A Collection of Folk Body Horror by Willy Martinez
Welcome. This page provides all necessary materials—including high-resolution images, pre-drafted press content, and interview resources—for media, reviewers, booksellers, and event organizers. All content is provided by the author and publisher, Willy Martinez/Mind on Fire Books.
I. Contact Information – Folklore and Flesh Press Kit
I am the sole contact for this title, handling all press and publishing inquiries.
| Detail | Content |
| Author Name | Willy Martinez |
| Publisher/Imprint | Mind on Fire Books (Founder & Publisher) |
| Primary Press Email | martinez@mindonfirebooks.com |
| Website | mindonfirebooks.com |
| Release Status | Preorder: November 20th |
| Official Release Date | December 4th |
II. Book Production Details
| Detail | Content |
| Title | Folklore and Flesh |
| Author | Willy Martinez |
| Publisher | Mind on Fire Books |
| Genre/Niche | Folk Body Horror (F.B.H.) / Dark Fiction & Poetry Collection 1 |
| Page Count | 140 |
| ISBN (Paperback) | 978-1-7361447-6-3 |
| ISBN (Ebook) | 978-1-7361447-7-0 |
| Key Themes | Grotesque Metamorphosis; Contagion and Ritual; Myth and the Body; Ancestral Secrets |
III. Author Images and Book Images
IV. Videos Trailer
V. Author Biography
100 word length:
Willy Martinez is a debut author and poet specializing in the sub-genre of Folk Body Horror (F.B.H.), where ancestral secrets and physical corruption collide. Their work focuses on the intense, visceral transformations that occur when isolated communities and ancient traditions demand a biological toll. Martinez’s debut short story collection, Folklore and Flesh (Mind on Fire Books), explores the shadowed places where myth becomes flesh, dissecting themes of grotesque metamorphosis, contagion, and the earth demanding a physical price. Martinez is recognized for their ability to blend the environmental dread of traditional Folk Horror with the intense, unflinching corporeal terror of the Body Horror genre.
250 word length:
Willy Martinez is an author of dark fiction and poetry, widely recognized for pioneering the term Folk Body Horror (F.B.H.), the fusion of ancient folklore with grotesque physical transformation. Their debut collection, Folklore and Flesh (Mind on Fire Books), is a testament to the power of the short story form, delivering “knockout” tension and shock through atmospheric build-up and visceral narratives. The collection explores the terrifying notion that tradition is a transmissible affliction and that the isolated landscape demands a biological conversion of the human form. Martinez’s work is celebrated for its thematic depth, dissecting the anxiety of losing control over one’s body and the consequences of inherited cultural secrets.
Martinez challenges the reader to look beyond spectral hauntings and consider how ancient beliefs physically manifest: from a beekeeper’s mind merging with a hive in Echoes of the Apiary, to a grieving mother becoming a literal memory archive in The Whispering Bone Orchard. The collection also showcases Martinez’s command of cultural myth, notably in The Siguanaba, which integrates Central American folklore with a harrowing tale of physical destiny. By focusing on the intense, painful unmaking of the human form, the hallmark of F.B.H.—Martinez offers a fresh, necessary voice that bridges the gap between literary exploration and visceral, unflinching horror.
500 word length:
Willy Martinez is a dedicated chronicler of dark literature, specializing in the visceral and cerebral intersection of folklore and physical corruption, a niche they define as Folk Body Horror (F.B.H.). Their debut collection of fiction and poetry, Folklore and Flesh (Mind on Fire Books), has been hailed as a defining work in the sub-genre, exploring the intense relationship between myth and the body.
Martinez’s approach is highly conceptual. Rather than relying on simple monsters or masked killers, their horror derives from deep-seated, cultural anxieties, focusing on how isolated environments and ancestral secrets force grotesque physical change. The core thematic elements—Grotesque Metamorphosis, Contagion and Ritual, and The Land Consumes—are consistently woven through the narratives. The author seeks to demonstrate that the price of breaking an ancient taboo is not merely death, but a painful process of unmaking, such as bones hollowing out or unwanted new organs sprouting in forbidden places.
