Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRD-o's: Patrick Malka

Patrick Malka (he/him) is a high school science teacher from Montreal, Quebec, where he lives with his partner and two kids. His recent flash fiction can be found in Midsummer Dream House, Broken Antler, Maudlin House, Nocturne magazine, and Sky Island Journal, among others.

His story, “Show Me,” was originally published in Broken Antler, and will appear in BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror Volume Two, available to preorder here.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-nommed story, please.

Up and coming punk band puts on a legendary show at a notorious venue, what would end up being their last show. The lead singer, Alfie, breaks down in front of the audience. This flash story is told in two parts: what the audience saw, and what Alfie saw.

What does your writing routine look like? Do you have an office? A preferred coffee shop? The back of the bus? Standing under your neighbor’s eaves, avoiding the rain? Are you one of those true modern Weirdos who write your entire novel on your phone?

I'm a full time high school science teacher, parent of two and partner to a hard working academic and activist with a chronic illness. So, I write when I can where I can, with little consistency. 

I tend to think about my stories part by part for a long time while going about my days and the next time I sit down to write, I get as much on the page as I can, sometimes full stories. The editing has to come later.

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences/influences helped sculpt this definition for you in your creative journey?

I think most horror authors step into what could be defined as the Weird at some point. It's fun to spot those stories or novels that play with style and theme in a way that makes you say about an author you thought you knew well, "where did that come from?" 

I gravitate toward those that can offer a mundane slice of life where insidious Weirdness creeps in. A few names I keep coming back to right now are Nathan Ballingrud, Michael Wehunt, Adam Nevill. Aliya Whiteley's The Beauty and David Demchuk's The Bone Mother are awe inspiring in their Weird scope. The movies of Benson & Moorehead. But I'm also drawn to authors outside the genre who know how to get Weird: Steven Millhauser, Jac Jemc, Amber Sparks. 

On the Tenebrous Discord, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Spring x Godspeed you! Black emperor

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?

The Weird tends to lives in my head. I can't say I've ever had anything too Weird happen to me. Certainly nothing interesting enough to talk about here.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two, is out June 26th.

You can preorder it here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRD-o's: Thomas Ha

Thomas Ha is a Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated writer of speculative short fiction. His work has been published in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Weird Horror Magazine, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, among others. Thomas grew up in Honolulu and, after a decade-plus of living in the northeast, now resides in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

His story, “In That Crumbling Home”, was originally published in Bourbon Penn, and will appear in BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror Volume Two, available to preorder now.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-nommed story, please.

A girl and her little brother plan an escape from their strange, murderous parents with the help of an outsider.

What does your writing routine look like? Do you have an office? A preferred coffee shop? The back of the bus? Standing under your neighbor’s eaves, avoiding the rain? Are you one of those true modern Weirdos who write your entire novel on your phone?

It's a little less "routine" and more "when the stars align." I have three young kids, so most of my day revolves around pick-ups and drop-offs and keeping up with things around the house. But during the rare moments when inspiration strikes and things aren't on fire, I'm usually hunched over my laptop at our kitchen counter with a cup of coffee!

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences/influences helped sculpt this definition for you in your creative journey?

Boy, I am extremely not qualified to answer this question. Weird fiction, to me, usually deals heavily with the numinous and inexplicable, and, more often than not, intentionally plays with the borders of other genres. Writers I tend to think of who sculpt my concept of the weird are Gene Wolfe, Robert Aickman, Kobo Abe, Richard Brautigan, China Mieville, William Hope Hogson, and Clark Ashton Smith. But I tend to just read what I read and write what I write and let editors and critics interpret what the genre-lines/definitions are!

On the Tenebrous Discord, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Fire Walk With Me x The Flashbulb.

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?

I plead the fifth.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two, is out June 26th.

You can preorder it here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRD-o's: David Simmons

David Simmons lives in Baltimore with his wife and daughter. He is the author of the Ghosts of Baltimore Duology (Broken River Books) where the supernatural and strange grapple with the ever-present past of East and West Baltimore. He is a regular contributor to Books to Prisoners, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster a love of reading behind bars, encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-empowerment, and break the cycle of recidivism.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-nommed story, “Food is Poison”, please.

