A Portrait of the Author as a Horror Writer

In the Eyes of Mr Fury to be reprinted! My interview with Monica Byrne, autho...

A Portrait of the Author as a Horror Writer

I just came from a wonderful weekend spent at the World Horror Convention in Atlanta.

I’ve never considered myself as a horror writer. My elevator pitch description to folks who ask me what I write is often “magical realist” or “contemporary fantasy.” But there is a streak of darkness that runs through my fiction. Maybe I’m more “dark fantasy,” but I have written some horrific things.

Below is a list of my published horror fiction

In Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories

“The Safety of Thorns”: African elder gods (or spirits) live in the briar patch on a plantation in the antebellum South. The story is about the encounter between them and a young enslaved boy.

“Etiolate”: A homoerotic horror story about a kind of incubus set in the 90s goth scene in Baltimore. It has a David Lynchian feel.

“Catch Him by the Toe”: A Southern Gothic tale about a town haunted by a demonic ghost.

In Skin Deep Magic

“Death and Two Maidens”: A penny dreadful set in Victorian London about an Afro-British charwoman’s misadventures in the afterlife.

“Sugardaddy”: Set in a housing project in DC, this is the story of a teenage girl’s bizarre transformation. It takes the form of journal entries, and is partially a homage to Robert Aickman’s “Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal.”