Friday, December 21, 2012

Welcome Chris Dabnor

Chris Dabnor is another writer with a cool story in the Nightfalls anthology for charity. Let him tell you about it, and his links are below. Take it away, Chris.

When Katherine invited me to write a piece for the charity anthology 'Nightfalls', I didn''t have to think too long about it. Since she first decided to publish one of my short stories, she's been supportive of me and my work.  So, I had a theme, I just needed a story.

My first idea was to have a protagonist who keeps hearing songs about the end of the world - REM's - End of the World, U2's Last Night on Earth and so on, and slowly begins to realise that they are portents. I had the idea, but didn't feel I could tell it as a short story. It also reminded me a bit of something that Gaiman had done with Constantine in an early Sandman.

I kept thinking about the music and decided on a story about a DJ who decides to host a radio phone-in running up to the end. REM still make it in there, but only as a brief nod. I realised, that, for the story to work, I needed a nice, pretty end of the world, something that could be accurately predicted and instant when it came.

So, I began researching extinction level events. They're generally not as quick or exciting as you'd expect, it seems. It was whilst researching the end of the world that I received the amazing news that my partner was pregnant. Realising that you're going to be a father for the first time changes your perspective on the apocalypse. Suddenly the world meant so much more to me - it had become the place that my baby is going to grow up in, and it is a beautiful and terrible place. 

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Chris Dabnor's Twitter account is @dabnorfish, if you wish to contact him, or see his drunken ramblings on a Friday night (Saturday 22nd, he might be praying for the world to end...) 

His poetry collection Interstitial can be purchased here.
And his short story collection Silver Snakes here.

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