The Nightmare Engine Podcast

Horror, Humor, and Martial Arts: A Dive into Alan Baxter's Dark Worlds

• David Viergutz

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Episode Description: In this episode of "The Nightmare Engine" podcast, host David Viergutz has an engaging conversation with special guest Alan Baxter. They discuss Alan's prolific career in horror writing, his experiences in martial arts, and the complexities of the horror genre. Alan shares his insights on writing short stories, the horror community, and personal fears. They also delve into Alan's unique perspective as an immigrant and his life in Australia.

Show Notes:

[00:00:00] Introduction: David Viergutz welcomes listeners and provides an update on his recent projects, including a new space horror called "The Drift" and a unique horror letter service called "Scareme."
[00:02:00] Guest Introduction: David introduces Alan Baxter, a prolific author from Australia with a long career in horror writing.
[00:04:00] Alan's Background: Alan talks about his journey into writing, starting in the late '90s, and his extensive body of work including 30 books and over 100 short stories.
[00:07:00] Short Stories in Horror: Discussion on the importance of short stories in the horror genre and Alan's approach to writing them.
[00:09:00] Martial Arts and Writing: Alan shares his background in martial arts and how it influences his writing and teaching.
[00:14:00] Family and Traditions: Alan talks about balancing his family life with his writing and martial arts, and the importance of tradition.
[00:20:00] Living in Australia: Alan discusses the unique challenges and beauties of living in Australia and how it influences his work.
[00:27:00] The Horror Community: David and Alan discuss the welcoming nature of the horror community and its inclusivity.
[00:32:00] Writing Honest Horror: Alan explains why he believes horror is a genre of honesty and how it addresses real-life injustices.
[00:38:00] Alan's Work: Discussion on Alan's notable works including "The Gulp," "The Fall," and his latest novel "Blood Covenant."
[00:42:00] Literary Influences: Alan shares his literary influences, including Clive Barker and Roald Dahl, and his views on short stories and novellas.
[00:45:00] Conclusion: Final thoughts and where to find Alan Baxter's work.

Where to Find Alan Baxter:

  • Website: Alan Baxter
  • Books: "The Gulp," "The Fall," "Blood Covenant," and more available on major platforms.

Thank you for listening to "The Nightmare Engine"! Stay tuned for more exciting episodes.

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David Viergutz:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nightmare Engine podcast. I'm your host, dave Ragutz. I am solo in the studio today. My co-host, jay Bauer, is not going to be present for this season, if you are looking for him, so it's just me. So, that being said, it is going to be another exciting week. I am trying to get these episodes loaded as quickly as possible and scheduling and all that stuff with our wonderful guests. I will say I'm ramping things up this season and we have the lineup is just amazing. Um, so I'm really happy to announce, um, a very special author that we've got with me today, but real quick. Um, just what's coming down the chopping block on my end? Um, so I've got, uh, I'm currently working on a few side projects, um, as well as a new horror, uh, space horror, called the Drift, which I'm really excited to release to y'all. We'll be talking about that later on in the newsletter, so don't worry about it too much. We still got a little bit of time, but besides that, I will be.

David Viergutz:

I think it's probably safe to announce that I have a new project coming down the line called Scareme. So this is a letter service where the retelling of horror stories through traditional mail. So we're going to be getting rid of spam, getting rid of bills in the mail and instead giving you something exciting that you can look forward to. So we're going to be revamping the way horror stories are told. So that's coming down the line. Besides that, it's just an average day for me and I think that's enough talking. On my end. I am proud to introduce Mr Alan Baxter. Alan, all the way from Australia. How are you, sir? I'm well thanks for having me who you are. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, because you have been in this game for a very long time and I think I saw some dates going back 20 years maybe, or maybe a little further than that.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah Well, yeah, I mean the short version. I started taking the idea of writing seriously sort of in the late 90s. Took a long time to figure out what I was doing and get my stuff together. I've been publishing for close to 20 years now. I've had a book out, at least one book a year for the last 10 years. So I do some co-writing with David Wood, mostly solo writing, and I'm this is ridiculous because I say I think I think I'm up to around 30 books at this point. In some ways it's a bit hard to pick which is which qualifies as a book. So some novellas that came into print and out of print again and that sort of thing, uh, but yeah, so like 30 books, 100 something, short stories and everything over the last 15, 20 years, yeah 100 short stories.

David Viergutz:

So that's that's interesting. So that's a different kind of writing. I I have been kind of digging into that myself. I've been, I've put myself to the goal of one short story a month, sometimes two, and that's that's a little curious, because we'll talk about that later. But that's definitely that's awesome to hear that somebody's like putting that much in a short story, because I think short stories in horror just have a got a place, you know. Oh, absolutely, short stories in the romance are just prime for horror. Yeah, I'm a huge short story fan. So, yeah, happy to talk about that. Yeah, excellent. So, and let's talk a little bit this about, about your, your other other job, so the thing that, the thing that you were doing too, which I find interesting, I think a lot of people would find interesting as well. So you are an instructor, um, and so I'm not going to butcher, I'm gonna let you tell me about your teaching in your school, sure?

Alan Baxter:

Sure, I've been a martial artist since I was a kid and I studied a bunch of different styles and I competed in all sorts of different things and eventually sort of found my home in traditional Chinese Kung Fu. And for the last many years too many years to count I've trained in Chuale Fa Kung Fu, which includes the kung fu side of things as well as the lohan qigong, as well as traditional lion dance and medicine. It's a very big traditional system with its roots in the shell, in temple, but it's a very practical system as well. We only teach what can be applied. We don't, we know, we don't want any sort of wushu and dance moves. It's all about fighting. If it's not, if it's not applicable, it's. You know, we got no time for it, um, so yeah, I've been training and teaching that now for a long time.

Alan Baxter:

I'm a disciple of grandmaster chan yongfao, who's uh in sydney now. I've since moved away from sydney. I live down in tasmania now, but I'm still part of that sort of disciple group and we we look after the system for him and we teach around the world there. There's 20 of us all around the world that sort of take care of his family style.

