What’s your most favourite under-appreciated novel?

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. It’s one of the early masterpieces of cosmic horror, and the swine-things are probably the most terrifying creatures based on pigs in all of fiction.

Does writing energise you, or exhaust you?

It depends on the piece, honestly. Usually, I get the exhausting part out of the way early because I outline all of my writing pretty extensively before starting; that way, the writing can just be the fun part.

What inspires you?

A little bit of everything. Books; H.G. Wells, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Movies; John Carpenter, Sergio Leone, Ishiro Honda. Television; X-Files, Outer Limits, Channel Zero.

Did you always want to be an author?

No, filmmaking has always been my first love. But I love to write in any format, and short stories are just easier to bring into the world than films are (not to mention cheaper), so I end up putting out a lot more prose than I do short films.

Is there a particular message that you hope readers will take from This Hideous Joy?

I don’t have any specific message I’d like readers to take, I just hope that anyone who has struggled with depression will be able to relate to the main character, and that anyone who hasn’t will be better able to empathise with those in their lives that have. There’s an alienation to mental illness, and an isolation that allows human suffering to grow in the dark—it could use some light.

What’s brewing? What projects are you working on?

Well, I’ve got a long-gestating horror anthology podcast called Gray Matter coming eventually, though the pandemic has severely delayed actual production. I’ve got plenty of scripts finished for it that I’m very proud of, so hopefully we can get the show recorded and released sooner rather than later.

How many half-finished and unpublished books do you have right now?

Uh, oof—too many. Just don’t ask about unproduced screenplays—I’m practically buried under them.