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'Horror-Sinisteria' Author Not That Gloomy

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: February 25, 2009

Considering the care she has taken to control her career, it is perhaps ironic that author Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc's own life story could be titled "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover."

In barely four years, Van Scoyoc has developed a following for her novels, which are often categorized as being in the "horror-sinisteria" genre, a macabre and sadistic fictional landscape populated with supernatural creatures and violent plotlines that often revolve around the occult and homosexual gothic or twisted coming-of-age themes.

Her latest novel, the just-released "Playing Devil's Advocate," is, in her opinion, her most "sadistic book to date."

The story is about a young boy who comes home and finds his parents brutally murdered. Failed by the child welfare system, he winds up on the street, blaming God for his fate. He makes a pact with the Devil.

But when he discovers the Devil has double-crossed him, he enlists partners and starts a revolt in Hell.

With this sort of literary identity, Van Scoyoc is used to superficial assumptions. She has, however, never lost the glee she gets from turning around those assumptions. As she sat in her living room, she recalled a recent encounter. She was wearing a spike on a chain around her neck, and a woman approached her.

"She came up and said, 'What is it with you Goth people and your spikes,' " Van Scoyoc recalled. "She said, 'All you kids, with this weird jewelry that you wear.' "

Van Scoyoc smiled as she recounted how she informed the woman that first of all, pushing 40, she's no kid. Then she let the lady have a closer look at the spike, at the "John 3:16" inscription. This spike symbolized the ones used to nail Christ to the cross.

In the end, the two had a nice, friendly chat. The woman had been concerned that her son was going through an all-black-wearing Goth phase and she was relieved to find someone who looked that way but was a nice, "normal" Christian.

The encounter was in some ways typical for Van Scoyoc. The antique furnishings in her living room could easily create a Victorian spookiness are offset by liberal doses of Christian imagery, Egyptian art and toys from movies like "The Nightmare before Christmas" that easily blend humor and horror.

With a naturally pale complexion and an arty, quasi-Goth look, it's easy to see how Van Scoyoc's readers might think upon meeting her that she resides in a ghoulish realm 24/7. That impression, she happily declared, doesn't last long.

"When my fans meet me, the whole persona they built up in their minds is gone," Van Scoyoc said. "Once people meet me in person, the thing I hear the most is, 'but you're so normal.' "

Making personal connections with her readers is a point of pride for Van Scoyoc, and her favorite part of being a writer. At conventions and book signings, she is "spastic, bouncing off the walls, grinning, laughing and hugging everyone," the writer said.

The last thing she wants to be mistaken for is a snooty author.

"People like it that I'm approachable," Van Scoyoc said. "You leave me a message on MySpace, it's me that answers."

Some writers get so buried in their work the line between reality and fiction blurs, Van Scoyoc said. She's never had that problem. She can be in the middle of writing a horrific scene, stop to give her mother a call, and jump right back into her writing when she's done. But as she strives to write in a way that immerses the reader, it may not seem that way.

Many of her horror-sinisteria fans don't even realize Van Scoyoc has also written a mainstream pirate novel aimed at teens, "Trilogy," and has even ventured into Christian literature with a story about the Apocalypse titled "The Samson Gene."

"People tend to forget that I'm not writing books based on personal experience," she said. "I'm simply writing fiction that drug itself out of somewhere in the recesses of my mind."

Actually, she quite often steps back, she said, as she did while writing "Playing Devil's Advocate," and thinks, "Wow, I've really gone over the edge."

Occasionally, it's readers who tip over the edge. There have been stalking incidents, and it seemed like there were those who had hate mail prewritten and at the ready for the moment she released "Playing Devil's Advocate."

As with everything else, Van Scoyoc keeps it all in perspective. If anything, she was happy the release of the new book marked the end of a true terror - dealing with publishing houses.

"It took me five publishers to learn my lesson," she said. "Late royalties, lies about when books shipped, no promotion; I had a disastrous experience."

She now finds herself where she started, self-publishing. This has her comfortably and confidently in control of her career.

"I found it's the old cliche, if you want something done right, do it yourself."

"Playing Devil's Advocate" is available online at www.amazon.com and www.lulu.com. It has a retail price of

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