Weldon Burge's Blog, page 7
October 12, 2015
Meet Paranormal Thriller Author Sandra R. Campbell
Sandra R. Campbell can trace her passion for the macabre back to reading Edgar Allan Poe as a child�with her pet crow, Big Fellow, by her side. She has since submerged herself in a wide range of dark literature. An avid thrill seeker, Sandra always looks for her next big adrenaline rush. And when spelunking, climbing, and monster hunting fail to deliver, she turns to creating through-the-rabbit-hole worlds and sends her characters on their own adventures. Her novels include Butterfly Harvest, Dark Migration, and most recently The Dead Days Journal.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sandra last year at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference, and was impressed with one of her panel discussions. She kindly agreed to the following interview.
Weldon Burge (WB): Well, let�s start with something a little different. I know you spend a good deal of time on the water and live near the Chesapeake Bay. Has this passion influenced your writing at all? If so, how?
Sandra Campbell (SC): Tranquil waterways and writing are big passions in my life. Water is my escape�a quiet paradise where I go to unwind and recharge. Writing is what I do when I need to create. After my move to the bay area I noticed more water settings and nautical terms popping up in my books, but other than that these two passions are very much separate.
WB: Your novels are often called paranormal romance. Would you debate that classification? Do you see the books as more paranormal or more romance? Or something else entirely?
SC: I would debate that classification. Relationships are a huge part of all of our lives, and so it�s only natural to include relationships in my writing. However, romances are known, if not formulated, to have happy endings. I have yet to write a happy ending. In fact, my critique group challenged me to write one. Two years later, I still haven�t managed to come up with a single happy ending.
My writing has always crossed genres. I prefer to make the story more about the character�s journey and less about the romance. The most common thing I hear from fans is that my works of fiction are unique. �Unique Fiction� would be a great new genre classification, but since it doesn�t exist (yet!), I�d say my books are paranormal thrillers. Fast-paced, action packed with a touch of intimacy and a monster on the side.
WB: Your first novel, Butterfly Harvest (and its sequel, Dark Migration) has as the protagonist a young girl, Seanna Raines, who meets an ancient being, Samuel, who imbues her with special powers. What gave you the idea for the books? And is this a planned trilogy?
SC: This is a planned trilogy: the third installment is in progress. As for the idea, there was more than one that led to the creation of the series. Since I am part of the 4% of the adult population that suffers from night-terrors, most of my writing ideas begin without my actual knowledge. I�ve learned that the subconscious mind is a powerful and useful writing tool. Have you ever woken up from a dream, only to realize you�re still asleep and dreaming? Well, I wanted to see if I could create that mysteriously eerie feeling in a book. Butterfly Harvest is about a misfit teen who wants to change her life, but doesn�t have the means to do so. She spends all her time daydreaming and when Samuel arrives the blurred lines between her reality and dreamscape take a turn for the worse.
WB: Who do you envision as your typical reader? Describe him or her as if the person is sitting across from you at the kitchen table.
SC: I picture my typical reader as youthful and energetic. They�re clever and open-minded, someone who is always ready to jump into a new experience. They take things as they come and adapt quickly to change. When they pick up a book, they can tap into their own imagination and visualize the words. For them, the author is a guide, because they are the ones who ultimately bring the story to life and make it their own.
If one of my readers was sitting across from me, I�d describe her as happy and polite. Her hair is swept into a ponytail and her blue running shoes are worn from plenty of use. Beside her sits a beat-up backpack that she carries with her always. The contents of the bag include the latest novel for bouts of spontaneous reading and a small first aid kit in case she takes a spill along the hiking trail.
WB: Your latest novel, The Dead Days Journal, is a post-apocalyptic novel focusing on survival�but the real focus, I think, is on the relationship between the father and daughter, Vincent and Leo Marrok. I�m just curious�how much research was required to write this tale? And, perhaps more important, why the conflict between father and daughter?
SC: Family dynamics are complicated and vary greatly from one family unit to the next. They also happen to be very interesting, to me anyway. Differences in culture, religion and upbringing have always fascinated me. More and more I�ve noticed the strongest families are not those of blood, but the ones of our own choosing. The bond between parent and child, or in this case a father and daughter, is a bond that should never be severed. But far too many headlines show the opposite happening. With mental illness on the rise there is an increase in reports of parents killing their children, and children murdering their parents.
In this story, Vincent has a rigid set of values that he�s instilled in his daughter, Leo. Throughout her struggle to survive, Leo stays true to her father�s teachings even when it means she has to destroy him. I think we�ve all witnessed family dysfunction in one form or another. My fictional tale just takes it to a new level of sinister. Families are about sacrifice and sometimes the choices one makes to ensure their loved ones� safety goes beyond the rules of right and wrong. Leo is not only forced to walk that line, she has to redefine it.
WB: Do you work from an outline, or just wing it?
SC: The first two novels I wrote, Butterfly Harvest and Dark Migration, both had outlines that sprawled over twenty pages or more. However, The Dead Days Journal was completely off-the-cuff. I liked it. There was an extra added freedom to not knowing what would happen next. I kept that �anything goes� feeling from beginning to end.
WB: How do you find the time for your writing?
SC: Finding the time to write is very difficult. I work full-time and have a long commute. So, at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is sit down in front of a computer�especially after having been on one all day. But I found that if I don�t purge my creative mind I get cranky.
WB: If you could go back a decade, what would you do differently in your writing career?
SC: I would have started writing seriously a whole lot sooner.
WB: Who are your favorite authors? Which one(s) do you most try to emulate?
SC: Christopher Moore, John Connolly, Clive Barker are just a few of many. I hope in some way I emulate a little piece of each of these fabulous authors: Moore�s odd sense of humor, Connolly�s charming wit, and of course, Barker�s exceptional gift for gore.
WB: What�s next on your writing agenda?
SC: This summer my focus will be on collaborative writing projects. The second weekend in August, I am teaching a collaborative writing workshop, with my writing partner, for the Mid-Atlantic Fiction Writers Institute. We also have a horror web-series that we are finishing on our fiction website: waterfrontwriters.com. After that, I will be working simultaneously on the third installment of the Butterfly Harvest series and the second book of The Dead Days Journal story.
WB: We originally met at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference, and I know you were involved in the panel discussions. How important do you think it is to attend writers� conferences and conventions? What do you find most valuable about them?
SC: Writing conferences are extremely important and I never knew how much until I attended one. It�s been said that writing is a solitary task, but it�s not. Even writers need a support system. Being part of the writing community is vital to any writer. If you want to advance in your career and expand your knowledge, you have to make contacts, gain exposure, and learn the tricks-of-the-trade. Conferences and conventions are one-stop shopping, they have it all.
Once a writer realizes the benefits of a critique group, attending writing conferences, and communicating with other writers, their life as a writer becomes more enriched and perhaps a tad easier. I know for a fact that if I hadn�t joined the Maryland Writers� Association, I never would have become the director of a critique group. I wouldn�t have a fiction website, or created a book-length web series, and I probably wouldn�t have finished my second novel. Well, at least not without the support of other writers.
WB: One last question, just for fun. If you were marooned on a tropical island with two other novelists, which ones would you prefer to share a palm tree with? And, aside from discussing survival tactics, what conversations would you hope to initiate?
SC: I�d like to share the shade of my palm tree with two horror greats�Clive Barker and Stephen King. I�d love to tap into their creative genius. Hopefully we�d spend our evenings sipping coconut milk and telling tales of the horrid monsters that are about to descend upon us at any moment.
WB: Thanks, Sandra!
For more on Sandra R. Campbell, visit her website at http://www.sandrarcampbell.com/.
June 28, 2015
Reflecting on Pearl Harbor
At the Arizona Memorial, it's incredible to see the massive hulk of the sunken battleship just under the water, knowing that hundreds of men are still entombed there. The film reel shown at the museum depicting the exploding ship, lifting its mass 10 feet above the water, was jaw-dropping. Most of the men on board, probably sleeping on an early Sunday morning, never had a chance�and likely never knew what hit them. Walking through the memorial was somewhat eerie, with people talking in hushed tones, if talking at all. The large wall at the end of the memorial, listing all the men who perished there, is nothing short of mind-numbing. But I noticed many Japanese visitors looking up at the wall, and then bowing their heads and closing their eyes in contemplation, in reverence. You cannot leave the memorial without feeling humbled.
I was particularly interested in learning more about Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander of the Japanese attack force on Pearl Harbor. He orchestrated the bombing and strafing of the ships in the harbor, killing thousands of military personnel and civilians. He was also the one who uttered the famous "Tora Tora Tora" ("Tiger Tiger Tiger"), the code phrase indicating the surprise attack had been successful. After Pearl Harbor, he personally led air attacks against American and other allied bases throughout the Pacific.
Most people don't know that, shortly after the war, Fuchida converted to Christianity and became an evangelist, touring the United States and parts of Asia, spreading the Gospel for the remainder of his life. He came to love America, and even obtained a resident card�although he never became a citizen. My understanding is that he felt he didn't deserve to be a citizen. I found it fascinating that Fuchida, who despised America during the war and, with a samurai mentality, was bent on revenge, found forgiveness in the United States and came to love its people.
One reason I was so interested in Mitsuo Fuchida is because I own a signed copy of his book, From Pearl Harbor to Golgotha, published in 1953. Beneath his name is a Bible verse written in Japanese. The reference is to Luke 23:34�"Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
Think about that for a minute.
I have long thought about Fuchida's inscription in the book. During our visit to the Arizona Memorial, we witnessed Japanese visitors bowing in reverence before the lists of names of those young men still entombed beneath the memorial. And it then occurred to me: Our enemies of today are often our friends of tomorrow. We hold no animosity toward the Japanese, nor do they toward us. What happened at Pearl Harbor was a sad, painful moment in our past�for both nations. Mitsuo Fuchida certainly came to understand this.
Perhaps, 30 or 40 years from now, our current enemies in the Middle East will be visiting the Twin Tower Memorial, reflecting in quiet reverence on the past and of the many lives that ended there, much like our Japanese friends who now visit the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial.
