Richard Godwin's Blog, page 4

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is the author of countless mystery and suspense novels. He has written award-winning fiction for half a century, including A Drop Of The Hard Stuff. He has a new book out, The Crime Of Our Lives, a collection of his writing about crime fiction. Lawrence met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his new release and crime fiction.

Tell us about The Crime Of Our Lives.

Over the years, besides writing a lot of crime fiction, I’ve written a lot about crime fiction—starting with a piece for American Heritage a quarter of a century ago. Many of the pieces were introductions to a writer’s short story collection, or appreciations for a magazine’s tribute issue. A few years ago I did an occasional column for Mystery Scene magazine, which I called The Murders in Memory Lane; it consisted of my recollections of friends and colleagues who’d died along the way, and also included a three-part reminiscence of my apprenticeship in the late 1950s at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

A few years ago it struck me that I ought to sort out these pieces and make a book out of them. It took me longer than I’d expected to get around to it. But I got to it eventually, and never even considered looking for a publisher for it. I’ve come to enjoy publishing my own work, it’s terribly easy nowadays in the age of ebook and Print-on-Demand publishing, and THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES seemed an ideal candidate for self-publication, for a couple of reasons: (1) Its audience consisted primarily of readers who were fans of the genre in general and of me in particular, thus easily reached by my newsletter and social media, and (2) Except for an ever-shrinking handful of mystery bookstores, it would not be a remotely hot item in bricka-and-mortar stores.

And self-publication is so much faster! Instead of waiting a minimum of a year for a commercial publisher to get the job done, it took us no more than a couple of weeks once the manuscript was in final shape. That’s about as close as you can expect to get to instant gratification in my line of work.

How much do you think crime fiction has changed?

Well, I’ve been doing this for 50+ years, and everything else has changed radically, so it would be surprising were the same thing not true of crime fiction. Like everything else, it’s a product of and a mirror for the world of which it is made. It’s evolved accordingly.

As for changes specific to crime fiction, I suppose the most obvious is the extent to which it has moved out of the comfortable if faintly disreputable backwater in which it so long existed, and has grown into increasing critical and commercial prominence. When Raymond Chandler’s works were published in the prestigious Library of America, to be followed by those of Dashiell Hammett and a stream of other early crime writers, it became increasingly clear that crime fiction could qualify as important literature.

Similarly, books that were unequivocally crime fiction began appearing regularly on bestseller lists. For decades, whenever a mystery was commercially successful, all connected with it denied that it was a mystery. This denial collapsed when Agatha Christie’s posthumously published novels hit the lists. If Christie wasn’t a mystery writer, what the hell was she?

Along the way, crime fiction improved—because writers now had the opportunity to write their best books. They enjoyed increasing freedom in respect to the topics they chose and the language they employed. Their books could be longer, and explore themes in greater depth. I would not argue that everything published today is better than anything published half a century ago. But I would contend that much of today’s crime fiction is better than much of the crime fiction of the past—because it’s allowed to be what its authors would make of it.

Do you think the publishing industry is in a state of crisis?

I think everything is evolving at warp speed, and nobody knows what the future holds. Bookselling is increasingly becoming an online enterprise, and ebooks are increasingly a reader’s choice; in this climate, self-publishing becomes not merely an option for writers but one that grows more feasible and more attractive.

In my own case, it’s an option I’ve exercised frequently—most recently with The Crime of Our Lives, but several years ago with The Night and the Music, my collection of Matthew Scudder short stories. I chose self-publication over commercial publication for that book, and have never for a moment regretted the decision.

It’s one thing to spot a trend, another entirely to assume it will continue. Is the publishing industry in a state of crisis? Not for me to say.

Tell us what else is on the cards for you this year.

I’ve a new novel, THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES, coming from Hard Case Crime in September. I got the idea last May, and in July I holed up in an apartment in Philadelphia and got it written. Charles Ardai at Hard Case read it and loved it, and I knew he’d be the ideal person to publish it. It’s noir to the bone, and darkly erotic. My film agent calls it “James M. Cain on Viagra,” and that strikes me as just about right.

My Keller series has just been optioned for TV development. I don’t know whether anything will come of this, most options never come to fruition, but the deal inspired me to put together A KELLER SAMPLER, an 85,000-word book (ebook and paperback) that might serve to introduce new readers to Keller through excerpts from all five of the books.

I’d like to write something new this summer, but I haven’t a clue what it might be. All my series feel complete to me, and while I like spending time with those characters, I don’t want to stretch out any of the series with an inferior book. THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES was a pleasure to write because it allowed me to meet new characters in a new setting—specifically, central Florida. So it was a complete departure from my recent work, yet very much in my wheelhouse, and similar in certain ways to the books I wrote very early on.

I’d welcome an idea that’s a similar departure. When the pupil is ready, they say, the teacher will appear; well, similarly, when the writer is ready the idea will materialize. If it shows up within the next couple of months, I’ll go away somewhere in July or August and see what I can make of it.

Time will tell. It generally does…

Thanks you Lawrence for a great interview.

Author photo courtesy of Mary Reagan

Links:

The Crime of Our Lives is available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks Click here for more buy links and to find out more.

The Girl With The Deep Blue Eyes is coming September 2015. Click here to find out more, read an excerpt, and see all pre-order links.

A Keller Sampler can be had at Amazon US and Amazon UK. Click here to find out more and see other buy links.

For more of Lawrence Block’s books, see his Amazon US and Amazon UK author pages and visit his bookstore, LB’s Bookstore on eBay

Find Lawrence Block at his website, on his Facebook Fan Page and Twitter – @LawrenceBlock

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Ryan Bracha

Ryan Bracha is a director and author. His novels include Strangers Are Just Friends You Haven’t Killed yet. His latest novel is The Switch, an exploration of identity and the parallels that inhabit fictions and the realities they represent. Ryan me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his new release and filmmaking.

Tell us about your latest novel.

Five people inexplicably wake up as one other in a mass phenomenon known as The Switch. It happens to thousands of other people too, but given that one of them is a convicted serial killer and the other is a butter wouldn’t melt nation’s sweetheart, these five fall right into the public eye. Much sordid and violent actions follow. It’s Quantum Leap on a massive scale, with a seasoning of Cronenberg’s Crash, American Psycho, Lynch’s Lost Highway, Aranofsky’s Pi, Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, and lathered liberally with a satire of our news outlet’s obsession with taking their respective stories directly from what Twitter is saying. It’s an extreme book, but it has a point to make.