David Viergutz:

Wow, so it's a host family style and there's only 20 instructors in the whole world.

Alan Baxter:

Oh, there's a lot more than 20 instructors. So there's a long version, a short version. I'll try to give you the short version. So Chole Fat is a very big traditional system system. It's probably the most widely practiced kung fu style outside of china these days. There are a number of family branches, but the style was founded by a guy called chan heong back in the early 1800s. My teacher, my sifu, is chan heong's great-great-grandson, so that's the familial line. So our branch is known as the chan family, choy le fat. There's thousands of Chan Family Chole Fat practitioners around the world. There's a variety of instructors at different levels and there are disciple levels and the dragon disciples are the highest level of disciple and it's sort of our job to look after all the other instructors and everything else. So there are 20 dragon disciples. There are many instructors after that, but yeah, I just appreciate tradition.

David Viergutz:

You know, yeah, and it's it's hard to find it, you try to. You try to pass that down to your family and try to pass something down. You know traditions of of reading and things that you do at the dinner table and the times you spend with them, like that's, that's amazing. So do you? Do you have a family? Do you have a wife, children, that sort of thing.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, I have a kid and a wife and we like he's 10 years old, so a challenge in itself. But yeah, we are sort of reestablishing ourselves now down here in Tasmania. One of the sort of key things for us was moving somewhere where we felt a bit more like the community and the place and everything sort of suited us. So that's been great. So we're still sort of getting used to that at the moment.

Alan Baxter:

Um, but yeah, tradition, I agree with you, it's important, like one of the things about charlotte. When, having tried many different styles and many different sort of variations on styles as over the many years I've been doing martial arts, the thing about Cham family Chole Phat was that really good balance of tradition and real respect for where it came from and honoring sort of the ancestors that passed it down and understanding the really deep cultural connections that the style has way beyond fighting or anything else. But that is also still very much in touch with the practical aspects of what it is, not only in fighting but in a way of life you know. So becomes this whole sort of life path thing that you can informs everything you do very cool.

David Viergutz:

And do your, do your family, do they practice as well, the same way you do?

Alan Baxter:

a little bit. My wife has stepped back a little bit at the moment since we moved, but she's an instructor herself, and also at a high level. My kid did it for a little while, but then, as children do, they like to find their own paths and stuff, so I'm not going to push it. Sometimes kids are just keen to follow and do everything you do, and then or they're keen to do absolutely nothing that you do.

David Viergutz:

So yeah, that's how it goes, wonderful. And so how do they? How did your let's put it this way have you, has your, has your wife known you? If you don't mind me asking, has she, she known you pre-horror writing or after you started horror writing? Did you start when you were already married or were you already married?

Alan Baxter:

I started sort of professionally after we were married. So I was born and raised in the UK and in my sort of mid-20s I was getting sick of the rut that I was in and everything else and I decided to just sort of take myself off traveling. And a friend of me and a friend I had a guitar and a backpack and I just I ended up sort of wandering around for a couple of years, all sorts of different countries and everything else. Prior to that I'd been writing a lot, but not with any view to publication or with any view to sort of doing it seriously. It was just something that I did and I've always enjoyed role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons and all that sort of stuff and I would always like to be a DM because I got to tell the story, I got to sort of write what was going on.

Alan Baxter:

And it was while doing that, traveling for a couple of years, where I started really thinking what did I want from life, what? What did I want to do? And that's when I decided to take writing seriously and it's like, well, why don't I try actually getting published? Why don't I see if I can make this thing work? And it was in the same period of time that I met my wife. So they're sort of fairly concurrent in that respect. So I'd been writing since before I met her. But I've only been writing like with a view to publication and writing professionally since I met her.

Alan Baxter:

And and has she read anything you've written? She has, she's. She's read a lot of what I've written, but she tends to not read much. Now she's she. She's not the biggest horror fan and she's. Yeah, she constantly sort of apologizes for not reading stuff, but I've traumatized her too many times and so she's like no, I'm not doing it anymore.

David Viergutz:

Absolutely fair. My, my wife's the same way, um, and, and she, she appreciates it, she understands it. She loves the movies. Occasionally she'll. She likes a horror book, but she's a pretty diverse reader. She'll read a lot of things right now. Likes a horror book, but she's a pretty diverse reader. She'll read a lot of things right now she's kind of on a romantic kick. I think a lot of folks are on and um, but yeah, and I just explained to her, I'm like, look it's, it's okay, you know exactly, there's no obligation I've got a trilogy of sort of dark urban fantasy.

Alan Baxter:

My alex kane series is a trilogy that's a lot of magic and monsters and it's got very dark edges, a lot of horror tropes, and she read that trilogy and really enjoyed it. But the more stuff, the stuff that leans sort of further into horror, is a bit sort of outside her wheelhouse and so yeah, yeah.

David Viergutz:

Now I got a question that's specific to Australia, because you've been there forever. Is it true that everything there is designed to kill you, like it just does not want you on this, on that island?

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, even the country itself. Like you know, people go wandering into the outback and think they'll go for a hike and then the country just swallows them. It's like, yeah, it equally. It's just, you know, there's a population of us here that just live and enjoy the country and it's, it's absolutely fine, you, it's. It's that sort of weird um balance that it is an amazing place and a beautiful place and a wonderful place. It is also a very dangerous place potentially, but it's only really dangerous if you're sort of really stupid, like if you pay attention to what's going on, like you don't stick your hand in a hole in a log, you don't wander into the outback without a lot of preparation, you don't, you know you just if you're aware of stuff and you just pay attention, it's really no more dangerous than anywhere else, yeah, you have to ask yourself, like am I in a scary movie right now?

David Viergutz:

yeah, if you are, you're like, yeah, I'm just not gonna do that thing.

Alan Baxter:

Like, yeah, that's it you know, if there's a light switch at the top of the basement stairs, why would you go down the stairs without hitting the switch first? If you do you, you know you deserve. You deserve what you get.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, that's awesome, and so I'm sure it is probably a topic of discussion, but tell me about your book, the Rue, please, and should other because it's related to your connection to Australia. It's clearly about kangaroos. Tell me about that, because it's got one of the funniest covers and I just I've seen I've seen some b-movie horror movies before with with kangaroos and so I just it's got this nostalgic feel for me.