We can only hope ...
May 3, 2015
Meet Suspense/Thriller Writer and Publisher Austin S. Camacho
Austin S. Camacho is the author of five novels in the Hannibal Jones Mystery Series, four in the Stark and O�Brien adventure series, and the detective novel, Beyond Blue. Austin is deeply involved with the writing community. He is a past president of the Maryland Writers Association, past Vice President of the Virginia Writers Club, and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. He is part owner of Intrigue Publishing, and was the chief organizer for the annual Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity (C3) Conference near Baltimore.
I had the pleasure of meeting Austin two years ago at the C3 conference, as well as working with him on his story �One of Us� for the Insidious Assassins anthology, published by Smart Rhino Publications. I recently managed to catch up with Austin and used the opportunity to talk with him about latest projects.
Weldon Burge (WB): You�ve written a good many suspense/thriller novels, including the Hannibal Jones mystery series, the Stark and O�Brien adventure series, and most recently a detective novel, Beyond Blue. Let�s start with the series. What do you find most appealing about writing series? Do you find the series easier to market than stand-alone novels?
Austin Camacho (AC): The most important point about character development is that people are changed by the events they experience. So the most appealing part of writing a series is that I get to follow up on those changes. I�ve followed the rising and advancing of Hannibal Jones� spirit, and the rocky path along which Stark (a mercenary) and O�Brien (a thief) are following toward becoming actual heroes, in part due to their friendship. And I think series are easier to market because readers get caught up in characters more than in plots.
WB: Your latest novel, Beyond Blue, is about a team of detectives whose only purpose is to help police officers in trouble. What sparked the idea for this novel? How much research was involved in pulling the book together?
AC: My friend & fellow writer Warren Murphy came up with the idea. I was immediately captivated for two reasons. First, I think a high-profile handful of dirty cops give all cops a bad name. These guys put their lives on the line every day and get little support from the community. Also, the book has a unifying theme. The Beyond Blue agency is financed by a wealthy Muslim whose son was in the Towers on 9/11 and saved by a NY cop.
My research involved talking to a lot of policemen who gave examples of good cops being hung out to dry.
WB: You�ve also written many short stories for anthologies and other publications. What do you find appealing about writing short stories, as opposed to longer fiction?
AC: Truth is, I�m not much of a short story writer because I never know what to write about. But for some reason, when an editor gives me a theme to write to, I can do it. For example, it never occurred to me to write a story from a professional killer�s point of view until I was invited to submit to Insidious Assassins. Faced with that specific challenge, a very cool idea came to me.
WB: What is your most vexing problem when writing?
AC: I develop character histories and backstory to a very deep degree� and then it is difficult for me not to dump all that info on the reader. Usually I end up writing in way too much, then having to go back and cut it all out.
WB: If you could start your writing career over, what would you do differently?
AC: I�d have done more research into the business of writing before I submitted anything to anyone. Early on I accepted a lot about small presses that isn�t true of most of them.
WB: What�s next on your writing agenda?
AC: It�s a cycle: I�m rewriting and editing the most recent Hannibal Jones, writing the next Stark & O�Brien, and beginning the complex plotting challenge of the next Beyond Blue.
WB: Let�s switch gears and turn to your role as a publisher. You�re part owner of an indie publishing company, Intrigue Publishing, which specializes in thrillers and mysteries. What was your biggest challenge in starting the company?
AC: Our business model calls for us to behave as much as possible like a major publisher, which means we spend more time getting a book out than most small presses. The challenge was and is dealing with authors who think we should get the book out faster, who don�t want the level of editing we do, or who want the kind of control over the project you only get when you self-publish.
WB: What do you find most rewarding as a publisher?
AC: Sitting at the Love is Murder Con in Chicago this year and watching two of our authors win awards (Best Thriller for Death and White Diamonds by Jeff Markowitz and Best Police Procedural for Retribution by Annie Rose Alexander)�seeing those authors� faces light up when they heard their names�I remember thinking, �Yeah, THIS is why we do it!�
WB: Wearing your editor�s hat, what is your primary advice to writers for submitting work?
AC: Pay attention to detail and give us your best. We�re not just buying your book, we�re buying YOU. If I think you�re the kind of writer who doesn�t care about spelling and punctuation, or won�t fact check his work, or will resist editorial guidance, we�ll say no thank you even if your writing and story are superior.
WB: Now, switching to your marketing hat, what should writers do to promote their own work, especially when working with an indie publisher?
AC: No. 1: Build a platform. The more people who know you, the better, so find your natural audience. Who should want to read your book? Find them.
No. 2: Buzz your book. A Facebook post per day is good, but you can�t tweet too much. Keep your name and title out there.
No. 3: Establish a relationship with bookstores in your area. It�s not just social media.
I got this email from Jeff Markowitz, author of the aforementioned Death and White Diamonds: �I learned today that at least four Barnes & Noble stores in central Jersey have Death and White Diamonds in stock, in the store, on the shelf. Actually, I learned of the first store by accident and then spent the remainder of the day driving to various B & N stores to see for myself. At three of the four stores, I autographed the store's book stock while I was there. And two of the four seemed receptive to arranging an in-store event.�
What publisher wouldn�t throw their efforts behind this guy? We�re calling the stores and sending them posters and bookmarks.
WB: Let�s talk about the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference for a minute. Can you give us your quick, down-and-dirty promotional pitch for the conference? What do you hope attendees will get out of it?
AC: The C3 Con gathers readers and writers of mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal fiction. The registration fee includes five meals: Friday�s dinner, 3 meals Saturday and Sunday breakfast, so readers and writers dine side-by-side. It also includes a video interview authors can use on their own websites after the con. Published authors get to spend time with their fans, and to expose new readers to their writing by presenting on panels. Their books will be available in our on-site bookstore and there will be dedicated book-signing times. Each author�s name and a link will be posted on the C3 website. They will be pictured in the C3 program book and invited to contribute to the C3 blog.
WB: What prompted you to take on such a Herculean task to organize the event?
AC: I�ve had so much fun at the smaller genre cons around the country� Magna Cum Murder, Killer Nashville, Love is Murder�but none of them is in the mid-Atlantic area. I wanted the same thing closer to home. And there were a few things at each that I thought could be done better, as if the people putting them on didn�t attend each others� event. So I wanted to take the best bits of each, and I think we have.
WB: What can we expect from this year�s conference?
AC: A great time! The Creatures, Crimes & Creativity (C3) con in Hunt Valley MD takes place September 25-27 this year. Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson will be keynote speakers, but that�s only the beginning. Readers and fans will enjoy panels and presentations from favorite authors, including those I just mentioned, both of whom have written best-sellers in the paranormal, suspense, mystery, thriller, fantasy, and horror genres. Local guest authors include mystery and sci-fi author Andy Straka and thriller writer S.D. Skye, both award winners in their own rights.
Each attendee will receive a goodie-bag filled with cool stuff, including our exclusive anthology filled with stories written by attending authors. Plus fun events like book signings, a Twitter contest, and a scavenger hunt, with lots of valuable prizes. You can see all the details and register at http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com.
WB: One last question, just for fun. You�re planning an outdoor barbecue on July 4th, and you can invite four special guests�authors or fictional characters, contemporary or from the past. Who do you invite? And what conversation would you hope to initiate?
AC: Wow! I get the time machine and the fictional universe? Well then, it�s a mob scene with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Professor Challenger, Scarlet Pimpernel, Dupin, Raffles, Doc Savage, Monk Mayfair, Nero Wolfe, Lord Peter Whimsey, Dennis Nayland Smith, The Shadow, The Spider, Bulldog Drummond, James Bond, and Travis McGee. They�re all related, you know. Almost all have gray eyes, a recessive trait that gives them away.
All the people I wanted to be when I was younger, and I get to really get to know them! I�d see the world�s greatest chess game round-robin�and secretly hope a fight would break out.
WB: Now wouldn�t that be something! Thanks, Austin!
For more on Austin Camacho, visit his website at http://www.ascamacho.com and his blog at http://ascamacho.blogspot.com. Intrigue Publishing�s website is http://intriguepublishing.com. If you�re interested in the C3 conference, check out the website at http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com.
(A version of this interview was also published in the March 2015 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
September 2, 2014
Meet Debut Horror/SF Novelist Christian A. Larsen
Chris Larsen�s first novel, Losing Touch, has garnered much praise and acclaim since it was published by Post Mortem Press last year, winning several awards and receiving rave reviews. The horror/sci-fi novel focuses on a typical beleaguered husband/father, Morgan Dunsmore, who is not only watching his life dissolve around him, but is also losing physical tangibility. Being able to �phase� through solid matter sounds like a superhuman ability, but for Morgan it proves to be more horrific than heroic.
Chris has also written numerous short stories for anthologies and other publications. I had the pleasure of working with him on his story �The Little Things� for the Zippered Flesh 2 anthology. I recently managed to catch up with Chris and used the opportunity to talk with him about his book, his writing, and his future.
Weldon Burge (WB): Your novel, Losing Touch, won the Preditors & Editors Award for �Best Horror Novel� of 2013. The book has been well-received just about everywhere. Not bad for a debut novel! To what do you attribute your success?
Chris Larsen (CL): I was talking to my wife, Maureen, about this the other day. I really don�t feel like I�ve accomplished much, but if you would have told me five years ago that I would have a novel published with a foreword by Piers Anthony�and won an award for it to boot�I�d have told you that you were shitting me. I think what I mean by that is that �success� is a relative term, kind of like �old� or �rich.� It�s not the sales or the accolades that make me feel successful�it�s the positive comments and reviews. When I know that I�ve reached a reader, that�s success, and it�s measured one reader at a time.
I really couldn�t tell you how I achieved that success, though. I just wrote a novel that I wanted to read. Or I tried to, anyway. There were times (many times) that I finished writing for the day and I thought that what I put on paper (read: �the screen�) was absolute crap. But a writer writes. You just keep pushing forward until people starting reading and liking what you�ve written. And it took me a while. I mean, I started �writing� when I was 10, finished my first novel at 27 (don�t look for it on Amazon�it�s safely locked in a trunk where it will stay, forever and always), and published a couple of dozen short stories before I even took a crack at novel writing.
