Ask the Author: Stephen Kozeniewski
Answered Questions (20)
Stephen Kozeniewski
I had a lot of fun with THE GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO.
Stephen Kozeniewski
The theme for the anthology was extreme horror featuring tools. When submitting to an open call, I usually like to write an idea I think other submitters will not hit upon, to increase my chances of being accepted. (Trust me, in my time as an editor I've seen that every open call has one very obvious way to address the theme, and there are only so many retellings of Little Red Riding Hood you can take for a werewolf call, for instance.) I assumed the other writers would mostly do slashers or serial killers who use various tools as weapons and I wanted to do something different. It worked, inasmuch as I got picked up, anyway. As for the title, it was inspired by an obscure '90s cartoon movie. I don't know if anybody's ever even heard of it anymore.
Stephen Kozeniewski
The case of the missing optimism.
Stephen Kozeniewski
David Wong's WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST READ
Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
Kristopher Triana's FULL BRUTAL
Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
Kristopher Triana's FULL BRUTAL
Stephen Kozeniewski
Probably Douglas Adams. The man was a very special kind of genius. Of course, one presumes that would probably make him a nightmare to work with, but I'm sure I could be the one to tame that stallion. Of course, there would also be all the benefits of money and exposure working with him, too. What can I say? I'm pragmatic as well as artistic.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Stevie and I are diligently working on it. Your first glimpse will be a short story in the upcoming FIGHT REAL MONSTERS anthology edited by Ron Davis. Then the full release will be likely late 2019.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Obviously, as a man of letters I feel freer to use all of them in my writing. Some people think that there are only 26 in the Latin alphabet, but when you account for umlauts, accents aigus, and so forth, the number really goes up quite a considerable amount!
Stephen Kozeniewski
As simulation technology improves we will begin running a nearly infinite number of them, which means that mathematically you are more likely to be a self-aware computer program than a living person. Someone was watching and could have changed every bad thing that's ever happened to you in your life, but deliberately chose not to.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Hi, David! Good question. I've always been a writer in the sense that I've always been doodling ideas and scribbling stories in notebooks and clacking away at my mother's typewriter (remember those?) with terrible juvenilia. So more germane: what finally inspired me to get off my duff and get something published?
Well, that happened when I left the army. I realized I'd always wanted to be published but I had always used one excuse or the other not to ("I'm too young," "I'm not ready," etc.) The latest excuse had been that I didn't want to publish anything that would reflect poorly on the army considering the author was representing the service. But once that was behind me I realized there was nothing really holding me back, and I had to take the lumps or accolades all on my own as a private citizen.
Well, that happened when I left the army. I realized I'd always wanted to be published but I had always used one excuse or the other not to ("I'm too young," "I'm not ready," etc.) The latest excuse had been that I didn't want to publish anything that would reflect poorly on the army considering the author was representing the service. But once that was behind me I realized there was nothing really holding me back, and I had to take the lumps or accolades all on my own as a private citizen.
Stephen Kozeniewski
THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH. That's a pretty fun one. You didn't know I knew fun places, did you?
Stephen Kozeniewski
I'm drawing a complete blank. I've never given the matter a moment's thought. I usually find the romance elements of a book an irritating distraction from the plot. Maybe Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?
Stephen Kozeniewski
As a rule, no, because that would be pretty cost prohibitive. A lot of the path of EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED was through places I have been (and the rest I just did research.) For HUNTER OF THE DEAD I based Las Vegas on my experiences there, but of course the casino and a lot of the particular locations are entirely my creation.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Bulgakov believed they didn't. Of course, he said that after burning the first draft of THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, so...
Stephen Kozeniewski
The same amount as the number of shells that she sells at the seashore.
Stephen Kozeniewski
It's generally a result of a great desire not to do my day job.
Stephen Kozeniewski
In 2001 of all times I thought that vampires had gotten too commercial and too far from their spooky folkloric roots. So I wrote a screenplay with a stated purpose of restoring vampires to their classic glory. Now I'm trying to turn that into a novel.
Stephen Kozeniewski
I don't really believe in writer's block per se. I think it's kind of an excuse. Sure, everybody ends up staring at an empty screen, sometimes for a disproportionately long time. But the temptation to write that off as "writer's block" is too great because it's easier than forcing yourself to pound away at the problem one word at a time. I just treat it like 7th grade typing class: hunt and peck until that sticky paragraph is done. And usually the sticky part is not much more than a paragraph.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Apart from the champagne baths and Scrooge McDuck pools? Getting to interact with my fans, who to a one are fun, interesting people with impeccable taste.
Stephen Kozeniewski
Don't take writing advice.
Stephen Kozeniewski
A vampire novel tentatively titled HUNTER OF THE DEAD. This has been contracted for Permuted Press as the first book in a planned trilogy.
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