Month: October 2019

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Somer Canon

megHan

Meghan: It’s been awhile since we sat down together, Somer. What’s been going on since we last spoke?

Somer Canon: Oh boy, SO MUCH! I’ve had the release of my book, A Fresh Start, from Crossroads Press as well as a few anthologies. I also embarked on a co-writing journey with my friend and talented author, Wesley Southard. Our work is still in it’s nascent form, but it’s shaping up to be something pretty amazing.

Meghan: Who are you outside of writing?

Somer Canon: Suburban wife and mother of two sons. Minivan driving menace to aggressive drivers in BMWs and grill master extraordinaire.

Meghan: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?

Somer Canon: My two childhood best friends are NOT horror fans. Not even a little bit. They’ve read one of my works and were kind enough to ask me what was wrong with me, but I am very understanding of their abstaining from reading my stuff. I can’t really help it if my family reads my works and I try not to think about it too much for fear of censoring myself, to tell the truth. If I offend, I’m happy if they don’t tell me about it.

Meghan: Is being a writer a gift or a curse?

Somer Canon: It’s a mixed bag, honestly. I think creatives are some of the most empathetic and wonderful people to know and I love being in their midst. By knowing them, I’ve learned to embrace the parts of myself, my creative self, that have for so long been hidden by me for fear of them being weird or off-putting by members of polite society, and not just because I am a horror writer, although that comes with its own cabinet of weird. We notice things some other people don’t, we’re sensitive and vain, and we tend to be frightened of putting to paper parts of the lush and colorful wilderness that is our imaginations. That place in our heads is where we do most of our living and sharing it is difficult, and yet most of us, myself included, are compelled to put it down and get it out. It’s freeing and wonderful, but also terrifying and loathsome.

Meghan: How has your environment and upbringing colored your writing?

Somer Canon: Well, they certainly color ME, so they would have to bleed into the work that I wring out of myself, you know? My upbringing wasn’t a happy one, so I tend to not write child protagonists because I hated so much being a child…I don’t want to revisit that. Things that anger me make it into the books, things that scare and hurt me make it in. My weird preoccupation with snack cakes made it into my book Killer Chronicles! The things in my past and in my surroundings can’t help but be part of the creative process and I think it’s good for the final product. It makes it more relatable, I think.

Meghan: What’s the strangest thing you have ever had to research for your books?

Somer Canon: Crime scene photos. I’ve had to describe some horrible things and in order to keep it grounded, or at least semi-grounded in reality, I had to get a good look at it. I’ve lost sleep over a few of those.

Meghan: Which do you find the hardest to write: the beginning, the middle, or the end?

Somer Canon: Endings are HARD. Not to say that beginnings and middles are easy (they’re SO not) but endings have a lot of responsibility towards the overall tone of the book. Where do you end it? How do you end it? What questions do you answer or leave hanging? How many of your readers do you want sending you angry emails? I consider books to be like thrill rides and they’re absolutely more about the journey than the destination, but if the destination is ill-fitted and all wrong, it certainly has influence over your impression of the overall experience.

Meghan: Do you outline?

Somer Canon: I might do a page-long idea of the overall story sometimes, but mostly I pants it.

Meghan: Do you start with characters or plot?

Somer Canon: Plot.

Meghan: Do you just sit down and start writing?

Somer Canon: It might look like that from the outside, I suppose, but my mind is totally bent on that current work in progress. Every waking moment is spent thinking on it.

Meghan: What works best for you?

Somer Canon: I need to do things that are quieting. By that I mean, my hands are busy, but my mind is in this really great, quiet, almost zen place and I get my best ideas when I’m quieting. I bake, work out, do yard work, or clean my kitchen cabinets. It helps a lot.

Meghan: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline/plan?

Somer Canon: My characters start off as cardboard cutouts of the more well-rounded people they become in the process of writing the story. If they want to go off script, I’m okay with it.

Meghan: What do you do to motivate yourself to sit down and write?

Somer Canon: I want this. I’ve always wanted this. Hard work has never scared me off. Someone once said to me, “Just sit down and write the damn thing.” Reciting that like a mantra actually helps me a lot!

Meghan: Are you an avid reader?

Somer Canon: I try to be, I really do. I don’t read as much as I’d like.

Meghan: What kind of books do you absolutely love to read?

Somer Canon: I love haunted house books. I’ve never passed on one. I also love a good biography.

