Kev Harrison is an author you need to read. His folk horror novella, The Balance was published by LVP Publications earlier this year and is a must read. (Those at The Infernal Clock have a soft spot for folk horror.) His contribution to Inferno, is the Fourth Circle story, ‘Elixir’.

Infernal Clock: What was the inspiration behind your story?

I actually have a friend of a friend who is involved in one of the ghastly modern pyramid schemes that the protagonist is part of. That person is less cynical than Kai, but I generally find it pretty disturbing how people can get sucked into these brands and their promises, and can even program themselves to overlook the way in which people further down the chain are being chewed up, if they can’t get enough people to pound into grist beneath their own feet. I thought an examination of sin like the Inferno was the perfect venue to explore such an idea.

Infernal Clock: What is your idea of hell on earth?

Where the Daily Mail or Fox News were the only available sources of information.

Infernal Clock: The Inferno was created on old ideas of sin. If you had to label the nine levels how, what would you call them? Would you keep it at 9? Increase or decrease?

I would have to spend a lot of time doing this properly, but sins I’d like to see punished that come straight to the top of my head would be:

Tax avoidance, bigotry, cruelty to animals & spreading deliberate misinformation

Infernal Clock: They say the Devil has all the good tunes. What song would you recommend as an accompaniment to your story?

Definitely Opal by Swedish prog-metallers, Soen

Infernal Clock: If you were able to visit the Inferno, what level would you want to go to and who would you want to see there?

I think I’d really rather stay out of hell. But of the famous people mentioned by Dante, I’d most like to go and meet the Assyrian queen Semiramis, because no-one knows which of her huge number of misdeeds are real and how many are poetic license.

Infernal Clock: What is the hottest food you’ve ever eaten. Can you share a recipe?

I love spicy food and, when I went to Sri Lanka for a month of travelling in 2015, I promised myself I would take it easy on the spice, so as not to overdo it and get sick. On my penultimate day, back in the capital, Colombo, I went to a lunch time curry and rice canteen near the railway station, famed for it’s roasting hot food. After 26 days in the country, I felt ready. I told the guy, “give me the normal spice level for locals. I’ve been here a month, I’ll be fine.” I was not fine. It was absolutely delicious, but the guy gave me a complimentary lassi, because of the sweat and tears pouring down my face.

Infernal Clock: Who is your ‘favourite’ villain in history or fiction?

The portrayal of Lucifer, in Glenn Duncan’s I, Lucifer is someone I would gladly meet up with for a beer on a weekly basis.

Infernal Clock: What is your long-term ambition for your writing?

To be able to cut down my teaching hours to part time and focus on it more completely and for my peers to appreciate my work (though that last element’s already come partly true!)

Infernal Clock: Top-tip for other writers

Persistence is key to everything in writing. From drafting, to editing, to having the resilience to weather the inevitable multitude of rejections.

Bio:

Kev Harrison is a British writer of dark and strange stories living in
Lisbon, Portugal. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of
magazines and anthologies, as well as on a number of podcasts. His
debut novella, The Balance, is out now from Lycan Valley Press, while
two of his shorter works, Cinders of a Blind Man Who Could
See and Curfew are available as part of Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp
Shocks range.

www.kevharrisonfiction.com
www.twitter.com/lisboetaingles

Latest Publication:

Curfew, from Demain Publishing is a short story, released as part of Demain’s Short Sharp Shocks range, depicting a romantic weekend away on the English south coast that goes utterly wrong in ways that (I hope) you will not even begin to imagine. Don’t, whatever you do, miss Curfew! https://books2read.com/curfew

Shannon Felton is a talented author whose novella, The Prisoners of Stewartville, was published by Silver Shamrock Publishing earlier this year (a book I’ve read and would highly recommend). Shannon’s story, ‘Her Knife is Hunger. Her Cup is First’, is to be found in the First Circle of Inferno. Here, we ask a few questions to get an insight into the workings of Shannon’s devilish mind.

Infernal Clock: What was the inspiration behind your story?

I actually don’t know a lot about Christian mythology but I’ve always been interested in non-Abrahamic religions. In H.A Grueber’s Myths of the Norsemen, there’s a section on the Thuringian goddess, Bertha, and her lake of unbaptized children. One line in particular, “tradition relates that she once left the country with her infant train dragging her plough, and settled elsewhere to continue her kind ministrations,” really captured my imagination.

Infernal Clock: What is your idea of hell on earth?

[Looks around] Is this not it?

I’m only half-joking.  It’s easy buying into the idea that earth is hell. We compete for limited resources, and despite how well we do we still lose loved ones to disease and crime, and on top of that we commit atrocious acts of war against one another. But maybe the trick to heaven on earth is finding the good despite all that. Little moments that miraculously outweigh the bigger ones.

