1. What was it that attracted you to the Slice Girls anthology?
Instant karma is so gratifying because real life often fails to deliver consequences for evil, especially as perpetuated against women. A chance to wreak righteous havoc in a safe, fictional setting was too good to pass up.
2. How did you feel writing a story about a violent woman?
Honestly, I laughed the whole time I was writing this. My social media is full of women who share their messages from horny, misogynistic men. Sometimes they send pictures of their dicks, and to amuse myself I’ll take those pictures and use MS Paint to turn them into dragons or members of Devo or something. This was really just a literary version of that.
3. Please give the readers a brief summary of the story you wrote for the collection?
“Click Bait” is about a man who spends one drunk night trying to booty call a friend of a friend, and when she declines, he starts yelling slurs at her before ultimately dick piccing her. The next morning, his penis is completely gone, magically erased. He ends up at her coven meeting house begging for it back.
4. Slice Girls includes the subheading Feminazi Splattergoth. What are your thoughts about the term Feminazi?
You know, you see the term “feminazi” a lot less since we got actual Nazis marching in the streets again. It was always a bogeyperson term meant make people afraid of a change in gendered power dynamics. Since our goal in this anthology is to scare the shit out of people, I think it’s a wonderful term.
5. Have any of your other stories been published? If so tell us about them and where readers can find them.
Most of them are in my collection The Rook Circle. A handful of others appear in Wickedly Abled, The Society of Misfit Stories Presents, and my personal favorite, Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly.
6. What is your favourite short story by another author?
“Lost in the Dark” by John Langan gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards. Joe Hill’s “Voluntary Committal” is another great one. Gemma Files’ “Cut Frame” is far and away the best horror short of 2020.
Bio: Jef Rouner is an award-winning freelance journalist from Houston, TX where he covers strange art events, medical discrimination, video games, online behavior, and neo-Nazis. His first book, The Rook Circle, was published by CHBB, and he is finishing the second draft of his first novel. He is most famous for the essay “No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong,” and was once on the front page of Cracked.com for an article about the posthumous adventures of celebrity corpses. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and lives with his wife, daughter, and too many cats.
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