Of Ink and Ill Deeds ...

The title of your book series, Terrifying Tales of Blood, Lust, and Sorcery, is immediately attractive to us given our love of the fantasy and horror genre, but To Punish Mischievous Children of Noble Birth gives it a slightly different spin. What inspired that? 

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Medieval stories are usually particularly barbaric and gruesome, given the period in history they are set in. I wanted to underscore the fact that this collection of stories is entertaining as well as

graphic,  but there is a deeper underlying reason for them being so. Kids who grew up in the middle ages without Instagram filters and TikTok dance parties were tough. They were leading armies into battle with their four children before they were shaving, so what would you do with child like that if they misbehaved? You couldn’t give the barbaric little bad ass time-out in the corner, right?  

So, what if their punishment was to be forcibly read a really horrific, nightmare-inducing story at bedtime? Something guaranteed to ensure a night of restless sleep as penance for their disobedience to the Lord or Lady of the house.

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So you're telling the reader that these stories aren’t just horrible…they are that horrible. 

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Exactly. A selection of tales collected from bardsic songbooks, local lore, and royal courts, grim enough to strike fear into kids who cut their birthday cakes with an axe. The concept being they were collected and used for this single purpose back in those days. 

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There is often a moral too, isn’t there, buried in among all of the death, sex, and depravity?

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 Yes. I think medieval parents would want to teach their kids something worthwhile in the process, and most of the stories follow the formula: do as the protagonist does and you’re going to get yours in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. Behave, choose a different path, and all will be well. It's important to keep in mind, these stories are written for their intended audience. This isn't Hansel and Gretel or Jack and Jill. You can't soften the kids up because they weren't in the "who is Pete Davidson dating this week" headspace. They were fighting in heavy armor around the time puberty kicked in. You have to scare the shit out of them, and back then, I imagined  nightmarish stories as being a very effective way of doing that.

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That’s important to emphasize because these are definitely not books for modern day children.  Even some adult readers are going to find the content offensive. Does that concern you?

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The title alone was conceived so that some will find it appalling and some will find it appealing, right from the get-go. The intent being to weed out the haters before they could get a glimpse of the contents of the book which—if the title sends you into a tailspin—will absolutely put you in therapy. A book can't come with a government health warning, right? It’s art. A form of self-expression.  I do actually make a point of this in the introduction with a ‘Buyer Beware.’ It’s part tongue-in-cheek, and part a legitimate warning.

 

Those heavy metal and gangster rap albums in the 80's and 90’s used to come with a 'Parental Advisory' sticker plastered on the front as a warning. Maybe you should resurrect that?

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That was actually discussed at one point, if you can belive it.  It's important to remember that my stories are set in the distant past. Not necessarily the right times, but different times, and definitely not our time. Brutal doesn't begin to cover it. Two hundred million died when the Black Plague hit. Innocent women suspected of practicing witchcraft were burned or hung, often without trial. They're called the Dark Ages for a reason. There was no such thing as political correctness or the protection of one’s feelings. People were bawdy, foul, and incredibly violent by nature because when life expectancy is 30, you give zero f***s. The book is set in this time in our history, and so it was important to me to reflect them accurately, albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

 

Every one of your stories has an unexpected twist at the end that really catches the reader off-guard, which reminded me of the classic Twilight Zone or, more recently, Black Mirror on Netflix.

Is it harder for a writer to have the added pressure of keeping your reader on their toes?

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For me it’s fairly natural having grown up a fan of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, and Tales from the Crypt, etc. Also, another of Serling's creations, Night Gallery, and other portmanteau horror films from the ’60s and '70s, which I love. Studios like Hammer and Amicus churned out some great ones back in the day. Several short horror or sci-fi stories based around a common theme with an unexpected ending to keep the viewer guessing. I like to think setting tales in medieval times is somewhat original in this genre, so it becomes a cross between Game of Thrones and Love, Death, and Robots, for example. Plus, having a setting in a fantastical world means I can introduce dragons and sorcerers into the plot . As a huge Tolkein fan, that was important.”

