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Tuesday 30th April 2024 sees the publication of Micah Castle’s novelette, A Home In The Darkness (cover by Adrian Baldwin). Just before publication, Dean and Micah sat down and talked.
DEMAIN PUBLISHING: Welcome to DEMAIN Micah, happy to have you here. Let’s go for it, tell us all a little about yourself… MICAH CASTLE: I’m honestly a boring person. Most of my time is spent with my wife or writing, reading, taking care of our animals, weight lifting, and unfortunately [right now] looking for a day job. I’ve always wanted to write a book. It was a goal of mine for as long as I can remember, but it was one of things you say you want to do but just never do it. Well, sometime when I was 20-21 I said, “Fuck it” one day and began writing. I started taking it ‘seriously’ after my first short story sale in 2016. DP: Well done. Let’s take a step back and think about your early years and whether they influence(d) you as a writer… MC: My childhood and teenage years were okay, but could’ve been a whole lot worse. Mainly the former doesn’t really influence my writing. The latter definitely pops in and out in some stories, especially when it deals with those carefree years of fucking around and making dumb jokes with friends. DP: I assume that it was during those years you were first introduced to the horror/weird genre ? MC: My mother almost exclusively read Stephen King, so his books were all around the house, but my first horror series was Goosebumps back in the 90s. I didn’t read much in my teens, mainly non-fiction, but when my girlfriend (wife now) gifted me Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, I was blown away by the stories. I didn’t know horror fiction could be written that way, and soon I discovered weird fiction and the rest is history. DP: And your novelette ? MC: A group of people wake up in a house they don’t remember how they got to, and quickly discover the house doesn’t care about the whims or wants of its occupants. Oh, and it’s not night outside. It is probably the most experimental and weird story that I’ve written, at least in longer form. DP: Again well done, we enjoyed reading it…did you have to do any research… MC: There wasn’t much research for A Home in the Darkness, but when something requires research, I typically just Google a bunch of things. If it’s anything very specific, I’ll sift through user comments in niche subreddits on Reddit. DP: Nice, nice – was it a difficult story to write ? MC: Yes, I knew where I wanted the story to go, but it was hard to finagle it into digestible form without it becoming too overwrought. DP: I hear you…so what is Micah Castle’s biggest success to date… MC: As of right now, it’s my debut novella, The World He Once Knew, published by Fedowar Press back in January. It’s a sci-fi horror story about a dead man’s conscience being bought and uploaded into an android-like body for the sole purpose of finding out what happened on a spaceship that’d gone dark two weeks prior. What he finds makes him wish he would’ve stayed dead. DP: Sounds interesting – will it add it to the TBR pile (and wish you continued success with it). Thinking about what you said [about Stephen King/HP Lovecraft] let’s talk about your other influences… MC: I read anything that interests me, so it’s not just weird fiction, horror, speculative fiction, etc. There’s far too many books and authors to name, but the reads I really enjoyed recently were: Only the Living are Lost by Simon Stranzas, Grasshands by Kyle Winkler, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen, Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Lure by Tim McGregor, The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel, The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence, The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste, Dehiscent by Ashley Deng, and The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. DP: Some excellent titles there…with regards to horror/weird, what do those genres mean to you… MC: They’re both genres that can be utilized for just about any type of story someone would want to tell. It’s true for about every genre that the genre itself can be used for framing the story, so it doesn’t have to be straight horror, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. DP: So what do you think draws readers into them ? MC: Imagination and morbid curiosity, probably a little bit of fear, too. Readers are looking for anything that doesn’t relate to reality or does, or things familiar with their lives or things unfamiliar with their lives, or something realistic or something unrealistic. Really, there are thousands of different things readers are looking for in a story. DP: For sure…the world right now is quite a scary place (perhaps it always has been, it just seems right now we’re living in a ‘tipping point moment’) does that impact you as a creator [and do you put ‘world events’ in your work] ? MC: Usually, no, but recently I’ve used a thing that happens regularly nowadays in the States, not a specific event, for a book. There’s nothing wrong or bad about using real events, it’s just I prefer to make up fictional things to fit the story (also makes it easier to write, since not much, if at all, research needs done since it’s my own creation). DP: Nice. Okay, is there a particular book or film you’re looking forward to reading/watching… MC: I don’t keep up with movies, but the book I’m looking forward to is The Daughters War by Christopher Buehlman, the sequel to his dark fantasy novel The Blacktongue Thief. Another fantasy book I’ve been waiting for ages for is The Seven Sisters by Niel Giaman, which is also, a sequel to Neverwhere. I’m hoping for a new Susanna Clarke book in the near future, and I’d love for another Isaiah Coleridge novel from Laird Barron. DP: Great names…is there a new writer that perhaps interests you… MC: Unfortunately I don’t know what makes an author new or not. Some authors have been in the writing business for years and only broke out recently. I think authors like Scott J. Moses, Michael Wehunt, Kyle Winkler, Joe Koch, Corey Farrenkopf, etc. are going to become more well known (at least outside our little horror writer bubble) in the near future. DP: Great point ! And also that you’ve mentioned Joe Koch who has worked with DEMAIN in the past…I guess you wouldn’t agree then [as has been said] that horror is ‘dead’… MC: No, there’s more horror/fantasy than there ever has been. DP: So is there anything that Micah Castle is frightened of ? MC: Death and dying. I have thanatophobia, but not severely. I’d say death/dying plays a role in some way or another in almost all my longer works. DP: I hear you…creatively then, what else would you like to achieve… MC: Besides writing as many books as I humanely can, I’d like to learn to play the piano eventually. But until there’s more time in the day, that venture will stay on the backburner. DP: So writing is definitely a long-term career aspiration… MC: Writing is so integral to who I am I can’t imagine living without it, so I’ll be writing until I’m in my grave. DP: [Which hopefully is a long time yet] Do you interact with your readers… MC: I like talking to other readers as a reader more than an author, because at the end of the day we all love reading and books. All our interactions have been through social media, so unfortunately no funny stories to tell. I’ve spoken to several authors who’ve influenced my work through social media for no other reason than I enjoy their work. Luckily, so far, all of them have been welcoming and kind, even going so far to read my own work, which is still surreal to think about. DP: It certainly can be ! Okay, last question Micah…for those of your readers you haven’t yet connected with, is there something surprising about yourself that they’d love to hear… MC: I’ve run (and started) an underground metal, deathcore, death metal, metalcore, djent, etc., promotional entity for over a decade on the side called Pig Squeals & Breakdowns. I don’t do it as much as I used to since starting writing, but I still promote when and where I can (for instance, Enterprise Earth’s newest album Death: An Anthology is fantastic and you should listen to it). That’s definitely up my street so I’ll check it out. Micah, thanks for your time and best of luck with A Home In The Darkness. If you’d like to connect with Micah direct: Website: www.micahcastle.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/micah_castle Facebook: www.facebook.com/micahcastleauthor Insta: www.instagram.com/micahcastlewriter Patreon: www.patreon.com/micahcastle
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CategoriesArchives
July 2024
AuthorDean M. Drinkel |