Interview with David O'Mahony
First, can you tell us a little bit about your published books The Ties That Bind and its sequel What Gets Left Behind? What inspired each collection? And what are some overall themes of both collections?
When I started off I was just publishing stories without any real plan. I had a couple of longer works in mind but finishing them was a problem, so I started challenging myself to do more shorter pieces in kind of defined timespans (usually a week or so). They built up more quickly than I thought and suddenly I looked at my list of finished stories and realised I could actually put them out as a book – then discovered I nearly had enough for two books.
They were going to be companion collections at first, both out at the same time. In hindsight, that was a bonkers idea, though they still work as companions.
The Ties That Bind is grouped around the theme of connections, whether they be supernatural or otherwise. The story I named the book for, which is a mix of grief horror and cosmic fantasy, is quite a personal one in that it is loosely – very loosely – inspired by the experiences of some of my ancestors (not the supernatural part, but the loss of multiple family members). I’m quite fascinated by the theme of how characters can be connected on a metaphorical as well as literal level.
There’s another story in that book, The Coachman, which draws heavily on something that happened to my wife’s mother, including the supernatural elements. I adapted it a bit and updated the timing to around now but that’s an example of how I often include otherworldly elements that aren’t supposed to outright scare, but more unnerve.
What Gets Left Behind, then, is roughly grouped around the theme of what remains when people die, whether that is ghosts or guilt in the mind of the living. The title story – or rather, the story I named the book for – is about a ghost driven by his experiences in life, even if it takes him a while to remember them. It’s also about ghosts not being haunters but helpers. Another of the pieces in that book, Losing Your Grip, which was the first story I ever had published, was inspired by the idea I had of “what if a ghost was haunting itself”.
There are a couple of “what if” stories in that collection, actually. Atonement came about when I had the idea “what if you prayed and something you didn’t expect answered” – in that case it’s a supernatural entity, a psychopomp really, that takes a character’s need to atone for something very literally and punishes him in a way he thinks he wants (though I don’t think he necessarily deserves).
The Ties That Bind and What Gets Left Behind are under the series title Shadows and Starlight, as any forthcoming collections probably will be. I quite like how Clive Barker and others have volumes to their collections, even if you don’t have to read one to enjoy another.
Tell me a little bit about Dread Recesses Press, which your books were released under. Do you have any books coming out in the near future, or any plans to have any come out? What made you decide to go the indie press route and not the traditionally published route?
Dread Recesses Press is my little demon baby, and I set it up initially because I was looking at putting out some collections put together from general calls for stories. That hasn’t happened quite yet, but it still might. Also, from a tax view, in Ireland you can get an exemption for income derived from artistic work but you need a company set up to claim that.
But mostly I went indie because it was a much easier way to get collections out – they tend to be hard sells to traditional publishers unless you have an established fanbase – but also because I quite enjoyed being able to influence every step of it. That’s more of a DIY ethos than being a control freak, haha. So I designed the covers, etc. I had one eye on the future and having loads of books out under the same banner.
It also meant releases could work around my own schedule. The Ties That Bind was a December 31 release because it was important to me that I finally have a book out by the end of that year, and it was a nice way to start 2025 with a book in hand.
I also read a lot of work from various indie presses and enjoy how diversity of voices and ideas.
I have a few releases in the pipeline. There’s a novella, Dishevelled In Silhouette, which I might release in the first half of this year. It’s done, though I got some good feedback from a beta reader that I will incorporate, but I’d like to see if it can get interest from another publisher. I’ll have another collection out this year, In the House of Sorrows, likely in late summer. Possibly another novella around the end of the year. I want to end up with a whole stack of novellas out in the world.
I’m also organising a few small ebook samplers that I can release for 99c or free. Those will all be called Dread Recesses Of… and right now there’s Spring, Summer, Samhain, and Winter. So they’d be two, maybe three stories each that I can use for promotions or maybe include in newsletter subscriptions. I don’t have as many spring or summer stories as I do autumn or winter, but such is life!
What author, or authors, inspired you to become a writer? When did you decide you wanted to become a writer?
Probably Stephen King, who I first read at perhaps too young an age, ha. But just as important were David Eddings and Terry Goodkind. My first story would have been when I was 12, 13, something around that. It was about a pub where the devil appeared, but I think it’s been lost to time. I have another one, Graduation Day, in hard copy from when I was in my late teens and may yet dust it off.
Writing went on hiatus, bar the occasional fits and starts, for decades though, a combination of working full time as a copy editor and then later having small children. I came back to it seriously three or so years ago after my wife asked me “how long would it take you to write a book?”
