Barlow by Richard Rowland Billingsley 

By ITW Staff

Richard Rowland Billingsley is a “weirdo who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas”—but on a more serious note, he’s the author of several short stories and novellas, including his latest, BARLOW, the introduction of Clinton James Sanders Barlow, an attorney with an eclectic slate of supernatural clients.

In his novella debut, Barlow must make an impossible choice between serving his masters and staying safe, or doing the right thing and putting everything he knows and loves in peril. Complicating matters is the fact that one of his clients wants him dead.

“To gain an advantage, he tries to recruit a rogue vampire,” Billingsley says. “But powerful enemies are hot on his heels and Barlow is running out of time. And lives.”

Billingsley classifies BARLOW as horror—a genre the author loves for its intrinsic simplicity.  “At the heart of horror, it is about love and fear. This forms the basis for noir fiction, as any well done noir is a horror story without the supernatural aspect.”

It should come as no surprise then that Billingsley cites authors like Anne Rice—“she made monsters superheroes”—as inspiration, and has a deep affection for Universal Classic horror films.

“I miss the craftsmanship and romance of these old films,” he says. “BARLOW is nothing like this, but there is a deep foundation found in the Universal films.”

It is his hope his stories will not only entertain, but will “attract adult men to sit down and read again.”

*****

Richard Rowland Billingsley is a writer of weird fiction. He lives in Austin, Texas.