Black Beacon Books

Friday, 22 September 2023

Horror Anthology: Angelique Fawns

The Black Beacon Book of Horror will be released on Friday the 13th of October; 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 list today. To get you in the mood for a particularly spooky Halloween this year, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. The first Black Beacon Book of Horror is bound to give you the creeps!

Hi Angelique,

Why do you write horror?

I don’t deliberately write horror, but something happens when I sit down at my laptop. A dark fog settles in the room. My fingers start to dance of their own accord. Each storyline twists and veers as if an outside choreographer is directing a dark play. Perhaps the most hidden fears of my subconscious are screaming for release? Horror can be healing as well as thrilling.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

There is nothing more fun than taking an old familiar trope and subverting it. Seth is the antithesis of your stereotypical vampire. He’s not gorgeous, nor does he have compelling power and superhuman strength. Instead, he’s a leechman who owns a pig farm but loves his animals too much to produce pork. Seth is fat, bald, lisps, and has a heart of gold.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

There are tooo many to pick! My favorite genre is the short horror story, and few leap to mind as top contenders. Stephen King’s “The Mist.” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Daniel Keye’s “Flowers for Algernon”— I could fill pages, but you get the idea.

What books did you grow up reading?

Stephen King. Margaret Atwood. Dean R. Koontz. Anne McCaffrey. Jeffery Archer. Any dystopian YA series I could get my hands on. Hunger Games, Divergent, Uglies...

Do you have any writing rituals?

I wish I did. My ritual is usually frantic typing when I can squeeze in a minute around my television promo-producing day job, running a horse farm, and hauling my daughter to rodeos all over Ontario. Sometimes, the only way to get anything done is to steal away to the local pub, tuck into a quiet corner, and finally let a nagging story fall onto the page. With a cold glass of chardonnay of course.

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

Though I’ve sold over 40 short stories, I've had a thousand rejections to get there.

Where can we find you online?

I have a blog where I post monthly open submission calls in the speculative genre that pay with no fees at www.fawns.ca/blog. I’ve tried to maximise success and understanding of conquering the short fiction world by interviewing publishers and authors either at horrortree.com, or on my podcast Read Me A Nightmare. In fact, if you want to learn more about the editor of this anthology, check out my one-on-one with Cameron Trost here, https://www.fawns.ca/2023/06/20/cameron-trost-and-black-beacon-books/

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Dark Reflections… Kim Newman

Paul Kane's collection, Dark Reflections, is out this Christmas and it includes a wonderful introduction by horror legend, Kim Newman. Here, Paul tells us just why he wanted to open the collection with a few words from Kim.

I’ve been a fan of Kim Newman’s work almost as long as I’ve been a fan of horror in general. I came across his non-fiction first, if I remember rightly – film reviews and articles for various places, plus his book Nightmare Movies was a go-to resource for me, and continued to be into the ’90s when I was studying film at university; it got me through many an essay, I can tell you. And, of course, Kim’s fiction which I read in the pages of magazines like Fear and then by grabbing his books from my local shop when they came out.

So, when I first started out in genre journalism myself and after getting my fiction published in the small presses, then attending conventions, there were certainly people I’d hoped to meet. I think it was at a British Fantasy Society event, maybe an open night or awards showcase, that I met Kim for the first time in the early 2000s – and was delighted to find he was just as nice and knowledgeable as he seemed in print and on TV shows.

Twenty years or more later, I’m happy to report he’s just as lovely and infinitely more knowledgeable than ever. We’ve enjoyed many a drink or several at his birthday parties over the years, which he’s kindly invited us to; chatted with him at other conventions and events; and of course he was one of our Guests of Honour at ChillerCon UK in Scarborough last year, which was where I first had the idea of asking him to introduce Dark Reflections. What better person to talk about reworkings of, or sequels to, classic stories by the masters of dark fiction than Kim? Someone I class as a master of dark fiction himself; his Dracula novels alone already mark him out as one of our most important writers over the last few decades, and I only see his reputation increasing in years to come.

I sent the mail, and nervously waited for a reply – but naturally Kim being Kim, it was a lovely one back saying, ‘Happy to oblige!’. And the introduction, as you’ll see for yourself when you pick up a copy of Dark Reflections, is just as brilliant and informative as you’d expect! I certainly learnt a few things from it…

Anyway, if that doesn’t tempt you, then hopefully you’ll find something within the pages – tales which pay homage to the greats such as M.R. James, Charles Dickens, William Hope Hodgson, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe to name but a few – that you might enjoy.

More soon in the run-up to publication, launching just in time for those long spooky, winter evenings! Until then, my eternal thanks to Kim, Cameron and of course Greg Chapman for the wonderful cover – yet another reason to spend those pennies!

Paul Kane
Derbyshire, August 2023

Friday, 15 September 2023

Horror Anthology: Elizabeth Broadbent

Hi Elizabeth,

Why do you write horror?