After that I actually made a start on a historical fiction novel inspired by one of my ancestors, Michael Verling (the characters in the story The Ties That Bind should be considered his own ancestors really). But I was trying to work on what might have motivated some of his problematic behaviour (not excused, just explained) and realised it was probably rooted in survivor guilt from the famine of the 1840s. The story I wanted to tell only worked when I realised it was a ghost story. I’ve never finished it, though some elements have appeared as stories in my collections.
Then it turned out I had a knack for short stories, and I’ve been pretty prolific at them ever since (about 65 published or accepted in eight countries).
What does your writing process look like? Do you plan a lot in advance? And where do you come up with your ideas? Where do you draw your inspiration from? How long does it usually take you to write a short story? Do you also write novels?
My process is a bit chaotic and mood-based, haha. I tend to pants rather than plan. Somebody described it as a “discovery writer” process which I think gives it a touch of dignity.
I write a lot of pieces specific to particular submission calls; even if they don’t get submitted in the end they provide a lot of inspiration.
I get ideas and inspiration from everywhere, really. For instance, my story A Winter’s Wrath was written for a Christmas collection, but sort of erupted largely formed in my head while I was out for a walk past a nearby church and saw a row of headstones outside it (the church is on a hill, so the story begins with graves on a hillside).
I’ve been exploring stories related to the Irish landscape and history/mythology recently. Actually, my next collection, In the House of Sorrows, is very heavily influenced by this. I had to stop writing stories set in bogs because I’d come up with too many, ha.
I average a story a week, though it’s not precise. My record turnaround is conceiving, writing, editing, and submitting a 900-word story in about 40 minutes (it got published, too). But on the other side of it I have some stories that have taken weeks of intermittent revisiting, and others which haven’t been finished after a year.
Sometimes, if I’m struggling to actually articulate an idea, I use a deck of cards called Storydeck. That lets you build your own sort of prompt, though it can help drill down into character motivations as well. It doesn’t tell you what should or shouldn’t be in the actual story, just helps you build a sort of prompt. A story hook, really.
I haven’t had any novels finished but I do write them.
Who would you recommend read The Ties That Bind and What Gets Left Behind?
I always struggle with comp titles but if you like Shirley Jackson, HP Lovecraft, Caitlin Marceau, or MR James then you will get a lot out of my work. Those two books would also be enjoyed by fans of quiet/literary or atmospheric horror, or anyone interested in that beautiful Weird Tales series from the British Library.
What are some words of wisdom you have for aspiring writers?
Write for yourself first, and everyone else second. Don’t be concerned with ideas like “write what you know” – write what you like. More importantly, write what you feel. Mix genres if that’s what you want to do. Also, what comes out of your head will be a thousand times more fulfilling and interesting than what gets spat out by a chatbot.
Do you have any current writing projects you’re working on? Can you tell us a little bit about them if you do?
Too many!
I plan to release two collections next year, We Bury the Dead and Pretend It Matters (themed around hell and the undead) and While We Still Have Strength to Dream (dark fantasy). They’re both maybe half-written, and as I complete short stories this year most of them are with an eye on one of those collections.
I also have three novels on the go and in various stages of completion.
Worlds Without End is a cosmic horror/supernatural novel set on a fictional island off the northeast US. It has a heavy debt to Lovecraft and Stephen King, but pulls on some Irish mythology. It kickstarted my wider story universe, as it happens, so I really need to get it done and out there!
There’s also Beneath the Surface, which is set in County Clare and deals with witchcraft and some pre-Celtic ideas. The lead character is Liam Kincaid, who is in the story Grave Tidings in The Ties That Bind. That probably needs the heaviest amount of reworking once the first draft is complete.
Also, I have a novel on the go called The Undying which is also set in Ireland and is the first one I built an outline for (and it helped!). To get that rolling as an experiment I shuffled and drew some Storydeck cards to form the prompt “An undying grave robber wants to settle an old score with a submerged corpse, but something that should have stayed dead will rise again. A well-loved medium wants to pacify a mansion but they must confront a ghost of the past.”
So, in what’s become one of my more unhinged tales, the grave robber is actually a ghoul who needs to eat human flesh because of a curse, and who is trying to lift it using the body of his childhood friend who sold him out to a witch. Meanwhile, an internet famous psychic takes a job at a house where an occult group wants to contact an entity. Turns out they’re all trying to reach the same creature. But all that sprung out of my own head which is apparently slightly unhinged itself when I give it free rein.
Away from that I have a few novellas rolling around, including one that builds up the world from Contain and Control, which you were good enough to publish on Exquisite Death. It doesn’t have a name yet. I have another one that’s more cosmic/otherworld horror that’s tentatively called The Paths Beyond.
I’ve also written a children’s book called Butterfly Heart that needs to find a publisher!
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Support indie publishers! Three presses that have published stories of mine have either shut or fallen to pieces in the past six months for various reasons.
