Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a British academic and ghost
story author whose tales are some of the best-known and most respected in the
genre. John Bellairs was a fan and agreed with James that "spooky tales are most effective when the ghastly things happen to people who
are going about their business in an ordinary, matter-of-fact world… (Locus, 1991). Bellairs was a Jamesian fan – and included a few homages in
his novels – as is Simon Loxley, a British graphic designer and writer
on design. Loxley's fandom went as far as writing and self-publishing A Geography of Horror: The Ghost Stories of M.R. James and the Suffolk Landscape, in 2021. It's taken us over a year to order the book, read (and reread),
and conduct our interview, but Loxley was game – and here we are.
