AUTHOR INTERVIEW: J. Ashley-Smith

In this interview, Australian author J. Ashley-Smith discusses his forthcoming collection The Measure of Sorrow, published by Meerkat Press.

For those who might not know of your works, what does writing – and specifically what you write – have to say about you?

I'm always wary about reading too much into what an author may or may not be like, based on their writing. Of course, I fall into that trap all the time myself, wondering what aspects of a book or story are 'made up' and which are taken – or borrowed – from the author's 'real life'. It's a slippery slope, and one I've slithered down the wrong side of on more than one occasion.

In my late teens and early twenties, my good friend and I would sit up late at night, drinking tea, getting stoned, sharing our story ideas with one another. This was back in a time when I thought that making up an idea and discussing it in detail with someone else was about as good as actually writing it (which may go some way towards explaining why my output during that period was minimal in the extreme). Whenever I shared my stories, which were invariably about emotionally twisted people and their poor life choices, my friend would give me this worried look – a kind of, "He doesn't even realise how badly he needs help" kind of look. The kind of look that precedes a concerned friend calling the therapist on your behalf. He had fallen into the trap of assuming my stories were me and – perhaps quite sensibly – assumed I needed looking after.

It's a dangerous trap to fall into, especially with a horror writer. The reality of course being that many writers of dark fiction are hands-down the nicest people walking the face of this planet.

So what might you assume about me from reading a few of my stories?

That I'm a deeply flawed human being in need of electro-shock therapy. That all my relationships are unendurably toxic and I only know terrible people. That I'm crushingly, incurably sad. That I'm afraid of swimming, oceans, seashells, bushfires, bathtubs, old trees, open spaces, toys, telephones, children, uncles, woodlands, black goop, farmyards, farmers, nazis, kelpies, corner shops, time, terraria, siblings, sociopaths, warehouse parties, small-time criminals, and Enid Blyton.

It's a fair cop: I am afraid of almost everything.

The Measure of Sorrow is your debut short story collection – what made you decide it was “time” to put one together and why?

The prevailing wisdom about single-author anthologies is to wait years, until you've got a million and one stories to choose from, before pulling a collection together. Typically that's good advice. Like the first pancake, your first stories are likely to be rough around the edges, a little uncooked in the middle; you likely haven't yet found 'your voice'; you've yet to master this or that technique.

It will have taken years (around nine) from the first word of the earliest story in the collection to its release next month. This is more a product of my laboriously slow writing process than my artful following of sensible advice. There was a point around three years ago where I felt a kind of critical mass forming: a set of stories with a very specific kind of density; not exactly thematically linked, but recognisably from the same gene pool. Around that time I became aware that my new ideas were moving me in a different direction, and I suppose I wanted to compile and release a book that collected those like-minded stories, before my attention and my inspiration left them too far behind.

Once the idea for a collection is there, though, you can't let it go. It has its own gravity and, like a black hole, starts drawing all the light in the known universe towards it. I wrote one story on spec to 'complete' the collection, which had so much mass it ended up as the title novella. And I suppose that's the other important question to ask about a collection: When do you know it's done? The answer for me was, finding and finishing the story that, like Lebowski's rug, "really tied the room together."

What can people expect from The Measure of Sorrow?

Sadness. Strangeness. Heart. Darkness. Flawed characters building fragile islands of meaning to protect themselves from a vast, indifferent universe.

There's madness, pettiness, grief. Crackpot theories about the afterlife. A bushfire ravaged wilderness. A terrible cosmic 'instrument'. Possums, leeches, rats and ants. A possessed corner shop. An eldritch rave scene. The smell of dried meat and old taxidermy. A confabulation of moths. A crackling ball of light in a psychedelic black reef. And the literal embodiment of your most private shame.

It's basically the whole package.

You’ve garnered several awards over the years, including the Shirley Jackson Award – is there a formula for an effective short story?

Probably. But if so I've never worked it out!

