Dissecting Jacob Strunk
Welcome back to the Black Hare Press Dissecting Author interviews, where we dissect an author each month to find out who they are, what they write, and what keeps their creative juices flowing.
Today, we slice open genre-bending fiction writer, Jacob Strunk, to spill his writing secrets and learn more about his forthcoming short read, From The Inside.
Welcome Jacob!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacob Strunk’s genre-bending fiction has appeared recently in Coffin Bell, Marrow Magazine, Allegory, and his 2023 collection Screaming in Tongues, and has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including a Pushcart, a Glimmer Train short story award, and a New Rivers Press book prize. He makes weird films and television in Los Angeles, where he lives with his partner, their pets, and a few framed movie posters.
Bibliography:
Screaming in Tongues, Alien Buddha Press, 2023
YouTube: Grave Conversations hosted by David Dastmalchian: www.youtube.com/@
What drew you to your preferred writing genres?
I was a genre fan before I knew what that meant. As a kid, I was fascinated by all things spooky: ghosts, goblins, monsters – I couldn’t wait for Halloween. Still can’t.
How much of your writing is ‘‘write what you know’ or ‘researched to death’?
People, places, situations, visuals – inspiration strikes all the time. I’ll use research to help myself build worlds and populate them as much as I will incidents from my own life, to breathe life into the universe, but once the stage is set, the fun for me is in seeing what the characters get up to on their own.
Have you ever based a character on someone you know?
All the time, but not whole cloth. What’s the fun in that?
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
Disappearing into and exploring another world, one where things make more sense.
Do recurring themes appear in your stories?
Of course. They’re on the page for you to discover on your own.
What’s brewing? What are your next big writing goals?
The novel I wrote whilst holed up in the woods one autumn lands this fall. I’m excited for that, as am I for the film we’re hoping to shoot this year (Old Ones willing). And I always have a notebook full of story ideas waiting to put down and loosed into the world.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
“Thank you for being a dork. You have no idea how important that will be down the road.”
Do you have a furry friend writing assistant ie dog, cat, bird, Hellhound, and how do they help you achieve your writing goals?
The book is dedicated to “All the dogs. Especially the old ones.” Our senior mutt Toffee seems more interested in obstructing any achievement that precludes her being the center of attention, but it is supremely helpful to life and all creative endeavors to have warm eyes and gentle licks keeping me grounded and grateful.
ABOUT FROM THE INSIDE
Title: From the Inside
Author: Jacob Strunk
Buy Link: https://books2read.com/Inside-
BHP Link: https://blackharepress.com/products/from-the-inside-by-jacob-strunk
Launch Date: 21st Feb 2026
When a lonely boy follows footprints into a house that should be empty, what he finds waiting inside will challenge everything he thinks he knows.
Since moving in with his aunt, his days are quiet—filled with schoolwork, comics, and the comforting presence of his aging retriever, Violet. But when a late-season snowstorm buries the neighborhood, Patrick notices something impossible: footprints leading into the abandoned house across the street. None coming out.
What begins as curiosity soon spirals into obsession. Strange lights flicker behind darkened windows. The house seems to breathe. And when Patrick steps inside, he finds himself face-to-face with something that defies reason.
Told with haunting intimacy and cinematic precision, From the Inside is a story of grief, isolation, and the thin membrane that separates the living from whatever watches us in the dark. Jacob Strunk’s slow-burn horror captures the fragile line between curiosity and terror, drawing the reader into a snow-choked world where even the ordinary hum of a house feels alive.
What sparked the idea for this book?
Stephen King talks about the moment that two disparate ideas find each other in our imaginations, collide and spark and bloom into a story. In this case, I had for years been haunted by the image of mysterious footprints in fresh snow leading into a house… and never back out. On a nightly walk on the quiet street where I lived in Pasadena, I noticed a house down the block seemingly suspended in mid-renovation: dark, empty, silent, sterile; no cobwebs or creaking screen doors, but rather the clean blank slate of new construction. That, I thought, would make an interesting haunted house. And suppose one morning after a big snowfall, some tracks led into the back door…
Why did you choose Patrick’s neighborhood as the setting of this book?
I was interested in returning to spooky small town Wisconsin where I grew up, which – thanks to poor city planning, bloodsucking developers, and the MAGA-fication of the American midwest – no longer exists.
What’s your favourite scene?
The moment of discovery, Patrick looking down through the bedroom window. Few things feel more empowering to a kid than a secret that belongs only to them.
THE STITCH UP
What’s your writing Kryptonite?
Real life. Capitalism.
What one thing would/did you give up to be a writer?
Writing gives.
How many half-finished and unpublished books do you have right now?
[REDACTED]
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?
Unfortunate Phineas Gage.
What book from your childhood do you remember the best?
Salem’s Lot & Dracula.
Thanks for chatting with us, Jacob. This interview is all stitched up.
Learn more about Jacob via the links provided, and remember to add From The Inside to your TBR list. It releases on 21st February, 2026, and is available for preorder now!
Want more? Catch up on all the Dissecting Author Interviews on the Black Hare Press website: https://blackharepress.com/