Thank you for having me and publishing some of my stories. I hope to have another for you at some stage this year, all going well.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my interview questions!
When I started off I was just publishing stories without any real plan. I had a couple of longer works in mind but finishing them was a problem, so I started challenging myself to do more shorter pieces in kind of defined timespans (usually a week or so). They built up more quickly than I thought and suddenly I looked at my list of finished stories and realised I could actually put them out as a book – then discovered I nearly had enough for two books.
They were going to be companion collections at first, both out at the same time. In hindsight, that was a bonkers idea, though they still work as companions.
The Ties That Bind is grouped around the theme of connections, whether they be supernatural or otherwise. The story I named the book for, which is a mix of grief horror and cosmic fantasy, is quite a personal one in that it is loosely – very loosely – inspired by the experiences of some of my ancestors (not the supernatural part, but the loss of multiple family members). I’m quite fascinated by the theme of how characters can be connected on a metaphorical as well as literal level.
There’s another story in that book, The Coachman, which draws heavily on something that happened to my wife’s mother, including the supernatural elements. I adapted it a bit and updated the timing to around now but that’s an example of how I often include otherworldly elements that aren’t supposed to outright scare, but more unnerve.
What Gets Left Behind, then, is roughly grouped around the theme of what remains when people die, whether that is ghosts or guilt in the mind of the living. The title story – or rather, the story I named the book for – is about a ghost driven by his experiences in life, even if it takes him a while to remember them. It’s also about ghosts not being haunters but helpers. Another of the pieces in that book, Losing Your Grip, which was the first story I ever had published, was inspired by the idea I had of “what if a ghost was haunting itself”.
There are a couple of “what if” stories in that collection, actually. Atonement came about when I had the idea “what if you prayed and something you didn’t expect answered” – in that case it’s a supernatural entity, a psychopomp really, that takes a character’s need to atone for something very literally and punishes him in a way he thinks he wants (though I don’t think he necessarily deserves).
The Ties That Bind and What Gets Left Behind are under the series title Shadows and Starlight, as any forthcoming collections probably will be. I quite like how Clive Barker and others have volumes to their collections, even if you don’t have to read one to enjoy another.
Tell me a little bit about Dread Recesses Press, which your books were released under. Do you have any books coming out in the near future, or any plans to have any come out? What made you decide to go the indie press route and not the traditionally published route?
Dread Recesses Press is my little demon baby, and I set it up initially because I was looking at putting out some collections put together from general calls for stories. That hasn’t happened quite yet, but it still might. Also, from a tax view, in Ireland you can get an exemption for income derived from artistic work but you need a company set up to claim that.
But mostly I went indie because it was a much easier way to get collections out – they tend to be hard sells to traditional publishers unless you have an established fanbase – but also because I quite enjoyed being able to influence every step of it. That’s more of a DIY ethos than being a control freak, haha. So I designed the covers, etc. I had one eye on the future and having loads of books out under the same banner.
It also meant releases could work around my own schedule. The Ties That Bind was a December 31 release because it was important to me that I finally have a book out by the end of that year, and it was a nice way to start 2025 with a book in hand.
I also read a lot of work from various indie presses and enjoy how diversity of voices and ideas.
I have a few releases in the pipeline. There’s a novella, Dishevelled In Silhouette, which I might release in the first half of this year. It’s done, though I got some good feedback from a beta reader that I will incorporate, but I’d like to see if it can get interest from another publisher. I’ll have another collection out this year, In the House of Sorrows, likely in late summer. Possibly another novella around the end of the year. I want to end up with a whole stack of novellas out in the world.
I’m also organising a few small ebook samplers that I can release for 99c or free. Those will all be called Dread Recesses Of… and right now there’s Spring, Summer, Samhain, and Winter. So they’d be two, maybe three stories each that I can use for promotions or maybe include in newsletter subscriptions. I don’t have as many spring or summer stories as I do autumn or winter, but such is life!
What author, or authors, inspired you to become a writer? When did you decide you wanted to become a writer?
Probably Stephen King, who I first read at perhaps too young an age, ha. But just as important were David Eddings and Terry Goodkind. My first story would have been when I was 12, 13, something around that. It was about a pub where the devil appeared, but I think it’s been lost to time. I have another one, Graduation Day, in hard copy from when I was in my late teens and may yet dust it off.
Writing went on hiatus, bar the occasional fits and starts, for decades though, a combination of working full time as a copy editor and then later having small children. I came back to it seriously three or so years ago after my wife asked me “how long would it take you to write a book?”
After that I actually made a start on a historical fiction novel inspired by one of my ancestors, Michael Verling (the characters in the story The Ties That Bind should be considered his own ancestors really). But I was trying to work on what might have motivated some of his problematic behaviour (not excused, just explained) and realised it was probably rooted in survivor guilt from the famine of the 1840s. The story I wanted to tell only worked when I realised it was a ghost story. I’ve never finished it, though some elements have appeared as stories in my collections.
