- Kim Elizabeth
  Excerpt from Interview with the Vampiress
 
 

It has been two years (October 31, 1998) since we first featured the seductive temptress of sensual horror, Kim Elizabeth in a poetry profile where she graced our pages with her haunting prose.  We are elated to consecrate our third All Hallow's Eve with our Xclusive interview of the Princess of Horror herself.  So step into the dark my child, light a candle to show the way, as I lead down into the cobwebbed crypt of the immortalized Kim Elizabeth.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

Into the Sepulcher
Kim Elizabeth:

"I'll open the vault a bit and scratch the surface... dreams and nightmares, profound thoughts, prophetic visions, forbidden knowledge, dark fantasizing, dream-animating, transcendental passion, cabalistic transmutations, metaphysics, paranormal phenomenon, black holes, parallel universes, literature, poetry, art, music, dancing beneath the silver orb of nature's majesty, eerie cumulus constellations, writing in my tomb, painting my red room darker, tearing at bloodstained silk sheets, drinking blood red wine, serenading myself with Megadeth's In My Darkest Hour or Radiohead's Exit Music while making worse self-inflicted wounds, watching nightfall paint a mysterious forest dark, the somber hues illuminated by the light of the majestic full moon, the scent of a chilling autumn breeze and burning leaves, the vampiric brave-heart who haunts my dreams, dark ceremony on Hallow's Eve, vampire's requiem, beautiful rhythmic heartbeat pulsing against me, spine-tingling chills, razor sharp fangs penetrating, bloody kisses, playing in the dungeon, testing the racks and measuring tooled performance of other miscellaneous torture devices, enjoying the woods out back, teasing the big bad wolf, blood satiated penance, offering bleeding oblations to Mephistopheles by black candlelight, rocking in the dark in the fetal position, sensing the deathly things that lurk behind the cemetery gates... the soil softening beneath me and the cold clutch of his undead hand.... These are a few of my favorite things."

Kim Elizabeth began penning dark prose since the age five.  At age 12 she published her first book, ‘Mystical Eyes' which was quoted by Richard Ball of the UK press to be: "The elusive images of darkness and strangeness come through eerily; I sense Edgar Allan Poe's genius in her poetry…beyond. This young lady is going to go very far."  Writing became a passionate diversion for Kim who was, in her own words, "a very haunted little girl who became exceedingly contemplative and isolated, hiding from people and wishing desperately that I could make myself invisible or disappear.  Which is why I lived in my own invented Elysian fields, and although it was at times open wide and paradisiacal and eternal, it was also boxed, dark and grave."

The Ghost Girl in the Shadows
Kim Elizabeth:

"Birth.  That's when I started penning my soul.  Seriously, there was no transition.  Only the natural process, unfolding and growth of my evolution.  Everything I do in life is one hundred percent heartfelt at the onset... or onslaught, as the case may be.

"I think my writing was innate. Being so painfully shy and introverted as a child, as well as an extreme thinker with a hyperactive imagination, it seems befitting. It became such a powerful passion early on in life. I've always found it easy and natural and, more importantly, necessary to articulate thoughts and feelings, and fierce emotions, through the written word. Fantasy and horror came to me when I was very young. I've always used my writing to expel demons, or at least live with them. I kept everything pretty well hidden... but upon those rare occasions of disclosure, I seemed to have shocked and frightened people, I think I left a couple with facial ticks...

"I remember I really unnerved this particular teacher, who after reading some of my work, looked at me like I was one of the Children of the Damned. Like I had just scrunched up my face and anger-melted a wall with my suddenly blood-red blazing eyes, and might turn on the God fearin' townsfolk if she didn't keep her voice in a nice even monotone.

"N o  s u d d e n  m o v e m e n t s.

