S3:E11 Inside the Mirror Room with Horror Author K. E. Koontz

What draws someone toward the darkness—and what can horror reveal about the person creating it?

Horror author K. E. Koontz steps inside the Mirror Room for a conversation about fear, storytelling, and the experiences that have shaped the way she approaches horror.

Known for blending folklore, psychological terror, supernatural horror, and dark romance, K. E.'s stories explore the monsters we encounter outside ourselves—and the ones we carry within.

In this conversation, we turn the mirror away from simply promoting the latest book and toward the person behind the fear.

We talk about her relationship with horror, the influence of the wild and unpredictable on her storytelling, what fear can teach us about ourselves, and the darker places a writer's imagination can go.

K. E. is the author of numerous horror novels, including the God Is Dead series, with more stories already waiting in the dark. Her latest novel, They Looked Like People:  A Blackwater Pines Mystery is available on Amazon. Buy your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/They-Looked-Like-People-Blackwater-ebook/dp/B0GWY4LFW4?ref_=ast_author_mpb

🪞 Welcome to the Mirror Room.

Find K. E. Koontz:
Website: https://www.fullmoonfiction.com/
TikTok: @author.k.e.koontz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Author-K-E-Koontz/61567552766102/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/K.-E.-Koontz/author/B0CLB6SWQB

📚 Have a story of your own?

Think your story belongs on the shelves of the Library of Shadows?

Visit LooksCreepyCool.com to submit your story. If selected, your story may become a future chapter of the Looks Creepy Cool Podcast—and if you'd like, you can even narrate it yourself.

Until next time... another reflection awaits. 🪞

👉 If it looks creepy, it must be cool. Follow Haunted House FearFest & the Looks Creepy Cool Podcast.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the Mirror Room, where we go beyond the stories and step inside the minds of the creators behind the fear. Today's guest is horror author Caitlin Koontz, a writer who believes some of the most terrifying things are also the most familiar. Her work explores fear in many forms, and in the novel, they look like people. She takes us into Blackwater Pines, a place where people disappear, cameras capture things they shouldn't, and grief may be just as dangerous as whatever is waiting between the trees. Today we're talking about fear, grief, horror mockumentaries, the stories that shaped her, and what draws her toward the darker corners of storytelling. Caitlin, welcome to the mirror room. Welcome, Caitlin, to the mirror room. I hope you're not too scared, but it seems like you're braving the darker side being a horror author, so welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and see someone else's shade of darkness.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I love it. I love it. So before we get started, I definitely want to remind our house guests and new house guests, aka the audience, the mirror room isn't about jump scares. It's about reflection. It's where we step back from the finished work and explore the experiences, fears, inspirations, and defining moments that shape the person behind the performances. Every guest brings a different reflection. So, Caitlin, one question I want to start off and ask you is what's more frightening to you? Discovering that you're completely alone or discovering that you're not?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Oh, discovering that I'm completely alone. Wow. Absolutely. There is something very terrifying to me about loneliness. About isolation, being unable to reach out to someone and ask for help. Feeling like something is there, especially when you know nothing is. While I don't like crowds, and I don't like knowing someone is looking over my shoulder watching me. I hate the aspect and the thought of being totally isolated even more.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Have you had any personal experience with that or where you felt something or someone was watching you?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

I have. When I was much younger, we lived at a house that I dubbing I lovingly call Circle Loop. It was a big loop of houses, so that's what we call that. And there were more than one occasion where I would be the only one home at 9, 10, 11 and nothing would be there. But suddenly something at the far end of the house would be knocked over, and I'd look around and the cats wouldn't be in there. I don't know what knocked it over. Being alone where you can't reach out and go, okay, someone else go check that room for me. I don't go back there. Right. I think that was definitely one of the starting points. And since then, as you get older, everything from the more realistic horror of being alone as family also ages or friends drift away to the less plausible and the more surreal. I'm the only one here, but I definitely just heard something. And I'm the only one here. So I have to go check. And even if it's nothing, that act of walking down the hallway all alone, I think that's very frightening.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Wow. So is that where your um love of horror writing started, or not? Did it take some time for you to get into writing?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