WB: What does your family think of all this?
CL: Maureen and my boys are big reasons why I�ve achieved the success that I have. They let me do this. I take time away from them every day to put in time writing. They give me that time, and they really don�t have to. I�m even tempted to argue that they shouldn�t. But they do.
WB: Morgan Dunsmore, the lead character of the novel, seems like an �everyman� who is forced to deal with a bizarre affliction that changes his life. Despite his superhuman ability, he comes off as very human and flawed. How much of Morgan Dunsmore would you say is Chris Larsen?
CL: When I started writing Losing Touch, I just wrote what I knew. I figured that I would change the �too-autobiographical� stuff later, but I never did. So I must shamefacedly admit that quite a bit of Morgan Dunsmore is me, and vice versa�not that I can walk through walls, but I�ve made bad decisions, had unhealthy relationships, and, with the great recession of 2008, a fair bit of financial stress. I went from being a radio rock jock to an English teacher to a novelist in the space of three years. It gave my bank account whiplash. A number of people with whom I am close made it into the book, too, and my mom has spent the year since the book was published telling anyone and everyone that she is not Morgan�s mom. She�s not, really, at least in whole. Every character is based on at least a couple of people, but the people close to me recognize themselves, I�m sure, and�I�m saying this to them, now�I�m really sorry. But the part about Morgan being a frustrated Chicago Bears fan? I wrote that from the heart.
WB: What was your biggest challenge when writing the novel?
CL: Not giving up. I wanted to give up after almost every writing session. I just thought what I was writing was terrible. And lest you think that I�m one of those low self-esteem types, I�m not. I was really just unable to read Losing Touch without thinking I took a metaphorical shit on my computer. It wasn�t until Piers Anthony wrote the foreword that I thought I might actually have something here, and it took me four months to work up the guts to even ask him.
The other challenge I dealt with was putting words to page every day. I don�t know how it is with other writers, but you give me any excuse not to write, and I�ll probably take it. And here�s the weird part: I love writing! Maybe this is part of the I-hate-everything-I-write challenge. But you know, when you are a writer, it�s your job. A police officer doesn�t feel like policing�that�s a problem. Same goes for me. So I roll up my sleeves and write every day (or most days), and let other people tell me if what I created was any good.
WB: Do you work from an outline, or pretty much improvise?
CL: I never work from an outline, and 99% of the editing I do is in-line, meaning I do it while I�m writing. At least, that�s how it went down with Losing Touch, which started out as an unfinished short story. It didn�t have any traction and I left it sitting there on my hard drive. When I was batting around ideas for a novel, a friend of mine suggested I revisit the-guy-who-can-walk-through-walls story, which isn�t really all that surprising, because this friend was always a big comic book/superhero kind of guy, even though that�s not quite how the book plays out. I changed the main character�s back story and life situation, and voila, the story had legs. Morgan is out-of-work husband and father in the Chicago suburbs who loves the Bears. In the aborted short story version, he started out as a senior citizen living in rural Wisconsin who cheered for the Packers. Write what you know.
I also thought the novel would have to be about fifty-thousand words when I started. But, about halfway there, I found out that first novels in the sci-fi/horror genre really have to be about eighty-thousand words to sell. I had no idea how I was going to �stretch� it to that length, but looking back now on the roughly eighty-two-thousand word story, I really don�t know how I could have made it any shorter. The story tells the writer what it wants to be�not an outline. At least, that�s how it works for me.
WB: You�ve been an English teacher, radio personality, newspaper reporter, and I suspect you�ve held a number of other jobs over the years. How have these diverse experiences educated you to become a better writer?
CL: Life experience is the writer�s notebook. It�s true that I�ve worked in a bunch of different industries and met a bunch of people with a fairly wide spectrum of life experiences that I suspect have crept into my writing, but the most important thing is to observe your surroundings, whatever they might be. Sure, a police detective like Joe McKinney lives a pretty interesting life and that informs his writing in some fairly obvious ways, but I�d say a receptionist at a doctor�s office could also draw on his or her life experiences to write a damned interesting story. The important thing is to make it real, or seem real, even when it�s fantastic. The life experience that I drew on the most when I was writing Losing Touch was being unemployed. Not very exciting stuff, on the face of it, but I think the realism, the stark desperation of the situation, gave it something that my readers can identify with, even if they didn�t live through Morgan�s exact situation. (Heck, I didn�t even live through his exact situation.)
WB: What (or who) inspires you?
CL: Everything. Every little thing can be the cornerstone around which you construct a story. Losing Touch really had its beginnings way, way back when I was in junior high, when my seventh-grade science teacher said that you could walk through walls if you lined up your molecules just right. It was a throwaway statement in the middle of a larger lesson, but I held onto it for 25 years until it turned into the beginnings of Losing Touch. I even reference the science teacher�s statement in the story, but I changed his name. Slightly.
WB: Do you have any rituals/habits you must do when you sit down to write?
CL: I do most of my writing in the afternoon on my laptop, while lying in bed. I need the door closed because my kids� idea of quiet and mine are two totally different things. I also screw around a lot on the internet while I�m writing. A lot. I used to write for a set amount of time, but found that the screwing around ate up most of that, so now I write at least 500 words a day, which isn�t much, but it adds up. I wrote Losing Touch in four months using that regimen.
When I�m done with a novel, I find that I take a lot of time off from writing, sometimes as much as six months, which makes me feel really, really guilty. I mean, I�m a writer, right? If a writer isn�t writing, he�s nothing. But I�m pretty good at convincing myself that I earned that time off, mostly because once I�m done with a big project, I�m pretty empty. I don�t know�thinking about my answer just feels like a bag full of excuses. Maybe I should just cut it out and write every day. Yes. I should do that.
WB: Your short stories have been published in numerous anthologies, including Chiral Mad, Zippered Flesh 2, The Best of The Horror Society 2013, A Feast of Frights, What Fears Become, and many others. Any advice for novice writers trying to crack the antho market?
CL: I started out by writing a bunch of stories, polishing them to a fine sheen, and then sending them everywhere. When I was brand-new to the biz, I didn�t know the good publishers from the bad, but I learned. In fact, I found Post Mortem Press (the publisher of Losing Touch) when I submitted for their anthology, The Ghost IS the Machine. So submitting to a bunch of places gives you a good feel for what the publishing houses are, and how they do business.
I got a lot of rejections, like everybody, so you new writers out there (newer than me, anyway�and I�m still pretty green), keep at it. I�ve had some stories rejected a ton of times, but I just kept at it with them until they find a home. It�s like dating in some ways. Most find their mate, eventually. And the good rejections give you pointers about how the story might be improved. Even if you don�t make the changes to that story, you pick up on the lesson for the next. It makes you a better writer.
The other great thing about appearing in anthologies is that you (virtually) get to meet a lot of other writers, and I�ve found that the writing community is one of the most supportive, collegial communities out there. I absolutely love appearing at conventions and events with other writers, because they are genuinely fun people�people who think like you�and you can pick their brains about the writing process or the publishing business. You don�t have to talk to Stephen King to learn something. Just the other guy, doing the same thing you are. There�s so much collective experience out there.
WB: Let�s talk for a minute about editors. What do you find most frustrating about working with editors? The most rewarding?
CL: I�ve had the good luck of working with some terrific editors. I�ve been frustrated once or twice with requests for rewrites, but it was mostly a communication issue. I�m glad I kept my cool, because I was happy with the end result, as published, and I think the editors were, too.
The most rewarding thing about working with editors, especially anthology editors, is the beautiful, finished product, of which I am only a small part. It�s so incredibly cool to be part of something bigger than yourself, put together and packaged in a way you would never have the patience or talent to do yourself. Getting into an anthology is like boarding a party bus, and a good editor is the driver. There are rules, and as long as you follow them, everybody gets funky!
WB: One thing I�ve noticed is that you are quite savvy when it comes to social media, and you seem to be a perpetual blogger. Do you think, from a marketing perspective, that these technical skills are now prerequisites for success for the modern writer?
CL: You�ve got to be able to promote yourself, however you can. I blog, Tweet, post to Facebook, and do as many events as I possibly can. On average, I do a signing or reading (or both) about once a month. And it�s one of the things that�s convinced me that I�m in the right line of work, because I love it. But technology�it�s not like I�m a computer programmer or anything. Anybody can sign up for a free blog, or Twitter, or Facebook. You just got to get out there and do it.
WB: What�s next on your writing agenda? Another novel in the works?
CL: I finished a novel in 2013 called The Afterwalkers about a kind of vampire. He�s sort of like a nachzehrer, which is a kind of German vampire that doesn�t suck blood. He wakes up once a generation and feeds on the life force of people, but doesn�t really remember anything about who he is � not what he is, he knows that, but he has to make up aliases and back stories every time he wakes up, because it�s a blank slate. It�s in the editing process right now.
I�m also working on a novel called Hive Mind about zombies. It�s not a zombie apocalypse story, and it�s not a virus or radiation or anything that causes them to come back. I�m about halfway through the first draft on that. About forty-thousand words.
WB: One last question, just for fun: The Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers? And why?
CL: I�ve never been a Three Stooges fan, so I�ll go with the Marx Brothers by default, even though I don�t really have much experience with them. Groucho was known for saying some pretty brilliantly hilarious things, though, so I feel pretty good about that vote. But if I�m really going with my heart, I�m going to write-in Laurel & Hardy. Far and away two of the funniest men in the history of funny. I love watching their stuff with my kids�because it�s still funny, despite the fact that it�s 80 years old or so, and some of it is even silent. That kind of thing transcends time and generation, and I love that my kids love it, too.
WB: Thanks, Chris!
