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THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS Liveblog Part 3 by Alan M. Clark

In chapter 3, with the help of his detective acquaintance, Jack London found a refuge from the East End within the East End, a small lodging of better quality than most in the area that he could periodically visit to wash himself, keep warm, and assemble his text. That gives us an opportunity to learn something of the housing prospects for those living in the East End.

Most of the housing was of the single room variety. Whole families, sometimes more than one family lived in one room. I learned in research for my Jack the Ripper Victims Series that houses in many neighborhoods built early in the 19th century or earlier, those meant for a single family and having several rooms, were broken up into single room dwellings by the latter part of the century. The vast majority of those dwellings had no indoor plumbing. Indeed most had no room for bathing facilities. Privies were outdoor facilities, usually shared by several households. People availed themselves of public bathhouses when they had need to wash. These conditions persisted into the early 20th century, and generally had not improved by the time Jack London made his stay in the East End.

Over the course of the first half of the 1800s, London, already the largest city in the world, had tripled its population, and a similar level of growth continued for the rest of the century. The loss of labor positions during the industrial revolution had forced the unemployed out of the countryside and small towns into the big city. People came to London also from other parts of the world where there were similar problems finding work. By mid-century, more than 50% of the population of the city were born elsewhere. Landlords found it more profitable to split larger homes into tenements of one-room dwellings. Neighborhoods in which landlords took this approach soon became slums. As more and more Landlords took up the practice, the slums spread like a blight through the old neighborhoods. Large sections of London suffered severe squalid conditions, the worst being the East End. In 1888, the time of Jack the Ripper, there were approximately 800 people living per acre in Whitechapel. Those who could afford to do so fled to take up residence on the outskirts of the city. When eventually those neighborhoods suffered the blight, people fled further and the city kept growing, swallowing up many smaller towns.

Peabody Buildings

Some of the first housing projects (an American term) were installed in the city of London by American philanthropist, George Peabody. He was a banker and financier. He helped finance the Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, and created educational opportunities in various parts of the U.S. for blacks as well as whites, even before the American Civil War. Peabody loved London and the British people and decided to try to help alleviate their poverty. He bought up land in the worst rookeries of the city, razed the buildings to the ground, and put up tenements, usually 4 story structures arranged in boxes or “U” shapes with garden courts between. Access was through a locked gate. All adult tenants had a key to the gate. The only requirement for application for rental was that the one applying have employment.

Polly Nichols and her family lived in Peabody D Block, Duke Street in South London for several years. She no doubt counted herself extremely lucky. Her flat had 3 rooms. There was a water closet shared by neighbors on the landing outside their front door, and bathing and laundry facilities on the roof. Some of those buildings still exist today. They were so loved that when, during WWII, some of the buildings were bombed, they were rebuilt and improved. Those still in existence got electricity, some as late as the 1950s.

While writing about all this for the novel A BRUTAL CHILL IN AUGUST, about the life of Polly Nichols, and researching the Peabody Buildings, something nagged at me, something that seemed familiar about the Philanthropist, but for the longest time I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Peabody Demonstration School in 1925

Then it came to me. I’d hated my junior high school in Nashville, Tennessee, gave up on my education, and failed the eighth grade. My parents enrolled me in a private school so I wouldn’t have to go back to the place I hated so much. The new one was a demonstration school, attached to an educational college, a college for teachers. The demonstration school existed so that student teachers could get experience teaching in a classroom. I was continuing my education at the Peabody Demonstration School attached to George Peabody college, a school started by the philanthropist. I was bowled over with the discovery. I suddenly felt embedded in the history I was trying to portray in the novel, and that gave me an odd feeling, somewhat thrilling. I did finally pass the eighth grade and was forgiven the lost year later by my high school in San Francisco.

Engraving by Gustave Doré

Jack London wasn’t so lucky as to land in one of the Peabody Buildings. He described the dwelling he found as opulent in comparison to the very few other accommodations available. For one thing, he wasn’t required to share the single room or his bed. He was used to open skies, dwellings more spacious, surrounded by at least a small plot of land, and he wondered at the willingness of Londoners to tolerate such condition. All the housing he’d encountered, he described as shoulder to shoulder, with but a tiny yard in back surrounded by a wall. Many of those “yards” were paved with stone, with no greenery, and virtually no trees to be seen throughout entire neighborhoods.

