From the Bookshelf: THE JANUS DEMON by Roxanne Dent

Forget rainy days -- Roxanne Dent's The Janus Demon is the perfect read for any day or night, regardless of the weather.  The author’s paranormal dark fantasy, which travels a gritty roadmap from New York City all the way to Fey-ville and back, tells the tale of detective Mick Grimaldi, a private eye dogged by more than one dark secret.  Grimaldi’s world is populated by demons and a vengeful vampire crime boss, Kryak, responsible for murdering Mick’s parents.  From the moment readers enter the detective’s office – finding it overturned by a third-rate demon thug in search of information – they are treated to a nonstop thrill ride.  Soon on, Grimaldi crosses paths with his first love, Jasmine, who leads him deeper into a myriad of dangers.  Gorgeously written, even at its bloodiest (ie, the roasted white elves and theater scene battle between shape shifters), Dent's latest novel, released by the fine folks at Great Old Ones Publishing, is a must-have for any bookshelf!

I first met Roxanne seven summers ago, almost to the day, and was instantly smitten with both the author and her flare for telling stories.  It was my pleasure to sit down with the brilliant scribe and genuinely lovely lady to discuss Mick Grimaldi, his world, and hers.

Mick Grimaldi and his world are spectacular! Take us into the genesis of your novel, The Janus Demon.

I have a great many favorite authors in different genres, but the ones who influenced me to write The Janus Demon, are Jim Butcher, George Martin, Charlene Harris, Ann Rice, Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien and Ann McCaffrey.  As a child and teen, I also read fairy tales. Once I started reading adult paranormal novels, I couldn’t stop, often reading until the wee hours of the morning I liked them so much, I decided to write one myself, and began collecting information on myths and legends of ancient Ireland, Celtic names (I’m a quarter Irish), elves, the Fey, demons, witches, Griffins, shape shifters and all things magical.

You’re what I’d call a born writer. Share with us the Roxanne Dent story.

Although English was always my favorite subject in school, I didn’t start writing creatively until I was in my teens. Instead, I created stories in my head. When I’d see a movie or television show I loved, I’d act out the different parts with me in the starring role. If I didn’t like the ending, I’d change it. This might have something to do with my early upbringing by two actors. My mother would act out dramatic roles, usually Shakespearian tragedies in order to entertain me. As a child, I loved adventure stories, which included westerns, pirate movies and mysteries, although Peter Pan left an indelible impression on me that lasted for years. Later on, I became addicted to shows like Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock, Star Trek and Outer Limits. Growing up, I avidly read National Geographic magazines and watched shows dealing with foreign cultures or ancient civilizations. They fascinated me. When I began writing, my love of foreign and dead cultures led me to place many of my stories in other time periods.

In High School, I began writing poetry. For the most part it was sad, tragic and full of teenage angst. However, I wrote a poem “The Devil’s Disciple,” which tackled racism in and around New York City. I entered it in a statewide competition. When it was accepted, I began to think for the first time about the possibility of becoming an author. I wrote my first story, “Karine”, a Regency novella for my sister Karen who was a teen and addicted to Georgette Heyer Regencies. A year later, I sold my first two novels, Island of Fear, a Gothic mystery and The White Fog, a Gothic paranormal to Avon Paperbacks.

What’s your process? How do you work?

Since I’m an early riser, I get up every day by 6 or 7 a.m., make a pot of French Roast, check out my e-mails and Facebook for about forty-five minutes, walk with my sister for about three miles before I start writing. I always have several projects in the works or a new idea to work on. I never lack for ideas. If I don’t have one, don’t wake up with one and am not inspired by something on the news, I will troll the internet to see what contests are out there and appeal to me. I keep a deck of playing cards by my side to shuffle when I’m stuck or just looking for the right word. If my sister, Karen, also a very talented writer, who has recently completed her first novel, A Case to Kill For, a paranormal Noire, is not on her way to work in Boston, we head out to Panera’s or Starbucks to write. I love this as I often get a lot more accomplished than at home. There’s something about smelling the food and coffee, the murmuring of the people around us, while free of guilt over chores not done that spurs me on to write. If Karen’s at work, I’ll sometimes grab my laptop and walk around the corner to the awesome café, “Wicked Big,” and write there.