For more on Chris Larsen, visit his blog at http://exlibrislarsen.com
(A version of this interview was also published in the August 2014 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
May 26, 2014
Matthew Iden�Writer of Many Genres
Matthew Iden is a self-published, independent writer of crime fiction, fantasy, psychological suspense, science fiction, and literary fiction. He�s probably best known for his series character, Marty Singer�a surprisingly upbeat detective series about a retired Washington DC Homicide cop who rights wrongs and tries to keep his life in order while battling cancer. The series began with A Reason to Live (April 2012), followed by Blueblood (September 2012), One Right Thing (May 2013), and The Spike (December 2013). He has also written short stories for anthologies in various genres, and is working on his debut Western, The Orphans.
Matt has been self-publishing since the fall of 2011, after years of attempting to break through the doors of traditional publishing. He has devoted much time and effort toward understanding self-publishing, and has been constructing his career using the strategies he has learned.
I met Matt at the Creatures, Crimes, & Creativity conference near Baltimore last September, and found him highly approachable, knowledgeable, and witty. He kindly agreed to the following interview.
Weldon Burge (WB): Well, let�s start with your serial character, Marty Singer. He�s a retired cop who seems destined to help people in bad situations. How much (and what) research was required to bring Marty to life?
Matthew Iden (MI): Constructing Marty�s life has involved two challenges. First, although I have several friends who are cops, I�ve never worked in law enforcement. That means even the most basic procedures and terms in Marty�s life were�and are�mysteries to me. I ask tons of questions that I�m sure even the greenest academy rookie could answer. Even then, I still get some of it wrong. My law enforcement friends are generous, patient, and don�t (usually) make fun of me.
The second issue involves the overriding concern in Marty�s life, which is that he is diagnosed with cancer in the debut, A Reason to Live. I�ve had family and friends who have had the disease, but each experience is different and getting this wrong was not an option. I reached out to oncology nurses and patient advocates early on and they were incredibly helpful. Library and online research filled in the rest. I�m proud to say I�ve been contacted by many victims of the disease who have thanked me for accurately portraying what they�re going through without going overboard or sinking into melodrama.
WB: Will there be more Marty Singer mysteries?
MI: Definitely. I�m sensitive to the fact that a good thing can�t last forever, but I haven�t run out of ideas yet and I get excited tackling each new book. My goal is to release 2-3 per year. That may slow down in the future so that I can focus on other projects, but it will be a while before Marty goes into real �retirement.�
WB: You�ve also written in other genres besides crime fiction, including horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Do you find it easy switching gears among different genres? Do you recommend writers expand beyond one genre, to flex their literary muscles?
MI: I find it easy to switch writing gears, but I�ve also discovered I have a different voice for each genre�which is probably as it should be. This can feel schizophrenic at times, but I enjoy the change of pace. (And what writer doesn�t have a few voices in their head?)
And, yes, I think it�s critical for writers to give other genres a try�it really does expand the breadth and depth of your writing�but the process must be approached with caution and respect. If you haven�t read a particular genre, don�t assume you can write it.
WB: Do you have a certain type of scene that you don�t like to write, or avoid completely?
MI: Well, sex scenes are always tricky because my 94-year-old grandmother-in-law reads my books and certain descriptions could make Thanksgiving dinner a bit � awkward.
In all seriousness, the only scene I don�t like to write is the obligatory back story exposition where I introduce new readers to, or remind old ones of, Marty�s life and how it�s changed over time. I have yet to discover an elegant and unobtrusive way of filling in his recent personal history.
WB: You�re something of a globe-trotter, traveling to Alaska, Iceland, Antarctica, Patagonia, and other regions. And I�m betting you�ve held many diverse jobs before becoming a writer. In what ways did these experiences provide inspiration for your writing?
MI: You might dream up an entire universe sitting in your basement, but you won�t get to know people or understand places well enough to write about them if you don�t get out into the world and experience it. Travel teaches you how to watch people and pick up those small, crucial details of a place that make a scene or a plot or a setting ring true. You don�t have to go to the ends of the Earth, either; your hometown probably has enough going on to fuel a dozen novels. But you have to step outside to find out.
WB: Let�s talk about self-publishing for a minute. When you decided to become a full-time writer, was self-publishing already in your overall strategy?
MI: No. I�ve been writing forever, but I became serious about it as a career about ten years ago, when the Kindle was a twinkle in Jeff Bezos�s eye and self-publishing was just another name for vanity publishing. Instead, I chased a traditional publishing contract. Many writers know the drill: researching literary agents for hours in the library, crafting the pitch letter, wading through rejections, going to conferences. I received nibbles and a bit of encouragement, but was eventually passed over.
Fast-forward to 2010. Several colleagues had tested the self-publishing waters and, while I still had some reservations, the more I learned self-publishing, the more I liked what I saw. I took the plunge with a crime fiction anthology in late 2011, the first Marty Singer novel in early 2012, and I haven�t looked back.
WB: What advice would you offer writers who plan to self-publish and market a novel? What�s worked best for you?
MI: Write well or be prepared to sink into the sea of the millions of books available now. Pen a series if you want to build a readership; shelve your single-book ideas until you�re famous. Invest in social media, but don�t become enmeshed. Be ready to help and be helped by other writers, at all levels. Spend money on advertising, marketing, and promotion, but track the costs and benefits or you�ll go broke with nothing to show for it. Stay agile; today�s silver bullet is tomorrow�s dud. Share what you know freely and you�ll stay current as others do the same for you.
WB: What has been your biggest challenge as a freelance writer?
MI: Exposure. I�m a single voice in a very crowded room�a stadium, really�asking readers to take a chance on me. But each new novel I write adds to my catalogue and increases the chances that a reader will crack open the pages of a Marty Singer mystery rather than the book of the guy next to me.
I also struggle with a personal challenge all writers face; namely, am I good enough? My writing has improved with each book I�ve published, but I�ve been reading a lot of great writing in my genre lately�Martin Cruz Smith, James Lee Burke�and sometimes I despair. These writers are artists. But fearing failure has never been an excuse for not trying � and I have fun on the trying part.
WB: If I looked at your bookshelf at home, which authors would I find dominating the shelves?
MI: Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, Lee Child, Sue Grafton, Graham Greene, Tobias Wolff, Kim Stanley Robinson, Fritz Leiber, Bernard Cornwell, Bill Bryson, Witold Rybczynski.
WB: What�s next on your writing agenda?
MI: I�m currently at work on Marty Singer #5, The Wicked Flee, and hope to have it out in the spring. The audiobook for Blueblood, the second Singer novel, is nearly finished and should be out before April. I�m working with veteran voice actor Lloyd Sherr (the voice of the History Channel show �Modern Marvels� for many years), who also did the audiobook for A Reason to Live.
I�m also excited to mention that a novella of mine was accepted by Amazon�s new short story marketplace, StoryFront. Originally self-published under the title Finding Emma, it will be re-released as The Kindness of Strangers, due out this spring. It�s a creepy, psychological drama that will have you looking at your neighbors in a new light �
Lastly, I�m looking forward to collaborations with writing friends and possibly sketching the outline for a stand-alone novel, the idea for which has been zooming around my head for years.
WB: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
MI: I�d like the Marty Singer mysteries to have a comfortably familiar spot in the stacks of mystery readers around the world, the kind of books librarians ask of patrons, �oh, have you read these?� If I don�t drop the ball, they�ll have twenty or so books to choose from by then. At least one of the novels will have been made into a movie or an HBO series starring Viggo Mortensen as Marty and Kate Beckinsale as Julie Atwater, with Christopher Nolan directing.
And, in 10 years, �self-published� will no longer be a term we use; we�ll just call novels �books,� they�ll all be eligible for the same awards, and I hope to have won one or two of them.
WB: One last question, just for fun. If you could remake a thriller movie, which one would it be and what would you change in the film?
MI: I would remake the 2002 version of �The Quiet American� if I could keep Michael Caine�s brilliant performance as Fowler and Do Thi Hai Yen as Phuong, but remove any hint of Brendan Fraser as Alden Pyle. I don�t have anything against Fraser, per se, but this is Fowler�s story to tell and Pyle�s character was meant to be a symbolic cutout, not a beefcake distraction.
WB: That sounds like a movie I�d love to see. Thanks, Matthew, for spending some time with us!
For more information about Matt�s books and upcoming projects, visit his Web site at http://matthew-iden.com/
(A version of this review was also published in the May 2014 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
SPECIAL GIVEAWAY! Matt has provided a signed copy of his novel A Reason to Live. The person who leaves what I think is the best comment on this blog by the end of June will receive the copy!
February 24, 2014
Meet Debut Thriller Writer D.B. Corey
D.B. Corey�s first novel, �Chain of Evidence�, a police procedural/thriller, was published by Intrigue Publishing this past summer. In the story, Moby Truax, an aging detective who is nearing retirement, must investigate a serial killer stalking the streets of Baltimore�and Truax suspects the murders are that of a copycat killer, and that he actually faces two serial killers.
After a stint in college, Corey joined the USNR flying aircrew aboard a Navy P-3 Orion chasing down Russian subs. During his time there, he began a career in IT. He didn�t begin writing until his mid-50s, and had to pay some dues before landing his contract with Intrigue and the subsequent publication of his first novel.
I asked D.B. to talk with us about his experiences during the creation, editing, and publication of Chain of Evidence, among other things. He kindly agreed to the following interview.
Weldon Burge (WB): Your novel, Chain of Evidence, was published by a new independent publisher, Intrigue Publishing. What have you learned from that partnership?
D.B. Corey (DB): I signed with Intrigue in July of 2012. The novel was released in August of 2013. Had I not missed my first deadline, it would have come out four months earlier. So the first thing I learned was not to miss deadlines. Once the book did come out, I discovered I had a second job�marketing myself; something I was unprepared to do. I found that writing the book was the easy part, there were not enough weekends in the month, and the publisher designs the cover. He may even want to change the title, but that was OK with me. My title was terrible.
WB: The hero in your novel is Moby Truax, an aging detective nearing retirement. The villain, Harvey Morral, is a serial killer who also happens to be a medical examiner who is into necrophilia. How did you research to develop these two characters?
DB: With all respect, I consider our military men and women and our first responders to be heroes, so I would never refer to one of my fictional characters a hero. Heroes are flesh and blood people who can be hurt, so my good guy is �the protagonist.�
WB: Couldn�t agree more. Sometimes we forget who the true heroes are!
