James Ferace

Literary Retreat's "Author of the Month" - April 2020

"One of the most exciting new contemporary voices in fiction." - Gregory Norris, author of "The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse"

"Imagine if you take Poe, David Cronenberg, Robert Aickman and Dostoyevsky and put them into a room together and have them have a literary orgy. (Ferace is) a writer who has a love and passion for the written word and all the magic that could come from putting his blood, mind and soul into every letter." - Rick Powell, author of "My Soul Stained, My Seed Sour"

"Mr. Ferace has a kinetic, engaging style. As an independent (author), he is one of the best I've read." - Eric Gabrielson, author of "Augment"

"Cerebral, creepy, and explosive. Think Lovecraft and Clive Barker getting drunk and beating each other with a sledgehammer." - Brian Bowyer, author of "Grave New World" and "Shelf Life"

"Redefines the limits of macabre." - Morgan Daimler, author of "By Land, Sea, and Sky"

"A brilliant writer!" - Azure Boone, author of "Broken Desires"

"(James Ferace has) a poetic way of describing brutality and (his work is) more cerebral and filled with better language than most of what I read. Awesome...powerful." - David L. Tamarin, author of "This Book Hates You"

James Ferace is an award-winning poet and author who is best known for the short story anthology "Imago Mortis: The Stories of James Ferace" and his poetry collection, "Somnambulism: The Poetry of James Ferace." Ferace was born in New London, Connecticut and raised in Ledyard, Connecticut. He still resides in Connecticut.

Ferace began releasing his darkly dramatic (and sometimes grotesque) short stories as eBooks in 2009 beginning with the publication of "Eternamente," a disturbing story of a man who causes himself to become immortal with horrifying results. Following that success, Ferace continued releasing eBooks through 2009 and 2010, culminating with the 2011 publication of "Imago Mortis: The Stories of James Ferace," a collection of all of the short stories released in eBook form up to that point, which was met with both critical and financial success. It was during this time that Ferace also wrote for several magazines under an alias and was also profiled in the October 2010 issue of "Pulse" Magazine in the article "Inside the Dark Mind of Writer James Ferace." 2011 also saw the release of Ferace's "Somnambulism: The Poetry of James Ferace," a collection of his intensely beautiful poetry, which had always been Ferace's first love. Ferace also released a hardcover collection, "All the Ills of the Flesh: The James Ferace Compilation," in early 2012 and released his latest anthology, "Ockham's Razor: The Mindscape of James Ferace," in May of 2013.

Ferace's distinctive style is characterized by the themes of disease, inner demons, and horrors that come from within, dealing with subjects such as detachment, anger, and, most prominently, loss. The horror usually begins in the main character's mind and then becomes a reality (or seemingly so). Ferace rejects the term "horror" for his writing, however, and prefers to describe the majority of it as "psychological thrillers" in the vein of films such as "Jacob's Ladder." One of his major trademarks is the vague manner in which he wraps up most of his stories, usually drawing into question everything that happened before. He's been quoted as saying, "I like to paint a nice, clear, emotional portrait of the character you are about to see destroyed, so that the reader almost feels like they're being disassembled right along with them."

Ferace cites Edgar Allan Poe as his biggest literary influence, but also notes H.P. Lovecraft, Franz Kafka, William Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, and Clive Barker as influences. However, he also notes the films of director David Cronenberg as, quite possibly, the biggest inspiration on his work.