The Sinister Horror Company are extremely proud to be working with  in releasing the critically acclaimed author’s third short story collection, I Spit Myself Out.


The collection features eighteen stories, twelve original to this volume. The book will be released on 13th February 2021, the date of Galentines Day fitting for a collection that centres around the female experience as its core theme.


The cover was designed and created by Justin Park.

​Tracy has this to say about the book:
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“Writing this book has been an intense experience. I Spit Myself Out has been a work in progress for the last two years. In it I wanted to explore horror from the vantage point of the female experience; a quiet, everyday horror that centres on body anxiety, trauma, and illness, both mental and physical. I was interested in exploring that liminal space between the body and the world, and was very influenced by Julia Kristeva’s essay, The Powers of Horror, from which the title is derived.


Working on this project I was drawn into the worlds of anatomy, pathography and medicine. Through this journey, I was lucky to work with Justin Park of the Sinister Horror Company who really understood what I wanted to do with this book and worked tirelessly with me; talking through ideas, editing, designing the look and feel, and ultimately producing this handsome volume.


And so, in tandem with the Sinister Horror Company, I spit out this book into the world of horror.”

Tracy Fahey is an Irish writer of Gothic fiction. In 2017, her debut collection The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. Her first novel, The Girl in the Fort, was released in 2017 by Fox Spirit Books. Her second collection, the folk horror New Music For Old Rituals was published in 2018 by Black Shuck Books.


Fahey’s short fiction is published in over thirty American, British, Australian and Irish anthologies including Stephen Jones’ Best New Horror, Nightscript V, and Uncertainties III, and her work has been reviewed in the TLS and Black Static. In 2019, her short story ‘That Thing I Did’ received an Honourable Mention from Ellen Datlow in The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eleven. She holds a PhD on the Gothic in visual arts, and her non-fiction writing has been published in edited collections and journals. She has been awarded residencies in Ireland and Greece.


I Spit Myself Out is her third collection.

Eighteen unsettling narratives map the female experience from puberty to menopause.

I Spit Myself Out is a collection of female-voiced stories exploring the terror that lurks beneath the surface of the skin. In this collection, an Anatomical Venus opens to display her organs, clients of a mysterious clinic disappear one by one, a police investigation reveals family secrets, revenge is inked in the skin, and bodies pulsate in the throes of illness, childbirth and religious ritual.Disturbing and provoking in equal turns, I Spit Myself Out reinvents the body as a breeding ground of terrors that resurface inexorably in the present.

I Spit Myself Out will be available on Kindle, Paperback from Amazon and the Sinister Horror Company website from the 13th February 2021.

Pre-order to be made available in due course.

Tracy’s debut collection, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre, is available via the Sinister Horror Company: https://www.sinisterhorrorcompany.com/the-unheimlich-manoeuvre


For any enquiries or further information visit:
SinisterHorrorCompany.com

As a result of the phenomenal success of the Northamptonian curmudgeon Alan Moore’s Watchmen and his superlative run on Swamp Thing, the hirsute Midland Magus found himself the spearhead of what came to be known as the British Invasion. The 1980s saw a great many British comics creators – especially writers – go and seek their fortune abroad with DC comics, including such luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Jamie Delano, Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis.

Jamie Delano had just finished a successful run on Hellblazer, one of DC comics more adult titles. Hellblazer – which deserves an article all to itself at some stage – told the tale of John Constantine, an occult anti-hero. Created by Alan Moore and introduced in issue #37 of his acclaimed Swamp Thing run, John is part magician, part conman and grifter, and made an ideal cynical human foil for the Guardian of the Green. In Delano’s run, the Scouse Sorcerer was tormented, haunted by the memories of an exorcism gone wrong in which he had damned the soul of an innocent girl to hell.  Frequently dipping into the world of political satire, Delano was equally at ease condemning Thatcher’s Britain as he was introducing elements of environment activism. Grounding John in London as opposed to Moore’s jetsetter, Jamie’s writing was frequently about the crossover between the magical and the mundane.

