K. Marvin Bruce

The ghost story, as we know it, was originally associated more with Christmas than Halloween.  That makes sense, since the solstice is darker than the equinox.  Both days stand as transitions—Halloween is the beginning of the darkness, and Christmas is midnight. If you’re like me you may have comfy memories of childhood holidays.  That snug and warm feeling of being at home, well-stocked with food against the cold outside.  The hope of presents and a day of not worrying about the realities outside. Nightmares, however, know no holidays.  I awake in the dark and the light is but a mere sliver of the day.  Long before dinnertime the sun has set again.  Breakfast and supper are in the dark.  Is it any wonder the ghosts linger around the Christmas tree? My first published story, now on a defunct website, was the 2009 winner of the prix d’écriture de Noël in Fiction in Danse Macabre .  A scary Christmas story?  This was what gave...

A felicitous bit of unexpected delirium came my way as I received news that one of my stories had been accepted for publication in Danse Macabre .  That magazine reserves a bishop’s throne of reverence in my psyche as the first place willing to publish my efforts at finding a voice. Not exactly a neophyte at fiction—I have been writing since grade school days—publication has been an uphill forced march in an icy rain for me.  I finished my first novel last century, in 1988.  Like many first novels, it sucked.  It didn’t seem that way to me at the time. Nothing is a better assassin to good fiction than academic writing.  Trying to establish a career in higher education, I wrote a couple of dry books and some articles, always trying to up the bar a little on style and panache.  Most publishers were not amused. I was 47 years old when my first fiction piece was published.  In Danse Macabre .  It won special mention as a macabre Christma...