November 13, 2024 • 46 mins
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Special Guest: J.F. Penn is a British author renowned for her thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, and horror novels. She has achieved New York Times and USA Today bestseller status, with her works translated into multiple languages and sold in over 84 countries.
Penn's notable series include the ARKANE action-adventure thrillers, the Brooke & Daniel crime thrillers, and the Mapwalker fantasy trilogy. Her stories often weave together ancient artifacts, international locations, and elements of the supernatural.
Books by J.F. Penn
This latest episode of the Nightmare Engine podcast introduces the talented J.F. Penn, as she takes us through her latest novel, "Blood Vintage." Set in the enigmatic vineyards of Somerset, England, Penn draws inspiration from the local folklore and mysterious rural settings that breathe life into her work. Through a backdrop of pagan rituals and secretive communities, we explore her creative process, which mirrors the knack Stephen King has for uncovering horror in the mundane.
We then venture deeper into the murky world of folk horror, spotlighting ancient rituals and their intriguing survival in modern times. Our conversation touches upon the enigmatic Green Man and the folklore of the Wendigo, examining how these stories symbolize deeper moral struggles. From the haunting imagery of Morris dancing near Glastonbury to the transformative nature of the Wendigo legend, our discussion challenges listeners to reconsider the timeless conflict between good and evil.
Finally, we explore the nuances of crafting slow-burn horror and the potential of AI to revolutionize the genre. Penn shares insights into how personal experiences and family themes shape her storytelling, drawing parallels with popular films that resonate with audiences. We also ponder the intersection of history and technology in horror, reflecting on how ancient sites and modern innovations inspire narratives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nightmare Engine
podcast.
We are on season three episode.
I don't know, these things tendto go out of order sometimes,
but that's okay.
I'm calling in from a Wednesday, September, as this is probably
the first time I've done apodcast where I have everything
lined out in front of me andI've said you know what I'm
(00:21):
ready to go, and I said I wasprepared and I was clearly not
when the camera started rolling.
So we have the cameras off andyou know that we do audio only.
So, totally fine, I'm here witha very special guest and a
friend of the horror communityand just a lover of books, and
we're going to be talking todayabout folk horror and about why
(00:42):
it's so cool and so interestingand about lore.
But real quick, just to mention, Scare, Mail has taken off.
Right now my living room isbasically filled with a printer
just to print the envelopes forthat beautiful artwork that you
guys like seeing.
We're printing anywhere between30,000 and 50,000 envelopes a
month and that increases byabout 6,000 to 10,000
(01:02):
additionally every follow-onmonth.
So this has taken off.
It's taken over the.
The.
The scare mail pen pals hasjust been an amazing exercise in
community and you all are apart of that.
So thank you, Thank you forbeing a part of that community,
Thank you for believing in themessage and thank you for just
giving something like scare maila try, where we're just trying
to bring a little bit of joy anda little bit of love through
(01:25):
the vessel of horror.
I know it's kind of weird tohear sometimes, and a lot of
people who participate and enjoythings that are horror
understand it.
But people who don't, who maynot understand what horror is,
may not get that.
But there is some joy to be hadwith horror.
So thank you all for beingthere.
Newest release is coming out injust a few days.
(01:46):
We'll be looking atinsanatorium, which is another
one of my psychological horrornovels that I think if you love
not, okay, you're gonnadefinitely love this one.
So that's enough rambling forme.
Today I'm so happy to be herewith one of my uh special guests
.
Uh, mr jf pen.
Mr jf, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm good.
Thanks so much for having me,david, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So I know we just talked like what two weeks ago,
um, and it's and it's kind offun to go back and forth.
I just felt like there was somuch of a conversation that we
didn't get to in that hour.
Um, so this is, it's awesome tobring you back on and now we
can flip the script a little bitand we can talk, um, about you
and and and about your love ofhorror.
And I think that's where youknow you and I both write in
(02:27):
multiple genres we primarilystick to.
We have a lot of darker themesand I know you write some on the
thriller edge as well.
So let's talk about your mostrecent release, because we are
reader facing.
So we want to talk about books,we want to talk about stuff
that you write.
So let's talk about your mostrecent release and let's talk
about the inspiration behindthat, which is kind of the topic
and the theme today, that'sthat folk horror.
(02:48):
So let's go into that a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, sure, so I am British, as people can probably
hear, and this is really myfirst novel where I've written
about where I live, which isSomerset in the southwest of
England, and the book is calledBlood Vintage and it's set in
sort of an ancient vineyard inmodern times.
But the vineyard in terms offolk horror is, you know, the
(03:11):
secretive rural community withthe pagan rituals in the
vineyard and a young woman,rebecca, who goes looking for a
new life.
And, as we know, in these folkhorror things, when you go
looking for a new life, youoften find something quite dark
and disturbing.
And it's interesting because Iactually don't think that there
is a folk horror novel writtenabout a vineyard at the moment.
(03:34):
So I'm pretty excited aboutthat.
But yeah, I'm going deep intoWest Country folklore and
biodynamic vineyards, which iswhich is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, you just kind of get latched onto an idea, right
?
I mean just one simple idea avineyard, and you're like and
correct me if I'm wrong but youlooked at it and you're like
this could be what's messed upabout this vineyard?
Something could be messed upabout it.
What is it and you think about?
We talked about King the othertime too, and he's famous for
saying in one of his speeches hesaid I just looked at something
(04:05):
, I said what is wrong with thatthing?
And I write a story about itand, like Cujo was a perfect
example of like, there'ssomething wrong with this dog,
right?
So is that what you got withblood vintage?
I mean even the name itself,blood vintage, you know, vintage
blood wine.
I get it Like I'm starting topick up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, there's a couple of things.
So I went to in the summer, asyou do.
I went on some vineyard toursand I was at this one particular
place again in this area andthey said we did a tour of the
vineyard as you do, and theysaid there's an older part of
the vineyard but you can't gothere.
And as soon as they said that,my story, brain, brain just went
(04:48):
why can't I go there?
What are you hiding from usabout this vineyard?
And then also they told thestory of frost candles.
So if people don't know, whenthere's a frost and you have a
vineyard, you can light thesecandles at night.
And so I just had this visionin my head of a vineyard at
night with these little candlesunderneath and I was like oh, oh
, wow, that is an image I wantto put in a book.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
(05:08):
And then I started learning andyou have a lot of these in
America, these biodynamicvineyards, and they do really
weird things with animal innards, like you know, stomachs, and
they bury horns and bones in theearth and then spray it on the
crops and they have all thesereally interesting practices and
they plant things by the moonand they put different plants in
(05:31):
different preparations and theyhave these preparation sheds
and you know, in my mind againthis sort of folk horror element
of the shack in the woods withall the bones hanging down and
all of that kind of thing and Ijust like, oh, there's
definitely something here.
And then then also I went onthis other wine tour and their
wines were called the Celticfestivals of Beltane, lammas and
(05:54):
Sarwin and I was like, okay, ifI had a novel that went across
the year, the vineyard year, butalso these festivals.
Um, as we know, bad thingshappen at, uh, ritual festivals.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So this all kind of came together in my mind and, um
, yeah, I just thought this,this has to happen yeah, I think
so many people are justintrigued by things that we
might have done historicallythat may seem odd today, like a.
There's like this clash rightof what's normal, what's not.
When we go to other culturesand they do things that that our
(06:28):
culture is not accustomed to,it seems odd to us and we kind
of have to take a step back andappreciate what they're doing.
You know, and we, you know youmostly see it in religious
practices.
You know, every religionpractice is a little bit
different.
I'm a christian and I seedifferent types of christianity
all the time and I have take,you know, respect for that.
And so do you think thatthere's this shift from like
(06:51):
when things were to when thingsare now?
And we look at that and we'relike man.
It was okay back then a longtime ago vintage old you know
but it's not okay now.
We would find that odd.
When does that shift happen?
Is that a cultural thing?
Is that a religious thing?
What do?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
you think.
Yeah, there's a few elementsthat I think.
First of all, you mentionedthis sort of historically and
the other thing about this areaof the UK is that the Romans
brought vineyards here.
They bought vines 2000 yearsago to this area, so this is one
of the oldest places outside ofItaly.
So that kind of echo into thepast and also with folk horror,
(07:31):
it's often about how old theland is and how short a human
life.
So is a human life evenimportant against the backdrop
of history?
But then you mentioned therethe sort of local weird customs
and I actually wanted to ask you, because here in the UK we have
maypole dancing and also Morrisdancers have you heard of those
(07:52):
things?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I it's probably a bastardization of what it really
is, but I've seen, likeMidsommar, the movie.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, and they dance around the maypole.
They dance around the maypole,right?
So I?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
can I have a vision of it in my head?
It's probably the completelywrong one, but that's the only
time I've heard of the maypoledance.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, Well, you can tell by the shape of the maypole
what that is in terms of afertility ritual.
I'm sure we don't need tospecify what that is, but young
women dance around the largepole and then there's a lot of
other fertility things.
But here in the Southwest wehave this thing called Morris
dancing and there's a sort ofvery clean version where you get
(08:32):
people dressed in white andthey wave hankies and bash
sticks and sometimes they've gotBrussels sprouts on and
sometimes they wear differentmakeup and flowers.
But then there's also this darkMorris, this sort of border
Morris, where they wear raggedcloaks like crows and they wear
black hats and they wear thesort of black makeup across
their eyes and it's like super,super dark and they perform in
(08:55):
the evenings rather than in thedaylight.
And I read about these darkMorris and it's a similar
fertility ritual, but again it'sgot this real edge and
sometimes they have someone whowears a horse's head skull as
part of that.
And this ancient area of the UKso I'm quite near Glastonbury,
(09:16):
which is where there's a lot ofpagan stuff goes on.
It's linked to King Arthur anda lot of that.
It's like we're echoing backinto history.
But what's so interesting is itstill happens now, and even
though people are notnecessarily going to church.