Like much of the UK talent at the time, Garth Ennis had cut his teeth on 2000AD, mostly working on Judge Dredd (including the mega epic Judgement Day, basically a world-spanning tale of Judges versus Zombies). It was Ennis who introduced Ireland into the world of Dredd, sending the square-jawed lawman to the Emerald Isle, a country of laid-back Guinness-swilling Judges, singing mutated potatoes, and Spud guns (Ammo settings: Roast Potato, Chips, and Smash).
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Belfast’s Ennis took over the successful Hellblazer title from Jamie Delano, hitting the ground running (and screaming, coughing, and swearing) with his storyline “Dangerous Habits”. This is still now considered one of the standout tales of the character, involving the cornered warlock’s attempts to come to terms with and attempt to cure his terminal lung cancer, a saga involving Faustian pacts and betrayal. Within the course of this first storyline, Ennis had made Hellblazer his own, bringing in elements that would be common to the writer’s future work – damaged and quirky characters, a disdain for authority, dark humour, and a lot of swearing.

Hellblazer, under the tenure of Ennis, eventually became part of DCs new Vertigo Imprint. This was introduced to allow DC to publish comics with adult content, such as drug use, swearing, nudity and violence – born of the publishers’ regular frustration at getting Swamp Thing approved by the ever-strict Comics Code Authority. Comics were growing up at an exponential rate (cue an invariable two decades of articles entitled, “Kapow! Boom! The comic grows up”), and the restrictions of the Comics Code only stifled a lot of creators.

Ennis worked on both material for Vertigo and the regular DC Comics Universe (The Demon and its successful spin off Hitman) but in the mid-nineties would produce probably his best piece of work, in which he would team up with artist Steve Dillon, an old collaborator from his 2000AD days.

Preacher.
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(As an aside, there are a few titles on my bookshelves that get a regular reread. Bad Wisdom by Bill Drummond and Mark Manning is one of these honoured tomes, an insane true story of a trip to the North Pole to plant a statue of Elvis to heal the world through ley lines, and Preacher is one of the rare others).

Preacher is, at its heart, a Supernatural Horror, telling the story of a washed-up small-town pastor on a mission to find God and ask Him why He has abandoned humanity. However, it’s so much more than that – it’s equal parts road movie, buddy movie, and dark comedy.

But at its core, despite being clearly set in the modern day, it’s a Western.

The tale begins with Jesse Custer (and if that name alone isn’t defining this as a Western, I don’t know what could), offspring of a troubled upbringing, at his lowest. He’s stranded as the unappreciated preacher in a God-forsaken town, the last of his faith dwindling alongside the last dregs of his bottle of Jack Daniels. However, an entity with the power of God himself has escaped from the confines of Heaven – Genesis, the offspring of angel and demon - and takes up in Jesse’s consciousness, imbuing Jesse with a deadly power and secret.

Jesse, possessed by Genesis, finds himself armed with the Word of God itself, the ability to force any who listen to obey without question, but also learns of a secret that the powers of Heaven have tried to keep quiet.

God is missing, having abandoned both the Angels and humanity.

So follows a trip across the seedy underbelly of America as our titular hero searches for God for long-sought-out answers. He’s accompanied by Tulip, an ex-lover turned hitman, and Cassidy, a century-old Irish vampire. On their journey, they’ll run into Jesse’s hideous adoptive family and the Grail – a two-millennia old military and religious order dedicated to preserving the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

On their journey – culminating at the Alamo at San Antonio, Texas – will see them encounter serial killers, perverted private investigators, angels, demons, and clans of pretentious vampires.
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All the time pursued by the Saint of Killers.

The Saint of Killers is a formidable creation. Reawakened by the Angels from his grave at Boot Hill (where else?) solely to hunt down Jesse, He’s Schwarzenegger’s Terminator with spurs, a grimmer-than-grim Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood made immortal. He’s the living embodiment of every Western villain and anti-hero there ever was, an unkillable force of nature. He’s the Grim Reaper, albeit one not wielding a scythe but armed with a pair of Colt 1847 Walkers that will never miss their target.

So far, so good. But nothing that particularly stands out in writing, other than a very brave move in daring to criticise religion to a primarily American audience.

So, why do I feel that Preacher stands out?