You are prolific and juggle multiple projects, in multiple lengths and genres. How do you manage to maintain your consistent level of quality?

Perhaps it’s because I’m a Gemini, but ever since I first started writing and selling, I’ve always written in different genres, including Regencies, mysteries, westerns, fantasies, sci-fi, horror and YA, short stories and novels. I’ve also written screenplays, one of which The Pied Piper, won first prize in Fade-in Magazine. Karen and I also collaborated on plays together, which were put on at the Firehouse Theater in Newburyport, Massachusetts and collaborated on short stories. When we lived in NYC, we belonged to “The Sunday Club,” a group of independent filmmakers who gathered together to write and direct short movies made in one day. Out of this came Valentine’s Day, a three-minute thriller which won the Audience Choice Awards at the Bare Bones International Film Festival. Whenever I begin to write in a new genre or form, I find it exciting and inspiring and sometimes nerve wracking but always interesting and a great learning experience.  My father once said if you’re a writer – write. I’ve taken classes, workshops, attended conferences and belonged to critique groups and support groups. They are all helpful and enriching, but I also believe if you keep writing, you will get better and better. It’s the nature of the beast.

Is there a sequel to the novel in the works?

Beyond the Iberian Sea, Book Two of The Janus Demon, is in the works. It shifts between Mick Grimaldi, the lonely, sardonic, shape shifting NYC detective and Bronagh, the bitter, vengeful daughter of a Volk King. In addition to Beyond the Iberian Sea, I’m nearing the end of a Steampunk novella. My short horror, “The Haunting of Jemima Nash,” based on a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, was accepted into an anthology for the Whittier Museum. It’s debut is September  26^th at the Whittier Museum. I’m proud to say my story “Heart of Stone,” was in the fabulous horror anthology, Enter At Your Own Risk: Dreamscapes Into Darkness by Firblog Publishing, which was recently released.

The Writing Process Blog Tour

One of my favorite emerging writers, Laura J. Bear, asked me to participate in the Writing Process Blog Tour.  Laura authored the novel Where the Heart Lands, a must-read about family, love, and a magical old house of secrets nestled in the remote heartland, forthcoming from publisher Unsolicited Press.  I first had the joy of meeting Laura and hearing her read from her debut novel during my sophomore stay at When Words Count, a writers' retreat center in Vermont.  Laura's work is powerful, attaining that perfect balance of witty and heartbreaking.  Deep into her second novel and a handful of new short stories, she is definitely a literary voice to be on the lookout for!

Now, on to the tour.

What are you working on?
As of this morning, there are 142 as-yet-unwritten stories short and long screaming at me to finish them from within the metal confines of the recipe box that is my idea catalog.  Closer at hand, I am presently putting the finishing touches on a collection of three novellas, what I hope are literary modern fables each dealing with the subject matter of robots and humanity.  Tales From the Robot Graveyard is forthcoming from the fine folks at Great Old Ones Publishing.  I am also, in addition to various short stories, gearing up to work on a new novel called Different.  It's a paranormal YA and I'm challenging myself to write a first draft during November for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Even closer at hand, I depart on this coming Thursday for a four-day writing retreat to Maine with friends and members of my Southern New Hampshire writers' group.  There, I plan to complete a futuristic romance novella called "Narcissus", and wrap two short story drafts -- "Saturday Morning Cartoons" and "American Grotesque".