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 And horrible torture devices ...

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 Exactly. (laughs) The canvas is a lot wider. And bloodier.

  

Your writing style is interesting. The stories rhyme but are not really poetry, or are they? I think many readers might see them that way. Was that the intention when you set out on this journey?

 

The very first story I wrote happened to rhyme which reminded me of Shakespeare and Chaucer from school and seemed appropriate for the era my stories are set, so I just kind of stuck with it. I don’t consider it to be poetry though, at all.  There's no standard formula of two-line couplets, three-line tercets, four-line quatrains, and so on. There are definitely some poetic moments, and the tales are broken into paragraphs that sort of resemble stanzas, I suppose.  But it’s hardly Poe. "Poo," I think, would be more accurate. It is meant to be disposable, folk horror entertainment. I am under no delusion that future generations are going to revere stories about witchcraft, malevolent spirits, and mutilation, even if some of the passages are cute and flowery. But I also would hate to think it would be filed in the 'poetry' section at Barnes and Noble. Or more accurately, Half Price Books.

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Speaking of your very first story, where did this journey start for you?

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During covid lockdown. Our generation was having its own medieval-style plague event, or so a lot of people thought during its very early days. No one was really sure where it would all end, or if it would at all, or how bad it was going to be back then.  I was bored, drinking wine at 11 am as the norm, and just started typing. I'd read them back to my dog at the end of the day. He was a harsh critic (unless treats were involved). Before I knew it, I had two books worth. I put it down, and when I re-read it a few months later, I was surprised at how much I liked it. The writing needed tweaking, but the content was there. The wine may have had something to do with that. 

 

Witchcraft features pretty heavily in your stories as does the reoccurring theme of revenge. Was this intentional to feature these topics as common threads in the books?

 

Actually, no. I mean, back then, humans absolutely believed that Satan was present on the earth. Bad crops this harvest…Satan. After-dinner bloating… Satan. Their belief that all sin proceeds from the devil means that if you are sinful, then you are in league with him, so for a while, there was a mass paranoia that witches were everywhere wreaking havoc in the daily lives of good, God-fearing folk. It only made sense to me then, that collective madness should feature heavily. The revenge part happened by default. If there were innocents wrongly accused of witchcraft— which sadly was often the case— I like devising ways for their accusers to get their comeuppance. Book two is a little lighter on the witchy side and includes stories of ghosts, sea monsters, genie lamps, etc. Although my writing may touch on subjects like witchcraft, the occult, and the black arts in a light-hearted manner, I neither support nor endorse either. Nowadays, there might not be any literal burning at the stake, but you can still get burned, if you know what I mean.

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You've refered to your writing style as "Faux Medieval,"  which I assume is code for not accurately archaic? Is this to make your stories more accessible to your readers, or is there another reason?

 

I don't live in the Kingdom of Mercia in the year 879. I live in Nashville, Tennessee—although some of our roads and infrastructure are comparable. I write  for fun, so I'm hoping the Medieval Accuracy/Grammar/Spelling Police will  be officially off duty when they read my books.  Yes, I do need the stories to be understandable to my readers, so I take liberties—often. In school, we had a crash course on Middle English before tackling Chaucer, and it was painful. So, although I am farmiliar, Middle English gets the middle finger for the sake of the book's overall readability. If my “thine” should be “thy” or “ye” a “thee,” or if I custom-created a few extra words that I imagine Brave Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot would say as he’s running away from The Three-Headed Giant, then so be it. 

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Of the two book you have written, do you have a favorite story?

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 My favorite so far is The Black Knight's Apprentice. I finished it last week, so it's a way off seeing the light of day. I came up with it on the fly— which is how the best one's are usually written, and the twist is insane. 

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How many books are planned in the series?

 

As of right now, three. I have two in the vault, and I’m close to completing the third. After that, perhaps an omnibus edition, compiling the best of the trilogy with a few bonus stories. Then t-shirts, beer koozies, etc.

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And then what?

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Netflix, Hulu, or HBO. I’m taking meetings!​​