It’s a morality tale

Jesse, despite all his flaws – he’s rather fond of drinking and fighting – is at heart, a good person. Despite his twisted adoptive family, the story constantly drums home that he picked up his morality from his mother and father who were, themselves, good people. It’s quite interesting to note that even before Genesis begins to live rent-free in Jesse’s head, before any element of the supernatural enters his life, there’s the recurring motif of a guardian angel figure in his life.
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Taking the form of John Wayne, this figure is a constant at Jesse’s side. It’s not clear whether he’s imaginary, or an actual supernatural force such as a ghost, but I’d like to side with the former. He’s like a father figure in the absence of a real one, Jesse’s dad taken from him at an early age. He dispenses advice, and the two are even known to bicker about the right course of action.

It’s reminiscent of the scenes of Clarence (Christian Slater) from True Romance where he converses with Elvis – the iconic star almost takes on the role of spirit animal. In an interview with Ennis, Garth speaks about why he chose John Wayne for this role, and it’s because of the concept of Wayne being the hero who would do the right thing, far separated from the flawed real man behind the character.

Jesse’s quest to find God is less about revenge, more about getting God to own up to his responsibilities. In the same way that Superman expects the best out of mankind, Jesse isn’t angry – he’s just disappointed.

“Ya gotta be one of the good guys...'cause there's too many of the bad”


An appropriate mantra for us all, these days.


It’s not about the superpowers

Considering the astounding power that Jesse is gifted/cursed with – the Word of God, no less – the story is never about that. You’d be forgiven for going entire issues and having forgotten about the power at all – indeed, there’s one moment where Jesse himself comes out of a fight having forgotten he has them himself.

Much like The God of this story, the power is not infallible. It also makes him a target for organisations that would see to exploit it to their own end.

Thankfully, Preacher never lapses into superhero territory; the power being used sparingly. And it’s clear Jesse has been following Uncle Ben’s advice, because these great powers are used with great responsibility.
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Mostly.

It’s about the characters

Garth Ennis has a knack for creating memorable supporting characters – his excellent work on Punisher and The Boys and the roster of Hitman’s Section 8 are proof of that – and Preacher is no exception.

Aside from the aforementioned Saint of Killers – a character so fascinating he features in the best Preacher spin-off – the story introduced us to a cornucopia of standout heroes and villains, and I’ll mention just a few of the more memorable here.
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No mention of the Preacher comic would be complete without mention of Arseface. The disfigured victim of a shotgun suicide gone wrong, attempting to die in the same manner as his idol Kurt Cobain, Arseface features throughout the entirety of the sixty-six-issue run.

Arseface starts as a pitiable character – and somewhat of a cheap joke – and at first feels as though Ennis isn’t quite sure what to do with him once he’s been introduced. However, as the comic hurtles towards the end, Arseface gets a redemption arc of his very own, Ennis using him as an excuse to parody the fickle fate of success and fame.

Any story is only as good as its villain, and the true power behind the throne is introduced just over a year into the comic’s run. Herr Starr is the head of The Grail, an organisation formed back after the death of Christ by His disciple Thaddeus. Since that the organisation has grown in strength, manipulating events on a global scale to prepare for their own manufactured Second Coming. Jesse ends up being an invaluable part of their plans.

Starr is that best of things, a villain you love to hate. He’s thoroughly captivating and his scenes are amongst some of the highlights of the entire epic. When the spotlight works just as well when focused on the villains as it does on the protagonists, you’ve got something right.  Starr’s downfall is a delight to behold, the man ending up (physically) less of a human and more unhinged with every thwarted plan.

It’s not what you expect

There was a great amount of interest about the final issue of Preacher, excitement only helped by the fact that the double sized issue #66 was slightly delayed. We’d all discussed how we’d envisaged it ending, and it was with some nervous apprehension that I opened the final issue.

And we’d all been completely wrong. It subverted the genre by not even showing the “final battle”, as it were, just the aftermath. And when one character reads a handwritten note from another, a note in which it reads

“Isn’t it funny when you think your story’s going one way, and it turns out it was going another way all along?”

Preacher was never really about the quest for God. Epochal as such an objective might sound, that was never really the aim. It was about redemption; it was about forgiveness, and what friendship and love means.

And of course, it ends with the hero riding off into the sunset. How could it ever have ended any other way?
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And, if any of those reasons don’t make it worthy of a regular revisit, I’d also add that it includes one of the single best panels in comics since Ozymandias announced he wasn’t a Republic Serial Villain, or when Judge Dredd smashed his glove through Judge Fear’s face.

That good enough for you?

