A Scary Interview with Matthew R. Davis

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Matthew,

That classic question to get started. Do you have to be a horrible person to write horrible things?

Of course. We’re all complete shits. Seriously? In my experience, horror writers tend to be kind, thoughtful, inclusive, and just generally the nicest of people, so no – whilst an occasional arsehole will be outed, the opposite tends to be true…as I suspect (and expect) you already know!

Which horror writers do you admire—old or new, famous or hidden gems?

How much space do you have? Let’s restrict this to the current year’s reading for brevity’s sake, or we’ll be here all week. Kirstyn McDermott has stepped into mainstream Gothic thrillers with What the Bones Know and everyone should go buy it. Sarah Langan’s Trad Wife is just brilliant, top-shelf stuff. Johanna van Veen has put out three grim queer historical novels thus far and her latest, Bone of My Bone, is the best yet. Alan Moore continues his high standard with I Hear a New World, the second book in a fantasy series that is incredibly imaginative and very funny when it’s not terrifying. Solace House by Will Maclean is a substantial and gripping take on cryptic dark academia, for all that it takes place off campus between semesters. Some other authors I’ve been enjoying in 2026: Matt Dinniman, Chris Chibnall, Nat Cassidy, Gemma Amor, Jeff Clulow, qntm, Delilah S. Dawson, Eric LaRocca, Angela Slatter, Charles L. Grant, Elaine Cunningham, Ian McDonald, Daniel Kraus, Gretchen Falker-Martin, Daisy Pearce, and Ramsey Campbell. Yes, I read a lot.

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

I don’t know about perfect, but I always enjoy taking my partner Meg out to The Bonfire Horror Club movie screenings, which include local merch stalls, prizes, and themed cocktails for each film – the last one we saw was Possession (1981), which, oddly enough, is namedropped in my contribution to this anthology! I just wish we had more time before and after the feature to hang out with our like-minded friends.

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up?

Just stuff like the story that went around my small-town primary school about a bearded man who would park outside the grounds with lipstick on and try to lure kids into his car, which I doubt had any factual basis. Meg thinks she might have seen something in our kitchen once, probably the house’s only previous tenant, but otherwise life is depressingly unghostly.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I sacrifice time on the altar of creativity with the obsidian knife of talent. Things have changed a little since you last asked me this question: I don’t take smoke breaks anymore, cats are always looking to come into my office, I will sometimes listen to music as I work like I used to back in the day, and I find myself going out to various locations to write and edit in a different environment – usually a library, but the novel I’m editing at the moment was written in hotels, airplanes, theatres, trains, and stranger places.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

My story in this book, “An Eye is Upon You”, was inspired by my experiences working at the Illuminate Adelaide festival in 2023, especially my last night at the Queen’s Theatre. The photo I’m using for this interview is a screengrab from one of the exhibits that plays a role in my tale. I wanted to call this tale “Izzy’s Golden Wrap”, but that sounded too much like one of my other titles, so I borrowed the name of the intro track from Powerman 5000’s Tonight the Stars Revolt!

Where can we find you online?

Lurking in the darkest corners of the web, waiting for innocent flies to wander in. Or just at my blog (matthewrdavisfiction.wordpress.com), or Facebook, or BlueSky: @mxrxdx.bsky.social…but not on OnlyFans, despite what Meg says, because things haven’t gotten quite that desperate yet.

A Scary Interview with Cameron Trost

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Cameron,

That classic question to get started. Do you have to be a horrible person to write horrible things?

That is indeed a classic question to hurl at a horror writer, and we welcome it in much the same way as the defenders of a castle would have welcomed a rock flung at them by their foe's trebuchet! Robert Bloch famously said: "I am really a very lovable person, as my friends tell me—or they would, if I had any friends. Deep down underneath it all I have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar, on my desk." I answer this question with a mirror, not a jar. A truly disturbing horror story, or for that matter, a tale belonging to any genre, should not only entertain and enthrall, but also work as a mirror. The horror writer owes it to his readership to explore the darkest depths of the human mind, where primitive impulses and instincts lurk, hidden from sight behind fake smiles and social pleasantries. If you want to throw vampires, cosmic terrors, or a horde of zombies into your fiction as a vehicle to deliver dread to the reader's heart, go ahead and do that, but at the end of the day, you need to be holding a mirror up to show the reader where the horror has always come from since the dawn of mankind. In other words, the only thing horrible about a horror writer is that we get a devilish kick out of sending a shiver up our readers' spines, but once the last word of a story has been read and the shivers have started to fade, we expect our readers to keep asking themselves that question; where is it that horror calls home?   

