The Lowdown with... Tracy Fahey

Tracy Fahey is an Irish writer of Gothic fiction. Her debut collection, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre (reissued in 2018) was nominated in 2017 for a British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. Her short fiction has been published in more than twenty Irish, US and UK anthologies and her work has been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. In 2016 two of her short stories were long listed by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8. Her first novel, The Girl In The Fort (Fox Spirit Press) was published in 2017 and her second collection, New Music For Old Rituals was released by Black Shuck Books in 2018.

1. Tell us three things about yourself.
The Gothic is hardwired into my system. My PhD is on the resurrection of the Gothic home in Irish contemporary art, and my first collection, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre examines the Gothic home through a series of stories on the uncanny. I finished both thesis and collection in the same week in 2015. That was a busy week…

I’m very influenced by my upbringing and surroundings in rural Ireland. The history and nature of Irish identity and folklore runs like a seam through both my YA novel, The Girl In The Fort, and my second collection, New Music For Old Rituals.  But traveling also informs my writing; every country I’ve visited I’ve made story notes based on the different locations – I also feel that my sense of identity emerges more strongly when I’m divorced from my immediate home setting.

I’m hugely influenced by the writing of Shirley Jackson, Donna Tartt, Angela Carter, Ray Bradbury
and Tana French.

2. What was the first thing you had published?
My very first publication was of the story ‘Looking for Wildgoose Lodge’ in the Impossible Spaces anthology released by Hic Dragones. It was a wonderful start to my writing journey; for the launch I was invited to do a reading in Manchester side by side with writers Ramsey Campbell, Douglas Thompson, Tej Turner, and of course, the wonderful Simon Bestwick! [ED. Aw, shucks.]

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?
There are some stories I am especially fond of.  My new collection, New Music For Old Rituals, deals with the folklore I grew up with, so stories from it like ‘Buried,’ ‘The Changeling,’ and ‘The Crow War’ feel earthed in a place I know very well.
‘I Look Like You, I Speak Like You, I Walk Like You,’ from The Unheimlich Manoeuvre is also dear to me, partly because it had a difficult journey towards publication. In spite of rejections I still clung to my conviction it rang true. I think it was hard to place as the theme is a difficult one - it deals with domestic abuse - and due to the quixotic nature of the protagonist, the story doesn’t really fit comfortably into a recognisable story arc. But I persevered and it finally found a home in JU Litzone Volume 10.

4. …and which makes you cringe?

I’m not embarrassed by anything that’s in print now, but some of my teenage efforts make me giggle to recall them. I went through a phase in my early teens where I just wanted to be S.E. Hinton and I wrote solely about motorbikes and gangs and knife-fights. It was the antithesis of ‘writing what you know,’ but I had fun and I’m wholly unrepentant.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?
I don’t really have a ‘normal’ writing day, as I also work full-time; I run a fine art department, a postgraduate research centre, research and teach. So writing tends to be done early in the morning, late at night, or covertly, on breaks. That’s why I always carry a notebook and pen around with me. If I think of something I have to set it down on the page immediately. Otherwise it’s lost forever in the Great Abyss, and the older I get, the wider the Great Abyss yawns before me…
Most of the time I write and edit on my own, but this year I worked very closely with Justin Park on my reissued collection and The Black Room Manuscripts Volume IV and it was wonderful to have someone else on hand to throw ideas back and forth to, and to get immediate feedback for my suggestions. That’s why I really treasure beta readers too; sometimes I get lost in a forest of my words, and someone fresh to the situation can analyse it for me much more coherently than I’m capable of.
At weekends, or on holidays, I get the chance to write in a more focused way – to get in The Flow - and that is both wonderful and terrifying. In 2018, The Flow deserted me for a spell – the first really difficult time I’ve had since I started writing – and it took a lot of self-coaching and self-motivating to get myself back on track. Being blocked is hard, but the hardest part is believing that the blockage can shift and melt away in time. I think it’s really important to be honest about these tough times as often on social media all you can see are people’s successes and staggering word counts, but not all the crying and pacing and rending of garments that goes on in the background.

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?

The Unheimlich Manoeuvre summarises a lot of themes that are very central to my work; the uncanny home, domestic confinement, doppelgangers, dolls and dystopias. So if you’re curious about my (slightly) skewed world vision, pick that one up from the Sinister Horror Company.
However, if folk horror and folklore are more to your taste, I recommend either New Music For Old Rituals (from Black Shuck Books) or The Girl In The Fort (from Fox Spirit Press).