It actually started even earlier when I was growing up, family night for my house, which consists of me, my mother, and my older sister.

unknown 4:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

It was Sci-Fi Saturday. And I know that doesn't exist anymore. So some people might not be familiar with it, but I'm familiar with it. I love it. It was every Saturday we sat down with popcorns, and that was our Saturday. So I grew up watching everything from 13 Ghosts, way younger than I probably should have been, to watching the schlocky movies that Sci-Fi Saturday would make: Saber Tooth and Shark Party and all of those fun ones. And it was such an awesome bonding moment for me that that's where my love for it started. And that's also when I started writing. I was homeschool. I did a lot of writing to pass the time. And the two things just went hand in hand together for me.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Wow. So when you begin writing a horror story, what usually comes first? Is it the fear, the character, the monster, the setting, or simply an image or idea that won't like leave you alone?

SPEAKER_01 5:15

It is usually the feeling. I think there are so many different types of fear. You have fear from grief and melancholy, fear of being tracked, fear from a gory horror versus supernatural horror. And usually what comes to me first is I want to write something that makes my reader feel this specific emotion. And from there, then usually what happens is the set dressing because I love the imagery and how different locations can affect horror. A ghost story at the beach is totally different than a ghost story in a Victorian manner. And those are usually the two first things I figure out.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Wow. So that's interesting. A ghost story at the beach. Did you, did you, did you, do you ever frighten yourself while you're writing? Like what's your I'm always curious with writers. Like, what's your like ritual when you write? A lot of writers, they'll, you know, it has to be fully dark, like the candle, or not the candle, oh, maybe a candle, but like the light has to be a certain way. Do you have any rituals when you write?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

I am a bit of an alpineer. I like starting by taking notes on my phone so I can take them down whenever the idea hits me. And then it is just as soon as I can get the laptop open. It's a bit anticlimactic that I don't have any rituals, but I think it also opens me up to being able to write anywhere at any time, whether the light is good or it's noisy or not.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Or it's noisy or not. So one thing I just want to talk about. Um I want to step um the audience or the house guests into Blackwater Pines. Okay, so um, at the center of the story is Blackwater Pines, where twin sisters, Bailey and Bethany West Point, disappear during what should have been an ordinary hike, despite an extensive search, there's no trace of them, no bodies, no clothing, no equipment, no sign of a struggle. More than a year later, their brother Abi walks into those same woods in the middle of the night and disappears too. So, but before he vanishes, Abi leaves behind a series of disturbing videos, footage of him walking deeper into the forest, communicating with people who aren't there, and following voices he believes belong to his missing sisters. When the paranormal investigation team behind Strange and Bizarre begin looking into what happened, what starts almost like a missing person's documentary slowly becomes something much darker. Now, but underneath the mystery and the horror, what really struck me was that this is also a story about grief and what could happen when grief refuses to let us go. So, Caitlin, was they look like people always a story about grief for you, or did that reveal itself as you were writing it?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

It was always a story about grief, but the specific type of grief changed as I wrote the story. It was originally meant to focus on the family itself, Avi and his sisters, and how their grief almost led to the events happening. Almost led to Avi's own trip into the woods. And I'm very taken with the idea that ghosts are grief. We create our own ghosts as people based on our grief for places, people, things, a want to see something again. And I like the concept that when it's so powerful, it can change the entire world and how it affects you. And the more I wrote it, the more I realized the story was also about his friend's grief. So the levels changed as I went into the journey of writing.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So did you do you think then maybe like the mop the grief is the monster in the story? Absolutely. Absolutely. So do you think we, in an essence, I feel like we control that monster in a way and that it'll get scary and scarier depending on how much attention we give the grief, but grief is so inescapable. So I guess in the sense, like, how do you control the monster?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

