I asked fellow Midnight Garden anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.
Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to Midnight Garden (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).
And now, Paul Kane’s Drip Feed:
She’d been hanging around most of her life.
Hanging around at auditions, waiting for her big break. Her one chance.
Just not like this, never hanging around upside down. Like some sort of bat. It was the first thing that had struck her when she blinked open her eyes. Not because of her surroundings, because it was dark, and she wasn’t even sure where she was (like a bat… in a cave?). But because of how she felt. The heaviness in her ‘upper’ body.
How the story came about:
I’m not sure where the idea for ‘Drip Feed’ originally came from, but it’s been kicking around in my head for a while.
The start of it mirrors a story of mine from about 12-13 years ago called ‘Rag & Bone’ in which a guy is hanging up in what he assumes is a serial killer’s basement, along with a bunch of other bodies, some alive, some not so much. That has a twist to it, and so does ‘Drip Feed’ when main character Daniele eventually figures out what she’s doing ‘hanging around’.
There are key ideas that were influenced by certain movies, but if you read the story you’ll see what those are – and to mention them here would give the game away. What I can say is that I was keen to do a tale where the victim turns the tables this time, a sort of more hopeful horror… or is it?
I’ll leave that for you to judge.
About Paul Kane:
Paul Kane is the award-winning (including the British Fantasy Society’s Legends of FantasyCon Award 2022), bestselling author and editor of over a hundred books – such as the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered together in the sellout Hooded Man omnibus, revolving around a post-apocalyptic version of Robin Hood), The Butterfly Man and Other Stories, Hellbound Hearts, Wonderland (a Shirley Jackson Award finalist) and Pain Cages (an Amazon #1 bestseller). His non-fiction books include The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark, and his genre journalism has appeared in the likes of SFX, Rue Morgue and DeathRay. He has been a Guest at Alt.Fiction five times, was a Guest at the first SFX Weekender, at Thought Bubble in 2011, Derbyshire Literary Festival and Off the Shelf in 2012, Monster Mash and Event Horizon in 2013, Edge-Lit in 2014 and 2018, HorrorCon, HorrorFest and Grimm Up North in 2015, The Dublin Ghost Story Festival and Sledge-Lit in 2016, IMATS Olympia and Celluloid Screams in 2017, Black Library Live and the UK Ghost Story Festival in 2019 and 2023, plus the WordCrafter virtual event 2021 – where he delivered the keynote speech – as well as being a panelist at FantasyCon and the World Fantasy Convention, and a fiction judge at the Sci-Fi London festival. A former British Fantasy Society Special Publications Editor, he has also served as co-chair for the UK chapter of The Horror Writers Association and co-chaired ChillerCon in May 2022. His work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network primetime television, and his novelette “Men of the Cloth” has just been turned into a feature by Loose Canon/Hydra Films, starring Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You’re Next): Sacrifice, released by Epic Pictures/101 Films. His audio work includes the full cast drama adaptation of The Hellbound Heart for Bafflegab, starring Tom Meeten (The Ghoul), Neve McIntosh (Doctor Who) and Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and the Robin of Sherwood adventure The Red Lord for Spiteful Puppet/ITV narrated by Ian Ogilvy (Return of the Saint). He has also contributed to the Warhammer 40k universe for Games Workshop. Paul’s latest novels are Lunar (set to be turned into a feature film), the YA story The Rainbow Man (as PB Kane), the sequels to RED – Blood RED & Deep RED – the award-winning hit Sherlock Holmes & the Servants of Hell, Before (an Amazon Top 5 dark fantasy bestseller), Arcana and The Storm. In addition he writes thrillers for HQ/HarperCollins as PL Kane, the first of which, Her Last Secret and Her Husband’s Grave (a sellout on both Amazon and Waterstones.com), came out in 2020, with The Family Lie released the following year. Paul lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife Marie O’Regan. Find out more at his site which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Robert Kirkman, Catriona Ward, Dean Koontz, Olivie Blake and Guillermo del Toro. Find him on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Bluesky.
See all Midnight Garden stories here.
And for our finale, a Hallowe’en-themed teaser to the anthology:
Excellent story! I can see this story expanded as a horror/suspense movie! It has a provocative theme, in that some of the small decisions we make in life can have a profound effect on others. Another thought is that we never know what ‘others’ are going through until we ‘walk’ (hang!) in their place.
Best, Denise Aparo