Withersin’s Damned Interview with:
Kelly Jameson (I also write as Ann Kelly)
I’m the author of DEAD ON, written with the pen
name Ann Kelly. DEAD ON is an independently published novel that was originally
optioned by Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, White Noise). I am
currently in talks with two other producers to option the film rights. DEAD ON
was named Runner-Up in the 2006 DIY Los Angeles Book Festival and in Mid-March
was #5 on the
List published
works:
Novels:
Dead On
A medical examiner is stalked through different lifetimes by the same killer, and must use her forensics skills as well as hypnosis to stop him for good.
A former exotic dancer who hides behind a mask reveals her horribly self-mutilated face and sensual, heinous past to the grandson of the detective she had an affair with during the summer WWII ended in the Pacific. A literary beach romp that will raise more than the reader’s pulse rate.
Short Stories:
French Accents (www.summersetreview.org)
Unable to compete with memories of her perfect twin
sister, a world-famous ballerina who died in
A Rude Little Monkey (www.barfingfrog.com)
Whenever
Hector leaves his apartment, he believes his stuffed monkey runs around
violating his inherited collection of dolls, calling Hector filthy names, and
drinking all his beer.
Urges Contrary to Swallowing (www.withersin.com)
A
foul-mouthed zombie living in NYC enters serious hot dog-eating contests to pay
the rent and finally gets published. She learns that we're all torn between
laughter and chaos.
Cookbooks:
None. I’ve actually blown things up in kitchen so I try to stay out of it. I made sugar cookies once and forgot the sugar. I also inadvertently blew up a pecan pie.
List website: www.DeadOnNovel.com
How can we contact
you? keljameson@yahoo.com
In your own words, define Withersin.
A stand out publication of cutting-edge horror with twists of madness and humor. Something completely different, because it’s time for something completely different.
If you were a sideshow act, what would
you be?
I would definitely be a belly
dancer, or Princess of Burlesque. I mean, imagine how sexy it would feel to
stand on a stage in a glittery, skimpy costume and bump and grind for men
hopped up on Yuengling and corn dogs, men who wear
T-shirts with pithy slogans like “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” and “Warning: contains alcohol, nicotine, and
bad language”. It’s so easy to tell the world what you think with a slogan
T-shirt. I’d also be an expert knife-thrower and spewer
of off-color remarks, just in case someone said something insulting about one
of my body parts. It might even be fun to be a busty, broken-glass fetishist
(did I mention the name of my upcoming novel is called
What is your greatest non-literary
influence?
Chocolate-covered espresso beans.
Describe your most irrational fear.
I have recurring dreams about public restrooms. In my dream, I have to pee really badly, and for some reason, I am barefoot. So, okay, I go into this public restroom and have to watch where I step, if you get my drift. At this moment in the dream, I am horrified and feel like puking. I check each and every stall, and each and every public toilet is filled with great gobs of human feces. Usually that’s when I wake up and thank God it was just a dream. Sh*t is really disgusting, you know? I think the origin of my fear of feces started when I was about 6 years old, and a weird, weird friend of my biological father’s was out in the backyard with us kids. We had dogs. So there was the occasional pile of dog crap in the backyard that we might have missed with the Pooper Scooper. So, this guy looks down at a pile of dog crap he is standing next to, takes a sip from his beer (which may have been Yuengling), and says “Hey, Kelly, watch this.” Barefoot, he steps in the dog crap and squishes it around with his toes, laughing maniacally, then tells me he wants me to be his girlfriend when I grow up and turn 18. He must have been really wasted. Or really weird. Or both. True story.
How about your
most guilty pleasure?
I don’t usually feel guilty about my guilty pleasures. Life is too short. And why should I feel guilty about reading books like “Fat, forty, and fired” and “Networking for the Socially Retarded”? Or watching movies like “Three on a Meat Hook”, “Luther the Geek”, and “People Under the Stairs?” This type of entertainment inspires me to write about stupid things like zombies who enter hot dog-eating contests to pay the rent, cat feces, and plumbers who save civilization. I mean, look at the world we live in. Go into a bookstore. People are actually not only publishing but buying and, ohmiGod, reading mysteries about yarn, Spam luncheon meat, and burning thongs.
Name the most disturbing nursery
rhyme/fairy tale you can recall.