How important is the parallel between writer and film maker to you?

Not at all. Film making was a long, arduous and largely thankless process of bringing stories to life. You rely on dozens of other people to get your vision right, and more often than not they get it wrong. With my novels I love the overall control of where the story is going, how it’s brought to life, and the beauty of the written word over the moving image is that it’s far more open to all manner of interpretation. I wasn’t that good a film maker anyway. It was more about telling stories than anything else. Funnily enough though, I do intend to novelise my feature at some point.

What else is on the cards for you this year?

I’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline. Immediately next is my long-delayed Twelve Nights at Table Six project, which is the sequel to the Twelve Mad Men collaborative novel I released last year. One Richard Godwin features in both, and I’d hope he’d be an ever present in the continuing series. After that I’ve got the third book in my Dead Man Trilogy, and I’m also looking at putting out the second book in the Abrachadabra Books catalogue, which is Paul Brazill’s Neon Boneyard. That’s another delayed project which has kind of taken a back seat whilst I finished the Switched. I’m a bad person. Probably the worst person you know. I’m a real dick.

How important is sleaze you as a writer?

Sleaze is good. Very good. The underlying sexual threat of it intrigues me in general. I like it as a character trait in my antiheroes, as it gives me an opportunity to write some imaginative and obscene set pieces and dialogue. There are other forms of threat to utilise in fiction, of course there are, but personally I find sleazy threat much more interesting to write.

Who are your literary influences?

Before I started writing, I was big into Palahniuk, Elmore Leonard, Chris Brookmyre, the Coen Brothers, Tarantino. Those kinds of folk. I’d say they probably assisted in the creative process. Afterwards I picked up Irvine Welsh and Hubert Selby Jr and they opened my eyes to shoving two fingers up to convention and telling a story however you want, pushing the limits of taste, and I was hooked on that vibe. It was like they were writing just for me. I’m big into the indie lit scene right now, and there are a lot of kindred spirits. Mark Wilson and Craig Furchtenicht are probably closest to my way of storytelling.

What do you make of the e-book revolution?

Well, it’s been an absolute revelation really, hasn’t it? I know it hasn’t changed everybody’s minds about independent publishing, but it’s going some way to letting those of us who are serious about writing get our work out there. Of course, there’s always the age old and justified point about there being a lot of shit out there too, but if you can write, you package and edit it properly, and work hard enough then you can stand out and make a good name for yourself. So yea, I personally love this revolution, and I intend to ride the wave until the next revolution comes along. That said, I’m the same with my books as I am my music in that if I utterly love the band then I’m having it on vinyl. I’ll download everything I might want to give a try to, but the Palahniuks, and the Welshes of my life will always earn their way onto my bookshelf at home in hard back. As a reader, I prefer physical books, as a writer I’m thankful for electronic.

Tell us about your films.

In terms of that era of my life, I wrote and directed one feature film, directed a music promo, and then spent about a month in Paris writing my follow-up feature, which sadly couldn’t be made, due to an almighty fall out. I’ll try and tackle them in that order. Basically, coming out of university, a friend and I founded a not-for-profit film company, where we’d get funding for doing groups and sessions with teens to get them into film. On the side, we were making a film at zero cost, called Tales From Nowhere. At the time I was punting it as Kes meets Pulp Fiction. There were four interwoven stories set on a Rotherham council estate, loosely based on mine and my friend’s experiences living in rough as fuck areas of Barnsley and Rotherham, surrounded by territorial and feral Burberry clad fuckers. Not happy times. We spent every spare minute we had auditioning people, finding locations, trying to get everybody (who were working for free) in one place at the same time, and we spent about a year making it. We were able to get it on at the Showroom, which is Sheffield’s huge indie cinema. We were up against The Cat In The Hat (Mike Myers), and got a full house, smashing the animated fuck all over. It was a proud moment, seeing that twelve months of hard work come to fruition.

A guy I worked with had got his band signed, and the guy who was set to make their video let them down, so he called me and asked if I could do anything for them. They offered to pay, I asked for 8 beers. I should have asked for money. That was a very good time, I enjoyed that a lot.

The second feature, which was called Dirt merchants, was an ambitious undertaking to say the least. It was going to be an epic, spanning 30 years of two warring families living next door to one another. A council estate Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, my pal wanted to change the world and I was a hopeless piss head and stoner. We clashed and went our separate ways. He’s still trying to change the world. I’m telling stories on my own terms.

Graham Greene wrote, ‘There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer.’ What do you make of his observation?

I don’t think I’m smart enough to understand it. My interpretation of it is that we’re all cold hearted, is it that literal? I think it’s possibly true. You need to have some level of detachment to be able to do the awful things you do to your characters. The time and effort put into creating these people, only to put them through the wringer for entertainment purposes. It’s like kicking your child, I guess. I agree, then, if that’s the point of the quote. But I am a sociopath, my heart is a swinging brick.

Is there a particular event that has changed your life and influenced your writing?

My 20s. All of them. I found myself in all manner of scrapes through drink and drugs of one sort or another, and through my blatant disregard for the safety of myself or others. It opened my eyes. Turned me from a shy and naive fat student with an aversion to soap and water, to a regular moonlight flitter from houses and flats where I left unpaid bills and mess in my wake, to a sleazy and hyper confident shark looking for the next bed to hop into, to a 29 year old man, jaded and ready to settle down, less 9 teeth. A lot of the material in my books is inspired by those 3650 or so days. The books so far haven’t even scratched the surface of what happened in my 20s. I loved that decade. I’m older and wiser, and ready to come clean about it.

What advice would you give to yourself as a young man?

Don’t do anything different, make your decisions and mistakes, don’t get too down when you fuck it up, you’ll figure it out, kid.

Ryan thank you for an informative interview.

Links:

‘The Switched’ can be had at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Link to the music video: https://youtu.be/agSPONDL1AI

Website www.ryanbracha.webs.com

Facebook www.Facebook.com/ryanbrachaauthor

Twitter @ryanbracha

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Col Bury

Col Bury writes hardboiled, sharp, witty and menacing fiction. His first novel is My Kind Of Justice. It is about DI Jack Striker’s investigation into what appears to be a gang slaying until a second murder is committed. Col met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his new release and whether crime fiction sanitises crime.

