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A multi-talented artist with a growing collection of illustrated fantasy novels to her name, Galadriel Coffeen wrote and illustrated the short story The Patchwork Princess in Auteur: Volume One: The Final Word, in addition to painting its cover artwork. Riley G. Boyd has questions for her!  Above: Galadriel Coffeen in the flesh (and remarkable headwear). Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background? I’ve been writing and creating art for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been a voracious reader, which is the most important study for any writer. I’ve taught both academic and creative writing and written a variety of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, some of which I’ve even managed to publish. How did you first get involved with this project? Aristide Twain reached out and invited me. I’d never even heard of Auteur at that point, but I loved the concept and was delighted to familiarise myself with the old villain and join the project. What makes Auteur such an interesting character and playground for a creative to work in? Two main things set this project apart. First, it’s a rare idea to build an anthology not around a common theme or a central hero, but around a shared villain. That allows an unusual variety of protagonists and story types to share space in a single book. Second, Auteur’s status as a “sub-author” of his own stories allows writers to play around with structures and tropes in unexpected ways. I’ve encountered other works where characters are aware of their status as part of a story, but Auteur’s ambiguity as both a character who breaks the fourth wall from inside and a narrator who breaks the fourth wall from outside is unique as far as I’ve seen. What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology? It’s not the way I usually work, so it’s been a new and interesting experience. I rarely write short stories, and my long fiction tends to be part of even longer ongoing plans for interconnecting plots and series. It’s very different contributing only a small piece to someone else’s long-term plan. Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work? Art is ultimately about hope and agency. People write and create and read stories to find a sense of control, release, or joy in even the darkest times. So I like to think a villainous artist would be defined by stealing that agency from others. He claims authorship of someone’s life and robs them of their self-determination; he turns someone into nothing more than the canvas for his art and robs them of their own creativity. I wanted to address those themes by presenting Auteur as a sort of parasite, so that as he takes more control of the story, the main character becomes less central or distinct.  Above: The textless artwork for Galadriel Coffeen's sensation ‘The Final Word’ cover artwork! What can you tell us about your experience creating the cover artwork? The cover art was an absolute delight to create; I really love painting dark, moody scenes with splashes of bright color or light. Auteur himself was pure fun, though it took a few iterations to get the skull to show a villainous expression without significantly altering the bone structure! The background was more of a challenge, since I mainly paint portraits, and I had a few frustrating moments while working on the repetitive stone patterns for the tower. The clouds were also a bit of a challenge, but way more enjoyable than the tower, and I'm super happy with how the colors and lighting came out in that part of the image. I think the measure of a good cover is that it serves as an eye-catching illustration on its own but doesn't feel quite complete until the text is added. Personally, I think I hit that note with this piece and ended up with an image that looks best with the title incorporated, but I'll leave the final judgement to the readers! If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it? I hope I’ve managed to capture the malleable nature of reality in Auteur’s universe. Anything can be rewritten; someone is always watching and editing the details of life; and this leads to both farce and horror. Whimsy isn’t my strong suit, so I focused on the horror aspect, but I hope I’ve also given readers at least a few hints that Auteur is, for all his terrifying abilities, a panto villain at the same time. What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next? I’d be interested in contributing more to the project, though I don’t have any specific plans for future Auteur stories. I’ve been working on a gaslamp fantasy series that consists of a trilogy of murder mysteries interspersed with shorter stories focusing on some of the side characters who mainly deal with coming-of-age and social justice issues. Life has gotten in the way of writing a lot the past few years, but I’m hoping to get the next few short stories finished and published this year. You can find information at galadrielcoffeen.com or look up my books on Amazon. eBook
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Erika De Atayde, creator of Cwej: The Series' very own Fantastic Realm, presided over a collision of two worlds — or perhaps more — in her medium-bending story The Face with a Thousand Heroes in Auteur: Volume 1: The Final Word. Now, the time has come for her to reveal all at Riley G. Boyd's prompting…  Above: Erika De Atayde pondering new creations in 2026. Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background? My name is Erika and I’m a Brazilian-born citizen of the world. I grew up on a lot of different stories — my first books were Arthurian legends, Les Misérables, and Norse Mythology, followed by a Finn Foster look-alike, a good mix of 80s-to-2000s anime and Western cartoons, and a non-ignorable amount of Brazilian TV shows. But it was around my teens and the 2010s that I really fell in love with stories. Through magical ponies, time-travelling aliens, radical hedgehogs and comic book super-heroes I not only learned that stories can change the world, I learned that I too could do it through them — so I started writing, and I haven’t stopped since. How did you first get involved with this project? If I remember correctly, I was talking with Aristide about this character I had made for a different story, and he saw potential in them for Auteur, I brought in a pitch about Auteur giving an ant a bazooka, and we were set! What makes Auteur an interesting character to work with, in your opinion? It is easy to believe he is just cosmic evil with a penchant for French and a flair for dramatics — and don’t get me wrong, that’s a really fun aspect of him — but once I realised you could treat them as a secondary writer, mucking up your story in his favour, everything clicked for me. He’s more than a metaphor or stand-in for the author — there is barely any philosophical reason not to see Auteur as being, in a very real sense, the writer of each story he’s in, taking metafiction as equal parts comfort blanket and weapon. What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative project? The idea of putting some new bricks on a road that has been going long before I was here and will continue long after I’m gone. Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work? I certainly tried — you can tell me how successful I was! I think once you mix two characters that are so intrinsically connected with stories, you’re bound to dance to a certain metafictional rhythm, aren’t you? Auteur definitely made a compelling case for it, the poor sod. Are there any other themes you regard as important to your story or to the anthology as a whole? I think faith is an important one. Who we believe we are, what we believe in, the stories we tell ourselves, and what these beliefs build around and inside of us. Indeed, Auteur is a kind of theological fantasy, prominently featuring Gods and Archons, nowhere moreso than in your own tale of occultism and rituals. How did you approach these topics? Most things we made up as a species a long time ago are still built on a foundation of faith. Money, justice, the past, the future, but most importantly stories. An author is just a narrator with more ego, and a story is just a memory half-forgotten, but if we believe, lines on paper become a land, an actor becomes a character, and a promise can be fulfilled. Faith in gods, sure, but also in customs, in culture — all those things are so strongly ours that we forget how alien they could be from the outside. When we believe, we open a door to our mind so new ideas can come in, and something of us can also come out. The important thing is to have faith that in this transaction nothing of our selves is truly lost. If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it? Perhaps a series of questions, moreso than answers. As Auteur demonstrates, any clever villain knows they are as strong as they are relevant. If no story is published about them, if no one is talking about them, are they even real? How does this apply to real life and the here-and-now? Are there less obvious villains in heroes’ clothes? And then again, can old-fashioned moral archetypes such as Hero and Villain even be of value in today’s world? What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story? Oddly enough, George du Maurier’s Trilby comes to mind — it served to put me in the headspace of the time in which my story’s set. That aside, Homer’s Odyssey, Doyle’s Scandal in Bohemia and The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham are all directly involved in the plot, and there are some less overt touchstones too, like the referential structure of Grant Morrison, the fictional biographies of May Byron and the groundwork of late 20th century American comics. What were the biggest challenges faced during the course of writing? As much as I’d like to say it was writer’s block, my country was struck by the worst flood in the history of South America, and I began volunteering on a human shelter between the beginning and end of this story, so most of my creativity and psychic energy were going somewhere else for a good stretch of development. Ironically enough, this probably made it easier to write, because the first couple weeks I was terrified of contributing to something that already had an established fan-base like this. The flood drowned out these worries, thank merciful Minerva. How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process? Oh, it was phenomenal. At the beginning I had a good intro and a decent plot, by the middle I had three different intros and a solid narrative, and in the end it was a brilliant story with a clear hook and a satisfying conclusion. I’d say the story was always the same, but the key players shifted quite a lot, until it all settled down as this late-Victorian esoteric nightmare with two sapphic heroines who go through it! Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future? Absolutely! I certainly have unfinished business with him, and he himself has unfinished business with a certain realm of fantastical properties… What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next? If I got the timeline right there’s one story of mine to come that means quite a lot to me, rather more sci-fi than this one, but also somewhat more human. Don’t know how much I can share here, but it’s the middle chapter of a brilliant epic by the writers of Arcbeatle. I can’t wait to see it all together, and to share this tale of tragedy and redemption with you fine readers. Auteur: The Final Word is available now: eBook
We end this round of Cwej: Springs Eternal interviews with Sean Dillon. Check out the interview for fascinating reveals, and get to know Sean in the process!  art by Jonne Bartelds Can you tell us a little about yourself? I've been working as an editor for Arcbeatle Press since Down the Middle. I mostly work as a high school teacher and comics critic, and I have published two books. What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe? The first Doctor Who story I ever watched was Daleks in Manhattan. Which should’ve been the end of it, all things considered. But I had a hankering for top 10 lists as a kid and saw one on the 9th Doctor, which made me curious. This being back when Doctor Who was on Hulu and Netflix, it was easy to watch an assortment of episodes, and I fell in love rather quickly. What is your take on the character of Chris Cwej? In spite of everything, he tries to do the right thing. He’s not an incompetent fool, but he’s someone who, on some level, knows he’s never seeing Heaven. He wants to live in a world where no one else would do the things he does, but he will forever be damned. There’s a kind of melancholy to him. What makes your Cwej story unique? I think it's the smallness of it all. While on the surface, a story about the concept of love being completely removed from the cosmos, the emphasis is on Cwej’s relationship with his past. I also think the exploration of the baddie, who I don’t think I can name, was a lot of fun. Having empathy for someone truly monstrous such that they lament killing only in the millions was fascinating and uncomfortable to enact. Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations? Douglas Adams, would be the obvious one. I often go for comedy when doing things like Cwej, highlighting the absurdity of the world. But there’s also a dagger of darkness within, especially the opening scene with the story’s baddie. There’s also a degree of musicality to it, such that the original ending had Cwej sing the Beatles song All You Need Is Love. Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing? I was actually assigned this story rather than pitching it. The original writer had to drop out due to things occuring outside of their personal life, and the editors thought I did a good job engaging with the mentality of the antagonist in my other story in the Seasons collection (coming later this year) that I was given the oppertunity to write this one. I went in a bit of a different direction than the original pitch, but that’s how writing often goes. What’s your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you? Currently, I’m working on two projects: one is a series of books about the complete history of Star Trek with Lena Mactíre and the other is a long gestating book on media criticism of the early 2000s and the rise of fascism. I can be followed on most social media apps @deathchrist2000. Cwej: Springs Eternal is available now: EbookBarnes and Noble ebookThe whimsically-named Plum Pudding, creator of the webfiction series Disparate Minds, has lent their pudding talents to When You’re Good To Mama, a haunting entry in Auteur: Volume 1: The Final Word. Here are Plum's answers to some of Riley G. Boyd’s questions.  Above: an exclusive preview of Robert Shepherd’s stylishly sinister illustration for Plum Pudding’s When You’re Good To Mama, a tale of rot and depression, in Auteur: Volume 1: The Final Word. Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you first get involved with this project? My creative background before this project was rather trite and uninteresting. Not for me, mind you, the creative process leads you places and you learn from early experiences — but for anyone else, there’s not much to hear about. There were a few fanfictions, a few play scripts. I drew a bunch of comics as a kid, I’ve always been writing. And I’ve done plenty of stuff since, with loads of contributions to various things on the way. But Auteur was my first project — I was saying on some Discord server that I was rather sick of ordinary stories, that if I was in charge I’d be crazy and get weird with it, and Aristide, bless his heart, jumped in my DMs and offered me either a transgender cactus or metafiction skeleton. I took the skeleton. What makes Auteur such an interesting playground for a creative? There are options. That sounds simple, but for many characters there aren’t many. Auteur can fit into various moulds; he can be very wacky and meta, he can be immensely tragic and gothic, he can be a devious bastard. You can take him into the area the story needs. And the bonus fun part of an arch-villain such as Auteur is the crafting of a protagonist. What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology? Variety. If my story doesn’t work for you, there will be a story in the book that does. That sounds very basic, but it’s the key to all good anthologies. Through the collaboration, you become something more. It lets you not worry as much, and plus it puts you in contact with lovely people. If your story was someone’s first encounter with the Auteur series, what would you hope they take away from it? I hope they have a good time, it was a good time to write. I’m not going to dictate the feelings that I want people to feel and take away from my art, that’s what the art itself is for. What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story? When You’re Good to Mama is a classical horror story — or at least as close as Auteur gets to it, it is rather bonkers. It came from my love of abandoned things. Which is rather an artistic love, I think it started with photography classes. I love old places and nature reclaiming them and so I naturally had to pervert that. Put it in the desert, make it rather horrible. When You’re Good to Mama is also a horror story I wrote before I had read/watched/played many other horror stories — I think I wrote this sucker in like 2020 or 2021, during Lockdown — so before you think the mould is a lot like Resident Evil 7, look, I plead innocence. One thing I can tell you is that working on this story actually inspired me to create an entire webfiction series, which very, very roughly spun out from this story. And, weirdly, Disparate Minds came out first, but you get it. (I would like to mention that while Disparate Minds came out of this story, and is technically speaking a spinoff of it if you squint, you don’t need either of them to enjoy the other. This piece was designed to stand alone — I don’t like drenching people in continuity.) How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process? Aristide is a darling. I’m not paid to say that or anything either. I’m saying that unprompted, he doesn’t have a gun to my head as I write this. He just punches things up a little. I turned in what was basically the final draft in and Aristide just went over some of the rougher bits, showed me how to do that, he’s really taught me a bunch. Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future? Time is a circle: I already have. (When You’re Good to Mama isn’t even the first Auteur story I wrote after Aristide invited me over — though that one’s so far down the line that I wonder if it will be released in the next ten years.) What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next? My passion project continues to be the aforementioned webfiction series Disparate Minds, a story about a town of empty places and empty people — very liminal and Internet-age, but also it’s about the people as much as the location. You should read it. I’m sorry if I’m annoyingly trying to sell it to you and you don’t care that much, but you really should read it. That aside, I’ve got a novel going for Auteur — the current draft is called Smaller Gods — that will be out eventually. I have some other things too, but I don’t believe any of them are announced. Well, Smaller Gods hasn’t been announced either, but this is an Auteur press release, may as well drum up interest! Auteur: The Final Word is available now: eBook
Another interview with Tomoko M. Banks? Yes please! Today, we ask her questions about The First Spring, exclusively in Cwej: Springs Eternal.  art by Jonne Bartelds Can you tell us a little about yourself? I’m a freelance writer based in the south-west of England. I’m particularly interested in the intersection between sci-fi and fantasy, the pulpy and the mythic. What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe? In 2003, around Doctor Who’s 40th Anniversary, I watched Genesis of the Daleks, and became instantly fascinated by the worlds and characters of Doctor Who. What's your take on the character of Chris Cwej? Chris has really been on quite a journey recently. In Lungbarrow by Loomlight, he regains all his old memories and experiences: this seems to have turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword for him. Yes, he was able to use his memories as the impetus that drove him to save Totality from the Deathless and Lungbarrow, kick-starting reality from the moment of his mentor’s birth. However, through this act, he now seems to have deluded himself into viewing his old friend as a God, and himself as their acolyte. After the hurt and comfort in his rather traumatic reunion with Roz, this new-found frame of reference is almost like a crutch for him, as everything he held true about life is thrown into chaos once more. His more dogmatic tendencies are further reinforced when he encounters his long-lost granddaughter, the goddess of Time, and he isn’t quite able to save her, nor is he able to face up to the terrible hurt his old Superiors have put her through. It seems that, much like the Deathless, poor Chris is on a dark path. What makes your Cwej story unique? It was great fun having a chance to explore the cosmic status-quo implied by Cwej: The Series, and how the various core characters react to, and deal with, this wild Totality. I was interested to see a glimpse of the relationship between Chris and his mystical granddaughter. There’s a sense of overlapping dualities—told through a series of inter-cutting conversations, between various pairs/groups of characters. Each character has their own mirror or contrast, Larles and Kwol, the Constable and the Deathless, Chris and Time, the two [redacted]. Equally, the invocation of Anaxia as the Constable’s/Deathless’ daughter creates a slight parallel to Chris and Time, to Vicky and her foremothers, to the [redacted] and her unknown makers. I was also glad to conclude an aspect of the Deathless’ story briefly set up in Loomlight — that being the character of the Constable. Here, his journey acts as an externalisation of the constant tug-of-war between the Deathless’ ego, his yearning for a sense of order / control, and his manic self-sabotaging nature. Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations? I think there’s some Paul Cornell, Marc Platt, and David Lynch influences in this story. A little bit of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series too. Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing? I had a few health-scares while writing The First Spring (and its sequel that never came to fruition) so the process was a little feverish and dreamlike at times. What's your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you? Currently, I’m in the process of writing two pieces, one for Cwej: Seasons Unseen, one for Cwej: Splintered Truths. After that, I have ideas for quite a few different projects across various genres. As of yet, I’m not sure where or when any of these would materialise. But my mind is constantly buzzing with ideas and characters, and so no doubt my further stories will find their home somewhere and some time. Cwej: Springs Eternal is available now: EbookBarnes and Noble ebookFreelance writer and avid horror fan James T. Mulholland wrote A Play for the End of the World in the anthology The Final Word, the debut volume of Arcbeatle Press’s new Auteur series. And Riley G. Boyd has questions for him…  Above: James Timothy Mulholland in 2026. Tell us about yourself, your creative background? My name’s James Timothy Mulholland and I’m a 29-year-old freelance writer. I’ve been writing down short stories and ideas since secondary school. My first pieces of published work were for the 2020 and 2021 editions of The Greenwich Anthology, which featured a selection of my short stories, a couple of poems and a play. My first story to be released commercially was titled Call Me Ishmael, a short science-fiction audiobook that was a part of the Faction Paradox: Dionus’s War series at BBV Productions. I followed it up with another audiobook titled The Healer’s Sin. I then wrote a novelisation of the 1999 Nigel Fairs audio play, The Choice. What interests you about working with Auteur as a character? What makes Auteur interesting for me is his solipsistic mindset. As far as he’s concerned, we’re just props or narrative devices for him to use and abuse. This alone should make him horrifying, but then you remember that not only can he alter reality but he also has access to all of Time and Space. He’s what happens when you combine the manipulative aspects of Doctor Who’s Seventh Doctor with the demented showmanship of Mark Hamill’s Joker. Besides, as a writer, how can you not love this character? He’s a reality-altering sociopath who thinks he’s the greatest person who ever existed, and you can drop him into any setting, any genre. The amount of stories you can tell with him — either as protagonist or antagonist — is endless. Indeed, Volume 1: The Final Word alone contains a dozen very different stories — did the project’s collaborative nature add to its appeal for you? I like knowing that my story is a part of an even bigger one. If a standalone book is like a world, an anthology is a universe. How does your story relate to the themes of art and fiction that are naturally associated with the character? Are there any other themes you regard as important to your story or to the anthology as a whole? Because Auteur has the ability to change reality however he sees fit, I thought it would be interesting to examine how the cast and crew behind a stage show have a similar ability. Plays are living art, their characters aren’t confined to the pages of a book or a film frame. In pantomime, the Ugly Stepsisters can crack a joke about the latest episode of EastEnders in their introductory scene during one performance, but for the following night’s showing, the actors might joke about the latest political scandal instead. Plays are worlds that actors temporarily inhabit, yet during their stay, they can change that world how they see fit. I think that this logic complements another theme that I wanted to explore in my story, that of transformation — but that would be going into spoilers… I also thought it would be interesting to examine how ordinary people would react to the existence of fantastical beings like Auteur — in other words, how realistic, three-dimensional personalities might deal with the typical revelation that the universe they inhabit is nothing more than a playground for higher beings, and worlds like Earth may get trampled by such powers. I didn’t just want to wallow in the horror that such a revelation would invoke; I also wanted to show how ordinary people could survive and even triumph against the machinations of gods and monsters. What were your biggest inspirations for this story? A Play for the End of the World came about because of a dream I once had where a troupe of vampires performed this play once a century and they possessed the only script in existence — I have a sneaking suspicion that the Théâtre des Vampires from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles were probably in the back of my mind. I wrote the idea down and sat on it for a while, uncertain if I could expand it into a story. When I was invited to contribute a story for the Auteur anthology, I decided to revisit this idea, believing that it could make for a fun adventure. I dropped the vampire troupe in favour of a human one and tied it into the lore surrounding the Yssgaroth from Neil Penswick’s New Adventures novel, The Pit. Clive Barker’s Human Remains and Kim Newman’s Drechenfels also provided reference points for the story — Human Remains involves metamorphosis and Drachenfels revolves around a play that is secretly used by one of its performers as a ritual. What can you tell us about the writing process? The biggest challenge I faced — setting aside the hurdle I faced was when I caught a rather nasty winter bug and had to put my story aside whilst I recovered — was working out how my story should end. Before writing my story in full, I drafted an outline. In my first outline, my story ended with Neville and his fellow actors going off to have further adventures in Space and Time, hoping that I could revisit them in another story. I expunged this idea once I realised how awful and ridiculous it was. In my second outline, I had the characters work with Auteur in creating a psychic illusion that would trick the Yssgaroth into thinking that it had consumed our world, but scrapped that ending since it didn’t make much sense and felt like a cop out. I’d sent my outlines to Aristide, who provided me with honest and helpful feedback; he pointed out a few flaws such as Auteur’s motive not being fleshed out properly as well as the mechanics of the play’s ritual. I read through Aristide’s feedback carefully, taking on board his suggestions and began work on my story. I had made good progress with my story, but for a while I struggled to come up with an ending that I was satisfied with — until I decided to take a step back, think about the themes I wanted to explore, and work out an ending that would complement those themes. Once I had overcome this obstacle, the rest of my writing process was fairly stress-free. What do you hope people take away from your story and Auteur as a whole? I hope that their takeaway would be that like Auteur, we can and often do alter our own personal reality. True, most of us don’t own magical journals that can allow us to rewrite history as we see fit — I know if I did, there’d be more seasons of Classic Doctor Who! — but you can alter your present as well as your future. What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next? At the moment, I’m writing a fantasy novel in a similar vein to Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books and John Morey’s Card Snake. So far, I’ve filled up two 200-page notebooks and I’m halfway through a third. I have a feeling draft one will be a door-stopper! I would also love to write more Auteur stories, he’s a fantastic character. I’ve even written down an outline for a future Auteur adventure… Auteur: The Final Word is available now: EBOOK
Thomas Keyton describes themself as Welsh, autistic, non-binary, and “resentfully human”. They are also the author of A Place Like Home, an original prose story in Volume 1 of Arcbeatle Press’s new Auteur series, The Final Word. Riley G. Boyd has questions… 
Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background? A lot of my creative efforts as a child were devoted to sketching out big ideas: epic schemata for Transformers comics that failed due to my inability to script or draw, faces and enemies for Dr Whos number Nine through Thirteen long before The Curse of Fatal Death, Scream of the Shalka, or Rose were glints in anyone’s eye. In other words, I displayed a general urge to play with the ideas given to me. More recently there have been a few stories I’ve shared with friends, a short story in an anthology raising money for Trans Lifeline, and conlanging. How did you first get involved with this project? Aristide and I have similar tastes and they asked if I was of a writerly inclination. I was flattered — I’d read Horrors of Arcbeatle and really enjoyed their piece in that — and found ideas coming. What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology Partly the ego-boost of sharing a book with talented people I knew of and talented people I’ve discovered, mainly the fun of being part of a group project and being able to chat with my collaborators about our ideas and make stupid jokes. What makes Auteur such an interesting character and premise for a creative to work with? I think an obvious answer is that any writer can find a connection to the old egomaniac; he’s a way to explore some of our subcreational impulses in as silly or serious a way as we want. And as for the playground he brings with him, where all the cosmic truths have clashed and mutually annihilated to leave a broken universe where shoots of new potentials grow in the cracks — that’s both a prompt for themes exploring that, and a licence to write about anything we find interesting. Auteur himself has a similar versatility: anything you want to do in a story, he can do, all while giving your GCSE French a work-out and making things worse for your characters. Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work? Bien sûr! That was the first part of the inspiration — Auteur isn’t just a mad reality-warper, he’s a mad metafictional reality-warper; in fact, the original title of my pitch was an allusion to the Tolkien quote about the “purposed domination of the author”. If your story were to be someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it? To never trust the French. I don’t particularly like pushing people towards interpretations or what I think they should get from a text I wrote, so all I’ll say is I hope they enjoy the aesthetic pleasures of the alien. What were the biggest inspirations in the making of your story? Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, Farscape, some of Grant Morrison’s ideas, and my longstanding frustration with Russell T. Davies’s claim that no one cares about Zogs from the planet Zog. How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process? What were the biggest challenges you faced during the course of writing? As regards challenges, it’s a boring answer, but it was probably just the bits when the writing dragged, when it felt like I was just writing connective tissue between the parts that actually felt alive. The actual shape of the story remained pretty constant from the pitch — but as I said above, Aristide and I have similar tastes and shared influences, so he was very good at seeing the bits that could be altered, built on, etc. in such a way as to better get at what I wanted. The commentary on the fictional story was their idea, as I recall, and he helped me properly get the hang of Auteur’s character at this point in his life. Do you intend to return to Auteur in the future? Absolutely. It’s so much fun getting into Auteur’s skull and imagining the most petulant response to a situation. And there are some ideas he’s perfectly suited for. What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next? I’m forever conlanging for my own amusement, but the next project anyone’s likely to see [crosses fingers] will be another Auteur story. The osseous bastard is in my head now, and it’s hard to get him out… eBOOK
Riley G. Boyd asks Aristide Twain a few questions following the release of Volume 1: The Final Word, the first official installment of Arcbeatle Press’s new Auteur series. Aistide Twain conceived and edited the project, as well as authoring the novella-length short stories Marginalia and House of Auteur which open and close the anthology — plus a very special foreword… 
 Extra character illustration for ‘Marginalia’ by Dante Vernor Katz. Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background? Well, I’m a French-born editor, writer, cartoonist, and voice actor, as ranked in descending order of competence. I’m quite private when it comes to my personal life, but in the interest of not coming across as some sort of obsessive art-demon — a niche which is, I find, best left to fictional skeletons — I’ll also mention my abiding interests in nature photography and gardening, which often go hand in hand. And, of course, I read an awful lot of things. My first serious project (if serious is the right word) was the webfiction series The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, which I created in 2018 with my dear friend, L. Alves; whimsical science-fiction in the Adamsian mould, with an ever-expanding cast of characters. A surprisingly short time after that, I was welcomed into Arcbeatle Press by James Wylder and James Hornby, with contributions to 10,000 Dawns and other flagship series of the time. Those experiences, in turn, led to me branching out and getting involved with other small publishers, from the Cheshire House to Obverse Books — but Arcbeatle remains my primary creative home to this day, and in recent years, I’ve been entrusted with editing a number of holiday crossover anthologies, from the meta madness of the short-and-sweet Noodle Incident one memorable April Fools’ Day to the frankly unreasonably-huge treasure-trove of Arcbeatle goodness that was The Book of the Snowstorm, our all-purpose winter anthology for 2023. All of which just about gets us up to speed to the point when this anthology seriously began to be written, because this thing has beenn a long time in the making. How did the Auteur project come about? Well, I’ve always been fond of skeletons and metafiction. [Laughs] It’s true! But that aside… as Fate would have it, Jayce Black, the original creator of Auteur in the Faction Paradox series was one of the first people I befriended when I got into the series around 2018, together with Nate Bumber. Not only that, but I believe that James Wylder’s White Canvas, a 10,000 Dawns novella which guest-starred a younger incarnation of Auteur, was itself the first Arcbeatle book I actually got my hands on. That, in turn, spurred me to go back and dive into his origins in Obverse’s Book of the Enemy and Book of the Peace. I’m telling you, I never stood a chance. Prone as I am to weave whatever interests me into my writing, it was only a matter of time before I asked Jay to let me play with the character — which eventually, of course, they did. At first it was only an unofficial short story put out during Lockdown, but by the end of 2020, I’d well and truly caught the bone-bug. Auteur turned up in the Copper-Colored Cupids series, first once, then twice, and slowly it became clear that we’d opened up a whole new era for the character. It really — that is the word, it dawned on me, like a vocation, this awareness that now I’d have to go and brainstorm an Auteur series, because…Jayce Black and James Wylder, these huge, towering talents, had told a self-contained arc, beginning a long, long time ago with a lonely, vindictive little child on the Planet of the Gods; an arc which ended at the First Auction in Heaven, at the climax of one of the best Faction Paradox stories of the 2010s, when a mad skeleton with delusions of godhood was devoured by a giant snake out of Egyptian mythology. All this, they’d achieved in a span of exactly eleven months, between January 25th and December 25th of 2018. It was perfect. …And now I’d gone and brought