Once upon a time, Stephen King made Maine a scary place and now North Carolina native Scott Nicholson has put a frightening patina on his own home state. The boyish 43-year old Stoker Award nominated author of “The Red Church”, “The Harvest”, “The Manor” and the soon-to-be-published “The Home”, is a quiet, reclusive journalist by day but when night falls, his imagination is turned loose to spin horrific modern-day tales based on Appalachian folklore and legend. Nothing is safe from Nicholson’s “fever dreams” – a rural church, a mountaintop mansion, a small town of ordinary folk, a home for troubled children. All are fodder for the horrifying elements only Scott Nicholson’s brand of “Appalachian Gothic” could introduce.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mr. Nicholson and it was a fascinating talk with a true Southern storyteller.

Really Scary: First off, I want to thank you very much for taking time to do this interview with me, Scott. I’m a big fan and love how you combine horror with mountain lore and legend. What other kind of feedback have you had from fans regarding your original brand of horror?

Scott Nicholson: Well, I seem to have a strong following here in the South, especially in the mountains. Partly due to store support, I’m sure. I think a lot of people here get what I’m trying to do. Maybe the stories could be set anywhere, but it’s a lot easier to set them in my own backyard and draw on our traditional lore.

RS: On your website (http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/), you have a quote from “The Mountain Times” which describes you as “The love child of Stephen King and Sharyn McCrumb”. I think that’s very accurate – how did you feel when you first saw that?

SN: Well, it’s very flattering, since I know Sharyn and she has been a big help, and Stephen King is obviously the guy every horror writer hopes to emulate, in success if not subject matter. If you look at King’s work, a lot of it really brings to life the people of his region. Sharyn keeps pointing out to me that King is doing the same thing as I am, only at the other end of the Appalachian chain. In fact, she wrote me a long and eloquent blurb making that connection, but of course the publisher chopped it down to three words.

RS: You describe your work as “Appalachian Gothic” as opposed to Southern Gothic, which most people think of as Faulkner, Williams, O’Connor. What most people don’t realize is that all of those great American writers have elements of horror in their works: Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and “Sanctuary”, Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer”, O’Connor’s “Good Country People”. How would you separate Appalachian Gothic from Southern Gothic?

SN: I’m still not sure whether that’s a valid label or just some hokey thing I came up with to set myself apart and create a persona. The Southern Appalachian region has a distinct identity, though it does encompass some of the Southern Gothic traditions. Most Southern Gothics are set in old plantations, steamy swamps, big rivers, sprawling factory towns. Heck, I still like to read Erskine Caldwell. The mountains are actually a deciduous rain forest, and comprise the oldest chain in the world, so there are secrets buried here that go beyond mad families, incest, inferiority complexes, and stubbornness. The mountains held very few slaves, for example. In fact, many African-Americans came here in the pre-bellum days because nobody bothered them and they settled small communities. The mountain family legends are more likely to contain witches, mountain lions, bottomless caves, folk magic, native myths, tales tied to the land.

RS:You were born in Mooresville, North Carolina – how did you develop your love of writing? Was there a storytelling tradition in your family as there is in many Southern families?

SN: Mostly my grandmother was the storyteller, delving into the aforementioned subjects. Of course, ghosts popped up in those stories, too. My grandfather on the other side was also a bit of a creative jack-of-all-trades. I never thought to explore those elements in fiction. In fact, most of my early writing was either Hemingway-styled nihilistic realism or Vonnegut-tinged wacky science fiction. It was only when I began to write seriously back in the mid-1990s that all those buried influences emerged.

RS: You have described yourself as “creative” from an early age: writing, performing, and playing in bands. Was there a creative tendency in your background or were you the typical “weird” kid as so many authors and artists have described themselves as being in their youth.

SN: I always felt different and special, as if I was meant to do something a little uncommon. Not in a cocky manner, because I think everyone should feel that way. The darkest times of my life were when I felt I was about to be “normal,” swallowed by a career and grown-up worries and the drudgery of planning for retirement. I was very shy and quiet as a child, even though I was from a big family, and those moments when I could slip away and create sparked a simultaneous secret joy and a twinge of sneaky guilt. I guess I still feel that way today when I sit down at the keyboard, like I should be doing something “productive” instead of escaping inside my head. Luckily, since I get paid for it now, it’s easier to rationalize the selfishness.