Thousands of sisters live in a factory where time is the only currency and the juice that keeps them going is the only thing that matters. One woman holds the key to endless juice while the rest of her sisters scrape for scraps. Kakfa's The Trial meets Requiem for a Dream.

What does your writing routine look like? Do you have an office? A preferred coffee shop? The back of the bus? Standing under your neighbor’s eaves, avoiding the rain? Are you one of those true modern Weirdos who write your entire novel on your phone?

I write my shit on my phone in one hand while holding my toddler in the other.

The tally of Weird Phone Writers stands at 1.

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences/influences helped sculpt this definition for you in your creative journey?

Weird to me is a discomfort that can't be classified. Like, you can't put it in a box or a genre or any of that. Some shit just makes you uncomfortable. Something out of place. I live in Baltimore so I experience weirdness regularly. In a good way. Keeps me on my toes and shit. As far as writers go, I've learned a lot from Brian Evenson and J. David Osborne. Certain music is weird to me, and the visuals associated with it. After you read this interview, go on YouTube and look up this rapper from Baltimore named Soduh. He has a song called "Crime Pays" and I think most of my writing is like that song and music video.

On the Tenebrous Discord, we ask folks to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

Mandy x King Von.

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?

I used to know a guy in prison who utilized roaches to pass kites (little paper notes) and other contraband from cell to cell in Ad Seg. Ad Seg is Administrative Segregation where you are in the hole basically. You can hear everybody but you can't see anybody because there is no cell across from you. He would create these contraptions and tie them around the thorax of the roach, it was like a carrot at the end of the stick type-thing, with an elastic harness (I'm not quite sure what it was exactly because the roaches always ran by so fast) and he put them on the roaches so that they would run straight forward to try to get to the food. He would tie strings around their bodies and tie the other end of the string to the note, baggie, or whatever he was trying to transport to another cell. He would set them out through the holes in the metal cell caging and they would go running down the tier, little packages trailing behind them, until they reached the cell of the person who the shit was intended for, and the person would reach through the space in the metal and grab the roach and the package.

The bar for Weirdest Personal Anecdote has officially been set high.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two, is out June 26th.

You can preorder it here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRD-o's: Premee Mohamed

Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, British Fantasy, and Crawford awards. Currently, she is the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence and an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod. She is the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas.

Premee’s story “Quietus” originally appeared in her collection, No One Will Come Back For Us and Other Stories, from Undertow Publications. It combines epistolary format with traditional prose to make its explorations all the more harrowing.

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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-nommed story, please.

Unhinged military scientists experiment on the brain of a young test subject, trying to make him asleep and awake at the same time—but where does he go when he isn't conscious?

What does your writing routine look like? Do you have an office? A preferred coffee shop? The back of the bus? Standing under your neighbor’s eaves, avoiding the rain? Are you one of those true modern Weirdos who write your entire novel on your phone?

I do 99% of my writing in my spare room, which is my office now! I switch between a notebook (outlining, brainstorming, idea generating, getting unstuck, choreographing fight scenes, doodling maps, whatever) and my clacky mechanical keyboard (drafting). Mostly these days I write when I have time. One thing that I've been surprised helps me a lot is a second monitor, and now I can barely remember how I wrote without it—I keep the draft on one side and the outline or inspiration images on the other side. 

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences/influences helped sculpt this definition for you in your creative journey?

I guess I'm thinking of it as an offshoot of surrealism—you know, in fantasy, we expect strange things to happen that are explained by magic or the gods; in sci-fi, we expect strange things to happen that are explained by either weird physics or something that humans have invented. In Weird, what I expect are strange things happening because they're interesting. I like that move away from constant rationalization and justification, and more into a space of connecting closely with readers who are curious, open-minded, and not too legalistic. I think for my Weird specifically, I've been influenced most by writers like China Mieville, Christopher Priest, Gene Wolfe, and Phyllis Gotlieb.

China Mieville was one of the first influences that the Tenebrous Uni-Brain bonded over, so excellent choice there.

On the Tenebrous Discord, we ask folks to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.

*panics*

Mirrormask meets Talking Heads!

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?

Oh, probably getting my first book deal. I thought you had to have this long list of credentials and qualifications but nope, they'll just give them to anyone! SUPER WEIRD.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two, is out June 26th.

You can preorder it here.