I can’t really remember a particularly disturbing nursery rhyme or fairy tale. What I do remember is my older sister, who, knowing my dislike of blood and veins and stuff like that, would follow me around the house chanting “blood, veins, capillaries, blood, veins, capillaries”, hoping to gross me out and make me turn pale. It usually worked. Now I write about medical examiners cutting up dead bodies and trying to catch sadistic serial killers. Who knew.
Do you eat meat?
Yes. I have to have protein or I don’t feel well. My body doesn’t handle carbs well. Speaking of meat, have you seen the movie Big Meat Eater? It’s so bad that it’s a classic. A strangely catchy musical with a low-budget. Plotline: After killing the mayor, a homicidal janitor goes to work for a butcher who is unwittingly dumping scraps of meat into a septic tank and producing something called “balonium”, a radioactive fuel source needed by space aliens. Wish I’d thought of it!
What were the skies like when you were
young?
Not sure. I was usually face-down in the backyard or on my grandmother’s couch after eating too many Oreos or Sarah Lee cupcakes.
Name your favorite garden tool.
A bottle of
Name your least favorite color, first
job and worst job.
My least favorite color is probably the color of puke, for obvious reasons. Purple algae is no good, but turquoise algae, an algae that’s blue-green or bluish-green or blue with a hint of green is ok, but definitely not green blue or greenish-blue or green with a hint of blue. I love to put color in my writing.
First job: Working at the Gap in a mall, folding hundreds and hundreds of pairs of jeans after thoughtful and dignified consumers rummaged through them all day and left them for dead.
Worst job: I did temp work during college and got a two-week assignment at a place that manufactured plastic utensils. They sat me down in front of huge phone console with like 241 extensions on it, and told me nothing except, “Answer it.” Also, all day long, the employees walked around the halls grumbling and cursing and saying how much they hated that ‘effing’ place. I didn’t last two weeks. I asked for another assignment before I felt compelled to stick a plastic fork in my eye. Probably to this day, no one knows how to answer that effing phone.
Favorite: Author, Movie, Music
Group, Song, and Quote.
Author: Too many to name, but I love Kat Martin, Susanna Moore,
James Patterson, Alice Sebold, Charles Bukowski, Walter Brasch. I’m a
cross-genre writer, so I read a lot of different genres. Did I mention my
website? It’s www.DeadOnNovel.com.
Movie: Tough one. I love movies like Office Space and Old School and anything with Will Ferrell in it.
Music/Song: One of my best friends is a
Oh, and hey, while you’re there, check me out!
www.myspace.com/authorkellyjameson
Quote: One of my favorites is “If I’ve offended anyone here tonight…Fuck ‘em.” That’s courtesy of Robin Harris.
If you were a loaf of bread what kind
would you be?
Oooh, probably a sophisticated French bread. I love to eat warm slices of crusty French bread with slabs of melted butter. Wonder Bread doesn’t do it for me.
Weirdest news you have read in your
local newspaper:
Speaking of bread (see question above), one of the weirdest stories I read wasn’t in my local newspaper but found on ananova.com. It was about a Slovakian woman who said she cut into a loaf of fresh bread to find a condom inside. She was quoted as saying: “It was really disgusting. Obviously someone had decided to play a joke but that’s not the sort of thing that belongs in a loaf of bread.” I don’t know; it might be the next big marketing thing. When you’re loafing around, sometimes you need a condom. Fortunately, the condom she found hadn’t been used. That would probably be important in any manufacturing campaign for the bread you get a rise out of.
Why horror?
I think the horror genre is making a definite come back. People are getting tired of generic slasher movies and sleepover massacres. Plus, I like any genre that can make fun of itself. I also like to write about dead things, especially dead stupid things, and gross stuff.
Here's a photo. (seen on Interview main
page)
“INEDIBLE NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD”
You have 112 words. Go.
I’m so close
now. It was easy to kill and eat the driver. He’d had a cheeseburger, fries, a
Diet Pepper. I know. I ate his stomach. I’m a zombie. Sometimes things are
better the second time around. Can’t wait to see what’s inside this truck. You
might think I’m hoping for brains, high in protein, easy on the gums. I get a
whiff of something non-human and stinky. Like rancid bacon and crotch sweat. I
pry open the truck door. My left arm falls off. Mother
crapper. I hear Kevin Federline music. I want
to puke. I see inside; I want to puke again. It’s better than I could’ve
imagined.