Author Spotlight: Jason V Brock

The third of our “Author Spotlight” series. This month we are featuring contributors to Cycatrix Press’s forthcoming anthology, A Dark Phantastique.

The next author in the series, is our own Editor in Chief, Jason V Brock with the title story, “A Darke Phantastique”:

“When the Old Man awoke it was, once again, squatting at the head of his bed.
The cold tranquility of the blue-black air lent a sense of mystery and imminence to the thing, though he felt quite certain it did not need darkness to inspire awe. Or dread. Blinking past his grogginess, the Old Man turned over in the chilly, oversized bed. He positioned his head on the musty pillow to peer at the shadowed ceiling of the ancient house, noticing the gentle billow of cobwebs through the darkness. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye, crawling over the wrinkled skin of his temple. He concentrated on his breath as he attempted to quiet his mind, and for a moment, he pretended that the creature was not there. As a strategy, this sometimes afforded him a few minutes of solitude before the steely intrusion of reality…”

About the story, Brock writes:

“I have always been intrigued at the way we parse out how the past and present impact our future choices. It is interesting the way we think of time in a linear way, though in reality it is not true; there really is no chronology other than the one we impose on our circumstances in retrospect, as the future is unwritten, and the present is in process. With respect to that, I also find it fascinating that people can be “haunted” by things that they have left unresolved, and how those can become literal in a sense: a kind of mental obstruction that intrudes on them later. “A Darke Phantastique” is my metaphysical attempt to reconcile these ideas. I also had the title for a long time, but thought it worked well for the book, too, so why not go with it?”

Jason V Brock is an award-winning writer, editor, filmmaker, composer, and artist, and has been widely published online, in comic books, magazines, and anthologies, such as Qualia Nous, Disorders of Magnitude (nonfiction collection), Simulacrum and Other Possible Realities (fiction/poetry collection), Fungi, Weird Fiction Review, Fangoria, S. T. Joshi’s Black Wings series, and many others.
He was art director/managing editor for Dark Discoveries magazine for more than four years and publishes a pro journal called
[NameL3ss], which can be found on Twitter: @NamelessMag, and on the Interwebs at www.NamelessDigest.com. He and his wife, Sunni, also run Cycatrix Press and have a technology consulting business.
As a filmmaker, his work includes the critically acclaimed documentaries Charles Beaumont: The Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man, The AckerMonster Chronicles! (winner of the 2014 Rondo Hatton Award for best documentary), and Image, Reflection, Shadow: Artists of the Fantastic. He is the primary composer and instrumentalist/singer for his band, ChiaroscurO. Brock loves his wife, their family of reptiles/amphibians, travel, and vegan/vegetarianism.
He is active on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter (@JaSunni_JasonVB), and their personal website/blog, www.JaSunni.com.

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