"I was the quintessence of sweetness and innocence as an Alice in Wonderland-ish little girl, so I guess no one ever expected such darkness from me.  Although some of my occasional wisenheimer outbursts should have tipped them off that I had a dark side.  One time when it was getting close to Christmas, I didn't feel like doing my class work so I started writing. My moods were often pensive, brooding and intense... and at times wisenheimer-ish.  This mood was the
latter, and before I knew it I was jotting off a letter to Santa.  I addressed it to Satan, and claimed I was dyslexic when Sister Mary 'I'm-in-the-mood-for-beating-your-ass' Agnes confiscated it. And I had put things on my Christmas list like a hacksaw, short-handled ax, an eviscerating fork and toe tags.  I thought I was pretty funny, but you could almost see the Fred Flintstone smoke coming out of the nun's ears.  I guess you might not have much of a sense of humor if you didn't get... unveiled in eighty-seven years. Lucky for me her decades and decades of pent up frustration had ceded into a delicate white-hot-anger-of-a-thousand-suns directed only at angelic looking sharp-witted children.  Help me, Lord."

Kim Elizabeth is aroused by the fantasy realms of her imagination, and even more deeply by her dreams.  Her dreams haunt her; seduce her; plunge her into nightmare landscapes and phantasmagoria fields of inspiration.

Elysian Fields and Ghost-Walking
Kim Elizabeth:
 

"Dreams.  Dreams induce me.  Seduce me.  My spirit is taken by the dark and surreal and beautiful and seraphic-winged in ethereal heaven and bleeding and burning stygian vortex images that haunt me and have been doing so since early childhood.  Ceux qui ont apparie notre vie a un rêve, ont eu de la raison, a l'aventure plus, qu'ils ne pensaient... Nous veillons dormants, et veillants dormons. To quote Montaigne. Translation: ‘Those who have likened our life to a dream were more right, by chance, than they realized. We are awake while sleeping, and waking sleep.'  I feel very blessed because I am awake while sleeping to an ineffable level.  I wake to reality shaken, emotionally and physically, at times with tears of disbelief.  And in waking I am still dreaming.

"When I write I simply follow my heart. And my flights of fantasy.  It is not done with a conscious effort.  I'm continually inspired and write reflexively.  My constant id – perhaps a bit too constant – that's always thought-pulsing beneath the delicate layers of my subconscious mind in my mercilessly raging forward psyche compels me to write at any given time, even from a somnambulistic state of being.  It is normal for me to wake and find myself writing in the dark... or to be out of my tomb, caught in an unearthly world, alive with the images that haunt me.  I've been a sleepwalker forever.  I used to scare the hell out of my mom when I was little, especially when I first started sleepwalking at three-years-old.  Strange stuff.

"Sometimes I'd wake up bewildered in strange places in my house-a crawl space, the red room, a corner in the attic, which was dangerous because there were low beams with long nails sticking out of them, and I know what it feels like to have one stick in your head, which might explain some stuff about me...."

Many great horror writers are plagued by night terrors that inspire them to pen these unspeakable horrors on paper, bring them to the light of day, perhaps exorcising the demons within.

Terrors in the Night
Kim Elizabeth:

"My imagination completely controls me, and forever feeds the fire that burns with dark red light in my heart by bringing me the best dreams.  I've always had a wild imagination, a big heart and a tortured soul so I feel that dark fantasy, love and horror are in my blood.  There's a certain unspeakable dark symmetry with these combined elements, and I've always been haunted with all of it.  The fervent emotion just flows through my veins, frequently comes out in pain as if I were slashed and bleeding the words onto paper.  It's an aching, involuntary procedure, which I feed off of because I am manifestly, in part, a masochistic writer.  I thrive on bleeding and burning and aching so deeply.  It's simple and reflexively natural, like breathing.  It's my soul.  I am the epitome of a walking contradiction for various reasons, only one of which being that I feel my existence is of heaven and hell. My entire life I've been blessed with the most painstakingly beautiful and sublime dreams where I transcend life and journey to my beyond euphoric Elysian fields... and I've been plagued with the most horrifying and torturous nightmares where without warning I'm on fire in my black casket being eviscerated by some godless fiend in the nethermost regions of hell's maelstrom.  Though, I see even the worst of my horrors as being darkly blessed, too, because if I didn't journey to hell so often I probably wouldn't feel the need to write about it.