How does your work differ from others' work in the same genre?
I have my own voice, my own way of approach to telling the story.  We host three writers' group parties a year in our home -- May, September, and December, the Christmas party.  We've done this for years. And there is always a theme for the reading portion, which follows after we've stuffed ourselves into comas as a result of the buffet.  Past themes have included such nifty gems as "Coffee", "Down the Up Staircase", and, recently as homage to my new book, "Robots".  You can take any of those themes, which are only basic starting points, put a dozen writers in the room (or two, as was the case for our massive May 2014 salon), and none of the stories are going to be anything like the others.  For our upcoming Christmas 2014 party, everybody selected a different prompt.  I got "You're digging in the garden when you find..."  I'm thrilled.  I have no idea what I'm going to write for the party, but it will be mine when I unleash it upon the party guests.

Why do you write what you do?
I guess, because it's there.  No wait, that's climbing mountains...though some story projects feel like scaling Everest!  I write what I love to write, and don't allow myself to be pigeonholed by the business side of writing.  This past summer, I wrote westerns, horror, mainstream stories, gothics, and a detective story.  As in evidence in the 142 ideas on note cards that howl -- oh, how they howl at me! -- I'm a bad judge at separating the good ideas from the weak until the story is completed.  To me, they're all my babies, all part of the litter, and I can't love one more than another or discard it from my protection.  An idea pounced upon me in early August -- what if you woke up and the man who claimed to be your husband was a stranger?  That story ("The Husbands") charmed me from the moment I put pen to blank page, and wrote its 5,000-word first draft in two days.  When I was a teenager and just starting out, I read an interview with a famous and beloved Science Fiction author, who stated that he easily had three times the number of his 300-plus published short stories 'moldering' away unfinished elsewhere in his office.  I found the notion of all those half-birthed babies really sad, and vowed on the spot to finish everything I start.  Not that all of those ideas are gold; in fact, my filing cabinets are filled with plenty of completed manuscripts that will never go out for consideration into the world.  But writing even the lowliest of my creations to THE END has taught me valuable lessons. And I love, really love, the process.  All of it.  From creation to execution.

How does your writing process work?
I have a fairly comfortable process (for me) -- I wake up, make my coffee (usually iced), and settle into my Writing Room with set priorities in mind.  I have a wonderful, big room in the downstairs of Xanadu, our old house on the hill in New Hampshire's North Country -- and, after checking morning emails, I pick up my pen and write.  I try to put down 2,500 fresh words per day, with anything above that count bonus.  Sometimes what I'm working on is assigned by editors I've written for previously who ask me to write specifically for their latest projects.  Other times, I'm creating new work to hopefully match up to calls for submissions I've read about and would like to be part of.  I compose all of my first drafts longhand and then edit onto the laptop.  The only exception is when I write in screenplay format -- I wrote two feature film scripts in 2014, for the movies Brutal Colors (presently being color corrected in Los Angeles) and the forthcoming The Devil of Lakeford County, planned to go before the cameras in winter of 2015.  And over this past summer, much of my editing was done on the wonky, wonderful old sofa left behind by previous tenants of the house on our sun porch.  The sun porch became a second, al fresco writing space during a summer that was too brief.  The last part of my process is supremely important, at least for me, which is to remind myself why I write. Often, I envision the fifteen-year-old version of me who knew nothing, had nothing, but then found everything when he first experienced that Eureka! moment, and knew he wanted to be a writer, only a writer, with all of his heart.  From time to time, when I hold a contributor's copy in hand or I've just had an exchange with a celebrity -- one of those blazing superstars from my youth -- I try to honor that young me by taking the time to feel humbled and happy.  Writing still is and has been for most of my life the heart within my heart.

Thank you for reading about my process.  I now pass the blog tour baton to the Sisters Dent, my luminous friends and colleagues Roxanne and Karen.  Karen, I always note, appeared during the golden age of soap operas on my late, beloved One Life to Live, among others, as an actress.  She's since parlayed her talents to the writing life, and her engaging short fiction can be found in numerous venues, including Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification.  Roxanne's newest novel, the brilliant The Janus Demon, has just been released by Great Old Ones Publishing.

Answering THE CALL OF LOVECRAFT!

