MARTY Young has turned his lifelong fascination with horror fiction into an award-winning debut novel.
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Young, of Brightwaters, has won the Australian Shadows Award for best novel for his book 809 Jacob Street.
"I'm just drawn to horror stories," he said.
"It's like a roller-coaster ride, but completely safe."
Writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker and Stephen King have had an impact on Young.
"But ultimately, writing is about developing your own voice," he said.
809 Jacob Street was described as "a nightmare of tortured emotions and madness" by best-selling horror writer Joe McKinney.
Australia's king of horror, Robert Hood, said the book was "a refreshingly hypnotic tale that blends Monster Squad and the small-town coming-of-age themes of Stephen King".
Young said the book was big on tension.
"It's a supernatural thriller. It's more about things that go bump in the night rather than gory, graphic horror. It's more psychological," he said.
Young reluctantly set the book in a fictitious American town, Parkton, on the urging of a publisher.
"He said you have to set the book in the States for it to be taken seriously."
Parkton has since proven to be a productive mine for Young.
"I've just finished writing a trilogy of novels set in Parkton, and there is also a loose sequel to 809 Jacon Street in the works," he said.
When he's not writing horror stories, Young works as a palynologist in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, using microfossils to determine the age of rocks.
■ 809 Jacob Street is published by Black Beacon Books. It's available from Notions Unlimited Bookshop, and amazon.com.au