DB: I didn�t want Moby to be a super-cop�some guy who stood six-six, weighed in at two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, was solid muscle, played in the NFL, and had bullets bounce off his chest. Everybody writes those kind of main characters and the movies are full of them. To research Truax, I only had to look at myself. I wanted him to have the same problems I found myself facing; age related problems: diminishing faculties such as memory and eyesight, weight gain, resistance to and resentful of the changing world around him. I used those things as a starting point. As he developed, he had to deal with younger peers with entitlement expectations and a boss who regarded him as taking up space. Moby became cynical, suspicious, arrogant, condescending and proud�lots and lots of flaws; a good main character.
Harvey Morral, on the other hand, is hateable. He is wanting in every social aspect of his life to the point he�s willing to kill to attain the women he covets. He employs a tried and true template of many literary bad guys, but to put just a bit of a spin on him, I made him a coward, who only finds strength when he hides in the shadow of a legitimate killer.
WB: Is Moby going to be a series character?
DB: God I hope so. If the novel is well received, I have the second in the series in mind. He�ll be retired, and broke, and maybe I�ll bring back Vecchio (Moby�s female foil in the book) just to drive him nuts. I think that�s as good a place to start as any.
WB: What�s been your most pleasant surprise as a debut novelist?
DB: I must admit, I am very pleased with the reception the novel has received to date. And if I may share an anecdote; my son mentioned to his neighbor that I wrote a book. She downloaded it and read it in two days; said she couldn�t put it down. She asked my son how she could get a signed copy, so he and I went to visit with a paperback. That�s when I realized how it must be for celebrities, because that�s how she treated me. I felt a bit awkward in that particular role, but she was, and I�m loathed to use this term as applied to me, �star struck.� We sat and talked in her kitchen for thirty minutes or so, I signed the book, and left. Later, I read her Facebook post. I had no idea that small gesture could mean so much to someone.
WB: Least pleasant surprise?
D.B.: If I may, I�d like to do what politicians do�change the question. My least pleasant occurrence came before the book published. I corresponded with a writing friend online. We critiqued each other�s work. One day, she was especially harsh on a scene I wrote. I went back to look, and it was obvious she hadn�t read what she critiqued. I commented on her error and suggested that maybe she read too fast. She became belligerent and said that she always skipped over the things I wrote, and maybe I should just give up. That was a bit hard to take, and I actually considered her terse advice. But, the longer I thought about it, the more I was determined to prove her wrong, if only to myself.
WB: You�ve mentioned that you read �10 or 20� how-to books before tackling the novel. Which ones were the most helpful, that you�d recommend to other first-time novelists?
DB: I may have exaggerated just a tiny bit. But, of the starter books I read, I found several to be beneficial: The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, Hooked by Les Edgerton, Goal Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon, and On Writing by Stephen King. King�s book is probably the most intuitive of the lot. Those are my four favorites, the books I recommend. Of course, there are many others on query writing, synopsis writing � you get the picture. The point is, if you want to become a writer and if your name isn�t Hemingway of Twain, you might want to take a few pointers from those who have gone before you.
WB: Do you work from an outline, or just wing it?
DB: Actually, I�ve tried both. I wrote from the seat on my pants (known as a pantser in the trade) to begin with, but then I read Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland, another how-to book. It was good and made many points, but every time I tried to outline, I found myself writing entire scenes within the outline. No self-restraint.
I met Jeffery Deaver (The Bone Collector) at a conference earlier this year. Nice guy. We had a few drinks and he told me he spends eight months writing an outline to a novel. James Patterson said in an interview that he does the same, and writes 60 to 80 pages of outline for his. To be honest, I don�t see how they do it. I have to sink my teeth into the story. I can�t do that several weeks down the road, so I employ a combination of outline and writing. I use bullets for notes I want in each scene, and then write it. Maybe not right then, but I don�t wait months either. E.L. Doctorow described novel writing as driving a car at night. You know where it starts and you know where it ends, in between, you can only see as far as your headlights. I tend to agree.
WB: You spent 12 years in the U.S. Naval Air Reserves, and flew as aircrew on a Navy P-3 Orion submarine hunter during the Cold War. How did those experiences help you in your writing career?
DB: Well, I wasn�t aboard the P-3 the whole twelve years. They did let me out on occasion. But kidding aside, I did many cool things in the Navy, from tracking Russian subs to orbiting a pod of playful whales in the North Atlantic, and from each sea experience, came a sea story. If you ever meet a sailor in a bar, ask them. They�ll keep you enthralled for hours over a couple beers and a bowl of peanuts. I learned how to transform the mundane into the exciting, because after you�ve told the same story half-a-dozen times, you need a twist, if only to keep it fresh for yourself. That�s what fiction writers do, if you think about it.
WB: If you could go back in time to start your writing career all over again, what would you do differently?
DB: Absolutely nothing. I couldn�t have done this were I any younger. I didn�t have what it takes.
WB: What's next on your writing agenda?
DB: I am working on another thriller, this one with a vigilante theme. A woman is brutally murdered and the killer gets off on a technicality. The sister is not happy about it and � well, hopefully, it should be out next year.
After that, I�m going to see what I can do about disassembling the government in a YA thriller.
WB: The ultimate villain�Professor Moriarty or Hannibal Lecter?
DB: Although I like Moriarty, I just wrote a novel with a very sick antag. Hannibal Lecter�no question.
WB: One last question, just for fun. Who is your favorite superhero, and why?
DB: I grew up with Superman, The Flash, Batman, Green Lantern, X-Men � but I�d have to flip a coin between Spidey and Iron Man�Spidey because he had true super powers but was damaged, and Iron Man because of his technology, originally purposed just to keep him alive.
WB: Well, D.B., thanks for spending a few minutes with us!
DB: Weldon, thank you for the opportunity! I enjoyed your thought-provoking questions, as I�m sure you can tell by my rather lengthy answers.
For more on D.B. Corey, visit his Web site at www.dbcorey.com.
(A version of this review was also published in the Jan/Feb. 2014 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
October 26, 2013
Meet Bram Stoker Winner L.L. Soares
Soares is an incredibly talented and versatile man, working not only as a writer but as an editor, publisher, and frequent film critic. He took some time away from his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.
Weldon Burge (WB): Your novel, Life Rage, won the 2012 Bram Stoker Award for �Superior Achievement in a First Novel.� Aside from the obvious ego massage, how has the award benefited your writing career?
L.L. Soares (LLS): To be honest, I think it�s too early to tell. I�m actually still in shock � it all seemed kind of unreal at the time. I�m hoping it will make it easier to sell future books, and that hopefully more people will read my work. But I guess only time will tell.
I am proud of the fact that I can put �Bram Stoker Award Winning Author� on my book covers now, though. That�s very cool.
WB: Your second novel, Rock �N� Roll, was published earlier this year. It seems to be more of an erotic thriller than Life Rage, but still laced with violence and horror. Which novel did you have the most fun writing, and why?
LLS: Even though they are different in a lot of ways, both books do share a love of characters. My stuff is very character-driven, and I think that is what links the books. Life Rage just deals with more characters, whose stories intertwine. For the most part, Rock �N� Roll is focused on one main character, Lash. Also, where �Life Rage� is more obviously a horror novel, Rock �N� Roll was harder for me to categorize. It�s almost more surreal than horrific at times. I hesitate to say it falls in the �bizarro fiction� category, because, despite rather odd elements, it is rooted in a real, recognizable world, so I don�t think it�s strange enough to be bizarro.
But the truth is, they�re all fun, and I am comfortable in several genres. The first stuff I wrote as a kid in manuscript format�the first stories I sent out to magazines and publishers when I was still in high school�was mostly science fiction, and some fantasy. I am also really into noir fiction�Jim Thompson is one of my heroes. So I incorporate all kinds of things in my writing. I do notice that horror is one of the more universal elements in my fiction, though. There�s always some horrific element in most of what I write. I just have that sensibility, I guess. I think of all genres, horror is the one I am most in tune with.
WB: You�ve written a collection of short stories, In Sickness in collaboration with your wife, Laura Cooney. How did that come about? And will you be doing it again?
LLS: In Sickness just came to me as a fully formed idea. Laura and I are both writers, and we�re in the unique situation of being married and both writing mostly in the horror genre. It also gave me a chance to spotlight some of Laura�s fiction, as well as my own. I think she�s an awesome writer. The idea was that the book would include stories by her, stories by me, and then a novella (also called �In Sickness�) that we wrote together. It was a pretty easy concept to pitch to publishers�kind of pre-packaged and ready to go. I had the title and the basic idea. Even the cover was something we had beforehand. We had been visiting our friends Steve and Valerie Dorato and I saw the painting Val had done that would become the cover of �In Sickness�. It was so somber, so emotionally resonant, that I knew immediately that I wanted to use it for the book. It just all kind of fell into place. I think Skullvines Press did a wonderful job with it.
As for doing it again, Laura and I were asked to write another novella together for a new publisher a little while ago. We wrote it, and they liked it, but the publisher folded before they could put it out, so we�re in the process of finding a new home for it. It�s called Green Tsunami, and it is a different kind of take on the apocalypse. No radioactive wastelands or zombies or anything like that, but something completely different. I hope to get that one placed somewhere soon. The only rules we had when it was requested of us was that it take place during an apocalypse, and that it be written as either letters or emails back and forth between two characters. I�m really happy with how that one turned out, and hopefully it will be placed somewhere soon.
We�ve also been kicking around some other ideas for future projects.
WB: Aside from your wife, which author would you love to collaborate with? And what would you write?
LLS: I have actually done a LOT of collaboration. I wrote a short story and a novella with Kurt Newton (the novella is Breaking Eggs, available from Sideshow Press), which came out quite well. A story I did with Daniel G. Keohane, �Mermaids�, was published in Cemetery Dance. And I have stories I wrote with Peter N. Dudar and John Dixon that turned out really well. Aside from that, I write a movie review column with Michael Arruda called �Cinema Knife Fight� that is a collaboration I do just about every week. So I�ve had a lot of experience �playing well with others.�
As far as someone I would love to collaborate with but haven�t, I would love to work with someone like Clive Barker. I just think he�s so rich with wonderful, dark ideas. As for what we would write�it would be more interesting to leave that to the imagination.
