I wrote and illustrated my first short story when I was 6 years old. It was a speculative fiction piece about a boy genius who built a robot that produced hot dogs on demand. (Yes, I was a chubby little kid who wrote for other chubby little kids.) Life was bliss until the robot lost its mechanical mind and started spewing hot dogs everywhere. The town was soon awash in condiments. People were drowning in pools of ketchup and mustard. And then robot exploded and the town was saved. Oh, happy day!

 

When my mother passed away, I was going through some of her keepsakes, and there at the bottom of a mouldy old cardboard box was “The Hot Dog Machine”. All six hand-written pages of it, ‘words and pictures by Roby Roberts”. She never threw it away and I love her for that. (I still have it, Hollywood, so if you’re looking for your next product-placement blockbuster get Oscar Mayer on the phone!)

 

I’ve always written stories but I never pursued writing with much vigour until recently. I’d get an idea, write a story, and then forget it. It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I wanted to share my tales with others. I’d grown up as an expat kid in the Middle East and happened to be in Tehran, Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution. My parents marriage also fell apart at that time, and my father was a raging alcoholic who started seeing ghosts. Oh, and I saw a UFO that year too. My powerful sense of intuition told me there had to be a story in there somewhere. 

 

I’d been thinking about those crazy days in Iran for decades, and then my wife gave me the greatest gift of all - outside of our baby boy - a year to write my debut novel. And so, the “Sons of the Great Satan” was born. I self-published it (I wish I hadn’t but I was eager to share it with friends and family). It sold surprisingly well and the reviews were good. I’ve written a sequel to it too titled “Sins of the Great Satan”, which is still floating up in the iClouds. Hopefully, someday it will be published. If not, then it's another 100,000 words of honing my skills.

 

I’m working on my third novel titled “One Little Indian”, the imagined story of a beloved ancestor who survived the Trail of Tears. Stories about her have been passed down in my family for generations and she’s always been with me in spirit. I hope that I do her memory justice and honour her courage and the strength. 

 

As to my thoughts on writing, I’m drawn to darkness whether it be the challenging events we all face in life or in the imaginings of speculative fiction. I grew up reading such giants as Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Shirley Jackson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Phillip Jose Farmer, Phillip K. Dick, Sheri S. Tepper, Stephen Donaldson, and of course, Stephen King. I think of them as the Aunties and Uncles whose macabre and fanciful tales guided me through my own dark days.

 

When I write, I never write alone. To quote Roky Erikson, "When you have ghosts, then you have everything".

 

It’s almost midnight and the candle at my desk is burning low. I hear the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway but I know I’m the only one home. The footsteps stop right outside of my office door. The candle flickers for a moment and then whiffs out. I'm sitting alone in the darkness, waiting and wondering. Did I truly hear those footsteps or did I only imagine them?  And then I hear the faint scratching of sharp talons against wood. The soft click of the latch stabs at my heart as the door creaks slowly open…

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Infernally yours,

Anthony