Making Monsters

“I actually like monsters,” says Amber-Rose Reed. “I guess I sort of … feel their pain.”

An assistant manager at Copperfield’s Book Store, Reed is originally from Marin County. She’s lived in Petaluma since her senior year in high school, and this May, will have worked at Copperfield’s for 11 years. That’s where she met Ross Lockhart, another bookseller at the local store, and the founder of Worde Horde Books, an award-winning publisher of horror and science fiction (see sidebar).

Last October, Word Horde published an anthology titled “Eternal Frankenstein,” a collection of stories inspired by Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking novel. The first story in the collection, a grisly little gem titled “Torso, Heart, Head,” was written by Reed. The last story in the book - by way of full-disclosure - was my own novella-length “Mary Shelley’s Body.” It should be noted that the writers in “Eternal Frankenstein” were drawn from all over the country. The only two contributors from California were myself and Reed.

Earlier this month, Reed and I sat down for a cup of coffee, to discuss her journey from book-loving dreamer to one of sixteen writers in the book that Publisher’s Weekly called “impressive” and “rich,” concluding, “It would make an excellent college classroom companion to ‘Frankenstein’.”

Q: So, Amber. You’re a writer who works in a bookstore. How cool is that?

A: I love it! I love books. Want to hear how I got the job? I was walking through the store one day - because I spent a lot of time there - and I saw the sign on my way out, advertising for a bookseller. I turned in my application, sort of on a whim, and I’ve been there ever since. Being surrounded by books makes me very happy.

Q: You’ve presumably always been a reader. Always a writer too?

A: Always! When I was 14, I wrote this interlocking series of vampire short stories that were set in this made-up town. At the time, I was so proud of myself for making up my own vampire universe, but looking back I see that it was totally derivative.

Q: Still, that sounds pretty ambitious - for a 14-year-old.

A: Well … they’re really not very good. [Laughs] I found one of them recently, the first installment of the series, and at first I was so excited. “Oooh, maybe this is good enough to use! Maybe if I just tweaked it a little I could turn it into something amazing!” But then I read it. Nope, not amazing. Never going to be amazing.

Q: So … was that disappointing?

A: Sure, but only for a moment. Then it actually became kind of encouraging - if for no other reason than to see how much I’ve grown as a writer. My characters are better, my storytelling is more original. And the grammar in that original story, Wow! For a 14-year-old, it was really pretty good. So I was kind of impressed with my teenage self.

Q: To be fair, it’s hard to believe that any 14-year-old could write something that wasn’t somewhat derivative. As a beginning writer, that’s sort of what you do. You copy and imitate the things that inspire you. That’s how we learn. Then, once we’ve developed some skills, we start trying to do something original. And not long after that, we realize that almost every good idea we have has already been done, or is about to be done - in some form - by someone else.

A: How dare they?

Q: That kind of happened with our stories in ‘Eternal Frankenstein.’ Both give backstories to some of the Creature’s organs and limbs.

A: I know! How weird was that? We each had sort of the same idea, to tell the secret stories of those arms and legs and body parts. Then we both did something entirely different with it. That’s what writing is, right? It’s putting your own spin on an idea, maybe even an idea that’s been done before. They say there are only sixteen plots, or is it thirty-two plots? Anyway, there are a finite number of plots, and every story puts its own spin on one of those. Two writers, or ten writers, or thousands of writers, can take the same germ of an idea, and all come up with something entirely different. Which is what we did.

Q: So, is it true that “Torso, Heart, Head” is the first story you’ve had officially published?

A: Well, the first in a book that is published nationally. Internationally, actually. I won the Redwood Writers Call of the Youth contest, when I was, like, 20. And I had a piece in Redwood Writers’ “Vintage Voices” anthology in, I think, 2009. The weird thing is, I don’t actually write a lot of short fiction. I tend to think more in terms of novels.

Q: So, you’ve written full novels?

A: [Laughing] Yes, a few. Well, four. All in various stages of being edited. I love novels. I’m actually terrible at writing short stories. I’d much rather write a novel. It’s easier for me. I don’t know why. Yes, novels are time consuming, but that’s part of the fun of them. You can be consumed in the process of writing one. It’s like … controlled obsession.

I tend to mostly write historical fiction.

Q: I have to ask, what type of historical fiction would appeal to someone whose first effort was a series of stories about vampires?

A: Well, I’ve written two novels about the Roman emperor Caligula. One about his childhood, and one about his early reign. He’s my favorite emperor of all the Roman emperors. He was not a nice guy, but I really don’t think he was insane, the way so many people say. I think Caligula gets unfair treatment these days. I have lots of thoughts about Caligula. I’ve also got a young adult historical fantasy set in the Renaissance. I’m looking for an agent and a publisher for that, right now.

Q: So, I know Ross Lockhart put out a call for submissions for “Eternal Frankenstein.” How’d you end up with a story in the collection?

A: Well, I work with Ross, as you know, and he mentioned that he was putting together an anthology of stories inspired by Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” I thought that was really interesting. “Frankenstein” is such a crazy thing. That this teenage girl in the early 1800s thought it up, and wrote it, and changed the way we think of what’s possible. It’s amazing. So I knew I wanted to submit a story, but it took a long time to think up an idea. Did I mention I don’t think in terms of short stories?

Then a friend suggested the idea of writing about some of the Creature’s body parts, and I thought, ‘Oh my god! That’s brilliant!” And I went with it - and actually wrote it very quickly. I submitted it to Ross, and then waited breathlessly for, like, months.

Q: How’d you find out it was going to be part of “Eternal Frankenstein”?

A: Ross was at work one day, and he’d put all the titles of the stories on index cards, so he could move them around and see how they’d fit together in the book, one flowing into another. Which was cool. I think the way “Eternal Frankenstein” fits together is so brilliant. So anyway, he said, “Want to see the order I’ve got all the stories in for the book?” and he handed me this stack of cards. And my story was on the top of the stack. That’s how I found out I was actually in the book. I was very happy. I’m still very happy. It’s such a cool thing to be a part of.

Q: It’s ironic, for someone who doesn’t like to write short stories, that of all the pieces in the anthology, yours is by far the shortest.

A: I know! It’s like 1,300 words! It’s so short. Evidently I either write very short stories, or monstrous novels about Caligula. That’s just how I roll.

(Email David at david.templeton@arguscourier.com)