WB: Which authors have had the most influence on your fiction?
LLS: Despite the fact that I write mostly horror, most of my biggest influences have been outside the genre.
The first writers I got hooked on as a kid were Poe and Lovecraft. Poe I was exposed to through school and Lovecraft I found on my own. I was obsessed and read everything I could find by Lovecraft. Then as I got older, I got into science fiction, and the writers who really stood out for me were people like Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, and Harlan Ellison�the kinds of writers who defied genre boundaries a lot of the time and who weren�t afraid to take on taboo subject matter. Strangely, I don�t ever think I had a period of time where I read much YA fiction. It was just the classics and then on to the more intriguing science fiction of the day. And comic books, of course.
I was also heavily into the whole �new wave� of science fiction from the 1970s, which included writers like Thomas M. Disch, Barry Malzberg, Norman Spinrad, Joanna Russ, Michael Moorcock, and Samuel Delany, as well as Philip K. Dick (who was pre-�New Wave,� but obviously had a big effect on it) and Philip Jose Farmer.
Perhaps the biggest SF-related influence, though, was J.G. Ballard, a writer who started out writing science fiction, but whose reach went way beyond that genre. Ballard was very important to me. I remember reading his novel Crash for the first time and being totally blown away by it. I�ve re-read that one several times since, and it still amazes me.
In horror, I�m a huge fan of Jack Ketchum, Shirley Jackson, T.E.D. Klein, Clive Barker (especially his early horror output), Dennis Etchison, David J. Schow, and Poppy Z. Brite. I was a big fan of the Skipp and Spector novels, too. And there were some comic book writers, like Steve Gerber and Alan Moore who inspired me as well.And noir/crime fiction like Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford.
Then there are so-called �mainstream� writers like Philip Roth, Jerzy Kozinski, Harry Crews, Ian McEwan, Chuck Palahniuk, and Dan Fante, all of whom I enjoy immensely.
But most of all, the writers who I had the most connection with, were ones who kind of stood outside of genres, people like Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Hubert Selby, Jr., and Hunter S. Thompson. Writers who were pretty much genres unto themselves. But I guess one overall connecting tissue among all these writers is that they were and are risk takers. They were not satisfied to be held back by any boundaries. I can relate to that.
WB: If you could start your writing career over, what would you do differently?
LLS: I�m not really sure. I started writing at a very young age. I remember writing one-page stories based on movies I had seen on TV in a lined notebook when I was as young as six or seven. So there was always that desire. I knew very early on what I wanted to do with my life. I started sending out actual manuscripts�short stories, mostly�to magazines when I was in high school. I had this idea that I would start selling stuff early on and have a long and prolific career, but it didn�t turn out that way.
I sold my first story in college, to The Minnesotan Science Fiction Reader of all places, for all of fifteen dollars, but it folded before my story could be published. After that, it took me another 15 years before I made my next sale, which happened to also be my first professional sale (at pro rates) to Gothicnet.com. In the meantime, I was writing constantly during those years in between. It wasn�t like I had given up. But I got enough rejections over those years to wonder if I would ever actually sell anything. So much for my plans for a long writing career! I had a long period from the late 80s to the mid-90s where I was writing things that I never sent out at all. I�d just finish one thing and go on to the next one.
In a weird way, finally selling stories and novels later in life is satisfying because I�ve been working at it for so long. In another way, it feels like now I am in a race against the clock to write as much as I can in the time I have left. I guess any success I have now is bittersweet, in the sense that, if this had happened twenty years ago, I would have more time to create a much larger body of work.
So I guess my answer to your question would be, I don�t know. I did all I could think to do at the time. Beyond that, it was out of my hands.
WB: The short stories you�ve written for the Smart Rhino Zippered Flesh anthologies are so different. �Sawbones� in the first anthology was an absolute gorefest. �Seeds� in the second anthology has no gore at all, yet is in my view even creepier. When you write horror, are you more comfortable going for the gross out or the creep out?
LLS: I actually don�t have a preference. I know a lot of people who say they prefer the quiet chill to gore, but I don�t really think one is better than the other. I see both subtle horror and extreme horror as two different tools in my writer�s toolbox, to be pulled out when they�re needed. I hear people say all the time that subtle horror is better, that gore is just a crutch, and while I�m sure that is true in some cases, I don�t agree with it over all. Gore elicits a very visceral response, and sometimes that�s exactly what you want. I just don�t even think about it when I write, though. I write what fits the moment.
Another big influence on me has been movies, of course, and I�m just as happy with a subtle old Val Lewton film as I am with something like Romero�s Dawn of the Dead. I like both kinds of horror, and I can appreciate them for what they are.
WB: What are you reading now?
LLS: I try to read outside the horror genre as much as possible. Not because I have anything against horror�I love it�but if that�s all you read, it becomes tiresome. At the same time, I have a lot of friends in the genre and I want to read their new books when they come out. So right now I�m kind of reading several things at once: I just finished a collection of interviews with musician/spoken word artist Lydia Lunch who I love, put out by Re/Search Books; I read Nick Cato�s latest novella, �The Last Porno Theater�, which I really enjoyed; I�ve been reading a biography of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski a little at a time, and, every so often I read a book in the 33 1/3 series about classic albums. My �To Be Read� pile includes The Evolutionist by Rena Mason, Mountain Home by Bracken McLeod, and autobiographies by directors William Friedkin and Elia Kazan, to name just a few. So, yeah, I�m all over the place.
WB: You�ve been a film critic forthe film review column �Cinema Knife Fight� for a decade or so, focusing largely on horror/suspense films. What do you think are the three best �unknown� horror movies�incredible movies that almost no one has seen?
LLS: There are so many great movies that are underappreciated. If I had to pick three off the top of my head, they would be:
Possession (1981) by director Andrzej Zulawski is starting to get more attention lately, but it still deserves to be discovered by more people. It�s a story about a guy (Sam Neill) whose wife (Isabelle Adjani) is having an affair. But the more we learn, the more surreal it all is, going in some really Lovecraftian directions by the end. Just an amazing, unusual film.
Lemora: A Child�s Tale of the Supernatural (1973) by Richard Blackburn, is kind of a mix between a dream/nightmare and a fairy tale. It has that kind of feel to it. About a girl who goes back to her hometown and finds witches and vampires. It�s so different and original that it�s refreshing.
Sugar Hill (1974) by Paul Maslansky is probably my favorite movie from the whole �Blaxploitation� movement in the 1970s. It�s about zombies, but the old school kind, that are raised up by voodoo. A woman (Marki Bey) whose boyfriend is killed by gangsters, gets revenge using zombies. With a scene-stealing performance by Don Pedro Colley as Baron Samedi, who is the zombie master. Really terrific little flick. Also featuring Robert Quarry (from the underrated Count Yorgamovies) as a gangster. With all the fuss about flesh-eating zombies these days, it�s nice to just submerge yourself in a well-made movie about traditional voodoo zombies once in awhile.
WB: How much does your love of cinema influence your own writing style?
LLS: I�m sure cinema has influenced me a lot. I was a fan of horror movies before I was a fan of anything in other mediums. I am a very visual writer�I picture these characters and situations in my mind�s eye as I�m writing�and I�m sure that�s a cinematic influence.I�m sure things like pacing and drama come from that, too.
For horror, and movies in general, I think there were two big periods. First, there were the 1930s�the time of the classic Universal horror films and the peak of screwball comedies by directors like Preston Sturgess and Howard Hawks�which was a true golden age for cinema. There just seemed to be so many great movies made during that decade, and so many kinds of movies. One thing I had as a kid that isn�t really as prevalent now was the whole Saturday Morning Creature Features, where they would show a lot of classic horror and sf films. That�s how I was exposed to a lot of this stuff, and kids today just don�t have that kind of access. Or maybe they�re just not interested. Sure there�s video, but there�s also this idea that black and white movies are for old fogies, which is really sad. It�s like there�s a whole world of movies out there that is being unjustly ignored.
I remember seeing the original James Whale Frankenstein (1931) when I was about six, and that�s the movie that really did me in. That made me a horror fan for life. It just had such a huge impression on me at the time, and it�s what led me to seek out all things horror throughout my life.
The other major cinema period for me is the 1970s. This was after the whole studio system in Hollywood came to an end, and suddenly all of the strict rules that governed movies were gone. So many directors pushed the envelope then. It didn�t always work, but it was a time of experimentation and extremes. I think the 70s is my favorite movie decade. It�s when we got everything from Easy Rider to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Midnight Cowboy. Everything seemed new and exciting�depictions of sex and violence, the emphasis on characters even more than plot�and the decade taken as a whole is so exhilarating.
But I�ve just watched so many movies throughout my life�and many, many more to come�that I�m sure they�ve had some kind of effect on me.
WB: So, what�s your next writing project?
LLS: Coming up this fall is my first mainstream novel, Hard. It�s coming out from a small press, but it�s not horror. I am really curious to see what kind of reception it gets, because it�s different from what people might be expecting from me. Although it does deal with subject matter that isn�t that much of a stretch, the porn industry during the 1980s, and a character who is a torturer. So I�m sure fans of my horror fiction will be able to get into it pretty easily.
In the meantime, I have several projects I�m working on, including a crime fiction/noir novel called Binge, and a novel that takes place in my fictional city of Blue Clay, Massachusetts, that really opens up some of the mysteries I�ve created around that place in some of my short stories, called Buried in Blue Clay. Plus I�ve been working on a few new short stories and novellas. So I�m plenty busy these days.
WB: Thanks, L.L, for a great interview! We look forward to reading more of your work in the coming years. Good luck with your future writing endeavors!
Read more about L.L. Soares and his work at his web site, www.llsoares.com.
