PF: The working title of the novel is A CHILD ALONE WITH STRANGERS, and it’s being shopped right now by my agent. It’s straight-down-the-middle old-school horror, with some (hopefully) intense emotional elements. It’s likely at least a year or two away, seeing as how we haven’t sold it yet.
Regarding the collection, it’s hard to say. I have a mock ToC of stories that I feel really good about, but it will likely be sold as part of a package with the novel, or put out separately at a date, and with a publisher, to be determined. I’d like to think that I’m sort of in the eye of the storm right now, as I’ve had a lot of output and now I have to wait and see how things shake out, then hopefully I’ll get back to putting stuff out as fast as I can write it. I’m a bit handcuffed at the moment while I try to strategize a bit more of the big career picture. It’s frustrating, but exciting as well.
That said, I’ll continue putting out stories when able, so hopefully the drought won’t be too extensive.
CP: On a final note, many of our readers are writers themselves. We always like to end the interviews with a question for them. Do you have any advice or wisdom you could bestow upon budding writers? Any information you find invaluable in the industry?
PF: I think the biggest piece of advice is to keep a steady ship. Don’t get high on the highs or low on the lows. Don’t get overly-discouraged by rejections, or if things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like. Perseverance is the name of the game. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep your head down, do the work, and keep grinding.
Also, be professional and courteous. Accept rejections and criticisms graciously, don’t push your work on folks too hard, and be kind to others in the field. It’s a pretty great community, but like any community, it takes time to fully integrate. I’m still in the early stages myself.
Lastly, be yourself. Be true to your voice. Not everyone is gonna like what you do (some are gonna hate it), but that’s part of the business of any artist. It’s all subjective, and people will have their opinions. That’s why they call it Art. But if you work hard, and keep at it, you’ll find your audience, and then the real fun begins.
INSIDE THE SHADOW BOOTH with Dan Coxon
(Originally published in the Gehenna Post)
Greetings from the Nether Realm,
We are delighted to present our interview with award-winning editor Dan Coxon, discussing his new project The Shadow Booth, which is currently active as a Kickstarter. We encourage each and everyone one of you to support this venture, as Dan is a close friend to G&H and he also will soon be offering a few of our publications as tiers in the crowdfunding project.
Alas, let's begin!
CP: The Shadow Booth is an exciting venture, and also something to look forward to for all readers of Dark Fiction and Weird Fiction. What were some of the key inspirations behind developing this project?
DC: In all honesty, it’s not something I was planning to do. But I was going out to a lot of live reading events, and talking to a lot of writers, and it became clear to me that there’s an abundance of wonderful weird and eerie fiction out there that’s struggling to find a home. I run my own proofreading and editorial services company (Momus Editorial) so I’m used to putting books together for other people, and getting them to a professional standard, ready for print. It seemed a small step to start doing that for myself rather than for someone else—and to give these great stories a home. At the same time, I didn’t want it to be just another horror magazine. The stories I love are generally strange and unsettling rather than outright horror. Sometimes this means they fall within the horror genre, but at other times they don’t. If a story leaves the reader unsettled and uneasy, then it’s right for The Shadow Booth.
CP: In the Kickstarter, you mention that you are trying to end the trend of non-paying markets. Can you go a little into the background of this trend for our readers, and how it is affecting authors?
DC: Calling it a trend probably makes it sound more ominous than it actually is, but I certainly think there’s a worrying tendency to see writing as ‘content’ rather than creative work, and to assume that writers don’t need paying. Most authors spend a huge amount of time writing and crafting their stories, so to have an editor or publisher assume that they should be able to publish it for free strikes me as dismissive and slightly insulting. I used to work as a freelance journalist, and I saw the same thing happening there. There’s sometimes this deluded attitude that they’re somehow doing the writer a favor by giving their work exposure. They’re not. If someone truly values your work, they will pay for it.
CP: If everything goes according to plan, what do you see in the future of Shadow Booth? Do you plan more volumes?
DC: The initial idea was for it to be a bi-annual journal. I’m going to stick with that for now, and see how it works out. Volume 2 will hopefully be out next summer, and Volume 3 again next winter. One of the inspirations for the look and feel of it was the Pan Books of Horror, and I liked the way they kept coming, to produce a series. We’ll see.
CP: Literary Journals are far and in-between these days. Why did you decide on a journal instead of a magazine?
DC: I’ll confess that I’m not always clear on the distinction! Some publications that I consider to be journals advertise themselves as magazines, while some magazines claim to be journals. I definitely wanted to produce something in book format though, rather than a magazine. I think it encourages people to take the writing more seriously, and it’s a format that’s nicer to read. Plus, it looks good on your shelves, and hopefully has a longer shelf life. In fact, I considered calling it an anthology, but that didn’t seem to convey the sense that it would be coming out twice a year. So, basically, it was a decision based on snobbery.
CP: There are a lot of heavyweight authors involved in this project. Did you and the writers find common grounds in the aspirations for Shadow Booth?