him back again! I had to create a story worthy of that sacrilege, something more than a handful of online larks. Besides, he called to me. Gods do that, even when they’re not real. Something about him felt right, like there were stories to tell, untapped potential I’d brushed up against and fallen short of. So, in the last weeks of 2020, I did what anyone would do: I announced an Auteur spin-off series for 2021. Interesting. I notice that it’s now 2026, and Volume 1 has just come out. Is it? Oh blast, my watch is slow. [Sigh] Thing is, I didn’t actually have a plan yet; heaven help us, for a while I toyed with doing it as a comic, until the continuing stringencies of the COVID era proved that to be financially impossible. And for some inscrutable reason, I wasted considerable time brainstorming a version of the series that was actually one big flashback, an interquel between the original Book of the Enemy and Book of the Peace stories — which would have been absolutely wrong, though ideas from it found their way back into House of Auteur. In the end, I came to my senses — I realised I couldn’t do this by myself. And thus, the idea of Auteur as a group project, a short story anthology, took shape, one friend and one message at a time. The indispensable L. Alves was, of course, among the first to answer the call, alongside Plum Pudding, who was not, then, the brains behind Disparate Minds at the Cheshire House yet, but instantly impressed me with her grasp of tone, her keen understand of the character and of the nascent series. As for me, I didn’t set pen to paper right away, perhaps out of cautious editorial instinct, but more likely because of how incredibly busy I was with other projects. Instead, as far as Auteur was concerned, I went back to the conversations I'd had with Jayce, and to the story directions suggested by the slapdash Lockdown-era trilogy of shorts; together, they provided a backbone for a narrative arc that would run through the new crop of stories, giving structure to what was suddenly becoming a thrilling but chaotic convergence of disparate visions. Before I knew it — this was in 2023 or so — I was elbows-deep in manuscripts, and it became necessary to split what had originally been a single standalone book into two volumes. In time, each of these volumes would undergo its own mitosis, bringing us to the current tally of four anthologies and upwards that have drafts already in the can — not to mention the out-of-order ‘preview’ Auteur stories I started stuffing into the holiday anthologies as teases for the future, like The Two Auteurs in The Book of the Snowstorm, which were invaluable in helping me to get the feel of the character in time for his grand debut. That first impression was something I was very keen to get right : by 2024, when I really started working on Marginalia, it was clear that not only would the series run indefinitely, but it would be marketed as the truly original work it was becoming, aimed primarily at new readers, rather than Faction Paradox diehards — though those are still very welcome too! What makes Auteur such an interesting character for creatives to work with? …I did mention the words ‘metafiction skeleton god’, yes? You’d be surprised how well that works as an elevator pitch. There’s something iconic about it, something fundamental; you can condense him into very few words, and they’re not words that had ever been put together in this particular order. He’s incredibly specific, and incredibly self-explanatory. He’s a ranting, cackling villain with the manner of a snob, and he thinks the world is a story that exists for his entertainment only. It’s genius. I’m glad I didn’t invent him, that way I get to state that as plainly as it deserves to be stated. Genius. Throw him at any situation, any genre, sparks will fly. In a way, he’s almost too convenient: other characters might want to do good in the world, or indeed, to do evil, and if you let them get their way, they collapse your narrative down upon you. Because, well, who wouldn’t? Actually imagine yourself trapped in a story — you’d rebel, of course you would. You don’t want the tribulations, the twists and turns; you want to get to the good bits at the end. No one likes to live in Interesting Times™. But Auteur? Auteur wants to spin a good yarn. He’s a writer’s best friend, a fitting patron deity for the storyteller’s craft. Except, of course, he isn’t. That’s the other clever bit. When Writers — it’s always Writers with a Capital W, or worse yet, Storytellers with a Capital S — when Writers tell grand epics about the Prince of Fiction or somesuch, there’s a terrible danger of everything collapsing down into a singularity of self-congratulation about the sodding Power of sodding Stories. Aye, but… Auteur is a bad god, a mad god, a neurotic personality wound tight as a fist and let loose upon an unsuspecting cosmos. He’s gaudy and he’s petulant; he’s childish and easily bored; selfish and self-satisfied. He’s everything you don’t want to see in the mirror when you’re in this business. There’s something incredibly cathartic about letting a terrible little imp run around doing all the impulsive things to your characters that you’re too reasonable to do, and then watching it all fall apart, and seeing what you can rebuild from the rubble. …And somewhere under there, somewhere deep and dark and hidden, there’s an actual soul, a complex, aching personality. I like to keep that in mind, and prod at the edges of the character when a story allows it. I think a lot of people will come away from The Final Word with a newfound appreciation for the guy; perhaps even something like sympathy. But I don’t want to overegg that aspect. Sometimes you just want an awful little man to boo and hiss at, and many of the greatest Auteur stories, both published and unpublished, play that tune to perfection. For such a flamboyantly unique creation, he’s really very multi-purpose — devil and clown, man and monster. Have I mentioned that I love this goofball?  Above: extra character ilustration for ‘Marginalia’ by Dante Vernor Katz. What can you tell readers about your stories in Volume 1: The Final Word and how they were developed? What were your biggest inspirations for them, and for the project as a whole? Well, let's see… I have, by any sane analysis, two stories in this book. There’s also the foreword, or Avant-Propos, which Auteur hijacks to have a conversation with me, the editor; but it really doesn’t count — how else would you write a foreword to a book like this? In any case, it isn’t fiction, because it really happened. Read it, and you’ll understand. No, my first real story in The Final Word is Marginalia, a novella-length affair whose bones went through many configurations before the draft became remotely functional — I threw away more Chapter 1s than I can count, merged and unmerged characters, but I think it was all worth it, and the core elements remained the same throughout, including the pivotal role played by Epsilon, a long-gestating character whom I am eternally grateful to my long-time friend Lowri Llewellyn for allowing me to borrow and give a proper debut to. In its final form, Marginalia starts with a girl with wounds that won’t stop bleeding, and an abiding love of an obscure fantasy book series about Archons from beyond Space and Time. It’s Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius as rewritten by Clive Barker; I’ve bombastically described it as a Borgesian spin on gothic fantasy — two great tastes that taste great together. And what is it that links them? It’s a preponderance of labyrinths; of hidden passages beneath the ordinary world, shifting mazes packed with obtuse geometries, otherworldly wonders, and secret