100 Books Like Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time

I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.

When I first visited Scotland, I drove north from Edinburgh, driving through much of the country to catch a ferry to Orkney. This northern archipelago is certainly one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to; the steep sea cliffs and standing stones, windblown grasses, and violent waves put me in a gothic state of mind. I moved to Scotland a few years later to live by the sea. Since that first visit to Orkney, I’ve written my own Scottish gothic novels, as well as presented research on the gothic at various academic conferences. It’s a topic that I’m certain will compel me for a long time to come. 

I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.

I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.

I grew up in a house of books and storytelling, often reading books beyond my full comprehension, yet absorbing their essence, enjoying the narrative. I place my trust in authors to lead me through a narrative (without every detail spelled out, my imagination free to explore). I want my readers to bring themselves on the journey, allow their narratives to become part of mine. I've always had a sense that things may not always be what they appear, even seemingly ordinary people have secrets and powers that we know nothing of as we pass them on the street, places and objects hold memories and there is no solid explanation for that!

I’ve been writing stories and poems with erotic themes since I first entered the spoken word scene in 1980s San Francisco. As a young queer boy, raised in the highly eroticized Catholic Church, I was actually comfortable talking about and writing about sex and eros as I’d been stigmatized by it, and it got me fascinated with what the big deal was and why writers were afraid to approach it or why they did so in a corny/predictable/idealized and/or often dishonest and clumsy way. Soon I was teaching erotic writing and have been integrating it into my writing in honest, fresh, and enlivening ways—and helping others do so—ever since.

As a free man of flesh-and-blood I trust in time-tested verities and traditions; as a spiritual entity I am a man of faith; and as a thinking being I explore in my writing the malleability of consciousness and reality. Through a broad range of experiences I offer images for the minds of readers in novels of a twisted magical realism. I seek the mysteries of God, the beauty of poetry, and the freedom to explore all and everything. I am an American State National who critiques modern society, culture, and politics as an independent scholar who will not be silenced. Awaken, oh human beans, from normative conditioning and screen-gazing complacency!

I’m a novelist who has primarily written in the dark fantasy and horror genre, which often embraces all things autumn. My first novel Black & Orange, its sequel, Nomads, and supplemental short story collection, Reaping October, all take place in autumn and focus on an encroaching dimension of darkness that would change life as we know it. Halloween isn’t just a holiday, it’s a different existence altogether. Having a love for the season and being its steadfast student, I’ve explored these atmospheric themes for decades. I have a solid opinion on what stories take you there.

When I was starting out as an illustrator, I stumbled into two art director jobs, first at the innovative New York Herald Tribune and then at The New York Times. Working with great journalists gave me the startling idea that a comic strip could have no better subject matter than real life. This led me to create my popular comic strip “Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies,” which ran in The Village Voice and reported on the rowdy New York city of the '70s and ‘80s. Back then, I was alone in combining real-life stories with comics; today many artist-writers use the comic strip format to tell complex and multilayered true stories of the human experience.

Early on, I identified with American short story writers Bernard Malamud and Flannery O’Connor. Though firmly ensconced in the American canon, neither had a fear of allowing the comic or fantastic to play important roles in stories with serious spiritual values. I enjoyed fabulous writers as well, the wildness of Nikolai Gogol, the magic of Ray Bradbury, the comic impulses of Mark Twain. I came across Dune and read it several times. Since those days, I have taken in many stories that do not stick to representations of reality, discovering writers all over the world with the same fascinations. I can’t keep myself from trying to join them.