Infernal Clock: The Inferno was created on old ideas of sin. If you had to label the nine levels how, what would you call them? Would you keep it at 9? Increase or decrease?

The entry level would definitely be a Walmart and from there you’d descend down the corporate ladder into even darker depths of despair, greed, and perversion. At the end? A private dinner with Jeff Bezos every day for eternity. But he’s the only one who gets to eat.

Infernal Clock: They say the Devil has all the good tunes. What song would you recommend as an accompaniment to your story?

HELL from the Valhalla Rising soundtrack.

Infernal Clock: If you were able to visit the Inferno, what level would you want to go to and who would you want to see there? (I think it’s best to keep current politics out of it though!)

I would go to the ninth circle of treachery, and the person I’d want to see there knows what they did.

Infernal Clock: What is the hottest food you’ve ever eaten? Can you share a recipe?

I don’t know if it’s the hottest, but my family likes Spicy Sausage Mac and Cheese Bake.

1lb ground hot sausage
1 ½  cups milk
12oz velveeta, cubed
1/2c Dijon mustard
1c hot Rotel
1c sliced mushrooms
1/3c sliced green onions
⅛ tsp cayenne
12oz elbow macaroni
2 tbsp grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook sausage in skillet. Combine milk, cheeze, and mustard in saucepan and cook over low heat until smooth. Stir in sausage, Rotel, mushrooms, green onions and cayenne. Remove from heat.

Cook  noodles, drain. Combine macaroni and cheese mixture in large bowl. Pour into greased casserole dish. Cover and bake 15 to 20 minutes. Stir, sprinkle with parmesan. Bake uncovered 5 minutes.

6-8 servings.

Infernal Clock: Who is your ‘favourite’ villain in history or fiction?

I watched Megan Follows as Catherine de’ Medici on a TV show recently. She did a great job of being evil, conniving, and murderous. And yet she still also managed to be hilarious and sympathetic. Definitely one of my favorite villains.

Infernal Clock: What is your long-term ambition for your writing?

I’d like to someday earn a living from it, have an actual office, hire a maid. Buy a cheese wheel and watch The Hobbit.

Infernal Clock: Top-tip for other writers

Don’t share your writing until you think it’s finished. I think having time alone with your story before anyone else reads it is really important—like Schrodinger’s Book, if you will—  where anything is still possible and it’s neither good nor bad until someone else cracks it open.

Bio:

Shannon Felton lives in the Phoenix area with her husband, four
children, and dogs. After relocating to the States from Germany, she
focused on a career in writing and has since published several short
stories as well as her debut novella, The Prisoners of Stewartville from
Silver Shamrock Publishing. You can find more on her Twitter
at @ShannonNova3.

I read Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (from his Divine Comedy) some years ago and the imagery from his verses has long stayed with me. Whilst his words were directed very much at certain people who lived during his own time period, the sufferings and punishments remain something you could apply to anyone in any age. The structure of the Inferno, with its Nine Circles and with some of those circles having rings within rings, is such that I thought it would make an excellent structure for an anthology. Stories could be created in Hell itself, within a specific circle, or the protagonist could be committing – or indulging – the specific sin which ultimately condemns them. Thus was our own Inferno born.

I am delighted to say that Inferno is not far off publication and still projected to appear in early December. We’re hoping to announce a specific date in a few weeks. In the meantime, Inferno contributors have answered a number of hellish interview questions and I will be posting them on this site in the runup to publication. First up this Sunday is Shannon Felton, whose story ‘Her Knife is Hunger. Her Cup is Thirst’, sits in the First Circle.

Look out for many more such interviews over the coming weeks.

We can’t always give money to charity but we can support in other ways. This year, I’ve contributed to three charity anthologies, each raising money for deserving causes. If you’re looking for something to read whilst supporting a good cause in the process, you can’t go wrong with any of these.

Oops! I’ve been happily sharing the wonderful cover for my novel, The Five Turns of the Wheel, and realised I hadn’t even given it a mention here! In my defence, I will say I was buried in edits for the book itself, working on another anthology and trying to fit in Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear amongst all that. Time to write on my own blog is something that seems to get pushed to the bottom of the list. So I’m remedying that – any excuse to look at the cover again! The artist behind this wonderful work is Kealan Patrick Burke who also created the cover for my novella, Bottled.

