Horror Author Q&A: Laura J Campbell (No Lesser Angels, No Greater Devils)

June 30, 2021 Chris Well

“A story needs a solid villain. Let them be in their villainy!”

The author takes Monster Complex behind the scenes in assembling this project, reveals some of the real life details behind the stories, talks about growing up with the works of authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker—and shares her pet peeves with dark fiction.

Laura J. Campbell is an American short story writer and novelist, best known for her speculative fiction works, which include science fiction, horror, and dark fiction. She won the 2007 James B. Baker Award for short story for her science fiction tale, “416175.”

For her new collection No Lesser Angels, No Greater Devils (Dark Owl Publishing), Laura has gathered twenty-eight of her stories that were previously lost to the wilds of tthe Internet or fallen into the virtual dust bin of the out-of-print.

Among the gems in this beautiful and haunting story collection readers will find…

A cafe owner living with the psychic gift of communicating with the dead.
An interview with Bubba, Death's youngest sibling, about his own entrepreneurship.
A runner's struggle, both physical and emotional, in a difficult marathon.
Two brothers who lose their campsite and find shelter in a strange brick structure.

The author presents the stories in the book not just to preserve them, but also to share her experiences though her writing. Her timelines span from the age of Vikings as they grapple with Mayan cult sacrifices to far into the future where space travel has captivated us, and an apocalypse has changed us.

In this exclusive interview with Monster Complex, the author takes us behind the scenes in assembling this project, reveals some of the real life details behind the stories, talks about growing up with the works of authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker—and shares her pet peeves with dark fiction.

Q: Laura, No Lesser Angels, No Greater Devils collects twenty-eight of your stories. In the book introduction you shared your challenges recovering these stories for the collection. Would you share this process with us? Did you recover all the stories or are there some still lost?

Back in the day, submissions were largely a paper affair. Printed manuscripts went into envelopes, along with self-addressed stamped envelopes, and were submitted. Electronic copies were stored on an old laptop.

I maintain a list of published works, along with links. As I began to pull these stories together for the collection, I found that many of the links were no longer viable. Or if the work was in printed format, the print copies were unavailable.

Thus, the scavenger hunt began.

I kept a portable file with some printed copies. A few of the stories were saved in this literal bucket, but even some of those were only early drafts.

I experienced an email failure around 2012, which also resulted in many of the stories being lost as e-mail attachments. The next place I checked for story files was an old laptop, running an outdated operating system. However, I could access some copies and cut-and-paste the text into modern word processing documents.

Some of the stories were in very rough draft and had to be recreated extensively. All the stories underwent further editing, for grammar, small errors, or to better fit into the collection. Lesson learned, however: the next twenty-six published stories are already backed up.

Q: One of the interesting facets of “Just Passing Through”—which is set in Romania—is the attention to language and translation. In the story’s introduction you shared a real-life situation in Texas where mommas were able to communicate even if the children didn’t know the language. How did that situation inform how you approached the story?

There’s a question that goes around: If you could have any ability, what would it be? For me, the ability to understand all languages (human, animal, musical, mathematical) would be right up there.

When I lived in the apartment complex referenced in the preamble to “Just Passing Through” there were multiple languages spoken. Learning tone, watching context, and reading body language were clues to words I couldn’t directly understand. That was a wonderful experience for an author.

I wanted the setting in “Just Passing Through” to have an authentic feel, so I chose to write some expressions in Romanian. Romanian is a Romance language, so I felt it was close enough to Spanish, Italian, and French to have a feeling of familiarity. That sensation fed well into the story.

Q: Who or what inspired the idea of Death’s entrepreneurial but less successful brother? (Shades of former president Jimmy Carter's younger brother, Billy?)

Very much the shade of Billy Beer. And a host of other lesser-known siblings of celebrities. Why shouldn’t Death share in the glory of annoying younger sibling?

At the time I wrote that story, craft beers and microbrewing were becoming all the rage, with many of the brands sporting ‘ominous’ sounding names and/or skulls as logos. And as the world’s oldest known brewery was recently discovered in an ancient royal Egyptian graveyard at Abydos, maybe ‘Old Graveyard’ was on to something all along.

Q: “The Horrible Mile” was inspired by some of your IRL physical activities. Having written a horror story about a marathon, how has that affected your real-life marathon running?

Taking it easy – I’m not going to be winning trophies or sponsorships at this stage on my physical fitness journey. The point is keeping it healthy and enjoyable.

I like running/walking because it gives me an opportunity to observe the world around me more closely. You miss a lot driving by at 30+ miles per hour.

But running at twilight, there is a lot to see, from wildlife (I sometimes run with bats flittering about, happy for me to disturb insects as I run) to architectural details in houses and businesses. I do joke that I am one of Houston’s ‘vampire runners’ – we come out after sunset, when the temperatures drop at least a few degrees from the afternoon heat.

Q: These stories all have introductions that relate the time, place, and inspiration behind these stories. What was it like framing your “scrapbook” like that? Was it harder or easier to pinpoint what led to each story?

It was straightforward. The times and places hold their own memories. I’ve lived in quite a few locations, so knowing the address and the timeframe ties the events to what was going on in my life at the time.

Q: There’s such a range of ideas, times, and places in your stories. What do you see as the common threads in your fiction?

That the unexpected is always walking with you. That the opportunity to make an important decision, may not always present itself an important decision at the time. Unfamiliar things can occur in very familiar settings.

Q: What attracts you to writing stories about the strange and horrific?

When I was young, my mother and father would read Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and stories to my brothers and me. (I mention this in the preface of the book; my nephew laughed to read that, because his father (my brother) read Poe to him. Just I read Poe to my children).

During the process of getting her American citizenship, my mother used the first line from “The Raven” as her writing example. Over a century after his death, Poe was the author for our small immigrant family.

So, horror was very much the family literature. Plus, we grew up on Hammer films (with the incomparable Peter Cushing and Sir Christopher Lee). Scary movies were the staple of family movie nights. “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” held prominent places on our family bookshelf.

Growing up, all stories were horror, mystery, or science fiction. Writing horror, mystery, and science fiction was a natural outcome.

Q: What attracts you as a reader to this genre? What are some of your favorite stories, books, authors, storytellers?

I’ve always thought of science fiction as commentary on politics and social issues; horror as platform for religious and philosophical issues. The creative exploration of the issues that affect the human condition is very appealing for me.

As a reader, I tend towards favoring the old school authors, such as Poe, Lovecraft, Shelley, and Stoker. Even although hundreds of years old, many of the foundational horror stories (such as the works of Poe and Dickens) still have relevancy today.

I would say that my ‘favorite’ stories in the horror genre are those that ‘stick with me’, such as Kipling’s “The Story of Muhammad Din,” Elizabeth Engstrom’s “When Darkness Loves Us,” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” Stories where the horror is found as much in the ‘normal’ elements of the story as the supernatural.

Q: What are your pet peeves about horror or weird fiction?

Probably how written horror and weird fiction are translated into movies and/or television shows. Movies and TV sometimes seem forced to comply with certain features and certain outcomes.

For example, the rewriting of the story or the insertion of romance. No one says: “Oh, that is as romantic as a H.P. Lovecraft story.” For a reason.

Also, the current trend to turn villains into anti-heroes or anti-villains. Structurally speaking, a story needs a solid villain. Let them be in their villainy!

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