But we are a Christian countryas such, but these rituals go
back thousands of years beforethe Romans, even to the sort of
(09:39):
early Celtic fertility.
So I think this is what I loveabout it is we don't lose these
things, we don't lose the oldmyths, and I was actually going
to ask you about your book,wendigo, because that looks a
bit like it's folk horror -y.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean.
So I think, like you do, Ithink I have a fascination with
folk horror itself, with ritualsand fall car itself, uh, uh,
with, with rituals and old andold religious beliefs, stuff
that that you would, that seemsto be lost.
But, like you said it now andI'm kind of changing my opinion
on this based on what you saidis that we never really lose it.
(10:16):
It just kind of changes, youknow, and it kind of goes
underground a little bit and andmaybe it's not practiced as why
, as as widely and as openly,and now our world seems to be
shifting where these types ofthings are practiced more often.
And, yes, I just loveeverything folk art I love.
The perfect example is like theBlair Witch Project.
I absolutely loved it and Iloved it for just the five
(10:39):
scenes that were like in thehouse, house, you know, and and
and seeing the, the, the woodsand the, the, the crosses made
out of sticks and and and leavesand and and string.
So I, yeah, so I, I, I had this.
I had this a movie a long timeago.
It was called when to go, andit's probably one of the only
movies that's ever scared me andI just recently re-watched it,
(11:01):
like 25 years later, and I waslike I need to write a book
about the wendigo and a lot ofthe books that I'd read about
the wendigo.
Because I was, I was studyingup.
You know, as I do, right beforeI write a book, I'll I'll study
other books that are similar tosee what's working and if I
like it or not.
Um, before I go into it andthen see if I can do it
differently.
Um, and I was reading all thesebooks about the wendigo and
(11:22):
they were always like the badguy.
It was always somebody fightingthe Wendigo versus like the
Wendigo is.
Actually, if you look back atthe history of the Native
Americans, what they believedabout the Wendigo is that it's
basically someone who has fallenvictim to cannibalism, and they
look at cannibalism as likethis disease, disease.
And when you engage in that,this, this ultimate crime
(11:44):
against a person, then thisspirit overtakes you and you
become the wendigo, and then youare cursed with insatiable
hunger, and so that's how thetransformation begins.
And so I started writing about,like, the history of the
wendigo, and I wanted to keep ittrue to the lore because in a
lot of the books I'd read itwasn't, it wasn't necessarily
true to, or you know, to, what Icould, what I could research,
(12:04):
so yeah, just.
And then you look at the greatersin.
Right, there's always a greatersin in horror.
You know it's With Wendigo.
The greater sin is not, youknow, it's not the cannibalism
so much, it's more like theself-sacrifice that you're
supposed to do rather thanengage in cannibalism.
(12:25):
And the greater sin is the factthat we let go of that
self-sacrifice.
We choose not to do that.
We choose the easier path,which is to eat our friend.
That's not an easy path, butit's easier than to say, you
know what, this is not the rightthing to do.
It basically comes down to thatstruggle versus versus good and
evil, and I think that's whathorror is just in the end, no
(12:49):
matter what, what, what storyyou're reading, what what folk
horror you're researching.
It all comes down to good andevil.
So what's what's yourinterpretation of good and evil
and all this?
How does it play a part in yourstories?
Like we see it kind of playedwith in fantasy and dark fantasy
, where it's like you know,there's a good side and the evil
side.
But I think there's probablysome gray lines there, you know
(13:11):
yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You just talking about the greater sin there, um,
and sacrifice and the good,what is good and what is evil.
I think these have also changed.
So the folk horror ideas Ithink are older, often older
than Christianity and the ideaof what is good or evil.
You and I have talked aboutthis on my podcast about the
evil in the Bible and what wewould consider bad now is in the
(13:37):
Bible.
You know, things like cursesand plagues and punishments sent
by God, demonic possessions andthe apocalypse and all this
kind of stuff.
But I think in you know youtalk there about choice, and
this choice to do good or evil Ithink is so important in the
horror I like, and often it is asacrifice idea in some form.
(14:01):
Do you destroy something for thegreater good, like you
mentioned?
Or is the greater sin todestroy something ancient, even
if we consider it evil?
And this is why I think folkhorror really gets to me in this
idea of wild nature.
And I like a bit of eco horroras well, but not when we're
destroying the world, but whenthe world fights back and this
(14:22):
idea that the world and nature,like nature's going to survive.
Right, we might destroy theworld with climate change but
nature is going to be fine.
And I mean, you know I go awayfor a weekend and the plants
take over my garden.
You know they're feral.
And I kind of love this idea ofnature taking the world back
(14:43):
from humans.
And again, this sort of humanlife is so short, so is the
choice to let it happen.
What a lot of people want to do, obviously, is humanity is a
plague upon the earth.
Let nature rule.
But then if we do that, are wewilling to pay the price that
happens there?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, I mean it comes down to there's, there's
self-sacrifice, is is such a bigtheme in horror novels, you?
See it and you see it with andyou see it in horror movies more
prominently.
And that's, I'm gonna throwmyself on the fire so that you
can walk across, right thatself-sacrifice that doing the
tough thing, that that is theessence, I think, of what horror
(15:27):
is is like there's this, this,this tough thing in front of us,
this human thing that we haveto deal with ourselves, that we
cannot use magic powers.
We can't, we can't wait for, um, we can't wait for a divine
intervention.
We have to handle itindividually.
And I think that's where whereour position as humans, where
(15:48):
we're like, where we feel mostvulnerable, when we're realizing
to ourselves we're like I can'tsolve this any other way but
the hard way or let myself go,and that self-sacrifice.
And so I think, in all this,that good versus evil battle is
it starts internally, right, Imean it has to be.
(16:09):
I mean it has to be a decisionwith ourselves to be like you
know what, this is the rightthing, this is the wrong thing.
You make the decision and thenyou've got to deal with the
consequences of it.
I mean, isn't that what truehorror is?
I mean, what is your thought?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I still think I disagree with the true idea of
what is good versus evil.
So in Blood Vintage, forexample, and in a number of my
horror books, I do write aboutthe choice.
But should one person die tosave a community?
So is it right that a persongets sacrificed to a monster or
(16:44):
gets sacrificed to some pagangod in order to save the
community?
And if, yes, it is right tosacrifice one person, then how
many people is one pergeneration acceptable?
And what's so interesting inthis form is that this has
happened throughout civilization.
So I'm sure you've read the bookthe Golden Bough, you know of
(17:06):
the Golden Bough.
It's sort of this folklore bookfull of old things and human
sacrifices in so many cultures,and obviously we're not saying
that's what we want to do now.
But in this good versus evilidea, when is the death of one,
or the death of a few, or thedeath of one per generation
acceptable?
And that, to me, is where thedifficulty is, and I mean it'd
(17:29):
be boring if it was just youknow is where the difficulty is,
and I mean it'd be boring if itwas just you know.
Good versus evil in a simpleway right, we have to have that
dark choice, and what I lovelike my favorite book is the
Stand by Stephen King.
I know it's many people'sfavorite, but to me, what I love
about the end of the Stand andit's what I try and echo at the
end of every one of my horrorbooks is just because one evil
(17:52):
is ended, that doesn't mean allevil is ended, and so one cycle
might be over, but the cyclecontinues, and so that, to me,
is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, I mean one of the common themes that I always
one of the things I do with myreaders.
I have a reader group calledthe Nightmare Writers and One of
the things I do with my readers.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I have a reader group called the Nightmare Writers
and they get to choose an endingtype they get to choose.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
In these short stories that we write kind of
collaboratively, they do all thevoting and then I do all the
creative stuff.
They vote on the characters andthe names and locations and the
themes and the characterrelationships and the genders
and everything like that.
No-transcript, like bittersweetending yeah for whatever reason
(18:39):
they don't want, like, yes, thegood guy wins or the bad guy
wins, they get this weirdbittersweet ending and I'm
starting to find, like moviesand books that I truly enjoy are
ones that have that endingwhere the evil may not be
defeated, but it's contained,you know, and you're like, okay,
that leaves this opportunityfor the evil to continue again
at some point and it leaves thisthis kind of ominous feeling.
(19:02):
You know, and it's veryatmospheric, and I like that
word, I like that term withhorror is like you can build
that creepy atmosphere.
If you can build that feelingin me that there's something
just not right in the air orthat evil's over there contained
, all we have to do is stumbleupon it and pop that tomb and
let the thing out.
(19:24):
I don't know if you knew this,but when they opened King Tut's
tomb, six people died withinseveral years.
The people who actually openedit.
Yes, the curse, yes, the curse,yes, the king of the curse of
king tut.
I mean, you think about it.
I'm like what, why'd you haveto open it?
So I, I, I like that atmosphere, I like that, that idea that
it's just, it's just kind of inthere in the corner waiting do
(19:44):
you?
Do you write a lot ofatmosphere in your stuff, or is
it just like right in front ofyou?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
here's the scary thing oh, I sense of place is so
important to me.
And what's so interesting Ithink about the folk horror as
well is the land itself cannever disappear, I mean, unless
you're going to blow up anuclear bomb which you know I
guess has is in some of thesebooks.
But in terms of, like you know,this ancient vineyard, for
example, you can't get rid ofthat land.
(20:08):
It will persist.
So, whatever the bittersweetending for the humans of this
generation, the land continues.
And another thing I love aboutthe vineyard stuff is the word
terroir.
I don't know if you've heardthis.
If you like wine you would knowterroir and that's everything
from the land and the ecosystemthat goes into the wine.
(20:28):
And so again, it's sort of youcan keep the suspense up with
how the land influences what'shappening and the characters and
the community and the wine,which I think is just so
interesting.
And yeah, so the sense of placefor me is critical and I mean I
travel a lot, I do a lot ofresearch all over the world,
(20:51):
which is why it's quite funnythat this book is set just down
the road from me.
But I was.
