Spawn 2 Behind the Scenes PART THREE
SPAWN 2: MORE WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, conceived and edited by award-winning author and anthology editor Deborah Sheldon, will be released worldwide by IFWG Publishing on 25 November 2024. This second volume follows the multi-award-winning and multi-award-nominated anthology of Australian dread, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies.
Penned by established Australasian authors and fresh new voices, these stories range from the folkloric and phantasmagorical, through sci-fi and cybernetics, to historical and the occult. Spawn 2 interprets and reinterprets pregnancy, birth and babies in a myriad of unexpected ways that will frighten, shock, disgust, horrify, surprise, and move you.
In this four-part series exclusive to Ginger Nuts of Horror, the contributors have agreed to pull aside the curtain and reveal the inspiration behind their nightmarish tales.
PART THREE includes insights from Anthony O’Connor, Pauline Yates, Dani Ringrose, Jason Franks, and Leanbh Pearson.
Anthony O’Connor by “We Have Children Now”
For those as yet unblessed by the pitter patter of tiny feet, the idea of having children can be a disturbing one. Babies change people, in ways both mundane and dramatic. Suddenly the bloke who once used his own shaved chest as a ketamine platter during a Thursday night bacchanal is delivering impassioned and inexplicable monologues on the dangers of Roblox (whatever the hell that is) and the unexpected nuance of Bluey. Remember Tina? The one who stripped naked in the local cemetery as a memorable tribute to Linnea Quigley’s character, Trash, from Return of the Living Dead? She’s now signing petitions to ban violent video games, calling them “sick filth” and clutching pearls, figurative and literal.
Children change everything.
A big part of the emotional pushback by the childless comes from the dawning realisation that being passionate (even obsessed) with music, movies, books and video games, staying up late and getting wasted, might all just be trivial bullshit at the end of the day. Which rankles. Plus, the appeal of kids, babies in particular, is very elusive. You gave up your personal freedom for what? That strange gurgling creature? The mucus-coated, squalling poop factory that now runs your life and is the reason you haven’t slept properly in eighteen months?
Of course, things are a little different from the parental perspective. They, as moderately functioning adults, have decided to ascend to the next plateau of personal responsibility and create life. Like the Biblical God, Doctor Frankenstein or Spongebob Squarepants in that one episode. Their outlook on life has shifted, priorities recalibrated and THEY’RE SORRY THEIR BABY IS CRYING, SHE GETS GASSY ON PLANES, OKAY?
The friction between these two subjectively valid viewpoints forms the thematic spine for “We Have Children Now”,
which I’m delighted to have featured in Spawn 2: More Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies. Trent, the hedonistic larrikin who has now hit middle age and is none too happy about it, is visiting his former friends (and flames) Gary and Tansy. Trent parted on poor terms with the couple, and he’s curious as to why they’d invite him to dinner in the first place. Then, to his dismay, he realises they’ve joined the ranks of breeders, a betrayal, in his mind, of everything they once stood for. What Trent doesn’t realise is how very much his friends have changed since having children, and what they’ll sacrifice to keep their little treasures safe and fed…
“We Have Children Now” has been crawling around my head for a few years. Intended to eventually be a part of a larger novella, it’s inspired by the great killer baby flicks of yesteryear like Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive (1974), It Lives Again (1978), David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979) and the creepy, satirical perfection of Ira Levin’s brisk masterpiece, Rosemary’s Baby. It’s also informed by my genuine discomfort around babies, with their wide, vacant eyes and sticky maggoty fingers. And those rubbery, drooling mouths that look ready to consume with a mindless, rapacious indifference.
Twitter as @clawtalk and Instagram as @AntKnee242
Pauline Yates on “The Tenth Life”
This is a tale about two stories. When Spawn 2 was announced, I was keen to submit. I’d worked with Deb on my acceptance in Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite and enjoyed her efficiency and eye for detail. I knew that placement in this anthology would be fiercely contested, so I played to my strengths in POV and concept, and submitted my story with high hopes and fingers crossed.
And then the doubt crept in.
Did my story meet the criteria, i.e., a weird horror tale about pregnancy, birth, and babies? Pregnancy and birth: yes. But was it horrific enough for this anthology? And the weird factor? I worried that I’d missed the mark.
Luckily, Deb gave a rare second chance by allowing multiple submissions, so I crafted a back-up story. I focused on the weird aspect, because out of all the criteria, I suspected my first story lacked this element the most. The problem was, I don’t write weird. I didn’t even know what classified as weird. My creative brain just won’t wander off the beaten track.
Or so I thought.
The opening line hit me out of the blue and it flung me into the weirdest story I’ve ever written. It wasn’t even my usual genre or POV. I just wrote it, assessed it—pregnancy and birth: tick; horror: double tick; weird: a big thumbs up—and hit send.
