© Schlock! Webzine
Hot on the heels of my previous announcement about my fantasy-writing pseudonym Rab Foster having a story published in Swords and Sorcery Magazine comes the news that my horror-writing pseudonym Jim Mountfield has just had story published too, in Volume 16, Issue 21 of Schlock! Webzine. Entitled The Encroaching Sand, it’s as much a pessimistic meditation on the inescapability of fate as it is a horror story and it was inspired by a year I spent in a remote part of Libya, working as an academic manager and living in an adjacent apartment at a university campus that was, basically, in the middle of nowhere.
When I wasn’t working, and especially at weekends, there was absolutely nothing to do and, it seemed, absolutely nobody else around in this place. It was possibly the most psychologically difficult thing I’ve ever done. Although in hindsight, of course, I was fortunate. I left Libya just a few months before the drawn-out revolution, anarchy and bloodshed that saw, finally, the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi. I just hope that during that difficult time no harm came to the people I worked with.
One thing I did during that year to combat boredom – I started writing and submitting horror stories under the penname Jim Mountfield. That was almost 40 published Mountfield stories ago. So eventually, for me, the experience had a positive result.
During October 2021, Schlock! Webzine, Volume 16, Issue 21, can be accessed here and The Encroaching Sand itself can be accessed here.