I was also going to ask youbecause one of the other things
that's common here is the greenman in the cathedrals and
carvings and stuff, and Iwondered if that's something you
had in the US or something likethat, this sort of fertility
symbols of men covered in leavesso it the times that I've seen
(21:15):
it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I don't know if it's as common as it, because there's
not.
There's really not as mucharchitectural love here in the
us as there is in othercountries, um, but the times
that I've seen it you're talkingabout, it's just a.
He's a, he's a taller gentleman, it's a face.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's a face coming out of leaves, out of leaves.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
As far as in architecture, no no I don't
recall.
I'm going to look that up realquick.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, Green man.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Tell me a little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, I mean again, it's an ancient fertility figure
that goes back way beforeChrist and it appears in all our
cathedrals and churches and thestonemasons.
Of course the stonemasons havetheir own sort of mythologies,
but you see him in all of theseChristian places and I actually
made one myself quite recently.
(22:04):
I went on a stone carvingweekend and I made a green man
and he's in the garden now.
But it's again sometimes helooks good, sometimes he looks
evil.
That's so interesting I've gotagain.
It's sometimes he looks good,sometimes he looks evil.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's so interesting , I've got pictures of it right
here.
If you get an opportunity folkslistening just type in green
man.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, green man carvings.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Carvings.
Yeah, these are all a littlebit different.
That's so cool, and so what'sthe historical significance of
this?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
You've got a master's in theology and history.
(22:56):
You.
What's the historicalsignificance of this?
You've got a master's inhappens with humans, but it
normally is a face in a tree.
I mean, in Game of Thrones youalmost see the face in the wood.
It's a bit like that, but hassort of more leaves and things.
So the history sort of predateswhen the Romans came and the
Christians came here in the UK.
(23:17):
But what I love about it is howit persists into things like
folk horror.
But you could just say it's afertility god, it's a spirit of
the forest, and so wherever youare in the world, if you have a
forest and an ancient culture,then they're going to have
spirits of the forest, rightRight.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, that's so interesting.
So is this under yourinspiration folder Like?
You'll see this thing and youjust looked at it and you were
like this needs to be somewhere.
Or not necessarily this, butthis data bank of interesting
knowledge and facts, that I'mthe type that I I'll get hit by
inspiration.
Then I'll have to dive deeperinto a topic that I find
(23:56):
inspirational oh yeah, what Ilove about just?
Kind of collect inspiration.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You know what I'm saying oh yeah, and I I need to
do the input before I do thewriting and and often, my
previous book to this was calledspear of destiny and it was
about the um, the christic, theSpear of Destiny, and I was in
Austria and Germany and lookingat the history of the war and
everything and the rise of therights in the USA and all of
that kind of thing.
(24:21):
But no, I love the input stageand the research process for my
books, but I think what wasinteresting with this one is
lots, all the different, lots ofdifferent things came together.
So even that, I remember when Iwas about eight or nine years
old, um, there was, uh, the tvshow robin the hooded man.
I don't know if you rememberthis um with jason connery back
(24:42):
in the day and I rememberedgoing to see.
It got filmed near my house andI remember going to see it and,
um, you know, the, the hornedgod steps out the hern, the
hunter he he's called in RobinHood steps out of this smoke.
And that came to me as I wasresearching this and that's why
I ended up with a horned god.
And if people see the bookcover of Blood Vintage, it's got
(25:05):
this horned skull horned god on.
And I was like, yeah, thefertility figure is a horned god
on.
And I was like, yeah, thefertility figure is a horned god
.
And that's why I was interestedin your book, the wendigo.
It's completely different, butyou have a horned spirit in a
wood on the front of the book,don't you?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
yeah, yeah, I mean I I wanted to make it very clear
and obvious what the story wasabout.
Um, and you know, and, and Iguess I guess you could say, is,
when I think about these, themy, my points of inspiration,
(25:46):
this kind of where I'm lookingat now and what we're talking
about here is is like I wantsituation but like connect with
it as a person.
You know, and in in Wendigoit's actually, it's it's kind of
a, it's kind of a love and ahope of kind of a restoration
story.
A man and he goes to rescue hiswife and son from the forbidden
zone of a forest that peoplejust kind of don't seem to talk
(26:08):
about, just kind of don't seemto talk about, and when you look
at it, like the entire townitself is a character, because
they've all got this, thisbelief, and they kind of hold
true to the belief and outsidersdon't really hold true to it
and they kind of end up introuble a lot of times, going
into the forbidden zone.
And now my character, who is anoutsider, is given the
(26:28):
opportunity to go and kind ofrescue his wife and son and he,
he encounters this thing andhe's got to handle it like a
human, you know, and so I'm like, okay, if I'm, if I'm him, how
would I deal with this?
What are the thoughts and theemotions, the things that I
would feel in this particularscenario with this character, if
(26:50):
I were him not just me as aperson, but me as this character
.
And so do you?
A lot of people call that likewriting yourself into the book,
and and I don't really, I don'treally necessarily agree with
that, like I don't know ifthat's what the terminology is
supposed to be, but do you, doyou write a lot of yourself into
these types of things?
Like do you, do you bringyourself into it and you're like
I'm gonna put myself in that,in that character's place, or is
(27:10):
it like I need to watch thischaracter do this thing?
And only they could do it thisway?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think we bring a little bitof all of us and one of my
regular themes is sisters.
I'm the eldest of five kids.
I have two sisters who weresignificantly younger than me
and so when I was sort of goingthrough puberty 12, 13 they were
only you know young and I justfelt so protective of my little
(27:38):
sisters.
And I have two brothers too,but my sisters I always just
wanted to protect.
And so so many of my booksfeature protection of sisters.
And it's interesting becauseonce again in Blood Vintage, and
(28:15):
it's interesting because onceagain in Blood Vintage, rebecca,
the main character it's kind ofsparked by her sister
disappears and she goes to whereshe sort of join and have
ancient power in some way.
But it's so interesting, likeyou said, these things come up
again and again.
And in fact my previous horrorbook called Catacomb is similar
to what you were talking about.
It's a father who goes to lookfor his daughter and to save his
daughter from a terrible fate.
Obviously and again I'm prettyobsessed with fathers saving
(28:39):
daughters and the bittersweetending.
Again I mean it's not horrorbut the movie Armageddon.
You know Armageddon.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the ending.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You know, bruce Willis gives his life to save
his daughter and save humanityand all that kind of thing.
But that's the bit that makesyou cry.
It's the sacrifice of thefather for the daughter.
Um, so yes, in so many of mybooks I have these relationship
themes.
Um, I guess, and that's how Ibring myself into it, I guess
(29:08):
yeah, no, that's, that's aperfect, um, perfectly
reasonable.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
yeah, I mean and and I think people can appreciate
that, you know they're like man,this, this feels, there's this,
this idea in hard that we'vegot to.
I can't remember what it'scalled We've got to dissuade or
not dissuade, we've got to.
You probably know I'm I'mdrawing a blank.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't know what you're talking about it's, it's,
it's we.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
We are trying to um convince the reader.
We try to convince the readerthat what they're reading could
happen, that yeah absolutely andI there's a terminology for it
and I'm drawing a blank, likeyou would think I would write
horror books or something.
I would know this, um, but yeah, we, we try to convince people
that this could happen, and soand and and, um, I think that's
(29:55):
where where we get lost a littlebit, where we're we get so lost
in the horror like this is sohorrific that it could not
happen.
You know, like we think aboutarmageddon and, and I absolutely
love that movie, um, and thatlast few minutes where you're
just, you know, crying your eyesout because you know, bruce
willis can hear the song intheir head.
(30:15):
Yeah, yeah, and I can't rememberthe actor's name and he's
spinning his girlfriend aroundand they're all singing.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's Ben Affleck.
Yeah, ben Affleck, there we go,and then and Liv Tyler and it's
her actual dad singing that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, yeah, steven.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Tyler Aerosmith.
It's Aerosmith, but no, I thinkthese emotional moments and
just coming back to the, is itsuper, super horror?
I actually think one of thetropes of folk horror is that it
is quite slow burn.
So you know, it starts.
It's very much about the senseof place and a sort of female
character set in the summer aswell, which makes it kind of
less horror.
(30:51):
But the idea that it's slowburn and then suddenly things
start happening and for a whileyou can say, oh, that must just
be the local custom, and theneventually you just start going
(31:11):
okay, this is definitely weirdand definitely wrong, but I love
that slow burn horror.
I mean, again coming back to theStand, I mean obviously there's
a big global plague which killslots of people, but then a lot
of it is quite slow burn andthen it gets faster and faster
and faster and I think there'salso this sense of an
inescapable fate.
Or again, these cycles.
(31:33):
I love this idea of cyclesbecause we think we're so modern
and special, but we're not.
We're just animals, you know,with a thin veneer of
civilization over our lives andwe've got some technology and
stuff, but we're the same humansas those humans thousands of
years ago who sacrificed to thegods.
So that's kind of what I likeabout the folk thing is that
(31:55):
it's not immediate death, it'slots of slow burn mystery.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, and I've had plenty of complaints about my
stories being slow burn, but Ireally just I enjoy that.
I don't want to put the scarything right there and like, oh,
there it is, and then where'sthe rest of the story going, you
know.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And to me that's more fun.
That gives you a chance tobuild out characters.
It gives you a chance to buildout settings and just really
dive deep into lore and into youknow character relationships
and just really bring the storyto life before you hit the scary
thing.
You know A lot of people talkabout zombie movies and they're
like, well, it's action, youknow.
(32:37):
It's.
Like, well, the zombies arenever the problem.
Like the zombies could just befour walls.
They're just keeping peopletogether and just watch what
people do to each other whenthere's zombies around, like
it's never about the zombies,because they have one thing that
they do Right Zombies.
I'll try not to dive too muchinto it I love, I love
everything.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, I like zombies too actually.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah.
So, and I want to talk to youabout this also, because there
is a mall in England thatapparently shut down and allow
you to go zombie hunting.
