The erotic passion, sensual language, horror and suspense, provide an atmospheric, chilling and unsettling read, as she constantly dreams a dream from which she cannot and often, does not, want to wake. Not a precious word is wasted in this haunting, eerie and often poignant story, which has an almost ethereal quality in the way it captures the sensual yet horrifying feelings evoked by our nameless female protagonist. Being able to construct a mini plot, with a structured sequence of events, must need some intense planning and thought.

For an author a short story must be as, if not more, difficult to write than a full length novel. I haven’t read a short story for many years and I really don’t know why. The book also contains references to some mild eroticism. “Sometimes our nightmares are too good to resist.”īest to be warned that this is a very short story, only some 12 pages long, a mere 2,500 words. It ripped away my breath and tore away my soul. What if, one day, you decide that your dream life is more exciting, more stimulating than the boring, safe, routine life you lead from day to day? If you could stay, would you?” We are allowed to do things in our dreams that we can’t (or perhaps shouldn’t) do in real life. “Our dreams are where we sometimes live out fantasies that perhaps our conscious mind refuses to acknowledge. “I love a good story about the supernatural… but I love a good nightmare more, after all there is probably nothing as scary as our own subconscious” She has taught creative writing classes for the last ten years, whilst writing screenplays, tackling a novel and experimenting with short stories.įor a more detailed view of Julia’s take on life, check out this great guest interview with her, over at ‘Morgen Bailey’s Writing Blog’. As a child she would watch anything that even vaguely looked as if it may be scary… so perhaps it is only natural that this is the area her writing tends to wander into – even if she doesn’t always intend it to!… a true Scorpio! She was an avid reader of horror stories as a teenager, including, James Herbert, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Peter Straub, in her list of favourite authors. Julia, was born and has spent most of her life living in Cambridgeshire, England – the perfect place for discovering inspiration for ghost stories. This story is now available in print, as part of a dark-fiction anthology ‘Touched by Darkness’, featuring short stories by Julia and eleven of her fellow writers. But they both find nothing is what it seems… A woman is tempted away from the safety of her husband’s arms by a skilful night-time visitor. Her nightmares were simply too good to resist.

Massacre Magazine by Julia Kavan