#118 Val O. Morris
I often find myself gazing up at the sky.
Each night at bedtime, I take my dog, Ripley outside one last time. While she’s taking care of her doggy business, I’m staring up at the dark sky in awe of all the stars and the infinite wonder. I wonder if anyone or anything is up there looking down on me at the same moment. I wonder if there is life out there beyond our atmospheric boundary. I wonder if that life ever thinks of visiting Earth. I wonder if we will ever inhabit another planet.
For now, I’ll settle for sending my stories to the moon and, perhaps one day someone will find them and get a laugh out of the adventures that Liam had while being stranded in a video game or how Viki befriended the ghost of her grandfather. Monster Girl, about the aforementioned Viki, was the first book I ever wrote and published, and it is dedicated to my grandfather.
I am super stoked and thankful for the chance to be included in Susan Kaye Quinn’s Writers on the Moon project! When organizing my books for this time capsule project, I wanted to include some of my published books along with a couple of short stories and screenplays that I have written. The screenplays are for horror short films that I made along with my husband, Craig, and our family and friends. We did this for about 5-6 years before I turned to writing books. The short films were a lot of fun and super hard work! I craved an additional creative outlet, which is why I turned to writing books.
I am a filmmaker turned author who likes to tell fun horror stories and twisted tales for all ages. I’m also a life-long video gamer and tech geek who is crazy about horror movies, dogs, popcorn, football, and Godzilla!
The writing bug bit me way back in elementary school, and after years of playing the onscreen monster in short films, I decided to write books about them.
While writing has always been a part of my life, I wasn’t always an avid book reader. When I was young, I enjoyed reading horror magazines and horror short stories, and still do today. However, I began reading much more fiction in early adulthood. A friend of mine gave me a trilogy of vampire novels called The Diaries of the Family Dracul (Jeanne Kalogridis), which were fantastic. After that, I devoured the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling). Two books that I recently enjoyed are Killer Pizza (Greg Taylor) and The Drive-In (Joe R. Lansdale).
Reading inspires me to write my own stories, just like watching movies inspired my filmmaking.
In 2007, my husband and I formed Cinegore Pictures (https://www.youtube.com/user/cinegorepictures), a just-for-fun filmmaking production company. My love of horror movies and telling fun stories fuels this creative outlet. To date we have made nine short films and a handful of commercials. Seeing our work aired on local TV and shown in film festivals have been some of the highlights. Below is a picture of me with the alien creature from our first short film, Legion.
Filmmaking was a rewarding endeavor. However, I craved an additional outlet to tell stories, and 2014 marked a year of change. I have always wanted to write and publish a book, so I set out to do just that.
That same year, Monster Girl was born!
I still get to tell stories by writing books, and it has been as equally rewarding as filmmaking. When not writing, I have many other hobbies that occupy my time. Photography is another creative outlet that constantly challenges me. You can see some of my work on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/aremid/).
I also enjoy the outdoors and while I don’t get to travel as much as I’d like–do we ever?–one of the benefits of writing fiction is that I get to make stuff up. Creating new and exciting worlds is exciting, and I encourage anyone to read, write, and share your stories with the world! Who knows? Perhaps one day, future humans will read my stories… on the moon!
Imagination is limitless!
Find Val O. Morris’s stories here.