Alan Baxter:

so tell me, tell me yeah, well, I mean it happened because of the cover. So the short version of this is that, um, back when twitter was still a nice place to hang out, um, there was a big conversation going on because a bunch of people, uh, were sharing a news article from the northern territory in australia and the news article was saying about how this kangaroo was terrorizing this small town and it was digging up gardens and attacking people, which is what roos do from time to time. They're belligerent pricks a lot of the time, you know they're. They're just. They're like you imagine, like if you got deer. They're basically like deer. They just wander around and they graze and whatever else. It's just that every once in a while they just get really pissed off with people and go a bit cranky for no really apparent reason. But they're not a huge threat. Again, if you're smart, there's not really any danger to it.

Alan Baxter:

Um, but this article was going around and a lot of people were saying surely this isn't real and it's like no, that's real, that happens sometimes. And so then everybody started laughing and joking about a kangaroo terrorizing a town. And then keelan patrick burke, who's a brilliant, brilliant horror writer, um irish guy now living in the us. Um, he's also a brilliant cover designer and so, for a bit of a laugh, he mocked up an old zebra horror cover called the rue. Uh, and then everybody started saying that's insane, that's such a cool cover, that's that that it's a shame to waste, that we need the book to go with the cover. Um, and then everybody started sort of because I was the token australian in that conversation everybody started saying you should write it. You got to write this story.

Alan Baxter:

And then I started getting dms about it as well, people going, seriously, can you write this story? It would be amazing. So I contacted keelan and I arranged with him to buy the cover and I had in mind a story that I wanted to write, um, that was set in an outback town and I hadn't really got my head around yet what I was going to use for that sort of allegorical monster, that or or force or whatever that was going to be central to the story, and it was like, well, why not a demonic kangaroo? And that's so that I started thinking about that and I expanded the idea and it's a novella now.

Alan Baxter:

So it's sort of it's not novel length, it's a decent size, um, yeah, but it's. It's basically like a movie length is. You know that, being a novella, it's similar length to a movie script, you know, um, and I just leaned into all those old films that I love from back in the day the Jaws, the Cujo, especially Razorback, which is such an Australian piece of filmmaking. I deliberately didn't watch Razorback again before I wrote the book and then, after I wrote the book, I watched it again and was reminded of just how bonkers that film is Razorback.

David Viergutz:

I'm adding that to my list now because my wife and I were just talking today about a list of watching some older horror movies.

Alan Baxter:

Well, brace yourself for just truly bizarre. It is so Australian and just so crazy. It's the most insane thing. And so, yeah, basically the Rue is just homage to all those creature feature novels and movies, especially from the 80s, and with a little bit of an updated sensibility behind the story. That's in there, but the basic, my basic sort of personal brief for the story was demonic kangaroo and every kill gets crazier than the last, and just sort of worked through that and that. That. That became the story and and it became thankfully I mean, you're always grateful when these things happened but it became wildly popular.

David Viergutz:

So, yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, and, and it's, it's a little bit, it's a little bit silly, it's a little bit outlandish, but it's also one of those things that horror can say why not, you know? Other genres are like ah, you can't do that, then horror, you're like why the hell not? You know? Yeah, yeah, exactly uh, I can't, I, I'm. I'm.

Alan Baxter:

Brian assman had this book that came out called man, fuck this house yes yeah, I bought it specifically because of the title and I think I think probably at least 50 percent of the people that bought that book were just like, oh my god, they saw the title and they just like, well, I need to know more.

David Viergutz:

So, yeah, that was totally inspirational, that one in and the because I'm like it's so simple, it's right there in my face. So I was like I want to write a book as well and it's, it's on my roster. I've put 20 000 words in it's and I and I we bought a cover. I didn't like it, so we had a co-writer and then I was like okay, so it's been through the hassles, but it's called big fucking spider and it's inspired by the room and it's inspired by man.

David Viergutz:

Fuck this house because it's brilliant, because of the title and I was like man, I'm like it's, it's right there in your face. You know, sharknado is the exact same way. It had six sequels. I'm like I feel pretty good about big fucking spider if sharknado has had six sequels, like yeah, that's it, and this is the thing you know.

Alan Baxter:

When you have things like that that are successful, like like you just mentioned, it's just proof that nothing's off limits, nothing's off the table. If you want to give it a go, just give it a go, and it might fall flat or it might not, but why not try it? You know the only thing I say with stuff like that, like with the roof, there has to be a bit more to it than just the fact that it's, yes, this crazy monster murdering loads of people, because that's great fun, but in and of itself, it needs a bit more meat on its bones. And so you know, obviously, like any story, you need a good story and you need good characters underneath what you're doing. But yeah, dress it up however you like. If you want a demonic kangaroo or a big fucking spider or anything else, just roll with it I mean, isn't that, what isn't that what the average zombie story is, though?

David Viergutz:

it's like, yeah, there's zombies, we know what they do. But it's like, okay, the zombies are outside, but what do we have? We just have a bunch of people who are stuck inside trying to survive each other. You know, they know how to kill the zombies. That's the easy part, right.

Alan Baxter:

The hard part is how do we survive with each other, and I think that's one of the most genius things like a shopping mall, like with you know, with you know probably my favorite of the zombie movies. It's just like you put a whole bunch of different people trapped somewhere with zombies outside, and where do you trap them? It's like, well, in a mall. It's like fucking genius.

David Viergutz:

That's just brilliant, yeah yeah, I mean that's uh, uh. What do you call the king method? I mean, look at kujo, you have. You get three people in a hot car and a dog circling it. I mean that's the whole premise.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, how about, uh, how about gerald's game? The whole thing is woman tied to a bed.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, like it doesn't, doesn't get beyond the foot of the bed yeah, I mean it's if you can do that, or if you can write a story that's completely just in somebody's head for the entire time. I think that's like that to me would be the ultimate like brain buster. It's like man, um, like you just put a bunch of people in a very close space and force them to interact and survive each other and you get instant conflict and you get all this craziness that we love, that that we just, I mean, and and the thing like the rue becomes rue becomes the thing that holds them together, like it's like hey, we, yeah, that's the catalyst.

