A. Voss

About the Author

A. Voss writes a quieter, more atmospheric mode of dark fiction for Portal Avalon — pieces in which the dramatic interest is rarely the protagonist’s decision and almost always the room they are about to step into. The stories work through accumulation rather than incident; by the time the explicit threat or invitation arrives, the building, the weather, or the unsigned envelope has already done most of the persuading.

The Voss byline is a pen name. The work draws on the Gothic literary tradition — particularly the modern wing of it that locates the haunting inside legitimate architecture rather than ruined cathedrals — and on contemporary literary erotica that takes anonymity seriously as a structural element. Two stories have appeared under this byline so far, deliberately placed in different categories to demonstrate the range of the voice: one in Mystical Horror, where the haunted house is the subject; one in Forbidden Desires, where the hotel room is.

What unifies them is a particular trust in the reader’s patience. Voss’s stories assume the audience would rather feel the weight of a room change than be told the room is haunted; would rather notice that the envelope has no return address than be told the invitation is dangerous. The intimate and the uncanny are treated, in these pages, as different temperatures of the same attention.

A. Voss

❖ Haunted Architecture

Houses, rooms, and inheritances that have already decided what will happen to whoever enters them.

❖ Anonymous Invitations

The unsigned envelope, the address without a name, the appointment the protagonist has not quite made.

❖ Modern Gothic

Gothic structure imported into present-day settings: the inherited coastal estate, the boutique hotel, the room that knows the protagonist’s name.