By not giving in to your grief. I have I was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was about six years old. So that has always been something that I have had a lot of very personal experiences with. How that can shape your world. And the core idea is if you give in to your grief, if you focus on holding on to the past, on things you have lost, it will pull you deeper into that darkness. It's only by accepting that something has happened or changed, and accepting that the grief is there, but you can move past it that you're able to defeat the monster. And Avi's main downfall is he couldn't let go of the grief of losing his sisters.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, it's just such a when you're describing that, it's so so well. It's like it just reminds me of a black hole in space. Yes. It is such a black hole. Grief is like you can't escape it, but you have to force yourself to escape it, which is a lot of the times it's like very hard to do. Um, so one of the things I really enjoyed was the way you chose to tell this story. So at times I felt like I was watching a missing a missing person's documentary that were slowly transforming into a found footage horror film. So the book moves between Blackwater Pines documentary, footage from footage from Strange and Bizarre, and the mysterious videos connected to the disappearance. So, what made you want to tell this story through interviews, documentary footage, videos, and pieces of evidence instead of just like a traditional narrative?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

I love found footage horror. It is my favorite genre. I love the well-done pieces, I love the really bad ones. It's my favorite genre. And within that, I specifically love mockumentaries. Lake Mungo is one of my all-time favorite movies. And I also really like finding new ways to create emotional pools in the stories I write.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So I thought that originally this was written as a moumentary where it was just a standard story where some chapters were labeled and some weren't. And I realized that wasn't getting across the feeling of watching a true crime documentary, of watching something on TV. So I spent quite a bit of time rewriting and reorganizing until I found a way to put that down on paper and get that same emotional feeling across.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So, what is it about found footage? And you mentioned like true crime. Oh my gosh, it's um people are obsessed with it. Um, what do you think makes found footage so effective? Is it because it's just so real that it could happen to anyone, just like true crime? Like, what is it about that's so effective for you?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

For me, it's a more personal lens. You watch it through the eyes of someone in the show. So, second person, while not a popular point of view to write in, is actually my favorite. I love writing in second person because it gives you such a personal connection with the reader. And I feel like found footage gives a much more personal connection with the viewer. You can only see what the characters see. You never learn anything they don't already know when it's done well. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I wanted to bring into this book is that feeling of you're watching this and you can only know what someone would have seen. If the characters didn't see it, you don't know what happened. There's more mystery, there's more reservation to it.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Right. So that's fascinating. So, like, what scares you, Caitlin? Not like movies or anything. Like, what ultimately scares you? We talked about earlier in our interview about like, you know, you hear something like in your home and you're the only one that has to check it out because you're the only one that's there. But what really scares you, Caitlin? Like, seems being a horror writer, like nothing really scares you, you know, I would assume from every horror author, but every horror author has a weakness. So what scares you? Sounds.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Sounds I personally, for example, I personally can read any book and not get freaked out by it. But even a bad horror movie or a horror movie I don't like, I was not taken by the plot of the Babaduke, but the sounds in it made my stomach churn. It made the hair on my arm stand up. Any movie that has a really strong audio element. And if I'm alone and I hear something, I think that's what plays into it. It's the the act of hearing and how the sound makes you feel. I do think part of that is because I am very blind, so you get used to the darkness and not seeing things. But the sound is always something that can set you on edge.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

So is there any place you would not go to visit?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Oh anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

I would not want to go to any of the haunted doll locations. I know there's an island in Japan. I believe there's also one in Mexico. I would not want to go. They creep me out. And the idea of potentially going somewhere that is supposed to be cursed, that is going to make your life worse. Well, whether you believe in that or not, why would you want to take that chance? True. So I definitely would not.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I think it's the thrill of it. I think, and I've also read stories that with dolls, um, I love watching the deadfiles on the travel channel. And like dolls in one episode, they're like a vessel to the other world. And but, you know, I don't know, it could make like a good story. You still wouldn't sacrifice going at all if it made like one creepy story for you.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Absolutely not. I can find creepy stories in my day-to-day life without finding something that's cursed.

unknown 16:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

There's a lot going on in this world. Um, so what's one fear you've overcame or overcome?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

The fear of flying.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Really?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yes. Yes. It made me very nervous. And I had the opportunity when I was 22 to take a business trip to London. I had never left the state of Florida before. And getting on that plane after watching all of these horror movies and the final destination movies.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Oh, that's the worst.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Having to get on that plane was very difficult. But I love flying now. I love going places, I love traveling, and it's definitely no longer a flashback to final destination.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

