What came out of it, however, is valuable. Many authors and editors are considering race in a new light, working hard to get it righter. Something else that came out of it is a new publishing venture worth watching, Verb Noire. We are honored to have the opportunity to post an interview with the principals of Verb Noire, Mikki Kendall and Jamie Nesbitt-Golden.

1. I understand that Verb Noire is a brand new publishing venture intended to showcase works by people of color. Tell us more about it. What does the name mean to you? What is it intended to signify to readers? What’s your mission?

Verb Noire came about out of the idea that there are untold stories hidden in the dark that deserve to be brought to light. We want readers to see our logo and think of all the stories that they might have missed that are now available to them.

2. Is Verb Noire set up as a traditional small press, or are you more like a co-op publishing venture, or a community program?

We’re about as traditional as two un-traditional people can be. We want our readers and our staff to feel included in the process, but we’re certainly not a self-publisher. There will be no renditions of “You Got Served in the Shire” or “Hobbits vs Orcs, the Battle for Middle Earth Begins on the Dance Floor!” though we are open to comedy, there has to be a line we do not cross. Jamie and I want our subscribers to find quality work in whatever genre they choose every time they log on.

3. What are you going to be publishing? Have you formulated your submissions guidelines yet, and if you have, can you give them to us in a nutshell?

Eventually we want to publish a little of everything, but right now our primary focus is science fiction, fantasy (both urban and traditional), with possible interest in well-written romance, mystery, and erotica. We’re still discussing young adult works, but I will win the battle and we will publish those stories too. We plan to have a poetry anthology available annually. Our basic submission guidelines are that all work must be electronically submitted, must be completely original, and the author must be willing to accept constructive criticism. Our website will detail specific word counts, but in general a novel is 100,000+ words. Specific submission guidelines can be found on our Facebook and Livejournal pages. We should have a working site up by the end of March at verbnoire.com.

4. Are you looking for volunteers? What kinds of help do you need right now?

More than anything else we need publicity. If you’re reading this, feel free to tell a friend. Got a novel or a short story or poem that you’ve always wanted to submit? Send it in. No guarantees, but as of right now you don’t need an agent for us to read your work.Over the days and weeks ahead we’ll need readers (we started taking submissions on March 9th), with some eclectic taste in their fiction. But for now the biggest issue is getting the stories into our greedy little hands.

5. What is Verb Noire going to offer to readers that they might not find elsewhere?

Protagonists that are not cut from the same old mold, compelling stories, and fresh perspectives on genres that we’ve all grown to know and love.

6. What’s the future of Verb Noire in 5 years?

World domination. No seriously, we hope to be here providing a platform for many years to come for all the talented people who have found themselves shut out of the mainstream publishing world.In 5 years I hope that we’ll be as close to a household name as possible and that at least one of our authors will have a spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.

7. So, let’s talk about you two. What do you love to read? What music do you listen to? What are you passionate about? What do your families and friends think about Verb Noire?

Jamie has an obsession with hookers, hobbits, blow, and biographies. I’m a little less interesting, I tend toward smut, young adult fiction, science fiction, and fantasy novels where the heroine can fight for herself. We bonded over Buffy and boys, despite having very disparate taste in music. She’s fixated on De La Soul and Death Cab for Cutie, while my taste is more eclectic and can range from AFI to Queen Latifah to the Doors. I tend to like songs as opposed to individual artists. Between us we probably have every bad dance CD every created. We listen to (and mock) them on a regular basis. We’re passionate about a lot of things from politics to food (I’m always feeding her) to the people we love. Our spouses swing between impressed and horrified as we have a tendency to demand that they contribute time, energy, and talent to this venture. Our friends are starting to shudder when they see us coming because they expect to be pressed into service at the drop of an idea. Fortunately we have people who love us enough to wade in even when they think we’re crazy.

8. There’s always a lot of talk about where speculative fiction is going. Where do you see it going? What would you like to see?