Alan Baxter:

That's it. I mean I did it recently with my latest book is Blood Covenant and one of the sort of things in my mind on writing that is it's set in a remote hotel. That's kind of it's up in the mountains out in the bush and it's distant from everything. And one of the driving factors for that was that everything happens in and around the hotel. So it starts with these guys the bank robbery goes wrong and they go on the run and they think the hotel is empty so they hole up there. The family who run the hotel have just arrived to open up. So these two groups are there against each other and they wake up something in the bush that then they're both fighting against and then the whole thing just it's focused there in the hotel and the bush surrounding the hotel and that was one of the driving parts of it is. I want this contained thing. They're trying to get away from it, but they're held into it. That was a large part of, you know, the drive for that story.

David Viergutz:

I love that sort of tight focus horror that works like that yeah, I think that I mean because like we talk about, like lovecraft, and we talk about lovecraft horror, it's got this big ominous feel to it right, this very bird's eye view of everything going on. But then you have the down-home horror that the average person really kind of. It doesn't force you to ponder so much. The big Lovecraftian-style worlds they really force you to ponder. If you look at it, for example, the thing is a thousand pages I. It spans. It spans like an epic, basically, of how, of how long this, this story has been told for with this, this creature, you know, I mean it's like two novels together, the kids and the grown-ups, you know, like two concurrent novels.

Alan Baxter:

It's.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, it's quite a thing yeah, and it's got that that very big picture view to it. Then you kind of whittle down to the characters individually. I mean when we write, you know the horror, the kind of horror we write, the mainstream genre horror like we bring it a lot closer than that, right, I mean that we I mean there's not a lot of questions asked. I mean it's questions to the characters, but not kind of questions about the world and the universe and everything like that. It's not like we're pondering why things are the way they are. It's just like here's a scary thing that we got to deal with in a very human way and I think that's yeah, I mean there's a scary thing that we got to deal with in a very human way, and I think that's yeah, I mean there's a good place.

Alan Baxter:

I mean, some of my stuff does sort of expand out. Like you know, I have written some things that that do take like a bigger view, but even then it's always that bigger view from the point of view of a closer focus. I think that's. I think that's where you stay focused and I think that's really a lot of the time. That's the skill in good horror is is finding that character focus, um, and like you know, you take something like the thing is galactic and everything else, but it's this isolated, um arctic station with this sort of contained group of people, and that's how the story is told. And I think that's where horror works best is when it's got that character focus so let me ask you this why do you think people read horror?

David Viergutz:

because I I listen to a prominent indie author, um, and his opinion, and while I appreciate his opinion for what it is, his opinion I think is wrong. He said that if you want to write horror and try and make a living, write another genre and then write horror on the side. And it's taken me five years to get to where I am now and clearly that's not the case. But at the same time he said the reason that that's the case is because people have enough horror in their real lives that they don't want to read it. And I'm like well, I don't think that's true, because horror in somebody else's life is generally worse than what you're reading.

Alan Baxter:

Horror always does better when the world's a shithole, like you know. When things are on the up, horror goes down. When things are really rough and terrible, horror goes up. It's always been that way. I think part of it is the fact that in some ways there's reading stuff it's like, well, the world is shit, but it could be this bad. In some ways there's reading stuff it's like, well, the world is shit, but it could be this bad, it could be worse.

Alan Baxter:

And there's also horror. It helps you develop coping mechanisms. You put yourself in traumatic situations and you see how the characters deal with it and you think how you would deal with it. There are scientific studies that have proven that people who read and watch horror are better equipped to deal with trauma than people who don't, because they've sort of subconsciously practiced trauma through horror. And I think a lot of the reason we read it is because we get that cathartic process and we get to process thoughts about how we would deal with those situations. But also we read horror for the same reason we ride roller coasters it's just good fun, it's a thrill.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, I had an interview with Tim Wagner a long time ago and it still sticks with me to this day. He's like horror is fun. He's like it's not meant to be this. His opinion is that it's not meant to be a coping mechanism, but the coping does happen.

David Viergutz:

I think I would totally believe that there are studies out there I haven't seen them, but I'm like I would totally believe it that there are studies that say you know, you would become, you somewhat become stronger in a way, by witnessing things in a safe environment. You're like you're reading it or you're watching in a movie and it's like, yeah, there's going to be probably some select few who are kind of traumatized from things, but also, the same time, there's going to be the majority of people who are like, well, you know this, I've lived, I've watched this happen. You know, I kind of have an idea of, hey, at least it could be worse, you know, you know, and I believe there's scoping to it. So it's like I totally believe that horror is meant to be fun. I mean it's meant to have a thrill right, the thrilling feeling, and to be scared in a safe way. I think that's fine. I mean that's part of being human right, yeah, I mean.

Alan Baxter:

Octavia Butler said no entertainment on earth can match a good story, compellingly told, and for me, whatever else I'm doing, that's central to me. Everything is in service to story and story needs to be entertaining. I want people who pick up one of my books to read it have a good time, have good fun with it and at the end of it go, wow, that was a great ride. Anything else that's in there is secondary to that and, you know, hopefully there is a lot of stuff in there. Hopefully there is a lot of stuff in there. Hopefully there is a lot of, you know, sort of character study and considering the human condition and thinking about the bigger issues and all that sort of stuff.

Alan Baxter:

But the issues are never the driving force. The driving force is always story and character and having fun. I want people to be entertained. People read because they're stepping out of real life, they're stepping outside of the traumas. I'm going to sit down for a little while with a good book and even if it's a sort of traumatic book, it's traumatic in the context of the book, not in context of their lives, and so I want them to sit down and enjoy that process. That's always, first and foremost, what's going on, yeah?