7. What are you working on now?
This year I’m already working on a couple of projects. I have a third collection in the pipeline, I Spit Myself Out, which examines terrors that come from within; from within the body or within the mind. It’s based loosely on the essay by Julia Kristeva, ‘The Powers of Horror’, just like The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was centered on Freud’s ‘The Uncanny.’ I find every collection I’ve put together needs to have a theme in my head that I can then spin a series of divergent realities around.
For the rest of 2019 I’m also working on a podcast, some non-fiction pieces, some stand-alone short fiction, a novella, and am currently co-scripting a one-off graphic novel (which is a Secret Project but a very exciting one). This year I’ve resolved to say yes more to more diverse creative projects, to push my boundaries a little and although I’m slightly scared at the prospect, it’s also quite an exhilarating thought.

The Lowdown with... Tej Turner

Tej Turner is a writer of fantasy, horror and speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Janus Cycle, has been published by Elsewhen Press and he has also had short stories featured in a few anthologies, including Impossible Spaces (Hic Dragones Press) and The Bestiarum Vocabulum (Western Legends). His parents moved around a bit while he was growing up so he doesn’t have any particular place he calls “home”, but for a large part of his youth he dwelled in the West Country of England. He went on to Trinity College in Carmarthen to study Film and Creative Writing and later to complete an MA at The University of Wales, Lampeter, where he minored in ancient history but mostly focused on sharpening his writing skills. A childhood of being on the move obviously rubbed off on him because he often gets itchy feet and flies off on adventures to trek around jungles, forests and canyons, and explore temples, reefs and cities.


1. Tell us three things about yourself.
1) I love castles and megalithic sites. It is one of the reasons I live in Wales.
2) Most of the music I listen to is from the 80s.
3) I have spent almost two years of my life backpacking around Asia and I documented much of it in a travelblog which can be found here.

2. What was the first thing you had published? 
A short story called “Bruises”, which appeared in the anthology Impossible Spaces, (edited by Hannah Kate). It is an anthology I am sure you will remember well, Simon, as you were also in it ;) It took me a few years to get anything published... but once I achieved that initial step it all happened very fast. Within a year I had another two stories accepted in other anthologies and Elsewhen Press offered to publish my first novel.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of? 
I currently only have one novel, so it would have to be that; The Janus Cycle. It was released just over a year ago and the response I have received for it so far has been fantastic.

4. …and which makes you cringe? 
I did a short stint writing erotica under commission when I first returned to the UK and I was a bit strapped for cash. The pseudonym it was published under is a secret I am going to take to my GRAVE.

5. What’s a normal writing day like? 
I have created nice workspace for myself in the corner of my room – a large spacious desk dedicated just to writing – and the wall behind it is covered with notes, charts, maps of the worlds I have created, and other ideas. I find it helps keep me focussed. I am usually at my desk by 9am – and I will typically spend most of the morning tapping away at my keyboard while downing cups of green tea and puffing away at my e-cigarette. After that, I have a break for lunch while watching something (usually whatever sci-fi series I am currently in the middle of), and then I will do another couple of hours of writing just before I head to work (I moonlight as a chef to help with the bills).

6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first? 

It is still quite early days for me as a published writer, so I don’t have a massive back catalogue to call upon as yet. The story I had published in The Bestiarum Vocabulum (edited by Dean M Drinkel) is one that I am rather proud of. It is about a succubus liberating a Magdalene Asylum, and people have often commented about the exciting twist at the end.

7. What are you working on now? 
I currently have two WIPs. One is an epic fantasy series which I am hoping to get off the ground in the next couple of years. It is quite different to everything I have had published so far, so I am looking forward to it being unleashed upon the world. I am also working on an indirect sequel for The Janus Cycle, which is currently under the working title of “Dinnusos Rises”. It should be available sometime in 2017.

Hic Dragones

A title that always makes me think of drunken dragons. So here's a picture of one.

Hic Dragones, however, is a) Latin for 'here be dragons,' and b) the name of a Manchester-based creative writing, literature and film organisation whose ethos is described as 'intelligent, but a bit weird.'

I like them already.

This is a good thing.

It's a good thing because they are hosting MancMonCon- Manchester Monsters Convention- next weekend, the 14th and 15th April, at Sacha's Hotel in Manchester. Debates, exhibition stalls, displays, talks from writers, artists and designers. Oh, and me.

I'll be on a panel with fellow authors Wayne Simmons and Scott Stanford on Sunday at 3.30pm, and signing books after. So now you know.

Tickets for the weekend are a mere £10. There are also talks on cryptozoology, abnormal psychology and vampires, plus there are movies too, including a Saturday night triple bill of Island of Lost Souls, The Whisperer In Darkness and Reel Zombies. I'm so there...

More info here.

Have a cracking Easter, everybody, with lots of chocolate eggs.