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R. Scott McCoy’s debut novel, Feast is a soul-devouring tale of chilling horror. Publisher of the quarterly magazine Necrotic Tissue and author of over twenty published short stories, Scott shares his love of the darker genre in this revealing interview. Be sure to visit him at http://www.myspace.com/rscottmccoy and Necrotic Tissue at http://www.necrotictissue.com and http://www.myspace.com/necrotictissuemag

Welcome to Pop Syndicate’s Horror Corner with J.R. Turner. Today check out my interview with R. Scott McCoy for his debut novel, Feast:

Deputy Sheriff Nick Ambrose can look into someone’s eyes and glimpse their guilt, to an extent. But when he and his brother take on a psychopathic killer, he gains something more: the ability to see, and devour, souls. Plagued by this terrifying new power, and by the spirits of both his brother and the butcher trapped inside his mind, he sets out to understand and control his new fate and to grapple with the shadowy auras he now sees all around.


R. Scott McCoy’s classic tale of horror confronted, within ourselves as well as the evils we face, takes Nick Ambrose and the reader on an action-packed and spine-tingling journey, leading a once-quiet man onto a tightrope of dark and light, where every move may threaten the very lives of friends and strangers—or tip his own soul into the abyss. Can he command the darkness welling within, or will he become merely its vessel?

Q: Hi Scott, thanks for joining us today. Please tell our readers a bit about yourself and where your love of the horrific began.


A: I’ve been a voracious reader since I was a kid. I started out with Poe in school, but went to Tolkien, then Andre Norton and Asimov. When I was fourteen, I discovered Lovecraft, but there wasn’t any horror beyond that in the library, and there wasn’t any money for buying books.


I joined the Army after graduation and suddenly had cash I could spend at the local bookstore. I read King, McCammon and Straub and many others. I never stopped reading fantasy and sci-fi, but the stories that effected me most were horror. Since I discovered small press horror a few years ago, it has revitalized me. I dedicated a year to becoming a writer in 2006 to see if I could. I tried and quit several times over the years, because I tried to write a novel without first knowing how to write and because I was convinced I had to have a complete outline.


Problem is, outlines don’t work for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I write organically. It wasn’t until I read King’s book On Writing, that I realized there was another way. It was like King had given me permission to do things another way. I started writing terrible short stories and joined an online critique group. After eight months of effort and about 60 rejection letters, I finally got a story accepted to Blazing Adventures, an online token pay market. That gave me the confidence to keep writing and since then I have had twenty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies and my first novel accepted by Shroud Publishing.


Q. Your upcoming release, Feast covers some exceptionally interesting themes. The concept of devouring the souls of others-both good and bad is intriguing. Could you share more about this?

A. I learned to love writing short stories and gave up the idea of writing a novel, at least for the time being. I had a vivid dream where I was a police officer searching a large house for a killer. I found a naked corpse sitting in a chair. The body was desiccated, the blond hair limp, but obviously a woman. Her eyes popped open and she moved toward me. I woke up screaming. I started to write the “short story”, but when I got to 14,000 words and was only about a third complete, it occurred to me I had my first novel.


The themes came out on their own, not because I plotted them. A police officer who had always been capable of knowing what people were guilty of, becomes something more. Burdened with the need to feed on souls, he can see the aura of a person and not just know if they are guilty of a specific crime, but see the condition of every person’s soul. Nick Ambrose battles traditional enemies while coming to grips with his needs and fighting the psychotic serial killer who unlocked the secrets of immortality too late to save his own body and now wants Nick’s body for his own.

Q. Every book seems to have at least one funny story attached to it in some way. Is there one you can share about Feast?


A. When trying to come up with a title (one of my weaknesses), I was kicking around ideas with my friend Greg Hall. He runs the Choate Road website and hosts a Blog Talk Radio show called The Funky Werepig. When I was describing the story to him, I mentioned that the when the people have their soul sucked out of them, that it leaves he body in a state that looks like a Slim Jim, or beef jerky. Greg’s less than helpful title suggestion was Soul Jerky.


Q. What character, aside from Nick Ambrose, is your favorite and why?


A. I like his friend Jeff because he is a very flawed character. He is morally weak but loyal to friends and family. Of course he has very few of each. He isn’t evil, just ethically challenged. 


Q. What project are you excited to work on next?


A. My second novel is in draft form and I’m starting on edits and some minor rewrites. It’s called The White Face Bear, and it has two strong protagonists. Both must confront their greatest fears while working together to battle an ancient Shaman who is trying to kill them. I’m hoping to have it ready to submit by September.


Q. You’re the publisher and editor of the magazine, Necrotic Tissue, could you share a bit about the magazine and how its history?


A. NT started out as a name first and an idea second. My father had been in the hospital for five months. Part of his colon had become “necrotic tissue” and had to be removed. When the doctor used the term, I’d been writing horror for over a year and thought it was a great name for a magazine. My dad lived for another six months before succumbing and the magazine is dedicated to him.


I started the magazine because I observed a gap. There were a lot online and print zines, but very few pro and semi pro markets for horror and very few that gave feedback to writers. I had read numerous blogs and forum posts where editors complained about the quality of submissions, but no one seemed to want to do anything about it. Of my 60 rejections as a writer, 59 were form. One was personal, from On Spec. It was three sentences describing why my story Good Dog was rejected. It was all I needed. The light bulb went off and I reworked the story and submitted it to Shroud Magazine. The publisher, Tim Deal accepted it for his Abomination Anthology.


So I had three goals with NT. I wanted to put out quality, character driven horror. I wanted to write personal responses to every submission and I wanted a fast turn around time. I believe we have been successful with all three. Now my goal is to get more subscribers so I can increase pay rates for the writers.


Thank you so much for your time, Scott!


R. Scott McCoy was born in Kodiak Alaska and raised in Northern Minnesota. He currently lives in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities with his wife, two daughters and three dogs. He has twenty published short stories in a variety of magazines, including Abominations and Northern Haunts Anthologies from Shroud Publishing. Scott is also the Publisher and Editor of Necrotic Tissue, a quarterly print horror magazine and is an Affiliate Member of the Horror Writers Association.

Cover for R. Scott McCoy’s Feast from Shroud Publishing. Artwork by Nick Tripiciano; layout, copy-editing, synopsis and design by Danny Evarts.

About J.R. Turner:

Award winning author J.R. Turner writes extreme action horror, suspense and romance. Her Young Adult horror novel, DFF: Dead Friends Forever is the first of six in the Extreme Haunting series. For free articles and more information visit: http://jennifer-turner.com