Dark Short Fiction,
Dark Romantic Fiction,
Horror short & flash fiction stories,
And the occasional bottle of wine...
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Today I'm thrilled to host Rayne Hall, the editor and brains behind the successful Ten Tales Series. I've known Rayne for a few years and have taken wonderful writing classes from her. I'm happy to have penned a tale for three of her Ten Tales Anthologies, including FIENDS. Rayne tells us her thoughts on demons and a little bit about the fiend in her story. Enjoy! Demons intrigue me. They scare me, too, because they're the most dangerous of all paranormal creatures. Intelligent and deceitful, they are masters of disguise and crafty manipulation. They stir evil desires, exploit moral weaknesses, disguise the boundaries between right and wrong, plant convictions in the victim's mind, and persuade humans that they want the thing the demon aims to bring about. And they are real. While vampires and werewolves are – probably – creations of the human imagination, I don't doubt that demons exist. Many myths feature fictional demons, or projections of human fears, but there are also other, subtler manifestations. The most dangerous demons are those which have their tentacles so firmly entwined in the human psyche that we don't recognise them as separate entities. How about drug addiction, pedophilia, alcoholism? When they possess a victim, they manipulate the mind with evil desires, and often gain control over the human's actions. Is this person really still himself – or is he possessed by a demon who controls his mind? When a person is compelled to evil deeds, we cannot know whether this is a dark side of his own psyche, or whether he has become a become a demon's helpless puppet. This area of uncertainty fascinates, horrifies and worries me. Even those closest to the victims, even the victims themselves, cannot know, although depending on their cultural background, education and religion, some are inclined to see demons where others mock the concept. Externalising the evil desires in one's own psyche can be empowering and healing – or it can be an excuse. Blaming demonic possession allows a person to absolve themselves from guilt, and to continue their evil ways. On the other hand, a genuine victim of demonic possession faces a struggle against a more powerful enemy than a mere human can hope to defeat – and if their family, friends, neighbours and church don't believe in the demon, the already helpless victim gets blame instead of support. I have written stories about this kind of demon, exploring to what extent the human host is responsible for the deeds he carries out under the demon's influence. In my dark epic fantasy novel, Storm Dancer, the hero has a demon… or hasn't he? How can he protect others from the evil inside him? Every culture in the world has demons – or at least demon myths - but their shape, nature and purpose varies so much that it would be impossible to give a single definition. When I conceived the idea for a demon anthology, I resolved to write a new story.  This time, I wanted to feature a 'traditional' kind of demon, preferably one I had never before written about. I decided to set the story in the same fantasy world as Storm Dancer, and since this is based on the Middle East during the Bronze Age, I looked at Middle Eastern traditions. Ghuls are part of the mythology of that region, demons who prey especially on travellers and deceive their victims by taking the shape of humans they have devoured. In my story 'Nine Rings of Silver and One of Bronze', caravan leader Mourad guides his group across a ghul-infested desert, and he bears a guilty secret from his past. What intrigues you about demons? What do you think they're like? Would you recognise a demon if it sneaked into your life?  Every culture in the world has demons, but their shape, nature and purpose varies so much that it would be impossible to give a single definition. In this anthology, ten authors share their vision of demons, some drawing from their ethnic and cultural backgrounds, others inspired by observations from real life, all blended with the writers' vivid imagination. Their stories span a wide spectrum of styles – scary, funny, disturbing and thought-provoking. Grab your copy of FIENDS for 99 cents here at Amazon.  ABOUT RAYNE: Rayne Hall has published more than fifty books in several languages under several pen names with several publishers in several genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Writer's Craft series (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing About Villains, Writing About Magic and more) and editor of the Ten Tales short story anthologies. She is a trained publishing manager, holds a masters degree in Creative Writing, and has worked in the publishing industry for over thirty years. Having lived in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has now settled in a small dilapidated town of former Victorian grandeur on the south coast of England where she enjoys reading, gardening and long walks along the seashore. She shares her home with a black cat adopted from the cat shelter. Sulu likes to lie on the desk and snuggle into Rayne's arms when she's writing. You can follow here on Twitter http://twitter.com/RayneHall where she posts advice for writers, funny cartoons and cute pictures of her cat. To see her books on Amazon, go to viewAuthor.at/RayneHall . Rayne's website is here: http://raynehallauthor.wix.com/rayne-hall To find out about new book releases, classes, writing contests and events, sign up for the newsletter: http://eepurl.com/boqJzD
