Sidney Shiv, Putting The Splatter Into Splatterpunk

Sidney Shiv, Putting the Splatter into Splatterpunk

A horror author interview by Lionel Ray Green

Sidney Shiv made a bloody splash onto the extreme horror and splatterpunk fiction scene in April by earning three nominations for 2025 Splatterpunk Awards.

Shiv received recognition as an author of the short story “Fulfillment” and as an editor of two anthologies, Shocking Sojourns and Splatology 2.0. Shiv co-edited Splatology 2.0 with Chisto Healy.

Shocking Sojourns features Shiv’s “Fulfillment” plus 12 additional stories by talented extreme horror writers, including Splatterpunk Awards nominees Judith Sonnet and Chisto Healy.

Splatology 2.0 is an 18-story charity anthology with proceeds benefiting RachelsChallenge.org in the U.S. and BlackCountryWomensAid.co.uk in the UK.

The Splatterpunk Awards announced Shiv’s nominations the week before he celebrated three years of sobriety on May 5.

“On a creative level, drinking consumed a significant amount of time, energy, and money,” Shiv says. “Now, I can dedicate that time, energy, and money to writing my books and producing my anthologies. Since I quit drinking, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

“On a personal level, drinking was making me depressed, destroying my physical health, and negatively impacting my role as a husband and father. Now, my outlook is clear. I’m getting in shape, and my relationship with my family is better than ever. I don’t miss it at all.”

Shiv released his debut collection Where Demons Dine in 2023. Brian Bowyer hailed the project as “absolute dynamite.” Bowyer knows extreme horror as his own collection, Sinister Mix, received a Splatterpunk Awards nomination in 2022.

Shiv is not resting on his laurels. This year, he released Shocking Sojourns: Vol. 2 in April, an anthology he edited and illustrated. It features 14 stories, including his own “Bread of Life.”

Originally from Fredericksburg, Virginia, Shiv is an American citizen residing in Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom.

Sidney Shiv agreed to an exclusive interview with Lionel Ray Green for Ginger Nuts of Horror. The author explains what the nominations mean to him, what he looks for as an editor, and why he likes to illustrate his work.

A horror author interview By Lionel Ray Green

Lionel Ray Green: Your first collection Where Demons Dine debuted in 2023. A year later you released three works that are nominated for Splatterpunk Awards. Do you feel like the new kid on the block? Are you surprised by the recognition? What have the nominations meant to you personally as an author?

Sidney Shiv: I feel like a new kid on the block, albeit the kid who may not live there for very long. If the other nominees weren’t such kind and gracious people, I’d feel like an interloper, being nominated alongside Aron Beauregard, Ryan Harding, CV Hunt, and Kristopher Triana — talk about titans of horror! These nominations may be the greatest moment of recognition in my writing career before I’m sent back to the sidelines, and that would be fine. I’d still get to write horror and interact with my friends in the community.

The recognition comes as a surprise — I’m still surprised. On April 29^th, I was doing an illustration of Satan for an upcoming project when I received a message from Dan Shrader, who informed me of my nominations and congratulated me. I was shocked, to say the least. The Splatterpunk Awards were not on my mental radar at the time. Several months back, I’d thrown my name and work out there to be considered for nomination, then turned my thoughts to other things — releasing Shocking Sojourns 2, writing stories, attending the Indie Horror Chapter convention in Canterbury. In short order, congratulatory messages flooded in from all my friends. It was surreal.

Receiving these nominations means more to me than I can fully articulate. But, to break it down into the simplest terms, it means three things:

First, people pay attention, read, and, most importantly, enjoy my work. This is humbling, gratifying, and a little bit scary. I am eternally grateful to everyone who has ever purchased, read, reviewed, or said a kind word about me or one of my books. I’m also deeply indebted to all the wonderful authors who have trusted me with their words and allowed their stories to grace the pages of my anthologies. My anthologies have caught on more than my solo writing, so these nominations are largely thanks to these amazing people.

Second, I must be doing something right. The Written in Red Podcast was my primary source for learning how to publish and engage within the indie horror community. My biggest takeaways were treating people kindly and avoiding drama (Don’t feed the trolls!). Kindness and professionalism are paramount. I strive to produce the highest quality possible, whether in my personal writing or the stories I edit for other authors. Competition and petty jealousy do not occupy space in my wheelhouse. I firmly believe in elevating others, and in doing so, elevating myself.

Third, I need to work harder. I’ve inadvertently set the bar high for myself, and I don’t want to injure myself trying to leap over it. If these books are receiving this kind of recognition, I need to meet these expectations with everything that follows. It wouldn’t be fair to the readers if I didn’t. Not every book I release will be as good as the last — it’s a fact of life. But if I at least strive to improve my craft with each book, I’m moving in the right direction.

Lionel Ray Green: You edited and illustrated Shocking Sojourns and you co-edited charity anthology Splatology 2.0 with Chisto Healy. As an editor, what sort of themes or tropes are you looking for in an extreme horror short story?

