Over 9 of the next 10 days I will be featuring 10 of the 12 authors in this collection. Each has answered a series of questions from me about their God, why they picked it, what their favorite scary books are, and more. It’s very similar to the posts I have been running by authors all month, just with a Lovercraftian spin. Expect each day’s post to bring you a handful of new authors and titles to add to your arsenal of books you can suggest to patrons.Next up, Laird Barron.
Please remember you can also enter for a chance to win one of two copies of The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft by emailing me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com by 10/29 at 11:59pm.
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Who are you?
Laird Barron. An expatiate Alaskan, I currently reside in New York State
Who is your favorite horror author [besides Lovecraft]?
Ted Klein, Peter Straub, and Cormac McCarthy
Why do you like to write horror?
The Old Testament was a favorite around the Barron household. With a childhood like that, it's not much of a stretch I became a horror writer.
Which “God” did you focus on in the Anthology? What features of this god do you find most interesting?
Azathoth. The Demon Sultan is a vast, seething well of protoplasmic malignancy at the heart of the cosmos. Much like the Christian deity, this figure is most clearly defined by its servitors, agents, and worshipers. That leaves significant room for interpretation. The contradiction of the unmitigated alien and the excruciatingly intimate is compelling.
Please share some of the authors you are reading and enjoying now.
Stephen Graham Jones, Livia Llewellyn, and John Langan. These are three of the finest writers of contemporary horror.
What other works do you have out now?
My latest book is a collection--The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. I also recently guest-edited Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume 1.
What are you working on currently?
A new collection called Swift to Chase will arrive in 2016. I'm working on several novellas and a novel.
Mr. Barron himself is one of the finest writers of contemporary horror. Inventive word-smithing, the type of characters you haven't seen before, a keen understanding of how place functions as a key component of great horror -- he is quite simply a master. I will never look at Washington State's Olympic Peninsula the same way and I grew up there.
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