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To celebrate the release of FIENDS: Ten Tales of Demons, edited by Rayne Hall I've invited the contributing authors to introduce their demons. Today, Mitch Sebourn stops by. I didn't know Mitch before FIENDS, but it's been a pleasure to meet him and learn about the inspiration for his very interesting demon. Enjoy! The Origins of “Non-Disclosure” When Rayne Hall invited me to submit a story for consideration in Fiends, she suggested I write about a Native American demon. A challenge, I thought, because I was not an expert in Native American beliefs. But still, I wanted to submit a story, and the thought of learning a thing or two about Native American tradition was nothing but a bonus. I needed something horrific. Different. Memorable. And totally appalling. It didn’t take me long to seize upon the legend of the Iroquois flying head. What in the world could be more horrific, different, memorable, and appalling than the winged, oversized, permanently hungry decapitated head of a cannibal? Great, I thought, after I’d spent the better part of two hours reading every article I could find about flying heads…. Now I just need a story. Theoretically, writing short stories should be so much more fun and liberating than writing novels. As Stephen King noted at the end of his collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes, sometimes short story writers don’t have to explain anything. Pick a situation, set the monster free, and see what happens. But when you can go anywhere, isn’t it frequently pretty challenging to decide which way to go? Wouldn’t it be helpful to see just a glimmer of something on the horizon, for just a little bit of guidance? That glimmer came in the form of Stambovsky v. Ackley, a case I’d read during my first year of law school. Specifically, I thought of a famous line from that case: “[a]s a matter of law, the house is haunted.” And that was it. Haunted property. On its face, it wasn’t the most original idea in the world, but I was confident I could do something different with it. The property in my story, of course, would be haunted by much more than ghosts— there must be a demonic, cannibalistic flying head somewhere!—and I could try my hand at writing the story in the form of a court decision, an idea I’d been toying with for quite a while. Ultimately, I backed away from the latter idea (for the most part), but still: I had a direction in which to go, I set off in that direction, and I had a blast writing “Non-disclosure.” Thanks to Rayne Hall for offering me the opportunity to submit a story. Thanks to all the writers who appear in FIENDS with me. And thanks to all the readers out there. Now, go forth and enjoy Fiends.
FIENDS is available here at Amazon for 99 cents  About Mitch Sebourn:
Mitch Sebourn lives in Arkansas with his wife and cats. He is the author of the novels Watershed, Sleight of Hand, and Lamentation. When he isn’t researching law or writing fiction, he can typically be found reading novels, watching the Arkansas Razorbacks, or hiking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Visit Badwater Press, his blog, at http://badwaterpress.blogspot.com I love being in multi-author anthologies. It allows me to share the pages with some old friends and meet new ones. To help get the word out for FIENDS: Ten Tales of Demons, edited by Rayne Hall, I decided to start a promotional series, Get to Know a Demon and invite the contributors to tell us about their particular story and demon. First up, Douglas Kolacki. Doug and I had a story together in BITES: Ten Tales of Vampires and he lives in the beautiful Ocean State next door to me, Rhode Island. Take it away, Doug! Thanks for hosting me. My short story, "The Devil Never Takes a Vacation and Neither Do I," is set to appear in Rayne Hall's upcoming anthology Fiends: Ten Tales of Demons. After getting serious about writing a long time ago (1988) and far away (Naples, Italy), I placed stories in Christian publications like Dreams & Visions, Dragons Knights & Angels, and The Sword Review. These ranged from end times science fantasy to steampunk. I've also appeared in a number of Sunday School papers, digest-sized publications featuring 1200 to 1500-word stories about various aspects of the Christian life. I've rarely written stories about supernatural evils. There are "demonstorms" in my novel Elijah's Chariot, but other than that I can recall only one yarn starring real, honest-to-goodness demons. So, why a demon story now? I'm a believer. If anyone asks if I'm religious, I always say I try to be. But I seem to be the rare Christian who loves weird tales: reading them, watching them and, most of all, writing them. I'm thrilled to be living in H.P. Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. My apartment, in fact, is only a few suburban blocks from his birthplace. So I guess it was inevitable I'd arrive at this subject sooner or later. The few Christian stories I've seen about demons, generally involve tackling them with "spiritual warfare," like The Exorcist with a happier ending. Christ banished a whole legion of them at once. But folks, we're not Christ. We're human, and we have our weaknesses. Our faults, our errors in the system. And if the minions of hell know them, they're bound to try to exploit them. They're said to be clever, like, really clever; they could clever us under the table. The serpent tricked Eve pretty quickly into eating the forbidden fruit--maybe she was hungry at the time? Could the devil have known, somehow, that she wanted something to eat, and waited till then to make his move? When Rayne told us she was seeking stories for a demon anthology, I could have followed the standard Out-in-the-name-of-Jesus format. I'd read it in novels, and in a comic book. But something nagged at me, an issue I wanted to address. During my San Diego days, I met a young