Today is the release day for the amazing anthology of Horror from ID Press called PURGATORIUM! Click on the cover below to be taken to AMAZON to get your copy of PURGATORIUM!
I am thrilled to be one of the authors featured in this anthology. I have now had the opportunity to read Purgatorium from cover to cover and it was thoroughly enjoyable. You can pick it up yourself today from Amazon.
A fun fact for me, having the distinction of having the first story in the collection, is that the LOOK INSIDE feature at AMAZON gives potential purchasers a glimpse into MY story! Here’s the first page from the LOOK INSIDE feature on Amazon…
Dubious was such a fun character to create. Doing so took me out of all of my norms. I went into a fantasy reality where everything shifted and began to appear not quite right. It’s a lot of fun to let down your hair. For me, in this instance, it was about writing something that wasn’t simple contemporary fiction. It was a challenge to bring in the magical and the surreal…but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
There are 11 stories in this anthology. All offer a slip into the dark-side…all challenge reality. All are worth the price of admission. Pick up Purgatorium today! You’ll be happy you did so.
And keep your eye on ID Press. They promise to continue to challenge the norms of genres and offer up some great reading moments for your future enjoyment…
Back in October I did some fun Proustian Questionnaire Interviews with all of the contributors to Purgatorium. By clicking on the links below, you can read all of those interviews:
My last visit with the Purgatorium Anthology contributors! Amanda Tompkins is always a delight in person, and I find her endlessly interesting. She makes me laugh and she’s also über smart and tells fascinating stories. I’m really looking forward to her words in Purgatorium. I will not soon forget the motto she leaves us with here…one I think I may take as one of my own. “Expectations are just mind forged manacles”.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the release date of this sumptuous anthology of horror! November 19th, Purgatorium will be here!
IN FACT! If you come to BOOKAPALOOZA from 10am-3pm at Durham College Centre for Food/Bistro 67 in Whitby on November 19th, you can pick up a copy of PURGATORIUM…and there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get quite a few of the authors to sign it for you! Bookapalooza is a free event and it’s ALL ABOUT BOOKS! You won’t want to miss it! It’s also the place where the Purgatorium Anthology launches!
And now, Amanda’s responses to my Proustian Questionnaire…
Prugatorio Dialogues – X – Amanda Tompkins
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Curled up in my easy chair, with a good book in my hands, and my dog at my feet.
2. What is your most preferred genre as a writer?
Fantasy
3. What is your greatest fear?
Nothingness.
4. What is your most preferred genre as a reader?
I’ll read just about anything, but Fantasy is my favorite.
5. Which horror writer do you most admire and why?
I’d have to say Mary Shelley. She did amazing work and faced a lot of opposition.
6. What was your idea of horror prior to setting off on this adventure into Purgatorium?
Taking the mundane, the familiar, and making it threatening.
7. What do you consider the most overrate virtue?
Patience. Who needs it?
8. What is your idea of horror now that you’ve been to Purgatorium?
Word count limits.
9. What else have you written?
A few short stories, and several works in progress.
10. When and where were you most afraid?
When I realized that nothing is forever, and you can lose the people you love most.
11. Which talent would you most like to have?
I’d love to be able to read/speak every language.
12. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Something large and predatory. That probably says more about me than I’m strictly comfortable with.
13. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Being forced to watch a loved one suffer, and knowing there is nothing you can do.
14. What are your three deserted island books?
‘To kill a mockingbird’, by Harper Lee. ‘War for the oaks’, by Emma Bull. ‘The interior life’, by Katherine Blake.
15. Who are your favorite writers?
Usually whoever I’m currently reading.
16. Who is your hero of fiction?
Atticus Finch
17. What sound grates on you more than any other?
People chewing loudly with their mouths open.
18. How would you like to die?
Ideally, not at all. Realistically, in bed having just finished the last page of a good book.
19. What sound brings you deep joy?
The click of my dogs nails on the tile as he runs to greet me.
20. What is your motto?
‘Normal’ is a subjective judgement call, and expectations are just mind forged manacles.
LIFE IS CHANGE
Children become adults. Summer becomes winter. The old pass from life to death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But to some, life is purgatory. A place of temporary suffering between this world and the next.
In these eleven stories, every painful, frightening transition is driven by a single element.
Another day, another visit with authors from the Purgatorium anthology coming soon from ID PRESS! Today, I have an interview with Yvonne Hess. One more to go. Amanda Tompkins has some writerly deadlines to meet, so she will be participating shortly. Writers ALWAYS have deadlines of one kind or another. It keeps us honest!
I also took the liberty of answering this Proustian Questionnaire myself…so you’ll find my responses here, immediately following Yvonne.
