🎧 Or listen to the episode HERE

Interview Overview

In this episode of The Writer’s Chair, Daniel Willcocks sits down with Christian Laferrière — better known by his pen name CM Forrest — for a warm and wide-ranging conversation about atmosphere, isolation, and the quiet obsessions that shape a writer’s voice.

Author of the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award-winning novel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, and the short story collection The Roots Run Deep, CM Forrest is a writer whose work leans hard into dread, loneliness, and the kind of slow-burn horror that gets under your skin and stays there. Blurbed by Nick Cutter and compared to Adam Nevill in sensibility, he’s one of indie horror’s most distinctive voices — and this conversation goes deep into how he got there.

Christian traces his path from animation school to horror fiction, explains why switching to a pen name changed everything almost overnight, and talks through the unexpected process of assembling The Roots Run Deep — a collection that revealed recurring themes he hadn’t consciously noticed he was writing toward. They discuss what makes atmosphere-driven horror work, the challenge of ordering a short story collection for pacing and flow, and the writers — Cutter, Nevill, Dan Simmons — who gave him permission to write the way he wanted to write.

There’s also a genuinely exciting conversation about the current golden age of indie horror, a detour into why Friday the 13th Part IV is a perfect film, and an honest look at what it feels like to watch a shifting industry start to reward the writers who’ve been quietly doing the work all along.

This is an episode for horror readers hungry to discover new voices, and for writers who want a grounded, honest account of building a body of work one story at a time.

Episode Transcription

Daniel: Welcome back, wordsmiths and story seekers. I am your host, Daniel Willcocks, broadcasting from the shadowy halls of Devil’s Rock HQ. And today I am thrilled to share the right to share with the incredibly talented Christian Laforet, better known as C.M. Forest.

Now, before we get into the interview — this is one that I recorded last year with Christian. It was an incredibly informative interview for me. I’ve read his novel Infested, and it is gorgeous and it’s creepy and it’s filled with bugs. I’m not going to say anything more because we get into it in the interview. And if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend picking up a copy. People who listen to this podcast know that I’m a mad nut for anything written by Nick Cutter. And Nick Cutter blurbs this guy’s book. So there you go. If you need any more evidence as to why you should read it and check it out.

In today’s episode, we go deep into Christian’s journey as an award-winning horror author. We cover why switching to a pen name was a very important decision for Christian, the importance of atmosphere and slow-burn tension, and the challenge of structuring his latest short story collection — The Roots Run Deep — which came out at the end of last year. It’s a very, very fun interview.

But I did want to take a minute, because I’ve been running this podcast now since — oh, I don’t even know when I put this live. April? August last year? It’s all a blur.

Behind the scenes I’ve been doing a lot of work with Devil’s Rock Books. If you listen to The Writer’s Chair, you might know about Devil’s Rock Books. Maybe that’s where you go to find out about the podcast, to find out more about the guests. But devilsrockbooks.com is basically my little hideout, my little horror haunting dungeon where I put out all the latest reads for horror readers to jump on and see what’s going on in the world of horror. I have resources on there for authors — website designers, local awards, news app promotions, all that kind of thing. I’m spending a lot of time every week making that bigger, making that better, to serve the audience of horror authors and dark fiction authors. Even if you’re a dark fantasy author or a gritty thriller writer, you’ll find something on there. It’s basically my little home — this is where this podcast lives and everything else. So I’m working hard on that and growing a lot of stuff very silently in the background.

So if you are a horror reader looking for new horror books — the reason I created Devil’s Rock Books was I got very tired with Amazon’s algorithms and charts that don’t take into account fantastic reads that are getting no airtime. I’m trying to get rid of the difference between traditional publishing and indie publishing, and create a platform that is horror-reader-reviewed, as opposed to people being able to game or buy their way to the top of the charts. I’m not saying books up in those charts aren’t worth it — a lot of them are very good reads — but I just know so many authors creating such amazing stuff, and I want to create a platform where, as a horror reader myself, I could go and find books I otherwise wouldn’t have found elsewhere. So check that out at devilsrockbooks.com.