The Heart and Soul of Horror Review Websites. Sidney Shiv, Putting the Splatter into Splatterpunk

Sidney Shiv: One of the subjective things I look for in a good story is unpredictability. I’m fine with all the well-worn tropes as long as the story throws some curveballs — stories that begin as one thing and end up as something completely different. I look for atmosphere and strong characters in extreme/splatterpunk stories. The atmosphere of the story should be a character in and of itself. The setting needs to paint a picture. I want to know the worldview of the protagonist and antagonist to understand their actions. No amount of descriptive blood and guts can save a story with no information about what drives the main characters and why the story’s events change them.

On the more objective side of editing, I advise authors to avoid head-hopping in their third-person stories and to format their manuscripts according to Shunn’s guidelines. An editor can easily correct grammar and punctuation, but head-hopping can require major rewrites. Learn the differences between third-person omniscient, limited, and objective perspectives. Avoid the omniscient (head-hopping) and objective (no internal character thoughts) viewpoints. Instead, stick to third-person limited by confining the internal thoughts to one character within the bounds of a chapter or subchapter. Additionally, Shunn formatting is what most publishers look for in their submissions. All this information can be easily learned through YouTube videos and Google, and it will add professionalism to an author’s work.

Lionel Ray Green: In addition to editing, you also illustrated Shocking Sojourns. Besides adding to the extreme horror aesthetics, do you illustrate with other purposes in mind?

Sidney Shiv: Honestly, I have always viewed the illustrations as a secondary bonus to the writing, which I suppose they are. I never realized how essential they would become to my work or how much people would appreciate them. I’ve always enjoyed books that include artwork. Growing up as a Stephen King fan, I loved the illustrations in some of his work, like The Dark Tower series.

When I started reading Aron Beauregard and noticed the illustrations in his books, I realized nothing was stopping me from illustrating and creating cover art for my own work. Then, while putting together my first collection, R.J. Daly asked me to read his book, Run Red. I loved the book and asked him if I could try my hand at doing some cover art for it. His Run Red cover was my first published cover art, and it remains one of my favorite pieces.

Other than creating an aesthetic, my goal with the artwork is to represent the story and give the reader a taste of what they’re in for without spoiling it. Like everything else, it’s a balancing act. The covers for R.J.’s Run Red books and the two Full Nasty covers I’ve done for Dan Shrader show specific elements of the books (hopefully) without revealing too much. On the other hand, the covers for my collections, Where Demons Dine and Where Devils Dance, don’t display specific story elements, but are more representative of the books’ vibes.

Lionel Ray Green: You were also nominated as an author for your short story “Fulfillment” from your collection Where Devils Dance and the Shocking Sojourns anthology. For those who have not read it, can you share a teaser about the tale’s plot and its inspiration?

Sidney Shiv: “Fulfillment” is more of a bizarro piece than I usually write. The story is basically about an afterlife that operates like an Amazon fulfillment center, where souls are commodities used by an indifferent god. Reapers are the inept delivery drivers tasked with transporting newly departed souls to heaven or hell. But what happens when a soul is delivered to the wrong place?

The idea came to me when an item I ordered on Amazon never arrived, yet they had marked it as delivered. In trying to resolve the matter, I quickly discovered that no option on their website accepts liability for a missing package on Amazon’s part.

If the package was marked as delivered, then by God, they delivered it, and there is zero chance their driver lost it or delivered it to the wrong address by mistake. Instead of being able to rectify the issue easily by clicking pre-programmed options, I had to go down the rabbit hole of finding the number (which wasn’t easily accessible) and speak to a representative who asked all the same self-implicating questions offered on the website (Did you check with a neighbor?

Did you check all the safe spots outside where the driver may have left it?). Anyway, it eventually got sorted out. But the idea of the afterlife existing as a corporate, bureaucratic hell came to me and therein lies the horror.

Lionel Ray Green: As an independent author, editor, illustrator, and publisher, if you had to give a “state of the union” speech about the current and future states of splatterpunk and extreme horror, what would be your main message?

Sidney Shiv: My main message to the independent extreme/splatterpunk community, especially when self-publishing, is to take your time and EDIT, EDIT, EDIT! After finishing a piece, let it sit for a while. Then revisit it and thoroughly self-edit it. Learn everything you can about grammar and punctuation. Read books on editing. Do as much as you can to clean your work.

Then, get a second set of eyes on it. If you can’t afford a professional editor, ask a friend who is good with grammar and punctuation to proofread it for you. Take as much time as you need. Don’t set arbitrary publishing dates. Wait until the work is as polished as possible. With multiple self-publishing avenues so easily accessible, too many authors crank out material as quickly as possible to make a quick buck with zero regard for quality, and it’s even worse now with AI muddying the waters. Don’t be one of those authors. Take pride in your work.

Sidney Shiv, Putting the Splatter into Splatterpunk