Surfing
the Internet can be a dangerous pastime, you don't know where you might end up. If
you find yourself at the front door of Vampire Girl's Horror Site for instance, with the alluring illustration that greets
you and you begin to read the text, you are warned against entering. But you
feel compelled, against your better judgements and despite noting that only half the number of visitors that entered, left.
So, you enter ...
You have just opened the door into the dark and seductive world of Amy Cartwright, writer,
poet and ... vampire!
Are you really a vampire?
Yes of course I am darling. Do you doubt me? It wouldn't be wise
to doubt me now would it, because I might just have to prove it.
So you have to feed off the blood of the living every so often in order to survive?
Yes I am cursed to drink the old
red stuff once in while. It varies, months, a year, but when the hunger begins
you know about it! Imagine the hungriest you've ever been and multiply it by
a million, it's that bad!
Will a light snack every so often not do?
No, it doesn't work like that. You need to go the whole hog and completely drain your victims dry of every
last drop.
You can imagine that some people might find all this very hard to believe?
My reply to people who do is always:
if you don't believe me, there's only one way I can prove it. And I'm always
looking for willing donors!
Your writing is imaginative, original and full of wicked black humour, who are your influences?
Clive Barker, his Books of Blood
are my main influences. When I first read them I knew that I wanted to write
that kind of fiction. Also Poppy Z. Brite is a big influence, her work is so
poetic, it's a joy to read.
Which is your favourite story that appears on your site?
Mmm, well my favourite story is
always the last one I wrote, because it's still fresh. So that would be Bloody
April Showers. My chainsaw murder story! My favourite old stories are Annabelle Westwood and Grandma's House. It makes me smile every time I read it, it's a good take on Little Red Riding Hood
don't you think? So good to update it and then introduce sex and lycanthropy
into the equation!
Do you have a favourite character from your stories?
I love them all, but my absolute
favourite is Annabelle Westwood. She's just so sadistic, but romantic with it. All she wants is a husband, who'll love her and stay with her forever. It's just that she has a very unconventional way of going about it.
That character is great fun!
Which do you prefer, writing fiction or writing poetry?
There's something very satisfying
about putting words down in rhyme to horrific or comic effect. But I like the
worlds I create and the characters I put in them, in my fiction the best. I get
lost in them when I'm writing; I become the main character for a while! Scary,
or what?!
Which is your favourite vampire film?
Razorblade Smile, because everything
Eileen Daly's character Lilith Silver says in that movie rings true with me. There
aren't the usual clichés in that movie. I have a suspicion that either the writer,
or director must know someone who is a vampire (for their research to have been so accurate!)
You are to all intents and purposes a terrifying supernatural being, so what frightens you?
When I see myself in the mirror
first thing in the morning. Now that's scary!
What would you have as your epitaph when you're finally laid to rest?
Is this, like, what I would like
on my gravestone? I'd have: DEAD, AGAIN.
THIS KEEPS HAPPENING TO ME!
