What was the environment like in terms of magazines to submit, publishers interested in authors, popular appeal of horror, critical look, etc? Was the horror boom truly busted when you started? Here, the discuss career, craft, and how they’ve approached making gripping fiction that is a must read for the modern reader of dark fantasy, crime, and horror.ĭark Scribe Magazine: Take us back to year one of your professional careers: You make your first major sale and begin to carve out your own path in horror fiction. And, against a backdrop of declining markets and the rise of the small press, each helped spear head a resurgence of dark fiction that continues to set a high standard of excellence in terms of quality, grit, and depth. Tom Piccirilli, Norm Partridge, and Gary Braunbeck are mutual colleagues, peers and influences who survived some of the darkest days of fiction to become accomplished and noted writers of fiction ranging from dark fantasy to noir to science fiction and realism. Despite these similar circumstances, each one has carved out a unique career, with a unique voice, but together they make a wild and potent chorus.

Instead of crumbling, they grew into writers whose work and voice would define much of the best and innovative fiction coming out of the small presses and become established as first rate scribes of the fantastic. In the late eighties and early nineties, three up and coming horror writers found their careers rising.

Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck