In an interview given earlier this month and printed on his own website, horror master Clive Barker spoke openly in an effort to clear up rumors about his reportedly failing health, and the fact that he is still creating and developing new projects.

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The interview, conducted by Phil and Sarah Stokes, is printed in full on Barker’s website and gives a rare and candid look into the often-reclusive author’s personal life.

In 2012, Barker went in for a dental procedure and fell into a coma while in the chair after experiencing acute toxic shock from the procedure. The prolonged and arduous recovery process kept Barker under wraps for quite some time.

Naturally, the internet rumor mill kicked in and attributed his absence to everything from AIDS to drug abuse.

It was because of these rumors, some of which he admits came from people he had considered close to him.

“But it’s been very demoralising to discover that some of the people

that I trusted and loved were amongst the people who said these things – even though they fully understood that I was not incoherent and I was not stopping writing and so on,” Barker said. “So, it’s been important to me to get out into the world, and we’ll do about five conventions this year, starting with Atlanta in a few weeks, we’ll go to London almost certainly.”

Aside from those appearances, Barker opened up about new projects in the works including a new novel and two television projects.

Deep Hill, a novel he began writing during his recovery, is about half completed Barker told the Stokes, and the author describes it as one of the scariest things he has ever written in the way that it mingles fantastical creatures with real-life issues threatening the world in which we live.

Cover art for Barker’s Books of Blood

Next up is a series adaptation of his terrifying Books of Blood which he is working on with Brannon Baga (Salem, Star Trek: The Next Generation). Barker describes the series as an expansion of the original books as he has about thirty addtional tales in the style of the originals that he would like to add to this setting.

And finally, there’s the coming series adaptation of Nightbreed.

“Nightbreed is also moving forward at quite a rate with a couple of very well-known directors showing a great deal of interest in it. I am on board to provide mythologies and ideas and hopefully put the Barkerian weirdness on the material,” Barker explained. “At the moment, we’re putting the team together: we have a writer, director, producers and now that the New Year has begun we’ll all get together and start to plan the long-term narrative, not just the opening narrative which is what we’ve done so far.”

If that’s not enough to whet the appetite of Barker fans, I don’t know what will be! You can read the entire interview here.

Keep your eyes peeled–perhaps not the best reference when talking Clive Barker–as iHorror will keep you posted on details for all these projects as they become available!