ANON, by Peter Giglio

Rory Ellison, victim of his own misdeeds, wallows in misery. Then a door opens. Now he's got a new job, a dream assignment to rewrite the darkest mistake of his past, and a strange new companion in his head. Wielding powers beyond his comprehension and control, Rory returns to . . .

. . . Faith. She possesses the perfect husband, kids, and home. But when Rory falls back into her world, old wounds open wide, shattering her ideal life.

At the center of the mayhem stands Anon, a seemingly benevolent organization with a sinister past of its own. "Helping you realize your dreams sooner," the company promises. But what do they stand to gain? How far will they go to get what they want? And if they make dreams a reality, what about nightmares?

Only Michelle, a young girl with a strange gift, can defeat the evil threatening her family. But she must face fear, work with the ghosts of her enemy's past, navigate a maze of terror, and make the tough choice to grow up too soon in a world filled with evil and indifference.

Hold on tight! Anon - a tale of corporate and familial terror - is unlike anything you've ever read.

When did you first want to write for a living?

When I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11, I read Firestarter by Stephen King and knew I had to write. I wrote often as a kid—novels, short stories, plays, poems—though none of it was very good. I even went to writing camp with Scott Bradley, who I still work with today, but I wasn't very serious at the time.

I spent the week at camp creating a religion, I kid you not, that centered on the worship of Dr. Pepper cans, and my final entry in the camp's publication, begrudgingly printed because my parents had paid the camp's fees, was about the shrine of Dr. Pepper cans in our cabin. My ego took a blow when I was discouraged from writing by my evil high school English teacher, but I wrote extensively when I was in college, mostly science fiction inspired by Philip K. Dick. Alas, thanks to a girl I was dating, I became practical when it was time to settle on a profession, and spent several years in sales and marketing before deciding to write full time.


What made you decide on horror?

I read a lot of horror as a kid, but rediscovering classics by John Farris, Joe R. Lansdale, and the Skipp  Spector splatterpunk team, really got my mind racing. I had always dreamed of being a sci-fi writer, but I never knew any science. Here were writers that didn't seem to know any science either, and yet they wrote fantastic, mind-bending stories.

So I started writing based on those rediscoveries. Around the same time, I got back in touch with Scott Bradley, my childhood friend who was now writing professionally, and he encouraged me to pursue my dream. We collaborated on a story for John Skipp's anthology, Werewolves and Shapeshifters: Encounters with the Beast Within, and, to our mutual delight, “The Better Half” became our first fiction sale. Then I started writing Anon, and a few months later I quit my day job. Now, so that I don't sound completely irresponsible, I should point out that my current day job is working as Executive Editor at Evil Jester Press.


How long have you been writing?

For a long time. But only for 2 years in any serious, focused manner.


What inspirations do you have?

Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Yates, Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, John Skipp, John Farris, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, William Goldman, John Steinbeck. My father, Dr. James N. Giglio, is a respected historian and the author of many books, and he is a big inspiration, too. I'm also influenced by the films of Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, William Friedkin, David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, and Alfred Hitchcock.


Favorite authors/or books?

My favorite book is Ubik by Philip K. Dick. I discovered it in the dingy depths of a Springfield, Missouri used bookstore when I was a senior in high school, before PKD became all the rage. I've read Ubik more than 20 times and I think that in its own imperfect way it is a perfect book. My second favorite book is Pet Sematary by Stephen King. It's so gut wrenching that it's hard to read sometimes, but it's indispensible literature, a true masterpiece. Third favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.


What can we expect to see from you in the near future?

My vampire novella, A Spark in the Darkness, will be released by Etopia Press on September 16th. I am extraordinarily proud of this piece which has received some terrific blurbs. Early October sees the release of my first anthology, HELP! WANTED: Tales of On-the-Job Terror, which includes stories by Stephen Volk, David Dunwoody, Jeff Strand, Joe McKinney, Gary Brandner, and many others. I also have several short stories appearing in anthologies. My two favorites are “The Power of Words,” which will be in Hollie Snider’s Live and Let Undead (Twisted Library Press), and “Trust,” which will appear in Tales of Terror and Mayhem from Deep within the Box, edited by Charles Day and Jessica Weiss (Wicked East Press).

Peter's Links:

Anon on Amazon!!!!!

Peter's Website

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