For the richest country in the world, huge chunks of their capital seemed a shameful slum.

—Alan M. Clark
Eugene, Oregon

Get a free ebook copy of The People of the Abyss from Project Gutenburg—available in various formats including Kindle and Epub, : http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688

Preorder A Brutal Chill in August
Visit Alan M. Clark online: www.alanmclark.com

About Alan M Clark

Author and illustrator Alan M. Clark grew up in Tennessee in a house full of bones and old medical books. His awards include the World Fantasy Award and four Chesley Awards. He is the author of seventeen books, including ten novels, a lavishly illustrated novella, four collections of fiction, and a nonfiction full-color book of his artwork. Mr. Clark’s company, IFD Publishing, has released 44 titles of various editions, including traditional books, both paperback and hardcover, audio books, and ebooks by such authors as F. Paul Wilson, Elizabeth Engstrom, and Jeremy Robert Johnson. Alan M. Clark and his wife, Melody, live in Oregon. www.alanmclark.com

THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS Liveblog Part 2 by Alan M. Clark

Take note of the haze in the air–that’s not just because this is an old photo.

In chapter 2, Jack London went to visit his detective acquaintance, nicknamed Johnny Upright, who lived in one of the best neighborhoods—that isn’t saying much—within the East End. The man wasn’t home, but London met the detective’s wife, daughters, and a woman servant. Playing the part of a lower class individual of the area and dressed as he was in rags, the family tried to turn the writer away. Finally he let on without explaining that he was bringing a financial opportunity to the man of the house. Still, he wasn’t admitted to the home, and sat out in the rain until the servant girl came for him. The wife apologized, and sat him in the dining room to await the return of her husband.

Knowing what I do about the hardships of life in London of the period, the author’s description of the daughters is poignant.

…pretty girls they were in their Sunday dresses; withal it was the certain weak and delicate prettiness which characterizes the Cockney lasses, a prettiness which is no more than a promise with no grip on time, and doomed to fade quickly away like the color from a sunset sky.

Perhaps Johnny Upright was doing well enough financially that his daughters didn’t have to work, but I doubt it. Assuming they were wed and began families of their own, they would probably have to do some sort of work to help support their husbands and the children on the way. Eventually perhaps even those children, while still children, would have to work as well. If Johnny Upright’s daughters became spinsters, he would certainly expect them to pull their weight with some sort of earning occupation.

Employment for the lower classes was fraught with risk of one sort or another. After reading extensively about the various sorts of occupations available for the poor in a time of vast unemployment, an employer’s market so to speak, I wrote this in my upcoming novel A Brutal Chill in August about the difficulties Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols had trying to find work as a young adult:

Polly and Bernice Godwin had worked at home as fur pullers on and off since 1853. The piece work involved pulling the loose undercoat from rabbit pelts so that the furs would not shed the down once they were used to line garments. The action created a myriad of tiny broken hair fibers that floated freely in the air. The girls could not avoid breathing the particles into their lungs. The undercoat that didn’t float away, they saved in bags to sell for a small sum per pound.

At fourteen years of age, they both wanted to find better work. Bernice had her father’s blessing to look for a job.

“You’ll stay home, do your piece work, and keep house,” Papa had told Polly. Even so, she believed she might persuade him if she found work. With heavy competition for labor, positions rarely became available.

“I’ve heard the Ryan paper factory needs a rag sorter,” Polly told Bernice one day. “Tomorrow, I’ll go try to get the position.”

Bernice’s eyes became large and she shook her head. “The rags are collected from all over the city. They don’t care as some come from the worst places. The vermin, the lice, the disease—you shouldn’t want that.”

Polly reconsidered.

While they looked into jobs at the Jessup cotton spinning mill, Polly spoke to her brother about the possibility. “Eddie told me the boss there pushes his workers to move fast to meet quotas,” she told Bernice, “and the steam-powered machinery snatches a limb or a life at least once a month.”

Bernice took a job at the white-lead works for a short time. One day she returned home with a haunted look about her. “I quit. I found out the girl I replaced wasted away and went mad. Then I learned that happens to most of the girls as works there—five already this year.”

