Meet Jef Rouner | Horror author, TikTok storyteller, and freelance journalist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jef Rouner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jef, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I’ve always loved scary stories. When I was a child, I didn’t have religion; I had the Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series, the Twilight Zone, and Charles Berlitz. The first thing I ever wrote for other people was a horror short.

Starting around 2014, I got burnt out being a freelance journalist. My work had slowly transitioned from arts and entertainment coverage to chronicling online extremism and fascist movements. I rediscovered a love of writing horror through a couple of friends looking to fill out anthologies, especially Carmilla Voiez.

Horror is inherently cathartic. By definition, it is a genre of extremes and subversions, When you control a world of horror, you can also create the ways to overcome it. Stephen King once said that if a hundred people imagine a vampire, one will eventually imagine the stake to put through its heart.

I write because it’s a way to give hope to people struggling, and to take the masks off monsters I see in everyday life. When I was putting together The Rook Circle, it was a way for me to deal with all the casual misogyny I saw online as well as the commercialization of religion. Stranger Words is largely the same with a little bit of laborpunk and explorations of mental illness through body horror.

The bit about the Time-Life books is only barely a joke. Stories are the true gods because stories imagine the world not as it is but as it can be. Folklore, urban legends, and creepypastas are always mirrors of their society’s anxieties and values. The next step into horror fiction is little more than polishing the marble and giving the statue a face. That’s me! The Banksy of banal nightmares,

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re living in a Golden Age of horror right now. Film hasn’t been this good since the 1970s (if it ever was), and the literature field is full of writers exploring all the ways terror can reveal truth. Reading someone like Chuck Tingle, Christi Nogle, or Monika Kim makes me feel alive. If I can survive their books, I can make it through another day.

I’ve had people tell me the same thing about my work. Religious abuse survivors have said how much “Nevaeh” means to them. Other victims of doxxing and harassment email me all the time about how much they loved the witchy revenge in “Click Bait.” A professor friend of mine teaches “How to Sell a Holiday” as an example of unconventional storytelling. The story becomes part of the foundation of the next inkslinger or makes scared people feel less alone.

That moment of change, that alchemical soul conversion where language becomes meaning and then inspiration? That’s what makes me sit down and fist fight a blank screen when I’m exhausted. I tell scary stories for the same reason humans have since we were living in caves. Horror binds us and makes us ready to face the dark.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Horror comes in a lot of forms. I’m not much one for gore, extreme violence, or hopelessness. Most of my stories have happy endings because in the end most monsters are actually pathetic no matter how scary or cosmic they appear. I keep my heroes working class and firmly grounded. There’s nothing wrong with a Gothic ghost story set in a decaying manor, but I can’t relate with that well enough to write it. My stuff is more about how the even if the world ended tomorrow we’d still be expected to work a half-day.

The most important lesson I’ve ever learned was to be sincere. The minute you start trying to puppeteer a character you don’t care about you’re going to write bad copy. Writing is an act of faith, and bad faith is a sin for a reason. Care so much that it bleeds, listen to your heart, and then follow wherever it goes even if it wasn’t where you meant to.

Also, be funny if you can manage it. Horror and absurdity are actually the same thing, so lean into it. Nothing makes me happier than hearing people laugh then wince (or vice versa) at my work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am a museum junkie, so we’re hitting all the good ones in Houston. Natural Science, obviously, but some of the weird ones as well like the Funeral Museum and the 1940s Air Terminal. Whatever week is going on in Houston, something wonderful is happening at the River Oaks Theatre, and the food is to die for. Odds are if a friend is visiting me they are going to want to see some of the cemeteries in the book I’m writing, stuff like the ones in the middle of highways or hidden inside an apartment complex.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
For the last several years, I’ve been leaning hard on the support of fellow writers Erin Lono and Brooke Kyle. We meet once a month to catch up on creative projects, support each other, and plan new projects. In that vein, I also have to say that Holly Lyn Walrath is an absolute treasure whose mere presence makes me want to get more words down. Whether it’s poetry or short stories, Holly is a simply the best in Houston.

Oh, and Texas oddly has a very good werewolf fiction scene that makes me so happy. My current favorites are Shea Serrano (Werewolf Lawyer) and Rob Saucedo (Where Wolf?). Holly may be the best, but these two dudes are having the most fun.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefrouner

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jef.withonef.5

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poBOGZ1xdNU&list=PLARPJgVwqOAFiR0wNFjfxK1SStEbNzqhH

Other: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jef-Rouner/author/B003AXH50W?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Image Credits
Woods photo – Haley Chambers
Table photo – Susan Hinkie-Holt
Plague doctor – Jessica Anderson
Stranger words – Michael Vincent Bramley
Rook Circle – Dor Hartley