Which horror writers do you admire—old or new, famous or hidden gems?

As founding editor of Black Beacon Books, the answer is quite simply "our contributors". It's essentially why I began my own publishing house in the first place. There's nothing wrong with reading Stephen King, Graham Masterton, or Ramsey Campbell. These big names are talented writers with wonderful yarns to spin, but readers shouldn't be sheep, reading the same books as everyone else. They should be explorers...in fact, treasure hunters! Get out there and dig up all that hidden talent! You'll have to shovel a fair bit of dirt before striking it lucky, but that's the game. Of course, when you grab your copy of The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2, you'll find only precious gems!

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

I could describe dozens of thrilling ways to get the creative juices flowing and get the skin crawling, but there's one experience I've been meaning to have for years now. My home is now here in Brittany and this ancient land has endless offerings when it comes to mythical landscapes and haunted ruins. Above all, we have some of the world's most magnificent lighthouses standing guard along some of the world's most rugged coastline. I would love to spend a night in a lighthouse, during "the storm of the century" with nothing but a simple meal (perhaps including a tin of sardines), a bottle of whisky, an oil lamp, and a good stock of pens and paper. With the wind howling around the lighthouse and waves crashing against the granite boulders below, imagine the stories my storm-charged mind would summon out of the sea and the sky!     

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up?

Where to begin! Folklore and tales of strange and dark beings drench the soil, possess the granite, and inhabit the woodlands of Brittany. Those of you who have read my work will know this. Dead on the Dolmen, my latest novel, pits Oscar Tremont, Investigator of the Strange and Inexplicable against a villain disguised as the Ankoù, the Breton Grim Reaper. There are legends galore set right here in my very own neck of the woods near Guérande. Merlin himself is said to have visited the area, and a miller (almost) sold his unborn son's soul to the Devil in exchange for a helping hand (claw?) building a windmill. In a land where Neolithic burial chambers stand side-by-side with Nazi bunkers, there are more legends than you can poke a shillelagh (or penn-bazh in Breton) at!  

Do you have any writing rituals?

I don't really. No. I wish writing in a lighthouse during a raging storm could become my ritual! My ideal day getting words down would start with a walk or a jog either along the rugged coast or through the marshes here on the Guérande peninsula, even if the weather is nasty... in fact, as you've probably worked out by now, I love it when the weather is dramatic. That's invariably reflected in my fiction. I'll sometimes jot a few words or ideas down while I'm out, but I have a good memory, so I'll mostly just keep the ideas in mind and know they'll unfurl once I get back home and switch the laptop on. A good mug of coffee in the morning and a drop of top-shelf whisky in the evening gets the awen going! Give me stormy weather, a fire in the wood burner, and a dram of the uisge beatha, and I'll give you a puzzling mystery or a chilling tale of terror. Deal? Sign here _______

Where can we find you online?

Almost everywhere! My full list of links is here: linktr.ee/camerontrost

Website: camerontrost.com

Amazon profile: amazon.com/author/camerontrost

Facebook page: facebook.com/camerontrostauthor

Goodreads listing: goodreads.com/camerontrost

A Scary Interview with Shelly Lyons

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Shelly,

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

I love a good haunted hayride or movie in the graveyard.

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up? 

I grew up during the Night Stalker era. As I understood it, the satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez crawled through windows to murder (mostly) women, and his first victim was a 9-year-old girl. I always imagined him perched on the roof waiting for the one night I forgot to latch my window.

Do you have any writing rituals?

Coffee.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

I had an insane ouija board experience at 13. I imagine it’s quite common for horror authors.

Where can we find you online?

Most of my links are on shellylyons.com - On TikTok I’m DollTerror13.

A Scary Interview with Sam Dawson

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Sam,

That classic question to get started. Do you have to be a horrible person to write horrible things?

To write them, no. To do them, yes.

Which horror writers do you admire—old or new, famous or hidden gems?