Then it turned out I had a knack for short stories, and I’ve been pretty prolific at them ever since (about 65 published or accepted in eight countries).
What does your writing process look like? Do you plan a lot in advance? And where do you come up with your ideas? Where do you draw your inspiration from? How long does it usually take you to write a short story? Do you also write novels?
My process is a bit chaotic and mood-based, haha. I tend to pants rather than plan. Somebody described it as a “discovery writer” process which I think gives it a touch of dignity.
I write a lot of pieces specific to particular submission calls; even if they don’t get submitted in the end they provide a lot of inspiration.
I get ideas and inspiration from everywhere, really. For instance, my story A Winter’s Wrath was written for a Christmas collection, but sort of erupted largely formed in my head while I was out for a walk past a nearby church and saw a row of headstones outside it (the church is on a hill, so the story begins with graves on a hillside).
I’ve been exploring stories related to the Irish landscape and history/mythology recently. Actually, my next collection, In the House of Sorrows, is very heavily influenced by this. I had to stop writing stories set in bogs because I’d come up with too many, ha.
I average a story a week, though it’s not precise. My record turnaround is conceiving, writing, editing, and submitting a 900-word story in about 40 minutes (it got published, too). But on the other side of it I have some stories that have taken weeks of intermittent revisiting, and others which haven’t been finished after a year.
Sometimes, if I’m struggling to actually articulate an idea, I use a deck of cards called Storydeck. That lets you build your own sort of prompt, though it can help drill down into character motivations as well. It doesn’t tell you what should or shouldn’t be in the actual story, just helps you build a sort of prompt. A story hook, really.
I haven’t had any novels finished but I do write them.
Who would you recommend read The Ties That Bind and What Gets Left Behind?
I always struggle with comp titles but if you like Shirley Jackson, HP Lovecraft, Caitlin Marceau, or MR James then you will get a lot out of my work. Those two books would also be enjoyed by fans of quiet/literary or atmospheric horror, or anyone interested in that beautiful Weird Tales series from the British Library.
What are some words of wisdom you have for aspiring writers?
Write for yourself first, and everyone else second. Don’t be concerned with ideas like “write what you know” – write what you like. More importantly, write what you feel. Mix genres if that’s what you want to do. Also, what comes out of your head will be a thousand times more fulfilling and interesting than what gets spat out by a chatbot.
Do you have any current writing projects you’re working on? Can you tell us a little bit about them if you do?
Too many!
I plan to release two collections next year, We Bury the Dead and Pretend It Matters (themed around hell and the undead) and While We Still Have Strength to Dream (dark fantasy). They’re both maybe half-written, and as I complete short stories this year most of them are with an eye on one of those collections.
I also have three novels on the go and in various stages of completion.
Worlds Without End is a cosmic horror/supernatural novel set on a fictional island off the northeast US. It has a heavy debt to Lovecraft and Stephen King, but pulls on some Irish mythology. It kickstarted my wider story universe, as it happens, so I really need to get it done and out there!
There’s also Beneath the Surface, which is set in County Clare and deals with witchcraft and some pre-Celtic ideas. The lead character is Liam Kincaid, who is in the story Grave Tidings in The Ties That Bind. That probably needs the heaviest amount of reworking once the first draft is complete.
Also, I have a novel on the go called The Undying which is also set in Ireland and is the first one I built an outline for (and it helped!). To get that rolling as an experiment I shuffled and drew some Storydeck cards to form the prompt “An undying grave robber wants to settle an old score with a submerged corpse, but something that should have stayed dead will rise again. A well-loved medium wants to pacify a mansion but they must confront a ghost of the past.”
So, in what’s become one of my more unhinged tales, the grave robber is actually a ghoul who needs to eat human flesh because of a curse, and who is trying to lift it using the body of his childhood friend who sold him out to a witch. Meanwhile, an internet famous psychic takes a job at a house where an occult group wants to contact an entity. Turns out they’re all trying to reach the same creature. But all that sprung out of my own head which is apparently slightly unhinged itself when I give it free rein.
Away from that I have a few novellas rolling around, including one that builds up the world from Contain and Control, which you were good enough to publish on Exquisite Death. It doesn’t have a name yet. I have another one that’s more cosmic/otherworld horror that’s tentatively called The Paths Beyond.
I’ve also written a children’s book called Butterfly Heart that needs to find a publisher!
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Support indie publishers! Three presses that have published stories of mine have either shut or fallen to pieces in the past six months for various reasons.
Thank you for having me and publishing some of my stories. I hope to have another for you at some stage this year, all going well.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my interview questions!