(As a closing note, Preacher was made into a 4 season TV series, which aired its final episode back in 2019. Despite initial high hopes, a promising start, and an impressive cast, I didn’t really rate the TV adaptation. My Dublin wife would cite Joe Gilgun’s Irish accent (as Cassidy) as one of her problems with the series, but my ill-trained ears found it perfectly adequate. My big problem with the television series was that the core of the comic was always about Jesse and Tulip’s love for one another, but in the TV series this never came across. Whereas the strength of say, The Boys, lies in the fact it deviates from the comic, this is a failing of the TV series. I’d have liked very much to see some of the better Preacher storylines up there on screen, but it never felt like my Preacher.)

But, in closing, the wise words of Herr Starr that sum up much of Preacher’s long and incredible run.
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“Oh, well let me see: We had an angel, a whore, an eunuch, several dozen idiots, an unkillable mick, a one-man holocaust in a duster coat, the occasional twenty-course banquet for the mother of all fat fuckers, inbreeding, family feuds, bulimia, a retarded child (always good for a laugh), and the utter destruction of our most sacred shrine and secret retreat in the detonation of a fifty-ton bomb.”

Further reading/viewing:
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Dead or Alive – the Collected Covers: It’s incredibly rare to have a creator team so dedicated that they can last uninterrupted for an entire sixty-six issue run, but this is what Garth and Steve achieved with Preacher. However, even more remarkable, was that every single issue of the run had a fully painted cover by the same artist. Dead or Alive is a complete collection of every single one of Glenn Fabry’s Preacher covers along with comments by the artist (and occasionally interjections by Garth).


The Spin Offs – Saint of Killers / The Story of You-Know-Who / The Good Old Boys / Cassidy: Blood and Whiskey / One Man’s War / Tall in the Saddle: Rare that spin-offs are worth mentioning, but in the case of Preacher, they’re a worthwhile read. The standout is Saint of Killers, being the origin of the titular character, but they’re all written by Grant and worthy additions to the saga. It’s also worth mentioning that the art of sadly missed Carlos Ezquerra features in two of these collections – Saint of Killers and The Good Old Boys.


Steve Dillon, artist of Preacher, sadly died back in 2016. The Guardian did an excellent obituary to the sadly missed talent, which can be read here.

Website: www.davidjcourt.co.uk
Twitter: @DavidJCourt

Have you ever wondered why Paul Kane’s website is entitled ‘Shadow Writer’? Did you ever stop to think where the name came from? With the new release coming from the Sinister Horror Company, you can find out.

The Sinister Horror Company are proud to announce we will be working with Paul Kane again, releasing a new collection ‘Darkness and Shadows’ on the 13th March 2021.

The collection will feature his rare and, until now, out of print novella Of Darkness and Light, and for the first time ever, a complete collection of Paul’s ‘Order of Shadows’ stories, including some brand new tales. The collection also features an introduction from horror legend M. R. Carey.

The fantastic cover photography is by Michael Marshall Smith, and the design by Justin Park.

​Paul has this to say about the forthcoming collection:

“Fear of the dark can be crippling, but it’s also a very healthy thing I think. The prologue to Of Darkness and Light, where the young boy is in bed worrying about all kinds of dangers in the blackness, is basically me as a kid; I had, and still have, a very vivid imagination! Being afraid of stuff like that is what kept us alive back when we lived in caves and huddled around the fire, not just for warmth but because it drove away the dark. 

Of Darkness and Light, the short novel I wrote as a limited release for Thunderstorm Books originally, came out over a decade ago. And, like a lot of my back catalogue, is now either very hard to get hold of or costs a fortune. So, part of why I pitched this new book to Sinister was to offer people who hadn’t seen the novel before the opportunity to read it, as well as opening it out to a much bigger audience. 
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But in this book I also wanted to gather together all of my ‘Order of the Shadows’ stories, a mythology I’ve been writing about since the beginning of my career. In fact my website is named after the very first of these tales, ‘Shadow Writer’. I’d been meaning to write some new material in this vein for quite some time and this new release also allowed me to do that, expanding on the originals and broadening things out a bit… with one eye on a very special crossover at some point down the line. Keep watching this space! They present the other side of the coin to Of Darkness… a more organised, perhaps even more terrifying side. But all are about a quite healthy fear of what’s lurking out there in the dark. 

