Hellooo!

Last week I reviewed the great horror anthology Isolation edited by Dan Coxon and this explores the theme of being along and cut off from the world in many different ways with excellent tales from the likes of Ken Liu, MR Carey and Alison Littlewood to name just a few. It was great to have a chance to catch up with Dan to talk about how this anthology came about

How do you like to booktempt Isolation?

We’ve got 20 of the best horror authors from the US and the UK, writing about one of the classic horror themes – the primal fear of being alone. I’d hope that pretty much sells itself!

What led to this being the theme of the book?

The way my brain works, I tend to be constantly coming up with ideas – some of them good, some of them, frankly, terrible. My gold test is to wait on things a while and see if the idea lodges somewhere in my head, or if it dissipates as quickly as it came.

With Isolation, the idea definitely had its roots in the Covid pandemic, and the multiple lockdowns that saw us unable to leave our homes and socialise as we usually would. Isolation suddenly became something that we were all experiencing. The longer I sat on it, though, the more it became clear that it was more far-reaching as a theme than I’d originally imagined. From Jack Torrance in the desolate Overlook Hotel to Alien’s infamous ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’, isolation is intrinsic to so much horror writing that I couldn’t not follow through on it.

In the role of editor how did you go about collecting and editing these stories? Does being a writer yourself help the process?

This anthology was entirely by invitation, so there wasn’t an open submissions process. That said, I always try to get a strong balance of established names and emerging writers in everything I do, and this was no exception. While there are plenty of familiar names – Tim Lebbon, M.R. Carey, Paul Tremblay – there are also newer writers like Chikodili Emelumadu and Marian Womack. Hopefully it means that readers know what they’re getting to some extent, but can also discover exciting new talent.

As for being a writer as well as an editor, for me it’s an intrinsic part of what I do. When I come up with an anthology concept, it’s often a book I’d like to be able to write myself, but just don’t have the time. I’d have absolutely loved to have written a collection of short stories on the theme of isolation, for example – but by opening it up to other people, it becomes a collaborative process and much more diverse, in more ways than one. I like to think that I’m generally constructive rather than heavy-handed when it comes to edits, too. I’ve been on the receiving end of editorial feedback often enough to know that a light touch is better all round.

Do you get surprised how people play with themes?

I’m always surprised by the ideas that a particular theme inspires in different writers, and never more so than in Isolation. I thought we’d have a bunch of abandoned cabins, maybe a ramshackle castle or two… Instead, the stories in the anthology run the entire gamut of the isolation theme, from toxic relationships to end-of-the-world survivor stories. There’s such a wide variety of responses that it feels like a great advert for where the horror genre is right now – we’re so much more than just the monster/slasher tropes that dominated in the eighties and nineties.

What else can we look forward to from you in the near future and where can we find out more?

I’m in a bit of a lull at the moment (apart from the promotion for Isolation, of course), but there are multiple projects in the pipeline. The next one, I can’t talk about yet, although I’ll shout about it as soon as I can! I also have a sequel to Writing the Uncanny, which I co-edited with Richard V. Hirst, coming next year from Dead Ink Books: Writing the Future. As for my own writing, I have stories in Great British Horror 7: Major Arcana (Black Shuck Books) and Terror Tales of the West Country (Telos), as well as forthcoming in Mother: Tales of Love and Terror (Weird Little Worlds) and Fiends in the Furrows III: Final Harvest (Nosetouch Press).

What great books have you read recently?

I’ve actually just finished reading an advance copy of a debut novel by Nadia Attia, Verge, which I’d highly recommend. It’s out with Serpent’s Tail next March – near-future dystopia re-imagined as folk horror. It’s unusual and a complete page-turner, so I expect it to do well! I also finally got around to reading Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories, which was really fun and interesting in the way it played around with found footage and crime-horror. As always, though, my TBR pile seems to grow daily!