Meghan: How do you feel about movies based on books?

Somer Canon: I’m always dubious about it because so many movies change parts of the original story that… WHY. There was no need to change that, why did you do that? I watch plenty of movies based on books, but I’m usually left cold.

Meghan: Have you ever killed a main character?

Somer Canon: Yes.

Meghan: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?

Somer Canon: It’s not that I get joy from it. There is something to learn from pain and there’s an opportunity to grow or learn something about yourself if you make it out of the suffering intact. It has to happen, but I don’t necessarily love it.

Meghan: What’s the weirdest character concept that you’ve ever come up with?

Somer Canon: I have my idea book where I jot down little ideas for stories or characters. I used to keep it by my bed so if I woke up with a thought I could jot it down. I stopped keeping it there after I found an entry with only two words and, for the life of me, I have no idea what I was thinking. Grandma Boobie is the entry. I just… HUH?

Meghan: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received?

Somer Canon: I’ve been really lucky to work with editors that have helped me catch some annoying habits in my writing. I can’t imagine how tedious I must be to them. What’s the worst? I once had a fellow author tell me that I’ll never again hit the high of the experience of signing my first contract and it was all downhill from there. I disagree with that. Big time. Every time someone wants to publish one of my tales, every short story acceptance, every invite to do a blog tour or a convention… it all means so much to me and I let myself be humble and flabbergasted by all of it. I’m living my dream and I don’t want to let myself become numb to it.

Meghan: What do your fans mean to you?

Somer Canon: We have to hide how demoralizing this writing thing can be. Rejections happen, things go quiet and you’re forgotten, self-loathing is the grease that keeps my writing engine going and I’m very hard on myself. And then, in those darkest times, someone will message me and tell me that they liked my story, or send me an email asking when my next book will come out. I can float on those tiny nuggets of encouragement for a week at least. My fans startle me and lift me up and I really don’t know if I could handle the drudgeries without them.

Meghan: If you could steal one character from another author and make them yours, who would it be and why?

Somer Canon: I would love Larry Underwood, from Stephen King’s The Stand. Larry is such a mess and I’d like to play with him in a timeline where I can continue his storyline and Captain Trips never happens. He’s a victim of good intentions swallowed by pride and vanity, until everything goes to hell and he has to lead with his better side. His better side is full of mistakes, but it perseveres.

Meghan: If you could write the next book in a series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?

Somer Canon: I’d like to write another Southern Vampire Mystery book (True Blood was based on them). I love the character of Sookie Stackhouse as she was in the books (don’t make me talk about the show… I get loud) and I feel that Charlaine Harris got tired of writing in that world, which I understand. But as a fan I would geek out so hard.

Meghan: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be and what would you write about?

Somer Canon: I AM writing a collaboration with someone, the previously mentioned Wesley Southard! But fantasy-wise? I think it would be cool to write with one of my high-minded, intelligent friends like Mary SanGiovanni or Catherine Cavendish. They’re so much smarter and more eloquent than I am and it would be a real experience to live in their process.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Somer Canon: I’m not stopping! I’m working on a novel right now that will be my homage to both Clive Barker and Tobe Hooper! After that, who knows?

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Somer Canon: I’m on Twitter and I’m on Instagram and I have a website.

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview or the last?

Somer Canon: Thank you to anyone who has given any of my words even a cursory glance. It’s easy to feel lonely and alone and to every person who has ever interacted with me in even the smallest way, thank you so very much. And thank you, Meghan’s House of Books, for having me again! This interview was a doozy!

Somer Canon is a minivan revving suburban mother who avoids her neighbors for fear of being found out as a weirdo. When she’s not peering out of her windows, she’s consuming books, movies, and video games that sate her need for blood, gore, and things that disturb her mother.  

A Fresh Start

Still hurting from her divorce, Melissa Caan makes a drastic life change for herself and her two young children by moving them out to a rural home.But the country life came with some extras that she wasn’t counting on. Doors are slamming, she and her children are violently attacked by unseen hands, and her elderly neighbor doesn’t like to talk about the murders that happened in the strangely named hollow all those years ago.Ghost hunters, witches, and a sassy cancer survivor come together to help Melissa fight for the safety of her children and herself.All she wanted was a fresh start, will she get it?