They have this big event.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I haven't heard about that, but it wouldn't surprise
me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Oh my gosh, I'll have to send you the link.
Yeah, and they have roleplayers and you get paintball
guns and you play out this wholezombie in a mall.
Anyways, I'll have to send youthe link.
But you know, with zombies, thezombies could just be four
walls that just keep people inan area together and watch what
people do to each other.
That's where the real horror is.
It's not the zombies, thezombies.
(33:34):
If you watch the Walking Dead,you see they just slowly go to
the background and they're thereand they're always there and
they're always doing the onething that they do.
But it's in the people that arehorrible and it's like you said
we are the same people as wewere thousands of years ago.
You know, with that humanitythat we like to claim that we
have now, that we're civilizedpeople now, now that we're
(33:58):
civilized people now, and notnecessarily, if you look, go to
any, go to go to any, uh any ofthose uh hot spots on the us map
where crime is just rampant,and tell me about humanity.
But, um, so let me ask you thisthis is I, um, this is on the
on the other end of the spectrumfrom folk horror and from
history.
Um, let's, let's talk about howand I don't mean from a
writer's perspective, but from atechnological, from a
(34:20):
storytelling perspective alittle bit about AI and because
I have been writing a lot ofstories that involve AI to some
degree not necessarily likeusing it to write my stories
Everybody can have their opinionon that but I just mean about
its presence in the world.
Do you think there's someopportunities there coming up to
(34:41):
write some really really coolhorror?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, I mean, I do read some techno horror.
There's an author called DanielSuarez and a book called Daemon
, or you can pronounce it Daemon, d-a-e-m-o-n.
I highly recommend that book.
It was written like 15 yearsago or something, but it could
be true now, as in thetechnology he wrote about is
(35:04):
just coming to pass.
And there's another guy calledRamez Naam who wrote a book
called Nexus.
It's a trilogy and again, thetechnology he wrote about is
just coming true.
And it's so interesting.
Because I love reading technothriller but I don't write it
myself.
I'm pretty obsessed with thepast.
(35:25):
So, for example, I live here inBath and we mentioned the
Romans, but we have Roman bathsthat are over 2000 years old and
I'm inspired by Gothiccathedrals that are a thousand
years old and I like allfreemasons and druids and all of
this kind of thing.
I, I love technology.
I mean I have, I like all thegadgets.
(35:46):
I, you know I would.
I'll get in VR when we can.
Maybe you and I can do this inVR in the zombie place or
whatever.
Yeah, but I, I it's weird, Iactually love technology and I
don't find it scary.
You know, I can watch themovies, like you know, ex
Machina and all that and but Idon't, I don't find the
(36:08):
particularly scary.
So yeah, it's reallyinteresting that you mention it
as a sort of a horror thing,because in my mind it's just not
that at all.
I find useful tools, althoughyou did say humans are the
problem.
Now, humans empowered withtools are dangerous, but then
humans are dangerous with fire,they're dangerous with nuclear
(36:30):
weapons, they're dangerous withall these things.
So yeah, it's interesting, Ijust don't find it scary at all.
So it's not something I wouldbe writing.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, I mean, and it may not be scary the right kind
of scary maybe not.
Yet I've been looking, you know, just kind of you know browsing
for books that use AI as anantagonist.
I want to see it.
I want to see you know how ittransforms, and I don't mean
like Will Smith iRobot actionmovie type of thing, you know.
(37:01):
So I didn't know if you had anythoughts on it, I just figured
I'd ask because you're wellversed in horror and a lot of
people don't realize that.
But you are, and I figured youkind of look at the past,
present and future.
So that's really cool thatyou're like no, it doesn't
really scare me.
I just kind of appreciate itand I'm like, well, no, I
definitely recommend those books.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They're more technically thriller, I guess,
but it is interesting, isn't it?
I mean, when we write the booksthat are from our heart, the
books that interest us, ourcuriosity is such a specific
creature.
You know, you and I are bothinterested in folk horror, but
we're so different in terms ofour backgrounds and what we're
(37:41):
interested in.
And I mean my upbringing herein the UK and traveling around
Europe means that I walk aroundthe corner and there's a whole
load more historical stuff thatinspires me.
And there's so much blood inour land from people killing
each other over and over again.
I mean it's just ridiculous howmany cultures have killed each
other, even in just the areawhere I live and the battles and
you know I'm just near theborder with Wales and the
(38:04):
English and the Welsh and I meanjust there's so much blood in
the land where I am.
And so for me, that's where Ialways echo back to.
And a friend of mine said I waslike, oh, what's going to happen
in the future and all this?
And she said what was true athousand years ago will be true
in a thousand years.
(38:24):
And I love this because this iswhatever happens with
technology, whether we all getuploaded to the cloud or
whatever it is, we will stilllove our family, right?
We will still want to protectour sisters, we will still want
to love each other and we'llstill want to I don't know win
(38:44):
over the gods or whatever, andso, in that way, I feel like it
doesn't matter what happens withtechnology.
As you have said, the story isabout the humans and whether
they're rising up against theterminator or rising up against
a pagan god.
That is what we do, um.
I did, though, just want tomention that um, because I live
in bath and mary shelley wrotefrankenstein here in bath, and
(39:07):
of course, that is a horror book, but also it's a technology
book, because of the electricityyeah, the electricity that
brings the monster to life.
and if you, if anyone, comes tobath, you can visit the Roman
Baths and there's a plaque onthe wall because that is where
Mary Shelley wrote Frankensteinin this boarding house there.
And what is also funny is it'sactually above an electric
(39:32):
substation.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
How cool is that?
That is cool, see.
I wouldn't have known thiswithout talking to you.
And so now I'm like I reallyneed to visit, I really need to
come, you know, travel acrossthe pond.
I've I've only left the countryone time and I think my
worldview is probably lackingbecause of it, but I've, I've,
I've, I've traveled to France along time ago as an exchange
student, but I've been meaningto visit england, and it's just,
(39:56):
I think you're starting toconvince me when you're telling
me that there is a plaque above,above an electrical substation
dedicated to mary shelley,specifically because the
electrical element infrankenstein.
I'm like, how cool is that?
I mean, who, anyways?
That's?
That's so interesting, and I, Iso appreciate you sharing that,
and I don't think a lot ofpeople would realize they
(40:16):
wouldn't have known that withoutlistening to this.
So that's so cool, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Oh, no worries.
Well, I'm pretty obsessed withtraveling around, finding dark
things.
I mean, it's also right next tothe thousand-year-old cathedral
and there's a Jacob's Ladder,you know Jacob's Ladder, with
the angels going up and down,and it's the only time I've ever
seen it, but one of the angelsis crawling down the ladder and
(40:40):
it seriously looks like a demon.
It's like on the front of acathedral is this demon crawling
down Jacob's ladder?
And I think I look at, I lookup at it and my mind goes
straight to that angel or demonand other people you know taking
photos being tourists and I canjust see this little evil thing
do you have photos of that?
yeah, yeah, yeah, I have anInstagram at jfpenauthor and I
(41:02):
have loads of pictures there.
I also have, um, a blog and apodcast at booksandtravelpage
and we can put the links in thenotes or something.
But, um, I have episodes onBath and pictures there of all
my travels and because I'm justobsessed with researching
different places, so I put allthat there.
You can see my green man thereand the vineyards and all of
(41:24):
that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Wow, yeah, that's, that's amazing, and I did, I did
you a disservice by notmentioning how much travel and
historical research goes intothe things that you write, and
so I apologize, but you're, Ithink you've, you've, you've
shown it already that that your,uh, your, your historic
historical travels, and and havehave really been an influence
(41:46):
on what you write.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
So, um, I should also just say also um, I've written
quite a lot set in the U S?
Um, so Valley of Dry Bones, uh,which is about the Ezekiel, you
know the quote.
The Valley of Dry Bones and thebones coming to life is set
mostly in New Orleans and alsoin on the West Coast in San
Francisco, so I really broughtin some American stuff.
I've got a book in New Yorkwhich has a dark angel in, and
(42:10):
so I've traveled around the USas well.
There's plenty in the US, ofcourse, but I do find that
Europe is pretty dense when itcomes to dark history.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yes, absolutely.
So.
You told us a little bit aboutwhere to find you.
We're getting to a goodstopping point here, especially
when you tell us where we canfind more, especially about
these pictures that you've takenof your travels.
I think people would find thatso curious.
There's so much more that goesinto writing a book than it just
popped out of our head, right,oh goodness me.
(42:43):
Yes, yeah, and, and, and, and.
Some go further than others and, and.
That's totally fine, and, and,and.
Sometimes it shows, andsometimes it's.
It's like, oh well, thanks, um,thanks for writing.
You know, 16 chapters about alamppost, um, but that's not you
or me.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
No, that's neither of us yeah, thankfully.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Um.
So let's, let's do this.
Um, joe, tell us, tell us wherewe can find more of you, tell
us where we can find blood,vintage, tell us about what you
got coming up and just let folksknow, like where's the best
place to find you sure.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well, everything is linked from jfpencom and blood
vintage is jfpenncom, forwardslash, blood vintage, or one
word.
And there is a kickstarter withspecial editions and things in
october.
And then the blog is atbooksandtravelpage and there's a
books and travel podcast aswell and lots of things like
(43:34):
that.
Or my instagram at jfpennauthor, where I share lots of pictures
and things like that.
Or my instagram at jf penauthor, where I share lots of
pictures and things like thatwonderful.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
So, folks, if you're looking for more about this, if
you're looking for more folkhorror, you've got to check out
blunt vintage.
Um, I don't endorse a lot ofwriters out there, um, but I'll
endorse, I'll endorse miss penany day um, so thank you, yeah,
and I'll include links to to uh,where you can find her and
where you can find blood,vintage, and just more about her
(44:02):
travels.
Everything will be in the shownotes.
