Tag Archives: monster horror short fiction

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – BENJAMIN SPADA

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Well, well, well, look who’s here! It’s our official-not-so-official honorary Aussie Benjamin Spada, striding to Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight stage. Are we in the US? Are we in Australia? Are we losing our minds? (Definitely ‘nah, yeah’ on the last one.)

Ben has spent a great deal of time on our shores, so we kinda adopted him. Did he want said adoption? Ummm… Do we adopt as we see fit? Absolutely. Also, we may have stamped him with a weird logo while he was sleeping. Perhaps. Maybe.

But enough about our weird adoption processes, Ben has been tapping his foot upon the stage, so it’s over to him while we raid his duffel bag for snacks.

Born and raised in California, Benjamin Spada has had a lifelong passion for storytelling. His award-winning Black Spear series of military thrillers includes FNG, The Warmaker, and Project: Darkheart. His works have been previously published in SNAFU: Dead or Alive and SNAFU: Contagion. A dedicated taco aficionado and self-described “Professor of Batmanology,” he has made a career in the United States Marine Corps. He has been a martial arts instructor and a section leader in the Wounded Warrior Battalion for our nation’s wounded, ill, and injured. Also, he has served overseas to help train foreign military allies in defense against chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Despite these grim assignments, he has carried on with equal amounts of sarcasm and stoicism.

When out of uniform, Benjamin is an avid sci-fi and horror movie fan, tattoo collector, comic enthusiast, and two-time holder of the platinum trophy in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Benjamin currently lives with his wife and their four daughters in Covington, Louisiana.

For SNAFU: Level Up, upon the sacrificial altar, Ben slapped the festeringly humorous corpse of RAGE QUIT: One man. One unbeatable final boss. A thousand ways to lose. It’s time to start cheating…

You can find Ben on Facebook and Twitter.

Want to read more of his work (get it in your eyeballs!)? The most recent Black Spear novel, Project Darkheart, is out now in print and ebook. Audiobook is being recorded and set to release early November!

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Ramblings, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – JUSTIN COATES & PATRICK FREIVALD

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Well, lookee here! It’s a two-for! That’s right, the next in Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight is a double-whammy with Justin Coates and Patrick Freivald penning us a tale (I’m pretty sure they fought over the pen). Which means this Author Spotlight will be a little longer than all the previous. Still, we are continuing our tour of the States with these two.

So, first up, we’re barging into Justin’s house (he said I could), shoving a mic in his face, and ushering him on stage to do his thang. <flaps hands> Go, go!

The son of a bean farmer and a chupacabra, Justin Coates accidentally joined the U.S. Army in 2008 and spent two years stumbling around Afghanistan. During and since, he’s been writing wild tales of military misadventures in horror and sci-fi, including short stories that have been adapted by Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots and a mysterious Amazon streaming show the NDAs won’t allow him to mention by name (for now). A graduate of the University of Southern California, he works as a trauma therapist and suicide prevention specialist by day (you know what he does at night). He lives in Michigan with his smokeshow wife, two feral sons, and the dumbest orange cat this side of the Sulemain Mountains. He also has a kick ass found-footage horror screenplay, and wants to know whose #@!% he needs to !#%@ to get an agent. 

While Justin sorts out his… let’s go with… sweetner? … (yeah, that works?), Patrick has now taken the stage with an entourage of bees…

Patrick Freivald is a four-time Bram Stoker Award® finalist, the author of ten novels and dozens of short stories for publications such as Weird Tales and Dark Discoveries, a high school teacher (physics, robotics, American Sign Language), and a beekeeper specializing in hot pepper infused honey. He lives in Western New York with his beautiful wife, parrots, dogs, cats, chickens, and several million stinging insects. A member of the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers, he has a soft spot for slavering monsters of all kinds.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Justin and Patrick dragged over to us the festering corpse of RESPAWN: As a team of misfits battles their way toward the grand prize of a virtual death match, there’s only one question on everyone’s mind: this game is fair, isn’t it?

Right, let’s get on to where you can find these fiends:

Justin is on Facebook (if you dare)

Patrick, you can find on Facebook and Insta.

When it comes to upcoming works, Justin apparently doesn’t have shit coming out (his words, I swear, and yes, I laughed a little… okay, a lot), while Patrick has a spooky tale for tweens coming out real soon – Mitchcraft, Vacation Magic School. Check it out!

Seriously, these two are a menace – what’s not to love?

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  LJ VISSER

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Well, look at us heading back to the land of Oz again! Of course we are, it’s home base. This time for Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight, we’re heading south to the hub of creatives, Melbourne, to chat (and by chat, I mean crash in on) with LJ Visser.

This isn’t the first time LJ has graced our pages, and we were chuffed with his offering this time around. While he takes centre stage, we’re off to raid the fridge. Take it away, LJ! (Ooh, rhyme, how ‘bout that?)

L J Visser is a Melbourne-based author of military science fiction, horror and psychological thrillers. His work blends brutal survival, corporate secrecy, psychological tension, and the darker edges of human behaviour.

Speaking of said offering for SNAFU: Level Up, LJ placed upon the altar BLACKBOX PROTOCOL: Trapped inside a corporate black site, a soldier must survive its horrors while discovering that the most dangerous thing buried there may be inside her own mind.

You can find LJ on Facebook.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – ROBERT MAMMONE

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We’re Aussie-ing again with this Author Spotlight for SNAFU: Contagion – we’re like a plague (see what I did there?).  Cohesion Press is stumbling to the end of our Author Spotlight series (okay, I’m stumbling; there’s never enough caffeine), and while this isn’t the last of our authors, Robert Mammone does round out the ToC for SNAFU: Contagion.

And a cracker of a tale it is!

But I’ll let Robert introduce himself, because I think that’s likely to best for all involved… especially Robert…

Not to be confused with the Australian actor of the same name, Rob has been writing since the mid-80s, got serious in the mid-90s and was published in Doctor Who Magazine, then received an absolutely brutal (in hindsight, deserved) rejection letter soon after and went dark until 2009.  Since then, he’s been published in places like Midnight Echo, Pseudopod podcast, No Sleep Podcast, Swords and Sorceries 10, Die by the Sword 2, and had novels published with Candy Jar Books.  When he isn’t chasing his dogs around the neighbourhood, he can be found doing very little else.

As I said earlier in this piece, Robert wrote us a cracker of tale for SNAFU: Contagion –  GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: Mercenaries bite off more than they can chew in the frontlines of the Ukraine-Russian meat grinder.

You can find Robert on Twitter.