Meet the Author - G. Donald Black

It all began in the late 80s. My parents decided that three kids weren't enough and that another, hopefully a boy this time, would give the family a nice round number. And they were right. When I arrived, the Black family was complete and the number was indeed a round one. Six, if you weren't counting. James and Coreen had their boy to complement their three daughters and there would be no more. And now the fun really began.

If they thought three daughters were a handful, my parents quickly learned that adding a boy to the mix was adding gasoline to the Black family fire. I served as a real life baby doll to Annie, the youngest of my sisters, who is five years older than me. She was already in pre-school when I was added to the family tree, but she dragged me everywhere she went as if the twin she was supposed to have finally showed up. I was too young to get into much trouble at that point, but as I grew up the opportunities were too compelling to ignore.

Jessica, the brainy middle sister, thought it would be funny if she taught me to read before my first day of school. She had six years to accomplish this feat, but it only took three. Jessica had me reading the dictionary - proficiently, I might add humbly - before most kids were using silverware. So when I walked confidently into the classroom that cold September morning, my first teacher, Ms. Agravado, stared at me in disbelief as I calmly rattled off the names of my classmates she had written on the chalkboard. I don't remember the event, but Ms. Agravado reminds me every time I see her. And Jessica wasn't there to see the results of her handiwork, but she rolled on the floor when I told her that night what had transpired. But before it became an asset later in life, my prodigious ability was more of a liability.

My oldest sister, Kim, not wanting to be left out of the Little Donald Black Side Show, came up with a variety of schemes that would have me perform adult tasks that no kindergartener had any business doing. For example, one day she sent me to the corner store to buy some condoms. Of course I had no idea what they were for, but that didn't stop me from inquiring what aisle they were on. And then there was the time she had me apply for a secretarial job at the appliance store. She had even typed up a fake resume for me to hand to the owner. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

There were countless other antics, and I don't remember all the strange looks I received, but I must've heard "Aren't you a little young?" a hundred times. It wasn't long until the town caught on to our hijinks, and that was the end of the fun. We still tell those stories at holiday get-togethers and they always get a good laugh.

And so began the precocious childhood of G. Donald Black. Escapades aside, it was idyllic in many respects. Small town, no crime, everybody knew everybody else and were always quick to lend a neighborly hand when needed. In winter we would ski the nearby slopes, skate on frozen ponds, and make snowmen in the field behind the middle school. In summer we would head to the woods and ride bikes on dirt tracks we had crafted with our father's lawn tools, and if mom and dad were flush with cash we'd spend weekends sunning ourselves on the shores of Lake Champlain and cooking hot dogs over a campfire at dusk as the loons called across the water. The only drama we ever had was when dad would accidentally leave the sprinkler on overnight and mom would complain about the water bill, or some other inane thing. I count myself lucky to have grown up that way. Absolutely no complaints whatsoever. It's not lost on me that most people aren't that fortunate. We were a tight unit, the Black family. I was always close to my siblings, but never closer than when my parents died.

My father had an unspectacular career as a small-time insurance salesman. He sold all manner of policies. Life, health, disability. He had an office on Main Street where I loved to hang out with him on weekends. He would ask me to tag along so he could catch up on paperwork or simply get a reprieve from all the estrogen at home, and I would do homework or pretend I was him, practicing cursive or stamping papers. He taught me about business and what it meant to be a good man. At the time I didn't realize how important his words would be to me someday.

One night in August, Mom had set the table and dad was seated in his normal spot on the end, two seats down from me. We were talking about the Red Sox game when Kim and Annie entered the room. Jessica was still upstairs. He was going on about Boston's poor pitching effort when he paused. It seemed like his breath was stuck in his throat. What happened next probably only lasted ten seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to the eleven year old me. I don't remember exactly how it played out, but the next thing I knew he was on the floor surrounded by my sisters. I was frozen in my chair. I remember my mom racing in, the color of my dad's cheeks, the fear in his eyes. Those kinds of things stay with you.

