Dark bleatings, everyone! As part of my mission to spread the word about The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, I’m interviewing everyone involved, and today I am absolutely thrilled to be speaking with Bev Vincent. Thanks to my obsession with Stephen King, I first discovered Bev through his non-fiction works about Uncle Steve, and I’ve been a fan of both his non-fiction and fiction for years.
Bev Vincent is the author of several non-fiction books, including The Road to the Dark Tower and Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences. He co-edited the anthology Flight or Fright with King and has published over 125 stories, with appearances in such magazines as Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s and Black Cat Mystery Magazines. His work has been published in over twenty languages and nominated for the Stoker (twice), Edgar, Locus, Ignotus, Rondo Hatton Classic Horror and ITW Thriller Awards. To learn more, visit bevvincent.com
Kayleigh: Hello Bev (oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re here amongst the goats!). Can you start by telling us a little about your story in the anthology and what inspired it?
Bev: Although I got my start writing horror fiction, more recently I’ve turned mostly to crime fiction. Even when I want to write for another genre, I find myself approaching it from the angle of a detective story or a caper. I wondered what kind of ghost you’d get from the mutilated body of a murder victim and how ghosts might be enlisted to help determine the identity of a headless corpse. That got me going…but then the story took a twist. Murder has been a part of “civilization” since day one. If ghosts exist and have their own culture, is murder a part of it? Could a ghost be murdered? And if so, what would that mean about the nature of ghosts? And who would have jurisdiction—hence the story’s title—to investigate a supernatural crime?
Kayleigh: The story is a lot of fun and a great take on the theme. You are a seasoned pro at this point, can you remember what first drew you into writing, and how old you were?
Bev: I wrote a couple of short stories when I was in grade school (grade 8 and 9) and received positive encouragement from my teachers. I remember working on a “book” when I was fifteen or sixteen that was a mashup of Mickey Spillane and Charlie’s Angels! However, it was Night Shift that really made me want to write. I read it during my first year at university and soon thereafter started writing short horror stories in that vein. I never did anything with them at the time other than read them to my friends in the dorm, but I have revised and published several of them in recent years. The original typescripts had a lot of beginner’s flaws, but they possessed ideas that still seemed valid to me twenty or thirty years later.
Kayleigh: Night Shift is one of my favourites, too. What would you say was your gateway into horror?
Bev: When I was on vacation as a child, maybe ten years old, I found a bargain bin in a department store (possibly in Bangor, Maine) containing books with plain covers. I was already a voracious reader, so I picked out three of them: The Jungle Book (solid blue), The Wizard of Oz (red) and Tales of Mystery and Imagination (golden brown). I’m sure I read the first two, but I read the Poe collection to pieces, quite literally. Those stories had a lasting impact on me, and I’m always surprised when I return to them and see how brief they are. In my mind, they’re ten or twenty pages long, but many are only three or four pages.
Kayleigh: I was never that interested in The Wizard of Oz, but Return to Oz (the movie) was one of my first childhood loves. Those wheelers! Do you have a favourite author or book?
Bev: It will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that Stephen King is my favourite horror author. I’ve been reading him for well over forty years and have been writing about his work for over two decades. As for a favorite book, that’s more difficult. I have a genetic flaw that prevents me from being able to pick favourites or top 10 lists. I don’t even know how to begin to do that! When asked, I generally say ‘Salem’s Lot, because it was my “gateway” King book, the one that got me hooked and started me down this path. However, I usually also mention Bag of Bones, which doesn’t always appear near the top of lists made by people who don’t have my particular flaw! However, I think it is a lovely book—scary and emotional, with the added bonus of what I consider to be the first ever use of a possessed ghost.
Kayleigh: King is just wonderful. I’ve read everything he’s written, and am always waiting with outstretched arms for his next release. Salem’s Lot scares me! Outside of King, can you name a book that you wish more people knew about?
Bev: I commented recently on social media about how I wished more people were still reading Graham Joyce’s books. I was introduced to his work by Peter Straub and was immediately hooked and read everything he published. Alas, he died far too young, and I don’t hear people mentioning him much any more. You can’t go wrong with any of his books, but I am particularly fond of Dark Sister and The Tooth Fairy. For a long time, I tried to emulate his style of presenting the supernatural ambiguously. The “reality” of his situations depends upon whose account you believe, and there’s almost always a non-supernatural explanation. I love that.
Kayleigh: I’m not familiar with him but I’ve just added a few of his books to my wish list, thanks for the recommendation! Let’s talk more about your writing…. do you have a favourite of your own works?
Bev: I am very pleased by how “The Dead of Winter” turned out. That’s the novella I wrote for the Dissonant Harmonies project Brian Keene and I published a few years back. We created musical playlists for each other to listen to while we worked on our stories. It’s the longest piece of fiction I’ve published to date and I think it turned out quite well. I also like “The Ogilvy Affair,” which was my first attempt to self-publish something, which I did during the early days of the pandemic lockdown. It’s a noir Agatha Christie, in a sense, with what I think is a clever twist. I have to say, though, that I’m delighted by the response to Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences. I’m very proud of that book.
Kayleigh: Dissonant Harmonies was a great project. Are you working on something right now?
Bev: I’m always working on a few things at the same time. I turned in an essay that will be a chapbook next year. My agent is submitting what I hope will be my first published novel. I have a dozen or more short stories in submission. I’m just about to launch into a novella called “The Dead of Night,” which is a follow up to “The Dead of Winter” for Dissonant Harmonies II. And I have notes and a couple of written chapters for the next novel.
Kayleigh: Ooh, I look forward to reading it! Outside of writing, can you tell us something about yourself that people might not know?
Bev: I’m originally from Canada and I have a Ph.D. in chemistry. My earliest published works were research papers in scientific journals, and my first “book” is a 500+ page thesis that exists in a limited edition of maybe five or six copies!
Kayleigh: Talk about an exclusive and rare work! A Ph.D. in chemistry, you say? You’d get on great with my cousins, who are both scientists. Okay, finally – but most importantly – what is your zombie apocalypse plan?
Bev: In my short story “Zombies on a Plane” from Flight or Fright, a group of survivors decide to fly to a remote location, and that still seems like a good idea. All I’d need to do was find someone who could fly a plane. And a plane. And a remote destination with enough resources so people could survive. Forever…
Kayleigh: That’s similar to my plan, only I thought I’d take a boat. When the undead eventually come for us, I have faith in our survival! Thank you for participating, Bev. It was a real pleasure!
If you’d like to check out more of Bev Vincent’s work, or buy a copy of The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood, there are some links for you below (link embedded in pics):
Happy Goat Horror 
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