Accursed Son was named a finalist in the Suspense category of the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! This is the first significant writing contest where I’ve made it to the finals. I’m thrilled with this honor, since I didn’t think I would ever get this far with my writing.
Accursed Son was a labor of love, my magnum opus I wrote as a master’s project in grad school. It languished in various drafts for several months, and I was ready to abandon it with the rest of my trunked novels.
Then I watched John Wiswell’s 2021 Nebula Awards acceptance speech. Wiswell had won for best short story, “Open House on Haunted Hill”. If you haven’t read this brilliant story, point your clicky-fingers here and do so. Wiswell’s acceptance speech really touched me and jump-started my dead writer heart.
Accursed Son nearly killed me; it tormented my time and burrowed deep in my soul. I couldn’t shake this story, and needed to get it out into the world. After several revised drafts, I hired a developmental editor and we shredded the entire book, going through each chapter and rebuilding the novel. More revisions followed before I submitted it to agents and small presses, each one soundly rejecting it.
Except one.
Shadow Spark Publishing asked for a full request and eventually signed me in a four-book deal. I’m grateful to co-founders Jess Moon and Mandy Russell for taking a chance on my weird little paranormal mortuary story.
In a recent interview I was asked what inspires me to write. Now I’m a nobody, a 53-year-old college professor who hasn’t done much with his life except dream big and fall short. An expert on all things literary I’m not. But I’m inspired by this need to create and leave behind something for the world. The stories are inside me, banging the doors to be let out. An author leaves a piece of themselves in their work, and I want future genrations to have my oddball supernatural tales. It sounds arrogant and conceited, but it’s the truth. I just want my stories to be my legacy, so that maybe one day someone who needs them will read them. Someone who’s had a bad day, or is in the middle of an ugly romantic breakup, or who is lost and alone, might find some solace and humor in my words. It might inspire them to give love a second chance, or pursue their passions, or stay alive.
Fiction has a weird hold on people. Writers who create relatable characters can endure into the future and leave a mark on the culture. I’m not saying this will happen with my books, but you never know what transpires after we shuffle off this mortal coil. We may write the story of our lives, but we don’t necessarily write our endings. If that puffs up my self-importance or vanity, then so be it. That’s a hill I’ll gladly die on.
Eric Avedissian 