You may wonder how a human rights and non-human rights, squishee, animal-loving vegan like myself got into writing horror. I believe that horror as a genre has the potential to be a culturally transformative tool. Certainly, it isn’t always used in this way. Some authors and many readers take the violence and gore at face-value. To each their own, but it doesn’t interest me.
When I write horror, I am sometimes expressing my actual horror about things I have seen, heard, or otherwise absorbed from the world around me. Unfortunately, there is plenty of that kind of horror to keep all of us reading and writing our whole lives. I write partly for catharsis (and to offer catharsis to the reader), but also as social commentary. Lots of horror is done in this way. The stories are still meant to entertain, so you may not even notice they are commentary unless you look at them with that lens. But it is now and always has been a foundational part of the genre.
Revenant:Blood Justice
UPDATE MARCH, 2019: THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AS I REFORMAT REVENANT TO BE REISSUED AS AN AMAZON E-BOOK. EMAIL ME FOR SIGNED AUTHOR COPIES OF THE PAPERBACK, WHICH ARE STILL AVAILABLE.
In a world where vampires are the chosen enforcers of justice, created by the goddess Sekhmet, Enid is one of her maker’s favorite children. Now one of her nastiest rivals has appeared, and is taking a rather greedy bite out of the Big Apple. When blood starts to boil and the feud splits wide open, will Sekhmet or her other hellish enforcers show up to take sides?
*Be warned: vampires swear a lot. If you’ve ever met one, you should know. This book contains a fair amount of strong language.
Another project is my story, “Catharine Hill,” which is included in the Grinning Skull Press/Maine Horror Writers Anthology, “Northern Frights.”
Catharine Hill tells the story of the famous “lady in white” who has long hitched for rides along the Black Woods Road between Cherryfield and Franklin, Maine. She didn’t die under wonderful circumstances, and she has a bit of a chip on her shoulder. So, make sure you pull over when she flags you down, and make sure you’re very polite. Otherwise, the heads that roll may very well include your own.
Northern Frights is available on:
Amazon Prime, Kobo, and in print through createspace.
If you find you like my story in Northern Frights, you may want to check out a slightly updated version, published as a screenplay (25 pages long). While reading scripts is quite a different experience, I like the way the pacing of the story moves in this and I spiced it up just a tiny bit.
“When your time has come” is a short story based on a famous Maine mystery. The ghost roaming the pages of this tale is a fictional take on Sarah Ware. Sarah went missing in 1898. Her mangled body was eventually found and she looked to have been the victim of an axe murder. Local man William Treworgy was tried but never convicted. In these parts, it was the trial of the century. Check out “When your time has come” to see what my muse thinks really happened.
Available on Amazon.
When Halloween finally gives way to Christmas, check out my entry in the Shadow Over Deathlehem anthology by Grinning Skull Press.
In “The Disturbing Disappearance of Horatio Gristle,” we enjoy a savory Christmas pudding baked up on three parts Charles Dickens to one part Sweeney Todd. Or, maybe it’s the other way around. The recipe is intuitive and the proof is in the pudding.