As part of that, I’m also looking at getting back into coaching. For people who don’t know — between 2019 and 2023 or so, time is a lie — I coached writers and authors. I had a Zoom room full of writers who came on for regular sprints, Q&As, that kind of thing. So there’s some stuff going up over the next few weeks for anyone who wants to find out more about that, get a bit of one-on-one with me, maybe some group coaching.

There is a programme I’m going to be running — possibly from July, summer of this year, I’m just working out the final bits. But if you are someone who has a book idea you’ve been wanting to write forever, or you’ve tried a few times and you’re spinning your wheels, I have created a workshop — essentially 90 days in which I’m going to take a very small, limited group of people and get them to write that first draft of their book. Alongside that, I’ll be giving an overview of your publishing options, letting you know what you can do with that book once it’s done. Because it’s not enough to have just written that first book — that’s a huge milestone and we will celebrate the hell out of that — but then you’ll know what you can do with it next. We’ll explore independent options, traditional options. I’ve written a book called The Self-Publishing Blueprint in which I go through a lot of this, but I’ll be doing very hands-on experience with that. So if that interests you, you can find out more at danielwillcocks.com. That’s W-I-L-L-C-O-C-K-S dot com.

And then, in my own little creative bubble — I’ve been chipping away recently on Sunk, which is book five of the Twisted Tales series. So we’ve got Jack, we’ve got Air, we’ve got Slay, we’ve got Deal, and this one is going to be called Sunk. I don’t know if I’ve announced it anywhere else, so there you go — you’ve probably got an exclusive there. It’s going to be a cosmic-inspired novella about a small town and a church under a lake. That’s more than I’ve said anywhere else, and it’s as much as I’ll say here.

So — devilsrockbooks.com for readers who want to find out more, and danielwillcocks.com for authors who want dark fiction resources and coaching. Keep an eye on that over the next few weeks. And keep an eye on twistedtalesbooks.com where me and Rob will be putting some stuff out soon about book five.

One final thing — if you want to jump into a free community, and I normally tag this on the end but I know a lot of people log off before the end of the interviews — if you’re interested in finding more horror authors and horror readers, you can join the Devil’s Rock Discord community. Just go to devilsrockbooks.com/podcast and the link is all there for you. I’d love to see you over there.

And now I will hand over to past Dan — with a very blurry background, because he was living in a different house and clearly trying to hide it. Enjoy, and I will see you on the other side.

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C.M. Forest, also known as Christian Laforet, is the author of the 2023 Benjamin Franklin Silver Award-winning novel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, and his latest short story collection The Roots Run Deep and Other Stories. His short fiction has been featured in over a dozen anthologies across multiple genres. A self-proclaimed horror movie expert, he spent an embarrassing amount of his youth watching scary movies. When not writing, he lives in Ontario, Canada with his wife, kids, three cats, and a pandemic dog named Sully who has an ongoing love affair with a blanket. Christian, welcome to the show.

Christian: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Daniel: No problem. A couple of questions just to dive in. You mentioned in that bio “when you’re not writing, you’re in Ontario.” Where do you write then?

Christian: So, most people who aren’t from Canada are still familiar with a place called Tim Hortons. It’s a coffee shop and donut shop chain. And there is one — I’m not even joking — you can’t drive five minutes anywhere in any Canadian city without hitting a Tim Hortons. They are everywhere. So I typically write at Tim Hortons because it’s cheap. I can get a coffee for like a buck, get a donut, and sit there for the whole day and nobody cares. It’s a chain, there are tons of them, so I never get kicked out. I go to Tim Hortons a lot.

Daniel: Nice. I need to figure that one out, because where I go it’s like three pounds for a coffee.

Christian: Yeah, that’s why I stay away from — I loved writing at coffee shops, especially little local ones, and I do get in there when I can. But I can’t go in and spend six, seven bucks for a coffee and a pastry every day. That’s too much.

