I used to do it all the time, writing short stories and novels since I was eight. It has always been a passion of mine, but admittedly something I largely got away from. I suppose one just eventually finds other ways to fuel their passion for writing anything at all, and politics and talking about money just sort of took over.
But fiction has remained something I still like to do from time to time. But it's mostly just for me and my own enjoyment, exploring my imagination and what creepy things I can conjure up. Some of it I actively publish. Most of it I tend to keep on the sidelines.
I have decided to change that a bit.
Back in the 1990s, I introduced an online monthly horror fiction magazine to the world, taking on the persona of Ivan S. Graves, editor in chief, and calling it FrightNet. Despite the world of the Internet being entirely different back then, the magazine was nearly an instant success.
The aim was to make it look and feel like a traditional, in print publication. And it did that. You'd click on the cover, and it would take you into a table of contents, and from there there'd be articles and editorials, and of course, the main course, short stories.
The magazine eventually wound up including many popular talents in the horror field. Jack Ketchum, Peter Straub, T.M. Wright, Douglas Clegg, Michael Laimo and countless others. And it also led to a horror anthology being published around 2001 or so, called Dark Whispers.
The magazine eventually ceased. It was hard to monetize back then, and Ivan S. Graves bid his farewell, even cancelling plans to publish a second horror anthology called Chillers. Mort Castle once said of me, "You will be one of the greats." But I essentially left horror behind.
It's not that I abandoned the persona of Ivan S. Graves entirely, though. There were several times when I made an appearance or two in certain circles, even writing a foreword to R.K. Finnell's short story collection, Grue Tales, in 2018. I have also maintained connections with several of the writers I had the pleasure of working with, and even occasionally still write a book review here and there.
The persona of Ivan S. Graves was never considered to be a writer. He was an editor. Someone to advance the genre and offer an outlet for authors to have their work published. He did write, though. And if you dig really, really deep you can find some of his work still hanging around in places.
The writer side was R.P. Kane.
Even the persona of R.P. Kane was mostly intended to be a practice author. In other words, the real writer's name behind Jim Bauer (my real name) would be more of a secret. That writer's name remains to be that way today with almost no one knowing who he is.
And I'm still not talking.
R.P. Kane's work would sometimes be tossed into the pages of FrightNet, and when I did it, I never let on to anyone that Ivan S. Graves was actually R.P. Kane. Though there were a few curious contributors who would sometimes recognize something in Kane's style that resembled the monthly "Letter from the Editor" that appeared in every issue.
Kane also took on a bit of a more sinister nature in what he wrote. And so, the persona offered me some liberties to try different things in the way of style and delivery, and even subject matter.
Tests. Practice. A way to hone the craft and share it at the same time.
By the way, sometimes that's the real reason many writers write under different names. It's not just because their real names might be boring, or not quite fit the genre, like mine. It's that you can do things with one name that you can't do with a more known name—it gives you some separation and allows for a little bit of experimentation.
Nonetheless, I have decided to begin sharing some of R.P. Kane's work, both old and new, on a blog on this very platform. Not within The Journal. But in its own space.
It is a work in progress as we speak, and to date there is nothing to share other than that I am doing it. Stay tuned.
Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page where I share posts from this blog, as well as all the other places I write, and where you will be able to find links to the future publishings of R.P. Kane.
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