(A version of this review was also published in the Sept/Oct. 2013 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
September 20, 2013
Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity, 2013
I attended C3 last weekend (Sept. 13-15) at the Hunt Valley Inn near Baltimore, not sure what to expect, this being the first year of the event. I was pleasantly surprised. The organizers (chiefly the owners and friends of Intrigue Publishing) did an excellent job pulling together all the elements of the conference, despite a couple of last-minute changes in key speakers. I knew I was in for something special when I saw the paperback anthology of stories by many panelists and attendees that was included with the other conference materials. When have you ever seen that?
The three days were filled with panel discussions, all of which invited participation from those in the audience. No dry lectures here! Every panel involved a conversation among the experts sitting on each panel, the moderator, and the folks sitting in the seats before them. This was a refreshing change from many of the conferences I've attended in the past.
I'm not the most outspoken, extroverted guy. Like many writers, I tend to sit back and observe rather than dive into conversations. I generally have to force myself to be more sociable and expressive in public. But, as an independent publisher, I simply have to get over that. So, when I registered for the C3 conference, I volunteered for two panels, one on the topic of working with indie publishers and the other on book marketing and publicity. So, how did I do? Okay, I guess. I had fun. with no qualms once the conversations commenced (thanks to the moderators Denise Camacho and Sandra Bowman, who kept things ticking along). Would I do it again? Without question or hesitation.
But, like most writers conferences, the greatest benefit is in the networking. For me, the sharing of experiences and expertise is what these events are all about. C3 allowed writers of every stripe, from novice to best-selling, to hang out together. How often do you get to rub elbows with top-notch writers like Brian Keene, Jeffery Deaver, John Gilstrap, and Allison Leotta? Not to mention all the other writers in attendance! (And here I must give a shout out to D.B. Corey, Matt Iden, Bob Bailey, Tara Campbell, Richard Bradshaw, Allan Ansorge, Norwood Holland, K.R. Raye, Austin Camacho, Cindy McDonald, Penny Clover Petersen, David Stewart, Lane Stone, and so many others I managed to meet over that weekend.)
So, would I recommend the C3 conference? Suffice it to say that I've already registered for the 2014 conference.
The question is: Will you be there?
May 28, 2013
Meet Bram Stoker Winner Lisa Mannetti
As an editor, I�ve worked with Lisa several times over the past year or so. She kindly agreed to the following interview.
Weldon Burge (WB): Your debut novel, The Gentling Box, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2008. That�s like strapping on a jetpack and blasting off into a writing career. How has the award helped your career?
Lisa Mannetti (LM): Winning was the single most gratifying event of my life. Years earlier, when I began writing horror, I placed second in a contest at one of the World Horror conventions and when the publisher mentioned my story would probably �garner a lot of interest for a Stoker recommendation,� I practically passed out in front of the mailbox onto my front lawn. So winning such a prestigious award was beyond my wildest dreams. I always try to write my best, but I thought of the Stoker as a true pinnacle that might be always beyond my reach�so it wasn�t on my mind at all during the writing. My goal was getting the book published. Winning for The Gentling Box actually meant even more because two major agents could not sell it to any of the houses in New York. When it received acclaim, it signaled to me that my belief in the novel wasn�t misplaced after all. That�s really huge.
In terms of my day-to-day career, it�s helped smooth the way for subsequent books and projects, a new agent, and the publication of my work in general. In the old days, I�d write a story and sit down with lists of places that seemed like a �fit� with the piece, then start making the manuscript rounds. Now I�m asked to contribute to magazines and anthologies, so my stories are essentially sold before I write them. I�ve never felt like the prescribed theme was any kind of creative impediment--most editors have given me tons of latitude. Those invitations to contribute have been terrific. One of my stories, �1925: A Fall River Halloween� which features Lizzie Borden as a character, was nominated for the Stoker in 2010.
It�s also helped in subtler, but no less important ways, and a few examples come to mind. I�m now an active member of the Horror Writers Association (a long-term goal I finally met) and a new edition of the book will be coming out from Nightscape Press (I couldn�t be more delighted!). Most of all, it makes me very conscious when I sit down to write that it�s critical�imperative�to set high standards and (whether the result can be deemed successful or not) to strive to produce the very best work I can�or die trying.
WB: Much of your work might be considered historical horror. Do you enjoy doing the research required for these books?
LM: Oh my God, don�t get me started! Oh well, too late. I have a background in 18th and 19th century English literature, but even as a kid I was fascinated for what we now call research. Back then, I just thought of it as �looking things up.� As a result, I was always hunting through my mother�s medical textbooks (the more gruesome the picture, the better) and fascinated with anything odd or bizarre or frightening. Even in grammar school, I�d turn in projects describing things like leprosy or foot-binding. Anyhow, I love to research. I find that what I learn is a huge help�not just with creating atmosphere, but understanding my characters, developing plot, and just having a hell of a good time. Research creates a real spark in me and, aside from the excitement I feel, it often results in strange and wonderful combinations of ideas.
I�m working on a Houdini project now. I�ve been crazy about him since I was in third grade, happened to see a rerun of that old Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh movie and then went to the library and got a biography about his life. I have now acquired a huge assortment of books about him, about magic in general, and almost everything he�s written. I have 24 pages of single-spaced notes, but I�m only planning on writing a short story and turning that work into the bare bones of a film treatment.
Aside from having a mania for learning new information (a crucial aspect of being a writer), I consider research and ancillary reading as part of my daily work routine. I think the more you steep yourself in whatever world you�re creating, the better the outcome. Eventually, when you write, you let go of the research and begin to create�but by then the �world� you�re creating on the page is as familiar to you as the �world� of grocery shopping, your hometown, your friends, and family. With the Houdini piece, I even browsed his books about rope-tying tricks and paper magic. I won�t use any of that as far as I know�but, in addition to being a lot of fun to read, I know that it gives me insight to who he was as a person. Even if I�m not consciously thinking of certain information, it informs the background of my characters, the setting, the plot, and the story itself.
Even when I write contemporary stories I still research. With every book, novella, or story, I often find that, even as I write, I might dump something in and then check it out on the fly.
I think the first job of any writer is reading. If more writers read widely in all areas (not just in their own genres), writing as a whole would be tremendously improved. For starters, they�d know what�s been done before and a lot more of them would (hopefully) stop creating products that are essentially retellings. (I hear you groan�anything can be boiled down to its essence and, of course it will sound like the same story�but don�t use that as an excuse for laziness. Watching �Summer and Smoke� doesn�t feel the same as watching �Romeo and Juliet�). Reading more�and making it as important to your writing routine as writing itself�also results in knowing more acutely not just what�s been done, but what works and what doesn�t. It sharpens your critical skills and helps you understand what�s good or weak in your own writing. It also helps develop the bones of your work: structure, facility with words, pacing, dialogue, setting. Do you just want to tell a story, or do you want to tell it well and rivet your audience? Put another way, personally, I�d rather watch a film like �Dracula� than �The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes�.
WB: Do you write from an outline, or do you pretty much improvise?
LM: I don�t write from an outline because I like to discover what�s going to happen as I�m working. I�ve written stories that started as a single sentence in my head, a vague, disturbing concept or a dream image, so I guess my process is closer to improvisation, even though--especially with novels�at some point (usually quite a while before the halfway mark) I know the end.
Outlines, for me, tend to straitjacket my creativity and leave me less likely to explore different avenues. I like being surprised or shocked and will pretty much try to let the characters run the show early on. For me, the time to streamline is after the first draft is written when I have a clearer understanding of a story�s logic, its stronger or weaker elements. I�ve always found that letting myself go down the garden path has led to really fascinating denouements. Outlines tend to revolve around plot development. I find, when I write and read, that I�m only interested in plot as it relates to character�and a really great character is not going to spring fully formed from a formula.
I know people �create characters� to serve the storyline, but I think when characters are subservient to the organic burgeoning of a story it diminishes the writing. It can be done�God knows there are enough movie thrillers featuring psychiatrists with violent amnesiac patients�but nobody who appreciates a really great story that�s superbly crafted is going to confuse a potboiler with The Haunting of Hill House.
WB: The New Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is a slight departure from your usual work, more fantasy than horror. It clearly reflects your love for Mark Twain and for cats (Tom and Huck are cats in the book). How did that novel jump into your head?
LM: Tom and Huck were my actual cats and of all the cats I�ve owned through the years, they were the most spirited and lively�not just as kittens, but for years. I do mean years. Because they were twins, they interacted more than most cats do�right down to hunting mice in tandem. I swear they conducted campaigns that were so involved; one could only glean such master plans by reading about Hannibal or the lives of the Roman emperors. Tom cornered the wee beasts down by the washing machine, Hucky was in charge of flanking maneuvers, and they were pros. One day I actually did hear a mouse scream. It was so loud I heard it while writing in my office�one whole floor above their killing field. I did try to rescue it, but they frightened it to death when it ran under the dryer.
Tom was just about the smartest cat I�ve ever known�in addition to being hopelessly addicted to grabbing attention and generally showing off on all occasions. He had personality to spare and Huck was no slouch, either. [�Their constant hijinks led to little �playlets� I created for my outgoing answering machine in Tom�s voice wherein he described recent mayhem, or gave blackmail instructions to those who were foolish enough to call and disturb his and Huck�s naptime by leaving a message. These dramas were so popular, that not only did total strangers and salespeople make comments, but if I didn�t change them every few weeks, my friends complained. �Hey, change the message, it�s been a month!� Much as I loved imitating a southern drawl and pretending to be Tom, it was damn hard to keep writing all those 60-second scenarios. The next thing I knew, he�I mean they�I mean I was writing a book.
WB: Where�s your favorite place to write?
LM: Anywhere the writing is going well. Seriously, in the summer (evenings) I write on my front porch. In the winter, I write in my office, which was the bedroom I had as a child. Some days, I can�t decide if that�s a good thing or not. Not because the decor hasn�t changed (there are no Teddy bears cluttering up the joint), but because, by some weird principle of acoustics, I couldn�t even begin to comprehend, much less explain, it�s the noisiest room in the house. Here�s one example, from my current bedroom I cannot hear the front door bell (directly beneath that room) but it�s clear as day in the office, which is actually in the back of the house. Does that make sense? No, I didn�t think so.