Daniel: It all adds up. You mentioned in your bio your dog named Sully and his ongoing love affair with a blanket. I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on that. Is there a story there?

Christian: I mean, there’s not more to it than that — he just really loves this blanket. He grabs it, sleeps on it, plays with it. He’ll lay on the floor and gently pick out little fibres of it. He just loves it. It’s his favourite blanket.

Daniel: What kind of dog is he?

Christian: He’s a Basset Hound.

Daniel: Ah, beautiful. What a way to start. So for people who are unfamiliar with C.M. Forest and all the work that you’ve done, give us a little background on who you are and how your journey began and how you got to where you are today.

Christian: So C.M. Forest is my pen name, and I’ve been writing for a long time. To go back: I went to school for animation. My dream was always to be a comic book artist, which is one of those dreams you have as a child that doesn’t make as much sense when you become an adult. But I still went to school for animation and wanted to do something in that realm.

It was after I was done with animation school — where the love of drawing was beaten out of me over three years — that I started to reassess. I didn’t want to draw anything ever again because I had drawn so much. And I asked myself: what do I actually like about drawing? The answer was I liked the storytelling of drawing. I didn’t especially like drawing itself. I liked having completed a drawing that told a story. So when I had that revelation, something clicked and I was like, I’m just going to try to write something.

As soon as I started writing, I was hooked. This was about 10 years ago. I wrote a whole novel in a month and it was the worst thing anyone has ever written in the history of people. But it was still so fun that I was hooked — I had to keep doing it. And then I stepped back and started writing short stories.

Flash forward to probably about four or five years ago — I had put together a decent amount of stuff but was having no real luck and wasn’t pursuing it full time. Then I wrote a novel called Infested, which I started shopping around. At first I was getting no takers. And I thought: I’m just going to change my name, because maybe it’s my name. I know that’s a totally weird thing to think, and it’s not really true. But then I did put a pen name on it, and all of a sudden it was like instantly — two publishers accepted the book. And I was like, geez, I’m kind of offended, but also kind of happy.

That’s why the pen name came in. I felt like I needed something fresh. And since then I’ve been pursuing it a lot harder, pushing a lot harder. I’ve been published a whole bunch of times, in a bunch of anthologies — and all of that came after I switched my name. Who knows?

Daniel: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like much of a coincidence. And most of it’s probably subconscious, but there are certain names where you read a horror author and you think, that’s an unlikely name for a horror author. Then you look at someone like Nick Cutter — which is obviously a pen name for Craig Davidson. Nick Cutter just hits so much harder in the horror genre.

Christian: I think it was like — obviously my name is Christian, which, you know, there’s a fun angle there writing horror. But it just didn’t feel like a spooky name. I thought C.M. Forest felt somewhat mysterious. I was going to go Christian Forest, but then I thought people would think I was writing like weird spiritual nature books or something. And I didn’t want that.

Daniel: That makes sense. So where did the love of horror come in? You mentioned you watched horror movies for years — where did that start bleeding into your writing?

Christian: In my new book, The Roots Run Deep, I actually dedicated it to my brother. He’s older than me. When I was little, he would babysit me while our mother was at work, and he loved horror movies. So he was babysitting me when I was like eight, and it was either: go elsewhere in the house and hear the horror movie but be by myself — which would scare the hell out of me — or sit and watch the horror movie with him, which would also scare the hell out of me, but at least I was next to somebody.

So I think it was almost like a weird horror Stockholm syndrome, where after a certain amount of time I just started enjoying the horror movies and wanting to watch them. And that was when I was really little. Honestly, since then I just gravitate towards it. I love watching horror movies, love playing horror games, love reading horror novels, and I love writing scary things. When I write a scene and it’s effectively scary to me, that excites me.

Daniel: What do you think the pull is with horror? You presumably have that conversation with people who go, “I don’t get why you write this scary stuff.” What’s the deeper pull that gets you going?