Tell us about My Kind Of Justice.

Newly-appointed DI Jack Striker, of GMP’s Major Incident Team, has a dark secret, one that would land him in prison.

Striker’s first case seems to be a straight-forward gang-on-gang slaying, until a second notorious youth is found hanged. Before Striker has any chance to investigate, bodies begin stacking-up at an alarming rate.

With the hot breath of the brass burning his neck, Striker knows this case will make or break him as a detective. To make matters worse, hard-faced DCI Maria Cunningham and her faithful side-kick, DI Vinnie Stockley are onto him.

With the killer mixing MO’s and leaving the police virtually no leads, he recognises the work of a highly-skilled vigilante killer on a mission.

Striker’s nephew being put into a coma by the media-dubbed ‘Hoodie Hunter’, makes it personal. When the strain begins to show, Striker is ordered to take leave. Determined to solve the case, he runs an unofficial op’ with his trusty colleagues, stunning DC Lauren Collinge and politically-incorrect DC Eric Bardsley, both placed directly in the line of fire.

The killer’s trail leads Striker into his own shady past, but will he catch the Hoodie Hunter before he or a colleague becomes the next victim?

Do you think too much crime fiction sanitises crime?

Good question. In the wrong mind it could. Then again, the cops I know are rather desensitised to real crime, since they see it every day. So even in the ‘right mind’, if you overdose on anything your view of it will change. I’d say too much crime fiction probably does dilute people’s reactions to it somewhat. Maybe fiction (and movies) glamourising crime makes it more acceptable somehow.

Not sure I answered the question – I’m not a politician, honest!

Do you think revenge is lawless justice?

Another good question. (My brain is starting to hurt a bit.)

It can be, but it depends on the level of revenge. Obviously murder is the extreme example, though there is poetic justice out there, say, when someone intervenes to assist the victim while chastising the bully. However, I reiterate, in reality it’s best to let the justice system dish out revenge. If this fails… then that’s when you may have on your hands someone like the ‘Hoodie Hunter’ from MY KIND OF JUSTICE.

What else is on the cards for you this year?

(Back to my level, thanks.) I am currently writing the second DI Jack Striker novel, with many more to follow. I also have several other projects on the go, including another crime series involving a female anti-hero, plus I’m playing around with a comedy book, which provides a welcome break from the sobriety of crime. Another short crime story collection is inevitable too.

Thanks for having me, Richard.

Thank you Col for an informative interview.

Links:

Col Bury’s debut novel, ‘My Kind Of Justice’ is due out 18 June. Pre-order now, at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk: Kindle and paperback

Or get a £2 discount on the paperback when you pre-order direct from the publisher, Caffeine Nights Publishing.

Find Col on his blog, Twitter, and Facebook

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Kenneth Wishnia

Kenneth Wishnia is the author of numerous highly acclaimed novels, among them 23Shades of Black. His work is imbued with the hybrid knowledge of Noir. An articulate narrator, he is at once both ancient and modern. Kenneth met me at The Slaughterhouse, where we talked about identity and his fictions.

To what extent is identity important in your fictions?

Identity is tremendously important in my work. My protagonists are almost always marginalized outsiders, members of ethnic and/or religious minorities, or hanging by a thread economically. Some of this likely stems from the ancient tribal prophetic drive to “give voice to the voiceless,” a tradition going back to one of the earliest people’s prophet, Amos, an 8th century BCE “sheepbreeder from Tekoa” who is called upon by God to take on those “who defraud the poor, who rob the needy” (4:1).

Some of it is a reaction against a certain kind of contemporary “thriller” protagonist. You know the type—she or he is always a junior partner in some high-powered law firm who’s desperately trying to make senior partner; an intrepid investigative journalist or police detective whose job is in jeopardy; or a mid-level military or special agent, something like that. I think the idea behind such protagonists is that middle class readers will identify with them more than with a working class protagonist, especially since, in U.S. culture anyway, such professionals are seen as having more at stake, as having something to lose. As if working people don’t risk losing everything they’ve got if they dare to step out of line or miss a day of work.

In fact, I’ve found that once people reach a certain level of professional and economic stability, they are often far less likely to rock the boat, while those who have a much smaller stake in the economic system are often the ones who are willing to risk their livelihoods to take on the big bad guys.

Do you think there is a sub-genre of Noir that may be identified as the Noir of alienation, particularly when applied to the Jewish experience?

The theme of Jewish alienation goes back at least as far as the patriarchal era of the Middle Bronze Age (circa 1900 BCE) when God tells Abraham to leave his home city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, with the warning: “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs” (Genesis 15:13). Even the word Hebrews conveys our wandering nomadic origins: the root letters of this ancient tribal name, e-b-r, can be found in the words ebra and ever, which mean cross over and other side, respectively. In other words, the Hebrews have been transgressive border crossers since way back.

This legacy has bred prejudices and superstitions that have followed us into the modern era: Think of all those absurd conspiracy theories about the Jewish plot to take over global media and finances, which along with other hate-filled stereotypes contributed to the deadly assaults on the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC (where the victim was an African-American security guard) and the recent attacks on Jews, police and representatives of free speech in Paris and Denmark.

That’s some pretty dark stuff.

It’s no accident that so many of the directors and screenwriters who explored the dark side of the American experience in the classic films noir of the 1940s-50s (many of whom were blacklisted as a result) were Jewish émigrés from Fascist Europe. But many of them were the U.S.-born children of immigrants, whose experiences clearly parallel those of the contributors to Jewish Noir, the anthology I am currently editing for PM Press (pub date: Oct. 1, 2015), who have endured more subtle forms of discrimination, exclusion, identity and/or uniquely Jewish moral crises.

I’ll close with a (generalized, oversimplified) statement about the (simplistic, triumphalist) Christian view of the world–e.g., the Hebrew God is distant and terrifying, while Jesus loves you–and especially the idea that, for Christians, if you follow the right path, everything will turn out great for you, whereas in Judaism, you can follow the right path and still get fucked (cf. Job). THAT’S noir.

How do you convey this in your novel 23 Shades of Black?