I was confident that even if either of these two stories failed with Spawn 2, I’d find them a home elsewhere. Still, it was a tremendous relief to receive an acceptance—for my first story. Even better, Deb said she loved both stories, but could only choose one, so it was a double win for me. But this tale doesn’t end here.
Deb emailed me two days before the TOC announcement. Even though the contract for the first story had been signed, sealed, and delivered, she was torn between my stories and asked if I would consider exchanging them. It seemed my second story had sunk its claws into her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. This was her anthology, I said, so she should make the final decision. And her decision was to amend the contract and select my second story, “The Tenth Life”.
This isn’t the end for the first story. Whether I search for another home or keep it for my planned collection, I’m yet to decide. Wherever it ends up, that will be another story.
Dani Ringrose on “Bitten: A Love Story”
My story started as a spoken piece.
I don’t have children; have never given birth. So, I don’t know if I have the right to talk about the horrors of the physical sacrifices mothers make for their children. Yet, pregnancy and motherhood tap very deep into some of my subconscious fears – of not being in control, of not being in charge of your own Self any more, of losing that calm isolation I crave.
The process of gestation and birth is ripe for natural body horrors – bodies shapeshift, new organs are grown, there are parasitic elements, there are orifices, liquids. There is a looming risk of death while creating new life. Then the sacrifices as a mother continue, as a female’s identity is subsumed into their own children. Pregnancy horror stories by their very nature are feminist. “Bitten: A Love Story” stems from the anger and exhaustion I have as a female for all the expectations placed on a mother’s shoulders by modern society.
What a hoot it is to write in this sub-genre. Everything is gross. Yet from this blood and gore comes such fierce love and hope.
Still, much of this story comes from my amazement at how much love my friends have to give their own children. Although I have yet to see them feed their own children any of the body parts I used in my own story!
The spark from this story comes from a line from one of my favourite Australian poems: “In The Park” by Gwen Harwood. It is a quiet lament from a mother which ends with the line, referring to her children: “They have eaten me alive.”
With a line like that, there was only one kind of story a horror author could have written! The story let me explore so many of the physical sacrifices mothers make for their children, both during and after pregnancy, and despite how much it can physically hurt, the unyielding willingness of so many mothers to give, give, give.
A shorter version of this was written for the high school Literature class I teach, to show one way of approaching their assignment: to take an Australian poem as inspiration for a spoken memoir or monologue. That shorter version is even filmed – one day, I would love to re-record it in full!
And then planets align for you: I lent the original Spawn collection to one of my Literature students to read for inspiration for an idea she was percolating about a person being reborn, and I remember lamenting to her that I wasn’t writing earlier when its publication callout happened. I guess this publication is in her honour!
https://daniringrose.wixsite.com/dani-ringrose
Author’s note: I readily and enthusiastically acknowledge everyone who is capable of giving birth, including trans men.
Jason Franks on “Grizzle”
I’ve had the idea for “Grizzle” since my son was a baby. While the characters are not me and my family, many of the details are things that I experienced, or anxieties I felt, as a new father.
My mother-in-law came to stay with us for the first month after my son was born and, even with three adults in the house, it was brutally difficult to look after a newborn. In this story, I thought about how challenging it would be to do as a solo father. The stress, the grinding fatigue…and the weight of all the social pressures telling you that you’re not built for the job.
I had been carrying “Grizzle” in my head for a few years when the first Spawn anthology was announced. I was keen to be in it, but I was very busy at the time, and the deadline passed without me setting finger to keyboard. Still, the story wanted out, and I resolved to write it anyway.
It’s quite a small piece, for me, but it’s a delicate one, and it had a difficult birth. I struggled with the opening. I struggled to find a natural way to weave in the flashbacks. And I struggled to find the right balance of horror tropes for the story.
I wanted something sparse and ambiguous, and so I started with the minimum and built it up over three or four drafts.
Each adjustment to the horror levels required changes earlier in the story. But I knew the ending before I began writing, and that didn’t change.
For me, true horror is the things that ordinary people do, or do not do. I very much love monsters, but real people are much more difficult to write. This is one of a small number of stories where I think I have successfully demonstrated this and I hope readers will enjoy it—and maybe hate me a little bit.
Finally, I must thank my friend Erica for her insight into hospital procedures and politics that go much deeper than my own experience as a frazzled new father.
https://www.facebook.com/FranklyOperational
Leanbh Pearson on “These Bloody Lanes”
I have long wanted to write a story for Spawn anthologies, but I struggled to find the right story but after several false starts, I found one that sang to me.
“These Bloody Lanes” is set in an alternate history of 1920s Sydney during the Razor Gangs War between gangster queens Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh. The thriving criminal element in post-WW1 Australia ruled the harbour-side suburbs known as Razorhurst. These labyrinthine lanes of slum housing for the poorest in Sydney were dominated by whichever of the rival Razor queens held that patch. Straight razors could be legally carried and became the weapon of choice in skirmishes between the opposing Devine and Leigh gangs often resulting in permanent facial scarring or death.
