J.F.Penn

Thrillers, Dark Fantasy, Crime

dark

The Gates Of Hell, Good And Evil, Life And Death With Rebecca Cantrell And J.F.Penn

By

One of the fun things about being an author is talking about the obsessions that drive us with other authors who have the same type of brain!

good and evilI walk around Europe seeing stories, and so does the fantastic Rebecca Cantrell!

In this discussion, we talk about how we both use the Gates of Hell in our latest books and our themes of life and death, good and evil … and much more.

You can watch the video below or here on YouTube. You can also listen to the interview on Soundcloud and also read the transcript underneath the video below.

[Read more…] about The Gates Of Hell, Good And Evil, Life And Death With Rebecca Cantrell And J.F.Penn

Writing Dark Fiction, Research, Travel And Books I Love. Interview With J.F.Penn On Scenes And Sequels

By

This interview transcript is from the Scenes and Sequels Podcast with Dave Kearney, recorded in May 2014. We talk about my research process, obsession with travel and what inspires my stories, as well as discussing my darker side! I also read an excerpt from the Prologue of Desecration which you can listen to below.

Writing dark fiction.
Dave: Welcome to the Scenes and Sequels podcast for readers and writers of genre fiction. I’m your host, Dave Kearney, and on today’s show, I chat with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, J.F. Penn about her new book, “Desecration,” the first in her new London Mystery series.

Dave: Hi, all, it’s Episode Seven of the Scenes podcast, and that was the opening passages from “Desecration,” read by the author, and my guest on today’s show, J.F. Penn. Now, it’s just brilliant to be able to chat with Joanna today, because she shares some just amazing insights into her writing process, and in particular, we talk a bit about theme and just the level of research that Joanna does when she’s writing her stories. And I really think it shows in a story like “Desecration,” because as a reader, it really sort of forces you to ask the question of where fact ends and fiction begins, and that’s really cool, because it gives that story a level of believability, which I think is really important.

And, with that in mind, we also talk a little bit about Joanna’s views on challenging readers. And Joanna believes that writers have the responsibility to tackle difficult themes and to examine difficult issues from a character’s perspective, and by doing so, it challenges readers to be thinking about the story long after they’ve finished reading it. And I think that’s really cool as well. Perhaps it doesn’t hold true for every story; it’s definitely something to think about, because, certainly from my perspective, after reading “Desecration,” it definitely had me thinking for some time afterwards, certainly about some of the themes underpinning the story, and that definitely comes through in our conversation today.

Just quickly, one other thing that we chat about today is some of the challenges for writers in switching between genres, and anyone who’s familiar with Joanna’s work would know that she also writes the ARKANE thriller series, and so we chat a little bit about the different approach that she’s taken to writing her ARKANE thrillers, and the London Mystery stories.

[Read more…] about Writing Dark Fiction, Research, Travel And Books I Love. Interview With J.F.Penn On Scenes And Sequels

The Darker Side Of The Dreaming Spires With Dan Holloway

By

I recently read No Exit by Dan Holloway, a dark novella. There are a lot of books that feature the dreaming spires of Oxford, but this one offers a very dark and different viewpoint.

Dreaming spiresAlice is drawn into Petrichor, a group of Parkour enthusiasts who portray decay as beauty, and death as just another choice. When her friend Cassie is bullied into suicide, Alice makes a choice that will change her life. The writing is poetic in places, shocking in others, and the length is just right for a short, twisted tale. Fans of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, and my own Desecration, will enjoy.

Here's an interview with Dan Holloway, based on my questions from the book.

So many people only see the tourist side of Oxford, tell us about some of the darker sides that you perceive, places that inspire darkness in your writing?

There are so many sides to Oxford. I started out as a student, and that’s the world I wrote about in The Company of Fellows. But even then I was more interested in the underbelly of ego and hidden perversions and desires that I sensed the tips of in my student days.

no exitSince then I’ve come to know Oxford best through its rich cultural life, in particular the spoken word scene, which has very little to do with tourist Oxford. Oxford is home to Hammer and Tongue, one of the UK’s oldest poetry slams that’s been going for over a decade, and the best bookshop I’ve ever been in, The Albion Beatnik. These are worlds of political activism, from LGBT rights and Reclaim the Night through incredible projects with the homeless community like the Old Fire Station’s Crisis Skylight Café to guerrilla campaigns against climate change. It’s a world where the people you meet are as likely to live on a boat as in a cloister.

It’s not necessarily a dark world – though as recent news stories have shown, Oxford has that. But it is a world the tourists don’t see – and most of all it’s a world of passion and creativity that’s raw, flawed, and brilliant – everything tourist Oxford isn’t.

I love Petrichor and the theme of the beauty of decay – what drew you to that?

Oh that’s such a hard question and I need to tread so carefully because the answers come from the world around me as I grew up, and I don’t actually want to imply that Stroud is a rotting carcass of a town…

[Read more…] about The Darker Side Of The Dreaming Spires With Dan Holloway