The rate of accidents, poisoning, and disease, and the stress upon the body of the different types of work available had all become discouraging factors. Polly imagined industry as a hungry giant that preferred to feed on the young and tender, chewing or biting off a limb, crushing a head or chest, setting a poisoned trap to catch the inexperienced off guard, leaving many unfortunates ill, maimed, or dead.

And of course the environment of London itself was a danger. Above we have a photograph taken in London during the 19th century, and a painting by Claude Monet created in 1871. Literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Londoners were killed by the pollution in the air, water, and food. The air was filled with the chemicals and particulates that results from burning coal. New industries popped up everywhere to support the burgeoning population and to exploit the cheap labor market. Small factories occupied converted tenements or houses that once held families in residential neighborhoods. Sometimes, only a part of such a tenement or house was occupied by industry while the rest still functioned as a residence for individuals or families. With an increase in the use of chemistry, and with little knowledge of the damage many chemicals inflicted upon the bodies of those exposed to them, industries, such as match making, destroyed the lives of their workers and those living within close proximity to production. Those who suffered often did so without knowing why until it was too late. Matchmaking is only one example of the industrial poisoning of Londoners. Deadly chemicals were everywhere. They were used in medicines and in prepared foods as preservatives. Madness abounded, if not as a result of the emotional hardships of life, then from chemical damage to the brain. The piece work, fur pulling, as portrayed in the excerpt I provided from A Brutal Chill in August, caused pulmonary diseases.

Things were getting better, though. Child labor was prohibited below the age of ten in 1878. Compulsory education for children ages 5 to 10 began in 1880, and the government actually started funding that in 1891. By 1918, 16 years after Jack London stayed in the East End, the compulsory education age was expanded to include children 5 to 14 years of age.

Yes, knowing what I do about labor in London of the time, the author’s description of Johnny Upright’s daughters’ fragile, transient beauty is indeed poignant.

—Alan M. Clark
Eugene, Oregon

Get a free ebook copy of The People of the Abyss from Project Gutenburg—available in various formats including Kindle and Epub, : http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688

Preorder A Brutal Chill in August
Visit Alan M. Clark online: www.alanmclark.com

About Alan M Clark

THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS Liveblog Part 1 by Alan M. Clark

Jack London (1876-1916)

In 1902, the year following the death of Queen Victoria , which of course ended the Victorian era, Jack London, disguised as one of the city’s poor, went to stay in the East End of London. He was there to get first hand experience of a place notorious for its crime, squalor, and increasing human degradation. At the time, London was the largest and wealthiest city in the world. His book, The People of the Abyss, a piece of investigative journalism, is his account of that experience.

The squalid conditions of the East End are enumerated in the Preface, painting a picture that provides me with eye-witness confirmation of much of what I’ve learned in researching the environment for my Jack the Ripper Victims series of novels, including A Brutal Chill in August, soon to be released by Word Horde in August. By 1902, fourteen years after the end of the JTR killings, the East End of London had become more dangerous, more densely packed with humanity than it had been in 1888.

In the first chapter, Jack London describes the difficulty he had in finding help in merely setting up his investigative endeavor. His friends, colleagues, and even those he tried to engage professionally wanted nothing to do with his effort for fear that he headed toward certain doom. Finally, he found a private investigator in the East End who agreed to vouch for him if his body were to turn up. With that, Jack London bought second hand clothes of the ragged variety commonly worn by those in the area, and then disappeared into the East End.

At that point in his life, Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney, was a successful author. He’d done well selling his fiction to the growing magazine markets. For a quick biography of Jack London, try Wikipedia. Although an adventurous sort who’d been to sea, lived as a tramp, spent time in prison, been a laborer, and experienced his share of hardships in life, he currently wore nice clothing and could afford fine food and lodging.

He refered in the book to the difficulties Americans (I assume he means those identifiable as middle or upper class individuals) had visiting British and European cities without losing their shirts to the hordes who contrived assistance for the traveler and then expected gratuities for even the least effort. After shedding his finer clothes in favor of the common rags of the street, the unctuous bowing and scraping of the lower class and the poor, which of course was the vast majority of the population, ceased.

