It’s time to send in the clowns…
Earlier this year (probably around February or so), I was made aware of a call from the team at Kangas Kahn Publishing that there was to be a new anthology coming out later this year that focused on the freaky and the weird and the clownish.
It’s been some time since I’ve been inspired from a call to write a story. Sure, my work on The Other Stories podcast tests me every few months to write something to brief, but I’ve rarely written something for submission based on a theme or call outside of the podcast.
Until “Fear of Clowns,” that is.
Caught in a feverish nightmare dream, I wove the story of Logan, a young boy caught in the throes of his final weeks in a children’s hospice. One night, in the midst of the pain-riddled silence of the ward, a magical balloon appears above him—in the shape of a clown’s beaming face.
I wanted to write something out of the norm for this one. I wanted to hit on tropes and ideas that might not have been covered before. It’s easy to jump to the usuals when it comes to scary clown stories (“Hey, Georgie. Wanna hear the popcorn POP POP!“), but I wanted to go for something deeper, more intimate.
This story is exactly that, and one that I was proud to have featured in this Fear of Clowns collection. More than that, in this anthology, I’ve got the privilege of sitting alongside some of my favourite contemporary authors—names I’ve been reading for some years—who have inspired my own work and keep me pushing to write better and stronger stories.
All in all, this is an amazing collection (he says, halfway through reading my fellow authors’ stories). If you want a bit of freaky clownish fun this Halloween season, then grab a copy, and enjoy the beautiful artwork provided by Matt Seff Barnes and co.
Oh, and a special thank you to @vampireslibrary for the killer review on my story, “A Very Special Boy”:
Just click below to get your hands on this killer collection!
And, of course, don’t forget to leave a review.