David Viergutz:

Yeah, and where would you put your horror? Do you put it right in the middle? Do you put it leaning towards the extreme end? Do you put it towards the cozy end? If that's your bracket, where do you think you fall? It's always hard to say.

Alan Baxter:

I'm not either end. It's certainly not sort of cozy horror. My stuff can be pretty dark and bleak a lot of the time. But I'm not an extreme horror writer or a sort of slatterpunk writer, even though from time to time elements of that creep in. One of my biggest influences was always Clive Barker and I really love that, what he called the dark fantasy.

Alan Baxter:

I really like that blending of horror, fantasy, supernatural monsters, that kind of vibe. That's kind of my samp it. Um, and a lot of the time it's yeah, it's it. It sits somewhere in the middle, I think. In that respect I'm definitely not an extreme author, um, but you know it's stuff that's a bit too much and too too confronting sometimes from for my wife to read, so it's not cozy because she she enjoys the cozy stuff. But, um, uh, yeah, you know there are elements of body horror that creep into my stuff as well, and so you know there's moments where it sort of drops around the place. But that dark fantastic, that horror fantasy sort of crossover, that's where I really feel at home yeah, I think there's.

David Viergutz:

I think it's a tool. Right, we got to use it. I mean, use it to our advantage. You know this, our advantage. Let's look at a perfect example where the extremeness is already there without it being a tool. Look at the girl next door. That one is all real life, no fantasy, straight horror. You didn't need to add the body horror and all that stuff because it's already there. And it's like you didn't need to add the body horror and all that stuff because it's already there and it's already happening. And it's like what? That one, that one has stuck with me for a very long time. I read that book, I don't know, probably, probably 15 years ago, and even then I don't think I was ready, ready for it. And to this day I'm still kind of tempted to pick it up again. But I'm like I've got it. You know, to be read list that's this long and I'm like I do want to give it another try and read it through again.

Alan Baxter:

The Onyx Door is one of the best books I've ever read, but I will not read again.

David Viergutz:

Yes, I think that's for a lot of folks.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, it's an amazing book and I recommend it all the time, but Very Much Once was enough for me on that front apart. But very much Once was enough for me on that front, apart from the fact that there's some books I'll reread, but there are so many great books out there that something has to be truly outstanding for me to reread it, and the Girl Next Door is truly outstanding, but it's also that traumatic that I don't need to read it again.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, it hit me once, Amazing yeah exactly I know what's coming.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, Red is probably one of my favourites by Ketchum. That's just outstanding. But when you talk about using horror to explore human nature or whatever, brilliant.

David Viergutz:

So what's on your shelf right now? What's the most recent book you've been reading?

Alan Baxter:

I'm actually well, I'm reading a couple of things at the moment. Angela Slater is an Australian fantasy author and I just picked up her new one called the Briar Book of the Dead, which I literally just read the first chapter last night, because I still enjoy the good fantasy novels from time to time. And I'm also working my way through Ellen Datlow's Shirley Jackson anthology, where she got a bunch of people to write sort of stories inspired by Shirley Jackson. I can't remember what it's called because it screams from the dark, something like that. It's in the other room so I can't. I can't remember what it's called. But yeah, ellen Datlow's Shirley Jackson anthology. And Datlow is she's a never miss editor for me. Talking about you know short stories, yeah, about you know short stories, yeah, um, she's she's just, you know sort of the premier editor when it comes to short fiction and she puts together the most she never misses with an anthology or a best so let's talk about short stories.

David Viergutz:

Then you've got a hundred plus short stories. I don't, I have a quarter of that. Let's talk, because you've got way more short stories than you do. Novels, of course, but yeah, let's. What are your thoughts on them? Where do they fall? Should readers read them? What's, oh, what's the what's the deal with shorts?

Alan Baxter:

well, I mean, I started, so I started with novels. I started writing novels, um, and I always love short stories. I just I sort of really discovered short stories when I discovered um roald dahl's short story collections for adults on my parents shelf when I was too young to be reading those twisted stories really, um, and I've sort of been a huge fan of short stories ever since then, but it never sort of really occurred to me to try writing them. I was always thinking of myself as a novelist. But then a lot of people and especially back then as well were like oh you know, a really good way to get your name out there and to get noticed is to write some short stories, because editors see you, readers see your name and they might check out what else is out there. Somebody will read a short story before they'll take a chance on a novel by someone they don't know and if they enjoy your short story, blah, blah, blah. So OK, that makes sense, and I'm a big fan of short stories.

Alan Baxter:

So I decided I would write some and then realized just how difficult it is to write good short stories. They're the same as a novel in as much as you need a beginning, a middle and an end, you need character development, you need conflict and odds and all that stuff. But it's a different art form, and so then it sort of became a personal challenge almost, and I was like I want to get good at this. And so I, I really worked at it and I, you know, I went to, did some courses and stuff to help me get my head around what was, you know, what were the guts of a good short story and how to work that sort of stuff. And I, I slowly taught myself how to do it, and I'm a huge fan, um, of reading and writing short stories I'm writing currently. What I'm working on right now is a short story that I was asked to write for a thing, um, and I'm just really enjoying being in the middle of that process again yeah, short stories are really it's.

David Viergutz:

it's something that I've. I do need to do more studying on. I've read plenty of novels and I've written plenty of novels and I've studied plenty of novels, but I'm still getting into the idea of studying short stories, and especially because it is so much fun to be in a short story and then to wish it never ends and then knowing that the ending is inevitably coming in just a couple of pages and so from a reading perspective, yeah, the best short stories are like that.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, what's that? Sorry, I was saying the best short stories are like that, yeah what, what's that?

Alan Baxter:

that's sorry, I was saying the best short stories are like that. You know, one of the one of the best pieces of advice when it comes to writing short stories is to start late and finish early. So you know, you, it's a really tightly focused lens. You want to start the story right in the action. You want to get out without all the sort of tying up of loose ends, so you've got that real focus of what's, what's happened in the story. And you know those are often the best ones and it's yeah, it's.

