Another fun one today here at 3Q’s!

Hot off the recent release of her collection, ‘Tales My Grandmother Told Me: Thirteen Unsettling Tales,’ Heather Miller was kind enough to stop by and share a bit about her process. Heather is someone who has helped a lot of writers throughout the years and remains a positive and encouraging force to this day!

Please do welcome Heather!

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?

Heather: I do try to write at the same time each day, but which time of day that is varies depending on what I’m writing.  With my first book, Knock Knock, which took place almost exclusively during the nighttime/early morning hours, I did every bit of the writing between four and seven in the morning.  I generally write during whatever time of day the story I’m currently working on is set in.  It helps me get in the right mood.  I write for an hour or two at a time, which usually means somewhere between 1500-2000 words, depending on how many times my kids interrupt me!

Steve: You end up at an estate sale and discover an unpublished manuscript from an author you love. Do you keep it just for yourself or do you share it with the world?

Heather: Oh, come on.  Of course you send that story out into the world.  Share the stories, share the love. Well, unless there’s some note on the manuscript that says, “NEVER TO BE PUBLISHED” or something.  Hmm.  That sounds like a story idea itself…

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

Heather: My newest release is a short story collection titled TALES MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME.  In it are thirteen tales, most of which are based on stories or songs that my grandma used to tell us.  She was quite the character and she loved a good scary story.  She would scare us absolutely silly with creepy voices and the most awful facial expressions.  I’ve taken her tales and expanded on them a bit so that they read more like literary tales and not just oral retellings, but also still tried to maintain that creepy-spooky campfire tale feeling.  Some of the stories deal with the supernatural and some focus on the man-made horrors of real life.  There may even be a bit of humor hidden away in there somewhere.  The book is written for adults and has a sense of nostalgia about it that I think will strike a chord with most horror lovers.  It’s also “clean” horror so is perfectly appropriate for teens or even pre-teens who like to be scared (aside from a brief and non-detailed scene in the story “Cries from the Attic”, which portrays a sexual assault and may not be suitable for the younger end of that spectrum).

Steve: Bonus Question! You wake up in a comic book. What is your comic book character and what is your super power?

Heather: Well, my favorite characters are Jean Gray and Scarlet Witch.  So basically as long as I can be a red-haired femme fatale with the power to destroy the world, but with an eternal internal conflict as to whether or not I should, I’ll be happy.

Great choice! Thank you so much, Heather!

To find all of her work, take a look at the links!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Heather-Miller/e/B095YT8HRC/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HMillerHorror

Website: https://heathermillerhorror.com/