If the stories I've written that have later won awards have anything in common, it's that I had to learn from them, directly, how they wanted to be written. One or two came out in a white heat, but then I had to go back and back to make sense of the molten slag left behind, working them over and over to tease out what they were really trying to convey. Others took forever, like a journey along a dark tunnel with no sense of what's lying beyond the end of the torch beam. Some stories you have to just trust in, even though they may seem to be taking you way outside your comfort zone, out to a place that doesn't even make sense to you. You have to have faith that some part of you knows what it's doing, and a willingness to follow wherever it might lead.

However out there the story takes you, though, there is one thing you need to do to ensure it lands: make a promise to the reader at the very beginning, and deliver on that promise by the end. The reader needs to get an early feel for the kind of story you're telling, to put enough trust in you to let go and suspend disbelief. That trust is a big deal. You can mess with the reader like crazy (we love it), be as ambiguous as you like, leave all kinds of threads just dangling. But you can't ever betray that trust. You've got to cross your heart and hope to die and always keep your promises.

Who are your favourite authors and what are you currently reading?

Oh man. I always dread this question. Not only does the list change as frequently as my obsessions, but my brain goes into a kind of stasis as soon as someone asks me. All that's in my head is the infinite dark reaches of space, and a spray of tiny stars, too distant to identify.

Recently, I've been on a bit of a Peter Straub journey. I re-read Ghost Story, then Koko, then the whole of the Blue Rose trilogy. I just love the sensitivity with which he writes: that darkness is shot through with so much compassion. Before that I was obsessed with Patricia Highsmith and read the better part of her vast back catalogue. On a whim, I read (by which I mean listened to) Dickens' Bleak House, and jumped straight out of that and into Our Mutual Friend, I loved it so much.

Having said all this, the writer that blows my mind most consistently is probably Donna Tartt. Every time I finish one of her books, I'm torn between mad flights of inspiration and just giving up the game as a lost cause. She's one of the few contemporary authors who will be remembered alongside the greats of past centuries.

Although a lot of authors hate being asked this question, what advice would you give to other authors just starting out, or who are struggling to find their voice, or struggling with imposter syndrome?

I love this question. As a mentor with both the Horror Writers Association and Australasian Horror Writers Association, I work together with writers at all kinds of stages of their practice. I love having the opportunity to talk about craft, to spend deep time with other people's work, but also to connect over those fears and anxieties that grip anyone exploring their creativity and sharing it with the world.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying, the struggle is real – and it doesn't go away. And you don't want it to! Because the struggle is the thing itself. The journey to find your voice is a life's work. It's not like one day you wake up and go, "Oh, there it is," and every story you write after that has 'your' voice. Though you come closer with every new piece of work, finding that voice is the process of life itself, and it won't be finished till you breathe – and write – your last.

The same is true of impostor syndrome. The deeper I get into my practice (I shy away from the word 'career', as I still feel like a dilettante), the more external validation I receive – a story acceptance, a book in the shops, an award on the shelf – the louder that little doubting voice becomes. The doubts escalate, as does the fear that someday soon everyone will finally figure out what I've been getting away with all this time.

The only way forward is to keep working. To write another story, and another. To keep your attention on your work and to love the process so much it drowns out all that other noise.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Dude, you should have put this question at the beginning! I feel like you've already heard from me enough, and this question demands a whole book of essays and a PhD dissertation.

I’m going to sidestep the question with a shameless plug for Let The Cat In. A couple of years ago, Kaaron Warren, Aaron Dries and I started a podcast to discuss exactly this question. We've met and talked with a whole bunch of interesting authors, editors, and other creatives to riff on objects, inspiration, and those ideas that scratch at the door, miaowing to be let in. If you like listening to horror writers shoot the shit, goof off, and go deep, you should check it out!

What’s next for you?

I finished my first novel last year, and while that's out on submission I'm working my way into the next: a suburban cosmic horror, influenced by the work of one of my favourite authors, John Wyndham. I somehow felt that finishing that first book would make getting to 'The End' of another one quick and easy. Not so much, as it turns out. Still, I'm having fun with it. Enjoying the journey, wherever it may lead.

J. Ashley Smith is a British–Australian author of dark fiction and co-host of the Let The Cat In podcast. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. Other stories have won the Ditmar Award, Australian Shadows Award and Aurealis Award. He lives with his wife and two sons beneath an ominous mountain in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires. You can find him at spooktapes.net, performing amazing experiments in electronic communication with the dead.