It’s central to the main character’s experience. The novel takes place in New York City in the early 1980s, when my character, Ecuadorian-American female detective Filomena Buscarsela, would have been one of the first Latinas on the NYPD. So not only is she a woman in a man’s world, she’s a woman of color in a white man’s world. And they put her through hell for it, which makes it very difficult for her to live up to the ideals she has set for herself.

She’s also something of an outcast within her own “community” as well: immigrants from Ecuador were still a very small group at the time, and she’s also a cop, so she is not fully accepted by the Latino community, either, which makes her a minority within a minority. (This phrase also describes the protagonist of my Jewish-themed historical novel, The Fifth Servant, and my current novel-in-progress, so it’s clearly a motif that I revisit again and again.)

So she’s alienated from her job, her community, and from American society in a general way as well. I guess that covers everything. So what’s left?

One idea I was working with while writing 23 Shades of Black was to invert a cherished Hollywood type: the righteous individual who, through sheer grit and determination, kicks open the doors to his or her group’s participation in some wider aspect of the culture that had previously been closed off. Baseball legend Jackie Robinson, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, is a perfect example of this type of individual, single-handedly breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and his place in baseball history is unassailable.

Hollywood just loves that kind of story.

But what if he had failed? What if the taunts finally got to him? Or, perhaps worse, what if he simply hadn’t been a very good baseball player? What might that have been like?

Rather than write about an untarnished superwoman who takes on all comers, beats the odds, and ends up triumphant, I wanted to explore the human reality of someone who simply can’t take the weight of the entire world on her shoulders, who shows incredible personal strength—but it isn’t enough. (I guess my Marxist upbringing is showing: collective action is the only way to go, people!)

That’s my idea of drama. And yes, when a righteous person tries their best and still ends up getting chewed up by the system, you’re in the realm of noir.

What event has changed your life?

That’s easy: Getting nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel for 23 Shades of Black. I went from a nobody to a somebody overnight. I went from pressing my face up against the glass looking through the bulletproof glass window at the party to being inside at the party. The only thing that could top that would be getting a call from Hollywood. (Hello, Hollywood. Hello? Hello? Anybody there…?)

How important is legacy to you as a Jewish man living in America?

I’ve certainly never been interested in writing something trendy that will sell tons of copies in a single season but will disappear and be forgotten within a few years. Books are supposed to have a longer shelf life than a carton of milk, after all. My goal has always been to write something that will still be readable—and still be read—in a hundred years (at the very least).

One example: A couple of years ago, I read the Ace Books paperback edition of Harlan Ellison’s MEMOS FROM PURGATORY, about his experiences going undercover and joining a street gang in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood in the mid-1950s. First published in 1961, it was 50 years old when I picked it up—and Ellison’s voice was as engaging as anything written today. In terms of emotional realism, it didn’t feel dated at all. I even wrote to Harlan Ellison to tell him my reaction, saying that this book was still fresh after 50 years, which meant that it would still be fresh after 100 years. (And so on, until the language changes so much they’ll need footnotes to understand the references.) That’s definitely taking the long view, but really, what writer doesn’t fantasize—even a little bit—about still being read centuries later?

I think this attitude has less to do with my Jewish roots than my general goals as an artist, but perhaps the fact that Judaism is a text-based culture with a written legacy dating back thousands of years could have something to do with it.

Graham Greene wrote, ‘There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer.’ What do you make of his observation?

Any artist, good or great, has to be a bit driven.

One thing that distinguishes writing from many other professions is the requirement for a certain level of analytical and observational distance—the separation that comes with the need to step outside a situation to observe or record it, while others seem to be able to live in the moment with no need to preserve something of the event (except as a digital photo) in order to use it as material for creative development, expansion, or significant alteration. We are the ones who look past the glitz in order to spot the staples holding up the chintzy curtains that seem to dazzle so many regular folks. This spoils some of the fun, of course. But we’re also less likely to be taken in by scams, especially if they involve written documents or email communication. I suppose we’re a bit like lawyers in that regard, trained to spot the inherent weaknesses and contradictions of a given text.

I think ALL writers have a bit of that “It’s great meeting you, but could you all please leave me the hell alone so I can go home and write?” going on. I know I do. The average shmuck thinks that being a writer means that they pay you millions of dollars, the book writes itself, and you spend the rest of the day drinking in a bar surrounded by admirers. They have no clue that it’s damn hard work and it takes a long time to get something to come out right. And when you’re working on something you end up resenting interruptions—dentist appointments, wedding receptions, phone calls from anyone who isn’t offering you paid work—and I think that a lot of people can’t relate to the fact that one has to cultivate a level of indifference to many distractions that seem to enthrall other people.

You also need to be ruthless when you edit, and many people cannot manage this level of rethinking about any type of problem, much less one that calls for serious self-analysis and criticism.

And of course, the best stories never end with an unequivocal triumph. There’s always a “Yeah, but…”

What do you make of the e-book revolution?

E-books are both good and bad for authors. They’re good for two principal reasons: easy access and no returns. I was once on a panel at Left Coast Crime, and after the panel an audience member came up to me and said, “Your book sounded really interesting, so I just bought it.” She held up her smart phone and showed me that she had just purchased the e-book version of my novel The Fifth Servant. What’s not to like about that? Also, in terms of plain dollars and cents (or pounds and pence if you prefer), ask any author about their royalty statements, and they will usually complain about the large amounts kept in reserve against returns, or the large number of returns of physical books that this system allows. No one returns e-books. That sale is final.

On the down side, e-books can divert a lot of traffic away from independent bookstores, which are often our biggest supporters, so that’s not so good for us.

What are you working on at the moment?

As I mentioned earlier, I’m editing an anthology of all-new stories for PM Press called Jewish Noir, which is launching on Oct. 1 at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, followed by events in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere. Anyone in the UK care to invite us all over for an event? The roster of contributors includes Marge Piercy, S.J. Rozan, Eddie Muller, David Liss, Charles Ardai, Gary Phillips, Heywood Gould, Jason Starr, and many more. For more info, go to: http://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=733

I’m also working on an extremely ambitious Jewish-themed historical novel with parallel storylines set in the modern era and the 6th century BCE. I had to do a TON of research for this one, since I’m taking on the biblical era–and believe it or not, one or two people have written about the Bible before me, so I’d better know what I’m talking about. In any case, my take on the subject is sure to outrage all kinds of people. Ha ha ha.

What advice would you give to yourself as a younger man?