The Hag Witch of Tripp Creek

A NEW HOME

Dawna Temple let herself be moved from the familiarity of Pittsburgh to the wilds of West Virginia, all so her mentally exhausted husband, John, could heal from a breakdown. Struggling with the abrupt change of location, Dawna finds a friend in her neighbor, Suzanne Miller, known to the locals as The Hag Witch of Tripp Creek.

A NEW FRIEND

Dismissing it as hillbilly superstition, Dawna can’t believe the things she hears about her funny and empathetic friend. Suzanne has secrets—dark secrets—and eventually she reveals the truth behind the rumors that earned her the wicked nickname decades earlier.

OLD WOUNDS

Now in possession of the truth, Dawna has conflicting emotions about Suzanne’s past deeds, but when her husband’s well-being takes a downturn, she finds there is no one else to turn to. Will she shun her friend as others have done before? …or can she accept that an act of evil is sometimes necessary for the greater good?

Halloween Extravaganza: Frank J. Edler: STORY: Halloween Needs a Gimp

megHan

Frank J. Edler is one of my “new favorite people,” and has been for quite some time now. He’s definitely someone worth knowing. Talented, hilarious, and just a really good person. I hope you enjoy his story… that took me places very unexpected.

I dig and dig, fearing all hope is lost. A bust of a Halloween. Nothing but jank candy. Tootsie rolls, Mary Jane’s, Dots, and loose candy corn! Who gives out loose, unpackaged candy corn? Old ladies, vagabonds, and derelicts, that’s who! All jank! I throw caution to the wind and just dump the candy all over the carpet. Screw it, Halloween is ruined now with all this terrible candy. What the hell has happened to the world? We’ve all become too cheap to fill a little boy’s life with the joy of free premium candy? Everything is Dum-Dums and Sixlets! Not even a proper m&m but a knock-off, second-rate Sixlet! Heads will roll!

What’s next, one of those terrible strawberry hard candies that old ladies older than old ladies give out? Those old ladies give those out not because it’s Halloween, but because they don’t know it’s Halloween and they are confused and frightened as to why all these freaking young’uns are ringing their doorbell demanding candy when all they wanted to do was finish watching the last episode of Matlock and go to bed at two in the afternoon so they can wake up at four in the morning and start their day anew. Yup! There it is one of those strawberry hard candies. Never fails. It tastes like it’s on death’s door too. I was foolish enough to try one when I was very little, believing the lie of the fresh fruit looking wrapper.

Lies! All I got for Halloween this year was a bag full of lies and empty promises. This is all that stupid Walmart’s fault. Everyone goes there and just buys a 385 pound bag of discount, bottom shelf, no name candy to pass out to the children. People live with the delusion that this year will be the year that all the kids in town as well as the next three towns over will arrive at their door so they go for quantity not quality. It’s a perception Sam Walton’s offspring and disciples have been selling for years and each year all it does is decrease the amount of trick-or-treaters. So when Halloween comes to an end and it’s time to settle in for All Saints Day, millions of households across America are left ragged and depressed over the insurmountable volume of terrible candy they are left to suckle for the rest of the remaining year. Don’t worry, they’ll buy the same crap next year.

And me, here I sit with nothing more than a pile of dirt on the carpet. All trash. I wish there were some invisible mythical creature that could fix Halloween. Every other good holiday has one. Santa unfucks Christmas. The Easter bunny is like Milton Hershey with long ears. Hell, even the simple event of losing a tooth brings with it cold hard cash from the Tooth Fairy. Why can’t Halloween have something? Like Bllrrgin’ The Gimp or some crazy shit.

You know what?! What if there is a Bllrrgin’ The Halloween Gimp who devours all the kids awful Halloween candy and craps out rich, uber-sweet, chocolaty goodness in its place? What if Bllrrgin’ chomps on Bit-O-Honey’s and defecates the world’s greatest candy bar? What if he’s there right now, somewhere, and all that he needs is for just one kid to believe in him. To make him real.

I close my eyes, squint real hard, shutting them tighter than I ever have before this moment. I wish and wish for Bllrrgin’ to be real. I wish with all my soul and every ounce of my heart for him to come and eat my garbage. I believe in Bllrrgin’ more than I believe in me.

I hear a noise in my deep trance. Its faint and I half believe I heard it because I wanted to hear it. But, I open my eyes and find all the terrible, awful candy on the floor is gone!