Christian: I think for me, I love — I’m a very descriptive writer. I like to describe things to almost the nth degree, probably to an annoying level to some people. But I’m very visual. I really want people to see this place and feel this place and experience it. And I feel like horror is the one genre where you can really do that, and it doesn’t get old. Because every time you’re doing this, the more I can understand this haunted house — what it looks like, what it feels like — the more into the story I can get. And I find that only really lives in horror, for me at least.

That feeling of atmosphere and dread that comes from that kind of writing is what attracts me to it and why I like to write it. Just no boundaries — whatever you want to put in there.

Daniel: That’s definitely reflective in the work. I’ve read The Roots Run Deep and it’s quite a collection. One of the things I loved about it was the tone of mystery — there’s always something that grabs you at the beginning of a story and just tweaks you and pulls you through. I’ve got a real love for post-apocalyptic stuff as well, so the stories leaning into isolation really captured me — that one with the guy in the house in the ground especially. The description felt like exactly the right level to tell that story. It wasn’t overdone. And not just blowing smoke up your backside, but it was some of the best short fiction I’ve read in a while.

What was the origin of The Roots Run Deep? How did that come together?

Christian: The Roots Run Deep really comes from — I had been writing short stories, and I had two books published in 2022: Infested and then my novella We All Fall Before the Harvest. Even though I had written those books over a year apart, they came out within a month of each other. So then I had no new anything. I’ve been working on another novel, but it’s taking a long time.

I had this idea that I wanted something to come out — some new release. I was thinking a novella, but I couldn’t get anything going because of the novel I was working on. So I contacted Erie River — the publisher of Infested and The Roots Run Deep — and I said, would you guys be interested in a short story collection? I put all my previously published short stories into a Word document and realised that just those stories — from various anthologies and things — was almost a full book already. Which surprised the hell out of me, because I didn’t think I had that many stories.

So I contacted them, they were interested, and then I decided I wanted to write a few more stories to pump it up into a proper full book. It wasn’t really planned until suddenly it was — it just appeared in my head as a thing I could do.

And the isolation theme you mentioned — I noticed there’s an unintentional theme running through The Roots Run Deep, because these stories were written over a wide period of time. And it’s like: that’s something I apparently gravitate towards. Loneliness, isolation, existential horror and dread. It was more like, as I was putting the stories together and placing them in the book, I went, “Holy crap, I go to this well a lot.” These are obviously things that scare me, and I subconsciously keep hitting on them.

Daniel: And yet the stories never felt the same, which I think is a really hard thing to accomplish — to have that kind of unconscious playbook that you go to regularly, and every story still feels like its own individual thing. What was it like composing the book? Was there a rhyme and a reason to the order you put the stories in?

Christian: I was originally thinking chronological order from when I wrote them, since every story was published from 2017 to 2023 or written specifically for the book. And as soon as I put like the first two stories together, I realised that was a terrible idea. Because there were some similarities that, in a whole book, you can get away with — connective themes separated by five other stories. But when they’re one right after the other, you start to go, “Hey, wait a minute, buddy. You just told the same story again.” It wasn’t that egregious, but it was there.

So then it was: now I’ve got to think about what makes sense in terms of flow and pacing. You’ve got to put a really good story first, a good one at this point, your best one here, and follow some sort of guide to placing the stories. It became honestly a bit of a hassle. I had pages of notes. Other things like: am I reusing the same name for main characters? None of these were written with a collection in mind, so keeping track of all that was a lot. But by the time I was done, I thought: I think this all works. And I’m happy with how it came out.

Daniel: I enjoyed it. I particularly like when the titular story is the last one. The Roots Run Deep is a fantastic story — very, very creepy. And there are influences there. We’ve mentioned Nick Cutter. You’ve mentioned existential dread, which almost lends itself to Lovecraftian themes as well. Who are some of the big influences you see in your work? Who would you recommend our audience go and find?

Christian: Well, obviously Nick Cutter again. When I read The Troop, I was absolutely floored by that guy’s writing. And I’m lucky enough to have become friends with Craig Davidson over the years, which is awesome because he lives in Toronto, so he’s fairly close to me.