So, um, thank you so much forbeing here today, thank you for
jumping on the show and thankyou for inviting me on your show
.
Um, did you want to talk aboutthat at all or do you want to
leave that for another day?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
yeah, yeah, sure.
So, um, yes, thanks for havingme on this one.
And we had, I guess, more of ahorror conversation but also a
business conversation at theCreative Pen podcast, which is
more of the business side ofbeing a writer.
But, yeah, maybe we can link tothat in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Perfect.
Well, ladies and gentlemen,this has been another episode of
the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It's been a pleasure to speakwith Miss Penn and about Full
Corps today, and we justappreciate you guys listening.
We are a reader facing podcast,and so we hope that the things
that you get from us are thepart of us that make us human,
and that's kind of what today'stopic is about.
(44:48):
So thank you everybody, and wewill see you at the next one.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nightmare Engine
podcast.
We are on season three episode.
I don't know, these things tendto go out of order sometimes,
but that's okay.
I'm calling in from a Wednesday, September, as this is probably
the first time I've done apodcast where I have everything
lined out in front of me andI've said you know what I'm
(00:21):
ready to go, and I said I wasprepared and I was clearly not
when the camera started rolling.
So we have the cameras off andyou know that we do audio only.
So, totally fine, I'm here witha very special guest and a
friend of the horror communityand just a lover of books, and
we're going to be talking todayabout folk horror and about why
(00:42):
it's so cool and so interestingand about lore.
But real quick, just to mention, Scare, Mail has taken off.
Right now my living room isbasically filled with a printer
just to print the envelopes forthat beautiful artwork that you
guys like seeing.
We're printing anywhere between30,000 and 50,000 envelopes a
month and that increases byabout 6,000 to 10,000
(01:02):
additionally every follow-onmonth.
So this has taken off.
It's taken over the.
The.
The scare mail pen pals hasjust been an amazing exercise in
community and you all are apart of that.
So thank you, Thank you forbeing a part of that community,
Thank you for believing in themessage and thank you for just
giving something like scare maila try, where we're just trying
to bring a little bit of joy anda little bit of love through
(01:25):
the vessel of horror.
I know it's kind of weird tohear sometimes, and a lot of
people who participate and enjoythings that are horror
understand it.
But people who don't, who maynot understand what horror is,
may not get that.
But there is some joy to be hadwith horror.
So thank you all for beingthere.
Newest release is coming out injust a few days.
(01:46):
We'll be looking atinsanatorium, which is another
one of my psychological horrornovels that I think if you love
not, okay, you're gonnadefinitely love this one.
So that's enough rambling forme.
Today I'm so happy to be herewith one of my uh special guests
.
Uh, mr jf pen.
Mr jf, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm good.
Thanks so much for having me,david, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So I know we just talked like what two weeks ago,
um, and it's and it's kind offun to go back and forth.
I just felt like there was somuch of a conversation that we
didn't get to in that hour.
Um, so this is, it's awesome tobring you back on and now we
can flip the script a little bitand we can talk, um, about you
and and and about your love ofhorror.
And I think that's where youknow you and I both write in
(02:27):
multiple genres we primarilystick to.
We have a lot of darker themesand I know you write some on the
thriller edge as well.
So let's talk about your mostrecent release, because we are
reader facing.
So we want to talk about books,we want to talk about stuff
that you write.
So let's talk about your mostrecent release and let's talk
about the inspiration behindthat, which is kind of the topic
and the theme today, that'sthat folk horror.
(02:48):
So let's go into that a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, sure, so I am British, as people can probably
hear, and this is really myfirst novel where I've written
about where I live, which isSomerset in the southwest of
England, and the book is calledBlood Vintage and it's set in
sort of an ancient vineyard inmodern times.
But the vineyard in terms offolk horror is, you know, the
(03:11):
secretive rural community withthe pagan rituals in the
vineyard and a young woman,rebecca, who goes looking for a
new life.
And, as we know, in these folkhorror things, when you go
looking for a new life, youoften find something quite dark
and disturbing.
And it's interesting because Iactually don't think that there
is a folk horror novel writtenabout a vineyard at the moment.
(03:34):
So I'm pretty excited aboutthat.
But yeah, I'm going deep intoWest Country folklore and
biodynamic vineyards, which iswhich is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, you just kind of get latched onto an idea, right
?
I mean just one simple idea avineyard, and you're like and
correct me if I'm wrong but youlooked at it and you're like
this could be what's messed upabout this vineyard?
Something could be messed upabout it.
What is it and you think about?
We talked about King the othertime too, and he's famous for
saying in one of his speeches hesaid I just looked at something
(04:05):
, I said what is wrong with thatthing?
And I write a story about itand, like Cujo was a perfect
example of like, there'ssomething wrong with this dog,
right?
So is that what you got withblood vintage?
I mean even the name itself,blood vintage, you know, vintage
blood wine.
I get it Like I'm starting topick up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, there's a couple of things.
So I went to in the summer, asyou do.
I went on some vineyard toursand I was at this one particular
place again in this area andthey said we did a tour of the
vineyard as you do, and theysaid there's an older part of
the vineyard but you can't gothere.
And as soon as they said that,my story, brain, brain just went
(04:48):
why can't I go there?
What are you hiding from usabout this vineyard?
And then also they told thestory of frost candles.
So if people don't know, whenthere's a frost and you have a
vineyard, you can light thesecandles at night.
And so I just had this visionin my head of a vineyard at
night with these little candlesunderneath and I was like oh, oh
, wow, that is an image I wantto put in a book.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
(05:08):
And then I started learning andyou have a lot of these in
America, these biodynamicvineyards, and they do really
weird things with animal innards, like you know, stomachs, and
they bury horns and bones in theearth and then spray it on the
crops and they have all thesereally interesting practices and
they plant things by the moonand they put different plants in
(05:31):
different preparations and theyhave these preparation sheds
and you know, in my mind againthis sort of folk horror element
of the shack in the woods withall the bones hanging down and
all of that kind of thing and Ijust like, oh, there's
definitely something here.
And then then also I went onthis other wine tour and their
wines were called the Celticfestivals of Beltane, lammas and
(05:54):
Sarwin and I was like, okay, ifI had a novel that went across
the year, the vineyard year, butalso these festivals.
Um, as we know, bad thingshappen at, uh, ritual festivals.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So this all kind of came together in my mind and, um
, yeah, I just thought this,this has to happen yeah, I think
so many people are justintrigued by things that we
might have done historicallythat may seem odd today, like a.
There's like this clash rightof what's normal, what's not.
When we go to other culturesand they do things that that our
(06:28):
culture is not accustomed to,it seems odd to us and we kind
of have to take a step back andappreciate what they're doing.
You know, and we, you know youmostly see it in religious
practices.
You know, every religionpractice is a little bit
different.
I'm a christian and I seedifferent types of christianity
all the time and I have take,you know, respect for that.
And so do you think thatthere's this shift from like
(06:51):
when things were to when thingsare now?
And we look at that and we'relike man.
It was okay back then a longtime ago vintage old you know
but it's not okay now.
We would find that odd.
When does that shift happen?
Is that a cultural thing?
Is that a religious thing?
What do?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
you think.
Yeah, there's a few elementsthat I think.
First of all, you mentionedthis sort of historically and
the other thing about this areaof the UK is that the Romans
brought vineyards here.
They bought vines 2000 yearsago to this area, so this is one
of the oldest places outside ofItaly.
So that kind of echo into thepast and also with folk horror,
(07:31):
it's often about how old theland is and how short a human
life.
So is a human life evenimportant against the backdrop
of history?
But then you mentioned therethe sort of local weird customs
and I actually wanted to ask you, because here in the UK we have
maypole dancing and also Morrisdancers have you heard of those
(07:52):
things?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I it's probably a bastardization of what it really
is, but I've seen, likeMidsommar, the movie.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, and they dance around the maypole.
They dance around the maypole,right?
So I?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
can I have a vision of it in my head?
It's probably the completelywrong one, but that's the only
time I've heard of the maypoledance.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, Well, you can tell by the shape of the maypole
what that is in terms of afertility ritual.
I'm sure we don't need tospecify what that is, but young
women dance around the largepole and then there's a lot of
other fertility things.
But here in the Southwest wehave this thing called Morris
dancing and there's a sort ofvery clean version where you get
(08:32):
people dressed in white andthey wave hankies and bash
sticks and sometimes they've gotBrussels sprouts on and
sometimes they wear differentmakeup and flowers.
But then there's also this darkMorris, this sort of border
Morris, where they wear raggedcloaks like crows and they wear
black hats and they wear thesort of black makeup across
their eyes and it's like super,super dark and they perform in
(08:55):
the evenings rather than in thedaylight.
And I read about these darkMorris and it's a similar
fertility ritual, but again it'sgot this real edge and
sometimes they have someone whowears a horse's head skull as
part of that.
And this ancient area of the UKso I'm quite near Glastonbury,
(09:16):
which is where there's a lot ofpagan stuff goes on.
It's linked to King Arthur anda lot of that.
It's like we're echoing backinto history.
But what's so interesting is itstill happens now, and even
though people are notnecessarily going to church.
But we are a Christian countryas such, but these rituals go
back thousands of years beforethe Romans, even to the sort of
(09:39):
early Celtic fertility.
So I think this is what I loveabout it is we don't lose these
things, we don't lose the oldmyths, and I was actually going
to ask you about your book,wendigo, because that looks a
bit like it's folk horror -y.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean.
So I think, like you do, Ithink I have a fascination with
folk horror itself, with ritualsand fall car itself, uh, uh,
with, with rituals and old andold religious beliefs, stuff
that that you would, that seemsto be lost.
But, like you said it now andI'm kind of changing my opinion
on this based on what you saidis that we never really lose it.
(10:16):
It just kind of changes, youknow, and it kind of goes
underground a little bit and andmaybe it's not practiced as why
, as as widely and as openly,and now our world seems to be
shifting where these types ofthings are practiced more often.