It was Bllrrgin’ the Gimp! Come to save Halloween! No more JuJuBees! No more Necco wafers! Never again a Now & Later or an unbranded butterscotch! Bllrrgin’ has saved the day! I cry tears of joy and realize there is still another part of the deal with the Halloween Gimp.

Good candy! Where did he poop out the good stuff? Oh, I do so hope he dropped my absolute favorite from his magical anus. Bllrrgin’s reward is not on the floor. That makes sense, it would be uncouth for a Halloween Gimp to just crap on the floor like some common house mutt. No, like any good holiday figment of my imagination, he woudl need to make a game of the reward. A little sport of the whole thing, that’s what Halloween Gimps did after all!

I checked the most obvious spot, my empty trick-or-treat bag. Still empty. Too easy for a clever Halloween Gimp. I looked around everywhere. Under the couch, out by the front door, maybe tucked away somewhere around the cheesy Halloween decorations my mom put out on display. It wasn’t anywhere!

Where would Bllrrgin’ the Halloween Gimp crap out my prize candy!?

Duh! It was like the answer was right there in front of me the whole time.

I raced to the bathroom and lifted the lid. There it was, floating like a Baby Ruth in the Caddyshack movie my dad was always watching, half-drunk on Saturday nights after he thought I was asleep in bed. Only, it wasn’t a Baby Ruth, those are for Bllrrgin’ the Gimp. What he left me was the greatest candy on the planet.

My eyes grew like the oversized eyes on a too-cute-for-words stuffed pink giraffe and welled with tears of joy. Bllrrgin’ was real and he left me his gift. I plucked it out of the toilet and took an itty-bitty little bite. I saved the flavor of the best candy ever.

A Left Twix. Yum.

Happy Halloween and don’t forget to leave all your jank candy out for Bllrrgin’ to eat this year. And whatever you do, check the bowl before you flush away your Halloween treasure!

Frank J. Edler resides in New Jersey, a land of the weird and unnatural. He is the author of Brats In Hell, Death Gets A Book, and Scatterbrain as well as a contributor to Beers ‘N Fears: The Haunted Brewery. His short stories have been published in various anthologies including Breaking Bizarro, Middletown Apocalypse 4, and Strange Fucking Stories. Frank is also clandestinely known as Mr. Frank, host of the wildly popular Bizzong! Podcast on Project Entertainment Network.

Brats in Hell

Otto Van Der Noodle has just been crowned the Bratwurst King of Wisconsin when he is gunned down in cold blood. Otto finds himself in line at the pearly gates when he is accidentally cast through the gates of Hell.

Otto lands in the middle of a power struggle for the throne of Hell. Satan rules the underworld with an iron fist and a delicious bratwurst. Satan’s brother, Dagobert has just found his secret weapon, Otto Van Der Noodle and his prize-winning bratwurst.

Dagobert will try to tip the balance of control in Hell using Otto’s delectable bratwursts. But Satan may have found the ultimate weapon in his new favorite pet demon.

Souls will be tortured, demons will fight demons and bratwursts will be cooked. Who will come out as the top chef and leader of Hell when the cook-off to end all cook-offs is fought?

Read BRATS IN HELL to find out. Its the WURST book ever written!

Death Gets a Book

Vincent and his nagging wife, Wanda wind up getting themselves killed in Tijuana. Vincent wakes to find that he is now the Grim Reaper. With minimal training he is cast into the world of Deaths to collect the souls of the dead. The only wrinkle is his dead wife has come back as a screaming Banshee. She is hellbent on getting her husband to realize that its not ’til death do they part and he is set on getting through his first day on the job.

He will not go it alone. Along the way he is helped by his co-workers: a cowboy, a midget, an action figure and a bumbling grim reaper from Salem.

Will Death get the soul to Charon’s skiff by the end of the work day or will a squadron of maniac Banshee’s stop Death and upend the balance of power in the underworld? And, will Vincent ever be rid of his nagging wife? 

Death gets a book and now you do too!

Scatterbrain

It’s hard being a Killer Brain. Just ask Scatter, a Killer Brain who just wants to be a Killer Brain. But he can’t, his parents want him to get a job. Scatter would rather do what he does best, terrorize the city with his pack of Killer Brain friends. But Scatter is about to find out life isn’t fair.

Crazed neurosurgeon, Dr. Justin Case is out to avenge the death of his parents at the hands of the Killer Brains. And now he has Scatter in his sights. Along with his cohort, Coda, Dr. Case will stop at nothing to exact his revenge and seek the closure he has sought since he watched his parents get devoured by Killer Brains as a child.

