Horror Q&A: Kevin M. Folliard (Something Wicked This Way Rides)
“The Old West is such an enduring setting because it embodies adventure, danger, and oftentimes isolation.”
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.
Anthology contributor Kevin M. Folliard is a Chicago area author whose works include the acclaimed videogame parody Press Start films and web cartoons. His published fiction includes the scary stories collection Christmas Terror Tales and the dark fantasy novel Jake Carter & the Nightmare Gallery.
For Something Wicked This Way Rides he contributed the story “Inner Skin.” In this interview, Kevin takes us behind the scenes with “Inner Skin,” compares it with his usual fiction, and gives us a preview of his upcoming YA adventure novel.
More interviews in this series:
Q1 What’s your favorite thing about mashing up horror with the Old West?
The Old West is such an enduring setting because it embodies adventure, danger, and oftentimes isolation. When you're settling vast open land, anything can go wrong, and it naturally lends itself to horror and suspense.
Adding supernatural elements can even further heighten that sense of dread, because there's nothing even close to the infrastructure of our modern world there to protect settlers and frontier folk.
There's also something magical about the Wild West, by now it's a faraway time, and it feels plausible--like a fairytale--to insert myths, legends, ghosts, and the like right alongside those people and towns which have long faded into history and become ghosts themselves.
Q2 Did you approach your story, “Inner Skin,” as a western story with elements of horror—or vice versa?
For my story "Inner Skin," I can't honestly remember if the supernatural premise of the skin-walker creature came first, or if the western setting came first, but both elements quickly materialized. As a Native American legend, the idea of the skin-walker naturally lent itself to undertones of discrimination and otherness that are present in the story, which was a tragic historical reality in America's western expansion.
Q3 What inspired this particular story, “Inner Skin”?
Aside from the skin-walker legend, I really liked the idea of a "one-scene/one-room" story, where the monster is present, but we just don't know where. It's a tried and true formula, but I had fun giving it my own spin in a Western Saloon.
Q4 How does your story in this anthology, Something Wicked This Way Rides, compare or contrast with your usual fiction?
It aligns pretty well with my usual horror writing, but it's not every day that I do a period piece, and I've only ever written a handful of westerns. I've always felt that scary stories were better when they were contemporary, because the audience would be more afraid of a scary element infringing upon their own immediate world, but I think I'm changing my mind about it.
It's really fun to try and capture a different time and place, and if a story successfully transports you there, scary is still scary.
Q5 What do you want tell Monster Complex readers about your latest or upcoming work?
For December 2020, Dark Owl is publishing my YA adventure novel Grayson North: Frost-Keeper of the Windy City. Grayson is your average 13-year-old who inherits incredible ice-powers, and he's suddenly tasked with battling fiery elemental creatures called Sulfurians.
The story is set in my hometown of Chicago, and I had a lot of fun weaving in the city's history and iconic locations. It's funny, scary, heartwarming, and mostly just a fast-paced adventure that I hope kid (and kid-at-heart) readers will really enjoy!
FIND THE AUTHOR ONLINE
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:
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
Gregory L. Norris
Q Parker
Peter Prellwitz
John B. Rosenman
Alistair Rey
Darrell Schweitzer
Bradley H. Sinor
Matias Travieso-Diaz
Charles Wilkinson
Martin Zeigler
MORE HORROR AUTHORS
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Horror Author Q&A: Laura J Campbell (No Lesser Angels, No Greater Devils)