Jess Hanna has written several Christian horror stories. His thriller Adverse Possession just released from The Crossover Alliance, and today he drops by to tells us about himself, his writing, and what's next on his plate!
Tell us about yourself.
I am a married
white male in his mid-thirties living in the mid-west of the good old
US of A. I also have a dog named Minnie and a cat named Willow.
During the day, I manage eBook production for a large Christian
publishing company. By night, I lurk about as an author of
supernatural thrillers.
From my early days
growing up in semi-rural Northern Michigan I had the bug to write.
There are several fantasy adventure ‘books’ that I penned in
elementary school filled with magical creatures that help humans
navigate through foreign worlds. I also have at least one story about
a demon or the devil that my mother recently told me she found while
going through boxes of old stuff. I continued to write strange
stories throughout middle and high school.
Following my
sophomore year in high school, I pushed my inborn desire to write
away. I was convinced that it was not an economically viable option
for my life, and pursued academics with no real end goal in mind.
Tell us about your writing journey so far.
In 2011, I went
back to my first love of writing after nearly twenty years of
dormancy. I set a goal to write a thousand words a day until I
finished a book. Several months later, I ended up with the first
draft of The Road to Hell. My joy of actually writing a whole
book’s worth of words was short lived as I dove into the editing
process. For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure, it is not a fun
process. After that first edit, I did another round, followed by
another, then another, and on and on it went until I decided enough
was enough.
With great thought
and care, I prepared my first book proposal and shipped it off to a
variety of agents and publishers. Surely one of them would recognize
my brilliance and take the opportunity to snatch up my masterpiece.
And yet they didn’t. I had some nibbles, but the fish just weren’t
hungry for a piece of Christian horror. My blood, sweat, and tears
poured out onto the virtual page was reduced to another pile of paper
for the slush pile.
My emotional
devastation at the rejection of my best efforts was short-lived as I
researched other options to get my work out into the world. Without
flowing rivers of money, it didn’t make sense to have my book
‘published’ through a vanity press, so I spent countless hours
researching how to publish my own book. And with the help of my
graphically talented wife, put together a decent looking book.
After that, I
tempered my expectations and realized if I wanted to write I had to
do it just because I wanted to, even if nobody paid attention (which
some people have and even seem to like what I write). Following that,
I started on my second book, Adverse Possession. It was
slightly easier to get to the end point with that one, but it was
still and emotionally taxing venture, yet somehow still rewarding to
know that I had more than one book inside my warped brain. I receive
a little more attention with that title, and almost grabbed the
attention of a major publisher, but still wound up self-publishing
it. Fast-forward a couple of years later, and Adverse Possession
has been revised and re-published through The Crossover Alliance.
In an attempt to
ride the wave of inspiration, I wrote a third book about sleep
paralysis and night terrors, that I ultimately shelved. The writing
process was not as easy for that one, and it suffered due to the
blunt force I applied to it. The story isn’t total rubbish; it just
isn’t where I want it to be. Someday, I may revisit that book and
clean it up. I still think it’s a story worth telling.
Shortly after that,
Nathan James Norman of The Untold Podcast asked me to write a short
piece to be presented through his imaginative audio platform. I
accepted the challenge and wrote If it Causes You to Sin,
which is a vivid literal misinterpretation of scripture. Writing that
one scared me, and hearing it on The Untold Podcast brought my terror
to another level. I remember feeling sick to my stomach researching
and writing a pivotal scene that is not for the squeamish or the
faint of heart. This story was also included in The Crossover
Alliance Anthology, volume I, along with the tale of a mother’s
courage to stand up against the dark forces that seek to control her
and her baby in Spellbound
What are your sources of inspiration?
My primary
motivation for writing is to lift the veil behind various
supernatural mysteries, occurrences, and mythologies to expose the
truth behind the lie. Or put another way, to find the light in the
darkness. This includes ghosts, demons, aliens, and any other
creatures or entities dreamt up by the depths of hell. With that king
of source material I should be writing for a very long time.
The Road to Hell
was inspired by a popular author preaching that God would
ultimately redeem all souls, regardless of whether or not they
accepted the truth of the Living God in their lives. Well-intentioned
teaching, maybe, but we should all know where the path of good
intentions leads.
Adverse
Possession was inspired by countless ghost stories and movies
that tell truly frightening tales that I enjoy with childish glee,
but fall flat when explaining the source of the activity and how to
get rid of it forever. My favorite of this breed is Poltergeist,
and some similar story threads may be found running through Adverse
Possession.
Tell us about some books/authors
that you hold in high regard.
From the fifth
grade I have read the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Frank
Peretti. The book that had the highest impact on my early years was
It. I still can’t walk past a storm drain without thinking
about that clown and its mouthful of razor sharp teeth. Intensity
by Dean Koontz is not supernatural, per se, but is the frightening
thriller that I use to gauge all the others. In my later years, I
yearned for supernatural stories that reflected more of the spiritual
truth. Frank Perretti’s This Present Darkness and The
Oath filled that void perfectly.
Any upcoming projects?
I am in the process
of editing a story about alien abduction and little grey men. With
any luck, that should be ready to be sent into the world in 2016. I
am also awaiting publication of another short story in The
Crossover Alliance Anthology, volume II called The Reflecting
Pool. It is a story of love, lust, loss, and betrayal.I have also started
writing a stand-alone sequel to The Road to Hell, which
explores that state of modern mental health care as it relates to
spirituality.
Where can readers find you online?
I can be found
online at the following places:
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