The odds are stacked against Scatter. He must navigate life while trying not to fall into the clutches of his would-be nemesis. Can Scatter get by without a little help from family and friends. He just wants to live life doing what he loves but sometimes responsibility has a way of rearranging your priorities. Join Scatter as he navigates through life, the job market and a city full of crazies all keeping him from doing what he loves, being a Killer Brain.

Halloween Extravaganza: Andrew Freudenberg: Halloween

megHan

When I receive any guest post from an author, I always take a few minutes to skim through what they’ve written me. I can’t tell you how excited I was to see someone mention a record that I absolutely loved as a child, something my father used when he handed out candy for the trick or treaters, something that got an awful lot of play at my house. The memories 🙂

I grew up in the 1970’s on a fruit farm in the south-west of England. It wasn’t exactly the middle of nowhere, but it was pretty close. Halloween of the kind that Americans celebrate was certainly a long way away. Once my grandparents and the handful of the neighbours had been primed, there was the opportunity for very minimal ‘trick or treating’, but it wasn’t expected that random strangers would have a clue what you were knocking on their door for. It was still considered an American thing, along with hamburgers and saying that things ‘sucked’.

Of course, my experiences are my own. Perhaps a city kid would tell you a different story, but as I remember it, Halloween seemed more traditional, more a nod to the shadows. It certainly involved less sugar. We would ‘bob’ for Apples, attempting to extract them from a bowl of water with our teeth.

I used to have an album, on vinyl of course, that Disney had released. Readers may be aware of it. Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. On the first side a narrator set up various scary scenarios, and on the second side listeners were left to their own devices, with just the sound effects to guide their imagination. My brother and I would creep around our darkened living room, absorbing the thrills and chills evoked by Laura Olsher’s dulcet tones. We would evade wild dogs, become aliens, and marvel as ships were wrecked and bridges collapsed. I loved that album!

Now I have three boys of my own. They love to dress up and go trick or treating. These days you can get a pretty good haul of sweets, or candy, and there are pumpkins peering out from many a window. Perhaps this year we’ll find a street without street lights, awash with darkness and gloom, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a ghost of our own.

Andrew Freudenberg is an English author with a German name. He was born in France.

Despite always having a strong love for the written word, he spent a large part of his 20’s dabbling in the global techno scene. He loves heavy metal.

A number of his stories have appeared in anthologies. My Dead & Blackened Heart will be his first solo collection.

He currently lives in the South West of England with his Ninja wife and three sons.

My Dead & Blackened Heart

14 stories of terror, dread and fatherhood. 

From the isolation of space, to the ever-watchful eyes in a darkening wood, Andrew Freudenberg takes us on a journey exploring the themes of friendship, fatherhood and loss, as we pick through the remains of his dead and blackened heart. 

“Overhead the lighting operator switched everything to green, just as two enormous mortars fired shredded silver paper in a plume over the crowd. Sarge blinked, attempting to clear the salt lacing his eyes. 

For a moment he thought he saw paratroopers descending from above, but shook off the hallucination and turned his attention to the stalls. A group of youngsters were caught by Doc’s spotlight for a split second, their eyes wide with wonderment and a touch of fear. 

It was enough to send Sarge back to the jungle, back to the children in the village. Their eyes had been the same, gazing up at him intently, even after he had slaughtered them with his bayonet and laid them all out in a row. At the time it had seemed the kind thing to do, a mercy killing of sorts. After all they had executed everyone else, so who would have looked after them? 

There was something complete about leaving them lying peacefully amongst the burning buildings. 

It had been a Zen moment.” 

Featuring the stories: Something Akin To Despair, A Bitter Parliament, Charlie’s Turn, Pater in Tenebris, Milkshake, Nose to the Window, The Cardiac Ordeal, Meat Sweets, Scorch, The Teppenyaki of Truth, Before The Meat Time, Hope Eternal, The Last Patrol & Beyond The Book. 

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Andrew Freudenberg

megHan

Meghan: Hi, Andrew! Thanks for joining us today. Let’s start out with something easy. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Andrew Freudenberg: I live in the West Country in England, with my Ninja wife and three sons. I have a German name because my Grandparents were German, I was born in France, but I’m British!