No, I know. I used to be a fan of the final destinations, but after a while I was like, oh, if I keep on watching and I can't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Um, so your author bio says that you believe the most terrifying things are often the most familiar. And we just, you know, you just um alluded to the fact that like I don't need to leave anywhere because I can step outside my house and then I can create stories. So, what does that mean to you as a horror writer?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

It means that the things we love are often the closest things to us, and the risk of something happening to the things we love is where a lot of real fear lives. I discuss that and use that as a heart point in a lot of my stories of what's more terrifying? Turning back around and facing the monster or leaving your best friend. What's more terrifying? Going back home and facing the grief and loss you left there, or never going back home at all. Where is the terror? And to me, it is in the things that we love and care for the most.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Or then some might think like it defines who we really care for and the most. Like when you mentioned like your best friend and um the monster leaving, but it's like survival of the fittest. Who are you gonna save? Unless you you're like the final girl and you think of something and you can like save both of you, but it's yeah, that's a tough question. And you see that in a lot of horror movies and even like in a lot of horror stories as well. Like, why, yeah, what would you do? Yeah, what would you do? And that brings me to you also describe something where romantic about the dark and something about relieving about being scared. So, what is it about being frightened that you find comfort comforting? Or um, yeah, what do you find comforting about it?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

A few things. The first is generally we're afraid when we are at our lowest point. We are terrified of something.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

And even if it's just something on TV, it's still that fear of we never feel worse than when we're afraid.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So the way I view it is that's also going to make you more comfortable, not only with your fears, but it's going to give you the fact that there's nowhere to go but up. You have something beyond it. And when it comes to the romance of it, I think that if someone is willing to see you at your worst, and we see it in movies, characters become afraid and they lash out and they yell and they do stupid things. And if you're willing to go after the one who just ran off, if you're willing to let them back in after, after you've seen them at their worst and they've seen you at their worst, there's nothing else beyond that. You can't go lower than what was just seen. And you know there is a true element of love, even if it's platonic there.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Right. And that, you know, that reminds me, like in the book, because with Avi, um, it's really hard. It's almost like you're in a vulnerable state that you can't escape from. So there's something particularly unsettling when I was reading about Avi hearing his missing sisters calling to him from the woods. Because if someone desperately wants a person they've lost to come back, hearing that person's voice could almost overpower the instinct telling them that this, that something isn't right. So a question I have for you is that were you interested in exploring how grief can make someone vulnerable to something they might otherwise recognize as dangerous?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yes, I was. I actually am working on a second book that takes place in Black Pines that explores it a little further than I could in Ovi's story. But I think that grief can make us do really silly things. I think so can fear. And there's something interesting about grief overpowering fear. And that was something I really wanted to explore in this.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Wow. Grief overpowering fear. It's like you're in a black hole of grief, but then it overpowers fear because you have to you can't stay stuck in it. That's very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

And the thing that interests me the most is it might not be good to let your grief overpower your fear. Fear exists to warn us something bad is going to happen. And while bravery is important, sometimes the fear saying don't step into busy traffic is correct.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

The same in horror movies and horror books where the fear of the monster keeps you alive. So if your grief is so strong you no longer are afraid of the monster, in a way it's putting you in even worse harm's way because you are not being careful anymore. And then comes the question of is grief the emotion you should be listening to or should you be letting go of it?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Right. Yeah. Should you be letting go of it? I guess feel I feel like only time can is really the only support system with that. Wow. Exactly. Very so when someone finishes one of your stories, what do you hope stays with them after they close the book?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

I hope the characters do. I try very hard to make the characters someone you could have actually known. Someone that you may have known, someone you relate to or see yourself in. And more than the fear, which will fade. You're going to close the book, you're going to go back outside and see it's a beautiful day and have a sweet treat and move. There's no monsters. Exactly. Right. But characters can stay with you a lot longer. The characters of 13 Ghosts have stayed with me for years. In Lake Mungo, I couldn't tell you whether I was afraid when I watched it the first time, but I still think about the way the characters reacted and how they made me feel. And that's what I hope my books do for people as well. I also hope it makes them think about their own grief and their own fears and whether they are listening too much or listening just enough.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Listening just enough. So what would you say to a horror writer who, because you've been writing for a long time, who has an idea they think is too strange, too experimental, or doesn't fit what a horror story is supposed to look like? What do you say to that young writer or new writer?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Write it anyway. There is always going to be an audience. It might not be mainstream viewers or readers, but there will be an audience. We are rarely the only people to be passionate about one thing. And even beyond that, writing something different, something that is non-traditional, might be what catches attention of your work. I often talk about the fact that writing is like Hollywood. Hollywood movies follow the same formula because Hollywood knows that formula sells movies. It's not necessarily the best or only formula, but they know it works. Traditional publishing is exactly the same way. They don't take risks on new ideas because they know what sells and what historically has been popular.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

