The Interrogation Room is back open for business! In this new Q&A Tom Leins catches up with editorial duo James Jenkins and Bam Barrow to discuss the brand-new charity anthology, Hunger, which is out now via Urban Pigs Press.
Thanks for joining me on the blog! Can you tell me a little bit about the Hunger anthology and also the cause you are supporting?
James: Thanks for asking us. The Hunger anthology is our first crack at publishing something with so many different contributors. It’s been a hell of a ride so far and an incredible learning curve for our little ol’ press, but something we’ve both really enjoyed and have a lot of pride in. We decided to put our efforts towards a local charity to us in Ipswich. FIND – Families in Need – have achieved some incredible things in our local community and provided those who were in need of support with a lifeline, especially during the pandemic. They are so much more than a food bank. They have a small number of vans and volunteer drivers who donate their time to deliver food parcels and more to people’s doorsteps. Hunger and poverty aren’t new issues, but ones that are becoming depressingly more apparent. It’s shocking to think that a steady rise in those who work full time are now becoming more reliant on these charities. Our government has been able to push their own greed for far too long. Hopefully the damage isn’t completely irreversible, but I’m struggling to see who will take us forward now.
Bam: Times are so uncertain, people have become more divided, selfish and narcissistic than ever, but we all have that one thing in common… Life is getting harder for all of us and while we’re busy squabbling with each other over petty things, the government and big business is happy to continue to raise the cost of bills which are ever outweighing our wages, causing people to work themselves to death for little more than chicken feed. The least we can do is try to do something for those who are struggling in these horrendous times. Try to show that we are all in this together, we do have one voice, one thing in common beyond the trivial or the political, and there is nothing nobler than what the kind folks at FIND do for our community.
The anthology’s prompt was enjoyably open-ended. Without giving too much away, what kind of topics and themes have people tackled?
Bam: Oh, it’s such a wide range of topics and themes! Luckily with such an open-ended prompt, everybody interpreted it in their own way, so you’ll find the theme of hunger in so many forms whether it be a biological hunger, emotional, sexual or even metaphysical! Reading through the stories will definitely put you through a wide range of emotions, you might be frustrated one minute, disgusted the next, then howling laughing… or all of them at the same time… the human experience is a complicated one and I think there is a whole spectrum of humanity laid bare to be found in the book.
Who are some of the writers you have onboard, and how do their styles vary?
James: Well, we have your good self for a start. Someone after my own heart with your gritty brand of true brit grit noir. We’ve also been really lucky to have the support of Sebastian Vice from Outcast Press who really helped to promote our call. Besides Sebastian himself, we have Outcast’s Paige Johnson and a handful of other Outcast authors. This really filled the transgressive quota we were hoping for. A good number are also local to us and that has been an incredible honour to showcase our little county’s talent. Jacko Pook is a real stand out and I’m still shocked that this was his first published story. Readers are in for a real treat. Virginia Betts is also a local contributor and great friend of the press. There’s some familiar faces for me personally, A.J. Stanton has blessed us with a tale of horror on the high seas and is a writer I greatly admire. He’s a lovely chap too, much like Matthew McQuirk. Matt was one of the first authors I discovered on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Beautiful writing.
The styles vary from story to story, author to author. We’ve got some great examples of realism that really rams home the topic we are aiming for. Marek Z. Turner, Neda Aria, Mark Burrow, Jude Potts, Rob Walton and Sophia Adamowicz are a stunning example of this. We also have some great hybrids of genre with David Cook’s dark humour mixing with a brilliant blend of crime. The lines are blurred between horror, humour, filthy realism, crime, occult, dystopian and so much more between these expertly executed contributions. I can’t even fit Sebastian’s into a genre! It’s brilliant, brutal and horrendous in the most perfect of ways. We’ve really been lucky with these submissions and everyone who has been involved has blown us away with their words.
Urban Pigs Press is a relatively new venture. What prompted you guys to set up a small press?
Bam: James and I click creatively like we’ve known each other all our lives. We have vastly different styles and mostly work in separate genres, but it’s astounding the sheer amount of times one of us has been thinking of an idea, pitched it to the other and they had been already thinking of it too! From the early stages we have been on a similar path forward, so the press was born fairly naturally. I think we carry each other’s strengths and weaknesses through our differences too which is invaluable. Hopefully it’ll be something we can look back on with pride.
Which small presses do you admire and why?
James: For me I have to mention Anxiety Press and Outcast. Both Cody Sexton (AP) and Sebastian have been a huge help in bringing this anthology to people’s attention. I’m lucky enough to have a book with AP and Cody is just a great guy to deal with. He set the standard for me personally and has been an asset helping us getting set up. I’m also a feature editor at Punk Noir and Stephen J. Golds has been doing great things building it towards a successful press. It’s definitely one to keep an eye on. I also want to mention Bristol Noir. EIC John Bowie is one of the best authors in his genre and although BN isn’t necessarily a press, John gives first time writers a platform to showcase their work. I’ll always be grateful for him giving me my first shot.
Going forward, are you planning more books? If so, what type of material are you looking to publish?
Bam: Absolutely! Aside from our own projects, we have a couple of authors in the pipeline we aim to work with, there may be the possibility of a horror/apocalypse themed collab in the near-future, but who knows what the future brings! Material-wise we love things that are transgressive, boundary pushing and different. We’re very one step at a time at the moment, but there is a roadmap… I’ll leave it at that…
James: I’m just going to jump in here quickly… a gritty brand of true brit grit noir! Wink wink etc
Finally, where do you see Urban Pigs Press in five years’ time?
James: Hopefully not with a hundred odd books out by different authors. I’m not knocking the way anyone else does it but that’s what we set out not to do. Obviously, our budget is massively restricted for now. We want to build something together with our authors. Focusing on one release and giving it everything within our resources to help build that authors’ success. We’re realistic about the future but we can still dream. So, to finally answer your question. We want to be in a position to pay authors an advance and have physical copies in as many book shops as possible. And of course, not be reliant on that giant book shop in the cloud.
Buy the Hunger anthology here (UK) or here (US)!
Bios:
Urban Pigs Press is an online zine and small publisher of dark fiction. We are open to a wide range of genres but find that CRIME, HORROR and GRITTY REALISM work best. Our aim is to help promote work from the strongest voices in the indie writing community and provide a home for their work.
Meet the Editors:
James Jenkins – Editor
James Jenkins lives in Ipswich with his wife and children. He is a writer of gritty realism, dark humour and noir. His debut novel Parochial Pigs is available on Amazon and published by Alien Buddha Press. The sequel Sun Bleached Scarecrows is available from Anxiety Press and Amazon. The third book in the Pigs series, The Swine, The Pig and The Porker is due for release with AP early 2024. He also has a number of short stories published both online and in print.
www.facebook.com/JamesJenkinsAuthor/
jamesjenkinswriter.wordpress.com/
Bam Barrow – Editor
Bam Barrow is an East Anglian based writer of occult fiction and folk horror with an unquenchable thirst for the dark, mysterious and extreme tenants of human behaviour. Look out for his collection of short stories The Cult Of Cathexis, was released with Translucent Eyes Press this year.
Twitter @snuff_club
Links:
Dirty Books 
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