Catching up with Marcus Hawke, and chatting F* this place & More!
1. Why don’t you talk a little about yourself?
Good question. Mainly because I never know what to say and this usually gives me flashbacks to having to stand at the front of class when a teacher would make me do so every time I started at a new school, but I’ll do my best…
Salutations! (great, off to a good start) I’m Marcus Hawke, and there’s a reason why Danger is my middle name: I wish it was something cool, but it’s because I’m accident prone. I write things that will probably wind up in a case study on a new type of neurosis. I like long walks on the beach and winters of discontent. In my spare time/to keep the voices at bay, I draw, paint, play D&D, attempt to play music and bend to the every whim of my evil monkey in a cat’s body. You know, the usual.
2. Can you tell us about your story in Fuck this Place — entitled “The thing that ate the world” — is about?
I sure can and as a fellow cusser, I both appreciate and encourage use of the full uncensored title. Kudos! The Thing That Ate the World is a post-apocalyptic psychological horror, sort of like if The Stand, Misery, and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World had a drunken threesome one night and aren’t sure whose child it is. It follows a couple who are attempting to meet after many years apart to live out the rest of their final days together in the bewildering hellscape that has become the world. Everything goes smoothly and according to plan and nothing bad happens at all.
3. The world in which you’ve written your story is bleak and seems without hope. Yet, your characters are lovers trying to escape this hopeless situation. What was the inspiration behind that creative juxtaposition?
That particular aspect stemmed from the end of a relationship I experienced recently. Not the more extreme details of course, but in that at some point, close to its eventual end, I got the sense that a losing battle was being fought. The relationship itself was solid but there was a lot surrounding things working against it that made things tough and it’s unfortunately true that no matter how you feel about someone, sometimes things can’t last. I guess this is my way of immortalizing that beautiful, albeit far too brief, time in my life in the only way I know how.
4. What is your favorite piece of horror media (book, movie, video game.)
No small list, but I’d have to go with a three-way tie between The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, Misery by Stephen King, and The Hellhound Heart by Clive Barker (book), The Shining (movie), and I’m woefully behind in horror video games so I’ll go with a classic—Resident Evil. I’m really looking forward to the forthcoming Hellraiser game though. And I’ll be going to see Evil Dead: The Musical soon which I’ve been dying to see for ages!
5. Fuck this Place is a double anthology about two worlds going very wrong. Does your story mirror our own modern world and what ideas or issues are you trying to direct people towards?
A lot of the details about the world in that setting and how it ultimately goes did happen to stem from the good old COVID days and much of what went on then. I, and I’m sure many, have never experienced anything like that before then, and it’s amazing just how bad things got for a while. Though at the same time, I think today we have a tendency to become desensitized to the many baffling, often horrible things that happen today and just kind of get on with whatever semblance of life we can muster. In essence, that’s what’s happening here. Although there’s destruction, desolation, and carnage all around, the main character is just trying to get from Point A to Point B. Also, I think it explores how different people function in certain circumstances. Where many people had a tough time during the pandemic, I, as an introvert, wasn’t as deeply affected by it and I think that aspect shows through Seth’s ability to navigate things due to his history of dealing with on disaster after another. To him this is just one more thing.
6. You write about a mass of living flesh, what was the inspiration behind this monster?
I recall that the very earliest beginnings were going to be a short story about basically exactly that, and I only thought its origins through to a point of figuring it was a result of some genetic experiment gone horribly wrong but that’s about it. It has changed a lot from initial conception to the finish, but one thing that remained the same was that it was always going to be about more than just The Thing. It was going to show people attempting to survive and cope in a world that had been thrown out of whack by a sudden situation. I think the pandemic just made that part of it deepen and darken. Where the actual idea itself came from though, I don’t know. Just came to me one day.
7. What scares you the most?
The slow, inescapable march toward death, coming at who knows what time and place, or how—we all hope it will be old age, but it could be an illness, or a terrible accident or god-forbid, murder—and that once it arrives we inevitably fade little by little until we’re eventually gone as if we never existed in the first place.
Clowns.
8. When writing horror, how does it differ from other genres? How do you
get in the mindset to scare?
That’s my secret, Cap…I’m always in that mindset :) My writing has always been a source of catharsis for me, so it usually stems from some dark place or feeling I need to explore. I openly admit that I don’t know how to scare people. I don’t know that what horror truly does is “scare” people. We say it as sort of a catchall, but really what horror really does is affect the reader or viewer; usually by disturbing in some way. Jumping out and shouting “Boo!” is easy but ultimately forgettable. All I seek to do is build tension through atmosphere, raising the stakes, and drawing out the moment of impact for as long as possible. Let the knife dangle, make them feel every stab, and grind some salt in the wound and hope for the worst.
9. What’s your advice when starting a piece of writing, do you plan or find
the story as you write?
I do a bit of both, actually. I can’t just start from a blank page and take off, I have to get the juices flowing. So usually I start by just brainstorming ideas, what could be done, what the characters would be like, things I’d like to work into the story if and when I can, things like that. Usually, I find that’s enough to at least get started and then things have a way of filling in as you go. That’s the best! When you set out with something loose in mind and it takes on a life of its own, or changes in a way you couldn’t have predicted beforehand, it’s like your imagination meeting you halfway.
10. I want to pick your brain on the state of horror. We’re seeing a rise of interest in the genre — especially indie horror — what are your thoughts on the current state of the genre and where it's going?
I think there hasn’t been a better time than the last handful of years to be involved with the genre. With movies like Sinners, Weapons, The Substance, and Obsession (to name just a few) it shows two things: just how topical horror can be, and just how successful it can be. Publishing is a bit of a different beast, but similar in many ways. It seems less common for an indie book or author to break into the mainstream, and further still from being household names, but it’s definitely possible. Either way, there’s great stuff being produced right now and I for one hope it continues!
As for where it’s going, I wish I knew. I think the reason why modern horror has made such an impact lately, aside from just generally being really well done, is that it speaks to many real-world horrors. So ask yourself: what is going to disturb people on that visceral and familiar level next? I shudder to think. But what I know is that the horrors of reality will always outpace those of fiction.
11. After Fuck this Place, what are you planning on working on next?
I’ve got a few things on the go. Right now I’m working on a heavy metal-themed book, an extreme surgical horror story that will probably be a novella, a gothic story I’ve been working on with an author friend of mine for ages, and the next instalment in my supernatural horror series The Miracle Sin. Plus a few things that aren’t horror-related at all. It really just depends on which of those gets finished first. Time will tell.
12. What social media do you have, and for our interested readers, where can they keep up with your work?
I’ve got Instagram, TikTok, and a terribly underutilized Substack which I may try to put to more use soon (he said, doubting his own words). The best way to follow my work is probably by following me on my Amazon author page. Thank you to all who have!
IG: marcushawke & hawkehaus
TT: hawke.tok
Substack: https://substack.com/@marcushawke
Website: www.marcushawke.com
Don't forget to grab yourself a copy of "F*ck This Place" on kindle or paperback anywhere!
Ebook uut October 22.
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