The book that would not die lives!  Long last, The Call of Lovecraft is available in both e- and print formats. It's been a circuitous route -- TCoL was staked, eulogized, and nearly forgotten...until the fine folk at Evil Jester Press asked me to take the reigns of a personal project, anything I wanted within reason, and I exhumed the collection from the dead.  I was one of the first authors accepted when TCoL was envisioned by another editor, a different press.  I brought back our celebrated cover artist, Billy Tackett, the uber-awesome Ramsey Campbell, and 99.9% of the original Table of Contents from Year:2010, which includes so many talented authors.  I even bulked up the page count by adding six hand-chosen authors whose work routinely ranks among my favorite.

Like TCoL, my original short story offering, "The Green Dream," experienced a whirlwind journey en route to publication -- it was accepted in June 2010 for this collection, which then folded when the book company dissolved; was accepted for another to be published by The Twisted Library, which was also cancelled in October 2011.  By that point, I had written "The Mercy of Madness" to replace it within TCoL.  "The Green Dream" found a home in my enormous collection of original short and long stories, The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse: Twenty-Six Tales from the Terrifying Mind of Gregory L. Norris (EJP).  "Mercy" is an updated, rewritten version based upon the most horrific dream of my life, which involved a forced march to an abandoned factory deep in the woods during an icy rainstorm.  The original story was read during the early days of my first writer's group, late 1993. During that same time, Scott Goudsward read his Lovecraftian tale "That Place" to an audience looking over its shoulder while navigating the brooding autumn darkness on the way to their vehicles post-meeting.  That both stories are contained within the covers of TCoL seems not only fitting to me, but supremely cool.

It was my pleasure to ask my fellow contributors to share a bit of back-story behind their stories in The Call of Lovecraft.

Ramsey Campbell on "Cold Print": "My short story 'Cold Print' began life as 'The Successor'. It was one product of my struggle to sound like myself. I wrote a bunch of these after delivering The Inhabitant of the Lake and 'The Stone on the Island' to August Derleth in March 1963. A couple saw limited circulation, but nearly all of them were rewritten from scratch to their considerable benefit. I mentioned having finished 'The Successor' to Derleth in June 1964, but subsequently did nothing with it until he asked me (in late1967, I think it would have been) to come up with a new Lovecraftian tale for his next anthology. If I looked at 'The Successor', I imagine it was askance.


Parts of it do survive in 'Cold Print': many of the urban descriptions, and except for changing 'moist' to 'wet', the final image. The main changes were to the characters. The protagonist Derek Sheridan collects banned books, and that’s pretty well all the reader learns about him, because I’d simply put myself into the story. Sheridan meets his unnamed contact at a film society based on the Merseyside Film Institute and has to suffer the other’s enthusiasm for bad thirties Hollywood movies. In those days I was given to inserting observations into the story whether or not they were relevant to the theme. I needed Sam Strutt to let the telling become more controlled, and I borrowed details of him from a gym master at my old school and a colleague in the Civil Service who would ask me to lend him exciting books. 'The Successor' will be included as an extra in the forthcoming follow-up from PS Publishing to their definitive edition of The Inhabitant of the Lake – the second volume will collect the rest of my Lovecraftian short stories. Meanwhile, here’s 'Cold Print', risen from the dust." 


Scott T. Goudsward on "That Place": "The original version of 'That Place' was written way back circa 1993/1994 and, after several failed attempts at placing it, the story was re-written and re-named.  It was one fated night at my writer's group that Gregory Norris heard it, and it stuck in his craw as did the story he was reading at the same time.  Through the years, I'd re-written it a few times to try to make it 'fit' and always thought it was going to end up a trunk story until the invite went out for The Call of Lovecraft.

What made the story what it is, the thing was based on a gaming session of the RPG The Call of Cthulhu from Chaosium.  My brother was running it and I can't tell you who else was at the table.  The undead ghoul rats (as I call them) from the session ended up being the creatures beneath the grates in the story.  The tunnels as well as some of the characters are long imagined speculation between friends and I..."