And, yes, I just loveeverything folk art I love.
The perfect example is like theBlair Witch Project.
I absolutely loved it and Iloved it for just the five
(10:39):
scenes that were like in thehouse, house, you know, and and
and seeing the, the, the woodsand the, the, the crosses made
out of sticks and and and leavesand and and string.
So I, yeah, so I, I, I had this.
I had this a movie a long timeago.
It was called when to go, andit's probably one of the only
movies that's ever scared me andI just recently re-watched it,
(11:01):
like 25 years later, and I waslike I need to write a book
about the wendigo and a lot ofthe books that I'd read about
the wendigo.
Because I was, I was studyingup.
You know, as I do, right beforeI write a book, I'll I'll study
other books that are similar tosee what's working and if I
like it or not.
Um, before I go into it andthen see if I can do it
differently.
Um, and I was reading all thesebooks about the wendigo and
(11:22):
they were always like the badguy.
It was always somebody fightingthe Wendigo versus like the
Wendigo is.
Actually, if you look back atthe history of the Native
Americans, what they believedabout the Wendigo is that it's
basically someone who has fallenvictim to cannibalism, and they
look at cannibalism as likethis disease, disease.
And when you engage in that,this, this ultimate crime
(11:44):
against a person, then thisspirit overtakes you and you
become the wendigo, and then youare cursed with insatiable
hunger, and so that's how thetransformation begins.
And so I started writing about,like, the history of the
wendigo, and I wanted to keep ittrue to the lore because in a
lot of the books I'd read itwasn't, it wasn't necessarily
true to, or you know, to, what Icould, what I could research,
(12:04):
so yeah, just.
And then you look at the greatersin.
Right, there's always a greatersin in horror.
You know it's With Wendigo.
The greater sin is not, youknow, it's not the cannibalism
so much, it's more like theself-sacrifice that you're
supposed to do rather thanengage in cannibalism.
(12:25):
And the greater sin is the factthat we let go of that
self-sacrifice.
We choose not to do that.
We choose the easier path,which is to eat our friend.
That's not an easy path, butit's easier than to say, you
know what, this is not the rightthing to do.
It basically comes down to thatstruggle versus versus good and
evil, and I think that's whathorror is just in the end, no
(12:49):
matter what, what, what storyyou're reading, what what folk
horror you're researching.
It all comes down to good andevil.
So what's what's yourinterpretation of good and evil
and all this?
How does it play a part in yourstories?
Like we see it kind of playedwith in fantasy and dark fantasy
, where it's like you know,there's a good side and the evil
side.
But I think there's probablysome gray lines there, you know
(13:11):
yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You just talking about the greater sin there, um,
and sacrifice and the good,what is good and what is evil.
I think these have also changed.
So the folk horror ideas Ithink are older, often older
than Christianity and the ideaof what is good or evil.
You and I have talked aboutthis on my podcast about the
evil in the Bible and what wewould consider bad now is in the
(13:37):
Bible.
You know, things like cursesand plagues and punishments sent
by God, demonic possessions andthe apocalypse and all this
kind of stuff.
But I think in you know youtalk there about choice, and
this choice to do good or evil Ithink is so important in the
horror I like, and often it is asacrifice idea in some form.
(14:01):
Do you destroy something for thegreater good, like you
mentioned?
Or is the greater sin todestroy something ancient, even
if we consider it evil?
And this is why I think folkhorror really gets to me in this
idea of wild nature.
And I like a bit of eco horroras well, but not when we're
destroying the world, but whenthe world fights back and this
(14:22):
idea that the world and nature,like nature's going to survive.
Right, we might destroy theworld with climate change but
nature is going to be fine.
And I mean, you know I go awayfor a weekend and the plants
take over my garden.
You know they're feral.
And I kind of love this idea ofnature taking the world back
(14:43):
from humans.
And again, this sort of humanlife is so short, so is the
choice to let it happen.
What a lot of people want to do, obviously, is humanity is a
plague upon the earth.
Let nature rule.
But then if we do that, are wewilling to pay the price that
happens there?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, I mean it comes down to there's, there's
self-sacrifice, is is such a bigtheme in horror novels, you?
See it and you see it with andyou see it in horror movies more
prominently.
And that's, I'm gonna throwmyself on the fire so that you
can walk across, right thatself-sacrifice that doing the
tough thing, that that is theessence, I think, of what horror
(15:27):
is is like there's this, this,this tough thing in front of us,
this human thing that we haveto deal with ourselves, that we
cannot use magic powers.
We can't, we can't wait for, um, we can't wait for a divine
intervention.
We have to handle itindividually.
And I think that's where whereour position as humans, where
(15:48):
we're like, where we feel mostvulnerable, when we're realizing
to ourselves we're like I can'tsolve this any other way but
the hard way or let myself go,and that self-sacrifice.
And so I think, in all this,that good versus evil battle is
it starts internally, right, Imean it has to be.
(16:09):
I mean it has to be a decisionwith ourselves to be like you
know what, this is the rightthing, this is the wrong thing.
You make the decision and thenyou've got to deal with the
consequences of it.
I mean, isn't that what truehorror is?
I mean, what is your thought?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I still think I disagree with the true idea of
what is good versus evil.
So in Blood Vintage, forexample, and in a number of my
horror books, I do write aboutthe choice.
But should one person die tosave a community?
So is it right that a persongets sacrificed to a monster or
(16:44):
gets sacrificed to some pagangod in order to save the
community?
And if, yes, it is right tosacrifice one person, then how
many people is one pergeneration acceptable?
And what's so interesting inthis form is that this has
happened throughout civilization.
So I'm sure you've read the bookthe Golden Bough, you know of
(17:06):
the Golden Bough.
It's sort of this folklore bookfull of old things and human
sacrifices in so many cultures,and obviously we're not saying
that's what we want to do now.
But in this good versus evilidea, when is the death of one,
or the death of a few, or thedeath of one per generation
acceptable?
And that, to me, is where thedifficulty is, and I mean it'd
(17:29):
be boring if it was just youknow is where the difficulty is,
and I mean it'd be boring if itwas just you know.
Good versus evil in a simpleway right, we have to have that
dark choice, and what I lovelike my favorite book is the
Stand by Stephen King.
I know it's many people'sfavorite, but to me, what I love
about the end of the Stand andit's what I try and echo at the
end of every one of my horrorbooks is just because one evil
(17:52):
is ended, that doesn't mean allevil is ended, and so one cycle
might be over, but the cyclecontinues, and so that, to me,
is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, I mean one of the common themes that I always
one of the things I do with myreaders.
I have a reader group calledthe Nightmare Writers and One of
the things I do with my readers.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I have a reader group called the Nightmare Writers
and they get to choose an endingtype they get to choose.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
In these short stories that we write kind of
collaboratively, they do all thevoting and then I do all the
creative stuff.
They vote on the characters andthe names and locations and the
themes and the characterrelationships and the genders
and everything like that.
No-transcript, like bittersweetending yeah for whatever reason
(18:39):
they don't want, like, yes, thegood guy wins or the bad guy
wins, they get this weirdbittersweet ending and I'm
starting to find, like moviesand books that I truly enjoy are
ones that have that endingwhere the evil may not be
defeated, but it's contained,you know, and you're like, okay,
that leaves this opportunityfor the evil to continue again
at some point and it leaves thisthis kind of ominous feeling.
(19:02):
You know, and it's veryatmospheric, and I like that
word, I like that term withhorror is like you can build
that creepy atmosphere.
If you can build that feelingin me that there's something
just not right in the air orthat evil's over there contained
, all we have to do is stumbleupon it and pop that tomb and
let the thing out.
(19:24):
I don't know if you knew this,but when they opened King Tut's
tomb, six people died withinseveral years.
The people who actually openedit.
Yes, the curse, yes, the curse,yes, the king of the curse of
king tut.
I mean, you think about it.
I'm like what, why'd you haveto open it?
So I, I, I like that atmosphere, I like that, that idea that
it's just, it's just kind of inthere in the corner waiting do
(19:44):
you?
Do you write a lot ofatmosphere in your stuff, or is
it just like right in front ofyou?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
here's the scary thing oh, I sense of place is so
important to me.
And what's so interesting Ithink about the folk horror as
well is the land itself cannever disappear, I mean, unless
you're going to blow up anuclear bomb which you know I
guess has is in some of thesebooks.
But in terms of, like you know,this ancient vineyard, for
example, you can't get rid ofthat land.
(20:08):
It will persist.
So, whatever the bittersweetending for the humans of this
generation, the land continues.
And another thing I love aboutthe vineyard stuff is the word
terroir.
I don't know if you've heardthis.
If you like wine you would knowterroir and that's everything
from the land and the ecosystemthat goes into the wine.
(20:28):
And so again, it's sort of youcan keep the suspense up with
how the land influences what'shappening and the characters and
the community and the wine,which I think is just so
interesting.
And yeah, so the sense of placefor me is critical and I mean I
travel a lot, I do a lot ofresearch all over the world,
(20:51):
which is why it's quite funnythat this book is set just down
the road from me.
But I was.
I was also going to ask youbecause one of the other things
that's common here is the greenman in the cathedrals and
carvings and stuff, and Iwondered if that's something you
had in the US or something likethat, this sort of fertility
symbols of men covered in leavesso it the times that I've seen
(21:15):
it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I don't know if it's as common as it, because there's
not.
There's really not as mucharchitectural love here in the
us as there is in othercountries, um, but the times
that I've seen it you're talkingabout, it's just a.
He's a, he's a taller gentleman, it's a face.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's a face coming out of leaves, out of leaves.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
As far as in architecture, no no I don't
recall.
I'm going to look that up realquick.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, Green man.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Tell me a little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, I mean again, it's an ancient fertility figure
that goes back way beforeChrist and it appears in all our
cathedrals and churches and thestonemasons.
