Mark Cassell Interview Published on: 28, Oct 2020

I moved down here with my wife in autumn of 2018. We used to live in the next county, Kent, which is where I grew up but I much prefer it down here next to sea. It's good for the brain!

Pretty average, I guess. I have a younger brother, and we had some fun times back then. One of my fondest memories though was when I once came home from school and my parents had bought me a present. "Look behind the sofa, Mark," Mum said. They'd bought me the fastest ship in the galaxy: The Millennium Falcon. It was the early eighties and Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood.

I'd never harm animals. Ever. One of my favourite stories "Dust Devils" published in Tale from the Lake Volume 4 by Crystal Lake Publishing involved a whole tonne of weird stuff. Where all kinds of bad things happened to the characters, except for a pet rabbit called Dennis.

It's all about the hook. That first sentence, or at the very least the first paragraph. I try to grab the reader from the very start. For instance, my next novel has the first line: "More than one hundred and fifty years after he drowned, Sydney could still taste seawater."

Good question! I guess she's a combination of both me and my wife. The story stems from when her cat goes missing and we follow her search. Again, remember how I never harm animals in my fiction? Despite what the title of the book suggests, this book doesn't harm a single hair on any cat's head. Where as humans...

The book contains two stories: River of Nine Tails and Reanimation Channel. The blurb? A British traveller desperate to escape his past finds himself at the heart of a Vietnamese legend, and learns why the Mekong Delta is known as “River of Nine Tails.” And a regular parcel collection from a neighbour becomes a descent into terror through the online game, “Reanimation Channel.”

Inspiration for the first story came from my round-the-world travels and the second was my own curiosity in the dark web.

It tests the patience, that's for sure!

Ha! That wasn't a career - I did in fact do that to fuel my cocaine habit ... only joking. Seriously though, it was for a bit of extra cash. Besides, standing and pointing a massive light on a tripod at someone wailing Elvis tunes is enough to do your head in. I only did that half a dozen times.

I'm aware that the term "lab technician" suggests something glamorous, but trust me it's not. It was to do with inks and coatings for the print industry. But, who's to say my workspace didn't ever become contaminated? Getting ink all over the place? You can be as clean and methodical as anyone in the lab, and there'd always be a smudge somewhere. And you'd think "How?!"

That it's impossible to please everyone. The reader can be an incredibly picky creature. Myself included!

Being sneaky enough to taste what we baked. Heard of the phrase "A baker's dozen"? Bake thirteen just in case one burns or collapses or whatever... Nah. If something's gonna go wrong with that tray of goods, it'll be the whole lot that can't be sold. So, a baker's dozen means the thirteenth is for the baker to eat.

Seeing that it was my debut to gain that label, it came as a mighty shock. And it's great that it's still doing well, as are the subsequent stories in the mythos, and I still have readers demanding more.

I've been buddies with fellow author Matt Shaw for several years now and I nabbed a role in his directorial debut film, Monster. He supported me. And it was fun being a human birthday cake.

Disregarding the dumbest 3-star review I ever received on Amazon that said "Not read yet" I honestly don't think anything particularly tough has been said. Even my low ratings have been positive in some respect.

One part of being a writer is the marketing side of things. Sure, I can Photoshop stuff and have done in the past, but leaping into being a pro-member on this site has allowed me to take a step back and actually write more. So a big thanks goes to you!