pastor who worked for the local megachurch. This guy was a fiery Type A, a regular pinball always ricocheting from his church work, to riding with the police as their chaplain, to leading our Tuesday night Bible study, to studying for his Master's degree, to participating in a retreat, to jetting off--always, it seemed, he was jetting off on a missionary trip somewhere. I knew him about a year, and he was like that the whole time. I was astonished. I mean, how much can any person have in the tank? I didn't fault his achievements, but I thought someone should caution him that there is such a thing as spiritual burnout. It's happened enough times, to enough fiery Type A's, for someone to coin that term and for that term to stick. When I told him, he looked astonished. Flabbergasted, almost. As if he couldn't believe I would say such a thing. So when brainstorming for a demon story, I pictured someone along those lines, the most well-intentioned, dedicated, and most of all, hard-working man there is. Someone with a sense of mission, of wanting to make a difference. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. But be on your toes. For as the pastor in the story himself notes, the devil really does prowl about like a roaring lion, seeking human dinner. And as someone once told me, "That's how Satan works--subtle." Perhaps more subtle than we know...as the character finds out.  Of all paranormal creatures, demons are the most dangerous. Intelligent and deceitful, they are masters of disguise and crafty manipulation. They stir evil desires, exploit moral weaknesses, disguise the boundaries between right and wrong, plant convictions in the victim's mind, and persuade humans that they want the thing the demon aims to bring about. Every culture in the world has demons, but their shape, nature and purpose varies so much that it would be impossible to give a single definition. In this anthology, ten authors share their vision of demons, some drawing from their ethnic and cultural backgrounds, others inspired by observations from real life, all blended with the writers' vivid imagination. Their stories span a wide spectrum of styles – scary, funny, disturbing and thought-provoking. FIENDS: Ten Tales of Demon is available at here at Amazon. AUTHOR BIO:
Douglas Kolacki began writing while stationed with the Navy in Naples, Italy. He then lived in San Diego until losing his job and apartment, launching an adventure of hitchhiking and halfway houses to Phoenix, Washington DC, and finally Providence. He currently works for the state of Rhode Island. His pirate fantasy novel, If All Else Fails...Attack, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @DouglasKolacki.  I'm thrilled to be in the company of the nine other amazing authors who penned a short story for FIENDS: Ten Tales of Demons, edited by Rayne Hall. FIENDS is up for pre-order on Amazon here and will be released on August 19th. This awesome cover was done by artist Jamie Chapman and he dropped by to talk about his artwork, demons, and books. What fascinates you about demons? Demons have a lot of character, relying on trickery and deceit instead of just jumping out the shadows to eat you. I think this makes them far more complex as characters, not doing what they do out of hunger, but for their own amusement. Conversely, having (literally) fallen from grace there is also an air of tragedy about them if you approach from a Paradise Lost angle. How would you describe the personality of the demon you painted? My demon beckons the viewer, drawing them forward with a wry smile as if there is a secret he has to tell. Perfect as he happens to have his back to a book full of stories. What kind of illustrations do you enjoy creating? I enjoy working on subjects with a lot of character or lore behind them. When I make an illustration I want it to look like a fragment of a much larger world with a reason behind every detail. What's your background and training as an artist? I have a BA(Hons) in fine art, and whilst traditional media such as acrylic and oil are my first love I have been working hard to develop digital painting techniques too. When a client wants an illustration - say, for a book cover - how do you go about it? What's the process? First stop is my sketchbook; I can never leave behind traditional pencil and paper. I do a page of small sketches, trying to give the client exactly what they want and then I try one curveball, something they might not have thought of but still within the brief. Sometimes you can get a happy accident. Do you do just illustrations, or also complete designs? I like to apply myself to different forms and fields of art. I am currently the illustrator for a graphic novel called Kitten Heist 1907, and I also still continue my fine art painting when there is an opportunity for a show. Do you enjoy reading? What kind of books do you like? Fantasy, sci-fi and horror are my genres of choice, particularly Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Philip K Dick and the late Terry Pratchett. I also make a point of visiting early influences to the genres such as Dante Alighieri. I think graphic novels have valid a place in the literary world too, with many of my favourites coming from the publishers 2000AD and Vertigo. Where can we see more of your work? www.jchapmanart.daportfolio.com  ARTIST BIO Jamie Chapman earned his fine art degree in London, but grew frustrated with the contemporary art world, and has started up again with his first love of illustration and graphic novels. Drawing cool stuff like dragons and angels is a breath of fresh air, but he has been part of several group shows in small galleries in Shoreditch (London) since. |
Debbie Christiana
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