WB: What is your writing schedule, and how do you maintain it?
LM: That�s been one of my biggest difficulties this past year, because my Dad became seriously ill and I had a series of annoying health problems, too. If that weren�t enough, I wound up with a broken toe and crutches as the souvenir prize. Essentially you just have to keep plugging. So, my preferred schedule is actually from when I get up �til when the day�s writing is done. Because of the noise here, though, I sometimes do stay up and work at night. It screws up everything else, but sometimes it�s the only opportunity I get to work�and when I�m not writing, I�m miserable.
WB: What is your biggest challenge when writing a novel?
LM: I have a tendency to be too critical of my own work and there are times I write and rewrite at the same time. Occasionally that stops the flow; if I hit an impasse that I can�t surmount, frustration ensues and I resort to gallows humor.
WB: If you could start your writing career over, what would you do differently?
LM: That�s a hard question to answer, partly because technology has transformed the industry almost completely. When I first started writing, self-publishing and vanity presses were anathema�you just didn�t give in even when 95% of the rejections you received contained the scurrilous (and dreaded) phrase: �You write well and, were it not for the current market conditions with a decided downturn in horror, this book ...� Writers can now �create� the market and get their work read, seen, noticed, and sold. I guess I would have had more faith in my ability, but that�s something that never really leaves a serious writer, anyhow. We always think the latest effort could have been done better and falls short of our intentions.
When I was younger, my fallback position at cocktail parties was to discuss my short stories and novels as if they were works in progress and belay my own embarrassment by mentioning the nonfiction books I�d had published. Nowadays, of course, almost no one asks if you�ve been published, since everyone can be published. Snoopy types do tend to inquire whether the work in question has appeared under the rubric of an actual company or whether you�ve whomped the whole thing together by yourself. But, hey, if they don�t know you well enough, they�ll never guess that Austin Dread Crypt Ltd. combines the names of your street and your tarantula, with an appropriately spooky word tossed in for good measure.
WB: If you could collaborate with another author, living or dead, who would it be and what would you write?
LM: Only one? Boy, this is hard. Well, I can�t pick one and I�m allowing myself two on the basis that I write both satire and horror. So, from the humor perspective, I�d definitely want to collaborate with J.P. Donleavy and write something wickedly fun and entertaining. For a collaborator on the dark side, I�d choose Peter Straub�because I�d learn so much. I�d follow his lead and write whatever worked for the project�hopefully something twisty, complex, and rich with meaning.
WB: What are you reading now?
LM: I�m reading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Somehow, I managed to get through all those years of school without reading much of his work and a few weeks ago (while recuperating from really ugly but relatively simple surgery) I happened to see the movie starring Bette Davis (circa 1933) and loved it. So I did what all reading doobies do these days and promptly downloaded it from Amazon. One of the really interesting things about the movie is that it completely eliminates the first third of the book�instead of seeing Phillip growing up, going to school, caroming around Paris, it begins with his failure there as an artist and goes on. I�m not aware of any other film utilizing the same technique, but the film definitely worked. I loved the book, too�so am on something of a Maugham kick and plan to read The Magician next.
WB: You wrote a short story for the Smart Rhino anthology Zippered Flesh 2: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad titled �The Hunger Artist.� The story is something of a precursor of the novel of the same title that you�re currently writing. Can you tell us a little more about this project?
LM: Before I delve into the intricacies of the novel, first I want to say thanks, Weldon, for giving me the opportunity to write a short story version for Zippered Flesh 2. The historical background of �The Hunger Artist� centers on a harrowing case that occurred shortly after the turn of the century in the state of Washington. Two wealthy sisters from England who (depending on your point of view) were faddists, health nuts, or light years ahead of their time, wound up being scammed and�much worse�starved by osteopath and �fasting specialist� Linda Hazzard. (Obviously, no fiction writer would dare make up that name.) The younger of the two sisters died. I first read of the case in a fascinating book called Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen. Naturally, he�s already done a superb job with the nonfiction account, so I see my novel as something more closely akin to what Jack Ketchum did with The Girl Next Door, based on the Indiana Torture slaying, and Joyce Maynard accomplished in To Die For regarding the Pamela Smart case. I�ve read additional materials, of course, and it�s exciting to take the facts and the sheer pathos of the tale and venture into new territory�literally with the setting, New Hampshire�and figuratively by adding traditional elements of horror: chilling atmosphere and supernatural events.
WB: One last question, just for fun. You�re planning an outdoor barbecue on July 4th, and you can invite four special guests�authors or fictional characters, contemporary or from the past. Who do you invite and what conversation would you expect?
LM: I�d definitely invite Mark Twain�and I wouldn�t care what he talked about�from all accounts he was always as entertaining as hell�or Sheol, as he�d have said.
Secondly, I�d ask Theodore Dreiser because his book, An American Tragedy, like my novel in progress, was based on a true crime. He also wrote what has always been, for me, a terrifying novel: Sister Carrie, which, like Flaubert�s Madame Bovary, deals with a character�s downward spiral into disaster. The concept scares the hell out of me.
I�ve been doing some research for another little project recently, so I�d also invite Harry Houdini (a published author for those who don�t know his literary reputation) and Arthur Conan Doyle. Since their friendship tanked, then dissolved, it would be fascinating to watch them provide the fireworks. Even though you�ve only allowed me four authors, I�m including one other of my favorite contemporary writers, Robert Dunbar�not only one of the wittiest men on the planet, but also someone who could scout around the perimeters of the party and provide hilarious running commentary on social climbers, pontificators, and those generally spewing floccinaucinihilipilification. By the way, that�s a word I came across accidentally yesterday, and now you have to look it up, too�be grateful in these tech-tacular times you don�t have to haul out the OED.
WB: Thanks, Lisa, for a fun and informative interview!
Visit Lisa�s author Web site at www.lisamannetti.com, as well as her virtual haunted house at www.thechanceryhouse.com.
(A version of this review was also published in the May 2013 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
April 16, 2013
An Interview With Horror/Suspense Writer Charles Colyott
Colyott took some time away from his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.
Weldon Burge (WB): Let's get the geek question out of the way first. Zombie or robot apocalypse?
Charles Colyott (CC): Zombies, of course! I feel like we'd have a better chance against them ... unless we're talking the almost indestructible ones from Return of the Living Dead, or the really awful ones from Brian Keene's The Rising. Then we're just screwed.
WB: And one other nagging question: Why llamas and alpacas instead of cows and goats? Can you even milk a llama? And why would you want to? (OK, that was three questions.)
CC: My wife and I just sort of fell in love with alpacas before we even knew what they were. I liked the fact that we didn't have to use them in any way ... no killing, no milking, etc. We just cut their hair once a year (something which must be done anyway). I imagine it is possible to milk one ... but I can't fathom why anyone would want to. Our llamas act as guards for our alpacas, and they take their job pretty seriously.
WB: Chinese culture, especially martial arts, flavors the Randall Lee novels. How much of this is pulled from your past experience, how much from research?
CC: I do have to do a fair amount of research for certain stuff, but a lot of it comes from experience, too. I'm a mega-nerd for Chinese culture. I wanted to learn Tai Chi when I was a kid, but there was no one around us who taught the real stuff at that time. I really wanted to learn martial arts, though, so I ended up studying (over quite a span of years) other styles ... some Aikijiujitsu, Kempo, Capoeira, Lohan gung fu, and Aikido before finally finding my Tai Chi teacher.
WB: How much of Randall Lee is actually Charles Colyott?
CC: Oh, not too much (I hope)! When I was writing Changes, I wanted to show how this guy learns how to live again after a pretty horrible tragedy. I think we have a pretty similar sense of humor, but I'm nowhere near as tough as Randall! And while I know a few things about Tai Chi, I don't really know much about acupuncture ... that's one of those areas that I have to research.
WB: The Lee novels are also liberally seasoned with humor, and it seems like you have fun writing the books. Is the humor just natural to your writing, or is it a planned writing strategy?
CC: It was definitely part of the plan. I wrote almost exclusively horror (and pretty dark horror at that) for a few years, and I decided that I wanted to write something a little bit more mainstream, something that my family would actually read without questioning my sanity ...
WB: I think horror and humor are kissing cousins. Your thoughts?
CC: Definitely. And in the hands of a really great writer like Jeff Strand, those cousins get downright incestuous.
WB: The short stories you've written for the Smart Rhino anthologies, especially for the Zippered Flesh books, are absolutely creepy and much darker in tone than the Randall Lee books. Do you harness a different mood when writing horror? Go to the "dark side," so to speak?
CC: I think the dark side is always there, but it's a matter of degree. There's definitely some dark stuff in the Randall Lee books (Pressure Point, especially), but that darkness isn't meant to be the focus. Music is what helps me to set a tone, though. I typically make little "soundtrack" playlists to help get a feel for a story.
WB: In one sentence, what is the future of publishing?
CC: I don't know if anyone knows, really, but I'm going to do my best to be part of it.
WB: Which author has had the most influence on your own writing?
CC: That's a tough one. I met Neil Gaiman when I was about 17, and he really encouraged me to write. I'll never forget that. In horror, Stephen King (of course), John Skipp, Jack Ketchum, Ray Garton, Rick Hautala �K a bunch of people! Mystery is easy, though. Robert B. Parker. I read something like twenty Spencer novels over the course of a summer because Parker's style is just awesome.
WB: What are you reading now?
CC: I tend to juggle several at a time. The Hunter by Richard Stark, Flood by Andrew Vachss (re-reading this one), Galilee by Clive Barker, and Shada by Douglas Adams and Gareth Roberts.
WB: So, what's your next writing project? A new Randall Lee novel?
CC: Yep! Jianghu, the third book in the series, which is turning out to be the darkest and coolest one yet. I'm also collaborating with the super awesome Glen Krisch on a horror novel and working on the second book in my dark fantasy series.
Thanks, Charles, for a great interview, and good luck with your future writing endeavors! To learn more about this author, visit his web site at http://charlescolyott.wordpress.com.
(A version of this review was also published in the April 2013 issue of Suspense Magazine.)