And then equally as big — maybe even bigger — is one of your fellow countrymen: Adam Nevill. I love Adam Nevill’s writing. Phenomenal. I devour that guy’s books.

When I was first getting serious about writing — tackling Infested as a novel — someone mentioned to me The Ritual and said, “You’ve got to read Adam Nevill.” And I was like, “Ah, you know, everyone tells you who you should go read when you say you’re a horror writer.” Which is always kind of weirdly offensive. Unless it’s not Stephen King. It’s nice when it’s someone outside the King circle.

Daniel: The worst is when people go, “Oh, I read horror.” You go, “Yeah? What do you read?” And they go, “Stephen King.” And you go, “Who else?” And they go, “Just Stephen King.” Thanks, King.

Christian: But yeah, Adam Nevill is awesome. I read The Ritual and it was the first time I had read a book by an author who wrote in a way that had the same sort of sensibilities as how I kind of write — or at least what I was reaching for. I had never read anything like that before. And from Nevill, I kind of learned that you have to be scary all the time, even if it’s not something inherently scary. Adam Nevill will write a person walking through their living room to turn on the TV, and it’ll be the most dark, dreadful moment ever. Nothing happens, and yet it’s full of dread.

I really took a lesson from that. And when I wrote Infested specifically, I actually rewrote it after reading Nevill. Because then I felt like I had permission to write the way I wanted to write — because there’s somebody else who does it. And then I read Cutter, who writes very similarly to Nevill. Same kind of style. And it was like: man, these two guys are incredible. Beautiful, beautiful books.

Daniel: The Ritual, The Troop — any others of their works that particularly took you?

Christian: So those are actually not my two favourites from those gentlemen — though obviously those are their biggest books. From Cutter, there’s a book called The Acolyte that — the one you haven’t read. Not too many people have read The Acolyte. I’ve heard through the grapevine it might be coming back into print at some point. But The Acolyte is incredible. It’s not even really horror. It’s like a weird Mad Max meets religious zealots. I can’t even describe it — it’s crazy. There’s another Messiah who gets born, but that’s almost in the background. It’s so weird and I love it.

And then for Nevill, Last Days is my favourite Adam Nevill book. That book blows me away. It’s a big chunky book, but it’s a good one. Oh, and Lost Girl is incredible too. I think that’s his least-read book — he always makes fun of it that nobody reads it. But it’s so good. It’s horror-adjacent, but really, really good.

Daniel: Some great recommendations — we’ll put links in the show notes. So we’ve covered the isolation element, the existential dread, really tapping into what it is to be human and to survive in difficult situations. What are you looking for when you’re watching or reading horror? What makes good horror for you?

Christian: For me, it’s all about atmosphere. I read a lot of splatterpunk books and things like that, and I can appreciate them for what they are — but it’s not what I’m typically drawn towards. I like something that builds atmosphere, builds dread. In movies especially, the slow-burn horror movie — that’s where I’m at.

I’m a universal lover of all horror, so I watch and read everything. But what I enjoy most is slow, atmospheric, cosmic, folk horror. Those are the things I typically lean towards.

Daniel: And yet, somewhat ironically, Friday the 13th Part IV is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, according to C.M. Forest.

Christian: It is. It’s an all-time classic. The height of slashers, in my opinion.

Daniel: Why Part IV?

Christian: I grew up on Friday the 13th — Jason’s my guy. Some people like Freddy, some people like Michael Myers, but Jason’s my dude. And Part IV is just where they had perfected the genre. It’s also around where the slasher movie started to change and transition towards something more meta, closer to what Scream would eventually be. But up to Part IV, they had perfected it. It’s excellently shot. It’s the scariest Jason, hands down. The guy who played Jason — his name was Ted White — was awesome. I watch it to this day and I’m just like, this is perfect. It’s literally a perfect movie, in my opinion.

Daniel: I need to get on that. I’m one of those authors who reads more books than I’ve watched horror films, so I’m slowly catching up on my horror education.

