  Matthew R. Davis is an Australian Shadows Awards-winning author and musician based in Adelaide, South Australia, with around sixty dark short stories published around the world to date. He plays bass and sings in left-field rock and metal bands, performs spoken word, scores short films, explores derelict buildings, and generally makes a nuisance of himself. His first collection of horror stories, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, came out in January 2020, and his first novel, Midnight in the Chapel of Love, is out through JournalStone on January 29, 2021. Blog: www.matthewrdavisfiction.wordpress.com www.facebook.com/MxRxDx Amazon book link: If Only tonight We Could Sleep (Things in the Well) - | 9781672578424 | Amazon.com.au | Books Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself? I live in Adelaide, South Australia – a place colloquially known as Murder City, though it doesn’t seem that bad from my house! I’ve been publishing dark short stories in various anthologies for years, some of which are collected in my first book If Only Tonight We Could Sleep (Things in the Well, 2020). I’m also a musician, though that’s taken a back seat to fiction these past few years. To get the ball rolling and get everyone relaxed, here is a hopefully lighthearted question to break the ice: which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life and have them complain at you about they way you treated them in your work? Oh, there’s a few I’d hate to face, that’s for sure! From my short stories: Roxy from “Flights of Fractured Angels” and Carroll from “Ivy’s First Kiss” would make me feel terrible for putting them through the wringer, but Vicki from “The Only Tale” would be the worst – she’d probably end up haunting me in real life. Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing? Music is a huge part of my life, and some of my stories have been directly inspired or heavily influenced by not only my own time playing in bands, but also songs by Chelsea Wolfe, The Cure, Jane’s Addiction, Electric Wizard, Something for Kate, and so on. Doctor Who is another beloved influence that has been close to my heart for decades. Otherwise, all kinds of art, all kinds of people… and, of course, life itself. The term horror, especially when applied to fiction, always carries such heavy connotations. What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions? I sometimes find myself assuring people that although I write horror, my work is as much about hearts and minds as it is blood and guts, so I’m acutely aware of the assumptions that are often made about the genre. I’m in no way ashamed of my love for horror, but I don’t like that I find myself in a position of justifying and almost apologising for it because of people’s ignorance. Horror’s had its time in the sun over and over again and still people look down upon it, so perhaps it will always be marginalised… and since I’m a punk at heart, I really don’t mind that. The mainstream tends to siphon the guts and grit out of things to accommodate mass consumption, so I don’t think horror should ever gain complete acceptance. It should challenge and provoke and disturb, and it can’t do that if it gets too cozy. A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the sociopolitical climate. Considering the current state of the world, where do you see horror going in the next few years? I see horror becoming broader and deeper as a result of diversification, and that’s a beautiful thing. The field must not grow stale and overpopulated with rehashed tropes and perspectives if it expects to remain relevant; luckily, it’s never stopped spreading into new areas and finding new voices. Also, as a dismaying large portion of the populace reacts to increased intertextuality and understanding by pushing in the direction of bigotry and nationalism, I expect art to push back by biting harder with its themes and fighting more fiercely for compassion and tolerance. Our hearts and minds are our greatest weapons, and since they’re a bit too squishy to inflict real damage when thrown at Nazis, we need to find better and more effective ways to use them. Given the dark, violent, and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre, why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? I think there’s a truth to it, a willingness to explore things that other genres won’t touch. So many people are focused on the superficial aspects of life and don’t want to look below the surface; horror pulls back the rug and shows you what’s been festering beneath the whole time. Of course, it’s also visceral, transgressive, and exciting on a rather base level, but I think it’s important to accept that we need an outlet for our frustrations and our less worthy thoughts, and horror provides a way for us to vent them safely. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and assume that most mass shooters, terrorists, and rape-murderers don’t read many horror books, and I’m also going to postulate that maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to act out so terribly if they did. Perhaps it wouldn’t change anything at all, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Wondering what to get for that creepy person whose fervor over politics, race, and religion disturbs you in a way you can’t or won’t define? Give them a Stephen King novel today! What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre? I don’t think anything is, really. Whatever you want from your horror, you can find it if you look. You can have simple but fun action adventures, you can have deep and introspective musings on the nature of human experience; you can have blood and guts and heart and soul, all at once or separately; you can engage with writers from every country and culture on Earth. Claiming dissatisfaction with the genre is like listening to pop radio and stating that music’s not as good as it used to be – everything is out there, all the time, and if it’s not being presented on a plastic