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Andrew Freudenberg:

  • I used to own a techno/trance record label, releasing my own and other’s music.
  • I have a degree in Information Technology and Philosophy.
  • I once DJ’d in the New State Circus building in Moscow.
  • I grew up on a fruit farm.
  • I have interviewed Anthrax, Celtic Frost, and Savatage.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Andrew Freudenberg: Probably something by Richard Scarry. According to my mother, one of the first phrases I ever used, repeatedly, was ‘read a book’.

Meghan: What are you reading now?

Andrew Freudenberg: I always have a few things on the go. I just finished Necroscope by Brian Lumley, a proper old school horror. As well as a pile of books that I have to read as a juror for the BFS awards, I’m also just starting Laura Mauro’s new collection, finishing off Penny Jones’ mini collection and have probably half a dozen other anthologies on the go as well. I’m also a big comic reader and have nearly finished ploughing through the World War Hulk Omnibus.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

Andrew Freudenberg: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

Andrew Freudenberg: I think it was probably a love of reading. I’ve always written, from when I was very small. It’s only in the last decade that I’ve gotten a little more focused on actually getting some fiction published.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

Andrew Freudenberg: Not really. Anywhere quiet preferably.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

Andrew Freudenberg: No. I’m disgustingly disorganised, and easily distracted, so attempting to focus is really my top priority!

Meghan: Is there anything about writing that you find most challenging?

Andrew Freudenberg: See above! Focusing on one thing and finding the time are really the basic challenge.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

Andrew Freudenberg: I’m not sure that I could name any one thing. Crossing the finish line is always immensely satisfying, and I hope that the best is yet to come!

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

Andrew Freudenberg: That’s a very difficult question. I think of authors that I love to read, rather than necessarily inspire me, although I suppose everything that I read is in some way subconsciously inspirational. King, Herbert, and Barker were the first real horror writers that I dived into when I was a teen, and I was also reading Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov in the SF world. I hope my writing style is my own. I haven’t set out to copy anyone else, and I think writers tend to be a melting pot of a multitude of other’s styles, mixed in with their own personality and experience. If you read my collection, you’ll see that I like to write everything from in your face pulp, to more introspective pieces.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

Andrew Freudenberg: I think it all starts with a writer’s voice and how it translates from the page. Their rhythm, vocabulary and style need to be compatible with the reader. From there it opens up into a multitude of things, an interesting setting, an intriguing premise and characters that you enjoy ‘watching’.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

Andrew Freudenberg: As a writer, they have to be fun to write. As a reader, they have to be alive. I think my characters emerge from the particular hell that I’m usually putting them through. It’s a fairly natural process for me, and there usually doesn’t feel like anyone else would fit the bill for that particular scenario.

Meghan: Which of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

Andrew Freudenberg: I think that there’s usually at least a sliver of the writer underlying most characters. I’m not sure that there’s one that is noticeably more like me than the others, but with a lot of the stories in my collection, the aspect of me that is a parent seems to have forced its way through.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

Andrew Freudenberg: A bad cover is definitely off-putting. A lot of my stories are in anthologies, and I have no say in those. Some have been quite bad, but thankfully of late, they’ve been excellent. I worked closely with my publisher on the cover for My Dead and Blackened Heart, and in fact ended up using some art created by my youngest son. I think it is quite striking.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

Andrew Freudenberg: That it’s damn hard work!

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

Andrew Freudenberg: My characters go to some very dark places, but I’m strange in that the worse the situation, the more I enjoy writing it. I like to get grim. I think I may be lacking some kind of filter that many people have. I don’t feel any need to hold anything back.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

Andrew Freudenberg: As I mentioned earlier, I think it comes down to voice. Hopefully I write like myself, and that goes a long way to differentiating me from other writers.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours?

Andrew Freudenberg: I think its reasonably important and extremely difficult to settle on one. My Dead and Blackened Heart was a story that I wrote about a devastated vampire, and I think it sums up the tone of my book very well. Also, no spoilers, hearts pop up here and there throughout the collection. (The actual story My Dead and Blackened Heart is included in the hardback version of the collection).

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

Andrew Freudenberg: As yet, I haven’t had any novels published. I think signing off on a novel would inevitably be more fulfilling, but the suffering immeasurably greater!

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you wold like readers to take away from your stories?

