Author Spotlight: JG Faherty
-
- October 7, 2014
After a brief hiatus, we are happy to be back to our Author Spotlight series, still featuring contributor’s to the upcoming anthology A Darke Phantastique. Today’s special author is JG Faherty.
His story “Homo Suicidus” starts out with a real cliff hanger:
“People always say, ‘When the time is right, you’ll know it.’ It doesn’t matter if they’re referring to falling in love, changing the path of your life, or preparing to die.
Or all of the above.
Fifteen stories below, your prospective paramours begin to notice you. Someone glances up, perhaps just to follow the flight of a bird, perhaps because they’ve caught movement out of the corner of their eye, movement where none should be.
People gasp, point and shout, drawing the attention of others. Then comes the inevitable finger pointing: Look! Up there! Is he going to jump?
And with that, the frenzy begins.”
About the story, he writes:
“It’s hard to say where or when I first got the idea for ‘Homo Suicidus.’ It was several years ago. I’m an ex-biologist, and for the longest time I wanted to do a story about alternative reproductive strategies. Then I had the ‘Aha!’ moment where it came to me: what if there was a species of human that didn’t procreate in the typical mammalian or even vertebrate fashion? No eggs, no sperm: Just a spreading of seed or spores, like a dandelion or mushroom. I mulled on that for awhile and eventually combined it with the idea of suicide after reading a news story about how school kids were committing suicide in groups. Not the most pleasant of reproductive methodologies, but then I’m sure male praying mantids aren’t thrilled with their evolutionary lot, either.”
JG Faherty is the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of five novels, seven novellas, and more than fifty short stories. He writes adult and YA horror/sci-fi/fantasy, and his works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. He enjoys urban exploring, photography, classic B-movies, good wine, and pumpkin beer. His personal motto is “Photobombing people since 1979!” You can follow him at @jgfaherty, www.facebook.com/jgfaherty, and www.JGFaherty.com.
Related articles