William Meikle on "The Colour of the Deep": "I don't like caves; dark passageways filled with creeping shadows, slimy moss and big beasties just waiting to jump. It's something that's been with me since my childhood when three of us ventured into one and, as a joke, I was left alone in the dark. That experience led directly to my story 'The Colour of the Deep.'  My friends came back for me, and we're still friends to this day, so the story isn't autobiographical beyond the first couple of paragraphs. But I really don't like caves."

Carol MacAllister on "Blood Pine": "In some pagan beliefs, the pine tree is considered to be 'alive.'  If you touch one you just might feel the pulsing life within it, particularly, if you are within a remote stand. Kirlian photography shows plants that have been trimmed back or cut still hold phantom energy shapes of lost limbs. Sick plants are said to be helped if surrounded by well ones – a communication of sorts takes place and many sick plants recover. So, if vegetation does have a unique mind of its own what would happen if human blood got into the mix?   I saw this when traveling through Kentucky years ago where wide open spans of Civil War battlefields lay before me, dotted with tall dark spruce. How interesting, I thought, they scattered the landscape like they’d sprouted from the dead who had lain there after the battles. And with a little tap on the shoulder from Lovecraft and fostering from otherworldliness, a stand of pine, as in 'Blood Pine,' might easily mutate and interact with humans, perhaps like Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows."

John F. D. Taff on "The Tentacle": "'The Tentacle' began life when my friend, J. Travis Grundon, wanted a story for a Lovecraft anthology he was putting together—which ultimately became Gregory’s The Call of Lovecraft. Now, I’ve read Lovecraft and enjoyed some of his stories, but he’s not exactly my cup of tea.  I think this is because his writing style has been pastiched to death, like Chandler.   And because his style has a kind of humorless aridness to it that’s a bit too pompous for my taste.  Probably shouldn’t be knocking Lovecraft in an anthology dedicated to him, but there are some pieces by good ole H.P. that I do like.  At the Mountains of Madness is a particularly effective story.  Anyway, what I wanted to do with 'The Tentacle' was pastiche the old guy and add a little humor to the mix.  The result is a story that has a lot of Lovecraftian elements in it, plus (hopefully) the humor I was aiming for; but also, at the end, a poignant and cosmic twist that lends a more serious air to the story’s conclusion.

Roxanne Dent on "Magnus the Magnificent": "As a lover of the sea and paranormal magicians who do more than parlor tricks, I was intrigued by the combination. When I lived in New York I taught remedial reading to prisoners in a prison and later joined an organization that helped them to adjust to life on the outside.  One thing I discovered was that it was extremely rare for an ex-prisoner to remain out of jail.  There were many reasons for this, including family dynamics, drugs and poverty, but one thing stood out.  It had a lot to do with 'hubris,' or pride that made him overestimate his criminal creativity, causing him to think he could execute the big score and get away with it.  I used all of these elements in my story, 'Magnus the Magnificent.'"

Geoffrey James on "The Vessel": "My exposure to Lovecraft goes back to the 1960s when I discovered a box of Weird Tales magazines in a drawer at my grandmother's house.  Later, my father (who'd collected the volumes) gave me a copy of Lovecraft's Best Supernatural Stories, which at the time contained his membership card in the "Weird Tales Club," which, alas, is now lost, although I still do have the book. When Gregory asked me to write a story for this volume, I turned to 'The Dunwich Horror' because, before my father died, he and I drove into central Massachusetts and, based upon internal references in Lovecraft story, discovered that Dunwich was, in fact, the town of Shutesbury.  Sentinel Hill is still there (there's a retreat center atop it!) as are numerous (apparently) pre-Columbian stone ruins. In my view, the most original aspect of Lovecraft's writing is his rejection of the dichotomy between good and evil. All horror written before Lovecraft assumes a world where Good and Evil are in equilibrium, with Evil able to (temporarily) overcome Good, but where Good will eventually triumph. As such, horror existed in an essentially Christian context.