As a self-pub published author or an indie author, we get to move past that and start the new trends and start the new waves and inspire others with concepts they haven't seen before.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Right. Yeah. I like reading different types of books or watching different types of movies because being a horror festival owner, I've watched so many indie horror films over the years. It's like it's very hard to scare me. And I never, you know, it's very hard to see. Does this really captivating me or is this some type of formula? I can tell right away in the first like three or four minutes, I'm like, oh, okay, here we go. So that brings me to, and and your journey and just like you writing the story and actually read me reading the story and like you sending me the book, it was just very fascinating. I was like, wow, like I haven't uh read a book like this. So what's next for you?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Right now I am working on two projects. One is the sequel to They Look Like People, where the only thing that's the same is the location and what this mountain, because in my opinion, places can also hold on to grief.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

What it does and how it affects other people. So we'll we will be following someone else's story in the same mountain. Wow. And my other project is actually my first nonfiction book. It is The Messy Writer, and it is all about writing when traditional writing advice doesn't work for you.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

That's so true. That's so true. So as we're nearing uh the mirror room, Caitlin, before you open that last door, what we asked all of our uh guests on the show, what is the most creepiest thing that's happened to you, and what is the most coolest thing that's happened to you? Because this is the Looks Creepy Cool podcast.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Well, the creepiest thing took place on Circle Loop. I was home alone. I am in a bedroom at one end of the house, and the absolute other end of the house is my sister's bedroom.

unknown 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

And as I am walking down the hall toward her bedroom, I forget what I was going to pick up from it. She had action figures on a shelf, and one of them launched off the shelf and flew all the way across the room to the other side. What? I went, okay, I don't need anything from in there, and I turned around and went back to my room. And I've been telling that story since there was no one else in the house. We had no cats on the shelf, there was nothing on the shelf, but it was also the creepiest house we lived in. I always felt like I was being watched there, and that moment just was haunting. How long did you live there? We lived there for two years.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Oh, just two years. Wow. Thank God.

unknown 28:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

I was very grateful when we left that house. I think we'd been there around six or seven months when that happened.

unknown 28:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Is do you know if the house is still there?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

I believe it is, but I'm not in that state anymore, so I can't say for certain. I hope whoever is living there now has made better friends with the poltergeist than I did.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Oh my god. I hope they're listening. They're listening to this episode. So, and what is the most coolest thing that's ever happened to you?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

I would this is completely unrelated to anything else we've discussed, but I was able to bottle feed a three-day-old mini mule who could fit in both hands. I worked at an animal sanctuary for a while, and he came in as a neonatal, so he needed to be bottle fed, and I was lucky enough to have that responsibility for three weeks. And it was absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Oh, that's so awesome. That's so awesome. Wow. So where can uh people get in contact with you, Caitlin? Where can they read your book, find your book? Um, let the house guests know.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Absolutely. I run fullmoonfiction.com, which is where I keep all of my updates on events, books, and my main goal and passion, which is helping people who can't afford writing lessons learn more about writing and making it more accessible. So you can always find me there, or I am author KE Kuntz on every other social. My books are available direct from me or on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Oh, awesome. Well, Caitlin, I'll make sure to put links in below in the show notes, guys. Um, and uh, Caitlin, thank you so much for stepping into the mirror room. I hope you're not too scared to come back. And just so the house guests know, if our guests do come back, the interviews may get a little more fearful and darker as we progress inside the house and as the house expands. So, Caitlin, thank you so much for joining the Looks Creepy Cool podcast, and I hope to see you back soon.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Bye guys. Want more chills and chatter? We're streaming on all podcast platforms.