I think the interest in speculative fiction has grown significantly over the last few years. Everything from soap operas to short stories is being consumed by people looking to escape from the stresses of daily life. And small presses are in a perfect position to expand the pie, because we’re not beholden to the same old standards. We’re already taking a risk by existing, so why not take a bigger one and feature those writers who the mainstream may deem too controversial, not commercial enough, or who the bigger companies may assume would not have an audience? I want new myths and legends, I want to see old tropes turned on their heads and protagonists that aren’t retreads of stories that have been told a 1,000 times. There’s plenty of room left for speculative fiction to grow and develop, it just needs an infusion of fresh blood.

9. Since we can’t get a book from Verb Noire yet, and we love the free and low cost fun, what online venue would you recommend our readers visit next and why?

I am obsessed with Smart Bitches. Even if you’re not a romance novel reader I think you’ll enjoy their commentary. If it wasn’t a conflict of interest I’d be trying to start somethig similar for sci-fi and fantasy books.

10. Are there any sites you’d recommend for our readers to educate themselves about the issues you’re most passionate about? What should people be doing/reading/considering that they may not know about?

Well, this is a little self-serving since I’m a blogger at one of my recs, but I think your readers need to check out blogs like Transgriot , Angry Black Bitch, BlackAmazon, and The Angry Black Woman. Now I am Karnythia at ABW, but I was reading it long before I was ever invited to guest blog. Feministing, Jezebel, and Pandagon get a lot of attention, but they are not the only places to discuss LGBT issues, or politics, or feminism, or critical race theory. Intersectionality is one of my biggest hot button issues and I feel like it doesn’t get enough attention in the broader feminist blogs. One of my earlier projects on LJ was to create a community (sex_and_race) that really is a safe space for WOC to discuss these issues. We’ve kept that environment deliberately small and secluded (we’re not taking new members right now) but I do think that those conversations also need to take place on a wider platform.

Leaf Noire by photographer Kris K. G. Visit his Deviant Art page to see more of his work.

I ask myself that same question every morning. Unfortunately, it appears my psyche is staying tight-lipped, so we’ll have to consider the answer to that “pending”. On the surface, at least, I appear to be an Irish immigrant, relocated to the wastelands of Ohio where I have written a number of novels, hundreds of short stories, and edited one or two anthologies. But I’m not sure how reliable that description is either. I might be omitting dark secrets for the sake of my public image.

2. Why horror?

Basically because I grew up on it. My mother had me watching horror movies when I was eight years of age, and shortly thereafter I started stealing and smuggling Stephen King books from wherever I could get them. I was hooked, and quickly decided I wanted to write the kind of stuff that scared other people as much as the horror I was reading scared me. That’s the short answer. The long one is pretty much the same, but with more vowels and an extra “the.”

3. What is your favorite type of story, the one thing that will guarantee you’ll pick up a book or a movie, even if you’ve never heard of it before–man’s inhumanity to man, zombies, vampires, aliens?

Siege stories. I love stories that trap the characters in a situation they’re unlikely to get out of due to the elements, or the nature of the confinement or antagonist. Think stories like Tim Lebbon’s “White”, Peter Crowther’s “Eater”, Dean Koontz’s INTENSITY, or movies like THE THING, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, THE DESCENT, ALIEN, SAW, CUBE, etc. The claustrophobia adds an element to the horror that you can feel with or without the monsters. I also love the focus it forces on character, how the relationships devolve due to the entrapment.

I’m also particularly fond of psychological horror stories, in which you usually focus on a single character and how the horror comes from inside themselves, or the effect an outside antagonist has on their emotions, whether monster, ghost, or human.

4. You wrote a wovel online. What’s a wovel? How did it work out? Is the story still available to read for free? Is something else going to happen with it now that it’s done? How hard was it to write to people’s votes?