Lovecraft completely scraps that dialectic. Lovecraft separates religion into two general categories: traditional religions which are based upon human imagination and therefore impotent and (for want of a better term) eldritch religions, which are based on actual (albeit alternate) reality and therefore powerful. Put another way, trying to scare away Cthulhu with a crucifix will get your crushed or eaten. As such, in Lovecraft's world, it makes a certain amount of sense for those who are religiously minded to worship the elder gods, since they 1) actually exist and 2) actually have an impact on the mortal world. Unfortunately, Lovecraft never pursues this angle, instead attributing such worship to either cultural or racial degeneracy or a combination of both. In other words, to Lovecraft, those who worship the Elder Gods are simply sub-human.

When writing 'The Vessel' I decided instead to take my cue from my father's observations and treat such worship not as a manifestation of inferiority, but rather an understandable reaction to the intrusion of an alternate reality into the mortal world. While Lavinia's family background and albinism have certainly influenced her life, what's far more important to her is an ecstatic religious experience that makes her feel cherished in a way that she'd been unable to experience before. In doing so, I tried to raise her from the subhuman caricature that she is in the original story into more of a human being, with understandable motivations and desires.

H. David Blalock on "The Shed": "As a long-time Lovecraft fan, I often find interesting ideas surrounding ordinary objects, usually at the most unexpected times. In the case of ‘The Shed’, I was mowing my lawn when I noticed the door to the shed in my yard was slightly ajar and didn't remember leaving it open. One thing led to another, and soon that shed had become something much more sinister than a simple wood and metal structure. The story, once the idea was developed, took just a short time to write. I was delighted to find that it met the requirements of TCoL."

Karen Dent on "Endless Hunger": "As a child, I loved the old movie The Crawling Eye.  The mists, the mountain, the psychic woman connected to the monster are all rolled up with my first introduction to Lovecraft.  I’d always wanted to create a story that would affect others as those images had me.  I hadn’t read any of Lovecraft’s works in years so I downloaded every story I could -- and scared the crap out of myself all over again.  He was a painter of words, teleporting you from a soft, cushy couch to getting dragged into the deep recesses of an agonizing forever. 

                                       

The idea of endless suffering, the inability to escape and the slow torture of continued cognitive thought horrifies me.  I hope you like ‘Endless Hunger’ -- however I think placing it in New Hampshire, at Lake Winnipesaukee might have been a mistake.  I no longer feel safe walking the black road alone in the dark of night, especially when I pass the D.H. [Divided Highway]."

John B. Rosenman on "I Luv RT": "Sometimes stories come from nowhere, an empty void.  Or a faint wind on your face.  Or from a word, a book cover, a sublimely beautiful sunrise—or sunset. In the case of ‘I LUV RT,’ the kick-starter was very definite.  I was driving down the street, minding my own darn business, when a pretty girl cut in front of me, giving me the finger as she sped on.  I recall that her license plate contained the letters ‘RT.’

I sped up, ran the girl off the road, and killed her.

No, I didn’t.  I was pissed for a few seconds and then forgot it.  Or rather, I went home and wrote a story called ‘I LUV RT,’ which is about a nerdy loser with self-esteem issues who has a young girl cut in front of him on the road . . .

Well, you get the idea.  And I swear on my psychiatrist’s couch the character in the story has nothing in common with me.  Honest!  I’m absolutely comfortable with my rugged masculinity.

At the time I wrote the story, I was reading the works of H.P. Lovecraft.  At the Mountains of Madness, “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Rats in the Walls,” and so on.  What impressed me the most was the creepy, Medusa-like nature of supernatural horror.  Imagine the sinister and seductive possibilities of ultimate evil! There are not only cosmic forces that don’t care a rat’s ass about us, but to most of us, they are ineffable, indescribable, and unimaginable. You not only can’t capture their good side in a photograph, they don’t have a good side.  And if your mind is strong and resilient enough to view them directly for a whole second, in the next second, it will probably snap like a dry pretzel and crumble completely.  Unless you are one of the few who find them beautiful.