Spend a lot more time and money on publicity and promotion. (A lamentable state of affairs, but that’s how it is, folks.) Oh, and don’t forget to write The DaVinci Code.

What do you find to be effective methods of promoting your work and do you think publishing is in crisis?

Argh. I fucking hate the fact that we’re supposed to spend thousands of hours promoting ourselves. When the fuck am I supposed to do the actual writing? I have a full-time day job, an autistic son, and I’m supposed to write a piece for the Huffington Post for free? KRAK! WANGGG! I did a piece for AlterNet last year called “Five Reasons Why Committed Activists Should Read Crime Fiction.” It’s a nice little piece and I’m reasonably proud of it, but it took me eight hours to do the work and I didn’t get paid one cent for it. GDDZZZZT! SISSS! BOOOM! The people who set up and run the site don’t do it for free, but I’m supposed to put in eight hours of unpaid labor for them? KSSSHHHH! For the exposure, they say. I’m too old for that crap. When I was in my 20s, I routinely put in seventy-hour weeks for no money just to get experience. BADABOOM! STOMP! KSSHH! Even when I was in my 30s, and married with two children, I spent six months translating a novel from Spanish in order to get the experience, get a line on my resume, and maybe, just maybe, get some karma points for helping out a fellow author. I got $500 for six months’ work, so I sure didn’t do it for the money. YANNNGGGGG! WEEEE-OOOO-EEEE-EEE! I also taught a bunch of college courses for no money at all while I was in graduate school just to get the experience that led to my full-time teaching job. But that was twenty years ago, and I’m sick of this new dynamic. KLANNGG! ANNGGG! ANNGGGG! All the big places have the money to pay for office space, electricity, equipment, and of course, administration costs. So fuck them. Pay me for my work, assholes. ZINNGGG! ANNNGGGG! WEEEEEEEE! And if you want to read my work for free, go get one of my books out of the library. KSSSHHHH! BOOOM! KRNCHH! KRKRNCH! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! KONNNNNNNnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggg….

Guess I should mention that I’m currently reading Pete Townshend’s autobiography, Who I Am. Does it show?

Thank you Kenneth for a great interview.

Links:

PM Press’s Jewish Noir page link is above, and here are the links to my other PM Press books (trade pbs and e-books), The Fifth Servant , and my web site (which urgently needs updating):

www.kennethwishnia.com

’23 Shades of Black’ – trade pb and eBook

‘Soft Money’ – trade pb and eBook

‘The Glass Factory’ – trade pb and eBook

‘Red House’ – trade pb and eBook

‘Blood Lake’ – trade pb and eBook

‘The Fifth Servant’ – trade pb and eBook

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Nik Korpon

Nik Korpon is the author of Stay God, Sweet Angel and numerous stories. He writes Noir, he writes transgressive prose that digs into alienation. He is an assistant editor with Dark House Press. He lives in Baltimore. Nik met me at The Slaughterhouse, where we talked about his novel and the sub-genres of Noir.

How central is identity to your novel Stay God, Sweet Angel?

Identity plays into almost everything I write. In Stay God, Sweet Angel, it’s the literal centerpiece of it, as the guy not only uses a Baltimore pawn shop as a drug dealing front, but he also assumed a different name on fleeing some bad business up in Massachusetts. There are also an assortment of people who might or might not be who they say they are.

Actually, let me take that back. I think the more accurate thing to say would be that appearances–if not personal identity explicitly–fascinate me, how we present ourselves to each other. Crime fiction is kind of built off that, but the tension between personal interiors and exteriors, who we choose to be to which people, all of that gives a writer so much to play with.

I remember seeing Dateline or 20/20–I think it was 20/20, because it came on Friday night after the X-Files back in the 90s–about this grandfather who had been sentenced to forty years in jail for something like fifty robberies. They interviewed him a couple times and, obviously, he looked like a grandfather, very soft-spoken and mild-mannered and whatnot, but what really struck me was the interviews with his victims. Every last one of them said how nice he was, and that he’d make sure the ropes weren’t too tight, or put a pillow beneath someone so they were comfortable. A couple people even gave him extra money because he was so nice. But still, the guy was taking tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff. It’s not the most extreme example of interiors and exteriors–and especially not when I was at the age where all I watched was Nightmare on Elm Street and Godfather–but something about that dissonance has stuck with me for twenty years.

Do you think within Noir there is a sub-genre of a Noir literature of alienation?

You mean characters alienated from society, or something along those lines? I definitely see that. I mean, just by definition–or one of the definitions–noir is about the downtrodden, the outcast, the forgotten. Fiction about losers, is what I think Otto Penzler called it. It’s about the cogs on which the clock runs, not the actual clock. So those people are bound to feel alienated and lash out accordingly. Plus, if a character has nothing tethering them to society, there’s nothing to keep them from sinking and sinking and sinking.

I think it’s really interesting to watch people flip that alienation on it’s head though, and where most noir characters are lone wolves (wolfs? can you have multiple “lone”? I digress…) you instead see characters that are constantly surrounded by people, to the point of claustrophobia. It’s hard to pull some nefarious shit with a lot of onlookers. Somewhat related: I’d avoided using technology in stories for a really long time because I thought it hurt the aesthetic of the world. Calling someone on a mobile isn’t nearly as cool as finding a payphone, yeah? Then I read a few books (or, being honest, probably watched a couple TV shows) where they used cell phones extensively and I was completely converted, because they made it so much harder for characters to achieve their goal. The phones became the all-seeing eye. Plus there was the possible drama of meeting a supplier at a diner table to set up some deal while your hand was under the table, texting all the details to your partner to rip-off the supplier. Stuff like that. They became a socially acceptable form of Big Brother.

That went way off topic…

How important is redemption in your writing?

Much more important now than it used to be. When I first started writing crime and noir, I was trying to outdo everything I’d read. Make it darker, more visceral, more lyrical. That was fun for a while but it started to wear on me as I got older, and as I read more. I still like things to be dark and fucked up–probably because I write largely about love and families, which are both dark and fucked up–but I prefer to have some glimmer of hope at the end. That doesn’t necessarily mean a character needs to be redeemed, but I like for them to be moving toward it, even if they fail. All of this is probably a function of me getting older, having kids and whatnot. I don’t need, or want, everything to be gloom and doom all the time. If I want unrelentingly depressing shit, I can watch the news.

