PS: Why do you think we’re so disturbed by the child trope in horror? I’m just glad that I was an adult before I knew about Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale. It is this societal concept of a woman being nothing more than a vessel for a child, and that their life is somehow less worthy than the child’s that scares me more than anything else. “The men must work – the women must have babies.” This concept of women being used to repopulate the world and being forced to bear children, petrified me growing up (probably due in part to my father’s attempts to cure me of my childhood phobia of needles, by repeatedly telling me how many injections and blood tests I’d have to have once I got pregnant). PJ: It isn’t really creepy children that influence my work, although I love John Wyndham’s work it isn’t his portrayal of The Children in The Midwich Cuckoos that influences my work, it is the Colonel in The Day of the Triffids. Do you have any particular favourites? Have any of them influenced your work? PS: There are lots of precedents for “creepy” children in both horror and sci-fi literature and film. They can have their world turned upside down at the whim of their parents or guardians But on the flip side to that, children exist in a state of constant helplessness, that veneer of control, an illusion. There is something naturally chaotic about a child’s control over their parents, whether it’s a toddler having a tantrum, or a teenager punching a hole in the door. These two themes tend to be intrinsic in most of my writing, and I find that they crop up time and time again when my protagonist or antagonist in a story is a child.

PJ: There are a couple of themes that run through the collection, one being mental health and the other being a loss of control. Congratulations on your collection with Black Shuck Shadows! Tell us about the themes and how it developed.

On the Flip Side by Nicholas Fisk