Alan Baxter:

It's a weird thing, it's a hard thing to sort of, to sort of put your finger on. My recommendation is always talking about Ellen Datlow. Again, every year she does, uh, year's best or best horror of the year, volume, whatever, and she's up to I think 16 now or something. So every year that comes out. And if you want to get an idea of what really good short fiction is, especially horror short fiction, just read that series of anthologies of the best horror of the year, because it's just an outstanding collection. It shows the sort of breadth and diversity that you can find in short horror fiction and every single volume of that is a masterclass in short storytelling and it's one of my writer goals to have a story included in that one year. I've had an honorable mention in there a few times, but I've never actually had a reprint in there yet. So that's on my bucket list.

David Viergutz:

Can you give me the editor's name again? So I'll spell it out so that we can give it to ellen datlow e-double-l-e-n, and then datlow is d-a-t-l-o-w ellen datlow. Okay, so for those listening, you can search an editor on amazon or anywhere else, just like you can search for authors. So if you search for, ellen datlow, you can find some of those anthologies which are just collections of short stories, and I'm sure you're going to find some prominent names in there.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah there'll be lots of names that you recognize from horror in general. There'll be lots of names you don't, because she's brilliant at finding she reads. It's insane the amount she reads. She just finds stuff from all over the place, and so I've discovered new authors there who've become favorites because I first discovered them in one of her best horror of the year volumes.

David Viergutz:

Very cool. Interesting. So I don't know. I have a small readership who enjoys my short stories, um, who are there specifically for them, um, and I I think that it's probably a missing piece in for readers right now. They like the novels, they like the long, the big, immersive worlds, but I think, I think readers are probably missing out on something they haven't given short stories a try.

David Viergutz:

You know at least I mean people love. Uh, I don't know if you've seen those movies that come out at least lately, and I've got this obsession with found footage movies.

Alan Baxter:

So, um, those movies vhs um those things are a perfect example of of of an anthology collection of short stories, and some of them feed a bigger world, and other times it's just just short and punchy and and terrifying and there's stuff like, you know, creep show and love, death and robots and stuff like that that are basically, and you know, been at um, guillermo del toro's cabinet of curiosities and stuff like that. These anthology shows and each episode of that is an adapted short story. Like people, a lot of the time people sort of I think, don't really know where to go to find these sorts of things. But a lot of authors like myself have got collections, you know single author collections, where I collected our best stories together. There's a variety of anthologies out there with lots of different authors in there. You can get an explanation.

Alan Baxter:

Exploration of short fiction I do a lot of short fiction on my patreon. Now that's one of the um sort of perks, um one, one of the levels and above on my patreon is that I write short stories exclusively there and that. So that's one place that readers can find stuff. Yeah, it's a good place to find stuff in between novels, um, but once you start sort of looking into it and you find sort of places where you can find short stories, then there's gold to be discovered. There's a lot of great podcasts as well, things like pseudopod and and um and then the. What's it called the no, the no sleep podcast and stuff like that, where they they do brilliant audio and often dramatic audio of short stories. Um, and that's that's fantastic. Walking the dog, driving the car, that sort of stuff. You get to listen to amazing short fiction it's a good like 20 minute hit.

David Viergutz:

You know you get a 5 000 word short story which is 20 pages. You got 20 minutes basically of of in and out good stories. I mean that's what it comes down to, right, it's just and that's a challenge, just like you said is it's it's a challenge to number one. It's a challenge to hook a reader and to like get them involved in the first couple of paragraphs, but knowing that there's limited paragraphs remaining. So there's not a lot of chance for redemption you know that's it.

Alan Baxter:

And and the other thing as well with horror, like horror is really suited to short stories and novellas as well, and in part because if you write a novel and someone commits 10, 12 hours of their time to read a novel, um, you, there's a certain sort of social contract that they need to get something out of it and you can't be super bleak a lot of the time. There needs to be maybe some hope or some redemption or something that that's off the table with short fiction. If you're spending 20 minutes reading a short story, it could be just bleak as fuck and everyone dies. You don't really owe the reader anything other than a good story, and so you can really. Yeah, there's this kind of I mean, there's no limits anywhere in fiction, but in particular, I think with short stories, all bets are off.

David Viergutz:

You know anything can happen in short fiction and you're in and out, like you said, in 20 minutes, so you can take any chance you like. Yeah, and that's. That's such an interesting place, man and I. I love the idea and you see, a lot of film is like this too where new up-and-coming film, uh, creators will start with short horror, you know, and they'll go to these festivals and they'll have this amazing piece of short horror, or that's, that's zero budget, right?

David Viergutz:

they've done it with with ketchup in there and from the kitchen, you know, and, and, but it's, it's just. It horror just suits that, which is just weird.

Alan Baxter:

It's weird that it works yeah, I mean so many short stories, a single scene as well, so like single location or something like that as well, which lends itself to short filmmaking, and novellas and movie scripts are about the same length. If you try to adapt a novel into a movie, you're taking a lot of story away. But if a novella of about 100 and 120 pages is about the same as a movie script of about the same pages, they kind of line up. So short stories for short films, novellas for feature films, they're just ripe for adaptation films, novellas, for feature films, they're, they're just ripe for adaptation, yeah.

David Viergutz:

So let's, let's uh, let's kind of angle off a little bit here, so let's talk about some scary stuff. I mean I don't and, and I don't mean like the inspirational kind, like you know, where do you get your inspiration? I think everybody I I like to ask this question because everybody's so so different um, but talk about, give me, give me something that scares you in your life, because as a martial artist, so as a martial artist, um, you know, you have a lot of, I'm sure you gain a lot of confidence from that. I've been a soldier and I've been a police officer. I have a lot of confidence from that that I can take care of business if I need to, yeah, and that takes a lot of the fear the world away. But there are still things that scare me in this world. So give me something. What, what could, what? What scares alan?