platter by your favourite mainstream outlets, it’s up to you to go looking. In the past, authors were able to write about almost anything with a far lesser degree of the fear of backlash, but this has all changed in recent years. These days authors must be more aware of representation and the depiction of things such as race and gender in their works. How aware are you of these things, and what steps have you taken to ensure that your writing can’t be viewed as being offensive to a minority group? I’ve always been open-minded and unwilling to offend out of ignorance, but we can’t always avoid that, and the broadening discourse has meant that I’ve looked at my work a little harder to see how it measures up. I sometimes feel a little embarrassed that most of my characters are white and cis-het, but then, why should I? That’s what I am, and we tend to default to our own settings. No-one castigates gay authors for writing about gay people, or people of colour for basing their narratives in their own cultural experience. (Okay, no-one except idiots.) That said, I have interrogated my own tendency to fall back on such characters. Does this person need to be straight, or will making them queer add another layer to the themes of the story? Can we make this person someone who would once have been an unusual choice for this kind of story, and just not remark upon that difference to show that it’s really no big deal? Often my characters are not explicitly given a colour or sexuality, so it’s up to the reader to decide these things for themselves, if they even matter in the context of the story. But as much as I like to explore perspectives different to my own, I try to keep in mind that some stories aren’t mine to tell. It would be tone-deaf and insulting of me to try and write a novel about the transgender experience, or one deeply steeped in indigenous culture. I can touch upon these characters to broaden my work, and I do, but that deeper focus is one best left to those who have lived those lives. Does horror fiction perpetuate its own ghettoization? For example, Julia Armfield’s latest collection Salt Slow has a cover that most horror fans would walk past in a book shop, and is one that probably is not marketed as horror. Does the genre’s obsession with horrific covers cause more harm than good? Salt Slow (which I did like, by the way) is an example of horror being presented as something loftier so as to appeal to people who wouldn’t dream of picking up a genre book. Another is The Last Werewolf, whose cover was littered with blurbs from mainstream folk as if to convince passersby that it was somehow above all that nasty horror stuff… and it’s a book about fucking werewolves! Covers need to give the casual viewer a fair idea of what to expect, so there’s no point putting a moody painted landscape on a book that’s all about dick-monsters tearing people apart in graphic detail. Explicit horror covers do limit their audience, but it’s fair to say that only the explicit horror audience will be interested in the first place, so, you know… horses for courses. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of cliché covers, so when designing my first book, I put a moratorium on things like skulls, blood, spiders, and all that hackneyed shit, and I think the end result is evocative of the genre without being too derivative. The gorgeous cover of Midnight in the Chapel of Love is utterly devoid of “horror” elements – but that book isn’t balls-in-your-face gore and depravity, so I think a more intriguing approach is exactly what was needed. What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of? Chris Mason, a fellow Adelaidean who has her first collection coming soon; Claire Fitzpatrick, whose debut collection Metamorphosis dropped in 2019; J. Ashley-Smith, whose novella The Attic Tragedy is a promising start. Betty Rocksteady, Damian Murphy, Priya Sharma, Philip Fracassi, and Gwendolyn Kiste are not quite new, with a few books each to their names, but are still in the early stages of what hopefully prove to be long and fruitful careers. What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author? Doctor Who novelisations and Ray Bradbury books had a big impact on my writing as a child; Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Richard Laymon, Tanith Lee, Dennis Etchison, Margaret Atwood, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Laird Barron have impacted upon my work at various points of my adult life; the films of David Lynch, Dario Argento, David Cronenberg, Jacques Tourneur, and many others have affected the way I write in some small way. Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative, that have stayed with you? The reviews and feedback I got about my first book were rather glowing, and they boosted my confidence no end! I’ve only had one truly bad review so far, for a short story – but looking at what the reviewer liked, I understand that my tale just wasn’t his thing, and fair enough. What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult? Shaping the great ideas, feelings, and plot beats into full-blown stories; making the time to sit down and write, whether I feel like it or not; the administrative and promotional aspects that go along with the work, which can be rather draining. Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? Crochet. But one should never say never. How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning? Giving one’s characters names that reflect their personality or their narrative arc can come off as too self-aware, taking you out of the story because you see them as archetypes instead of people. But names are important to me, and I try not to repeat myself whilst also never resorting to using names that I personally don’t like or that I think are overused. I’m not a fan of the Bible, so I don’t much like overtly Biblical names like Caleb, Joshua, Jacob, and Elijah, or even my own – especially when applied to stubbly action hero types. (Word to End of Days, but who the hell calls their kid something like Jericho Cane? Or did young Herbert Throckmorton pop down the deed poll office when he started working out and buying guns?) I find I can’t dig into my character unless they have a name that I like and that seems somewhat fitting for them; sometimes it’s as simple as changing a Sarah to a Sarah-Jane. Writing is not a static process. How have you developed as a writer over the years? I like to think I’ve gotten a whole lot better! My experiences have broadened me and helped me to understand a lot more about the world, about people, and I’ve read an absolute shedload of books, which also helps. Being edited gives you another perspective on your work, as does editing someone else’s, but the main thing is just to write and write and write, and not in a vacuum but in a space where you’re aware of what everyone else is doing. Cosmetically, it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started properly using indents and the Oxford comma, and I’ve even broken my longstanding habit of double-tapping spaces at the start of sentences! What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing? Keep going. To many writers, the characters they write become like children. Who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why? Uh… I don’t have children and never will, so this is a weird analogy for me. Almost everyone I write is a one-and-done, so my experience of them is short-term. I harbour an inherent suspicion toward most recurring characters and I’m not entirely sure why – perhaps because I think too many writers lean on their prior success rather than trying something new – but I do have some repeat characters who are a blast to write. Among them are the Murdertown Jackals, a rogue roller derby team who travel around in a van called the Murder Machine looking for trouble – their stories are like punk rock songs, short and fast and wonderfully violent. Those girls are a nice, cathartic break from the more introspective and sophisticated stuff. For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why? Maybe If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, because it covers a lot of stylistic ground in its thirteen stories and is a bumper representation of my short work at its best; Midnight in the Chapel of Love is more of a sustained blue mood with shadings of deepest black, but what a mood! If you’re keen for a smaller portion (as the bishop said to the showgirl), you could do much worse than my Demain Publishing novelette “Supermassive Black Mass”. Its blend of 1970s horror, cosmic SF, and pot-addled doom metal is a fun introduction if you like that sort of thing. Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? Many, but let’s keep it simple. It doesn’t make any sense out of context, but I always liked this line from “Flights of Fractured Angels”: The sickness – the city, the sickness – was inside her now. Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next? Midnight in the Chapel of Love is my latest book, published by JournalStone at the end of January. It’s a contemporary rural gothic mystery, it’s a subtly chilling horror story, it’s on sale now! As for what comes next… I’ve been far too busy organising promotion for my new book, writing blogs and guest posts, answering interview questions and so on to think much about writing actual fiction, but the plan is to see which short stories need telling the most and then to buckle down and bash out the next novel manuscript, which is looking to be a real creeper. If you could erase one horror cliché, what would be your choice? Rip-offs of The Exorcist. Stale Christian propaganda dressed up as whitebread horror – disobedient girls, bodily fluids, and swear words are evil, but a few Latin liturgical phrases will save the day. Yawn. Basiate culos meos. What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you? I read a lot of stuff and most of it is quite good, but the most recent book I would describe as great would probably be Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches. The last book that really disappointed me was Eimear McBride’s Strange Hotel – I literally tossed that one halfway through. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer? “Would you like to sign this lucrative, extremely fair, and non-binding contract with a successful, understanding, and ethically pure publishing house, ensuring that you can create art for a living and never have to worry about money or crap jobs ever again?” And the answer would be oh hell yes. Author photo by Red Wallflower Photography  THE MAN Jonny Trotter has spent the last fifteen years running from tragic memories of the country town where he grew up-but the black envelopes pushed under his door won't let him forget, and now that his father has died, he can run no more. THE TOWN Returning to Waterwich for the funeral and wake with his partner Sloane, Jonny must confront old resentments, his estranged best friends Brendan and Coralie, a strange, veiled woman the locals call the White Widow...and the mystery surrounding the fate of his first lover, Jessica Grzelak. THE GIRL A morbid and reckless city girl banished to the country to live with her aunt, Jessica loved to push the limits and explore the shadows-and no one has seen her since the night of her high school formal, the night she and Jonny went looking for the Chapel. THE CHAPEL Rumoured to be found in the woods outside Waterwich, mentioned in playground rhymes about local lovebirds Billy and Poppy and their killing spree in 1964, the Chapel is said to be an ancient, sacred place that can only be entered by lovers-a test that can only be passed if their bond is pure and true. THE TRUTH Before he can move on to a future with Sloane, Jonny must first face the terrible truth of his past-and if he can't bring it out into the light at last, it might just pull him and everything he loves down into the dark, forever.    Comments are closed.
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