For those who prefer getting their horror on paper rather than on the big screen, animation and production company Etch has the perfect series for you. They recently launched First Word on Horror, a new docuseries following five of horror’s biggest authors and the inspirations behind the stories that made them famous. As a preview, they’ve just released a new clip from their upcoming episode with Laird Barron, author of novels like Blood Standard and Worse Angels, ahead of its release this week.
The clip features Barron talking about his experience growing up in rural Alaska, where he’d often be left alone with his siblings on his family’s remote farm for long stretches while his parents went into town to do business. He explains a twisted game that his father would play, asking his children what would happen if they engaged with certain dangerous circumstances – which definitely explains his proclivity for horror as an adult.
The episode also features Barron reading his short story Frontier Death Song, which was originally published in 2012. Luckily, the story is available in full for fans to read ahead of the episode’s premiere courtesy of Nightmare Magazine.
Directed by Philip Gelatt, the fifteen-part docuseries also profiles Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay, Elizabeth Hand, and Mariana Enriquez. Across several episodes, each author is offered the opportunity to to discuss “their life, their inspirations, their philosophies, and their writing techniques while reading one of their short stories. As fact and fiction blend, secrets are revealed and the delicate alchemy that turns human experience into creative expression begins to emerge.”
Barron’s episode of First Word on Horror premieres on April 4. Check out the new clip below:
