Of Ink and Ill Deeds ...

Your book was just named as an Amazon 'Hot New' release barely a month after launching, so congratulations! It was outselling Chaucer and King Arthur there for a while. 

Thank you. It's great to know that there is so much support out there for independent authors. We're the dragon slayers out there taking on the big boys so getting that 'badge of honor' from Amazon on my very first book was very humbling.

 

 

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 seemed appropriate given the time in history in which my stories are set and the premise being that they were pased down through the generations by bards and jesters; 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, 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 entertainment; the pulp fiction of the folk horror genre, if you will.  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 stories were solid. The wine may have had something to do with that. 

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The title of your book series, Terrifying Tales of Blood, Lust & 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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As well as being entertaining, medieval stories are usually barbaric and gruesome, given the period in history they are set in. I wanted to expand on that and explore 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 nightmare-inducing story at bedtime? Something so horrible, it guaranteed to a night of restless sleep as penance for their disobedience.

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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 bardic 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 singlular 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 these 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 people...my people... 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. They're called the Dark Ages for a reason. Two hundred million died during the Black Plague. Innocent women suspected of practicing witchcraft were burned or hung, often without trial.  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 Night Gallery , Tales from the Crypt, etc. Also 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 with movies like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and The Torture Garden. They were 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.

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Did your formative years growing up in the UK influence your choice to write this macabre sort of folk horror?

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I went to school in Newport Pagnell. The town is surrounded by a multitude of small villages, some of which I reference in the book. This is very hard for Americans in particular to undertsand but although those villages were 2-3 miles apart, their accents differed slightly, which is remarkable. So too did their traditions, ceremonies and observances. Some of these are ancient and they take them very seriously. I'm not talking Wicker Man level, but certianly those sort of rites existed, albeit in watered down versions, but I was eposed to them as a child and teenager and it definitely had an impact on my writing.

  

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  the occult and the black arts in a light-hearted manner, I don't support or endorse either. Nowadays, there might not be any literal burning at the stake, but you can still get burned with that stuff, 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 1200. 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 often take liberties. 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 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!​​