Lisa Morton: Author, Editor, and Screenwriter

I was lucky enough to sit down with Lisa and have a chat about her career as an author and the advice she’d off to women wanting to break out in the industry.

Q: Who has been your biggest supporter(s) throughout your writing career?

A: There are three mentors that I always mention: first, the author, Roberta Lannes, who was the first person to look at my short stories and say, “You can sell these”; next, the author, Dennis Etchison, who remains my favorite horror author and who was a tremendous inspiration to me (he sadly passed away a few years ago, 13 days after the last time I saw him); and lastly, the British author and editor, Stephen Jones, who was the first editor to buy a short story from me and remains the editor that I’ve worked with the most.

Q: Where do you draw inspiration from in your work?

A: Everywhere! One of my favorite places is my own backyard, which is both full of amazing plants and which draws all kinds of wildlife at night. As a horror writer, there’s certainly no shortage of fodder in the daily news and, of course, reading other writers’ work is always inspiring.

Q: What does it mean to you to be an author?

A: It’s what I’ve always wanted to be, what I think I was born to do, and where I feel most at home (I do love the company of other writers, especially those who also write in the horror genre).

Q: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to certain music, snack, make loads of phone notes when inspiration randomly strikes, etc.?

A: I work things through in my head, sometimes for months, before I actually type a single thing. When I feel like I’ve got the story in place, I sprawl somewhere with my laptop and start typing. I used to work mainly at night, but the pandemic and other life changes flipped my schedule on its ear and now the morning is my best time to work. I try to get in at least a few words every day, although sometimes my writing time is eaten up by research, correspondence, or the business part of a writing career.

Q: Is there a genre or subgenre that you want to explore that you haven’t yet? Conversely, are there any that you’ll never write?

A: I could never write romance – the idea of it just makes me laugh; likewise, cozy mysteries aren’t my thing (although I love reading and writing noir crime fiction). I think the last genre or form I’d really like to try is a graphic novel. I’ve written one non-fiction graphic novel, but I’d love to write a fiction graphic novel, working alongside a brilliant artist (I would say I’d love to work with Emil Ferris, whose My Favorite Thing is Monsters is a personal favorite, but Ferris is also a gifted writer, so I’d likely get in her way!).

Q: What has been the hardest part of your career as an author so far?

A: The hardest part of my career was the hardest part of my life: when I became my mother’s caregiver as she suffered from dementia. She really needed around the clock attention, which left almost no time for writing (or, for that matter, sleep).

Q: What do you consider to be your greatest strength and weakness as an author?

A: My strength is that I can produce good work quickly, so I’m one of those lucky writers who editors will come to when they need something on a fast turnaround. My weakness is probably that I far prefer writing short fiction or non-fiction to novels.

Q: Who is on your radar as someone you’d love to work with?

A: I also work as an editor (I’ve done a number of anthologies), and there are dozens of fantastic new horror writers I’d love to work with as an editor – really too many to mention here! The genre has exploded with fresh talent over the last decade.

Q: At some point in our lives, we’ve all heard the negative comments: “You’re not good enough.” “You’ll never make it.” “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” “You don’t belong.” How do you move forward when faced with negativity?

A: I think you have to understand that people may have their own reasons for engaging in negative criticism or rejection, and it may have little to do with your work. One of my personal favorite things I’ve ever written was a story that was turned down by a number of markets until Dennis Etchison bought it for a book he was editing. For a year after that anthology was published, Dennis would ask me, “What awards has that story been nominated for?” Hearing that from an author I held in such esteem was way better than any award or rejection. Sometimes you just have to get past the sting of rejection, keep submitting, and find the right home for your work. Oh, and I’d also caution authors about reading reviews of their work; unless a publisher or editor tells me that I should go read one, I try to avoid looking at them.

Q: What advice would you give to women who are wanting to write, especially if it’s something others might perceive as “outside of the norm”?

A: My advice for women writers consists of two words: BE BOLD. Women get a lot of programming in our culture that men don’t. Although it’s changing a little, we still get a lot of messaging to hold back, let men take the lead…there’s even a group for women writers called Women Who Submit, just because it’s often hard for women to just submit their work. But you have to overcome that if you want to compete in the publishing world; you need to be bold in how you approach your writing career and in what you write about.

Her current read is Jennifer Higgie’s The Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World, which follows the lives and works of extraordinary women who strove to communicate with and learn from other dimensions. One of those women is Georgiana Houghton, a 19th Century British Spiritualist medium who claimed to channel the spirits of great artists of the past and who Lisa states “has been a minor obsession of mine since I did my book Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances.”

If you enjoyed learning more about Lisa and want to keep up with new updates, you can follow her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Make sure to keep an eye out in June for Lisa’s new release, Placerita!