I think this was probably my bone with True Detective, though I did enjoy the show a lot, and it’s why I tend to gravitate more toward stories like Justified, The Americans, Breaking Bad, things like that. There’s still a lot of bad stuff happening, but there’s a very human element to the story. With True Detective, Ligotti, all the anti-natalist theory and whatnot, the cynicism became overwhelming and made the story part of my brain shut down, or at least stop paying attention. I mean, I was raised Catholic; I’ve already got enough residual guilt weighing me down (and, like many Catholics I know, have later become a practicing Buddhist).

That’s not to say that I believe solely in happy endings. In the same way that I’m turned off by completely depressing endings, I don’t think anyone walks away from a dramatic incident unscarred. Most of my endings are somewhere in between, where the character has (usually) overcome the obstacle (mostly), but whether they survive in the long-term is still unclear. Which, to me, is the most honest ending.

Who are your literary influences?

They’ve changed over the years. The Outsiders was my favorite book for about ten years when I was young, along with some Stephen King. When I first started writing, probably in my early 20s or so, I was all about Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk, Nick Hornby, F, Scott Fitzgerald and the Beats, especially The Subterraneans by Kerouac. I loved that book desperately. Actually, I haven’t reread it in probably ten years, mostly because I don’t want to taint the way I remember it. I drank wine out of the bottle and wrote these overwrought faux poems and an abortion of a novel. All of my writing was terrible then. Hasn’t gotten much better now but…

Once I started to get serious about writing (and I’m not saying those people aren’t serious writers, just that my tastes changed) the three biggest books for me were Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer, Dermaphoria by Craig Clevenger, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold/100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Pretty much anything in Macondo, actually. I read everything Gabbo wrote, save Melancholy Whores, in about six months. Dermaphoria was a big one for me, because just as Palahniuk and Welsh redefined for me what books could be as a reader, Derma blew open what you could do as a writer. I also read it right before starting grad school, so it came at a pivotal time for me. The Baltimore of my writing is directly taken from Gabbo’s Macondo, in that most of the stories are in the same world and characters pop up in various stories and novels. And Baer, I could listen to his words instead of music.

As I got more into crime fiction, I found James M. Cain, specifically Postman, and that changed everything again. The doomed lovers, the inevitability bearing down on them, that opening line. I’ve been trying to write that book for eight years and still can’t get it right. Cain led me to Jim Thompson, who inflicted his stories on me for a couple years. I worked my way through a lot of the golden-era writers up to contemporary stuff, people like Megan Abbott, Lehane, Don Winslow, Gillian Flynn, Woodrell, Tana French. I don’t think there’s hard and fast evidence of their influence on me, but it’s filtered through. I can hear it even if no one else can.

More recently, I’ve been reading a lot of “mountains crime,” for lack of a better term (I always think rural noir sounds condescending), guys like Ben Whitmer and Wiley Cash, and crime from Northern Ireland, Gerard Brennan and Stuart Neville. Kind of a weird mix, but it fits somehow.

And it’s not explicitly literary, but I read a lot of teleplays over the last year before writing a few TV and film scripts (all spec, unfortunately), and it has started informing my novel-writing. For one, you track through one “story” a hell of a lot quicker than reading a novel, and two, the screenwriter has already stripped away all the bullshit so you can see story and story only. It’s incredibly helpful because you start to see how scenes and sequences are put together, watch dialogue and action play against one another, see only what’s essential to the narrative, then apply that to prose. I mean, you see all that in books, but I’m not a terribly smart guy so it’s helps me to have it laid bare like that.

Do you think too much crime fiction sanitises crime?

I think it’s hard to get it right. As many books sanitize crime as glorify and revel in it. I’m not sure which is worse. Glossing over it robs the scene of its impact, but blood and gore for the sake of blood and gore pulls you out of the story too. Unless it’s particularly campy and that’s all part of the fun, like that scene in Hatchet where you can actually see the lip of the bucket as they’re throwing blood on the tree. I’m pretty forgiving with violence, as long as it’s honest, but I prefer to read, and write, emotional violence than physical violence. What’s that Thuglit line–Think clever, not cleaver or something like that? A broken glass at a dinner table can be more dramatic than a chainsaw if it’s used properly.

Graham Greene wrote, ‘There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer.’ What do you make of his observation?

Possibly that writers should be somewhat cold? I’m not sure. I think it’d be hard for someone to write if they don’t have some kind of interest in other people, empathy or something along those lines. I don’t know if you have to actually enjoy people to be a great writer–I tend to be introverted, so I hope you don’t have to–but an interest in what makes people tick is helpful.

What do you make of the e-book revolution?

It’s great. It’s given all of these emerging authors a chance to get their books out and be heard. It’s also allowed a number of great micropresses to start publishing work of these writers who are unknown but exciting as hell to read. Same with all of the great magazines that have popped up over the last five years. All of the talk about ebooks rendering print obsolete and whatnot is a bunch of horseshit, to my mind. A lot of people still prefer paper over digital, and will continue to buy paperbacks.

What the ebook revolution did was give more flexibility to readers and possibly attract newer, more tech-savvy readers (though I don’t mean that in a condescending way). I don’t have a ton of spare time, so having a Kindle app on my phone lets me sneak in some extra reading when I have twenty minutes. I’d still prefer to lay in my hammock with a beer and read an entire book, but beggars and choosers, you know? Still, despite having a Kindle app and a Kindle, most of what I read is still paperback.

From the publishing side, I think the next logical step in ebooks–and it’s something some indie presses are doing, as well as some indie music labels–is to package a digital download with a physical copy. I’ve picked up a bunch of records that have a code for a free digital download, and it makes the most sense because it allows people to have the record wherever they go. Same with books. There’s no reason not to do it, other than trying to make an extra couple bucks of people. In the end, it hurts the readers and the writers most.

How important is personal struggle to your writing?

It’s probably one of the most important things of the book. If your characters don’t have to struggle for anything, there’s no drama, no reason to keep reading (or writing, for that matter). One of the things I constantly worry about is how much struggle is too much. I never want it to be easy for a character to reach their goal–and I’m always looking for ways to make their life harder–but finding that sweet spot between drama and grinding-doom is tricky. I’ve always admired writers like Stephen Graham Jones and the Breaking Bad writers who constantly write themselves into a corner then manage to find their way out without it being ridiculous. I don’t know if I ever quite hit that mark.