The class system that still thrived in Europe, largely also existed in the United States, yet was tempered by the fact that we did not have a noble class, ruling aristocrats that earned their station merely by the accident of their birth. The gap between the haves and have-nots in both America and Great Britain was large, but no more so than in London. The Industrial revolution had led to large-scale unemployment, much the way the Tech Revolution has done in America and elsewhere today. During the bulk of the 19th century, the city of London, like large American cities at present, suffered from overcrowding and large numbers of unemployed and homeless. Those with little were careful not to displease the upper classes. Quite the contrary. The poor, referred to as “the unfortunate,” and the lower class, when in the presence of their “betters,” often effusively praised those of a higher class and pretended to defer to them in all things for fear of losing employment, reputation, or any other form of possible favor. Frequently, life, liberty, and access to shelter and sustenance depended on behaving that way.

Surely as one who had been a laborer of humble beginnings, Jack London knew quite well the social mechanisms involved, but the sudden contrast with merely changing his clothes—his costume so to speak—was so sharp-edged that he couldn’t help but take notice in his text. Suddenly, the average person on the street was “real” with him. He was treated as a regular guy, trusted with honesty and welcomed warmly into conversation and confidence. As downtrodden as many of the denizens of the East End were, they also had a hardy lust for life they willingly shared with one another.

Makes me wonder how many within the upper classes knew that such warmth and good feeling existed among common people—that sense of camaraderie within the struggle for existence—and if they knew, what they thought about it.

When I was still living in Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up, I remember a middle-aged white fellow telling me that he’d gone to a church attended almost exclusively by black parishioners, and how surprised he was to see such a nice clean place, with all the people there happy and having a good time with one another. He probably didn’t realize that he sounded like a bigot to me.

Class barriers born of our strange need to stereotype still exist in the world today, ones meant to wall off the undesirable, having to do with anything from skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, to politics. Since the broader society often does not accept that such barriers should exist, silent conspiracies are required to build those walls. They are more a product of personal opinion, less formalized and institutionalized than that of the class system of the Victorian period.

I do not know if the middle-aged fellow talking about the black church was a bigot. Perhaps he was just woefully ignorant. But I’d had such things said to me by people who looked me in the eye after speaking as if to carefully assess my reaction, I believe to determine if I was with them; to see if I thought the same way. I don’t tend to react well to people trying to make others into “Other.” I have seen some people respond positively to that sort of crap. When I do see that, I always feel a little dirty and have the sense that a silent conspiracy has just picked up a new member or that existing members have made themselves known to one another.

When Jack London stayed in the East End, the haves and have-nots were segregated—many public places didn’t allow access to those below a certain station. An establishment, like a tavern or inn, often had separate sections for classes to keep those of a higher station from suffering the proximity of those of a lower station. By saying, “suffering,” I’m being sarcastic for effect. Inevitably, the less fortunate and the poor had developed their own culture and shared little of it with the upper classes. Does that seem familiar? It’s a pattern of reaction that can be seen in numerous marginalized groups of minorities throughout the world. In the case of the London poor, though, they were in fact the majority.

I’m intrigued to read London’s honest words about it from so long ago.

Next post on Wednesday July 6, 2016 will deal with Chapter 2.

—Alan M. Clark
Eugene, Oregon

Get a free ebook copy of The People of the Abyss from Project Gutenburg—available in various formats including Kindle and Epub, : http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688

Preorder A Brutal Chill in August
Visit Alan M. Clark online: www.alanmclark.com

About Alan M Clark

Giallo July

There’s something colorful in the air, things seem super-saturated, and a synthesizer soundtrack just cut in, so we are declaring this month to be Giallo July. To celebrate, we’ve dropped the price of the Giallo Fantastique ebook to just $2.99 (Kindle, Kobo, Nook) for the duration of the month. What’s your favorite shade of horror?

An anthology of original strange stories at the intersection of crime, terror, and supernatural fiction. Inspired by and drawing from the highly stylized cinematic thrillers of Argento, Bava, and Fulci; American noir and crime fiction; and the grim fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, and Jean Ray, Giallo Fantastique seeks to unnerve readers through virtuoso storytelling and startlingly colorful imagery.

