The following is an interview with Bram Stoker Award-winning author Hailey Piper regarding the upcoming release of the “Splatter Western” horror novel, Cruel Angels Past Sundown, through Dead Sky Publishing. In this interview, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief Barbra Dillon chats with Piper about her creative process in bringing the story and characters to life, what she hopes that readers may take away from the story, and more!
Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: Congratulations on the upcoming release of Cruel Angels Past Sundown! For those who may be unfamiliar, how would you describe the story’s premise, and what (or who) was its inspiration?
Hailey Piper: Thank you! The quick setup to Cruel Angels Past Sundown is that Annette Klein and her husband Frank encounter a strange pregnant woman at their ranch one evening. Within hours, the ranch is a bloodbath. Annette manages to escape from a cannibal demon and a mad preacher to the nearby town of Low’s Bend. No one there seems to know what’s crossed her path, but with a dust storm rolling in, it’s looking to be a dark night.
I’ve long loved the Italian westerns of Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West) so that work, and the accompanying music of Ennio Morricone, were certainly influential. But those particular westerns, while set in the American west, sometimes drew inspiration from Japanese samurai films, and in that vein of looking to Japan, Cruel Angels Past Sundown also wears influence from the Atlus game series, Shin Megami Tensei, in the Biblical horrors that beset Annette’s life.
BD: As a Bram Stoker Award-winning writer, your work in the horror genre has excelled in light of your ability to deftly weave together competing genres with complex and complementary narratives. What can you share with us about your creative process in weaving these elements together, and what have been some of your creative influences?
HP: That’s very kind. I think some of the genre-hopping is an inability for my imagination to sit still. There’s a lot I want to explore, and though horror is my forever favorite genre, I try to read widely of fantasy, sci-fi, romance, crime, and so on, and from different formats/mediums of storytelling (novel, short story, poetry, graphic). My creative process is mainly about following intuition. I’m never sitting down with a blank screen. When something occurs to me, I jot it down, and some of that will never get used, but some of it will, and I follow the thoughts that interest me into stories.
My early influences were Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Salman Rushdie. In more recent years, Ramsey Campbell, Sara Tantlinger, Stephen Graham Jones, Cynthia Pelayo, Nadia Bulkin, and A.C. Wise.
BD: At Fanbase Press, our #StoriesMatter initiative endeavors to highlight the impact that stories can have on audiences of various mediums. How do you feel that Annette’s story may connect with and impact readers?
HP: My first hope with Annette’s story and for most of my work is that queer readers will feel at home, but I think it’s a fast-paced, bloody story for fans of westerns, horror, and the splatterpunk subgenre, that also asks big questions concerning faith and purpose. It may rile some people while offering solace to others. Horror is a genre of healing for me, and I hope some of those who read Cruel Angels Past Sundown will find the same for them, even within the violence and terror.
BD: Do you have any plans to expand this story into subsequent novels or other entertainment mediums (if given the opportunity)?
HP: Right now I don’t have plans to expand on Cruel Angels Past Sundown. It goes to spiritual distances that I haven’t touched on in my other work, and I would have to consider how far beyond that I could reach past if I were to follow it up. Though I suppose there’s always the possibility! As for other mediums, happily, the book has been narrated into audio by the ever-talented Jenn Lee. Hopefully, that audiobook is either out already or will be coming soon.
BD: Are there any upcoming projects on which you are currently working that you would like to share with our readers?
HP: Right now I’m working on a couple short stories involving cyberpunk and classic movies, further work in the world of my dark fantasy novel, No Gods for Drowning, and going through edits for my upcoming 2024 vampire novel, All the Hearts You Eat.
BD: Lastly, what is the best way for our readers to find more information about Cruel Angels Past Sundown and your other work?
HP: Readers can find me at www.haileypiper.com, on Twitter as @HaileyPiperSays, and on TikTok, Instagram, and Tumblr as @haileypiperfights.
And keep an eye on the Death’s Head Press and Dead Sky socials for more Splatter Westerns to come!