The Measure of Sorrow is now available for pre-order from Meerkat Press: https://smpl.is/6y0jb

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Anthony Ferguson

In this interview, Australian author Anthony Ferguson talks about his forthcoming collection, Rest In Pieces, published by IFWG Publishing.

Can you tell me a bit about your background - what drew you to horror fiction and the desire to write in the genre?

I think I was always subconsciously a fan of the genre, without consciously acknowledging it. Like most things in my life, I came late to writing horror, to writing altogether in fact. I came from a very poor working-class background. English was about the only subject I excelled in, and I enjoyed reading. My mum encouraged me from an early age. I also grew up in a place and an era that was quite violent. I wouldn’t say my high school was toxic, but some days I nearly made it all the way to school before I was beaten up, by the teachers. I left school at fifteen and went into a welding factory. Then one day a few years later I looked out at the spewing smoke stacks of the dark Satanic mills, and exclaimed, “there has to be more to life than this.” I escaped and went backpacking around Europe. I returned and went back to finish high school. I got into university and studied English and Communications. I finished with a Master's degree.

With regard to horror, university English taught me how to write academic papers. In my downtime I found myself reading Stephen King horror story collections. It occurred to me that I had always had an interest in the dark side of life. As a small child I had an invisible friend who lived in the wall (I guess I was lonely and creative). I was always drawn to horror comics, movies and television shows. I loved the original Twilight Zone, The Evil Touch, The Outer Limits, and The Night Stalker. In the days before 24/7 tv and streaming services, I tried to stay up all night for the occasional Friday night Horrorthons on seventies tv.

I began to explore horror and true crime fiction, enjoying the works of Colin Wilson, and collecting books on Jack the Ripper. I began to develop a morbid interest in the twisted psychology of serial killers, and devoured books on the subject. Still, late to everything, it did not occur to me to try and write for publication until I was about 35. The catalyst, was bumping into and working in the same office as James Doig in 1998. He suggested I turn my hand to horror fiction and join the AHWA. I had started writing and publishing true crime articles. I duly joined the AHWA… in 2007. The records show. I have no idea why it took me so long. Probably imposter syndrome.

It took me three years to get my first horror story published in 2001, and at least another three to get the next one accepted. It has been a Hell of a journey since then. So much learning at the feet of my peers. Joining many critique groups, reading, listening, learning, writing, writing and more writing. Draft after draft. Giving and receiving critiques. Learning to accept rejection. I’d say it took me another decade to reach the stage of being a competent horror writer. The key to my moderate level of success is that I never give up. I took a tiny nugget of talent and polished it into one giant turd. I don’t have imposter syndrome anymore. I know I can hold my own now. (I know I’m good. I won an award goddammit!)

Yet, sometimes, as I fast approach my dotage, I look back and think, why horror? Why true crime? As one ex-girlfriend once opined, “Why can’t you write something nice?” Well, because I can’t. This is who I am, always drawn to the left-hand path.

Rest in Pieces is a collection of 15 years of your fiction - is this your first collection? What made you decide to publish it now?

Ha! Well therein lies a tale. After several years of reading and sometimes reviewing the story collections of my peers in the AHWA, all the while getting more and more of my own stories published, I started to ask myself, where’s MY collection? I pondered this thought for a couple of years, as my published works and confidence grew, until in 2021 I determined to do something about it.

I had over fifty stories in print by then. So, I drafted a letter of introduction for myself and my work, and drew up a list of likely publishers to approach. Fortunately, by this stage of my career, I had networked enough to have some good contacts and good advice from colleagues.

IFWG was at the top of my list, and I duly approached them first. It was June 2021. Admittedly, I did so with trepidation. I honestly thought, there’s no way they will accept me, but I have the backup list. I was thrilled when Gerry said YES. Over the moon, honoured. Even though I’m at the age now where delights are few and cynicism starts to reign, getting that acceptance was like Christmas morning as a ten-year-old for me. It is a huge milestone in my life as a horror writer. A great personal achievement ticked off the bucket list.