Of course the stonemasons havetheir own sort of mythologies,
but you see him in all of theseChristian places and I actually
made one myself quite recently.
(22:04):
I went on a stone carvingweekend and I made a green man
and he's in the garden now.
But it's again sometimes helooks good, sometimes he looks
evil.
That's so interesting I've gotagain.
It's sometimes he looks good,sometimes he looks evil.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's so interesting , I've got pictures of it right
here.
If you get an opportunity folkslistening just type in green
man.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, green man carvings.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Carvings.
Yeah, these are all a littlebit different.
That's so cool, and so what'sthe historical significance of
this?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
You've got a master's in theology and history.
(22:56):
You.
What's the historicalsignificance of this?
You've got a master's inhappens with humans, but it
normally is a face in a tree.
I mean, in Game of Thrones youalmost see the face in the wood.
It's a bit like that, but hassort of more leaves and things.
So the history sort of predateswhen the Romans came and the
Christians came here in the UK.
(23:17):
But what I love about it is howit persists into things like
folk horror.
But you could just say it's afertility god, it's a spirit of
the forest, and so wherever youare in the world, if you have a
forest and an ancient culture,then they're going to have
spirits of the forest, rightRight.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, that's so interesting.
So is this under yourinspiration folder Like?
You'll see this thing and youjust looked at it and you were
like this needs to be somewhere.
Or not necessarily this, butthis data bank of interesting
knowledge and facts, that I'mthe type that I I'll get hit by
inspiration.
Then I'll have to dive deeperinto a topic that I find
(23:56):
inspirational oh yeah, what Ilove about just?
Kind of collect inspiration.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You know what I'm saying oh yeah, and I I need to
do the input before I do thewriting and and often, my
previous book to this was calledspear of destiny and it was
about the um, the christic, theSpear of Destiny, and I was in
Austria and Germany and lookingat the history of the war and
everything and the rise of therights in the USA and all of
that kind of thing.
(24:21):
But no, I love the input stageand the research process for my
books, but I think what wasinteresting with this one is
lots, all the different, lots ofdifferent things came together.
So even that, I remember when Iwas about eight or nine years
old, um, there was, uh, the tvshow robin the hooded man.
I don't know if you rememberthis um with jason connery back
(24:42):
in the day and I rememberedgoing to see.
It got filmed near my house andI remember going to see it and,
um, you know, the, the hornedgod steps out the hern, the
hunter he he's called in RobinHood steps out of this smoke.
And that came to me as I wasresearching this and that's why
I ended up with a horned god.
And if people see the bookcover of Blood Vintage, it's got
(25:05):
this horned skull horned god on.
And I was like, yeah, thefertility figure is a horned god
on.
And I was like, yeah, thefertility figure is a horned god
.
And that's why I was interestedin your book, the wendigo.
It's completely different, butyou have a horned spirit in a
wood on the front of the book,don't you?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
yeah, yeah, I mean I I wanted to make it very clear
and obvious what the story wasabout.
Um, and you know, and, and Iguess I guess you could say, is,
when I think about these, themy, my points of inspiration,
(25:46):
this kind of where I'm lookingat now and what we're talking
about here is is like I wantsituation but like connect with
it as a person.
You know, and in in Wendigoit's actually, it's it's kind of
a, it's kind of a love and ahope of kind of a restoration
story.
A man and he goes to rescue hiswife and son from the forbidden
zone of a forest that peoplejust kind of don't seem to talk
(26:08):
about, just kind of don't seemto talk about, and when you look
at it, like the entire townitself is a character, because
they've all got this, thisbelief, and they kind of hold
true to the belief and outsidersdon't really hold true to it
and they kind of end up introuble a lot of times, going
into the forbidden zone.
And now my character, who is anoutsider, is given the
(26:28):
opportunity to go and kind ofrescue his wife and son and he,
he encounters this thing andhe's got to handle it like a
human, you know, and so I'm like, okay, if I'm, if I'm him, how
would I deal with this?
What are the thoughts and theemotions, the things that I
would feel in this particularscenario with this character, if
(26:50):
I were him not just me as aperson, but me as this character
.
And so do you?
A lot of people call that likewriting yourself into the book,
and and I don't really, I don'treally necessarily agree with
that, like I don't know ifthat's what the terminology is
supposed to be, but do you, doyou write a lot of yourself into
these types of things?
Like do you, do you bringyourself into it and you're like
I'm gonna put myself in that,in that character's place, or is
(27:10):
it like I need to watch thischaracter do this thing?
And only they could do it thisway?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think we bring a little bitof all of us and one of my
regular themes is sisters.
I'm the eldest of five kids.
I have two sisters who weresignificantly younger than me
and so when I was sort of goingthrough puberty 12, 13 they were
only you know young and I justfelt so protective of my little
(27:38):
sisters.
And I have two brothers too,but my sisters I always just
wanted to protect.
And so so many of my booksfeature protection of sisters.
And it's interesting becauseonce again in Blood Vintage, and
(28:15):
it's interesting because onceagain in Blood Vintage, rebecca,
the main character it's kind ofsparked by her sister
disappears and she goes to whereshe sort of join and have
ancient power in some way.
But it's so interesting, likeyou said, these things come up
again and again.
And in fact my previous horrorbook called Catacomb is similar
to what you were talking about.
It's a father who goes to lookfor his daughter and to save his
daughter from a terrible fate.
Obviously and again I'm prettyobsessed with fathers saving
(28:39):
daughters and the bittersweetending.
Again I mean it's not horrorbut the movie Armageddon.
You know Armageddon.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the ending.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You know, bruce Willis gives his life to save
his daughter and save humanityand all that kind of thing.
But that's the bit that makesyou cry.
It's the sacrifice of thefather for the daughter.
Um, so yes, in so many of mybooks I have these relationship
themes.
Um, I guess, and that's how Ibring myself into it, I guess
(29:08):
yeah, no, that's, that's aperfect, um, perfectly
reasonable.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
yeah, I mean and and I think people can appreciate
that, you know they're like man,this, this feels, there's this,
this idea in hard that we'vegot to.
I can't remember what it'scalled We've got to dissuade or
not dissuade, we've got to.
You probably know I'm I'mdrawing a blank.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't know what you're talking about it's, it's,
it's we.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
We are trying to um convince the reader.
We try to convince the readerthat what they're reading could
happen, that yeah absolutely andI there's a terminology for it
and I'm drawing a blank, likeyou would think I would write
horror books or something.
I would know this, um, but yeah, we, we try to convince people
that this could happen, and soand and and, um, I think that's
(29:55):
where where we get lost a littlebit, where we're we get so lost
in the horror like this is sohorrific that it could not
happen.
You know, like we think aboutarmageddon and, and I absolutely
love that movie, um, and thatlast few minutes where you're
just, you know, crying your eyesout because you know, bruce
willis can hear the song intheir head.
(30:15):
Yeah, yeah, and I can't rememberthe actor's name and he's
spinning his girlfriend aroundand they're all singing.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's Ben Affleck.
Yeah, ben Affleck, there we go,and then and Liv Tyler and it's
her actual dad singing that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, yeah, steven.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Tyler Aerosmith.
It's Aerosmith, but no, I thinkthese emotional moments and
just coming back to the, is itsuper, super horror?
I actually think one of thetropes of folk horror is that it
is quite slow burn.
So you know, it starts.
It's very much about the senseof place and a sort of female
character set in the summer aswell, which makes it kind of
less horror.
(30:51):
But the idea that it's slowburn and then suddenly things
start happening and for a whileyou can say, oh, that must just
be the local custom, and theneventually you just start going
(31:11):
okay, this is definitely weirdand definitely wrong, but I love
that slow burn horror.
I mean, again coming back to theStand, I mean obviously there's
a big global plague which killslots of people, but then a lot
of it is quite slow burn andthen it gets faster and faster
and faster and I think there'salso this sense of an
inescapable fate.
Or again, these cycles.
(31:33):
I love this idea of cyclesbecause we think we're so modern
and special, but we're not.
We're just animals, you know,with a thin veneer of
civilization over our lives andwe've got some technology and
stuff, but we're the same humansas those humans thousands of
years ago who sacrificed to thegods.
So that's kind of what I likeabout the folk thing is that
(31:55):
it's not immediate death, it'slots of slow burn mystery.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, and I've had plenty of complaints about my
stories being slow burn, but Ireally just I enjoy that.
I don't want to put the scarything right there and like, oh,
there it is, and then where'sthe rest of the story going, you
know.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And to me that's more fun.
That gives you a chance tobuild out characters.
It gives you a chance to buildout settings and just really
dive deep into lore and into youknow character relationships
and just really bring the storyto life before you hit the scary
thing.
You know A lot of people talkabout zombie movies and they're
like, well, it's action, youknow.
(32:37):
It's.
Like, well, the zombies arenever the problem.
Like the zombies could just befour walls.
They're just keeping peopletogether and just watch what
people do to each other whenthere's zombies around, like
it's never about the zombies,because they have one thing that
they do Right Zombies.
I'll try not to dive too muchinto it I love, I love
everything.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, I like zombies too actually.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah.
So, and I want to talk to youabout this also, because there
is a mall in England thatapparently shut down and allow
you to go zombie hunting.
They have this big event.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I haven't heard about that, but it wouldn't surprise
me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Oh my gosh, I'll have to send you the link.
Yeah, and they have roleplayers and you get paintball
guns and you play out this wholezombie in a mall.
Anyways, I'll have to send youthe link.
But you know, with zombies, thezombies could just be four
walls that just keep people inan area together and watch what
people do to each other.
That's where the real horror is.
It's not the zombies, thezombies.
(33:34):
If you watch the Walking Dead,you see they just slowly go to
the background and they're thereand they're always there and
they're always doing the onething that they do.
But it's in the people that arehorrible and it's like you said
we are the same people as wewere thousands of years ago.