I write horror because it's a space for experimental, strange, and liminal fiction. Southern Gothic without it is boring. My favorite novelists all play with experimental structure: Faulkner,
Marquez, Melville. While I love writing gorgeous prose, playing with structure is my favorite.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

It's part of my favorite sandbox, a town called Lower Congaree. Like Faulkner, I made up a county (his is in Mississippi; mine is in South Carolina), complete with maps, genealogies, and consistent characters. The Merle family of witches plays a starring role in most of my works—while Ella Lee's story was my first, her mother Jane appears in For Thine is the Kingdom, published in Ghostlight: The Magazine of Terror. Ella Lee's story continues in A Burning Thing, published by Tree and Stone. I have her birth story yet unpublished. Her daughter, Talitha, stars in my novels The Swamp-Child (currently in final edits) and Mother of Ghosts (my work-in-progress).

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

Stephen King's The Long Walk and Firestarter have always stuck with me. Of course, I love A Rose for Emily and To Kill a Mockingbird. I'll argue til I'm blue in the face that Moby Dick and Absalom, Absalom! are horror novels, and they're my all-time favorites.

What books did you grow up reading?

I read all the typical kids books, like the Narnia series, but my parents never cared what I read, so I spent most of my formative years digging through Stephen King, Christopher Pike, and Anne Rice. My very favorite book was Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides, which I read when I was eleven. It's the only book my mother ever took from me, so I never forgot it. I was floored by his language. I wanted to be a writer from the time I was five, and I thought, "I want to write like that."

Do you have any writing rituals?

Daily, early, and often, in my dining room converted a writing room.

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

People think I made up the demonic Congaree Swamp. I didn't. It's real, and it's haunted as all hell. You can feel the malevolent energy at night, and it's probably the scariest place I've ever been. I also had a long career in journalism before I started writing spec fic in June 2022. I've been published in The Washington Post, Insider, and Time Magazine; I've also appeared on every major news network in America, including National Public Radio (other than Fox; I said no to them) and BBC World News. Most recently, one of my essays was commissioned by The Daily Mail.

Where can we find you online?

I live at www.writerelizabethbroadbent.com, but I'm also on Twitter, Instagram, and Threads as @eabroadbent; Bluesky is @elizabethbroadbent.bsky.social.

Sunday, 10 September 2023

The Black Beacon Book of Pirate Tales

Black Beacon Books is now open to submissions for a pirate anthology! Our Patreon patrons voted for this theme during a recent poll. The usual submissions guidelines apply to this anthology, but read on for the specific details.

The Black Beacon Book of Pirate Tales

What are we looking for?

For this anthology, we're looking for pirate tales, prefereably about pirates and buccaneers from the 16th to 18th centuries. Stories set in completely fictional/fantasy worlds will be considered but are likely to be a hard sell. That said, we're interested in stories belonging to various genres just so long as the central characters and setting are pirates or centred on the theme of piracy, even if the story is set in the present. For example, a ghost story featuring a legendary pirate or a mystery about a lost treasure. We're not looking for sci-fi or futuristic stories. As usual, if you have any questions, just get in touch.

The submissions window will remain open until December the 31st. Now, raise that black flag and get back to your writing desk!

Thursday, 7 September 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Sam Dawson

Hi Sam,

Why do you write horror?

Because that’s what I started with and I suspect it’ll never release its grasp. I’ve written history and a (not yet published) non-horror novel, but every time I turn to a new short story some twisted element to the situation will always present itself and request inclusion.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

The Floppy Man was a character I used to scare friends with when telling stories in my teens. Later, when I finally had the confidence to write something he sprang to mind. The original Morris Dancers were at a badly chosen countryside pub which turned out to be a hunt meeting place, and it took a while to separate in my mind the one harmless tradition from the other, anything but, one.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

If you’d asked me years ago, maybe, but there’s such a fantastic canon of both classic and new work out there now that it would be invidious to choose just one or two.

What books did you grow up reading?

Anything that was at hand, and luckily, something always was. Boyhood favourites included Biggles, John Buchan and Alistair Maclean, historical stories, classics, A Century of Creepy Stories and similar ghost anthologies from the 1930s. By age 11, thanks to school, I’d been exposed to Dickens, Conrad, George Orwell and Laurie Lee, and at home had just discovered Poe. From there on it just got better and better.

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

On paper, I’d rather not. In good company, maybe after a drink or two, probably yes.

Where can we find you online?

https://www.facebook.com/sam.dawson.31924

Thanks for answering our questions.

Thursday, 31 August 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Matthew R. Davis

Hi Matthew,

Why do you write horror?