Lots. So many, in fact, that some may not have received the recognition they deserved. Examples might include the prolific Robert Westall, who never let his readers down, and science-fiction writer Keith Roberts, who, in The Scarlet Lady, penned the ultimate haunted car story.

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

Probably spending the night somewhere said to be haunted, and where horrible things are meant to happen, or have happened. Preferably deep in the countryside or underground, and beginning with a trip to the nearest pub, where the locals will try to warn you off.

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up?

Yes, the Buckland Shag, a hairy great beast that reputedly perched on a boulder in the Shag Brook and occasionally roughed up passing farmers returning home at night from market days, having refused the general advice to stay in town and travel in the morning. It sounds rather like an innkeeper’s invention, or an excuse offered to their wives when they returned home soaked, intoxicated and penniless after carousing their earnings away, but it was taken seriously enough for the local vicar to have the stone uprooted, carted to the coast and thrown off a cliff. After which there were no further sightings of the alleged Shag.

Do you have any writing rituals?

No, just tea. Lots of tea.

Where can we find you online?

Website: https://www.sam-dawson.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sam.dawson.31924
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21686706.Sam_Dawson

A Scary Interview with Rodney Hatfield Jr.

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Rodney,

That classic question to get started. Do you have to be a horrible person to write horrible things?

You don't have to be a horrible person to write horrible things. In fact, the opposite is often true for writers like me. Horror, creepypasta, and dark fiction are acts of imagination and empathy, exploring the shadows so readers can confront fears, process trauma, or just get a thrilling rush in a safe way. I draw from life in the coal fields of southern West Virginia, my own battles with autism, depression, anxiety, ADHD, OCD, panic disorder, and sensory sensitivities. Those don't make me "horrible", they give me authentic material for suspense, unease, and the weird corners of the human experience. Writing the monstrous lets me externalize it, play with it, and often inject dark humor or absurdity into an otherwise horrific situation. Plenty of the kindest, most gentle people I know write the darkest stuff. It's catharsis, craftsmanship, and entertainment. The real "horrible" people usually don't need fiction, they just live it. My goal is simpler: entertain, unsettle, and maybe make someone laugh while their skin crawls.

Which horror writers do you admire—old or new, famous or hidden gems?

Edgar Allan Poe — Obvious and eternal.
Thomas Ligotti — Philosophical nightmare fuel. Weird, existential, and bleak in the best way.
Algernon Blackwood — Classic weird fiction with nature-as-menace vibes.
Ramsey Campbell — Modern Master of Urban and psychological decay.
Paul Tremblay — Modern voice doing fresh takes on grief, and home-invasion terror.

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

I don’t people, unless it is something I need to do. My place somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. Sitting on the porch with a large tea, and the darkness. Fog rolling in off the hills, distant sounds of wildlife (that is what we tell the tourists), and that crisp night air that smells like damp leaves, dark earth, and old country memories. No bright city lights to ruin the mood, just the weak porch light buzzing with moths and the occasional creak of the house settling.

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up?

You have to be joking. I live in the only state that is entirely inside the Appalachian Mountains. I have written Wild and Feral West Virginia. Field Guide to Cryptids, Myths, and Legends from the WV Book Company. It will be out sometime before the end of the year. It has 91 random entries.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I do most of my writing in my dungeon. It sounds cooler than it is. It is a large closet with an armchair, a table, laptop, stein full of tea, and a single light. It is the quietest place in the house.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

My brain is basically a bingo card of mental hurdles, and I’ve learned to treat it like a chaotic superpower rather than just a list of diagnoses. Aspie (High Functioning Autism), panic/anxiety disorder, Hypochondriac, ADHD, OCD, Sensory sensitivity, Haphephobia, Depression, SPD (Sensory processing disorder), Oppositional defiant disorder, Mild Agoraphobia, Aquaphobia, Manic, Lilapsophobia. Think about trying to live with all these at a time when it wasn’t common knowledge.

Where can we find you online?

https://www.facebook.com/RodneyHatfieldJr
https://creepypasta.com: Stories under Rodney Hatfield Jr in their archives.
https://x.com/hatfield23686
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Rodney-Hatfield/author/B06XRTBWHN

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47002563.Rodney_Hatfield_Jr_

A Scary Interview with Jeff Wood

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 will be released on the 1st of October, but in the meantime, the Kindle version is available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads TBR list. To get you pumpkin-spiced up for an unforgettable Halloween 2026, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Step into the corridors of their dark minds, if you dare!