A wovel is an “web novel”. Basically I was hired to write a novel one chapter a week. Every chapter ended with a choice for the reader to decide what happened next. The choice that got the most votes would influence the next chapter. For example, a woman turns a gun on a character. Does she pull the trigger? The reader must decide. It was much like the choose your own adventure novels of yesteryear. And I had no idea how challenging it was going to be. Giving up creative control of a story is not something I’m used to, and although I enjoyed the interaction and the novelty of it all, I’m not sure I would do it again. If I did, I’d plan it better, as I’m not entirely sure the end result was all that successful, though the readers seemed to think so!

The story is no longer available online and there are no immediate plans to reprint it. But a new “wovel” is on the site now, written by the ferociously talented Jeremiah Jefferson. You can find it at UnderlandPress.com

5. The wovel, free reads on your website…you’re one of those wretched pixel-stained technopeasants aren’t you?

Yes. Considering the high prices my books go for upon release and then on the secondary market, I like to make free stuff available whenever possible, both as a thank you to those who shell out $40 or so at a time for my books when they come out, and for those who simply can’t afford that and who want to sample my work.

6. Are your books normally available in electronic format or only the free stuff? If they are, where do we find them?

I haven’t really looked into the electronic format until recently, so very little of it is available outside of the work I post myself on my website – www.kealanpatrickburke.com. But over the past few months, I’ve had a lot of readers write to me asking if my work is available for the Kindle, so I’m planning to ensure that happens now that there seems to be a demand for it.

7. What’s coming up for you? How are you stretching yourself as a writer?

To be honest, I’m not. Upheavals in my life over the past year or so have kept me away from the keyboard, so I haven’t written very much of anything. I’m gradually getting back to it, and looking forward to the release of a new novel this summer, entitled KIN, which is very different from anything I’ve written before. As regards stretching myself, well, I try to do a few jumping jacks in the morning, but there’s only so much you can do in an apartment with a low ceiling.

8. Tell us about “Peekers.” How is the movie different from the story? Did you write the screenplay? How did it feel having something of yours made into a movie? What happens to it after it’s finished with its film festival run–will we be able to see it?

While some of my stories put the majority of emphasis on character (sometimes at the expense of plot), this was created simply as a short, sharp, scare story. It’s about a man who is asked by his elderly neighbor to come see something at his house. He claims there’s something there that will make everyone think he’s crazy unless he has a witness. Begrudgingly, our main character agrees, and as is typical for this type of story, everything goes to hell from there.

There are small differences in the movie, things that were added, things that were left out, but for the most part, it stays pretty faithful to the story, and what it changes, it changes for the better. I didn’t write the screenplay. That was handled by veteran novelist Rick Hautala, and he did a wonderful job with it.

I’ve had quite a bit of movie interest in my work over the years, but little of it has come to anything, so I no longer get excited about it until there’s actually something to get excited about. With PEEKERS, I knew it was going to be a very low budget production, nothing flashy, and to be honest didn’t expect much from it. I was, however, very flattered that Mark Steensland liked it enough to want to film it, and in the end, I was very pleasantly surprised with the quality of the end product. So much so, that I was more than happy to let him option another story of mine for future production.

The film is slated for a DVD release as part of a compilation that features other short films by Mark Steensland and one directed by SFX maestro Tom Savini, sometime next year. Until then though, you can watch PEEKERS here: http://www.playwithme.tv.

9. If we could only buy one anthology you’ve edited, which should it be? Why? What makes it special?

TAVERNS OF THE DEAD, because it was my first, and because it was a dream come true for me. I’d fantasized about doing the book back when I was tending bar in Ireland, but never imagined it would come to fruition. And though it was a labor of love to get it done, it’s still the book I’m most proud of. It contains wonderful stories written by many of my literary heroes.

10. Assuming our readers have consumed everything available on your website, and bought at least two copies of every book you’ve published or edited, where would you send them to find great content on the web, horror or other? What are your favorite websites?

Shocklines.com or The Horror Mall are good sites at which you can find great horror by both up-and-coming writers and established professionals. There’s a wealth of wonderful stuff available there. Just make sure you have a few days free to sift through it all!