Folk Horror
Step into a different dark….
These Texas tales of mischief and mayhem will carry you from the Piney Woods all the way up to Fort Worth, and meander as far west as Muleshoe, but even locals may not recognize the landscape. Jumping genres like a jackalope through folk horror, fantasy, and science fiction, this collection knows no borders.
Populated by bored demons waiting for a taste of sin, a condemned man saved and destroyed by his fiddle, a dispirited janitor left to mop up after a failed Rapture, a despairing boy who runs into the arms of a monster, and a reluctant creator of the universe, the countryside of Nobles’ imagination is as varied and wild as the Lone Star State.
A group of friends in a bar may or may not have had a brush with the Almighty. Two old friends meet at a Texas crossroads to continue their epic and mysterious journey. A little girl with a special gift sees dark forces closing in that are invisible to the rest of the world. A man who has chosen to spend his life consuming the sins of others seeks to lay his burden down in a most shocking fashion. A couple walking home late at night discover they are not the people they thought they were.
Take a trip through a country where creatures of legend beckon from the shadows, and the uncanny might be sitting on the next barstool.
Mark A. Nobles (don’t forget the middle initial, he’s sensitive about that) writes Southern Gothic Horror (Chalk Mountain), Folk Horror (Stories of a Different Dark), Magical Realism, Historical Fiction (We’re for Smoke), and local histories (Fort Worth’s Rock & Roll Roots and River Oaks). Mark does not have ADD, he has varied interests which are reflected in his diverse writing genres. He has a Pushcart nomination, and his short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Mark is a sixth-generation Texan born on Fort Worth’s infamous Jacksboro Highway and proudly claims blood and kinship with Thunder Road’s gamblers, outlaws, and wastrels. After a lifetime in Fort Worth, he lives in Dallas now but hopes to die in the desert.