Hi Jeff,

That classic question to get started. Do you have to be a horrible person to write horrible things?

I won’t speak for others, but I think there’s a certain amorality to writers, horror or otherwise. I’m not saying writers have no morals (although…), but rather, a writer is willing to examine all possibilites and motivations, no matter how dark (or light). In other words, a writer doesn’t let morality blind them of their darkest notions. They explore everything.

Which horror writers do you admire—old or new, famous or hidden gems?

He’s not a horror writer, but Ray Bradbury has an ability to start you off in the everyday world, and subtly twist the details so that mundane objects and events take on fresh meanings. He inserts the uncanny into the everyday. It’s magical realism, even if no one ever calls it that. A huge influence.

Can you describe your perfect horror-themed night in, out, or away?

I like the weeks just before Halloween, when horror books and movies dominate conversation and media. You’re allowed to binge three horror movies a night on your safe, comfortable couch next to your wife.

Are there any urban legends, folktales, or real-life tales of horror that happened (just maybe) where you live or grew up?

I grew up in Iowa, with cornfields everywhere. Cornfields look pretty, but they are genuinely scary places. Animals (including lots of rats and who knows what else) are scurrying around making unsettling scuttling noises. You can’t see them, only hear them. Corn itself is said to make a rustling sound at it grows. In addition to the sounds, by mid-July the cornstalks are so high you can’t see what’s right in front of you, and it’s difficult to walk. So: can’t see well, mobility is limited, and you are surrounded by unidentifiable noises. Deeply liminal, disturbing places.

Do you have any writing rituals?

Sit down with my laptop to write every morning, after coffee. Doesn’t matter where. Just show up, every morning. I don’t get ideas about writing unless I’m actively writing.

Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?

I once hitchhiked from Iowa to New York City, by way of Canada and the Great Lakes (that’s a really long distance, if you’re not from here!). A true adventure.

Where can we find you online?

My Substack, The Oort Cloud, can be found at
https://jeffwood.substack.com/
My website is at https://jeffmwood.com/

How the Pandemic Started with Sam Dawson

We asked Sam Dawson, author of the forthcoming medical thriller, INDEX CASE, what inspired him to write a novel about a pandemic. Here's what he told us...

Back in 2000 I was on a study weekend with a number of people who had worked or volunteered in Civil Defence and the Royal Observer Corps, back when nuclear war was the threat that transfixed mankind. Several were now involved in disaster planning, and they were reminiscing about the old days. "You know what scares the life out of me now?" one asked. "Avian flu".

Several years later I was on a similar expedition, with similar people. Only now they were coming out of retirement as the British government realised too late that it had thrown away almost all of its priceless Cold War protected infrastructure - everything from the public warning network to the fleets of Green Goddess fire engines and countless bunkers. It was a post-9/11 world where it had been noticed that the perpetrators of those attacks had also explored driving tankers of chemicals to reservoirs and sought licences to fly crop-dusting planes. Suddenly, under the name 'Resilience', emergency planning exercises were being shoehorned into exposed council offices to run simulations on how, with no personnel beyond the over-stretched emergency services and a few civil servants, the threats of flooding, climate change, terrorism and dirty bombs could be handled. Too late and too little, money was being spent. Quietly, every fire service local area received a hazmat vehicle capable of dealing with the results of nuclear, biological and chemical incidents.

The emergency planners were talking again. They all agreed on one thing: that despite all that had happened in recent years, the threat that they saw as certain to materialise, sooner or later - the one that literally kept them awake at night - was bird flu.

That was when I began to write INDEX CASE.

Sam Dawson 
https://www.sam-dawson.co.uk/books/

The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2 - Proof Copy

Look what rocked up today! The proof copy of The Black Beacon Book of Horror 2, out this October, is here and it's looking fantastic. Grisette, our familiar, simply can't keep her paws off it! With cover art by the steadfast Greg Chapman and seventeen stories from the darkest imaginations penning horror fiction today, Halloween 2026 won't be worth celebrating without the latest anthology brought to you by Black Beacon Books.

Pre-order your Kindle copy today for just $1.99.