Personal Demons 
Edited by Brian A. Hopkins and Garrett Peck 
Lone Wolf Publications $13.95 
www.lonewolfpubs.com

"What is terror? Life is terror. It's a long, wretched journey through a horrifying landscape. Take one wrong turn and you're in hell. Stop by the roadside to rest, and you risk getting sucked into the past."  These words by Patricia Lee Macomber come as close as anything I can write to describe both the power and the draw of PERSONAL DEMONS. 

This anthology is a tough one to review, folks. It was tougher to read than I thought it would be, harder than normal to slip into voyeur mode and peek into people's deepest and darkest places. Perhaps because the theme of this anthology, as the title more than implies, is concerned with the intensely personal. Spurred by the editors' sharing of life-altering motorcycle accidents, the anthology collects essays by a distinguished panel of writers. Many of these essays will haunt you long after you've read them.  

Unlike the recent anthology BRAINBOX, which asked writers to relate the true story behind a piece of their fiction, PERSONAL DEMONS asked for no fiction, rather choosing to concentrate on personal stories of tragedy and fear, suffering and courage. And when horror writers decide to share, there isn't much they'll leave out. Indeed, this collection is a tough one to review precisely because it's not a matter of stylistic elements or literary quality. Most "stories" (not in the fictional sense) are told in simple, matter of fact, frill-free language, the everyday language of communication between people - friends - not writer-to-readers. While it can be argued that a more literary feel might have increased the reading experience, I would counter with the fact that the simpler approach hits home harder exactly because it does not seek literary airs. 

Besides the editors, writers who bare portions of their souls are Bill Allen, C. Dean Andersson, Steve Beai, Gary Brandner, Gary Braunbeck, P.D. Cacek, Ed Cain, Ramsey Campbell, Pamela Chillemi Yeager, Alan Clark, Simon Clark, Geoff Cooper, Nancy Etchemendy, Rain Graves, Jason Harris, Barry Hoffman, Charlee Jacob, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon, Edward Lee, M. Jane Letty, Patricia Lee Macomber, May Ann Mitchell,
James A. Moore, Weston Ochse, Diana Price, Judi Rohrig, Selina Rosen, Wayne Allen Sallee, Brett Savory, David B. Silva, Bradley H. Sinor, Del Stone, Jr., Jeffrey Thomas, B.J. Thrower, Edo Van Belkom, Jeff VanderMeer, Susan Gail West, David Niall Wilson, and Richard Wright. 

Rather than review this strong collection, let me say that the accounts which reached inside my psyche the most were those which touched on family mental illness and resulting violence, abuse both physical and mental, the death of a deeply loved parent, and the struggle against inscrutable diseases which attack out of the blue. These and other themes make the collection required reading for all those who still want to ask us where we find the darkness we need to write what we do. These writers have faced many of their personal demons, if not all, and we readers benefit thanks to the strange symbiotic connection between nonfiction and fiction. 

Some accounts will touch you more, others less. Some you'll relate to, others not as much. Some seem strange and alien. Others read like entries from your own diary. Yet others leave you cold with the realization that you've been lucky. No matter how you finally tally them up, these dark visions from people's real lives leave a lingering sense of sadness and loss, because they prove that we writers share some powerful formative experiences, all of which help shape our writing, influencing our work even as they nibble at the edges of our sanity.