A folk horror/dark fantasy, the story revolves around the theme of loss and includes elements of my own experience in this respect. It is the first time I have shared anything from my ‘real life’ in my writing. As I wrote, I didn’t realise how angry I still was about my treatment at that time even though it was so long ago. In the Five Turns of the Wheel, the women in a corner of England known as the Weald. battle to hold onto their children – unborn and adult alike. They are up against three monsters – Tommy, Betty and Fiddler – who appear from the OtherWorld of Umbra to take members of their family as offerings for the rituals of the Five Turns. Are there any winners in this age-old conflict? You’ll have to read to find out. And it’s not long until you can! Roll on October 27th.

One thing I will say, despite the sadness and anger I still carry at my own loss, writing this book was a delight. There were some chapters involving the three creatures I’ve mentioned where I remember just grinning away as I let them rampage around the countryside. I don’t know what it is about them but this world really got its hooks into me.

Publication News Overview

And in other news:

Horror Writer’s Association Poetry Showcase Volume VII. Date TBC. Contains my poem, I am the Corruption.

Weirdbook Magazine Zombie edition. Hopefully November. Another zombie story from me, Life Unworthy of Life.

Kitchen Sink Gothic 2 (Parallel Universe Publications) – date TBC. A reprint of my 70s-set story, The Winter of Discontent. This one is a charity anthology in support of the homeless.

Inferno. Early Dec – date TBC. An anthology from the Infernal Clock, this time edited by myself and Alyson Faye. Featuring stories set in Dante’s Inferno and with a host of well-known names in the indie writing world, we can’t wait to unleash it. Look out for a cover reveal on October 1st and more information soon!

I hope you find something here to read and enjoy. If you do, please let me know. I’d love to hear what you think!

Steph

My short zombie story, Playlist has been accepted into the charity publication Trickster’s Treats #4, Coming Buried or Not. Published by Things in the Well, it is raising money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Without giving the story away, music does feature prominently in this tale and so to create the right image in your heads, here are the tracks and artists mentioned. I loved writing this as it combined two of my favourite things writing and metal. And as I love sharing my favourite bands, I wasn’t going to let such an opportunity slip by.

Buy the book, read the story, listen to the music. See, I can do culture (of sorts)!

This week saw the publication of the charity horror anthology, Diabolica Britannica. Available as an ebook only, it has been written by a group of British authors to raise funds for the NHS. Amongst these writers are Tim Lebbon and Adam Nevill and the master himself, Ramsey Campbell has created a thoughtful analysis of British horror as well as providing a commentary on each story.

There are 14 stories in its pages veering from gothic to ghostly to splatter, and in my case, folk horror. I have read them all, and I may be biased, but I regard it as a pretty strong showing. Check out the book trailer to get the flavour of the book!

My own story, We Plough the Fields and Scatter, takes place in a fictional part of rural England, an area isolated by its link to a world of monstrous creatures who live just beyond the veil. Rarely seen, they infiltrate this land, forcing the inhabitants to abide by their rituals and customs in honour of Mother Nature. When they do choose to return, the results are usually horrific – especially when Tommy, Betty and Fiddler get together.

The village of Reaper’s Hill, featured in the story in this anthology, is part of the Hub, the Wheel – or the Weald. It crops up too, as one of the villages hosting a night of ritual during The Five Turns of the Wheel. The latter sequence of events are described in full in my novel of the same name, which is to be published in October by Silver Shamrock Publishing.

Tommy, one of those monstrous figures who reappears from time-to-time, pops up in Diabolica Britannica whilst in The Five Turns he is actually the Master of Ceremonies, leading them on through each bloody sacrifice. In The Five Turns, Reaper’s Hill is the site of the Third Turn, where as he says, ‘The Third Turn is the Wheel that flies. When the Crone rides the night and old bones are crumbled. The Dance claims us all.”

In this statement lies the seed of the idea from which my folk horror stories grew. The Dance was a short story published a few years back in an anthology, Horror in Bloom. Tommy, Betty and Fiddler were there although other characters had different names. The horror behind The Dance, evolved from this rapper sword dance:

If you want Morris with more attitude (and fewer bells) then watch Border Morris troupes. It’s imagery like this that birthed Tommy.

It is not a world you would want to live in but it’s great fun to write about!

A few years back, I joined up with writer friend David Shakes to produce the first of the Infernal Clock anthologies. The idea was Shakes’ and I came onboard to help see it to fruition. We have so far produced 3 anthologies: The Infernal Clock, CalenDark and DeadCades, although last year was a hiatus due to time pressures.

Now we have found the time to start the clock ticking again and create another in the series. This one will simply be called Inferno, its theme being the horrors found in the classic poem Dante’s Inferno.

We were going for invite only again but after drawing up a list of writers, many of whom we have written with over the years and a number of whom have already appeared in the Infernal Clock anthologies, I was struck by the lack of diversity. Recent events in terms of #BlackLivesMatter and the whole question of inclusivity made me realise we needed to open ourselves up more.