doorways in every corner. Such constructs demand narrative structures to match — mysteries within mysteries, hidden connections, and a fourth wall that is not so much broken as fitted with a revolving glass doorway. But through all those clockwork mysteries, it’s also a very human story — one about living in the margins, about disability and disempowerment, broken dreams and lost futures. And yes, about the way we relate to stories and to language, but people, in all their strangeness and complexity, remain a senior partner in that delicate equation, and I hope to have avoided egregious platitude. I’ve mentioned Borges, the master of us all, but as metafictional fantasy goes, I'm also hugely indebted to Steven Hall, whose novels The Raw Shark Texts and Maxwell’s Demon are absolute must-gets for anyone who enjoys what we’re doing with Auteur, as are his Big Finish audio plays The Word Lord and A Death in the Family. All these are very much in the same world as Marginalia — aesthetically at least, and perhaps diegetically, too. There are a few hints to that effect throughout the book, one of which I got to make quite explicit, as Steven was kind enough to authorise a nifty little name-drop. (A lot of people have authorised nifty little name-drops; it would take too long to thank them all again here, and in any case, it'd spoil the surprise of spotting them as you go along.) Then, of course, there’s Lance Parkin’s 2005 novel The Gallifrey Chronicles which provided a crucial ingredient for the plot, though I’ll hasten to add that prior knowledge of the novel is not required. Indeed, I like to think you can read Marginalia and The Gallifrey Chronicles in either order and get an interesting experience. And I mustn’t forget The Book of the War, the original Faction Paradox lore-codex spearheaded by Lawrence Miles at Mad Norwegian Press, whose grandiose bird’s-eye-view of an intertemporal war Auteur spends the entire story trying to outdo (can relate). I don’t want to say too much about House of Auteur, which rounds out the book. I’m not one to fret unduly about spoilers, but trust me, that story’s one where the blind approach has much to recommend it. I will say this, though: if you read it and put the pieces together, you’ll never see Auteur the same way again. I’m hugely proud of it as a culmination of Volume 1, especially considering that it was only after the second round of splits that I realised this collection of stories needed a proper finale, a real climax that builds on all that came before. In hindsight, I really can’t imagine the overall arc of the series working half as well without it, even if most of the plot beats that found fertile spoil in the last-minute slot would have probably emerged some other way. Another unexpected delight in the making of House was the degree to which Louis Peacock and Newton Locheye’s The Collector, another late addition to the line-up, could serve as a perfect thematic lead-in to that grand finale. Louis, of course, additionally contributed to the flashback ‘fragments’ that are embedded within the main narrative of House, as did Auteur’s own creator Jayce Black (returning to the character for the first time in half a decade) and even Auteur's unofficial godparent Wylder; crafting a worthy story to cohesively incorporate such precious raw materials was both a daunting responsibility, and a joyful honour to achieve. What’s next for you and for Auteur? What else are you working on, and where can our readers find you next? Well, first of all, I solemnly pledge not to take six years to complete Volume Two! It’s called A Better World, and I don’t want to say too much about it either, if only because by the time it hits the printers, I’ll likely have taken all my drafts apart and sewn them back together in unrecognisable Frankenstein patterns. Best not to spoil the magic. But I can tell you that several Volume One writers will be returning, together with some very exciting names making their Arcbeatle Press debuts. Actually, one of those new writers illustrated a story in Volume One, and he and I very nearly share a first name… Ho, hum… In the meantime, I’ll spend some time recovering from this intense creative experience by throwing myself headfirst into a bunch of others, as usual. For one thing, I might have run away with one of their characters, but I’m not done with Faction Paradox proper by a longshot… and I’ve got something else cooking at Obverse Books, but hush! I'm still helping out at the Cheshire House, where the long-delayed Part Two of my Castaways of Ishiok story Coalfire will very soon see the light of day. Back in Arcbeatland, I’ve also been developing stories for the SIGNET, Cwej, and WARSONG ranges, among others, and I’ll continue popping up in the holiday anthologies as usual. And then, there’s The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, which is still ongoing, not to mention my work as event organiser for Jenny Everywhere Day, an annual call for stories and artworks featuring the world’s premier open-source character herself — slowly but surely, this year’s J.E.D. is coming up! August 13th! Don’t miss it! Tell your friends! And if you want to chat with me for any reason, I’m always happy to meet new people. You can find me through the social media listed at my website, or contact me on Discord as @aristidetwain — so don’t be shy! And if you’ve got the bone-bug too, well, Auteur is always glad to get new pitches, mes amis… Auteur: The Final Word is available now: EBOOK
 In 2018, Jayce Black’s contributions to the iconic duology of The Book of the Enemy and The Book of the Peace introduced Faction Paradox readers to Auteur, a skeletal Archon with the uncanny power to literally rewrite reality — and metafictional delusions of grandeur to match. Ever since then, the Mad God of Writing’s popped up hither and thither at Arcbeatle Press, putting in multiple appearances in our multi-series holiday anthologies and even menacing Graelyn Scythes of 10,000 Dawns in the novella White Canvas — but never quite as the headline feature. Today, that changes! Under the creative leadership of Aristide Twain (Coloth: The Book of the Snowstorm, Cwej: The Flatwoods Fractal), the self-declared Author of History returns in a metafictionally mindbending but narratively newcomer-friendly anthology of thirteen original stories, with contributions from writers like L. Alves (Cwej: Always Be A Part Of Me), Nate Bumber (Faction Paradox: A Farewell to Arms), and Jamie H. Cowan ({{esquivalience}}), as well as exclusive illustrations from artists like Ari Bach (Valhalla Trilogy), Dante Vernor Katz (Faction Paradox: Great Pearl, Girl), Blair Shedd (Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor) — and many more! Says editor Aristide Twain, “For all that Auteur claims to be the singular author of reality itself, his world and his story would not be as rich without the plurality of tones, visions, genres, and setting that our writers have brought together in The Final World. It’s an off-beat journey through fiction, art, mythology, and history itself — each story incredibly distinct, but building on one another. It’s been amazing to see, and I can’t wait for new readers to meet not only Auteur, but the protagonists of each and every entry within this book. Each of them is a joy!” “Auteur is a destabilising force,” adds contributor L. Alves. “He can be thrown into any narrative and cause it to bend and collapse around him in fascinating new ways, which is part of what makes him so fun for a writer to play with. Any story in any form or genre can find itself subjected to a walking, talking, often-malevolent deconstruction.” Auteur is a visionary, a genius, a god. The Author of All Creation. So he has claimed for centuries, and many believe him — who else could rewrite reality with one flick of a quill? But the Cosmos has changed since he’s been away, and it keeps on changing. Old rules are broken, and new powers rise. What wonders and horrors might Auteur create, in his quixotic quest to get the final word? And what will he destroy? From a Spire of Shadows to the direst diner on Earth, discover the truth beneath the lies in AUTEUR: VOLUME 1: THE FINAL WORD, featuring a dozen unforgettable stories from L. Alves, Erika de Atayde, Jayce Black, Nate Bumber, Galadriel Coffeen, Jamie H. Cowan, Thomas Keyton, Newton Locheye, James T. Mulholland, Louis Peacock, Plum Pudding, Aristide Twain, Molly Warton, and James Wylder — with exclusive illustrations from Ari Bach, Galadriel Coffeen, Dylan Livingston, Dante Vernor Katz, Holly Lucero, Plum Pudding, Raymond Inkwell, Blair Shedd, Robert Shepherd, Tabitha Marsh, Ophelien Twain, and Molly Warton! Auteur: The Final Word is available now: EBOOK