These Razorhurst streets were not new to frequent bloodshed. While the Police and Court systems were dominated by men, the criminal scene was led by women and the first female police officer appointed could go where male officers were conspicuous. Police officer Lillian Armfield formed a protective network between Razorhurst’s women of the night and poor, vulnerable girls. Lillian also policed the mediums and fortune-tellers who were popular after WW1.
What becomes of the poor women in a society where unmarried mothers were considered sinners and stigmatised?
The Poisons Act of 1905 saw abortive drug ergot available only by doctor prescription and the Police offences Act of 1908 made advertising abortionists services often conducted by nurses or midwives. Pseudo-doctors soon made a living carrying out illegal abortions from the cramped terrace house slums of Razorhurst. Deaths and permanent damage from botched abortions were horrifically common, and unfortunate women admitted to Sydney Hospital.
A lot of my writing is inspired by history, folklore and mythology. I have an enduring fascination was Ancient Mesopotamia and the tiny palm-sized or smaller tablets inscribed with cuneiform script. The ancient classic “The Epic of Gilgamesh” is one extensive collection of mythological tales that were written down in cuneiform script. Cuneiform tablets were sent throughout the ancient Mesopotamian empire as a universal language, recording everything from trading, stock tallying, official meeting between rulers, poems, myths and spells.
I combined my interest in Mesopotamian myths and research conducted as part of my HWA mentorship and diversity grant into the seething criminal world of 1920s Sydney.
Why this story? Why now? I wanted to tell a tale about the oppression of women, the stigma of those lived socially ‘disreputable’ lives and pushed against societal norms. Not all these women unwillingly came to a life of prostitution or sexual freedom. These women were a marginalised group in a society that deemed them “fallen” and sinners. I wanted to tell the stories of women who came to difficult decisions to seek abortions rather motherhood or marriage. Every woman had a unique story, circumstance that forced them to make a decision to risk their lives and pay for illegal abortions. There were genuinely dark and deadly consequences. The horror of women resorting to backyard abortions saw women dying in the streets or left permanently damaged from botched abortions.
It is against this backdrop of gritty crime and societal upheaval that “These Bloody Lanes” found their inspiration.
https://linktr.ee/leanbhpearson
SPAWN 2: MORE WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES
A selection of the darkest Australasian fiction.
Curated by Deborah Sheldon, this second volume follows the multi-award-winning and multi-award-nominated anthology of Australian dread, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies.
Spawn 2 interprets and reinterprets pregnancy, birth and babies in a myriad of unexpected ways that will frighten, shock, disgust, horrify, surprise, and move you.
Penned by established authors and fresh new voices. These stories range from the folkloric and phantasmagorical, through sci-fi and cybernetics, to historical and the occult.
Prepare for an intimate, anxious, eviscerating read.
Featuring work by:
Dmitri Akers— Emma Rose Darcy—Matthew R. Davis—Rachel Denham-White—Jason Franks—Rowan Hill—Samuel M. Johnston—Carole Kelly—Ben Matthews—Lily Mulholland—Anthony O’Connor—Robyn O’Sullivan—Leanbh Pearson—Kat Pekin—Deryn Pittar—Dani Ringrose—Carol Ryles—Deborah Sheldon—Em Starr—H.K. Stubbs—Matt Tighe—Pauline Yates
DEBORAH SHELDON
DEBORAH SHELDON is an award-winning author and editor from Melbourne, Australia. She writes poems, short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir. Her award-nominated titles include the novels Cretaceous Canyon, Body Farm Z, Contrition and Devil Dragon; the novella Thylacines; and the collections Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories and Liminal Spaces: Horror Stories.
Deb’s collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Collected Work’ Award, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, and longlisted for a Bram Stoker. Her short fiction has been widely published, shortlisted for numerous Australian Shadows and Aurealis Awards, translated, and included in various ‘best of’ anthologies.
She has won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award three times: for Midnight Echo 14; and for the anthologies she conceived and edited, Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, and Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite.
Deb’s other credits include TV scripts such as NEIGHBOURS, AUSTRALIA’S MOST WANTED and STATE CORONER; magazine feature articles; non-fiction books (Reed Books, Random House); stage plays; and award-winning medical writing. Visit Deb at http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com
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IFWG PUBLISHING is owned by Australian company SQ Mag Pty Ltd (which also manages IPI Comics) and has been operating for nearly 15 years. It is a publishing house that is passionate about all dimensions of speculative fiction. But is partly keen on supporting underrepresented writers and themes/styles. The company is globally distributed by IPG Books, based in Chicago.
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