Alan Baxter:

well I I always say like, yeah, it's similar to yourself, I've got no concerns about you know, run, running into people, I'm not scared of anyone. But I am scared of people, um sure, because you know, like I've I've I've had a not you know serious like war conflict. But I've had a lot of conflict in my life, even in control conditions like in tournament and stuff like that, and in fighting, like you know, I've sort of faced up to stuff. So I'm not bothered by individual people. Just goes to show how people en masse can be so freaking, dangerous to other people and that really scares me. You know, the world that my kid is growing up in is probably the thing that scares me the most. Like my biggest fear is not being able to protect my family, and not from an intruder or not from, you know, anything sort of mundane like that, but from the world at large and the way the world at large works and the way people on mass affect everyone on an individual level. You know that scares me.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, I think there's. I think we all kind of, regardless of where you line up on anything, we all just have this desire. I think there's a desire to want to find hope in everything, and so when we just start to see that hope go away in mass, and it's just when you see people who become the thing that you fear, that you see them and and they don't have to and they're choosing to, yeah, to start losing hope because it's supposed to be us that comes together.

Alan Baxter:

That's it, they say. The arc of the universe bends towards justice, which may be true in the greater scheme of things, but frequently on a more tighter timescale, you frequently see it bending far away, you know, and certain groups of people just becoming victimized or vilified, and for just for wanting to exist, um, and it's like why? Why is this always so much conflict? And usually it comes down to fear, um, and ignorance. A lot of the time, people sort of repeat what they're told and they don't have the space for an education that allows them to consider other people different to themselves. And there's this fear. A lot of the time people are told these people are responsible for your problems, when it's not true, you know, the people who have most control over those problems are usually the people saying these people are responsible, not us, um, and we really need to try to have people educated to the degree that the more you care for each other, the better everybody is. You know, the better off everybody is. Nobody's, nobody's out to eat your cookies.

David Viergutz:

You know there's cookies enough for everyone and you know, and that's that's an excellent point, because the horror community is is the community for bringing together people from from all over, from from all walks of life, from every, every corner of the genre, where the expectations are quite out the window and there's a certain level of acceptance that says, if you, if that, if you, if you can't find your place somewhere, you could probably find it with us.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, and if people fuck up in that genre in that community. In my experience, we are very quick as soon as you know that becomes apparent that that's happening. We are very quick as soon as you know that becomes apparent that that's happening. We are very quick to say if you're making people unsafe, you're gone like. I'm a huge fan of heavy metal music as well and I've always said that I'm I never feel safer and more at home than I do either at a horror convention or a heavy metal gig where you know all these rough and ready tattoos and long hair and black and leather and all this sort of stuff. Yeah, all the well-to-do people cross the street to avoid people like us, whereas when we're all together, nicest people in the world, safest place in the world, you know.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, I came back from Scares that Care and I was over there a couple months ago and that's exactly what it was like. It was like a giant family of people, and it's a giant family of people who are just like you know what. You can be one of us. If you can't fit anywhere else, you can be one of us. The people who don't mind watching a scary movie, who don't look at you crossways because you find the occult interesting or whatever it's like all these things that people pretend to not like and they just want to live in the fantast, fantastical, happy-go-lucky world.

David Viergutz:

it's like they they look at us as saying, oh, no, that's, and I say us as in largely the kind of horror community. You know, horror loving community readers alike, you know they just get looked at crossways like we are somehow evil because we read about evil things or write about evil things, and it's like, no, I mean, that's not the case at all.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, if you, if you, if you're just going to be yourself and you're going to let other people be themselves, then you're welcome in that community and there's a place for you in it.

Alan Baxter:

It's like it's the lack of judgment in those communities that I find the most sort of warming and welcoming. You know, like it's it, I I experienced it myself when I was first going to, when I first discovered there were such things as conventions and the writing community in general and the speculative fiction community that I was sort of a large part of, I still am a large part of, here in australia, with the science fiction, fantasy, horror, all that sort of genre fiction. Such a welcoming community, people going, hey, come on in one of us, like we're the nerds, you know, we are the weirdos, mister. It's that principle, um, and just looking out for each other and not taking shit from people who aren't prepared to look out for each other. It's like, and we all I've just ever since I've just been doing my best to pay that forward, because it's just awesome to have a place where you're welcome and where you're safe.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, and I love the idea, too, of us as horror writers who are defeating the stigmas that are attached to us on a daily basis, because people imagine that because we write creepy things, we ourselves must be creepy. And it turns out that we're just normal people.

Alan Baxter:

We're just average people who love a little bit of horror in our lives and more often than not, we're the people who have processed that shit and are least likely to be the freaks and the weirdos when it comes to the really dangerous stuff in real life. Right, you know? Yeah, it's like heavy metal music and reading horror and stuff like this. That doesn't, that's not. That doesn't make you a psycho and it's not psychos that do that stuff.

David Viergutz:

So yeah, I mean in the, in the last podcast we're talking, I was talking to dan uh, dan franklin, and one things we talked about is how, like all these serial killers were prominent members in their communities. You, know, they were well liked and well loved, and and yeah they smile the right way and everybody loved them and yeah, and it.

Alan Baxter:

They dressed very neatly and conservatively and they looked yeah.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, and then they got 13 bodies in the basement and that's it.

Alan Baxter:

Karen Warren I mean Karen Warren herself is a perfect example, because she's an absolutely outstanding horror writer here in Australia and obviously internationally. And when you read what she writes and then you see, meet the person, it's a disconnect. It's like how the hell is someone as lovely, small, you know, she's like everyone's mum kind of thing and then she writes this fucked up stuff? So she's absolutely brilliant. Everyone should read Karen Warren. But she also said that, as far as she's concerned, plumbers, butchers and horror writers are among the most well-balanced people in society because they spend their lives dealing with blood and shit and guts and everything else, and so that stuff isn't inside, it isn't sort of it isn't kind of compressed inside.

Alan Baxter:

You let that stuff out, you explore that stuff, and so you naturally have a better balance when it comes to everyday life, because you're not kind of putting that stuff out of mind all the time, you're addressing it all the time yeah, I like to believe that we're that that horror.

