An Interview with Author Kealan Patrick Burke
With the recent release of Kealan Patrick Burke’s fantastic ‘The House on Abigail Lane,’ I reached out to see if he would be open to answering a few questions. Kealan kindly accepted! His answers are very insightful, and for fans of his books will easily excite you for the future. As well, I asked a few cover design questions!
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Kealan has always been super supportive of my reviewing and writing and gave me some really amazing advice when I was struggling with areas and aspects of my own release ‘The Stranger,’ which I can’t thank him enough for being willing to help during that books process.
A Bram Stoker winning author, as well as being nominated multiple times, Kealan was born and raised in Ireland before moving to the United States.
First off, congrats on your new release ‘The House on Abigail Lane.’ This was a very wonderful surprise release. And double congrats on the news in the ‘about section’ that says it has been optioned for film! Can you share a bit as to when you first started working on this book?
Thank you! When I was compiling the stories for my short story collection, We Live Inside Your Eyes, I wanted to include some new material as an enticement for readers who might already have read the older stuff. To that end, I wrote the short story “You Have Nothing to Fear from Me” but wanted something meatier to end the book. While going through my files of unfinished stories for inspiration, I found a single page that immediately gripped me. It was about the construction of an ordinary suburban house and the worker who vanished after going up the stairs, leaving only his lunch pail and glass eye behind. I became obsessed with figuring out what had happened to him. Over the course of fourteen feverish days, that investigation became the novella “The House on Abigail Lane.”
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‘The House…’ has a very thorough back story. Was this a book that you had a singular story line that you wanted to tell, or did you have bits & pieces of stories that ultimately fit together to create this narrative?
I thought of it as a series of episodes like a Netflix documentary and decided to tell it that way. I’m not sure I had any idea what was going on until late in the game. Basically, the accounts of what the inhabitants endured in that house informed me where the story was going.
As someone who grew up in Ireland, did you have a haunted house that people spoke of in your neighborhood?
I like to think everyone did, and yes, absolutely. Ours was a dilapidated two-story Tudor complete with cracked turret. It was condemned, signposted, and watched over by a legendarily hostile old caretaker we feared more than the house itself. He was rumored to stalk the surrounding woods armed with a sickle. To be caught trespassing meant risking death at his hands. The house itself had an old overturned bathtub on the second floor that nobody could lift, so of course we believed there were skeletons in there. The door to the turret couldn’t be opened. Stacks of newspapers welded together by the elements admitted through the holes in the roof told us the house had stood there at least a hundred years. We hid from bullies, got drunk, fell in love, lost our virtue in that house. I got my heart broken for the first time in there when I found out the girl I had a crush on was in love with my best friend. It’s the kind of place that begs to be written about, and now that you’ve invoked the memory, I think someday I will.
You’ve tackled such a variety of stories/horror sub genres throughout your career. Is there one particular theme or sub-genre that you find you enjoy writing the most?
I don’t really think about that when I sit down to write something. Story comes first, no matter the flavor. It’s more likely the subgenre reveals itself as I go. Say, for example, my story “A Wicked Thirst” (from Mark Matthews’ terrific Garden of Fiends anthology) which is without question a vampire story, but on its face, it’s a study of alcoholism. It was only later I realized it fit into the bloodsucker subgenre.
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As far as themes, I find myself returning to grief and madness quite often. The many permutations of grief fascinate me, and, because of the hereditary vein of senility in my family, I live in constant fear of losing my self-awareness, my sense of reality, my mind, so I come back to it again and again in an effort to weaken my fear of it.
Where would you suggest a new reader begin with your work? Which book would be THAT book if you could hand one to them, say in an elevator after a conversation?
I think that really all depends on the reader’s taste. For those who like Twilight Zone-ish fare, I’d recommend Sour Candy. For something more psychological, I’d go with Jack & Jill. For outright bloody slasher chaos, I’d suggest Kin, and for those who like their horror Gothic and moody, I’d recommend Master of the Moors.
You’ve become almost as well known for cover design as for your writing. Do you approach designing a cover for yourself differently than for a fellow author?
Not at all. I design every cover as if it were for one of my own books. In fact, I’ve often designed covers for other authors that I was tempted to keep for myself!
Do you prefer designing your own cover before, during or after for your books?
After. It isn’t until the book is finished that I know how best to represent it.
Lastly, what’s next for Kealan? Will we finally see the prequel for ‘Sour Candy’? Is there possibly another 2020 release?
The next year is one of the most exciting for me in terms of upcoming projects, but I can’t say much about them yet. One project I’m insanely excited about is a graphic novel I wrote for Storm King Comics, which is run by the amazing Sandy King and John Carpenter. I’m currently rewriting my sixth novel, Mr. Stitch, which I think is, finally, after two years of work, close to being done. And yes, once that’s complete and in my agent’s hands, I plan to go back and finish the Sour Candy prequel, Ward. It’s going to be a busy one!
Thank you so much for such great answers Kealan!
To see more of his cover design work, head to: https://www.elderlemondesign.net/
To discover more about Kealan and all of his releases, head to: https://www.kealanpatrickburke.com/