So, submission details:

Payment: £10 and ebook
Closing Date: 15^th August 2020
Open to: LGBTQIA and POC
Length: 3-5k

The theme is Dante’s Inferno and each story will be set in one of the circles or the passages to/between circles. Whilst there are nine circles, there are a number of rings – or pouches – within each circle so there is a lot of scope. How you interpret your chosen circle/ring is up to you, eg it could be set below in the Inferno itself, it could focus on a particular sin, or you could recreate this hell actually on earth.

We are particularly interested in stories set in the Second and Eighth Circles as we do not have any of these yet, although you are welcome to write in the other circles as well.

Stories need to be dark (but with the usual boundaries against extremes and gratuitous violence/sex/language) and 3-5k with flexibility, although we would prefer 4k.

Stories must be submitted in standard manuscript format as .doc or .docx to theinfernalclock@gmail.com.

No multiple or simultaneous submissions. No reprints

Payment will be by paypal on publication.

If you have any queries please contact us at the above email address.

Invitations!

Want to know who you’ll be joining if your story makes it into the Inferno? Here you go:

Shannon Felton
Charlotte Platt
V. Castro
Alyson Faye
Stephanie Ellis
Kev Harrison
CC Adams
G.A Miller
Richard Meldrum
Robert Allen Lupton
David Shakes
Martin P. Fuller
Rhonda Jackson Joseph
Lionel Ray Green (note – an early invitee but due to circumstances, only recently able to respond)

We are also lucky to have Hailey Piper on board to write us a Foreword, whilst Tim Youster, who created the covers for the last two anthologies will be creating the artwork for this one.

We’re looking forward to making this one really special, so please, come and join us in the Inferno.

Steph and Shakes

Yesterday marked the end of quite a long journey – for me – to get this novel telling the story of The Woodcutter finished. It has now been sent to my first beta reader.

The original idea came from a short story I wrote for Fright Club, the then HWA Online Writing group. I had long thought of twisting the old Little Red Riding Hood fairytale and came up with an idea whereby the Woodcutter and Grandma existed, as did the famous red cloak – but there was no Little Red Riding Hood herself. This initially appeared in published form as a short story in Iron Faerie Publishing’s Fabled anthology. It has changed somewhat since then.

It’s taken a couple of years to come to fruition, mainly because I wrote another book inbetween – one which has just come back from beta readers and which I am now reviewing in light of their comments. The work never ends – but I love it!

The concentration it took in recent weeks to really get into the world of the Woodcutter and Grandma, and their cottage in GodBeGone Woods, was quite marked at times. A folk horror, I have a number of unreliable narrators, some who believe in the legends surrounding their village of Little Hatchet and the woods, and others whose outlook is coloured either by childhood trauma and experience or environmental factors. If I say specifically what these are, it would give too much of the story away.

Naturally, unreliability can cause confusion and that has been my main worry when creating this – that my foreshadowing might be too subtle or my later explanations might appear like some clonky info dump. My wonderful beta reader is fully aware of this, so hopefully fresh eyes will tell me whether I’ve hit the mark or not.

This little blurb I sent with the draft gives a bit more background:

‘A tragic accident shrouded in mystery leads to a family reunion in the hidden village of Little Hatchet. This community has existed within the overwhelming shadow of GodBeGone Woods, the forest home of the mythical Woodcutter and Grandma, for centuries. 

The reunion occurs against the backdrop of incomer Oliver Hayward’s scheme to raise money for the village by recreating part of the Woodcutter legend – a scheme hiding Hayward’s own murderous intentions. Old wounds are re-opened and ties of blood and friendship are tested to the extreme when the Woodcutter is summoned and Grandma returns.
In this story there is no Little Red Riding Hood, no Big Bad Wolf, only the blade of an axe.

Now it’s back to my other book, not folk horror, but a post-apocalyptic scenario where the apocalypse didn’t quite happen as expected. This has gone through a few name changes but I think I’m going to settle on The Barricade. After that, it’ll be time to start looking for homes for these two and get a couple of projects long on the backburner going.

Woodcutter Writing Playlist:
(Always played in random order! I will say A Forest pretty much looped as I edited though!)

A Forest – Behemoth
Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer – Behemoth
O Father O Satan O Sun – Behemoth
Unsainted – Slipknot
All Out of Life – Slipknot
The Devil In I – Slipknot
Not My God – Fiction
Pit Of Fire – 3Teeth
Nihil – 3Teeth
Atrophy – 3Teeth
In The Name of God – Rotting Christ
Addict Now – Primitive Race
Dead Souls – Nine Inch Nails
Burn – The Cure
Year Zero – Ghost