventure that is the Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy.

https://perpetualpublishing.com/product/hares-in-the-hedgerow/

Steve: Bonus Question! You receive an invitation in the mail from one of these two people. The invitation invites you to have dinner and spend the night in their home. Do you accept the invitation from Victor Frankenstein or Dracula and why?

Jessica: I’m going with Dracula, despite the many hot Victor Frankensteins that have been presented to me over the years, cuz I weirdly think I could handle an evening with a dude who turns living people into undead people, rather than a dude who dreams of turning pieces of dead people into one living person. But I might change my mind if Victor looks like James McAvoy. I’d overlook many icky things for a James McAvoy Frankenstein.

Ha! Great answer, and just for you, I found this fanart made over on Deviant Art by amywestern of James McAvoy as a vampire knight!

Thank you so much, Jessica! And best of luck with your launch!

To find more of her work – check the links!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jessica-McHugh/e/B003NUKAA4/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theJessMcHugh

Website: https://mchughniverse.com/