Look out!  These banished Old Ones want to return and take over Main Street again.  Are you going to stand in their way?

So an impatient female driver and Lovecraft’s view of supernatural evil and horror were two main influences on the story.  I’ll mention one more: the possibility that we’re ultimately all alone and don’t even begin to understand each other as well as we think.  In my case, was that female driver really disgusted with my slow driving, or was there another reason she cast driver etiquette to the winds and blew me off?  I hope you read my story and find out, then realize it’s unwise to make assumptions about anybody.  Who knows?  Even your sweet old granny may have a body or two stashed in the cellar.

There’s a lot more I could tell you about ‘I LUV RT,’ but then I’d spoil the surprise. So—enough said!"

James Ravan on "The Winds of Gobekli Tepe": "I prefer fiction that is rooted in truth and 'The Winds of Gobekli Tepe' is such a story. The setting, a hilltop expanse called Gobekli Tepe, does exist and is a thriving archaeological site today. What happened there? Why was the site buried? Who buried it? What rituals were performed by these prehistoric peoples millennia before writing was invented? To what Gods? And to what intent? Gregor Engel, a field archaeologist, his wife Ingrid, Aya and her mother Kek, explore these questions."

Jacqueline Seewald on "Legend": "As the educational media specialist/librarian for a large regional high school in Central New Jersey, I did all the book ordering. High school students love horror fiction. So it's important to provide a quality collection. One of the books I ordered was Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, ten stories by the master edited and introduced by Joyce Carol Oates. As I examined the book, making certain it was appropriately cataloged, I became intrigued. I knew I wanted to be the first to read this particular volume. So I checked it out and took it home with me that day. Oates, a prolific mainstream literary author, wrote what I consider to be a brilliant essay on Lovecraft. After reading that as well as the short stories in the collection, I was inspired to write my own short story, a tribute to the father of modern horror fiction. I hope readers will enjoy ‘Legend.’"

Derek Neville on "The Clearing": "The original germ for the idea for 'The Clearing' actually started in a dream I had. The fragments I remember from it were that I had a bird's eye view of a man wandering into, of all things, a clearing and finding an abandoned train there. It should be noted, I have very odd dreams pretty much every night, but regardless it was a visual that stuck in my head. With most of my story ideas I tend to latch onto a moment that just gives me a feeling in my gut, something that no matter how many times I think about it, I get that same excitement to start filling in all the blanks. I have a lot of ideas, as I'm sure most of my fellow writers do, and a lot of them exist in this form of smalls scenes and moments, just waiting for their time in the sun to be fully explored. When Greg first approached me about contributing to The Call of Lovecraft it was like he opened up a door and gave me carte blanche to figure out why this man and this train were in a clearing to begin with. It was a chance to play in a sandbox I'm most comfortable in. 

For me, 'The Clearing' was about exploring a lot of different themes, and I won't explain them all here as the reader's interpretation of the story is far greater than my intention. I'll tell you that one of the bigger ideas that the story is picking at is the eternal battle between free will versus fate. If you knew that someone was pulling the strings would that impact the choices that you made? Also, I've always been a big fan of ensemble pieces and there's nothing more fun for me as a reader and as a writer than to watch a group of people who hate each other have to band together to survive. I hope 'The Clearing' makes the reader ask a lot of questions. I'm sorry to report that the answer's are not all there on the page, but I think I gave you enough to draw your own conclusions on what things meant. The story is very similar in that way. It asks questions, big questions, like are we ultimately judged for the wrong we do? I'll be honest with you, I had a blast writing this story and I hope that enthusiasm comes through on the page." 

and artist Billy Tackett on his beautiful cover: "I've always been a Lovecraft fan and doing this cover was a treat. For some reason I had never considered doing any Lovecraftian pictures but while doing the research for The Call of Lovecraft I was bitten by the bug! I'm currently working on a series of pictures featuring the indescribable horrors featured in Lovecraft's works."