An Interview with Daniel Braum
DANIEL BRAUM writes short stories that explore the tension between the psychological and the supernatural. He intentionally adopts the term “strange tales” for his “Twilight Zone-like stories in homage to author Robert Aickman and the intentional ambiguities of his work.
His latest collection is Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories from Cemetery Dance Publications (2025)
His stories appear in places ranging from The Best Horror of the Year Volume 12, edited by Ellen Datlow, and Shivers 8, edited by Richard Chizmar.
Find him at: https://bloodandstardust.wordpress.com
You’ve described your stories as strange tales. How does this differentiate them from comparable categories, and how does it compare with other practitioners of strange tales, such as Robert Aickman?
Daniel: My work is sometimes categorized as horror, weird fiction, quiet-horror, or dark fantasy. I think the “strange tale” can be viewed a sub-category or refinement of those categories, even as a thing that operates concurrently or adjacent to them. One of the hallmarks, for me, of what constitutes a strange tale is the level of explanation of what is happening in the story. I often say a strange tale operates with an intentional ambiguity as to what the supernatural element in play is or if there even is a supernatural element at all. I’m not rigid with definitions but certainly there are real differences even when similarities with other categories are present.
I adopted the term for my work when I first learned about Robert Aickman and his stories as this intentional ambiguity was what struck me as one of the stand out elements that defined his work and kind of stories he writes. For me when a story is free from the constraints of defining the supernatural and free from the constraints of a plot being about overcoming the supernatural, worlds of possibility open up. I often think an element of a strange tale is the structure of the ending. For me, strange tales do not offer resolution to the phantasmagoric elements, even when there is an emotional shift or sense of change in the characters by the end.
Howard Waldrop coined the term “Night Time Logic”, to paraphrase it, it is the parts of the story that are felt but not consciously processed. I think Aickman’s stories often operate this way. When I learned about Aickman and his work and these terms for describing structures and workings of stories I found a place where my work seemed to fit in. Because I mostly don’t write about traditional monsters or things commonly used as subjects in genre stories my work doesn’t quite fit in the box of some of the better known and commonly used categories. It was an empowering experience to learn about strange tales and to adopt the term moving forward.
PSM: You’ve also highlighted ghost stories. What place do you think ghosts occupy in our collective cultural space now?
Daniel: I subtitled Phantom Constellations as “strange tales and ghost stories” because in almost every story there is some kind of a haunting.
From my vantage ghosts occupy a range of places in today’s pop-culture and books and film. Here in America, perhaps ghosts are most noticeable in the way they are associated with Halloween, often in a commercial or at least watered down to a friendly and safe concept. These portrayals are a far cry from the malevolent and strange phantoms who occupy the great MR James stories.
Peeling back the surface a bit reveals more complex and interesting ways ghosts are portrayed in our art and perhaps reflect our society. The story “The Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber” comes to mind as one of the stories that marked a shift in ghost stories and portrayed the ghost as something more than a human phantom or spirit and as something representing society at large or an element of it. I’m excited when I come across stories where the ghost or ghosts operate in this way.
In my work I use ghosts and supernatural elements to tell human stories. The stories are often about people and their lives in the here and now who have encounters with the strange and unexplainable. These things serve as catalysts for their challenges and conflicts rather than as antagonists or obstacles. Often the hauntings can be seen as relating to time and place and “haunted people” and less like a traditional “spook” even if sometimes both are present in a given story.
PSM: After so many collections, what are your feelings about the short form?
Daniel: Phantom Constellation is my fifth full short story collection and after many books and so many years I love the short form even more.
The simple answer is I just love short stories. On thinking about it more, part of my creative process is matching a story idea or inspiration with a sense of how it might play out in length and then once that length is known then deciding on form. I ask is this a novel sized idea, a flash fiction sized idea or somewhere in the many places in between? The short story allows for this.
As a reader, short stories bring me so much joy. I have a column at Cemetery Dance online and a You Tube series of the same name, called Night Time Logic that focuses on short stories and dark fiction.
PSM: What trends in current writing and society as a whole do you find most inspirational?
Daniel: While trends and what is popular seems to come and go in cycles, horror looks like it is in an up-swing and enjoying popularity in the public eye of the mainstream.
Films such as the kind Studio A-24 produce- ones that explore a wide range of styles and depths of horror storytelling excite me. Small Press publishers such as Cemetery Dance, Jackanapes Press, and Lethe Press all put out wonderful books by unique authors. It is such a positive thing knowing that I can always find something to challenge me and explore my horizons. Publishers such as Egaeus Press from the UK and Charnel House from upstate New York create beautiful, exquisitely crafted limited-edition books that are just a joy to behold even before reading the tales. Knowing that there is still an appetite and a means for these kinds of books and stories to come in to being and reach people truly inspires me.
It is an uplifting experience to connect with readers at events. Learning why a someone is choosing my books for the first time or learning what a story means to a reader and what is going on in their lift is truly a gift.
I think I’m most inspired in how every story, in a way, is a ghost story particularly when they operate as bridges between minds and times and places that may be forgotten, obscure, or no longer here with us.
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Paul StJohn Mackintosh is a Scottish author, poet, journalist, historian, games writer, and media professional. Born in 1961, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, has lived and worked in Asia and Central Europe, and currently lives in France.
Paul’s first collection of short stories, Black Propaganda, appeared from H. Harksen Productions in 2016. His second story collection, The Echo of The Sea & other Strange War Stories, was published by Egaeus Press in 2017. His short novel The Three Books was published by Black Shuck Books in 2018. His short story “The People of the Island,” in Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales, from H. Harksen Productions, received an Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow in her Best Horror of the Year Volume Two list for 2009 and his story “The First Circus of the New Year” received the same in 2016. His historical novel Begin the Beguine and his semi-autobiographical novel Death of a Doppelgänger were both published in 2023. He has written several books of French wartime history. His latest horror work is his apocalyptic novel Theogasm (2024).
Paul’s acclaimed first poetry collection, The Golden Age, was published by Bellew Publishing in 1997, and reissued on Kindle in 2013. His second poetry collection, The Musical Box of Wonders, was published by H. Harksen Productions in 2011. His sonnet cycle The Great Arcana: Sonnets for the 22 Trumps of the Tarot, and his ballad cycle Black Ballads, based on traditional Scottish myths and legends, were both published in 2022.
Paul’s Lovecraftian and dark fiction, and criticism, has appeared in numerous formats and journals worldwide, including Occult Detective Magazine, Weirdbook, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons, the Financial Times, the UK Independent, the Times Literary Supplement, Arts of Asia, Strange Horizons, A Broad Scot, and elsewhere. His co-translations from the Japanese, done with Maki Sugiyama, include The Poems of Nakahara Chuya (1993) and Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (1995) by the 1994 Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe, which won a Japan Festival Award. He also co-translated Superstrings (2007) by Dinu Flamand from Romanian with Olga Dunca. Paul is a former Executive Committee member of the Translators Association of the Society of Authors of Great Britain. He was rated #1 of “The 12 Publishing Shakers You Should Be Following” by The Independent Publishing Magazine. He is also the official clan poet of Clan Mackintosh.