What advice would you give yourself as a younger man?

I’d tell a younger me a couple things:

-No, it’s not good enough yet. Have another crack.

-Yes, someone’s written a story like that before, but it’s okay. Do it different and do it better.

-No, your life is not going to end if you don’t get this story/novel/screenplay picked up somewhere. Write another one and make it better this time.

-Yes, the writing life can be cruel, lonely, self-defeating, and full of misery.

-No, you can’t quit. Give it ten minutes and you’ll write a great sentence or have a great conversation at a reading and everything will be fine again.

-Yes, by all means, write a story you think is interesting and is fun to follow. That’s the whole point, yeah?

-No, it doesn’t have to be “noir as fuck,” whatever that means.

-Yes, you can practice you signature for that four-book deal that will allow you to quit one of your jobs. Just don’t leave the cap off the pen. It might be a while.

If you could choose a film-world to live inside, which would you choose?

I’m probably going to lose punk points for this, but it’s a split between Inception and Amelie, which, yeah, are pretty damn far apart. Something about the immersive world of Inception, the set decoration, the aesthetic of it, it really hit me. There are problems with the film, sure, but the world itself is beautiful. And strangely enough, I wrote the novella that became The Boys From County Hell, a sci-fi novel featuring memory thieves and Billie Holliday I just finished, right before I saw Inception. So I was doubly pissed to see dream thieves and Edith Piaf done amazingly well on the screen.

Same way with Amelie, but in the totally opposite direction. Everything is so whimsical and grease-smeared, and with the wet cobblestones and the organ grinder music going on in the background, hits some Francophile chord in me. Doesn’t hurt that I’ve been planning on marrying Audrey Tautou for the last fifteen years…

Thank you Nik for an informative interview.

Links:

‘Stay God, Sweet Angel’ can be found at Amazon US and UK

See all Nik Korpon books at his US and UK Amazon author pages

Find Nik at Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter @nikkorpon

And of course you are invited to visit his “occasionally updated homepage,” here.

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Mav Skye

Mav Skye writes slipstream subversive fiction. Supergirls is the story of two women corrupted by a lifestyle whose propaganda they feed on, a dystopian narrative of sexual predation hiding inside broken ideals. The protagonists are driven by the desire for wealth and their own conditioning by the fictional heroisms of TV and the myth of the superhero and the sequel is Night Without Stars. Mav met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about her novel and the theme of predation.

Tell us about Night Without Stars.

Fear is a flighty little feather. Blown one way, it can turn the strongest men into cowards, blown another direction, it can spur the weak to become warriors. We don’t know how we will respond or react until the fear feather tickles that little trigger inside every single one of us, that little trigger called SURVIVAL.

Night without Stars is about the survival beast inside, and how our lovely Supergirls, Jenn and May, deal with it. There are new characters added to our story as well, a rogue priest who falls desperately in love with Jenn. And two siblings rescued from the sex trade, Tina and Tony.

Do you think it is possible to survive in a predatory world without turning to predation?

We are living in a predatory world right now. You and I may live peacefully in our homes, but there are monsters out there. Possibly right next door. Down the street, a wolf in sheep’s clothing preaches at the local church. They are in our schools, work places, in our politics. Predators perceive innocence and goodness as weakness. They are constantly sizing up the gentle and naïve, sniffing the air for fear.

Because fear is what first turned them into the monsters they are now. Fear can strip power or empower.

Predators don’t come out of the womb as monsters. Not most anyway. No, predators are created when someone hurts them, someone steals their power. The emerging predator copes with the fear and the pain by identifying with the tormentor, by becoming the monster.

Is it possible to survive in a predatory world without turning to predation? Yes. But we must guard our hearts and minds, because every single one of us is susceptible to the beast within and without.

How does Supergirls 2 compare to 1?

The first book introduces us to Jenn and May, their desperate attempt to reach for their dreams by conning a bad guy (Piggy) out of his money. Obviously, their plan isn’t so simple, and it ends tragically for the sisters. The story is told from Jenn’s pov, and the story teeters on the edge of reality.

In Supergirls 2, we take the plunge all the way into the ghostly realm. Jenn and May are in their own world, and they pull others into their spiraling cycle of love, madness and survival. They find peace and family with a complete set of strangers (whom we get to know intimately as the story is written in multiple POV’s). It’s the American dream before it turns into the American nightmare.

Both books definitely have animalistic themes. And I have to admit that there is something of a cautionary tale for adults in them. The first had the obvious theme for a pig. I kept seeing Bells as this enormous, pink pig with an apple in his mouth, struggling on the floor in front of the fire. He is the ultimate in decadence and filthy rich lifestyle. He has a sadistic imagination where he is the ultimate god of his world.

The second book uses imagery that leads to “the beast within” theme. The story opens in a fairytale way with innocence and curiosity…by the end of the first chapter a man in a wolf mask is knocking on the door and I hope readers can just hear the old wolf’s words “Little pig, little pig let me come in!”. The single scene immediately impacts the rest of the story (and characters.) The suspense won’t let you go until the end.

Tell us what else is on the cards for you this year?

Oh, the usual literary riff raff. Let’s see, I’m shooting for October (again!) to release Wanted: Single rose, my first full-length horror novel. I’m also finishing up a draft of an extremely long (about 120k) small town crime story based on the town I grew up as a teen. It’s called Devil’s Playground.

Also, writing the third novella in the Supergirls series, of course, and you can be the first to know that I’m writing ZOMBIES. The book I’m currently working on is about a young girl who gets trapped in a doomsday prepper’s grain silo immediately after the apocalypse. A sadistic old woman has the only key to unlock the door, and thinks of more and more sadistic ways to torture the girl. I’m thinking about calling it Zombpunzel. Ha.

And as usual, I’m always writing new short stories here and there, and combining them with some previously published stories for my 3 Tales to Chill Your Bones series on Amazon.

Thanks Mav for a great interview.

Links:

Get a copy of ‘Supergirls 2’ at Amazon US and UK

‘Supergirls 1’ Amazon US and UK



Mav Skye Amazon author pages US and UK

Find Mav Skye at her website, on Facebook, and Twitter

Might as well sign up for Mav Skye’s Horror Newsletter while you’re looking around. It’ll get you a free copy of ‘Harvester of Days’

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Terry Irving

Terry Irving is a novelist, journalist and an American four-time Emmy award-winning writer and TV producer. He is the author of Courier, and The Day of the Dragon King. He has also set up Ronin Robot Press, a publisher that specialises in the best of the books ignored by the major publishers. Terry met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about Publsush Crowdfunding and publishing.