Horror has, over the last decade or so — especially since you started — gained a lot more attention. It seems to be a lot more diverse, with a lot of people championing horror in ways that probably didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago. What’s most exciting for you in the horror genre right now?

Christian: What excites me is — and this isn’t just because it also benefits me — there’s been such a huge explosion of indie horror. In books, in film, even in gaming, there’s all this indie horror and people have embraced it so fully. We’re really spoiled for options. And you still have the big budget stuff, you still have Nick Cutter dropping new books, but then you also have this wealth of indie horror books.

I’ve got a friend who writes science fiction and he’s like, “It’s a desert out there, there’s nothing.” And I’m just sitting here surrounded by opportunities and things to read and watch. It’s genuinely a golden age for us.

Daniel: It is a beautiful thing to be a part of. I’m going to ask you a tough question now. If you could only recommend one book to our audience, what would it be?

Christian: That is a tough question. I hate to go here because it’s probably one of the most popular horror novels of all time — but I have to recommend it, because for me, until I read it, I don’t think I’d ever read a horror saga. Something so big, this multi-generational horror that just goes and goes and goes, and is constantly scary. I mean, it gets a bit weird at the end, but still.

Or — you know what, actually, another one: Dan Simmons’ The Terror. I think it isn’t held on quite the same pedestal, but a lot of people love that book. And it’s dense — but it’s one of those books that, when I read it, it almost made me stop writing. Because I was like: I could never write this. This is so beyond what I could do. It was intimidating, but an excellent book.

Daniel: The last time I had that feeling, I read Daniel Krauss’s Whalefall.

Christian: Oh, okay. I have Whalefall. I haven’t read it yet. I actually met Daniel Krauss about a month ago.

Daniel: Yeah? At a convention?

Christian: Yeah, there’s a Facebook group called Books of Horror and they had their first ever author show. I was lucky enough to be invited — it was in Chicago. Daniel Krauss was there, a few big names, but mostly indie authors. And to go back to what I said about the state of indie horror — this really showed it. The event had tons of indie authors and then maybe five big-name authors. I had Daniel Krauss there, Josh Malerman was there, Donald Maass was there. And the biggest lines were for the indie authors. When I went over to Daniel Krauss’s table, there was like one person, and I’m like — meanwhile the indie author next to him has a million people waiting to get their book signed. That’s so weird.

Daniel: A shifting world. That does bring us to the end, unfortunately. Is there anything you’d like to share with the audience? Where can people find out more about you?

Christian: I’m on all social media platforms — as much as I don’t want to be. You can tell which ones I’d rather get rid of because those are the ones I’m less active on. The tricky part is I set all those accounts up before I came up with the pen name C.M. Forest, so none of them are under C.M. Forest — they’re all under my own name, Christian Laferrière, or C. Laferrière, or whatever. My TikTok is something like “Christian Writes Horror.”

But the best way is to go to my website, which is also christianlaferriere.com. Go to the links page and it’ll have everything there for easy access. Honestly, if you just search C.M. Forest, you’ll probably get my Infested cover come up. And hopefully The Roots Run Deep gets as much attention as Infested got. Fingers crossed.

Daniel: Definitely pick up a copy of The Roots Run Deep — I highly recommend it. Thank you so much for joining us, Christian. Really appreciate having you on the show.

Christian: Hey, thank you so much for having me. This was a good time.

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Daniel: And that is a wrap. A huge thank you to C.M. Forest for joining us this week on The Writer’s Chair. And an especially big thank you to you, our listeners, for tuning in. Before you dash off — if you’re craving deeper conversation, writing advice, or just fancy hanging out with fellow readers and storytellers, why not consider joining the Devil’s Rock community on Discord? I’m on a mission to build the largest online space for fans of horror and dark fiction — a home where writers and readers can connect, create, and thrive together. It’s free, open to all, and always crackling with inspiration. Head on over to devilsrockbooks.com/podcast for the invite link. And until next time, my friends — write bravely and dream dark.