In an instant he was gone, taken from my life. A heart attack. No history in our family, until then. My dad worked hard, didn't expect favors, and loved his family beyond his ability of expression. His absence left a hole in my world that I struggled to fill in the days and weeks afterward. But I wouldn't have long to process his death before the reaper came knocking again.

I don't recall the exact timing, perhaps because my sisters mercifully kept it from me, but my mom developed a nasty cancer that spread quickly through her tiny body and claimed her a few months after dad left us. Just writing those words brings back such horrible feelings. The loneliness, helplessness, betrayal. I was twelve years old and parentless. How could they do that to me? As if they'd had a choice.

It took years to be able to look at pictures of them without dissolving into tears. It was even harder on my sisters. Maybe because of the unwanted responsibility they'd inherited or maybe because they'd known my parents for years longer than me, but it was especially difficult for my sister Annie. Somehow in our small community, far removed from the perils of the big city, she found drugs. She doesn't mind me talking about it now, as she knows that transparency about her issues will help someone else out there in the same desperate situation. For that I commend her. We were all struggling to fill the void my parents left, but it was Annie that succumbed to the dark promise of relief from the pain. Long story short, through rehab and the help of her counselors she is better now. I believe this year marks seven years sober. We are very proud of her.

In retrospect I think it was all of these events that informed my belief in some sort of karmic balance. We'd had such a great life until that point, the cosmic scales were tipped so far in the direction of good that it was inevitable a correction occur. Like a fault line returning to stasis after an earthquake. Life is comprised of ups and downs. You may have a good (or bad) run for a long time, but reversion to the mean is real.

We all moved to my mom's parents' home in western Maine. My dad's parents were in Texas and my sisters feared the culture shock of the "wild west" would hinder my formative years if we'd moved there. But I think they secretly thought the same thing for themselves. My Nana was great. I'd always been close to her, but Kim became the de facto surrogate mom to the rest of us. It just felt right, and Kim stepped up.

I didn't go to therapy. Not that I was too young or anything, but western Maine wasn't a hotspot for child psychology and I found there were other ways to engage my mind. My Nana was an avid reader. She had a bookcase in the living room filled floor to ceiling with old hardcovers and paperbacks. They were fascinating to me. She encouraged me to try some, but looking back, I think she knew that every book represented a journey to some place where my pain didn't exist. It was her way of helping me through that horrible time.

Of all the Sheldons, Steeles, and Clancys she had lined up on those shelves, the one that almost immediately drew my attention was a dog-eared paperback with a vampire on the cover and its author's name in bold letters at the bottom: KING. I didn't ask Nana about it, afraid she might object to the content, so I squirreled it away under my pillow. At night, I would take it out, stay up too late, sometimes using a flashlight under a tent of covers, and read until my eyes gave out. I finished in a week, and once I was done I was ready for the next one. I was hopelessly hooked. Salem's Lot was my entry into the world of horror. While I have branched out to other genres from time to time over the years, it has remained my go-to.

So I immersed myself in books. For a teenage kid who'd just lost both parents, I suppose it was a pretty normal reaction to something horrific like that. What I didn't realize at the time is that losing myself in those dark stories of terror would shape my life in ways I couldn't imagine. Now that my eyes were open fully, I discovered an almost limitless supply of material. When the book fair came to town, I would gobble up all the Stephen Kings and then all the ones by authors I'd never heard of. Amazing writers like John Saul, Robert R. McCammon, Dean Koontz, H.P. Lovecraft, Dan Simmons, Ray Bradbury, and countless more. I was a mainstay at the library, often frustrating the librarians at my persistent questions about new releases and editions they didn't have. It wasn't long before Nana noticed my new obsession, and instead of being concerned, like I had imagined, she was overjoyed. She would have probably preferred me reading adventure novels or spy thrillers, but she knew I had found what I needed in the wake of our shared tragedy.

Fast forward a few years. I finished high school, but I didn't go to college. That may surprise some of you, or even most of you. But by that time I had accepted that my parents were gone and realized that I had to take care of myself. I knew what I wanted to do and I didn't need a formal education to do it. My love for books had continued to grow, and I had started to believe that I could write them myself. I began dabbling with some ideas and wrote a few short stories, mostly just emulations of my favorite authors. But the seed had been sown.

