Two Minutes with Clive Barker

How a chat with one of my greatest influences changed my life.

Photo courtesy of RazingCulture at Flickr

Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, published in 1985, made him an immediate horror sensation and prompted the famous Stephen King quote: “I have seen the future of horror; his name is Clive Barker.” Though Barker went on to write in other genres such as urban fantasy and even children’s books, it’s his early short fiction — along with the creation of horror icons Pinhead and Candyman — that cemented his reputation as a genre master.

I was 17 when I first read the Books of Blood, way back in 1993. Clive’s prose drips with sensual detail, and for all my love of Stephen King, I knew that this was how I wanted to write. I wanted the grotesque, the erotic, and the sublime to create the kind of alchemy in my work that they did in Clive’s. I devoured books like The Great and Secret Show, Weaveworld, and Imajica. Someday, I vowed, I would meet him.

My well-loved copy of Books of Blood. Photo courtesy of the author.

Twenty-six years later, on August 17th, 2019, I did.

Clive has long battled illness stemming from a dental procedure in 2012. The last time I had tentatively planned to attend the same convention at which he was a guest, he had to cancel. I couldn’t miss…