Andrew Freudenberg: With horror, I want to leave the reader emotionally marked. I hope that when they finish one of my short stories they have to pause for breath, shake their head and go back to read the last paragraph again, just in case it wasn’t as grim as they thought it was. You should feel a different mental state by the end of the tale. As far as target audience goes, just anyone who enjoys the genre or, hopefully, think that they don’t.

Meghan: What is in your trunk?

Andrew Freudenberg: I have all sorts of ongoing works in process. Did I mention that I struggle to focus? Numerous novellas and shorts edging towards completion and novel ideas bubbling under. I’d also like to get back to making music again, and I’m very interested in the idea of making a film.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Andrew Freudenberg: Longer works and more of the same, different angles and flavours, just a variety of hopefully interesting stories. I’d like to get back into producing music and I’m giving films the side-eye.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Andrew Freudenberg: Facebook ** Twitter

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

Andrew Freudenberg: Thanks for reading. That’s the greatest joy for me, that someone enjoyed something that I wrote. Let me know what you thought, I love to hear from readers.

Andrew Freudenberg is an English author with a German name. He was born in France.

Despite always having a strong love for the written word, he spent a large part of his 20’s dabbling in the global techno scene. He loves heavy metal.

A number of his stories have appeared in anthologies. My Dead & Blackened Heart will be his first solo collection.

He currently lives in the South West of England with his Ninja wife and three sons.

My Dead & Blackened Heart

14 stories of terror, dread and fatherhood. 

From the isolation of space, to the ever-watchful eyes in a darkening wood, Andrew Freudenberg takes us on a journey exploring the themes of friendship, fatherhood and loss, as we pick through the remains of his dead and blackened heart. 

“Overhead the lighting operator switched everything to green, just as two enormous mortars fired shredded silver paper in a plume over the crowd. Sarge blinked, attempting to clear the salt lacing his eyes. 

For a moment he thought he saw paratroopers descending from above, but shook off the hallucination and turned his attention to the stalls. A group of youngsters were caught by Doc’s spotlight for a split second, their eyes wide with wonderment and a touch of fear. 

It was enough to send Sarge back to the jungle, back to the children in the village. Their eyes had been the same, gazing up at him intently, even after he had slaughtered them with his bayonet and laid them all out in a row. At the time it had seemed the kind thing to do, a mercy killing of sorts. After all they had executed everyone else, so who would have looked after them? 

There was something complete about leaving them lying peacefully amongst the burning buildings. 

It had been a Zen moment.” 

Featuring the stories: Something Akin To Despair, A Bitter Parliament, Charlie’s Turn, Pater in Tenebris, Milkshake, Nose to the Window, The Cardiac Ordeal, Meat Sweets, Scorch, The Teppenyaki of Truth, Before The Meat Time, Hope Eternal, The Last Patrol & Beyond The Book. 

Halloween Extravaganza: Chris Garrett: VIDEO: Scary Movie Candy Corn: Chris’ Top 5 to Watch During the Witching Season

megHan

I was first introduced to Chris Garrett’s work a couple of years ago when I read his The Stupid Nerdy Notebook Vol 1-3 and not only found a super talented guy (both artistically and verbally) but also found someone I am proud to call my friend. Since then, he’s done some comic books, chap books, and drawn some awful good pictures, one of which I have purchased to hang in my office.

When he asked me if he could make a video for this, well, how could I refuse?

The Stupid Nerdy Notebook Vol 1-3

2004 was a stupid year for me. At the time there wasn’t a lot of publishing options for independent writers. Major publishers had a requirements and deadlines for new entries and were very limited to the writers they brought in. Self publishers during that period weren’t offering any free tools for publishing and the starting price was around $500. I was only a senior in high school and already decided that sharing my writing with the world was going to cost me a fortune. So I buried the idea. NOW I’m older, fatter, and just a little bit smarter. I’m glad I waited because there was so much more for me to write. And I stand before you today with 3 volumes of some of my most beloved memories, sticky situations, and just pure anger ventilation. It calmed my nerves to write how I felt and felt better in the long run because of that. And not only are there 3 volumes but heard them into one book like cattle and call it a collection!!!!

The Finleys #1

Cursed to live in chum buckets, The Finleys are a rare breed of half sharks that live among human society (because half a shark can’t swim!) Follow their “tails” in the strange and mysterious town of BERMUDA!!

The Finleys #2

Join the Finley Family as they make their “wave” through the world. It is summer and the Bucket Sharks are officially on vacation. But where to? And why? find out in Issue 2!!