I’m lucky in that this obsession is shared by bestselling author MR Carey (The Girl with All the Gifts), who provided the excellent introduction, and Michael Marshall Smith whose fantastic photography once again adorns one of my covers (see the collection Lost Souls for the other), proving – if proof were needed – just how multitalented he is! I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been to put Darkness & Shadows together and work on it with Justin; I hope you enjoy reading the book just as much as I did working on it!”

Instead of writing a bio about Paul and his previous work, we thought we’d share some quotes about him and let others do the talking.


“Paul Kane is a first-rate storyteller, never failing to marry his insights into the world and its anguish with the pleasures of phrases eloquently turned.”
(Clive Barker – Bestselling author of The Hellbound Heart, Abarat, Mr B. Gone & The Scarlet Gospels)


“Kane finds the everyday horrors buried within us, rips them out and
serves them up in these deliciously dark tales.”
(Kelley Armstrong – Bestselling author of Bitten, Haunted, Broken, Waking the Witch, Spell Bound and Every Step She Takes)


“I’m impressed by the range of Paul Kane’s imagination. It seems there is no risk, no high-stakes gamble, he fears to take…Kane’s foot never gets even close to the brake pedal.”
(Peter Straub – Bestselling author of Ghost Story, Mr X, Lost Boy Lost Girl, and In the Night Room)


“Paul Kane is a name to watch. His work is disturbing and very creepy.”
(Tim Lebbon – New York Times bestselling author of The Cabin in the Woods, The Silence and Eden)

The first horror book I remember reading

I recall reading Jurassic Park on a family trip across the country when I was about 12 years old. The funny thing is I was very squeamish about some of the bits in the book (still am when it comes to real life…or descriptions/visuals of anything to do with finger/toe nails and teeth) that described the gore when the dinosaurs attacked people. And I was the kid who was afraid of everything, so the fact that I made it through that novel and went on to love the genre of horror is quite the wonder.

The First Horror Film I remember watching

Jurassic Park came out when I was 11 years old. And I distinctly remember my older brother going to see the movie and coming home and telling my parents that I shouldn’t see it because it would “give him nightmares”. For a long time during its theater run I was refused the opportunity to see it until one night when a large group of friends and their parents were going to the Drive-In to see the movie and I begged my parents to let me go, and they did, and I instantly fell in love with the movie. It has been my favorite movie since I was 11.

However, if variety is what is wanted here, I would say the fist (non-traditional) horror movie I remember watching was The Ghost and the Darkness with Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. When you are a teenager who hasn’t been exposed to much regarding horror, lions stalking humans and ripping them apart is fairly horrific. It was also the first Rated R movie I was allowed to see in theaters.

The Greatest Horror Book of All Time

I can already tell this set of questions is like exploding a can of worms. This is a really difficult question to answer, because there are so many different aspects within the horror genre that stand out to me (originality, sheer terror, subtlety, shock value, atmosphere, etc.) and either add or subtract value within the story. I will have to take this one on strictly based on the re-readability factor and excluding the aforementioned (multiple times already) Jurassic Park.

It by Stephen King definitely pops to the top of the list, but then I start to think of the lesser known horror novels I have read and I find myself thinking about The Ruins by Scott Smith and Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. I didn’t read It until a couple years ago and it absolutely fascinated me. The world King created and the depth of the detail within the story held me captive. I am actually reading that one again right now. The Ruins was one of my first forays into truly uncomfortable horror literature. The amount of squirmy feelings I had reading that book hasn’t been matched yet. And the universe Preston & Child began with Relic was so fun and exciting. I need to read through all the Pendergast novels that they have written, but Relic has definitely stuck with me over the years. And we need a proper film version at some point.

The Greatest Horror Film of all time

Gingernuts asking the difficult questions. Yeesh. I am going to weasel my way around on this one and talk about different horror films that I consider in top form for what they did, because there has been so much brilliance in the field, just as there has been in the novel category.

Rosemary’s Baby – Since I didn’t become a fan of horror until I was in my late teens/early twenties, I hadn’t watched many movies within the genre and thought the level of menace and shock value grew over time. Until I saw Rosemary’s Baby. That film was so unnerving and sadistic. That movie opened my eyes to the vicious nature of a lot of films from the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Saw – When I went to the theater and watched this movie, I walked away in awe at how absolutely clever it was. The concept behind it, the twists and turns, and of course Cary Elwes is always fun to watch.

