01/03/2026 Fall & Winter Author Spotlight Series: Lucas Mangum

This series will be showcased on my Patreon first, every Friday this fall and winter, through early 2026. If you are not a patron, look for the new author spotlight to appear here on the blog every Saturday! These will be for incredibly talented, but lesser known, authors that truly deserve a spotlight on their work!

As is our mission here at Uncomfortably Dark, we want to be a community support and while how we do that may change over time, we will always find a way to shed light on the many wonderfully talented people in this space. Please check out their interviews, click on their links, and check out their work for yourself. I promise you will not be disappointed.

This week's spotlight is on Lucas Mangum, Splatterpunk-Award winning author, awesome friend, and talented author of all things horror and macabre. He's a friend, an author to watch, to learn from, and to admire. Lucas will help anyone that asks with questions, being both kind and knowledgeable about his craft. Lucas deserves way more recognition and I hope one day soon that he gets it! Learn more about him below and then grab a book or two!

MEET LUCAS MANGUM!

• Introduce yourself in 4 sentences or less. 

  - Hello, I'm Lucas Mangum. I was assembled with scraps of VHS tapes, code from the early internet, discarded pages from unpublished Stephen King manuscripts, and ancient spells you can only understand by rewinding old Halloween commercials. I'm a Splatterpunk Award winning author, but only a few of my books could truly qualify as "extreme." When not creating or consuming horror, I enjoy camping, running, spending time with my family, and singing.

  
  

• Describe your style of writing in 2 sentences or less. 

  - Reviewers say my books download movies that play in your mind as you're reading them. They explore themes of spirituality, the fragile nature of reality, what people do to survive, and the human psychology that underpins it all, but it's all done with B-movie sensibilities, so it's (hopefully) not as pretentious as that sounds.

• What is your favorite type of horror to write? 

  - So many of my books feature a gang of supernatural killers attacking a town or group of people gathered in a single location, but my favorite horror to write is surrealism. Think ambiguous endings, dreams bleeding into reality, that kind of thing.

• What is your favorite book or character you’ve written so far?

   - My favorite book I've written so far is Barn Door to Hell. It's a wild ride and one where the final product most closely resembled what I hoped to achieve when the idea first presented itself to me.

• Who are your top 5 favorite authors? 

  - Favorites? I'm not sure, but the authors who impacted my work the most are probably Stephen King, Sara Gran, Ray Bradbury, Bryan Smith, and J.B. Stamper.

• What most inspires you to keep writing when imposter syndrome hits the hardest? 

  - Literally nothing. When it hits hardest, I turn to the sketchbook, singing, or yardwork. Writing and I always come back to each other when we're ready.

• Is there a genre, sub-genre, or trope you’ve not written, that you’d like to try? 

  - This is a hard question to answer, but I'd probably like to write a vampire story or eventually do a riff on Frankenstein.

• What is your hope for your writing career for the next five years? As in where do you see yourself? 

  - I would like to write a big book, one of those immersive, sprawling, yet unputdownable books that could double as a doorstop or a murder weapon. I'd also like to shoot a short horror film.

• Pitch your current WIP in three sentences or less. 

  - Digital Darkness II picks up right where the first book left off: people slipping into survival horror games and survival horror games spilling into reality. Five initially unwilling game participants struggle to put the toothpaste back in the tube and bring order out of chaos.

• Where can we find you online and where can readers see you next? 

  - The best way to stay in touch is by subscribing to my Substack (that's LucasMangum.Substack.com). You'll get a weekly-ish newsletter with updates, personal essays, and occasional short fiction. You can also buy signed books at LMHorror.com. 

BIO:

Lucas Mangum is a horror author living in Central Texas. He’s a father, husband, and a fan of trashy movies. When he’s not working on a book, he’s co-hosting Make Your Own Damn Podcast with bizarro legend Jeff Burk or walking in the woods. His newsletter, posted every Monday, can be found at LucasMangum.com.