DC: Filling the first volume proved to be ridiculously easy. What was more difficult was saying no to a couple of excellent authors, whose stories weren’t quite right for the tone I’m trying to achieve. I was amazed at how positive the reaction was, and how quickly most of the writers ‘got’ the concept. In fact, most of them already had something suitable written, just waiting to find a home.
CP: What inspired the title “Shadow Booth?” How does it factor in to the themes and purpose of the literary journal?
DC: That’s a tough one. I was just playing around with images and words in my head, very early on in the process. I wanted to reflect the dark, unsettling subject matter, which was where the ‘Shadow’ came from. But then I had an image in my head of something like an old fairground puppet booth, like the Punch & Judy booths you get here in England. There’s something quite creepy about them, quite playful but also edgy, as if anything might happen. I liked that. Interestingly, since settling on the title I’ve read two stories by Thomas Ligotti that feature puppet booths—so clearly I’m not the first to find them a little weird!
CP: Undertaking the editing and marketing for a project like this can be very time consuming. If everything pans out, will you continue other ventures as you have done in the past? If so, do you have any other projects in the works that our readers can look forward to?
DC: I’ll still be running my editorial services company, which is what pays the bills. I’ll also be writing stories all the time—I’ve been doing that too long to be able to stop now. I write mainstream literary fiction under my own name, and darker fictions under the name Ian Steadman. I’m also a Contributing Editor at The Lonely Crowd, an excellent literary journal here in the UK, which I’ll continue to work on. I’ll find the time somehow!
CP: With the recent advent of a surge in popularity of Weird Fiction and Dark Fiction, could you maybe delve a little bit into why you believe these genres are coming back to the forefront in recent years?
DC: It’s interesting, isn’t it. It’s something that seems to be happening across the board, from books to films to TV. If I wanted
to analyze it in depth, I think there’s a case to be made for it being a product of the current political climate, and our fears for what the future holds. The news seems to be getting darker and weirder every day, and there’s a growing sense of terrible things brewing that are beyond our control. That plays straight into the arms of the weird and the eerie. But at the same time, I genuinely believe these things come in cycles, as most things do. Maybe its time had simply come.
CP: Finally, I wanted to ask what ways our readers can help with this project. What links can they share, how can they get the word out, etc. At G&H, we celebrate Dark/Weird Fiction and more importantly, the authors behind the works. So let us know how we can do our part!
DC: First and foremost, please order a copy of Volume 1! We’re still crowdfunding until October 25th, and this only works if we meet our target. In fact, I’m hoping to go a little over target, to make Volume 2 a little easier. Many people are opposed to supporting crowdfunded projects on the basis that they’re asking for handouts, but we’re not—we really just want people to order a copy of the journal. If you decide to go a bit further a grab a T-shirt, or a story critique, or a parcel of signed books, then that’s great. But even then, I hope you’ll be getting value for your money. We don’t want charity. Beyond that (and once you’ve backed us!) please tell people about it, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, share the links. Getting the word out is half the struggle.
The crowdfunding page is here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dan-coxon/the-shadow-booth-a-new-journal-of-weird-and-eerie
And these are our social media pages:
https://twitter.com/TheShadowBooth
https://www.facebook.com/TheShadowBooth
You can also find us at:
http://www.theshadowbooth.com
LIMBS
By Jim Horlock
I hear Them all the time.
All day the sound of Them fills the city. Howling, gibbering calls that echo around inside my skull. There’s no traffic anymore. No noisy engines. Most generators are dead so there’s no constant background hum of electrics. No bustling human crowd either. The sounds of Them travel a long way in the quiet. I can’t escape them, no matter where I go, no matter what I stuff my ears with. High-pitched wails and grotesque cat-calls made by vocal chords stretched to the maximum and beyond. Or worse—if there’s one thing I’ve learned since all this started it’s that there’s always worse.
The worst are the ones that still sound human. A little girl lost, screaming for her parents. A mother weeping with broken-hearted sobs. Cries of anger so close to normal that you could almost believe them. Until you realise that sound is coming from a mouth with too many teeth or a throat longer than your arm. These sounds are a mirage of an oasis to a man dying of thirst—the promise of hope. The truth is hard and sharp as a knife between the ribs: there aren’t any people left here. Every day I’m getting closer to certain that I’m the last one. There is no hope.
I sight one of Them through the scope of my rifle. It can’t see me; I’ve picked out my position on the roof for that exact reason. It looks damaged, like it might have been in a fight, but it’s hard to know for sure. I’ve seen Them fight each other before but not often. It’s dragging two of its legs behind it and it’s unsteady on the others, resulting in a strange, shambling gait. It’s leaving a trail of some dark fluid, smears and spatters on the abandoned pavement. Could be blood. Could be some kind of mucus. You can’t ever be sure with Them. I saw one once that spun webs like a spider. The strands had little bits of bone, chips of teeth and fingernails stuck in them. Webs made from people it had eaten.
