Today we interview Andrew Najberg about his upcoming release, IN THOSE FADING STARS.
Read on below to learn more about Andrew and this new release then keep scrolling to order the book going on pre-sale today!!
Enjoy!
Andrew Najberg- New Release Interview for In Those Fading Stars
If you had two minutes to pitch your new collection “In Those Fading Stars” to a new reader, what would you say?
You won’t know what’s coming. Often weird, sometimes terrifying, and occasionally funny, these stories are always human to the core – just not always the way you’re expecting. At this intersection of horror, sci-fi, and magical realism, you’ll go from three robots holding a séance after the apocalypse to burying your dead crewmate at the end of the solar system to the house of a woman whose rapidly aging daughter is learning to hop dimensions and bend spacetime like all the cool kids. No matter how weird or wild though, you’ll always find yourself thinking about something simple that matters: parent-child bonds, why dreams matter, what it means to feel safe, how hard it is to be a newlywed in a predatory material world.
What sparked this concept of this collection for you? And how long did it take you to write the stories in the collection?
My stories aren’t superficially autobiographical (obviously, sadly, thankfully), but the emotions behind them always are. The stories might feel pretty disparate, but they’re all written out of my ongoing hope to one day fully understand the emotions underlying what we call ‘family’ as messy and conflictual as they are. The stories here were written over the two-year period from March 2021 to March 2023.
Is there a favorite character or story that really resonates with you more so than the others? Why do you think that is?
My story “Before You Fade Away” – the opening and most recent story in the collection - is my favorite thing that I’ve written without a doubt. It’s actually a story born out of the beginning of something harrowing my family is still experiencing, but it was a piece that, to me, so perfectly captured what I was experiencing internally, that I’m incredibly proud to have produced it. Of course, we’ll see how other folk think about this one, but as a piece of art, it defines the kind of thing I want to make.
Tell us about your writing process. Have you found that it changes with every story, or do you have an established routine?
My process on the surface looks really scattered. I don’t write at the same time every day. I don’t have any fixed apparent rituals like drinking coffee from my favorite mug (though my favorite mug is an old Far Side mug with a frog dangling from an airplane by its tongue over a swamp) or listening to the same song at the start of the session. However, the thing that is most central to my process is the time spent thinking about my stories while I drive, especially on the commute to work. I spend a lot of time running over iterations in my head, sometimes actively talking through scenes or dialogue while I drive by myself.
Which author has most inspired or impacted your writing style?
Franz Kafka. I’m an enormous fan of The Trial – I’ve read it so many times, and I see its influence in so many things – but for me, it strikes the perfect balance of odd ambiguity – I love that he’s not worried about not giving answers – and yet you always feel like he is constantly answering questions, just not necessarily the ones you were asking. The worlds his characters create – especially the world of The Trial are harsh and existentially cruel – true nightmares of helplessness - but somehow its always possible to see yourself in the desperate struggles faced by his characters.
Is there an author that you would love to collaborate with?
In a more immediate sense – I would answer Jon Cohn and Blaine Daigle – but that’s something that ahem may be in the works already. Thinking about the bigger world of horror, if I could work with absolutely anyone, I’d say I’d love to work with Alex Garland. I know that he has focused on film at this point – but I love his work all around and would love to see how our ideas could mesh.
What is your favorite thing about being in the Horror industry?
The community. I wrote poetry for a long time and had work appear in a lot of places, put out a collection. While I dearly love some of the poets I met on that path – I’ve just never found a sense of community like I have in the world of horror. The readers are a delight. The authors are a delight. The events are amazing. It’s been a real inspiration and energy boost to dive in. I do want to give a particular shoutout to the amazing crew that’s gathered around Wicked House Publishing because so many of them have entered into my daily conversations it's mind-boggling.
What is one piece of advice you WISH someone gave to you as a new author?
How incredible the indie world is. My first novel came out in April 2023 – but I’ve been writing since 2000 or so. However, I struggled to find a home for a LOT of work – not necessarily because it was good enough, but because outside of agent lists, I had no idea where to send it. If I hadn’t stumbled randomly on a Facebook ad of all things for a launching new press that didn’t even have a book out yet called Wicked House, I don’t think I’d be here today.
What current projects are in the works that you would like to mention?
So – the biggest things I want to mention are the two books I have coming beyond In Those Fading Stars. I’m in the final edits of Try Not to Die in the Shadowlands, a choose your own adventure horror novel that also provides a standalone sequel to my novel The Neverborn Thief which came out March 2024 through Olive-Ridley Press. I also have a science fiction horror novel set called Extinction Dream coming out in May 2025 that I couldn’t be more excited about – I think folk are going to really love this one.
Synopsis for IN THOSE FADING STARS
A father whose son fades away every day unless he passes the boy a bit of his own life. Three robots holding a séance. A man who suffers the effects of an intergalactic portal opening in his stomach. These stories exist at the intersection of science fiction, horror, and magic and explore both our humanity in the face of the weird as well as our most ordinary and fundamental relationships.
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More on Andrew Najberg
Andrew Najberg is the author of the best-selling (#1 US Horror Amazon) novels The Mobius Door (Wicked House Publishing, 2023) and Gollitok (Wicked House Publishing, 2023), as well as The Neverborn Thief (Olive-Ridley Press, 2024) and the collection of short fiction In Those Fading Stars (Crystal Lake Entertainment, 2024).
He is also the author of the forthcoming novels Extinction Dream (Wicked House Publishing, 2025), Try Not To Die in the Shadowlands (Vincere Press, 2025), and Eat the Light (Wicked House Publishing, 2026). His short fiction has appeared in Fusion Fragment, Khoreo, Translunar Travelers Lounge, Utopia Science Fiction, Prose Online, Psychopomp Review, Solar Press Horror Anthology, and is forthcoming in Make Your Presence Known Anthology, and the Gods and Globes III Anthology. Currently, he teaches for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
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