Stephen King’s answer comes to mind: Why do you assume I have a choice? It’s not something I pursued intentionally; this is just how it turned out. When I was younger, I wrote more comedic things, or action stories that were all battle, all the time…but I always had a yen for the darkness, at least in fictional terms. When I wrote my first “adult” short stories at fourteen – tales that featured entirely made-up characters and didn’t blatantly reflect my inspirations – they were horror stories: “Dark Side” had a schoolgirl flipping over into a grim, shadowy parallel world populated with living shadows and heart-eating demons, and “Storm Drain” followed a teenager’s accidental descent into the titular structure to discover the corpses of two missing girls and a horrible answer to how both they and he got there. The die was cast…

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

I suppose there is. I worked day and night at the Royal Adelaide Show last year as a box office supervisor, and as I wandered around the showgrounds and took in the spectacle, I thought: there’s a story here. (This happens a lot.) I didn’t want to head in a spooky-carnival, haunted-ride direction, so what other angle could I take? It wasn’t long before Ruby appeared in my mind, back in the last place she ever wanted to be and struggling with horrific past trauma as everyone else blithely had fun around her, and the story spun out from there. I might as well point out that, unusually for me, “Ruby’s Syzygy” includes not one but two possible author cameos! The ticket seller in the first paragraph wasn’t explicitly intended to be me, but if you squint, he could well be – and one of the songs on the ghost train’s playlist is “Cemetery Girl”, a theremin-laced graveyard waltz from Champagne Tragedy, the first Blood Red Renaissance album, which was entirely written by me. That reference was a placeholder that I forgot to take out before submission, so there you go… a version of me exists in Ruby’s universe!

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

Just one? You’re kidding, right?

What books did you grow up reading?

Amongst other things: Little Golden Books, various comics, Doctor Who novelisations, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke; as I entered my teens, Dungeons & Dragons novels, Raymond E. Feist, Christopher Pike, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz; and from there, everything!

Do you have any writing rituals?

No, I don’t. I just make the time, figure out what I’m doing, and sit down to let my fingers fly. I’ve written flash fiction on my phone whilst sitting on my partner’s couch, and I’ve edited a novel on my laptop whilst sitting in my car at the beach or on a bench in a park. You just get it done however you can.

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

We’ve already done this question in another interview, but hey, I’m so obscure I can answer this a dozen times over, so here goes: when I was fifteen, I was so clueless about my future (excepting the whole rock star/horror novelist thing) that when a guidance counsellor asked me what job I could see myself doing, I replied, “Police officer?” Holy shit, dude.

Where can we find you online?

Where you least expect me. You might Google my name, and then, by doing so, you’ve called to me. It doesn’t take an old whistle to bring me to you; just a thought will do. Does your shadow feel thicker, the hairs on the back of your neck more tense and alert? I could be behind you right now. Don’t look – it’s safer if you don’t look. Maybe I’ll get bored and go visit someone else. Maybe.

Thanks for answering our questions.

Saturday, 26 August 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Kev Harrison

Hi Kev,

Why do you write horror?

I grew up with irresponsible parents who let me watch horror movies and raid my dad’s library of novels by Herbert and King, and a whole collection of The Unexplained magazine at a too young age. I first wrote a scary story for a talent show on a school camp at the end of middle school. Lots of the other kids stayed up all night, refusing to turn their lanterns off. The teachers were furious, but I was delighted. That really flicked a switch in my head.

Is there a story behind your story in this anthology?

The Choir is a story I wrote a couple years ago now. It was one that, when I sent it to beta readers, they all came back saying it was perhaps the best short of mine they’d read. But the length and the fact it has a lot of central themes meant that it wasn’t a good fit for a lot of venues. So, I’ve been waiting for the right home for it to come along. I’m delighted I now have done.

Do you have an all-time favourite horror tale?

My favourites tend to change almost as often as my socks. One which always sticks with me is Michael Griffin’s short novella, Hieroglyphs of Blood and Bone. Something about the weird and the mundane meeting, symbols for the reader to decode (or not), the ambiguous nature of so much of it just hits exactly the right spot for me. I think about how I felt when reading that story often.

What books did you grow up reading?

My first horror novel was The Rats by James Herbert, followed by Salem’s Lot and It. I was young enough that some of the nuances were doubtless lost on me. But I also liked fairytale-like stories such as Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh, or the grotesquery and dark humour of the work of Roald Dahl.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I used to have a few, but life changes in response to the pandemic meant that I really had to ditch them and learn to write in those pockets of time I had, whenever they cropped up. I still prefer to be sitting in my Poang chair in my lounge with a cold drink and some instrumental mood music playing, but if thirty minutes on a rickety train is all I have, then I’ll pop my earphones in and do what I can with that.

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

When I was at university in the West Midlands of England, I worked in a Poundstretcher store selling cheap products as a way to earn beer money. While there, I learned that a ghost lived in the attic storage area. It would open bottles of knock off buttercup syrup cough medicine and throw it all over the walls when there were only two of us in the building, both downstairs. The smell was awful.

Where can we find you online?

My Twitter/X handle is @LisboetaIngles, my website is www.kevharrisonfiction.com – do reach out, I’m very friendly.

Thanks for answering our questions.

Pages

Friday, 22 September 2023

Horror Anthology: Angelique Fawns

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Dark Reflections… Kim Newman

Friday, 15 September 2023

Horror Anthology: Elizabeth Broadbent

Sunday, 10 September 2023

The Black Beacon Book of Pirate Tales

Thursday, 7 September 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Sam Dawson

Thursday, 31 August 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Matthew R. Davis

Saturday, 26 August 2023

Horror Anthology: An Interview with Kev Harrison