Scott Bowen brings us a tale of cannibalism in such a way it made my mouth water… and then stare into the mirror while I asked myself some difficult questions I still cannot quite answer, and hope to never be in a situation where I can. Scott’s spectacular skill at description can make a reader feel like they truly are there, that his characters memories may as well be their own, and his story will have you looking at everyone you meet just a little differently, wondering what their childhood meals were like.
I know that you taste good. Certain muscles, like the ones along your spine, and the quadriceps, are delightful when cut into steaks and roasted very slowly, with a dry pepper rub. If you are in good physical condition, the best cuts of your body compare to good veal. If you’re well fed, your marbled meat cooks richly, and is juicy. Long ago, I learned to enjoy both lean and marbled.
Take From the Earth What is Given by Scott Bowen, featured in Tangle & Fen: A Dark Fiction Anthology (p. 11). Crone Girls Press.
Q (Crone Girls Press): What inspired your story in this anthology? Tell us the “story behind the story.”
A (Scott Bowen): It started with a simple question: If someone grew up eating something totally taboo to consume—a food that was normalized within the family—does that tendency go away after years of therapy, or does it always lurk on the back of the tongue?
Q: Why do you write horror? What about the genre appeals to you as an author?
A: Effective horror fiction is difficult to write, and this challenge is part of its appeal. I also very much like that horror gives a writer an avenue to go to very strange and dangerous places and explain imaginatively what is happening there and why. Horror fiction can help people sort out very elemental things that worry them.
Q: There are a number of different flavors of horror. Where does your story fit, and what drew you to this particular category?
A: That’s a tough question to answer (“flavor” being the key word here) because on a basic level, this is a cannibal story. But it’s also psychological horror, because the main character has to sort out mentally his past and present, often through food and the people around him who bring him food. He knows he’s done terrible things. He deals with strong temptation.
Q: The world has been through some turbulent times in the past few years. How have current events changed (or not!) your approach to the genre as a writer?
A: The years 2016 to 2022 say, “Anything can happen, and if you think it won’t, it will. Brace yourself.” Years ago, an American writer supposedly lamented that with American military officers walking on the moon, fiction faced a huge challenge because how can you top a lunar landing? What that fellow didn’t consider was that H.G. Wells (and numerous others) had gone way past the topic of lunar landings already, so fiction started out ahead of science. Now we’ve had a global pandemic that has horridly killed millions of people, and our terrible global reality matched fictional stories already in circulation. If anything has changed with me professionally, I’m trying to write faster before the next major quake of this age.
Q: What’s next in your writing journey?
A: I’m working on a monster novel–an outdoors adventure involving inexplicable creatures.
About The Author
Scott Bowen lives and writes in southeastern Pennsylvania. He is the author of a short-story collection, The Midnight Fish (Morris-Lee Publishing), and a satire, The Vampire Survival Guide (Skyhorse). He has written the annual April Fool’s story for MidCurrent.com and has published previously in Hospital Drive (the literary journal of the University of Virginia Medical School), TheHorrorZine.com, and HelloHorror.com. You can also find him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Be sure to check out their story in Tangle & Fen: A Dark Fiction Anthology
Crone Girls Press 