Interviewing Paul Kane

Helloooo!

Last month I reviewed the great horror anthology  Dark Reflections by Paul Kane which has a great series of tales paying homage to the work and characters of many authors. Inventive, effective and at times scary it is a great winter for a cold winter night. I was delighted to have Paul back to the blog to ask a few questions about the new book and a few other things.

How do you like to booktempt Dark Reflections?

Other than the official PR for the book, which you kindly reprinted with your review, if you’re a fan of the supernatural and horror genre – especially of the classics and those masters of dark literature a lot of us grew up reading – then this is the one for you! My take on such books and stories as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, A Christmas Carol, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, Carnacki: The Ghost Finder, ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, Frankenstein, ‘Lost Hearts’ and many more. I’ve had such great fun writing them over the years, so I hope people have just as much fun reading them.

When you base a tale on another tale or character from a different author, what are you trying to achieve and what do you try to avoid?

I think Kim (Newman) hit the nail on the head in his excellent introduction, when he said that they’re ‘love letters’ to the originals. I’m not really trying to achieve anything other than expressing my admiration for the authors and their work, trying to do them justice, and give readers a good time when they dive in; I always try and do that, in fairness. I figure if they’re stories I’d like to read myself, then there’ll be people out there who’ll enjoy them. Reworkings and updatings are nothing new for me, when you think about how I’ve tackled subjects like Robin Hood, the Hellraising world, Fairy Tales and such. You try to avoid anything that’s been done before, because I’m not the only writer who’s done this kind of thing of course. And you try to avoid the inevitable clichés that come with such well-loved material which has been around such a long time. I mean, look at all the different versions of A Christmas Carol there’s been – we watched most of them again this Christmas. I remember when I wrote ‘Humbuggered’, just watching and reading anything relating to the Dickens source to make sure I didn’t repeat anything. The story’s bound to share some DNA with what’s gone previously, but at the same time with a bit of luck, it’s something different that’s never been seen before. Which naturally makes it worth writing and, by extension, reading.

These tales are based on your favourite authors? Outside of these stories do you feel they’ve had a bigger influence on your work?

They’re definitely some of my favourite authors, the old masters – and every favourite writer has an impact on you when you’re first starting out, for sure. Whether that’s someone like MR James or Clive Barker, they influence what you’re doing to some extent, particularly before you find your own voice. Some of the really early stories I wrote back in the ’90s, like ‘Shadow Writer’, ‘The Torturer’ and ‘Astral’, you can really see how I was being led by the classic writers of the genre. Just that style of writing, whilst attempting to make the stories modern – or at least putting them in a modern setting. But then I began to develop my own style, write more about topics that were personal to me, which doesn’t mean that their influence vanishes – just that it’s more subtle. That’s only right, otherwise we’d just sound like imitations.  

If you could go for a coffee with one author from the list who would it be and why?

That’s a really hard one to answer, because I’d love to chat to all of them. I think possibly Poe or Dickens, though, as their experience of writing is a lot like my own – trying to sell their stuff to magazines and newspapers, drawing on contemporary concerns; expressing a message. I started out in journalism as a freelance and also shopped my short stories around the small press magazines, so I think we might all have a lot of common ground. Plus it would just be nice to hear about the inspirations for pieces like ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, which of course ‘Masques’ is an unofficial sequel to. Or ‘The Signal-Man’ which ‘Signals’ does the same for. I absolutely adore that one…

Which tale in the collection was the hardest to write?

I seem to find all writing quite hard these days, post-pandemic, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older? So I would have to say the last couple of new ones I added to the mix: ‘Heartless’ and ‘The Grey Room’. Obviously, you’ve got the weight of the originals on your shoulders, so there’s that pressure not to mess them up – but also ‘Heartless’ deals with a topic that was quite hard to write about anyway, although I think I managed to say something interesting in there at the same time. The new Carnacki story is something that had been on my mind for a while, so this just seemed to be the perfect venue for it – but finding a way into it wasn’t easy. Finding a new way of telling a beloved story. I’ve just written my second one of those, actually, which I did find slightly easier so I guess that’s progress. I did that for a new general collection which will hopefully be out later this year. I did fall in love with the characters from both tales, however, which I suppose made it all the harder to write them; knowing you didn’t want to cock it up. I’ll let readers be the judge of whether I pulled that off or not.

What are you currently working on and where can we find out more?

Marie – that’s my better half, Marie O’Regan, a superb writer and editor in her own right – and I have just handed in our next mass market anthology: Beyond & Within: Folk Horror for Flame Tree. So the back half of last year and first week of this one was taken up putting that together and proofing/editing it. It’s got some terrific stories in it, so keep an eye out for the Table of Contents in due course, but people can pre-order it here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horror-Short-Stories-Beyond-Within/dp/1804177326/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1J341M3FRQB0A&keywords=beyond+and+within+folk+horror&qid=1704375913&sprefix=beyond+and+within+folk+horror%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1) and here (https://www.amazon.com/Horror-Short-Stories-Beyond-Within/dp/1804177326/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2S9UXAS39G8RY&keywords=beyond+and+within+folk+horror&qid=1704375987&sprefix=beyond+and+within+folk+h%2Caps%2C904&sr=8-1). That book had a ‘blind subs’ element to it, so we had to read a shortlist of submissions – and when I say shortlist, it was about 130k wds! It was a bit like when we used to judge writing competitions for the British Fantasy Society back in the day, but we came away with some cracking tales by authors who were new to us, so it was all worthwhile. We’re also editing stories for the anthology after that, Death Comes at Christmas for Titan, which will be out in October. Because I didn’t have much time to write any long form novel-length fiction last year, I’ve been going through a really early novel of mine which I wrote 30 years ago and never did anything with. And I’m really enjoying reading it again, because there’s enough distance there to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes now – and at the very least it’ll be a curiosity. It’s amazing how you can spot the early versions of characters I went on to write later, or scenarios I developed for other novels. I’m hoping to grab some time to write a new novel this year, finally… But in the meantime I’ve also been putting together the general collection I mentioned before, plus The Collected Mortis-Man. I wrote the first novella featuring him – my horror superhero – for the Death collection, but now I have three, including a new 40k wd one I wrote last summer. So, as you can see, I’m keeping pretty busy as usual. For the latest updates, keep checking my site www.shadow-writer.co.uk or find me on various social media platforms.

What great books have you read recently?

I’ve actually been on a bit of a graphic novel kick at the moment, some of which have been lent to us and some given to us for Christmas. I’ve just read three Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips crime ones from Image – Reckless, Where the Body Was and The Fade Out – which were all wonderful. I also read the collected Garth Ennis and Henry Flint Hawk the Slayer run from Rebellion, which was pure nostalgia for me. Simon Pegg’s introduction to that one is worth the price alone, and resonated with me massively. I’d recommend all of those very highly. I’m just about to start reading a Joe Hill and Martin Simmonds graphic novel called Dying is Easy from IDW, so I’m looking forward to that – but afterwards I’m probably going to read a suitably wintry novel by CJ Tudor called The Drift. I’ve adored all of Caz’s novels so far, and loved the recent adaptation of The Burning Girls on Paramount+. I’ve also been trying to catch up on reading some short stories between novels, so there’s some Adam Nevill, CL Taylor, Robert Shearman and Stephen Volk on the cards before too long…