The solidification of ungrounded fears is why Joshua Laing likes to write horror stories that will leave you pulling the covers over your head, and unable to fall asleep.
The Kings Point teenager has recently has had his work published in Floppy Shoes Apocolypse 2: Cherry Nose Armageddon, an anthology of short clown horror stories.
His work will appear alongside big names in horror fiction such as Ramsey Campbell and Alex Johnson and has been described as brutal and nihilistic by editor, Alex S. Johnson.
After graduating from Ulladulla High School in 2015, his English Extension 2 major work was picked up by an editor through Facebook.
Joshua is most interested in slasher fiction and plans to turn his horror stories into a career.
“It feels pretty surreal that people want to read my stuff,” Joshua said.
“It will sink in eventually,” he said.
His work has also been picked up by Infernal Ink, a quarterly magazine with a focus on horror that has a sexual edge and he is working on a couple of other stories for anthologies.
Joshua’s worst fear is spiders, so he steers clear of writing about those however cockroaches and other creepy crawlies feature in some of his work.
“I like the rancid symbolism of them,” Joshua said.
“I’ve only ever written horror but I have a wide circle of horror themes,” he said.
Eventually, Joshua would like to work in the Australian horror film industry as a screen writer however he admits that there is not much work in the genre of “Australian Slashers”.
You can download Floppy Shoes Apocolypse 2: Cherry Nose Armageddon and read Joshua’s work at http://www.amazon.com/Floppy-Shoes-Apocalypse-Cherry-Armageddon/dp/153342747X?ie=UTF8&keywords=joshua%20laing&qid=1464261769&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2.