It is my first collection. IFWG assigned me an editor, and together, Sarah and I went through the best 40 or so stories I subbed. We debated back and forth and whittled it down to the 20 plus in the collection, including four new previously unpublished tales, as per Gerry’s request. It was a two-year process, and the book is due for release on 1 August 2023. 

I might add that there were three stories that didn’t make the cut which I think are quite good, and hopefully, I will pen and publish a good deal more before I’m done.

Where does your horror fiction sit amongst all the other sub-genres out there?

I am the worst person to judge and assess my own work. I am told that my stories are quite visceral. Indeed, it says so on the back cover blurb of my collection. I guess they are. I never set out to write in a particular sub-genre or style, but I guess you could say many of my stories lend toward the sub-genre of brutal horror. Tales of sex, blood, violence and revenge. Perhaps the best fit is psychological horror.

My stories are a product of my background and upbringing, I suppose, but they are not a reflection of my nature. In fact, I think I’m a kind, gentle soul. I just write the nasty stuff that comes out of my imagination. I’m influenced by everything I have read, watched, and experienced, as we all are.

I would add that my stories are also laced with black humour. This factor was pointed out to me by my editor. I have never taken life or myself too seriously, and I learned at an early age to use humour to deflect the harsher side of reality. I have the capacity to see the absurdity of life and the human condition. This comes through in my work.

Who were your early influences in horror fiction?

Stephen King’s books were always widespread and readily accessible. I prefer his short stories to the novels. Bret Easton Ellis specifically for American Psycho, a treatise in psychological horror. Richard Matheson for the quality of his work, and his fellow early Twilight Zone alumni, Charles Beaumont, Buck Houghton and Rod Serling.

Clive Barker for his Books of Blood and the original Hellraiser. Fellow Brit Ramsey Campbell for his titillating sex-based horror and the collection, Scared Stiff. Joe R. Lansdale and Richard Laymon. Colin Wilson for his early novels on serial killers and sex crime.

I keep in mind that I wasn’t one of those kids who voraciously read horror from an early age. My reading tastes were always eclectic. They still are. When I started getting really interested in horror fiction, I tended to pick up large anthologies of short stories, like those edited by Stephen Jones and Ellen Datlow. So, I have never developed a strong liking for a particular writer in the genre.

Since joining the AHWA, I have endeavoured to collect the works, novels and story collections, of many of my peers in the genre. To assess the quality and appreciate the standards I need to meet, and also out of admiration. There are way too many of them to name names.

Finally, to the person who wrote my high school academic reports – now that was a horror story! 

Do you have a particular favourite story or stories in the collection?

I’m one of those people who rarely goes back and re-reads their own work after it’s out there for public consumption. However, I do love blowing my own trumpet.

I have to give a shoutout to Brumation, if only for the fact it won the Best Short Fiction award in the Australian Shadows for 2020. I am very proud of that. Four times nominated for one win. I’ll take that. It’s a cracking little old-school serial killer tale. I actually got the idea from a magazine image my wife showed me of a frozen gator sticking out of a lake in Florida. As soon as I saw it I thought, oh Hell yeah, that’s a horror story asking to be written.

I’m quite fond of my bogan black magic jilted lover tale, Love Thy Neighbour. This one is very tongue-in-cheek and laced with black humour. I’ve always found the Aussie bogan sub-culture ripe for horror and humour pickings. Plus of course, wilful ignorance is a type of evil.

Protégé is another personal favourite from a while back. I don’t think anyone has ever noticed that it is actually a twisted take on the two main characters from When Harry Met Sally. It arose when a friend of mine doing a crime writers course was asked to take an excerpt from a romantic comedy and turn it into a crime story. So, I was inspired to write my own.

I actually re-read my decade-or-so-old zombie tale, With a Whimper, by chance recently, and surprised myself by how bloody funny it was. I was laughing out loud, especially because I secretly knew who the main characters were based on. I amuse myself.

I’ve always been fond of Not Like Us, my Vietnam War epic and a not-so-subtle allegory on racism and misogyny. Exclusive to the collection. I was disappointed nobody ever picked it up. I actually wrote it years ago and it had multiple rejections. I revisited it a year ago and fleshed it out a lot more. I still think it’s a ripper.

