Horror Q&A Steve Gladwin: “Slight edge of black comedy”
“What all my work does have in common is that slight edge of black comedy and it’s sometimes very dark.”
The short story collection Something Wicked This Way Rides from Dark Owl Publishing is an anthology featuring some two-dozen authors exploring the Old West with a twisted view, showcasing the 1800s through stories featuring the wicked, supernatural, demonic and just plain weird.
Steve Gladwin contributed “The Ballad of Billie Lee.” In this interview, the author talks about writing to music, his unpublished ghost stories, and his upcoming projects.
More interviews in this series:
Q1 What’s your favorite thing about mashing up horror with the Old West?
It was the first time I'd done anything like this. A long time ago I wrote a collection of ghost stories based on the months of the year and never tried to get them published.
Apart from elements in my work since I've never really written any outright horror, so it was a great opportunity. You can probably write what I know about the Old West on the back of an envelope, so I decided that as long as I had the right feeling to it, it would be fine.
What I love most I suppose is taking an old theme like the saloon good time girl and the good and bad men who dominate her life and giving it that avenging ghost edge.
Q2 Did you approach your story as a western story with elements of horror—or vice versa?
Very much as a western story but with the feeling always at the back of my mind that it had to be horrific—and I was sure—very black comedy-wise. I wrote both of my Dark Owl stories to music which connected with them, and in the case of Billie Lee, I used Aaron Copland's 'Rodeo' and 'Billy the Kid'.
It just flowed right out then. I'm very lucky that music almost always helps me write.
Q3 What inspired this particular story of yours?
One of the things that Dark Owl happened to suggest we might cover as authors was the idea of a ghostly Old West bordello, and that just grabbed my attention straight away. Billie Lee and her dilemma came to be almost immediately.
After that, the music did the rest over about three sessions of writing, so three lots of 'Billy the Kid', etc.
Q4 How does your story in this anthology compare/contrast with your usual fiction?
It's very different. I write a lot of dark things in my work, but my short stories recently have been more quirky and off-beat.
I've been working on a collection called 'Gods and Sods', which pretty much speaks for itself - about gods and fairy tale characters and their mischievous and often cruel pranks. But what all my work does have in common is that slight edge of black comedy and it's sometimes very dark.
In the other story I wrote for Dark Owl about a haunted saxophone, ('Plays Like the Greats' in the anthology 'A Celebration of Storytelling') which actually comes from 'Gods and Sods', the twist is a lot crueler.
Q5 What do you want to tell Monster Complex readers about your latest or upcoming work?
Well, let's see. On the non-fiction side I've been working on a book called 'Land in Mind' which will be published in the future, which is a whole load of interviews with some really brilliant authors and others about how the land has inspired them.
I've also returned to a project about helping people of all ages deal with loss and change. The books are called 'Swallow Tales' (juniors), 'Shapeshifters' (secondary), and 'The Raven's Call' (adults). Some of those are really spooky, especially 'Tom Raven' in the middle collection, which is about a class full of dead kids.
My other books I've been working on are a middle grade children's book called 'Bess o' Bedlam', which is about a fairly posh girl in Victorian England (I'm a Brit, living in Wales) who has a secret life of being a professional Bess o' Bedlam, or Mad Girl. Finally, my 'A Very English Faerie Story' is pretty much that, full of faeries and music and things that go bump in a big country house and elsewhere.
And lots of other great stuff I don't have the time to develop.
FIND THE AUTHOR ONLINE
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16889176.Steve_Gladwin
ABOUT THE BOOK
Something Wicked This Way Rides
(Dark Owl Publishing)
An anthology of weird westerns and genre fiction in the Wild West
Click here for the Goodreads page!
This book is appropriate for teenagers.
The anthology Something Wicked This Way Rides explores the Old West with a skewed view, showcasing the weird western genre through stories that explore the peculiar and fantastic, the wicked that was and could have been. Experience spiritual nightmares, mythical monsters, cosmic outlaws, discerning gods, and science run amok. Even the North Pole Security Division isn't immune to the supernatural strangeness that stalks the late 1800s. In the tradition of pulp and western stories of a bygone era, these are thirty tales to intrigue, amaze, and perhaps downright spook readers out of their boots.
Includes stories from: Gustavo Bondoni, Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen, Kenneth Bykerk, Dwain Campbell, Gregg Chamberlain, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Stuart Croskell, Lawrence Dagstine, J.B. Dane, Kevin M. Folliard, John A. Frochio, Steve Gladwin, L.L. Hill, Adrian Ludens, Stefan Markos, Jonathon Mast, Jason J. McCuiston, Gregory L. Norris, Q Parker, Peter Prellwitz, John B. Rosenman, Alistair Rey, Darrell Schweitzer, Bradley H. Sinor, Matias Travieso-Diaz, Charles Wilkinson, Martin Zeigler.
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