"Well, I'm too private to disclose my deeply personal dream and nightmare... I don't even recount any of my dreams and nightmares in detail in the non-fictional context of an interview – I just let my books speak – perhaps I feel this better allows me to stay cloaked under the guise of a fiction writer – but I will tell you something about my dream... Je vole au delà de ciel avec l'ange ténébreux de mes rêves.  Then my dream really takes off.  Some things epitomize a perfect heaven... and then even outshine it.  My nightmare... mon cauchemar... il prend me au delà de enfer. Quelques choses sont plus sombre que nuit, plus noire que enfer, et seulement prenez l'âme d'un enfant. Some things are darker than night, blacker than hell, and only take the soul of a child."

Kim Elizabeth has grown from a haunted little girl into a hauntingly breath-taking beauty.  A successful horrorist and Swedish model, Kim Elizabeth has attracted a large cult-like following of admirers around her like funeral flowers, with the enigmatic seductive style and eerie prose that has become her notorious trademark.  How did this dark angel crawl out of her crypt, exposing the dark passions of her soul for all the netherworld to see?

Tales both Faery and Grimm
Kim Elizabeth:

"Although I've always metaphorically, and not so metaphorically, been a little vampiric ghost-girl hiding in a coffin, somewhere in my subliminal mind I was cognizant of the fact that I was going to have to open the crypt and let my words, my secrets, be made public.  I knew as a little girl.  My concern really wasn't about how to break into the writing profession.  In my heart I always know the way things are meant to be.  Yet the mere idea of anyone being able to open a book of mine to any page and see my thoughts was very unsettling... downright frightening. Words from Anais Nin come to mind: ‘There came a time when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'  As someone who craves the fetal position, I empathize with this sentiment.  I'm just so glad I took the risk so early on in life.  Opportunity came my way... and, fortunately, I was published tout-de-suite so I didn't have time to panic.  It became normal too quickly.  Although from time to time the masochist in me makes it difficult to elude the fact.  Without deliberation, fervent publicized words are prominently displayed in my mind... or I'll pick up one of my books, open to a random page, begin reading and think,
Oh my God.... Because it's so out there for anybody, because what I write is so visceral... and I'm such a private person. I am compelled to freak myself out that way occasionally... and then follow it up with some self-flagellation, which rounds out the evening nicely.  Yee-ha.  I think I need to go lay down... in a big pine box.  Though on a profound, heartfelt level there's real harmony in what I do.  The fear and anxiety of baring my soul is transcended by the thrill and honor and wonderfulness of being able to touch and affect so many people... having people look into my mind, my imagination... into my heart and soul.  It's an extraordinary gift.

"My writing, like everything I do, comes profoundly from my heart. I believe that if you follow your heart you will be successful in one way or another.  Old-fashioned as that might sound, the philosophy is true.  Also, my attitude, my mindset has never changed.  Ever since I was little, when I wanted to succeed at something I just followed my simple rule: Make it happen.  When I want something I take it or I make it take me.  My dreams – which are such a significant part of my life – cross over into my reality... and from my newborn reality another dream is born, and this symbiosis makes life an even more extraordinary gift.  I guess this all happens because of the way I view and live life.  I think my life is a fantasy... and whether in sheer lightness or bare-faced darkness, anything is possible."

Kim Elizabeth has woven tales of mystical enchantment entwined with sinister horror.  She has been widely published and has authored four books of bewitching terror including the acclaimed ‘Netherworld', an anthology of chilling fiction and haunting poetry, ‘Mystical Eyes, ‘Immortal Heartbeat', ‘From The Shadows', not to mention her illustrated series, ‘Dark World' and ‘Into The Night'.

