It’s not every day that you come across a book that so wholly impresses you that you want to immediately re-read it, but Birnie’s collection, I Would Haunt You if I Could, is absolutely one of those for me. His masterful development of eerie, haunting atmospheres—even in the absence of a traditional ghost—thoroughly scratched that itch that has drawn me to ghost stories since childhood. Birnie easily matches the talents of Lucius Shepherd, Edith Wharton, Shirley Jackson, and even Nathaniel Hawthorne’s eerier tales like “The Birth-Mark,” all while being imminently modern in scope. Every story I read made me want to read the next as soon as possible, and while almost every story resonated with me, my favorites may be not only my favorites from 2024’s intake, but some of my favorite stories of all time: “I Would Haunt You if I Could” / “New to it All” / “You Know What to Do” / “Holes” / and “Other Houses.”
This collection introduced me to a new favorite author, and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for future work from him. I’m incredibly delighted to be able to present to you, gentle readers, an interview with the author himself:
An Interview with Seán Padriac Birnie
First off, thank you so much for offering up your time to participate in this interview! Reading I Would Haunt You if I Could, the first thing that really struck me—and honestly, the thing that made me an immediate fan of your work—is the way you conjure atmosphere. Every story—even those that lack an obvious or traditionally styled ghost—elicits so much uneasiness and wariness, and yet it feels wholly natural and unforced. How do you approach building atmosphere in your stories?
Things tend to accrete. I don’t really plan, so almost everything begins with some kind of small detail or image and the voice of the story. The latter is often more important: I’ve had ideas that I couldn’t get going, drafts I would scrap, until something in the voice or tone clicked into place. From the collection I remember this being the case with ‘Holes’. Atmosphere then sort of accumulates as I go.
While a lot of interviews ask where you get your ideas, I’m much more interested in how you take an idea from its initial kernel to its final form. What kind of considerations do you try to keep in mind while developing a spooky tale from conception to polished finish, and what kind of things do you focus on in your initial draft vs. in editing later?
I tend to edit as I go, although I’ll always return to pieces later. I’ve never been able to produce a ‘vomit draft’ – I think I’m too precious. After the initial idea – often no more than a kind of rumour of a story, or a lure – and the voice that sets it in motion, it’s a matter of unpacking, or probing, or just trying things out, with an eye on a sense of shape. Very occasionally a story will arrive more less whole. ‘Digging’, which was published in 2023 in Cōnfingō, arrived that way. I saw a boy digging a hole on one of the beaches in Margate, and there it was. ‘Hand-me-Down’ was a deliberate attempt at writing a viral-curse story, as a homage to Ringu, which I adore.
I’ve got a lot of favorite stories in this collection, notably the titular “I Would Haunt You if I Could” and “Other Houses” among many others, but I’m always interest in what stories resonated most with the author. Do you have a favorite story in this collection? And also, in contrast, do you have a story here that was especially challenging to write (and if so, why)?
“Other Houses” grew from a stub. I had written the first section and then abandoned it. Eventually, I returned to it, and the rest of the story appeared. “Holes” was also a little difficult. I was about a thousand words into a first draft, which really felt forced and unnatural. The voice was all wrong. Once I scrapped that and started again it came easily. That’s one of my favourties from the collection, but I think either “New to it All” or “Dollhouse” is my ultimate favourite. In fact I think those three stories – those two and “Holes” – were the initial sample I sent to Michael Kelly.
Who are your influences? What writers (or artists or photographers or filmmakers) have had the largest impact on you and your work? Whose work would you recommend to others?
Angela Sommer-Bodenburg’s Little Vampire books probably seeded an interest in horror from a an early age. Tolkien. I think the first thing I remember writing was a rip-off of The Hobbit. I must have been about eight year’s old. I spent a lot of time coming up with stupid names for dwarves, but eventually self-disgust kicked in. Michael Ende, both The Neverending Story and Momo. Later, as a teenager I loved Sandman, but that love has been poisoned now. Alan Garner. Kafka. Robert Aickman. Shirley Jackson. Then TV: The X-Files. Strange but True, The Outer Limits, the Twilight Zone…
In terms of things I’d recommend, there are several books and stories I’ve loved this year: In the Shadow of the Phosphorous Dawn, by Rob True, was a revelation. I loved Ivy Grime’s deft and peculiar Glass Stories from Grimscribe Press, which are like fairytales you half remember, recalled in someone else’s dreams – I was lucky enough to read those stories in draft. Joe Koch’s Invaginies is an extraordinary, mind-bending collection. I read it on my Kindle but now need to get everything of his in print. I’m on a Lisa Tuttle binge at the moment: I recently finished her novella Little Death and her recentish collection Riding the Nightmare, and am now halfway through The Dead Hours of Night. And for anyone interested in strange stories, Nightjar Press produce single-story chapbooks that are absolutely wonderful: beautifuly written uncanny fiction, beautifully produced. (Some recent favourites include Arthur Mandal’s Old Tutor, New Tutor and Megan Taylor’s The Grandchildren, but you can’t go wrong with any of them, and once you’ve had one, you’ll want them all.)
I Would Haunt You if I Could feels like an immense triumph from the reader-side of the pages. I’m sure anyone who reads it will be very curious to know what—if you can talk about it—projects your currently working on or what we can hope for from you in the future?
That’s very kind of you to say. I have a second collection finished. It’s called Flume, and gathers together stories mostly written over the last few years. I’ve had M.E. since late 2021, diagnosed two years ago, which has been an enormous, life-changing experience; many of the stories concern illness in one way or another. Quite a few of the individual stories have been published, in places like Weird Horror, The Dark, and Interzone. It received a very lovely, cheering rejection from one publisher recently, which encouraged me to query agents, so I’m currently working on queries and proposals. I thought I would hate writing such things, but the process has really sharpened my thinking, and in making the collection – to me, at least – feel like a book.
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Seán Padraic Birnie is from Brighton. His debut collection of short stories, I WOULD HAUNT YOU IF I COULD, was published by Undertow Publications in 2021. His work has appeared in British Short Stories, Interzone, Fictionable, and Cōnfingō. He is on Bluesky and Instagram @seanbirnie. For more information, see seanbirnie.com.
To read more of Seán Padraic Birnie’s work, check out these new stories:
“Snare” – published in hex (Dec 2024)
“Black Water” – published in Weird Horror #9
“Lightfighters” – published in The Dark (Nov 2024)
“Anomalies” – published at ergot. (Fall 2024)