I love love love Yvonne’s response to the first question. It’s quintessential. Enjoy her interview and look forward to discovering her horror fiction in Purgatorium. It’s coming!
Purgatorio Dialogues – VIII – Yvonne Hess
Yvonne Hess (Photo courtesy of the author)
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
The moments when I become aware that I am experiencing true happiness in that moment.
2. What is your most preferred genre as a writer?
Literary/historical
3. What is your greatest fear?
Heights or being the centre of attention in a room full of people I don’t know.
4. What is your most preferred genre as a reader?
Impossible to choose! But if I have to pick one I’d say historical.
5. Which horror writer do you most admire and why?
I actually don’t read horror.
6. What was your idea of horror prior to setting off on this adventure into Purgatorium?
To me, horror could be anything from slasher/blood and gore to psychological thriller.
7. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I’m not sure any of these can be overrated.
8. What is your idea of horror now that you’ve been to Purgatorium?
(Not answered)
9. What else have you written?
Several full-length manuscripts.
10. When and where were you most afraid?
I can’t talk about that.
11. Which talent would you most like to have?
Singer/musician.
12. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
The daughter of a multimillionaire!
13. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
I can’t talk about that either.
14. What are your three deserted island books?
Impossible to pick just 3!! But if I have to…Shogun, Outlander, anything by Jane Austen.
15. Who are your favorite writers?
Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Diana Gabaldon, Edward Rutherford, James Mitchener…the list goes on and on.
I could not make all the other contributors answer this questionnaire without also putting myself through the ringer. So, as we await Amanda’s response…I give you my own:
Purgatorio Dialogues – IX – Kevin Craig
Kevin Craig
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Laughing with my grandchildren, or being purposefully lost and wandering in a foreign city.
2. What is your most preferred genre as a writer?
Although not quite a genre, I would have to say coming-of-age. I love the young adult market, but I love that a good coming-of-age story can explore themes not quite young enough for the YA audience, and yet still have the youth aspect to it.
3. What is your greatest fear?
The theft of childhood
4. What is your most preferred genre as a reader?
I don’t have one. Story is king, genre are the clothes donned by the story.
5. Which horror writer do you most admire and why?
Stephen King. Because he is one of the best character writers in the world. He knows the importance of all aspects of storytelling, not just shock.
6. What was your idea of horror prior to setting off on this adventure into Purgatorium?
Scary. Must. Terrify. Reader.
7. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
FORGIVENESS. It is not imperative to offer forgiveness. Some are not worthy of it. Most often, when you are giving it, it is to free yourself from the wrong done to you anyway. I only consider forgiving when the one I am forgiving is worthy. Sometimes, they are not.
8. What is your idea of horror now that you’ve been to Purgatorium?
It’s the genre where you take the reader by the hand and lead them down the garden path they simultaneously do not want to be lead down and can’t help but go freely and eagerly. They have to trust you and be leery of your motivations at the same time.
9. What else have you written?
Plays, poetry, novels, articles, and memoir. And manifestos…many manifestos.
10. When and where were you most afraid?
November, 1977…the day my childhood was stolen.
11. Which talent would you most like to have?
Singing.
12. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
I always picture myself as an aging Russian peasant farmer woman. I think getting there would be hard and tiring, but to just wake up one day as an 87 year-old babushka wearing peasant woman picking potatoes on her farm would be the loveliest of things. As it seems very unlikely this would happen, I’ll go with DOG.
13. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Not forgiving yourself for something that you could not possibly be blamed for…and having the kind of unhealthy mind that would allow this self-blaming to thrive and hold you hostage.
14. What are your three deserted island books?
I included this question because I hate it. The nature of the reader is that they love all the books. Their three go to books would change by the day, by the hour, by the minute. It makes for a conflict in the brain when they are asked this question.
Right this second, my answer is FRANNY & ZOOEY by JD Salinger, THE WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon, and, THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS by Anne Rice.
But right this second, my answer is quite different!
15. Who are your favorite writers?
JD Salinger, Michael Chabon, Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, Jennifer Niven, Hannah Moskowitz, Sylvia Plath, John Green, Anne Rice, Mark Twain, Naguib Mahfouz, and on and on and on…
16. Who is your hero of fiction?
Zachary Martin Glass (Zooey)…because he is a king of sarcasm and a lover of life.
17. What sound grates on you more than any other?
The sound of a baby crying.
18. How would you like to die?
Any way other than the ways I have imagined in my darkest days.
19. What sound brings you deep joy?
A child laughing with utter abandon. And cicadas.
20. What is your motto?
I have several. This too shall pass comes to mind. As does Never quit and See beauty where others refuse to see it and LOVE.
KEVIN CRAIG 