
By C. S Anderson |
A long time ago (ten years or so) in a galaxy far far away (Renton WA) my wife and I and a good friend decided to start our own horror small press. We named it Alucard Press and we proceeded to put out books under that label, at first just books by myself but we eventually decided to put out an anthology of stories by other authors. That book became our first collection titled Fifty Shades of Slay and it featured writers from six different countries. Some of the authors were experienced and some we had the honor of publishing them for the first time. One such author was Kevin J. Kennedy.
He went on to form his own wildly successful small press called KJK Publishing and has put out over a dozen anthologies featuring some of the biggest names in indie horror. His collections absolutely and routinely dominate Amazons charts. Today I am reviewing his latest offering, The Horror Collection LGBTQIA+ Edition.
But first I would like to share a quick chat I had with him about the book, Kevin lives in the UK so during our talk due to the time difference I was getting ready to go to bed and he was getting ready to go to the gym for his morning workout/
C.S-Tell us how this book came to be
KJK-The book came about after a conversation with Mark Allan Gunnells. Mark identifies as queer. He feels that he has faced prejudices in his writing because of this. He also felt that while he is further into his career that himself and other authors still struggled to find refutable places to submit queer fiction. It was really quite as simple as that. The Horror Collection books are an established series so I decided book 15 would feature stories solely written by authors that identify as LGBTQIA+. While these anthologies are invite only, I had to put the feelers out a bit for this one as I didn’t have a clue who was straight, gay, bi, trans or any other gender. I spoke to the few authors that I did know identified, asked for some
recommendations, spoke to a few reviewers that I’ve worked with and over a few weeks I got a solid invite list. Like all projects a few authors dropped out because of other deadlines. A few couldn’t come up with an idea on time. A few had stories rejected but by the end we had another solid book for the collection.
C.S-How is the book doing?
KJK-The book is selling well and seems popular on Kindle Unlimited. It’s still early days for reviews but they have been pretty positive so far.
C.S- What is next for KJK? Both group and solo projects
KJK-I have a ton of stuff going on. Books 16 and 17 in The Horror Collection are well underway. They will be themed. A Sci Fi horror book and a Creature Feature this time. I also have a Vampire anthology nearly finished and a Non Fiction anthology almost complete as well. I barely write anymore so no projects are moving but I have a few I will get round to eventually. The Clown which is a prequel to Halloween Land will likely be my next solo release.
C.S- Really loved the cover, who was the artist?
KJK- Michael Bray did the cover.
C.S- Thanks Kevin
My review of the book:
A full five stars!
The stories run the gamut from quiet psychological horror to splatter gore and every flavor in-between. I wasn’t familiar with a few of the authors but they are all on my radar now and I will be searching out other works by them.
Kevin has curated yet another solid collection of tales and this one is well worth reading no matter how you indentify. I enjoyed all of the stories, which is unusual for me because I am a picky bastard.
A few stand outs for me were, in no particular order Husk by James Bennettt, The Loss by Michael R. Collins, Bad Night at the Office by Emma K. Leadley and Like Peonies by Caitlin Marceau. I highly recommend this collection to all fans of the horror genre.
Check out the dark side of the rainbow and add it to your horror library. Available on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats. I look forward to more offerings from this indie horror powerhouse of a press.
