Interviewers sometimes assume that I wrote The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim trilogy because horror stories intrigue me. Though there are certainly books in the genre that I find interesting, my motivation was different. I wanted to write about fear. It sometimes seems to me that it dominates our modern world, gets politicians elected, informs our moral decisions and has begun to enter the hearts and minds of so many of our young people (and the rest of us) in the form of anxiety. I did not want to write conventional novels that contained obvious discussions of this problem, but instead chose to create stories set in another time, before any real awareness of anxiety existed, or interest in the power of fear was prevalent, and follow a boy who is struggling with these issues, trying to kill his terrors. These fears, of course, take the form of famous monsters in The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim. Telling these stories also gave me the opportunity to explore literary art, and certain literary achievements and present my conviction that great art is, in a sense, alive. Demon, this third book in the trilogy, brings everything to a conclusion, exploring the role that our own minds have in giving us our fears, and the power they may have to eliminate or at least control them.

There have been a number of people involved in helping me bring this unusual tale to the page, right from the beginning. Tara Walker from Tundra Books and Penguin Random House Canada was there at the start, helping me develop the idea. Lara Hinchberger then did a great deal of the heavy work, editing these books with her unending grace and insight. Copyeditor Shana Hayes made sure it all made sense in the end, and Peter Phillips read and re-read each text, adding his invaluable input. I would also like to thank Rachel Cooper and Jennifer Lum for their wonderful cover designs.

The books would not have existed without the work of the legendary Edgar Allan Poe, who unknowingly (or not?) lent some of his style and vision, and his two first names to my stories. The Fall of the House of Usher and The Raven play specific roles in this installment. Other literary giants and their works appeared in the books, and this time, in Demon, in order to explore evil and the devil in literature, I reached all the way back to Dante Alghieri and John Milton, and leaned on their art. Re-reading The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost was a great pleasure.

I want to thank, once again and most importantly, my family—Sophie, Johanna, Hadley and Sam—all of whom understand the horrors involved in making a life and a living out of the arts.

The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim was at times a difficult world to inhabit, but it has certainly been worthwhile for me, a fascinating journey into the world of fear and its powers. The arts, I think, should explore everything, even those things that daunt us.