The selection of the short story format for Folklore and Flesh is deliberate and strategic, aligning Martinez’s style with masters like H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. Many critics and readers argue that the short story is the ideal length for horror, allowing the author to deliver a “knockout” blow of shock and repulsion without the necessary baggage of extensive novel-length backstory. Martinez utilizes this constraint to maximum effect, focusing solely on the unnerving atmospheric build-up and the visceral payoff.
Folklore and Flesh takes a wide geographic and thematic scope, proving the universality of F.B.H. anxieties. The collection shifts seamlessly from a rural grove where a mother’s grief transforms her into a living relic of memory in The Whispering Bone Orchard, to the technological dread of Digital Fangs, where a viral serum mutates a beauty influencer and her followers—demonstrating that the physical corruption of tradition is now transmissible through modern means. Their inclusion of Central American folklore in The Siguanaba is also a key element of their work, exploring physical destiny and legend outside of traditional Western horror tropes.
Willy Martinez holds the philosophy that the best horror reflects contemporary fears. His work is a dissection of cultural distrust of inheritance and the modern anxiety of losing autonomy over one’s own physical form. By fusing the timeless dread of the wilderness with the body’s ultimate betrayal, Martinez positions Folklore and Flesh as a necessary voice in the modern horror landscape, defining a new path for visceral terror.
VI. Book Synopsis (Thematic Core) Folklore and Flesh Press Kit
Folklore and Flesh is a visceral debut collection operating at the intersection of two foundational anxieties: the terror of the isolated environment and the fear of the body betraying itself. This is Folk Body Horror: a fusion of ancient cultural dread and grotesque physical transformation. These tales explore the uncanny territory where myth ceases to be a story and becomes a biological instruction manual for corruption.
The collection’s overarching threat is the idea that tradition is not merely a custom, but a transmissible affliction—a contagion woven into the very fabric of the landscape. Characters are isolated in shadowed places where the natural world refuses to obey human rules. Here, ancient rituals are the mechanism of painful, unavoidable physical change. The curse for breaking a taboo is not death but a slow, excruciating process of becoming a creature you no longer recognize.
In one story, The Whispering Bone Orchard, a mother grieving her lost child seeks a shaman’s aid, only to find the sacred grove demands a biological cost, forcing her to become a living archive of the village’s buried, physical memories. Elsewhere, corruption is found in the clash between tradition and modernity: an academic studying vanishing mythology in a forgotten corner of the world discovers that the local legends are not stories, but literal blueprints for self-mutilation and transformation. In The Siguanaba, Central American folklore comes alive as a conquistador’s desperate quest for gold leads him to face a shape-shifting legend deep in the underworld.
The dread is both primal and contemporary. The biological toll demanded by the earth manifests in a wide spectrum of transformations: a lonely beekeeper merges with the hive’s collective mind in Echoes of the Apiary, blurring the line between man and swarm, while the digital age offers no sanctuary when a beauty influencer’s viral serum unleashes a monstrous metamorphosis in her followers and herself in Digital Fangs.
Willy Martinez masterfully utilizes the short story form to deliver a series of “knockout” blows, focusing purely on unnerving atmospheric build-up and visceral tension without the need for extensive conventional closure. Folklore and Flesh is an unflinching look at the raw ache of grief, the corruption of memory, and the monstrous beauty of the human condition when it is exposed to the oldest secrets of the land. This collection cements Martinez’s place as a powerful new voice dissecting how inherited cultural anxieties manifest as intense, unrelenting physical horror.
VII. Press Release
The formal announcement, dated November 12, 2025, detailing the launch and defining the F.B.H. niche.
VIII. Interview Toolkit (Sample Q&A) Folklore and Flesh Press Kit
I offer the following thematic questions to make preparation easier for podcast hosts, bloggers, and interviewers. This ensures the conversation targets the core conceptual framework of Folk Body Horror.
