Brandon Marshall Writing

The year is 1999 and I’m sitting in the damp, wood-paneled basement of my childhood home after perusing the refrigerator for a block of pickled bologna. The couch beneath me is dusty and cheese-stained and the carpet is moist.

The basement traditionally had been a storage area for my dad’s collectibles and sometimes I would go exploring to see what I could find. Usually I was rummaging through vintage comic books or old sports memorabilia, but on this day I decided to open a door I hadn’t yet opened.

After I finish my nutritious snack, I walk over to the woodened door next to a collection of graded hockey cards. The carpet almost feels to stick beneath my feet with each step. The incandescent lighting highlights the cobwebs around the door. I twist the golden handle and with a gentle pull an unfamiliar odor of lignin wafts around me. I reach for the string light and the closet illuminates dully.

What I found in that closet forever changed my life: stacks and rows of old paperbacks. Koontz, King, Barker, Shirley Jackson, and the likes. I couldn’t get enough of the content and I quickly consumed the content within the closet.

My literary inspirations come from all walks of the bizarre, absurd, and spooky. My current favorite authors include Joe Hill, Richard Matheson, Cormac McCarthy, King, and Robert McCammon.

To this day, I still don’t know who wrote the better apocalypse story, King or McCammon. Which do you think is better, Swan Song or The Stand?

Thanks for reading guys, I hope you enjoyed the content.