READERS GUIDE

A Conversation with Josh Winning
1.      How did you come up with the idea for Heads Will Roll?
I started out wanting to write a summer camp horror novel. I’m a lifelong Friday the 13th fan (Part II and Part VI are the best!) and the ingredients of those films—isolated setting, small group of characters, a killer in the woods—seemed ripe for a refresh. At the same time, I was thinking about what really scared me. In late 2022, when I was brainstorming this book, “cancel culture” was setting social media on fire in a big way. While “call-out culture” movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter rightly seek legal action for criminal activity, “cancel culture” is all about targeting a person’s reputation regardless of any actual wrongdoing. The virtue signaling, lack of empathy, and all-out nastiness of people posting anonymously online really unsettled me. It felt like prime material for a slasher novel.
2.      What was the writing process like?
I’ll be honest, it was tricky, but purely for personal reasons. I bought my first house right before I started writing Heads Will Roll, and the place was borderline uninhabitable. A LOT of Heads Will Roll was written in a building site—there was a literal hole where the kitchen should be, moldy carpets, woodworm, faulty wiring, damp EVERYWHERE. It made for a fraught writing experience. In hindsight, though, it might have actually been the best setting in which to write the book, because it really did feel like camping!
3.      Without giving anything away, did you always know how the story would end?
I always knew whodunnit. Why they dunnit sort of evolved over the course of editing (I have a phenomenal editor, Aranya Jain, who was instrumental in shaping this novel). I worked and reworked the final chapters of this book, and if you were to read all the different versions now, you’d see common threads among them. It took a while to figure out how to best twist the knife, but I’m really happy with what ended up on the page.
4.      Do you think that summer camps tend to be inherently horrific? If so, why?
Depending on your personality type, I think summer camps could either be your idea of heaven or hell. “Roughing it,” could either provide you with a welcome break from the hustle of everyday life or make you feel isolated to the point of crisis. To me, the scariest thing is that you could be so out of the way, far from help. If you have an emergency, you’re basically left to fend for yourself…
5.      Do you identify with any of the campers? If so, how?
I really identified with Willow. I feel like I am constantly putting my foot in my mouth, blurting out things I don’t really mean, trying to be funny but mostly coming across as completely weird and awkward. I did this when I met Stephen Graham Jones. I wanted to tell him how much I loved his books, but all I could do was glare and run away. Willow gave me an opportunity to explore that part of myself, which was pretty cathartic. Also, she’s a huge horror fan, which is something I know a thing or two about.
6.      If you were to cast Willow, Dani, Juniper, or any of the other campers in a film, which actors would you most want to play them?
Sadie Sink was the first person I thought of when I was writing Willow. She has the red hair, the industry savvy, the grit. I think she’d make a great Willow. However, when I was at StokerCon earlier this year, a reader said they could see Lindsay Lohan playing Willow, too, which I think is genius, particularly because Lohan starred in The Parent Trap, one of my favorite summer-camp movies. The only other character I’d feel confident casting is Bebe. I’d be very down with Sigourney Weaver playing her. Basically, every book I write, there’s a role for Sigourney Weaver.
7.      Which was your favorite scene to write?
Without spoiling anything, there’s an epic chase in the third act that is my tribute to the “character runs away from the killer” scenes in Halloween, Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, etc. All the best horror movies have those prolonged sequences of tension where one mistake could cost a character their life, and I had the best time coming up with my own summer-camp version of that.
8.      How about your favorite interstitial between chapters?
I’m very pleased with the Q&A that precedes chapter four, because I often wonder what an actor really thinks when they’re answering questions in an interview. Do they genuinely believe their own excited chatter? Or are they playing a character, a version of themselves, and delivering a cool quote for print? I also had so much fun writing the We Love Willow episode synopses—it’s a show I would totally watch!
9.      Is there a particular film or TV director whose aesthetic you think would be best suited to shoot an episode of We Love Willow? How about Heads Will Roll, if this were to be adapted for the big or the little screen?
In my mind, We Love Willow is sort of a mix between New Girl, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. So anybody who worked on those shows would be a perfect fit for We Love Willow. In terms of a film adaptation of Heads Will Roll, I would be thrilled if Christopher Landon took a stab at it, as I love Happy Death Day and Freaky. I’m also a massive fan of Lisa Frankenstein, so if that film’s director, Zelda Williams, came calling, I’d answer in a heartbeat.
10.  You write about Hollywood for various publications. Did any Hollywood horror scenes influence any of the creepier moments in Heads Will Roll?
That would be telling! I will say this: there are a couple of nods to various entries in the Friday the 13th franchise (because how could you not?), and there’s a moment that riffs on I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (a film that gets a bad rap but that I love unreservedly).
11.  What do you most want readers to take away from Heads Will Roll?
I really hope they feel like they just watched a really fun movie play out in their head. I hope they got a kick out of the unravelling of the Knock-Knock Nancy legend. And most of all, I hope they learned to love this band of flawed misfits who aren’t defined by their mistakes, but who are allowed to grow and learn from them.
12.  What’s next for you?
Am I allowed to say?! I’m working on a new novel with Putnam that is quite different from anything I’ve done before, while hopefully still feeling like a fun time. It’s got a cat, it’s got a sunny location, and it’s got a queer romance that is making my heart sing. I can’t wait for it to be out in the world!

 
Reading Group Discussion Questions for Heads Will Roll
1.      Have you ever had a social media post or a real-life comment be interpreted in a way you weren’t expecting? How did that make you feel, and what do you think you could’ve done differently in that situation?
2.      How do you think Willow’s life might have progressed if she’d never been canceled? Do you think she would have been better or worse off?
3.      What’s the spookiest experience you’ve ever had at summer camp?
4.      If Knock-Knock Nancy came for you, what would you do? Do you think you’d survive?
5.      Which scene did you find scariest, and why?
6.      What did you think of the Knock-Knock Nancy legend near the start of the novel? How did your opinion change as the novel progressed?
7.      Willow initially thinks of herself as a sitcom actor, but as the story goes on, she thinks more about her natural love of the horror genre. What are your favorite genres in books or movies, and how do their values influence your personality?
8.      Which was your favorite scene in the book, and why?
9.      Were you surprised by the ending? Did you guess any of the book’s twists as you were reading? Which ones surprised you the most?
10.   What do you think happens to the main characters after the novel’s end?