David Viergutz:

Writing itself is is not only the genre of hope, but also it's the genre of of, and even though we write about stuff that is fantastical, it is real, raw, human fear that is connecting us as the writers and us as the readers. The human element of it is fear, and that part it cannot be made up. It is just there and inherent in all of us, and when we write that, we are bringing people closer together by things that make us more human.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, yeah, I mean. People say why do you read horror, why do you write horror? I've often said it's because it's the genre of honesty. Because fiction is escapism, it is made up and a lot of the time fiction will be hopeful and the bad guys get defeated, the good guys win, the guy gets the girl, the girl gets to go, all that sort of stuff. There's all that hope in fiction, which is true and it's good and it's necessary in a lot of the stories we read. So the thing about horror is that it's a genre of honesty in as much as sometimes the dragon wins, sometimes you don't get the girl, sometimes not everyone survives.

Alan Baxter:

That's real life, that we're all very well aware of, the fact that terrible shit happens to good people and shit people enjoy a long, happy life and die in their 90s, never having seen adversity. There's a massive injustice in this. We recognize that in real life and horror tends to address that kind of injustice and put it in a framework for us to sort of consider and think about. And so it's. It's very much a genre of honesty in that respect. It doesn't turn away when, when the alley gets dark, it doesn't turn back.

David Viergutz:

I love it. It doesn't pretend to be something. It's not. That's awesome, that's excellent. Alan, this is it's been a blast man, this is. This is not the direction I thought it was like let's talk about, honestly, this is not the direction I thought things would go. I thought we'd be at 45 minutes to talk about about kangaroos, but you know what there's more to us than just kangaroos, yeah yeah, yeah.

David Viergutz:

So that's an interesting question real quick before we wrap things up. Do you identify now as as uh, as an Englishman, or from the UK or from Australia? Which one it's?

Alan Baxter:

interesting because I'm where is it Maybe? So I'm just doing a quick bit of maths in my head. I think in about three years time I will have lived for as long in Australia as I did in the UK. There's a few years in the middle that were a bit blurry because I was traveling back and forth and all over the place, but I've pretty much half my life in each now. Uh, so I think where you're born and where you grow up, those formative years are always like the foundation of your character. So there's a part of me that will always be British. There's a part of me that's always English.

Alan Baxter:

Um, but I do feel very much Australian. Now I have both passports. Um, I live in Australia, I live in Tasmania. That's like I very much sort of identify as Australian. Now I'm.

Alan Baxter:

You know, if someone was born in Australia and they were 25 years old, there would be no question that they were an Australian, and I've been in Australia more than 25 years now. So, yeah, it's like, yeah, I feel very much, but I'm equally as an immigrant. You sort of always never one thing or the other. So when I go to, if I go back and visit the UK, I sound Australian to people and I haven't been there for decades, and there's big news and celebrities and stuff I just don't know about because I'm a little bit out of touch and when I'm here people hear the English edge in my voice and, um, you know, like they're like, oh they, they know that I'm wasn't sort of born in Australia, so you're always sort of an immigrant and it kind of colors, but I, you know, a lot of that feeds into the fiction that I write as well. So, um, but yeah, the honest answer is, I think, to be honest, I feel just as much both. I will always be British from birth and I am very much Australian now.

David Viergutz:

I love it and we, we have something similar here. I'm. You know I was born and raised on the East coast, um and I, at age 18, I joined the army and I got sent to El Paso and I've been in Texas now for pretty much longer than I was on the East coast, and so you know they call me a Yankee. Uh, when they find out from the East coast and they say well how long you been in Texas and I tell them how long they're like okay, you're technically from Texas, You're fine yeah.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, yeah. Well, before we moved down here where we lived previously in in in country New South Wales, when we moved in there we were sort of joking with some of the locals and we were like how long, how long till we consider the local, cause it was a little country, town, yeah. And one of the guys was like you won't be considered a local till you've conceived a child on the banks of the Midamara, which was the river that like runs through. And so when our kid was born, it was like, yes, we're local now living in Tasmania. You're never going to be considered a local in Tasmania unless you were born here, because you're always going to be a mainlander who came over.

David Viergutz:

A mainlander. I like it.

Alan Baxter:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't mind. I'm used to being an immigrant, I'm used to being the one that's sort of I've always been from somewhere else. I don't mind that, I'm happy with that.

David Viergutz:

Yeah, and that makes the world colorful and that's fine.

Alan Baxter:

I mean right, it makes a, makes the world a wonderful place that we can do that.

David Viergutz:

So that's it excellent, alan. Thank you. Thank you for sharing you know. Thank you for sharing all this. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Um real quick, just let our listeners know where can they find you? What books should they pick up from yours so they can support you and really dive into the horror that we've talked about today?

Alan Baxter:

Well, thanks for having me, it's been good fun. You can find me. The easiest place is to start on my website. It's just my name, alanbaxter A-L-A-N-B-A-X-T-E-R, dot com, dot A-U. That's my website and it links out. There's a link tree there. That's all my different social media, but you can find everything on there about my different books, um, and what's going on, um. So everything you need can be found on that website. Um.

Alan Baxter:

As for reading stuff, if you want really weird, uh, australian stories, I've got a couple of collections, two novella collections, the gulp and the fall, um. That are all novellas set in and around a fictional australian town called gold pepper but locals call it the Goldpepper because it has a habit of swallowing people and that's very Australian and very weird and lots of variety of different styles of horror. And my latest novel that I mentioned earlier is Blood Covenant. That just came out last week, excuse me, and again that's a very Australian story, but that's a good novel-length place to jump in. But otherwise, just have a look on my website. There's a my Books page and there's a big sort of graphic on there that's got all the covers and shows you what I do and what's there. So, yeah, have a look around.

David Viergutz:

Excellent man. It's been a blast and a pleasure and I just want to say thank you from one side of the world to the other. Thank you for your time, thank you for your insight, thank you for sharing your joys and your loves with us. So that's amazing. Thank you so much. No worries, it's been good fun. Thanks for having me. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This has been the Nightmare Engine podcast with Mr Alan Baxter. What a treat today. Thank you all for listening. That's it, we're over. I'm going to sign out.

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