I knew a career in writing was a long way off, so I moved back to my hometown where an attorney friend of my dad gave me a job as a law clerk at his office. I didn't know much about law, but I was good at reviewing briefs for typos and helping out with the filing. It was often tedious, but I was earning cash and honing my editing skills at the same time. After my shift I took some writing classes at the community college before heading home. I did that for a couple of years. My writing teachers said I "had promise," which is a passive way of saying "keep trying." So I did.

I won't publish those early works. Never. So don't send me requests to do so. Trust me, I'm sparing you the misery. Frankly they are just not good. Besides, sometimes getting a peak behind the curtains really does spoil the show. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

Sometime later I saw an ad in one of my writing magazines for a short fiction contest. You've probably seen these if you're an aspiring writer or reader of pulp fiction. The entry fee was $50 and first prize was $1,000. More than the prospect of winning enough money to live off for a couple months, I was intrigued by the possibility of getting some real honest-to-goodness feedback on my work. It didn't take long for me to decide to go for it. It was only fifty bucks, but the payoff could be priceless.

I finished and submitted my 5000-word story, and then I waited. I don't know if the judges were expecting homespun tales of folksy satire or epic romances for bored housewives, but what they received from me was a good old-fashioned ghost story. A haunting tale of love spurned, murderous jealousy, and supernatural revenge. I was very proud of it. Apparently the judges liked it too. After an excruciatingly long six weeks, I finally received word that they had awarded me the top prize. I was floored. I knew I had some modicum of talent, but beating over 200 entries for first place gave me the confidence I needed to push forward with my dream. It was in that moment that I dedicated my life to the craft, and I haven't looked back since. [Full disclosure, I kept my day job just in case...]

The only downside to winning the contest was that I lost the rights to my story. They basically bought it for $1000, which gave them the exclusive right to publish it in their magazine at a later date. But guess what - it was never published. The magazine folded a few months later and I never got the joy of seeing my first great work in print. To this day I am unable to publish the story as written - or so said the letter I got from their legal team after their demise - but I'm toying with the idea of reworking it into a new story. Same premise, different twist. Should be juicy. And you'll be the first to know when that happens.

About a year after that fateful day I self-published Dark Matters: 17 Twisted & Disturbing Tales. That book is basically a compilation of several of the stories and novellas I had been working on prior to the contest. I prettied them up and bundled them into a nice little collection of my early work. It became an Amazon best-seller in the first few months of release and maintains a respectable rating on Goodreads.

So what's next? I don't know if this is similar to other authors, but over the years I have amassed a list of story ideas that run into the hundreds. If nothing else it gives me projects to work on for the rest of my life, not counting all the creepy premises that come to me in the middle of the night or in the shower or at the grocery store. In short, you will be hearing a lot more from me for decades to come. That's good news to those who appreciate the work - and bad news to those who need to turn the channel.

In fact, I have several irons in the fire as I write this. A couple of novellas, a novel, a couple dozen short stories, and the collection of those that will be published in 2024. Look for more short stories in The Black Market very soon, including a holiday horror called The First Christmas.

Lastly, and most importantly, while all of this was going on the last decade or so, I met the love of my life and married her. We had a beautiful wedding in the city, which was attended by my sisters and grandparents and some aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. It was an amazing day. We honeymooned in the Caribbean (paid for by her parents - thanks again for that, Rick and Jen), and it wasn't long after that we had our first child and added another two years later. They are my inspiration and reason I do what I do. We live near where I grew up and still enjoy summers at the lake and winters on the slopes. I'm certain my parents would be proud.

My sisters remain a huge part of my life. We see each other often, and we're finally able to tell stories about the early days in the Black household without crying. Time indeed heals wounds. The scars may remain, but they're really just badges of honor, reminders of what got us to where we are. Our lives wouldn't be fully lived without them.

So that's my story. Everybody has one. Some longer or happier than others, but we're all just making it through the best we can. And the luckiest of us are savoring every moment, because we never know when the karmic scales are going to tip the other way. Might as well have a scary good time while we can.

Until next time, take care and stay well!