We had the pleasure of speaking to Cwej: Springs Eternal writer Riley G. Boyd about their story, influences, and what's next for them!  art by Jonne Bartelds Can you tell us a little about yourself? I’m 21 but I’ve been doing paid creative work since about, I wanna say 17, but could’ve been later. I was doing minutes and writing the finalised script outlines for a yet to be released audio drama series, (also in the Who EU, and a franchise some readers here might be veryyyy interested in), that evolved into doing episodes and then the bug bit like no other and I’ve been doing odd jobs here ever since. I’ve written a lot of short films and I’ve helped a lot of other people with their scripts, but I shouldn’t kiss and tell. I’m currently a student at one of the UK’s leading industry educators. Outside of shoptalk (why wouldn’t you wanna talk shop?), I’m big into gaming, music, urban exploring, and I love a pub crawl. Nuff said? What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe? Lots of near chance encounters, but I couldn’t for one tell you which is first. The memories all sit haphazardly beside each other. I remember doing a DVD swap with a primary school friend, I gave them that animated Buzz Lightyear film, the original one, and they gave me a double feature of End of Time and Eleventh Hour. Another moment when I caught the end of Death in Heaven on broadcast, I asked my mum for a screwdriver, like an actual one, so that I could play along. But it started being Doctor Who when I was able to actually watch the classic show all together on streaming. It was a show about literacy first and foremost, about creativity and opening your mind, looking outside, so it spoke to the curious burgeoning writer in me. Then came online communities, fandom, and the centre of all my Who related compulsions, the EDAs. What's your take on the character of Chris Cwej? He’s a really well centred character given that you can put him into basically any situation and it’d make for an interesting scene. As a companion, he was McCoy’s son slowly drifting away from him. Their awkward and understated finishing trip approach to Tardis travel, with so many things left unsaid, when they were on their own at the end of those books really hooked me. But I’ve gotta admit he didn’t really click for me until Dead Romance in the Benny books and you could see him under the hood a bit more. He’s quite classically pulpy in that sense, that naive well to do action-man boyishness as a front for a really avoidant, often directionless guy who’s bent on escaping himself through whatever mission he’s gotten wrapped up in this time. That cognitive dissonance with him fascinates me and I tried to emphasise it in my story by having him get hounded with genuine consequences and paired with a mirror with the same deep rooted issues but who expresses it in the opposite way and the clashes of that. What makes your Cwej story unique? I tried to go for this feverish stream of consciousness where the details and setting comes alive and bleeds together, there’s a lot of anthropomorphism in the prose and the tone shifts a lot with perspective as you peel back the layers wading through someone’s head. I really wanted to hit that offbeat and often sinister creeping dream logic you get in works like Phantasm. And there’s a lot of pulp allusions, using that to inspect on the nature of Chris as this unchanging face of his genre and story engine who’s not really allowed to grow as a person and stop doing what he does, because then the story would be over. And what does he get out of that? The little things, it seems. At its heart it’s a story about angry clever boys who are scared of growing up and scared of staying where they are, and that applies for every main character. Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations? Moore’s Night Raven was how I pitched it, Chris faces his juvenile leaning tendencies in the power fantasy world of classic comic booky noire, but it drifted away from that into something a bit broader and less connected, more about using the stories that helped you to help yourself and tell your own to get by one day after another, best foot forward because sometimes that’s all you can do. The whole thing is very tongue in cheek British Invasion, a scummy rotten Ken Loach British realist world getting infected with this almost fiction virus, and becoming this Sapphire and Steel styled liminal space filled with larger than life titans of their respective genres (crime, western, warmags, and fantasy) and it becoming, rightly, a nightmare. Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing? Lots of them. Like I say, I’m a student with a two hour commute for three days a week, so a lot of writing had to be done on the train in a rush, and my fiancé’s family home got raided (nothing to do with me, though) and I spent the better part of a week helping fix the door and locks, which to someone with no handyman experience, was a lot harder than it looked. Yes, very surprising, I know. Generally life just kept getting into the way of me with this and I had to really bargain for my time alongside a lot of my other deadlines like videography for club work or course stuff. This was only helped by Gerard being the most gracious and patient editor on the crucking planet. What's your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you? Follow me on Twitter on @RG_Boyd. My next project is Simon Says, a web comic. Basically, girl vanishes from social. Dead beat and beaten down cop Imogen Hayes is the only person in the world who cares, she’s drawn into the middle of an ideological battleground for supremacy amongst Britain’s secret occult conspirators, and she’s forced to trust the deadpan possibly fictional occultist Simon Iff, who seems to only exist inside her head. It’s a horror noir for the internet age. We live in a world where people believe Etsy witches can create kill curses and the elite literally eat babies and our governments do untold acts of memetic warfare. Baudrillard hyperreality with demons, through the lens of an X Files meets Edge of Darkness paranoia thriller, and the aesthetic trappings of every conspiracy forum board you could think of. The scripts for issues 1-4 and central character designs complete and so pencilling will be beginning shortly and we’re aiming for an end of summer digital release. If you want a comic with body stealing war criminals, girl gangs using Francis Bacon’s flying witch elixir to astral project and beat up boys, teatime with LAM, and neonazis getting their comeuppance through self created memetic entities named (((them))), you’ve found the right place. Cwej Springs Eternal is Available Now! |
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