An Interview with Patrick Barb

We talk about Pre-Approved for Haunting, his latest short story collection.

When it comes to stories of the shorter variety, Patrick Barb has been nothing short of prolific. In the past couple of years, he has had a plethora of short stories published in a variety of publications, and in addition to this he has released multiple novellas and novelettes. His debut short story collection, Pre-Approved for Haunting, was released last week from Keylight Books. It is an excellent collection full of clever writing that features a suite of themes (one of them being the slasher genre).

For a quicker taste of Patrick’s writing, I recommend “Haunting Lessons”, a flash piece that you can read here.

Patrick was generous enough to lend me his time and answer a few questions I had about his latest collection.

From what I can tell from your social media posts, you’ve gone hard on the development of your short story writing craft. This collection serves as proof of that. What advice can you offer upcoming authors?

A lot of what I’ll say will probably sound fairly generic; however, I think it’s generic because it’s effective and can be easily copied (if you’re ready to put the work in). You’ve got to read. Find the authors people are talking about (old and new), read them. Find the authors people compare your work to (favorably or not) and read them. Find authors you saw mentioned once in passing and were always curious about, and…guess what? Read them.

Then, write. Start with drabbles and flash fiction to get some finished drafts under your belt. Look for open anthology calls and try writing for certain themes. If there’s an aspect of your writing you feel needs work, write a piece that relies heavily on that element. Finish what you start, no matter how long it takes (even if you miss an anthology call deadline, there will likely be another market where the story can find a home). So much of my own success in short-story writing has come from repetition: reading, writing, submitting, sharing, all of those over and over again. 

Your unabashed love for slashers shines through in several of the stories within this collection. What is your particular relationship to that genre and what do you like most about it?  

I first encountered the slasher subgenre second or even thirdhand, from classmates who had older siblings or whose parents were less strict than mine. So, I’d hear these stories about Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, etc. without the context of what actually happens in the films. This allowed my imagination to run pretty wild. Later, the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater was Scream and I was hooked. That combo of meta playfulness and genuine fear that the first film invokes is something that’s stuck with me and that I think really informs my own approach to the slasher. You can know and understand a tradition, but not necessarily remain slavishly beholden to it. These are our boogeymen, our mythical creatures, and there’s something to be said for imagining them in new contexts and seeing what stories emerge.

Author Richard Thomas wrote the foreword of your new collection. I had the opportunity to interview him earlier this year and we discussed the subject of story notes and their inclusion in short story collections. He was a fan of story notes. Where do you fall? As a reader are you for or against story notes?

As a reader, I adore story notes. Having that additional context and insight whether into the story itself or the author is a real treat. As an author myself, I’ll admit that I sometimes find composing notes to be challenging. There’s this desire to relay something interesting to readers and to puzzle out what angle might present the most intriguing note. Is it the craft? The history of the piece? A tangential story from the writing life?

Ultimately, I made the decision to not include story notes in my first collection as I wanted the stories to rise or fall as they are. That said, I’m certainly not opposed to sharing a little behind-the-scenes info when queries arise.

Great. I’m a big fan when authors provide story notes and was wondering if you could share a handful of notes here?

“Casual”

Casual started with the title “Casual Killing” which is a title I’ve had rattling around in my head for years. However when it was published in Not One of Us, the editor asked about shortening the title to “Casual” and that was fine by me. I try not to get too precious about elements of writing that don’t have a major impact on the telling of the tale. In the case of “Casual,” you find out it’s about killing in the first line, so no great loss to remove it from the title. 

The story was also taken from my dating life in New York City in my 20s, minus the murder. (I swear!) There’s a sense of fleeting temporary connection on these blind dates or internet hook-ups that I wanted to capture in the story.

“The Crack in the Ceiling”

For me, this story is all about the visual. The image of someone burning, doubling as a star. It’s one that I have revisited in another tale “Her Sisters, The Stars,” which isn’t in the collection but does appear in the anthology Nightmare Sky. I feel like there’s something very unsettling about burning alive, about being engulfed in flames, that triggers this very primal fear center for me. Once I had this notion of human beings doubling as stars, the rest of the pieces, like the ceiling covering up the night sky kind of followed in due course.

“Pre-Approved For Haunting”

The collection title story here, so obviously a big personal favorite. I found myself thinking about the 2008 housing crisis, as people do (hahaha), and thought about the people who had their dream homes stripped away from them, people buying up multiple properties at a time only to have it bite them in the ass, and about houses standing empty and alone. There wouldn’t even be time for these homes to develop ghosts and hauntings the old-fashioned way. Instead, the ghosts might just have to show up ahead of schedule…

“I Will Not Read Your Haunted Script”

This story won 2nd place in the Divination Hollow Reviews Horror in Hollywood Short-Story Writing Contest. That placement really helped to get my name out in the horror writing scene and helped legitimize my pursuit of this dream as a concrete, tangible thing. It’s inspiration springboard is found in an old essay by screenwriter Josh Olson titled “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script.” From there I was able to sprinkle a little slasher, a dash of folk horror, and some good old-fashioned cursed object horror to complete the tale. 

I also had a lot of fun playing with the screenplay elements that show up later in the tale.

“Iggy Crane and the Headless Horse Girl”

I originally wrote this story for the Classic Monsters Unleashed anthology open call but it didn’t get selected.

My original intention with the story was to try and write a Wes Anderson-style horror tale. I think people too often focus on the twee-ness associated with Anderson’s work. But if you look below the surface, there’s a lot of darkness. Sadness, self-loathing, people trying to find their places in the world. I feel like both Iggy and the Horse Girl are very much cut from that same cloth. Ultimately, it’s a tale of misfits finding each other.

What have you been watching or reading lately that you’ve enjoyed that you’d like to recommend?

Finally started Yellowjackets and I’m digging it so far. Reminds me of early Lost, with a dash of “maybe, maybe not” folk horror similar to season 1 True Detective’s flirting with cosmic horror. In terms of reading, I’ve always got multiple books going at once. Most recently I finished Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez and that one gets a high recommendation. Lush, vivid writing, an intricate plot presented by an author who refuses to hold your hand and saves the answers for the very end, where they come at you fast and furious. It’s also an excellent look at a family and nation (Argentina in this case) impacted by corruption, greed, and selfishness but also counterbalanced by love, faith, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Finally, what other upcoming projects/releases do you have coming down the pike?

Looking toward 2024, I’ve got my novel Abducted coming from Dark Matter Ink. It’s a mix of X-Files, Gone Girl, and Fargo with a retired police sergeant trying to uncover the truth about a young boy who went missing nearly two decades prior only to return seemingly…changed. In addition, my novella The Nut House is supposed to be coming from Brigids Gate Press. That story was originally serialized in Cosmic Horror Monthly, and I’m eager for folks to experience it in a collected edition. Also on the novella front, I have a dark sci-fi/horror social media horror book called JK-LOL. It’s a riff on Jekyll (JK-LOL, see what I did there?) & Hyde, taking on toxic internet culture, the so-called manosphere, and the ways in which social media and tech have really exacerbated these issues. Beyond that, there’s other stuff in the pipelines but I can’t share it JUST yet… 

That’s all for today. Be sure to check out Patrick Barb’s collection and some of his other works. I’m particularly fond of Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare, a quick Black Mirror-esque tale that will be available on Kindle for 99 cents from 10/2-10/8.