Author Archives: Liam Hayes

As my father overturned the seaweed-encrusted rock, a flurry of claws and chitin erupted as the crustaceous horrors lurking beneath scuttled maddeningly in all directions—their legs clacked and clambered against wet sand in a desperate struggle to hide from the sun. The event certainly changed the atmosphere of family beach day. I’d never been fondContinue reading “The Nature of Horror”

The spooky asylum, the creepy mansion, the post-apocalyptic bingo hall; the horror genre is replete with all manner of settings whose only purpose, like a modern-day job centre, is to deaden the soul and shrivel the spirit. While setting plays an incarnate role in many genres, horror itself seems particularly reliant on location to achieveContinue reading “Horror and Location”

The genre of True Crime does not seek to compel its audience to transgress legal boundaries. Nor does the Action genre strive to engender an appetite for death-defying leaps from burning buildings with a pet or lover in tow. The Horror genre is unusual then, but not entirely alone, in deriving its namesake from theContinue reading “Horror and the Writer”

I am an avid fan of horror; I pursue it, doggedly. My favourite stories have a firm hold in the camp of horror (or at least a shabby old tent). I tend to dip into the grotesque even as I am writing high-fantasy or science-fiction. I am, decisively, a person who willingly uncovers the metaphoricalContinue reading “Horror and Me”