Table of Contents:

Introduction – Ross E. Lockhart
Minerva – Michael Kazepis
In the Flat Light – Adam Cesare
Terror in the House of Broken Belles – Nikki Guerlain
The Strange Vice of ZLA-313 – MP Johnson
Sensoria – Anya Martin
The Red Church – Orrin Grey
Balch Creek – Cameron Pierce
Hello, Handsome – Garrett Cook (audio at the link!)
We Can Only Become Monsters – Ennis Drake
The Threshold of Waking Light – E. Catherine Tobler
The Communion of Saints – John Langan
Exit Strategies – Brian Keene

“Lockhart translates giallo fantastique as weird crime, and each story, while very different in style and tone, melds crime and supernatural horror with panache and verve. […] The stories’ conclusions are never definitive, leaving the reader with a delicious sense of lingering unease.” —Publishers Weekly

“A lavish, sumptuous tapestry of luxurious surrealism and strangeness.” –Christine Morgan, The Horror Fiction Review

“…ultimately satisfying, with a few tales that skirt tantalizingly close to brilliance.” –Mer Whinery, Muzzleland Press

Gone Fishin’!

John Langan’s The Fisherman lands today, so if you preordered a copy of the book or ebook, we’d like to encourage you to hang up a “gone fishing” sign while reading it this weekend. Just add the following picture to your profile on social media, grab the book, kick back, and enjoy!

As always, we love reviews! If you enjoy The Fisherman, or any Word Horde book, PLEASE talk it up online, tell friends, and post your review on Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, or wherever readers look to discover their next book. Thanks!

And, speaking of Goodreads, for a chance to win one of three copies of The Fisherman trade paperback, don’t forget to enter our Goodreads Summer Solstice Giveaway. But hurry, this offer ends July 4, 2016.

Shipping this week: John Langan’s The Fisherman

You’ve enjoyed John Langan’s fiction in numerous anthologies, including The Children of Old Leech and Giallo Fantastique. You devoured his previous novel, House of Windows, and his collections, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters and The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies. Now, prepare yourself for a fishing trip unlike any other as Word Horde presents John Langan’s latest novel of cosmic horror, The Fisherman. Available where better books are sold June 30th (ask for it by name!). We will be shipping direct orders of The Fisherman this week. It’s not too late to get your order in.

And while you’re waiting to hook your copy of The Fisherman on your line, check out this brand new interview with John Langan, conducted by Word Horde’s own Sean M. Thompson:

In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman’s Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other’s company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It’s a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

“John Langan’s The Fisherman is literary horror at its sharpest and most imaginative. It’s at turns a quiet and powerfully melancholy story about loss and grief; the impossibility of going on in same manner as you had before. It’s also a rollicking, kick-ass, white-knuckle charge into the winding, wild, raging river of redemption. Illusory, frightening, and deeply moving, The Fisherman is a modern horror epic. And it’s simply a must read.” –Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock

“The Fisherman is an epic, yet intimate, horror novel. Langan channels M. R. James, Robert E. Howard, and Norman Maclean. What you get is A River Runs through It…Straight to hell.” –Laird Barron, author of X’s for Eyes

Feeling lucky? Take a chance at winning a copy of The Fisherman in our Goodreads Summer Solstice Giveaway, running now through July 4, 2016.

Cover Reveal: Eternal Frankenstein

Two hundred years ago, a young woman staying in a chalet in Switzerland, after an evening of ghost stories shared with friends and lovers, had a frightening dream. That dream became the seed that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a tale of galvanism, philosophy, and the re-animated dead. Today, Frankenstein has become a modern myth without rival, influencing countless works of fiction, music, and film. We all know Frankenstein. But how much do we really know about Frankenstein?

This October, Word Horde will be publishing Eternal Frankenstein, an anthology edited by Ross E. Lockhart, paying tribute to Mary, her Monster, and exploring their entwined legacy.

Today, on the bicentennial anniversary of Mary Shelley’s dream, we reveal the cover to Eternal Frankenstein (Cover Design by Matthew Revert):

Table of Contents:

Amber-Rose Reed – Torso Heart Head
Siobhan Carroll – Thermidor
Autumn Christian – Sewn Into Her Fingers
Rios de la Luz – Orchids by the Sea
Edward Morris – Frankenstein Triptych
Michael Griffin – The Human Alchemy
Betty Rocksteady – Postpartum
Scott R. Jones – Living
Tiffany Scandal – They Call Me Monster
Damien Angelica Walters – Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
Orrin Grey – Baron von Werewolf Presents: Frankenstein Against the Phantom Planet
Nathan Carson – Wither on the Vine, or Strickfadden’s Monster
Anya Martin – The Un-Bride, or No Gods and Marxists
G. D. Falksen – The New Soviet Man
Kristi DeMeester – The Beautiful Thing We Will Become
David Templeton – Mary Shelley’s Body

Preorder Eternal Frankenstein today! Pub Date: October 9, 2016. And for more about Eternal Frankenstein and the cinematic history of Frankenstein, check out this Pacific Sun interview with editor Ross E. Lockhart.