RS: Did you study creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill, which has an amazing alumnus of writers and instructors including Lee Smith and Clyde Edgerton, or at Appalachian State University?

SN: Both. At UNC there is a strong Southern literary tradition that kind of hangs over your head. While I was there, genre fiction wasn’t very visible, but the program seemed sound enough. ASU has a very diverse program, spawning Charles Frazier but also bringing in guest speakers from a variety of genres. I had some good teachers there, but I’m not sure I learned anything. One teacher did tell me I had to write every day, which I started doing after I left college.

RS: Are you friends or acquainted with many other North Carolina writers, such as Smith, Edgerton, T.R. Pearson, Jan Karon, Kaye Gibbons? Who among the North Carolina horror writers are you acquainted?

SN: I don’t really hang out with writers much. I’ve done some events with Dale Bailey, James Newman, Stephanie Simpson-Woods, and others, and I’ve interviewed people like Orson Scott Card and John Kessel.

RS: Your first novel, “The Red Church”, which received a nomination for the Stoker Award for Best First Novel, is based on a real church in your area. Can you tell us more about this church – is it really red? Are there similar stories about it being haunted? And there is a strong element of Lovecraft in this book – are you a fan?

SN: This may be sacrilege but I’m not a huge Lovecraft fan. I like his ideas but his prose just takes too much work to plow through. The actual church is white; I changed it to red because in my story it’s used as a barn and also the color has a lot of emotional and mythic associations. The real church has a number of ghost stories about it, and I used some of the specific folk elements in the book.

RS: How did you feel when you received the news about your Stoker nomination? Did you attend the presentation?

SN: I was very pleased, though I don’t care much for awards in general. I think they suck the life out of writing organizations and create bad feelings. I did attend, and enjoyed my tax-deductible trip to New York. Great city, meeting my agent and editor in person. I would probably go again if I was ever lucky enough to be nominated. An author only gets so many chances to be “hot.”

RS: Your second novel, “The Harvest”, is very different from “The Red Church”. It’s almost like those fun B-movies from the late 50s and early 60s with a touch of “Night of the Living Dead” thrown in. Where did the idea for “The Harvest” come from? You write in your on-line journal about your garden – was that a source of inspiration?

SN: That novel has a theme (gasp—yes, horror novels should have themes!) of outsiders taking over the mountains, which is happening in real life. New Yorkers and Floridians are building monstrous second homes on our ridges, clearing off the trees, painting their roofs garish colors as if to proclaim to God, “I am here!” They only live there a couple of months a year, so they’re too stupid to know you don’t build on the ridge because the cold wind is vicious there. But the view from their deck is more important to them than the view of all the working-class people who live in the valley below. Hell, yeah, I’d let zombies munch ‘em in a heartbeat.

RS: “The Manor”, your third novel, is based on Cone Manor in Blowing Rock, which you have links to on your website. Had you heard stories of it being haunted prior to writing the book or just used the house as a model for Korban Manor because of how striking it is?

SN: Every old house has ghost stories. I’d attended a “Ghost Walk” they used to have there, with park rangers telling stories and then leading a walk up to the Cone graves. That was the spark of the story, though the setting and architecture offered plenty more detail to the story. I made it a little more isolated in my book, and the other folk magic elements dovetailed naturally with the setting.

RS: Your latest novel, “The Home” is a very creepy but thought-provoking novel about homes for troubled kids (among other things). What influenced you to write on that particular subject and is there really a “Wendover Home” in your area?

SN: There was a death at a nearby group home here nearly a decade ago. A young boy died after a restraint hold. Of course, it being a Nicholson novel, I had to ask, “Hmm, what if a group home were haunted?” The architectural details were cobbled together from a real Works Progress Administration project, a stone school building. And I blended in some of my own attitudes toward the overly caring psychology community, which often seems more deranged than the people it tries to treat. Plus some personal stuff. All my books are, on some level, autobiographical.