The Blair Witch Project – I remember when this movie came out and everyone was convinced it was real footage that had been found…until the day I went to see the movie and it was spoiled that it was fictional tale set up as found footage. I was still thoroughly engaged and horrified at the film, but I remember the wave of fear that rippled through the country when it was believed to be actual footage. That movie pioneered the art form and, while many films get the concept so wrong, there have been some amazing films made using the technique, including Rec and Searching.

The Conjuring – I am not going to lie: I was a grown ass man when I saw this movie and I was so grateful when I got back to my house at night when I lived alone, only to remember that my sister and brother-in-law were staying at the house for a few nights. The clapping hide-and-seek game sent chills down my spine. I honestly don’t know how I slept that night.

Jaws – The creature feature to begin all creature features. Not only is it terrifying due to the fact that there are really sharks that really randomly attack humans in the real ocean, but the human level of that story make you care for all the characters who are put in danger. A brilliant piece of filmmaking that is still fantastic to watch to this day.

THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME

Stephen King. I don’t know of any other prolific author with as many published works in as many genres as King. He has dabbled in so many ideas that it is difficult to not recognize him as one of the best authors of all time. I put him there, because of the ability to read the stories he has written again and again. He has definitely inspired me in my writing, and I am always excited when I find out a new book of his is coming out.
Honorable Mentions:

Michael Crichton was my introduction to fictional tales that weren’t Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia and I devoured so many of his books growing up.
Wm. Paul Young, not just because he is my dad, but also because of the worldwide impact his book The Shack has had. A publishing company was created to publish that book and it has since skyrocketed onto the top 100 sold books of all time. That’s pretty amazing.

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child introduced me to the concept of a universe continuing over the course of many books, and Agent Pendergast is still one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

Tana French’s writing is sublime. Her ability to impact the reader with her stories is phenomenal, and her insights into human nature are fascinating.
Orson Scott Card is another author that slips into the subconscious of the reader and lingers there for a long while. His world building is so intricate and introspective.
Pierce Brown, in my humble opinion, took the concept that Suzanne Collins utilized and exponentially improved on it. I enjoyed the Hunger Games books, but I felt like I was much more invested in the Red Rising series.

THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME

This is truly a difficult one, because book covers change over time as new editions and versions of a book releases. A book cover definitely goes a long way in piquing my interest (don’t judge a book, yeah yeah). But I am going to have to say The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The cover tells you what kind of a tale you are in for without giving anything away. It is sublimely beautiful.

THE BEST FILM POSTER OF ALL TIME

Another one where there are so many versions of movie posters that it makes it difficult to claim a Best. First off, I am removing all ensemble movie posters (Avengers Films, Fast and Furious films, etc.) because there is literally no nuance to them; they are simply announcing who to expect in the film. I am a big fan of the minimalist movie posters that have become popular over the last ten years or so. Original film poster? I would have to go with either the poster for Airplane! or The Dark Knight Rises. The pretzeled plane is simply comedy in itself, and the Batman logo in the skyline of the city is pure brilliance.

THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

Well, since the only one I have written in its entirety so far is Grim Fate I would have to say that one. I honestly feel that it is a twisted take on the horror genre. I don’t think anyone who reads it expects where I take it. One person told me they expected it to be just a horror novel where there was no investment in the characters, because they were just going to die anyway, but they were surprised to find it much more introspective. That was a huge compliment.

THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

There is a whole list of unfinished stinkers in my arsenal (most of which have been lost over the years…weird how that happens). I have a couple I want to rework and try again with, but many times I look back at stories I started to write, and I cringe. Ridiculous concepts, poor execution, lack on inspiration, and a plethora of other issues.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME

The Frighteners hands down. It is a criminally underrated Peter Jackson Horror/Comedy with Michael J. Fox. It is a brilliant bit of storytelling. I mean, I am extremely envious that I didn’t come up with the concept of a paranormal investigator who works with the ghosts to make money. The concept is phenomenal and there are pieces of the film that are truly (pardon the pun) frightening. One second you are laughing, and the next moment all your muscles are tightening because you know some shit is about to go down. Wonderful film.

THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME

Sphere by Michael Crichton. I know they made a movie about it, but the book is so much more subtle and horrifying and I think the movie didn’t do the book justice, and because of that it wasn’t as successful of a book as it really should be. It is such a claustrophobic tale, and really gets the heart rate going. I would say it is almost a horror version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME

Tana French. I know there are definitely people who know about her, but I feel like, especially in the US, her powerhouse presence is not as well known as it should be. The psychological aspects and twists and turns in her novels are things of beauty. She builds her stories so wonderfully, and her characters are excellent.

THE BOOK / FILM THAT SACRED ME THE MOST

The Conjuring takes this prize. Where most films rely on false jump scares to build tension, everything that is happening in this movie actually has a payoff. And when those creepy hands came out of the wardrobe, I believe I actually tried to crawl into the seat I was sitting in, because it was such a terrifying concept. They built the fear and unease so expertly, showing the audience what was right in front of the characters’ faces without letting the characters in on the terror of it all.

THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT

I am working on my second novel right now that deals a lot with psychology. The concept of what if this is really what it appears to be instead of just existing in my head. It centers around a Detective duo from a small town who begin investigating a seemingly cannibalistic cult who have started taking victims and leaving them eviscerated near the forest. But, of course, things aren’t always as they appear, and one of the Detectives ends up much deeper in the conspiracy than he could have imagined. I hope to publish it in October of 2021.

Nicho Young grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in the state of Washington with his wife and 3 (soon-to-be 4) children. When he is not writing he can be found playing with his kids, live streaming online, and watching shows and movies with his wife. 
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Writing has always been a passion of his and he is excited to be able to share his storytelling with the world. Grim Fate is his debut novel, and he plans on continuing to write and bring stories to everyone for decades to come.

When I was a toddler, my infant cousin was killed in a car crash. I've never gotten the whole story about what happened. My mom said that, since the accident took place in the days before car seat laws, the baby was flung from her mother's arms. Somehow, I got the idea that she was thrown through a window.  My mother's aunt told me that the firemen who responded to the accident didn't know the baby was in the car and crushed her.

My dad's youngest sister, the baby's mother, was so badly injured in the crash that she lay in a coma for weeks afterward. When my aunt woke, her child had already been buried. If she remembered what happened, she wouldn't discuss it with me. Still, she never got over the loss.

Years later, when my mom was trying to entertain my brother and me on a summer day, she took us down the road to the little country graveyard. We'd passed it every day going to and from town, but I'd never been inside before. I was eight, I think. My brother was two years younger.

The cemetery was full of lovely old monuments: from a blue metal obelisk made of zinc to a six-foot-tall limestone tree trunk adorned with calla lilies. There were lambs marking the graves of children and cryptic symbols to identify the Masons and members of the Order of the Eastern Star. There were crosses and roses and cherubs on the stones.

The graves that fascinated me the most belonged to family members. The grandfather who'd died before my parents married was buried there, beneath a stone already engraved with my grandmother's name and birthdate. The vacant grave beside him awaited her.

On Grandpa's other side stood a little gray headstone in memory of my cousin Karen. A bird flying upward decorated her stone. Her epitaph read, "Think of her as still the same and say that she is not dead, she is just away."
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It's a line from a poem by James Whitcomb Riley that begins, "I cannot say and I will not say that she is dead, she is just away. With a cheery smile and a wave of hand, she has wandered into an unknown land."

After the visit to her grave, I became obsessed with Karen's death. She'd been born in the year between me and my brother, but she hadn't lived much more than twelve months. If she'd lived, we would have been the closest cousins in age. I imagined we would have been friends. I envisioned sneaking off with a girl almost my age, instead of being the eldest, tasked with watching over a pack of cousins who looked to me to suggest games while the adults let us run wild.

I was friends at that time with a fire-and-brimstone Baptist girl who knew how to hold seances and contact spirits. We tried to reach my cousin Karen. My Baptist friend assured me that since Karen died before she could be baptized, she was in Hell.  I had nightmares about a tiny girl engulfed in flames. When I confessed to my mom, sobbing over the injustice of it all, she was horrified. Seances -- and friends -- were banned from the house for a while.

This was the point I began to understand that there were different churches with different beliefs. The more I learned, the more I understood that life was arbitrary and cruel, that innocents died, that faith might be a crutch but it was no shield.  All my horror stories proceed from that understanding.