Kate Dejonge - dreadcon author spotlight

KATE!! You helped plan the very first dReadCon, in Kitchener last year. We are thrilled to have you back on the team and attending our second annual dReadCon!

Tell us a little bit about yourself, what books we can expect to see at dReadCon, and where we can find you on social media. 

Thank you, I’m thrilled to be participating again this year! I’ve got a selection of novella length frights that tiptoe back and forth across the “extreme” horror genre line, the first two books in my supernatural/fantasy/horror series about a disturbing line of witches that began with Elizabeth Bathory, and a collection of short stories for those who enjoy lighter horror. You can find me on instagram @katedejonge.author, on Goodreads here, Grimoire of Horror here, and on Godless here. 

Why is DreadCon important for horror and dark fiction authors?

DreadCon is the first dark literature convention north of the American border. We’ve seen so many indie horror authors grow through groups like Books of Horror (Facebook), and they’ve arranged numerous amazing conventions in the States, but we haven’t had anything comparable here in Canada until now. Canada has got some amazingly talented horror authors, and now we finally have a space to show them off! I’m honoured to be participating again this year among top tier creatives!

If you were trapped in your own horror story, which character would survive the longest?

Ashley McCormack (the disturbed morgue assistant from my Soup series) would kick serious ass in any horror situation, but she doesn’t have long to live. So I’ll go with Bianca Bishop, the leading lady in my Bathorians series. She doesn’t even know how strong she is yet!

What's the strangest thing you've ever Googled while writing a novel?

Ha! I know we all say it, but if anyone honestly looked through my browsing history they would have questions. I feel like looking up recipes for human cremains was weird, as was medieval Romanian torture chairs. A lot of my search history involves geography. God forbid someone read a book I’ve set in another country and point out that  “it would take way longer to get from that place to the next place”. I measured how long it would take to get between towns by donkey cart, if the donkey was old enough to drop dead and the man in the card weighed 220 lbs. Not neurotic behaviour at all. (eye roll)

Would you rather spend a night in a haunted house or a week in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?

That’s easy, haunted house. I used to be a paranormal investigator for a haunted tourism company. I got to spend the night in a LOT of haunted houses, talking to the dead. Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio was the most active, and I stomped through that energy with imaginary guns blazing, daring the dead to show their faces. They did, and it wasn’t nice, but I ain’t afraid of no ghost. 

How do you balance fear and deeper themes in your writing?

Most of my work involves the cross roads where horror and mental illness meet. In order to properly convey my characters’ torment, I show my readers who they really are, what their daily lives are like. I want people to know that the true horrors in life are probably some of their neighbours. People are very good at hiding their deviences, and society has no problem turning a blind eye. If I just spit horror in every sentence, the really hard stuff would lose its impact. 

Has writing ever made you confront personal fears or experiences?

I live with CPTSD from a deeply fucked up childhood. I purge the demons in my mind by hiding personal details of my trauma in my writing, like leaking the truth secretly, a little at a time so know one will know what truly happened. With one exception. I wrote a short for Dark Disasters (Uncomfortably Dark) that told a lot of my story. I wrote it under a different name to protect some of those involved. On an entirely different note, I am terrified of spiders and cannot bring myself to write about them!