Home for Fiction

Fiction. Programming. Art. Academic Research

by Chris Angelis

"Can’t you see we’ve wasted time on reality (the way it’s wasting it on us), and instead we ought to stay asleep so we could dream?"

About Me

Home For Fiction serves a multiple role: It’s showcasing my Academic Research in the field of Gothic literature, my works of Fiction, my Apps related to writing and literature, and my Art – music (a postrock/postmetal exploration of literary and conceptual soundscapes), drawing (I am the creator of the Punning Walrus cartoon), painting, and photography.

I have a PhD in English literature from the University of Tampere. My research interests include Gothic/horror & science fiction literature, the usage of time as well as the concept of ambiguous ontology in such narratives.

In the context of writing fiction, I have published some works of horror and science fiction using a pen name, though my main authorial interest is situated in literary fiction. Common themes in my work include the repressed past, the impossibility of choices, flawed men and determined women.

If you want more information regarding the ideological drive behind Home for Fiction, read my creative manifesto.

Academic

One of my academic mentors once said: “We won't change the world simply by reading literature a different way, even against the grain. It's a matter of whether we want to be a part of communities outside the university, where issues of equality are the daily reality”. I have no interest in an academia that does not act this way, and every academic work I have produced has been a small but honest effort in that direction.

Selected Works:

“Reconfiguring the Garden of Eden: Suspended Temporality in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive”. The Eternal Return: Myth Updating In Contemporary Literature. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics. 40.2 (2017): 123-134
“Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic. Doctoral Dissertation. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2017.
“Philosophical Idealism and Vision in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Photographs, Sight, and Remote Viewing as Tools of Reality Rendering”.Word and Image: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2014.
Savolainen, Matti and Angelis, Christos. “The ‘New World’ Gothic Monster: Spatio-Temporal Ambiguities, Male Bonding, and Nation in John Richardson’s Wacousta”. Savolainen, Matti & Mehtonen, Päivi (ed & intr.).Gothic Topographies - Language, Nation Building and Race. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2013

Fiction

Why do we write fiction? Basically, we write because we have no choice.

I learned to read and write before I went to school, for purely practical reasons: I had to find a way to read Donald Duck comics myself, as my folks got bored of doing it for me. One day, when I was perhaps seven years old, I read a Donald Duck mystery which was divided into two parts. The first one ended in a cliffhanger, and I sadly had no access to the second part. That was seriously devastating. I solved the problem the only way I could: I took pen and paper and wrote the ending the way I imagined it to be. Those three paragraphs were my first work of fiction.

The moral of this story is that writing – like any artistic expression – is an answer to a problem. In a way, writing helps you change your humdrum or unpleasant reality for a better one.

Selected Works:

	It was a sunny May morning when I realized I was a cat – one who could think like a human. I had no other memory, no knowledge of who I was. Had I been a human reincarnated as a cat, or a cat possessed by a human? I knew I couldn't afford to waste my time on such trivialities; I had someplace to be. I had to cross the world, even if it was the last thing I'd do. In the still cold Nordic Europe, a tuxedo cat catches a glimpse of himself in a window and it changes everything: He realizes he possesses human knowledge – of history, geography, languages. Though he has no memory of the past, he feels a vague but pressing need to leave immediately for Greece, where he feels there's someone waiting for him. But the dreams and visions accompanying his journey seem to reflect a deeper, darker reality.
	A man receiving messages from his dead father… Two lovers breaking into their neighbor's apartment to discover a familiar secret… A teenage girl dealing with the divorce of her parents and her traumatic past… Summer scenes spread in space and time, lives both past and future. Like brushstrokes on the canvas of consciousness, they create worlds that are at the same time new and known, concrete and abstract, personal and collective. Nostalgic dreams and what-might-have-beens become bridges connecting memory and experience, reaching surreal realms where reality converges with imagination.
	“There is something you could do for me,” he says, and in this moment, of this deceptively mundane afternoon, I can read the future and see that this man will destroy my life as I know it. Hecate, trying to mend her relationship with her mother while recovering from a past trauma, leads a solitary existence shared only with her pet chameleon, Apollo. But a chance encounter with a younger man will throw her into a world where conflicts are necessary, pleasing others is secondary, and ethics are negotiable.
	He ekes out a meager living battling society’s prejudices and his own traumatic memories. She's struggling with alcohol addiction. An unexpected lottery win changes their lives overnight, and they begin to travel around Europe, discovering more about themselves and each other. But soon the darker truth behind his past as well as her future will force an unexpected endgame.

Apps

The story of how I got into programming is lost in the depths of history. Suffice to say, my first computer was a Spectrum 128 - that's 128K of RAM, folks; more than 30,000 times less than your average smartphone. But its primitive BASIC programming language helped me learn the “IF this THEN that” kind of logic.

When you think about it, it's not all that different today. That's why it didn't take me long to learn some HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP to work with my websites.

Selected Apps:

	Narrative Nods is a fiction development program I coded for my own use. It's packed with tools to help you improve on all core aspects of writing – everything I’ve learned in 25+ years of writing fiction and 12+ years of university experience – that make a good narrative, from efficient character types and solid narrative antagonism, to a coherent narrative structure and genre considerations.
	Fantasy Language Generator is a program that creates fantasy languages, generating made-up words corresponding to the 30,000 most common English words, at the same time creating its own linguistic patterns. This can be extremely useful to authors or fantasy or science fiction who are interested in creating a coherent, consistent fantasy language.
	The Clock Village is first and foremost an interactive fiction experience. Though you move around, engage in interactive dialogues, collect and use items, and try to increase the score that will let you get a “better” ending, The Clock Village is something more artistic than a simple game. Perhaps it’s a philosophical exploration of self. Or maybe a short interactive reflection of our innermost existential anxieties. Maybe, like true art, it simply is what its experiencer wants it to be.
	Mansion Escape is a modern text adventure game, in the style of the early computer-game era, but updated for modern audiences, with attractive visuals, immersing sounds, enhanced playability, 14 different endings, and over 80 items to use; or misuse. If you like mysteries, games like Clue, and the 1950s vibe, you'll love this!

Art

There are no "kinds" or art; there is only art. Writing or coding, music, drawing, or photography, they are all aspects of one and the same force; the drive behind expression, the desire to will a better reality into being.

Music

The Focus Protocol is a music vehicle for some of my artistic ideas, an experimental exploration of postrock and postmetal music, an allegory of narrative without plot.

Click to display the embedded player

More Albums and Free Downloads on:

YouTubeBandcamp

I recommend Bandcamp. YouTube might show you ads placed there by Google, against my will. Needless to say, they don't share any profits with me, either. I only offer YouTube as a convenience for those who want it.

Visual Arts

Vision has never been an issue, I could always see the world – I've even worked as a professional photographer for a while. Drawing and painting, however, are a more recent development. Thanks to digital tools (I wouldn't even know how to hold a real brush), I realized I could attempt to overcome problems of technique related to practicalities and focus on vision.

Here are some random samples of my paintings, photos, and my fun, linguistically self-aware little cartoon, Punning Walrus.

More on my music, Punning Walrus, my painting, and my photography…

Contact Me

If you have a question, a suggestion, or feedback, you can contact me on info@homeforfiction.com – it's very important to check the FAQ first.

Don't forget to also check the Home for Fiction Blog where you can find hundreds of articles on literature, writing tips, programming, philosophy, society, and other topics