How did you become a publisher?

It started back in the mid-1990s when I created a music magazine that featured heavy metal music and horror fiction called Black Moon Magazine. We did print issues and everything was word of mouth since the internet was in its infancy. I got into it because I thought the promotion of heavy metal bands would be good as I was managing some local New Jersey ones at the time. Then I took a ten year break when I sold it to get married, have three kids and dabble with my own writing. I had the idea for Carnifex Press since about the mid-1980s but never took the chance. In 2004 I decided to go for it.

What do you like best about small press publishing and editing?

The freedom to release books and novellas at your own pace and the freedom to pick things that you like as a reader. I realize that it is a business like everything else but I want to have fun day in and day out with Carnifex Press.

What are your pet peeves about the publishing and editing process?

Sifting through a slush pile filled with stories that someone has taken the time to write, but not taken the time to research the market they're sending it to. First drafts of stories also kill me. Show some pride in your work and make sure it is the best it can be.

What would you most want aspiring authors to know?

That there are some great small press markets out there, you just need to do your homework. Sometimes it seems that there are more writers than readers, so that makes it tough to sell a story, but you have to keep trying.

Tell us about Carnifex Press’s recent association with the free quarterly e-zine, Flashing Swords. What led to this? What are your goals?

Daniel [Blackston] at Pitch-Black Books was one of the guys I looked up to when I founded Carnifex Press because he seemed to know what he was doing and his company was the small-press fantasy company I wanted to emulate. Daniel and I connected when we realized that we had a nice group of writers and readers we shared, but that a larger portion didn't know the others’ work, so we decided to join forces and help one another out and strengthen fantasy in general. Flashing Swords will hopefully be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Carnifex Press and Pitch-Black Books working in the future.

Carnifex Press also has a shared-world project. Tell us about the world of Freehold and your plans for it.



Big plans! I have four different trilogies outlined to begin, each trilogy also using 6-8 other authors and their short stories, all set in my created land of Freehold. There will also be stand-alone novella collections and short story collections from some of the writers, and I am beginning to sell some of my own Freehold short stories to other markets to get the word out. My goal - whether realistic, I don't know - would be to have a series of books the size of the Forgotten Realms books, which number over 200 to date.


What are Carnifex Press’s other current and upcoming projects?

Coming out shortly will be "Then Comes The Child", a great Horror novella from Angeline Hawkes and Christopher Fulbright, as well as the Fantasy novella "The King's Wind" from Laura J. Underwood. A war spec fic anthology edited by J.P. Haines and Samantha Henderson called From The Trenches will also be out soon.

Look for the next installments of Freehold as well:








Freehold: The Protector - Monroi Pass Book II








and Freehold: Goblin Horde - Monroi Pass Book III.

And next year look for several more single-author novellas and two more anthologies: Revenant II and Vermin, both Horror. In March 2007, the first issue of Clash of Steel Magazine will debut, and Withersin Magazine (horror, edited by Misty Gersley) will debut at the Necronomicon in Tampa Halloween weekend 2006. I think that's it.

In addition to being the force behind Carnifex Press, you write a monthly column for EpicSFF (a free monthly science fiction and fantasy non-fiction e-zine) called "Swords & Scribes." How did you get involved in EpicSFF and what sorts of topics do you cover in your column?

When the site first started Shane [McKiness], who runs it, sort of stumbled into me or vice versa and we just connected. I wrote my first column in June 2004 and I'm the longest-tenured columnist there I believe. My column has expanded and changed since the beginning, but my goal has always been to let people know about the small-press fantasy markets and books available, and in some columns I will also give my opinions on some pet peeves that annoy me, like the ones mentioned above.

And you still have time for writing your own fiction. What do you have in the works?

I have been going back over the past 20 years of stories and ideas and rewriting some of my Freehold short stories, some which were typed out in 1986. There are currently about three dozen stories/ideas I have to finish, as well as the 12 novellas for the Freehold trilogies. I try to write every single day.