You know, with that humanitythat we like to claim that we
have now, that we're civilizedpeople now, now that we're
(33:58):
civilized people now, and notnecessarily, if you look, go to
any, go to go to any, uh any ofthose uh hot spots on the us map
where crime is just rampant,and tell me about humanity.
But, um, so let me ask you thisthis is I, um, this is on the
on the other end of the spectrumfrom folk horror and from
history.
Um, let's, let's talk about howand I don't mean from a
writer's perspective, but from atechnological, from a
(34:20):
storytelling perspective alittle bit about AI and because
I have been writing a lot ofstories that involve AI to some
degree not necessarily likeusing it to write my stories
Everybody can have their opinionon that but I just mean about
its presence in the world.
Do you think there's someopportunities there coming up to
(34:41):
write some really really coolhorror?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, I mean, I do read some techno horror.
There's an author called DanielSuarez and a book called Daemon
, or you can pronounce it Daemon, d-a-e-m-o-n.
I highly recommend that book.
It was written like 15 yearsago or something, but it could
be true now, as in thetechnology he wrote about is
(35:04):
just coming to pass.
And there's another guy calledRamez Naam who wrote a book
called Nexus.
It's a trilogy and again, thetechnology he wrote about is
just coming true.
And it's so interesting.
Because I love reading technothriller but I don't write it
myself.
I'm pretty obsessed with thepast.
(35:25):
So, for example, I live here inBath and we mentioned the
Romans, but we have Roman bathsthat are over 2000 years old and
I'm inspired by Gothiccathedrals that are a thousand
years old and I like allfreemasons and druids and all of
this kind of thing.
I, I love technology.
I mean I have, I like all thegadgets.
(35:46):
I, you know I would.
I'll get in VR when we can.
Maybe you and I can do this inVR in the zombie place or
whatever.
Yeah, but I, I it's weird, Iactually love technology and I
don't find it scary.
You know, I can watch themovies, like you know, ex
Machina and all that and but Idon't, I don't find the
(36:08):
particularly scary.
So yeah, it's reallyinteresting that you mention it
as a sort of a horror thing,because in my mind it's just not
that at all.
I find useful tools, althoughyou did say humans are the
problem.
Now, humans empowered withtools are dangerous, but then
humans are dangerous with fire,they're dangerous with nuclear
(36:30):
weapons, they're dangerous withall these things.
So yeah, it's interesting, Ijust don't find it scary at all.
So it's not something I wouldbe writing.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, I mean, and it may not be scary the right kind
of scary maybe not.
Yet I've been looking, you know, just kind of you know browsing
for books that use AI as anantagonist.
I want to see it.
I want to see you know how ittransforms, and I don't mean
like Will Smith iRobot actionmovie type of thing, you know.
(37:01):
So I didn't know if you had anythoughts on it, I just figured
I'd ask because you're wellversed in horror and a lot of
people don't realize that.
But you are, and I figured youkind of look at the past,
present and future.
So that's really cool thatyou're like no, it doesn't
really scare me.
I just kind of appreciate itand I'm like, well, no, I
definitely recommend those books.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They're more technically thriller, I guess,
but it is interesting, isn't it?
I mean, when we write the booksthat are from our heart, the
books that interest us, ourcuriosity is such a specific
creature.
You know, you and I are bothinterested in folk horror, but
we're so different in terms ofour backgrounds and what we're
(37:41):
interested in.
And I mean my upbringing herein the UK and traveling around
Europe means that I walk aroundthe corner and there's a whole
load more historical stuff thatinspires me.
And there's so much blood inour land from people killing
each other over and over again.
I mean it's just ridiculous howmany cultures have killed each
other, even in just the areawhere I live and the battles and
you know I'm just near theborder with Wales and the
(38:04):
English and the Welsh and I meanjust there's so much blood in
the land where I am.
And so for me, that's where Ialways echo back to.
And a friend of mine said I waslike, oh, what's going to happen
in the future and all this?
And she said what was true athousand years ago will be true
in a thousand years.
(38:24):
And I love this because this iswhatever happens with
technology, whether we all getuploaded to the cloud or
whatever it is, we will stilllove our family, right?
We will still want to protectour sisters, we will still want
to love each other and we'llstill want to I don't know win
(38:44):
over the gods or whatever, andso, in that way, I feel like it
doesn't matter what happens withtechnology.
As you have said, the story isabout the humans and whether
they're rising up against theterminator or rising up against
a pagan god.
That is what we do, um.
I did, though, just want tomention that um, because I live
in bath and mary shelley wrotefrankenstein here in bath, and
(39:07):
of course, that is a horror book, but also it's a technology
book, because of the electricityyeah, the electricity that
brings the monster to life.
and if you, if anyone, comes tobath, you can visit the Roman
Baths and there's a plaque onthe wall because that is where
Mary Shelley wrote Frankensteinin this boarding house there.
And what is also funny is it'sactually above an electric
(39:32):
substation.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
How cool is that?
That is cool, see.
I wouldn't have known thiswithout talking to you.
And so now I'm like I reallyneed to visit, I really need to
come, you know, travel acrossthe pond.
I've I've only left the countryone time and I think my
worldview is probably lackingbecause of it, but I've, I've,
I've, I've traveled to France along time ago as an exchange
student, but I've been meaningto visit england, and it's just,
(39:56):
I think you're starting toconvince me when you're telling
me that there is a plaque above,above an electrical substation
dedicated to mary shelley,specifically because the
electrical element infrankenstein.
I'm like, how cool is that?
I mean, who, anyways?
That's?
That's so interesting, and I, Iso appreciate you sharing that,
and I don't think a lot ofpeople would realize they
(40:16):
wouldn't have known that withoutlistening to this.
So that's so cool, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Oh, no worries.
Well, I'm pretty obsessed withtraveling around, finding dark
things.
I mean, it's also right next tothe thousand-year-old cathedral
and there's a Jacob's Ladder,you know Jacob's Ladder, with
the angels going up and down,and it's the only time I've ever
seen it, but one of the angelsis crawling down the ladder and
(40:40):
it seriously looks like a demon.
It's like on the front of acathedral is this demon crawling
down Jacob's ladder?
And I think I look at, I lookup at it and my mind goes
straight to that angel or demonand other people you know taking
photos being tourists and I canjust see this little evil thing
do you have photos of that?
yeah, yeah, yeah, I have anInstagram at jfpenauthor and I
(41:02):
have loads of pictures there.
I also have, um, a blog and apodcast at booksandtravelpage
and we can put the links in thenotes or something.
But, um, I have episodes onBath and pictures there of all
my travels and because I'm justobsessed with researching
different places, so I put allthat there.
You can see my green man thereand the vineyards and all of
(41:24):
that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Wow, yeah, that's, that's amazing, and I did, I did
you a disservice by notmentioning how much travel and
historical research goes intothe things that you write, and
so I apologize, but you're, Ithink you've, you've, you've
shown it already that that your,uh, your, your historic
historical travels, and and havehave really been an influence
(41:46):
on what you write.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
So, um, I should also just say also um, I've written
quite a lot set in the U S?
Um, so Valley of Dry Bones, uh,which is about the Ezekiel, you
know the quote.
The Valley of Dry Bones and thebones coming to life is set
mostly in New Orleans and alsoin on the West Coast in San
Francisco, so I really broughtin some American stuff.
I've got a book in New Yorkwhich has a dark angel in, and
(42:10):
so I've traveled around the USas well.
There's plenty in the US, ofcourse, but I do find that
Europe is pretty dense when itcomes to dark history.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yes, absolutely.
So.
You told us a little bit aboutwhere to find you.
We're getting to a goodstopping point here, especially
when you tell us where we canfind more, especially about
these pictures that you've takenof your travels.
I think people would find thatso curious.
There's so much more that goesinto writing a book than it just
popped out of our head, right,oh goodness me.
(42:43):
Yes, yeah, and, and, and, and.
Some go further than others and, and.
That's totally fine, and, and,and.
Sometimes it shows, andsometimes it's.
It's like, oh well, thanks, um,thanks for writing.
You know, 16 chapters about alamppost, um, but that's not you
or me.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
No, that's neither of us yeah, thankfully.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Um.
So let's, let's do this.
Um, joe, tell us, tell us wherewe can find more of you, tell
us where we can find blood,vintage, tell us about what you
got coming up and just let folksknow, like where's the best
place to find you sure.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well, everything is linked from jfpencom and blood
vintage is jfpenncom, forwardslash, blood vintage, or one
word.
And there is a kickstarter withspecial editions and things in
october.
And then the blog is atbooksandtravelpage and there's a
books and travel podcast aswell and lots of things like
(43:34):
that.
Or my instagram at jfpennauthor, where I share lots of pictures
and things like that.
Or my instagram at jf penauthor, where I share lots of
pictures and things like thatwonderful.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
So, folks, if you're looking for more about this, if
you're looking for more folkhorror, you've got to check out
blunt vintage.
Um, I don't endorse a lot ofwriters out there, um, but I'll
endorse, I'll endorse miss penany day um, so thank you, yeah,
and I'll include links to to uh,where you can find her and
where you can find blood,vintage, and just more about her
(44:02):
travels.
Everything will be in the shownotes.
So, um, thank you so much forbeing here today, thank you for
jumping on the show and thankyou for inviting me on your show
.
Um, did you want to talk aboutthat at all or do you want to
leave that for another day?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
yeah, yeah, sure.
So, um, yes, thanks for havingme on this one.
And we had, I guess, more of ahorror conversation but also a
business conversation at theCreative Pen podcast, which is
more of the business side ofbeing a writer.
But, yeah, maybe we can link tothat in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Perfect.
Well, ladies and gentlemen,this has been another episode of
the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It's been a pleasure to speakwith Miss Penn and about Full
Corps today, and we justappreciate you guys listening.
We are a reader facing podcast,and so we hope that the things
that you get from us are thepart of us that make us human,
and that's kind of what today'stopic is about.
(44:48):
So thank you everybody, and wewill see you at the next one.
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