Demontia is an ode to my parents in their declining years. They’ve both passed away now, but this story perfectly encapsulates my Dad’s sense of humour and my Mum’s rigid illogical behaviour patterns.

I better stop here before I disappear up my own orifice. I’m proud of this collection. I put a lot of years into these tales.

You also penned a true crime/serial killer book correct? That would have been quite the challenge.

Well, lemme tell ya a story…

Back in the days when I was just a 35-year-old novice, finding my way in the horror world, I had this idea to pen a non-fiction book on Australian serial killers. At the time no such tome existed, so I was confident I was striking while the iron was hot (or the knife was sharp).

I had bought and consumed countless n/f books on serial murder, imbibed the works of Colin Wilson, been enthralled by the psychological insights into the minds of serial murderers throughout the ages. I collected as many tracts as I could on Australian psychos, buoyed by the fact that there weren’t so many to cover, just twenty or so across our colonial history.

After a year of research and drafting, I penned a letter to a certain British publication, one who produced a regular counter-cultural zine, who had previously published some of my articles on murder and other psycho-sexual topics. To my utter delight they said yes.

A contract was duly drawn up, signed, sealed and delivered.

There followed a long, drawn-out couple of years of minimal to non-existent communication, and yes, it transpired the contract wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. For whatever reason, the publisher never followed through on the deal.

In the interim period, a book on Australian serial killers was published. The moment was lost, and I retreated back into the shadows and focussed on pursuing my goals in the horror fiction world.

Many years later, having finally enjoyed some success and acceptance in the horror field, it occurred to me to dig out that manuscript again. I had discovered in my true crime pursuits, that the American publisher, McFarland, had a true crime imprint, Exposit Books, that may well be interested in my work.

An inquiry was thankfully followed by an acceptance, and I readily accepted the opportunity to turn an old failing into a success, a hurt into a healing, an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan… you get the drift.

I resurrected the old corpse of my manuscript. It was interesting to revisit my writings of almost two decades prior. I edited, re-wrote and expanded the original chapters. Added further chapters at the publisher’s request. Sought out image rights and most importantly, re-wrote the introduction with the passing of time, and added a brand-new conclusion.

Thus Murder Down Under was born. That was their choice of title, not mine incidentally. Mine was something along the lines of, That’s Not a Knife…

What's next for you?

Well, old age, deteriorating physical capacity and death probably… oh you mean in terms of writing?

Well, I have a second novel in the works, following up on Protégé, my semi-autobiographical tale on my early working life in the Dark Satanic mills. It was horrible, but nowhere near as bad as I made it out to be. I turned it up a notch or ten. The proposed second novel is called Gap Year, it’s about two British girls with a dark secret, who go backpacking down under and are forced to spend a few months working on a remote farm in outback WA. Yeah, it doesn’t go well, but the girls are the heroes of the tale. However, I am mindful of the way the literary world is turning, and I’m conscious of the possibility of offending sensibilities. So that draft novel is currently with a female editor for some perspective and feedback.

Apart from that, I am writing a heap of new short stories this year. It’s a process I enjoy immensely, even though I spend so much time procrastinating and avoiding the page. When I actually force myself to sit down and write, I get lost in the world of my imagination, a dark and scary, and yet simultaneously comforting place.

In fact, I very recently finished an epic 9500-word short, the longest one I’ve written to date. It’s a cracker. Well, at least I think so anyway. I’m like most writers. Some days I think I’m the best writer in the world, other days I’m sure I’m the worst.

I have two stories coming out this year, so far. One in an anthology that hasn’t been announced yet. One in the awesome Deb Sheldon edited, Killer Creatures Down Under, from IFWG, which will be out as you read this. My story, Bait, is one I’m proud of.

I also have another non-fiction piece coming in Claire Fitzpatrick’s A Vindication of Monsters, later this year.

How can people get a copy of Rest in Pieces?

It’s not due for official release until 1 August. I see it is listed on Amazon, but not in stock yet. However, I do have several author copies on hand. So if anyone wants to PM me, I would be happy to post a copy out.

Also check with the IFWG Publishing website, where promotion of my collection and many other quality works are or will soon be available.