RS: What’s coming up in the near future for you? There was a mention of a new novel including a 200-year old circuit-riding preacher, carnivorous goats (?) and a scarecrow myth. Sounds great! When can we expect that one and is there a title yet?

SN: Well, I suspect the publisher will call it “The Farm” (original, huh?) and it will probably be out next summer or fall. It’s almost done. It will be a little fatter, sort of like The Harvest. It contains some of the spiritual elements of The Red Church with some of the over-the-top antics of The Harvest. The theme is predestination.

RS: How do you manage to work full-time as a journalist for your local paper and write as well? I would think that would be difficult. Or do you jot down ideas as they come to you through the day?

SN: It’s the only way I can survive. I need a job, and I need to write fiction. I only write when I’m physically sitting at the keyboard with the file open. Occasionally, I’ll research online, but I try not to brainstorm too much when I’m not actually working. Unfortunately, I already have way more ideas than I have time to write them all.

RS: What are some of your current favorite horror books and movies? Anyone new out there we should pay special attention to?

SN: Well, I think a lot of modern horror (and 1980’s horror, too) just isn’t very good or challenging. It’s a nice snack, like eating potato chips, but if you want to learn to write, you should be reading James Lee Burke, William Goldman, Joe Lansdale, Richard Brautigan, Shakespeare. I don’t play the “Name Game” because I might inadvertently leave someone out. I watch a lot of horror movies, but increasingly find they just aren’t worth my time. Ones I’ve enjoyed recently are “Dead Birds,” “The Ring,” “The Others,” “Session 9,” and “Love Object.”

RS: What is a typical day like for you as a writer?

SN: Wake up and get a few paragraphs or a couple of pages down. Go to work or spend time with family, if it’s a weekend. Play in my garden. Eat dinner. Mess around on the Internet. Write some more before bedtime. It doesn’t always happen like that, but those are the best days.

RS: What attracted you to the horror genre? Did you read horror when you were young and if so, who did you enjoy?

SN: I remember the old horror comics, weird war tales, that kind of thing. Like every kid who hasn’t been brainwashed by strict sects, I loved Halloween. I didn’t read a whole lot of it growing up and I’m far from an expert in the field. It’s just what came out when I started writing. I haven’t analyzed it too much. It just feels natural.

RS: You used to be a musician. What kind of music did you play and who do you enjoy listening to today? Are you like Stephen King, who rocks out while he’s writing?

SN: I played in what I guess they call “alternative rock” bands. Mostly bass, some guitars and keyboards. I sang some and wrote about 500 songs. It was fun, but it became time to move on to something else. I do listen to music while I write, usually the same old favorites so I don’t have to listen too closely. The Cure, Bowie, XTC, Smiths, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, and Natalie Merchant can usually be found in my CD player. I also like The Flaming Lips and the Strokes, some Smashing Pumpkins. On the radio I listen to the local NPR station, lots of bluegrass and alt country. I’d like to be eclectic but don’t have the energy.

RS: Any plans for any of your books to be made into films? You say on your website that you have written several screenplays – any nibbles from Hollywood?

SN: Something seems to happen every six months or so, but it’s a long way from nibble to landing the fish on board, much less getting it into the frying pan and then your tummy. I want to do more scripts when I get some other obligations out of the way. It’s a fun way to tell stories.

RS: Finally, I have to ask as you are pictured wearing a Confederate hat in many publicity shots – how often do you participate in reenacting Civil War battles? How big a kick do you get out of that? Sounds like that would be a lot of fun.

SN: I served as a reporter in a reenactment, the only unarmed male. The women, children, and I were captured by those crude, loutish Yanks. One of the guards knocked a pot out of a woman’s hand, and I made a chivalrous rush to her defense and was roughhoused by the brute. He knocked off my gorgeous top hat. I made sure I found him after the Boys in Gray regained the field. As the Yankee prisoners were marched away, I shouted, “You shoulda stayed in New York!” Good stuff, plus we got to win that time.