Of Blood and Page
Kim Elizabeth:

"I love literature, poetry and art, and the combination is very alluring to me.  My work had been illustrated in magazines, and I was being contacted about having my work illustrated in books. The first book I did with literature and art combined was my INTO THE NIGHT story with Acid Rain Studios.  DARK WORLD, described by the editor, in brief, as a horror poetry anthology combining literature and art into a new depth-filled comic book experience, originated when the industry sort of called... there's an interview with the editor online that goes into detail of how DARK WORLD came about.  This project might seem a bit unusual, but I'm comfortable doing atypical things... I really like that there are nine artists in one book, and having each adaptation of my work fully painted... I will be doing more unique illustrated books.  I enjoy working in various mediums, and being exposed to different audiences, and I feel honored that my work is illustrated by so many talented artists like Jae Lee, Daerick Gross and Colleen Doran.

"Dark Eros... like INTO THE NIGHT, that's my profound joy.  Transcendental dark fantasy is a tremendous part of who I am inherently.  It was an embryonic organism incubating until I reached a level of adolescent maturity – oxymoronic as that might sound – that would enable me to be receptive to its birth.... and then animating it came to me, an incubus in the dead of night, sank its piercing stakes deep into my flesh, bleeding me hard, invading my very soul, and stole my heart forever.

"No matter what, when I write I pour my heart and soul out. I bleed onto each page, almost literally-sometimes literally. That's because it's my reality.  I only write about what I know, what I feel, what I am impassioned about. I'm either in love, or dread, with what's dripping onto the pages."

Writing is a solitary art.  For many authors there biggest desire and worst fear are one in the same: SUCCESS.  Or, even better: notoriety.  We live our secluded lives, hiding in the shadows, coming out only when darkness falls.  Some of us however are noticed and thrust into the limelight of the full day sun.  How has Kim Elizabeth dealt with the burning rays of the daystar's glow against her heliophobe flesh and not gotten burned?

Rising From the Crypt
Kim Elizabeth:

"I appreciate all of the attention I get in my career.  I am a loner and live a rather secluded life so sometimes I do get overwhelmed, but I am always very appreciative of everything, and honored.  Especially by all of the kind and generous letters I receive.  They mean more to me than I can say.  I feel I've always had everything in life because I can see, I can hear, and I can walk.  And because I have my mom who is the whole world to me.  So my dreams coming true and all the great gifts I keep receiving just makes me more thankful for everything.

"I love to write, disappear into my own surrealistic world.  I love the reactions I get; how great people are to me about my work and how they tell me such deeply personal and wonderful things about how I affected them.  I love the letters I receive from people from all walks of life and from everywhere on the planet – France, Sweden, Egypt, China, Australia, England, Japan, India.... I feel so incredibly lucky that I am doing what I love, what I am impassioned about, for a living, and that in the process I also get the amazing gift of being able to touch so many peoples' lives."

Into the Great Here-after
Kim Elizabeth:

"About the new projects planned for the new millennium... yes, there will be another collection of stories, and a poetry book. I normally don't like to talk about my books and projects at early stages, but things keep coming out ahead of time, especially on the Internet so... my next poetry book will be FUNERAL FLOWERS, titled after one of my poems. Aside from the actual meaning of the original horror tale, the title is also a metaphor for what beautiful life does to you and what we are... funeral flowers trying to sway in stifling stillborn air... ashen stumps, broken flagellums, throbbing and pendulous... we are all just funeral flowers dying and waiting to die in a collective black garden beneath the never-ending gaping hole of a gruesome and merciless macrocosmic hell.  And on that happy note... more DARK WORLD books are coming and INTO THE NIGHT series, following the first book, and I signed on to do some children's books.  I also have a new novel in progress and screenplay which will be based on this novel."

And who keeps Kim warm and cozy in her coffin during the long hours of the day?

Kim Elizabeth:
"Je vis ma vie seul dans ma sang-taché cercueil noir... comme une vampire.  Je suis une vivant fille morte."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein