2016 has been one of my most productive years of writing ever, and one I'll remember for a number of adventures -- writing awards, fantastic retreats, my wedding, and book launches among the highlights. But before any of those adventures were enjoyed, the call for Miskatonic Dreams stands out for setting what became a wonderful tone for this year. I had nothing to submit. And then, one dark winter early morning, I woke up with an idea about two students failing class who are given a chance at extra-credit -- if they agree to catalog part of the university's collection of rare oddities housed in the vaults beneath Miskatonic U. Later that same morning, I put pen to blank page, and the following day had a completed rough draft. "Residue" dashed itself off at a fairly quick clip, and was accepted into another stunning volume (in fact, Mr. Blalock received enough quality submissions to justify the publishing of a companion anthology, Miskatonic Nightmares).
It was my pleasure to speak with my fellow authors regarding the back-stories behind their dark Miskatonic dreams.
Aaron Vlek on "The Accursed Lineage": "I have always had a special place in my heart for the batrachians in the Lovecraft mythos. When the call came out for his anthology I loved the idea of mixing my favorite things, libraries, batrachians, and Christmas into a disturbing nog that pushed the questions further. How might these creatures view their human relatives? Why wouldn’t the library at Miskatonic University hold just as much awe, fascination, and possibility, for the batrachians than it does the sometimes too curious human species? I loved getting into the head of this priggish fellow hunkered down at his studies over Christmas break when he has the run of the place to himself. But as the musty tomes and glittering horrors of the library wreck havoc on the human psyche, what lies within those hallowed walls, and below, to test the mettle and fortitude of a proud batrachian researcher shunning both humans, and his own fellows, when his research takes an unexpected turn? What would bring monstrous horror and seductive wonder to the batrachian denizen of the deep black sea? In ‘The Accursed Lineage’, that was a lot of fun to explore!"
Dave Shroeder on "Dear Mother and Father": "Dave Schroeder was inspired to write his story for Miskatonic Dreams when a friend he’d met at LibertyCon invited him to submit a piece for consideration. Dave is known for humor more than horror, so it was a stretch for him write something in Lovecraft’s universe. His only exposure to Lovecraft was through voice acting with the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, which frequently performs works by the master of the macabre. To find a funny angle on a dark topic, Dave thought the idea of a college student’s letters home to his parents would be an entertaining way to explore both the comic and serious aspects of student life at Miskatonic. For humor without the horror, Dave recommends checking out his Xenotech Support science fiction series from Spiral Arm Press about an entrepreneur doing tech support for alien technology after Earth has joined the Galactic Free Trade Association. To find out how the fun begins, look for Xenotech Rising on Amazon and see why reviewers are comparing Dave to Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams."
Chad Eagleton on "Your Special Advocate": "There was never any question that I would submit to Miskatonic Dreams. To pay my bills, I work in student affairs at a real-life university. Our purview covers anything that has to do with student health, conduct, and safety -- all issues that would be doubly important to an actual Miskatonic University. While my relationship to Lovecraft’s work has changed drastically over the years and my worldview is certainly nothing like his, what has never waned is my desire to play in his cosmos. To me, the richness, the depth, and the sheer breadth of Lovecraft’s imaginative creations, I think, are far more interesting and engaging than either his style or his nihilism. So I jumped at the chance to tie my real life knowledge in with ‘The Dunwich Horror’ -- the only Lovecraft story where the good guys win -- and create ‘Your Special Advocate,’ a wholly modern and, in some ways, more upbeat mythos tale than you’ll normally find anywhere else."
Jill Hand on "How I Died": "I need you to get me a book.” The white-haired woman slid into the coffee shop’s black vinyl booth, across from Olivia. Not ‘I want you to get me a book,’ Olivia noted, but ‘I need you to.’
Olivia,
no stranger when it came to nuance, raised her eyebrows. This could be interesting.
“A
special order?”
The
woman nodded her head and took a sip of coffee. Her lips were blood-red but they left no smudge on the cup’s rim. Not lipstick then, or maybe it was a kind of
lipstick that didn’t come off. Despite
her white hair, the woman didn’t look much older than Olivia, who was nineteen
and a freshman at Miskatonic University.
The
woman slid a thick envelope across the table.
Olivia looked inside.
Hundred-dollar bills, twenty of them.
This was interesting.
She
asked, “What book do you need?”
The
woman’s red lips curved in a smile. “The Book of Eibon. I imagine a smart girl like you can find a
way to get it out of the special collections room. Do it and you’ll be richly rewarded.”
Olivia
put the money in her purse and smiled back at her.
S. L. Edwards on "The Darkness Makes Us Whole": "I
wrote ‘The Darkness Makes Us Whole’ shortly after beginning graduate school.
Being in grad school allowed me to think of Miskatonic less as a creation of
Lovecraft’s and more as an actual university. What would such an esteemed
institution, supposedly inspired by Brown and other Ivy League colleges, do
after several scandals of faculty in the social and natural sciences losing
their minds? What would happen when an expedition returned to Antarctica, finding
no temples and plateaus, but only ice? That’s how ‘The Darkness Makes Us Whole’
began, Miskatonic has been disgraced by these scandals, its academic reputation
never having fully recovered. Enter a zealous graduate student. Enter Secrets. Enter
Madness. But the story took on a life of its own. It became one of the very
real curses that weave their way across bloodlines and echo into the blackness
of the lonely mind. I began to wonder why only the artists, only the fringe-dwellers
of society would be attracted to Lovecraft’s monsters. Was it loss? Was it
giving into the idea of insignificance, and somehow making this world more
manageable? Enter Loss. Enter Depression.’ The Darkness Makes Us Whole.’ We can
only hope."
Eric Tarango on "One Last Death": "I was Facebook surfing and came across the
announcement from Alban Lake and read the guidelines and submission subject. I
usually zone out when I am thinking and letting images come to mind. I kept
imagining what the hallways of an empty university would look like, and who
would be wandering the hallways. I saw my character come into mind standing by
the corner of a wall and peering around to see if it was safe to travel the
hallway. I knew she was dead when I saw her, and that she had died at the
university. What I did not know was why she was afraid if she was dead. I put a
few sentences down to get the feel of the story and it took
on a life of its own from there. I love when that happens with a story. I was
writing for about an hour on my couch, I lived alone, recently divorced; a
stack of books on my nightstand, been there for days untouched, and suddenly
the top one just fell over onto the floor. Scared the crap out of me. I jumped
and almost dropped my laptop. That was not cool, but I was wide awake and alert
and kept going in and out of the story to check my
surroundings. Not the only time it happened to me, too."
DJ Tyrer on "Authorised Librarians Only": "My story was inspired by thoughts about what Miskatonic
University's library would be like in the present age, as obviously, they know
exactly what sort of crazy stuff they're sitting on. I suspect Theo may have been born from thoughts
for a story for a different anthology, but if that
was her genesis, she was very much her own, three-dimensional character by the
time she emerged from my subconscious to play her part here. Beyond those details, I can't recall
much about the way I arrived at the story - it was
one of those that came together without too much conscious thought, as if I was
reporting on something that happened rather than inventing it: a wonderful way
to write a story,
but not one that lends itself to writing a terribly interesting back-story about its creation!"
Lyssa Wilhelm on "Miskatonic University Email Updates": "‘Miskatonic University Email Updates’ was heavily inspired
by Nightvale (a show inspired by H.P. Lovecraft). I enjoyed the
first-person aspect of the podcast and thought it would be interesting to have
something similar to that. I didn't want to do anything too similar to Nightvale,
so instead of coming up with weird things on my own, I delved deep into the pit
of Lovecraft lore and short stories. Almost every email has a reference to one
of H.P's works, if not multiple. My father was a big help with this story, as
he is an encyclopedia of Lovecraft stories and helped me with how certain
references should be done if I didn't have any ideas. He was a big help. An
example of harder to see references would be ‘The Outsider’. Since it was so
short, there wasn't an easy way to reference it in the emails. But, I loved the
story and wanted to include it. So, I made an anagram of the name Outsider =
Stu Dorie, as well as making him the guidance councilor. There are many other
references in the story and I hope that people can find them and enjoy how they
were done."
Guy Riessen on "The Bridges of Arkham County": "When I read the
call for stories for Miskatonic Dreams, ‘what happens in the
halls of MU after all the human students are gone,’ I immediately thought ‘professorial
love story.’ Of course the irony of a mythos love story was too good to pass
up, and it had to be a human professor and a mythos creature. I knew I wanted
to write a tale of love-that-couldn't-be -- something like Bridges of
Madison County, and the title was born. I don't write an outline
for my short stories, so watching them unfold is quite a lot of fun. It's a bit
like watching TV only on super slo-mo because I can only type so fast, you
know. I wasn't sure how the story would end until I was writing it. Would the
professor get eaten at the end? Go insane when he realized the cosmic horror of
his ‘girlfriend’? Would the lovers discover they were both different mythos
creatures masquerading as human? Just like watching a TV mystery I tried to
guess the twist, but it ended up something very different than even I expected!"
James Simpson on "If These Shadows Could Talk": "I think the idea for this story was really meant as a
celebration not just of Lovecraft's work, which I make references to, but also
several of his own inspirations. There are pieces of Hodgson, Chambers and
Machen in there along with a touch of Poe, Shelley and Stoker. It would be fun
to expand upon this somewhat. I suppose there's a melancholic edge to it as
well. There's this loneliness to evil and these creatures display that even
among their kind. There's a tinge of sadness that pervades the whole thing as
if these creatures are just stuck in perpetual motion, quietly hoping for
release and, perhaps, envying the human race that they supposedly despise so
much. There's symbolism to the light and how these beings belong to the
darkness. It reminds us that we have never quite mastered the night despite our
progression with technology and science. The darkness has always been home to
the unknown and we all remember what Lovecraft considered the oldest and
strongest fear..."