The thing clicks its teeth together mindlessly as it stumbles onwards and I feel my anger building—a bottled thunderstorm in my core. Sometimes it’s stronger than others, pressed right against the glass. Sometimes I barely notice it. But it’s always there.
They’ve taken everything from me. Everything. I can taste the hate at the back of my throat like acid. It crawls up to the bridge of my nose and makes my eyes water. There’s no words for the intensity of the loathing I feel. I wonder: how many people has this one killed?
My finger tightens on the trigger and my breath hisses through the bars of my teeth. My bullet would splatter its head before it had any clue what was happening. I could kill it with a simple squeeze. Bam. One less of Them in the world.
It takes a lot of effort to ease my finger back off the trigger. Killing it won’t make me less angry and the sound of the shot will almost certainly alert others to my presence. There might be hundreds of them, thousands, lurking in the nearby buildings, wandering mindlessly around until they catch any sign of prey. They find us by sound, by sight or by scent. It’s too much of a risk to kill this one and it will gain me nothing.
Keep calm, think logical. Anger only gets you killed.
I watch the thing down my scope as it passes over the empty street, between twin rows of dust-coated cars long out of use. It meanders through the trash, the upturned bins and dented shopping trolleys. I watch it until it’s out of sight.
Never take your eyes off them.
“Just animals,” I mutter to myself. “They’re just animals.”
It’s not really a comfort. They’re not ‘just’ anything. They’re the catastrophe that destroyed the world. They’re the deaths of millions.
The sun is well on its way to meet the horizon and I can’t afford to be out at night. During the day it’s a risk, albeit a calculated one. At night it would be suicide.
At night the gas will roll back in.
Jack always said it comes in at night due to the drop in temperature but he knew more about gas and its behaviour than I do. I just took his word for it and make sure I’m always in before dark.
A part of me wants to go out all day and kill as many as I can, like the guy from I Am Legend but I know if I do that I’ll go mad. This isn’t about revenge, it can’t be. It’s about survival. That’s why I have to tell myself they’re ‘just animals’ when I know really they’re much more. Life is hard and it doesn’t care about revenge. There are no natural laws of justice. There is only survival of the fittest, and if I want to survive I have to be as hard and cold as life is.
My current base is in a storage centre, like one of those ones from the auction shows on TV. It was Jack’s idea and it had proved to be a good one. The security on the building was good and there were hundreds of units full of supplies. People had stored clothes, blankets, camping equipment. One guy had even stored a bunch of tin food. He was probably one of those survivalist nuts planning for the apocalypse. The irony wasn’t lost on me as I helped myself.
Best of all is the security office. It has a heavy door, a comfy chair and dozens of CCTV screens showing almost every inch of the building and the perimeter. I don’t sleep much but what little rest I do get, I get in that chair, secure in the knowledge that I’ll be able to see something coming as soon as I wake.
I bolt the door behind me and sit down, laying my rifle across my lap. A quick glance at my emergency go-bag confirms that it’s still in place and untouched, ready for me to grab if I need to make a quick exit. The glances at the bag started as a paranoid twitch but have become a relied-on trait. Too many times I’ve been forced to make a panicked escape from a hideout and been left with no supplies, forced to start over again.
The bag contains some tinned food, a good knife, a handgun and some ammo, blankets, a compass, a city map, a first aid kit and a few other odds and ends. It also contains my only photo of Julia, taken from a frame, lined with creases and folds and jammed into the box of the first aid kit. Not exactly a great way to honour her memory. It’s too painful to look at but I can’t throw it away either. That would be like she never existed. I threw away the ultrasound and regretted it every day since.
The rain comes in hard and there’s a rumble of thunder. The storm clouds bring the night in quicker and the sound of rain hammering the metal roof makes me edgy. It’s too much li
ke the sound of hundreds of running footsteps. I press the flaps of my hat against my ears (I’m not going to be able to hear danger coming over the rain anyway) and blink the tiredness out of my eyes. I don’t want to sleep. Sleep is where memories catch up with you and hold you prisoner.
The rain does a good job of blocking the external cameras as well as deafening me but I keep a fevered eye on them regardless, gaze flicking from one to the next in a now all-too-familiar pattern. For a moment, I think I see something in the corner of the car park near the fence but there’s too many droplets on the lens to tell. It could just be a distortion.
I used to keep an eye out for Jack. He knew the city well. He’d almost certainly return here. I’d seen so many others come and go but Jack had always been so calm and certain. He was a hunter and grew up around guns, tracking wild animals with his dad out in Canada. He knew how to survive.
“They’re just animals,” he’d say. “You’ve got to treat them that way. Dangerous, sure. But just animals. Animals can be avoided. Animals can be killed. They don’t strategise. You’ve just gotta stay smart about it.”
It’s hard to believe he could be gone too.
I feel myself starting to drift, so I shift in the chair, shaking my head abruptly to try and throw off the heavy drowsiness. I know I can’t fight it forever but I also know that every moment I’m asleep is a moment that I’m vulnerable. It was so much easier when there were two of us. Always one to keep watch.
Hinnom Magazine Issue 003 Page 2