Bedtime Stories for the Faint of Heart
Available at http://www.lulu.com/blackhatpress
I conjure up a world filled with ghosts, monsters, and flesh eating ghouls in my anthology Bedtime Stories for the Faint of Heart. Such creatures may terrify even the most stout-hearted souls. But the recurring theme is that the dark places in the human heart can be the greatest of all horrors.
Available at www.lulu.com/blackhatpress in soft cover and as digital download, the book took several years to compile.
My characters find themselves in existential crises, and they are not always able to resolve them. Sometimes they fail terribly, even though they believe they have actually succeeded. Sometimes they manage to reconnect with a part of their psyche that allows them to regain a sense of humanity.
My monsters are nearly always metaphorical of psychological or social phenomena.
Take ghosts, for example: to me, they represent the inability to let go of the past.
Henry, the main character in my story “A Second Chance for Lost Souls,” has become embittered by a crippling injury from a scuba diving trip. When the ghost of a five year-old boy enters into his life, he allows his anger to fight a battle he cannot possibly win.
And zombies?
They are the walking dead, who feed on the flesh of the living. If their victims are not completely devoured, they become part of this mindless mob. They represent society’s tendency to squash individuality.
In “Hungry Bob,” the lone survivor of the zombie apocalypse may be barricaded safely in his house, but he has run out of food. While the soulless masses in the streets may not be able to get their hands on him, his demise appears to be inevitable.
As far as horror fiction is concerned, my literary influences are Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch, Roald Dahl, and Emily Bronte.
Emily Bronte of Wuthering Heights? Yep, that’s her.
Wuthering Heights has been billed as this kitschy Victorian romance, but the novel is actually a chilling insight into the mind of a brutal sociopath, an emotional domestic abuser, whose lust for revenge destroys nearly everyone in his intimate circle. Eventually, it leads to his own destruction.
Bedtime Stories for the Faint of Heart is published by Lulu, a pioneer in the field of on-demand publishing.
So what’s next? I’ve been meaning to actually write a Pagan oriented book, but for now, I am working my tail off promoting this project. Oh, and there’s this pesky day job thing I can’t avoid.