Now Available for Preorder: Alan M. Clark’s A Brutal Chill in August

We all know about Jack the Ripper, the serial murderer who terrorized Whitechapel and confounded police in 1888, but how much do we really know about his victims?

Pursued by one demon into the clutches of another, the ordinary life of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols is made extraordinary by horrible, inhuman circumstance. Jack the Ripper’s first victim comes to life in this sensitive and intimate fictionalized portrait, from humble beginnings, to building a family with an abusive husband, her escape into poverty and the workhouse, alcoholism, and finally abandoned on the streets of London where the Whitechapel Murderer found her.

With A Brutal Chill in August, Alan M. Clark gives readers an uncompromising and terrifying look at the nearly forgotten human story behind one of the most sensational crimes in history. This is horror that happened.

Watch the book trailer for A Brutal Chill in August, featuring the song “The Soul of You,” as sung by the Bonehill Ghost in the novel.

Preorder A Brutal Chill in August today!

Pub Date: August 30, 2016

Readers will also enjoy Alan M. Clark’s collaboration with Gary A. Braunbeck, “A Host of Shadows,” which appears in the Word Horde anthology, Tales of Jack the Ripper.

Beginning July 4, 2016, Alan M. Clark will be liveblogging Jack London’s The People of the Abyss, a piece of investigative journalism in which the author wrote of his experience living in the guise of an impoverished person in the East End of the city of London in 1902, fourteen years after Jack the Ripper terrorized the area. We’d like to encourage readers to track down a copy of The People of the Abyss and join us for the read-along.

The Word Horde Summer Solstice Goodreads Giveaway (Plus the Latest News)

We’ve just kicked off our biggest Goodreads Giveaway yet, with copies of Michael Griffin’s The Lure of Devouring Light, Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace, Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, Ross E. Lockhart’s Cthulhu Fhtagn!, and John Langan’s The Fisherman up for grabs. All you have to do is click through, sign up for Goodreads (if you haven’t already), and enter to win. On the Summer Solstice, June 20, we will select winners and ship books (July 4 in the case of John Langan’s The Fisherman).

Here are the Goodreads Giveaway links:

The Lure of Devouring Light
Furnace
Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts
Cthulhu Fhtagn!
The Fisherman (runs June 1-July 4, 2016)

In other news, The Driftless Area Review just posted a new interview with the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Mr. Suicide, Nicole Cushing, wherein they discuss conventions, “likeable characters,” Louisville, KY, and the definition of evil. It’s a great read.

And you can now read the title story from Livia Llewellyn’s Word Horde collection, Furnace, courtesy of the folks at Weird Fiction Review. Llewellyn’s Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story “Furnace” originally appeared in the Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.-edited Thomas Ligotti tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets. Read it here.

Mr. Suicide wins the Bram Stoker Award

A hearty congratulations to Nicole Cushing, whose Word Horde debut Mr. Suicide was awarded the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel this weekend at StokerCon in Las Vegas. Here’s a photo of Nicole holding her haunted house, courtesy of Rhonda Rettig:

It’s been quite a journey over the year since Mr. Suicide was released, and at times we wondered if Mr. Suicide might be too controversial, too transgressive, for the Stoker Awards. We’re pleased to have been proven wrong in that respect. (You sickos!)

We’d also like to say thanks to a number of people for their roles in bringing Mr. Suicide to you: Nicole Cushing, for writing a book that was impossible to put down; Zach McCain, for that haunting cover; Shannon Page, for copyediting; Sean M. Thompson, for publicity; authors Jack Ketchum, Billy Martin (AKA Poppy Z. Brite), and Ray Garton for reading and blurbing the book; Publishers Weekly, for a review that felt more like a warning; the members of the Horror Writers Association, for voting for Mr. Suicide; and you, the reader, for all you do to support Word Horde authors. We couldn’t do it without you.

Mr. Suicide is available wherever better books are sold. Ask for Mr. Suicide by name at your favorite bookstore!

About Alan M Clark

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