Tell us about Pubslush Crowdfunding.

Great name, isn’t it?

Pubslush is the literary equivalent of Indiegogo or Kickstarter. It’s named after the “slush pile” where unwanted manuscripts ended up at publishers back in the day. If you look at the other crowdfunding sites, you’ll see films, graphic novels, plays, etc. but very few books so it’s clearly needed.



Now, it’s a site that serves a relatively small but growing number of independent authors and publishers with readers looking either to read the latest new books or to support struggling writers and publishers in these days of complete confusion and collapse in the book business. It supports three types of projects: simple crowd-funding: an author or (in my case) a struggling publisher looks for funding through a combination of selling the project and handing out awards depending on the amount donated, Book Pre-orders: a small press can pre-sell a book and get a feel for whether the market will support it and get the funds to publish at the same time. Finally, it’s a marketplace where an author (or publisher) has the space to really sell a book. There are over 150 publishers taking part–from Iguana Publishing to Grey Gecko Books-and they are partnered with major companies in the field like Lulu, Smith Publicity, and NaNoWriMo.

Why do you think many good novels do not get published?

An interesting question that really has to be answered in two parts: How many unpublished novels are good? And of those good novels, why don’t they get published?

First, I have to say that the vast majority of self-published novels–particularly of the eBook variety, aren’t Good. They aren’t even OK. They suck. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Sadly, I’m a Baby Boomer and when one of us does something, every damn one of us does the exact same thing. In this case, we have all retired (or can’t find work) and are writing that book. Or are trying to make some money and are writing a couple of dozen books in the hope of making a reasonable income. Since we’ve been told our entire lives that everything we do is wonderful and perfect, indie writers seem to go in one of two directions: either they go to endless meetings where you sit in a circle and have your work critiqued by every Tom, Dick , and Harry who walks by and, as a result, never actually publish anything or they throw the most incredible drivel up on the market and see if it sells.

Usually, someone buys it.

Sadly, it’s usually a self-defining definition. If you’re “self-published” your book sucks. If your book didn’t suck, it would be published. It’s like finding a “respected scientist” who researches UFOs. You cannot be respected if you research little green men. Ipso Facto.

In my case, I was published and then the publisher was killed in a brutal and completely criminal fashion by the grandparent company. (I guess I should point out that I am referring to the company in a metaphoric sense and not the Publisher as a human being. Did I need to explain that?) I had always intended to be a “Published Author.” For one thing, you can’t get into any of the cool book conventions as a “selfie” or an “indie” or whatever they call us these days. In addition, you’re stuck in a category with some truly dreadful books. It’s not all Shades of Gray and Dust or Sand or whatever.

The third part of my two-part answer is that the book publishing industry is in flux. Which is nice way of saying that it resembles trying to make a living in Weimar Republic when your money would drop in value between the time you bought a loaf a bread and the moment you paid for it. No one has a clue what will sell, what stores will be open to sell it in, what advertising still works (if any,) what marketing works, and what authors are worth putting any money into.

If it wasn’t for Patterson, I think half of the American publishing market would be defunct.

So, the big boys only take on established authors with a track record of sales. This looks a lot better when you go into the weekly meeting where you have to defend every book you’d like to green light. Instead of mumbling about this Tolkien fellow and goblins and rings, you can just say, “Hey, it’s Steve Berry, he sells back our investment in the first week and if we don’t take him, Simon & Penguin, Marks, Knopf, $ Gireaux will.”

At which point, the president of the company walks in and announces that they’ve just been sold to Random Osprey & Robot and everyone has to find three best-selling gay/cis-male nonsexual erotica books with at least two holistic brownie recipes by tomorrow noon.

Tell us about Angry Robot Press.

Angry Robot is a publisher determined to survive. To my knowledge, they’ve gone through three owners in the past decade and continued to publish crazed gore-sodden noir and equally insane science fiction. They aren’t evil people, it’s just the nature of the business. When Exhibit A got the axe, they were owned by Osprey which was a company of incredibly serious military books (Polish Aces of World War 2, Uniforms of the Boer Wars) that had grown out of a manufacturer of tea cards a million years ago.

What I suspect happened was that the CEO of Osprey was also the Editor-in-Chief. That indicates to me that she was the only person at Osprey who knew diddley about books. She departed for an editor’s job at a big publisher and the suits at Osprey jumped up within 24 hours and announced a “reassessment” of the company–which means they threw a big “For Sale” banner on the outside of the building. One thing I learned from my dalliances in the world of tech startups is when you want to sell a company, you need to make it neat and simple for the suits on the buying end. You don’t want to present a combination of tea cards and blood-splatter fiction to a banker.

So, after about two minutes of “reassessment,” Angry Robot was cut loose and on their own. They had the same problem, two new imprints which weren’t making money yet (Exhibit A and Strange Chemistry) so they had to go in order to make their own sale simple. Boom. We were dead.

I followed it vaguely in the trade press and it appeared that Angry Robot went into bankruptcy for about ten minutes and then was acquired by an American company that specialized in holistic meditation–now, that has to be a marvelous synergy. To their credit, they didn’t use the author’s contracts as collateral and returned my rights on a relatively quick basis.

I guess I wish them well on their journey toward holistic splatter-fiction synthesis.

My agent tried to get me another publisher but–even though he has told me that 4 editors at Random House and 3 at Simon & Schuster have read Courier–had no luck. He always disliked Dragonking–just not his cup of tea–and I was left in the cold. In December, when Courier was about to off what few shelves it was on, I decided to take the leap and created Ronin Robot Press.

In truth, it’s a combination. I’ve blown most of my savings on living for three years without an income while I wrote my books and the far longer time I spent waiting for Exhibit A to put them on the market. Then I blew a LOT of money on PR firms that did very little and on going to book conventions which were enjoyable but not sales monsters. Finally, I’ve been a freelancer for too long and I believe in paying an invoice the day it comes in the mail. Far too many people have used the Bank of Freelancer to fund their business and left people with nothing when the business craters. More than anything, that’s what I’m looking for with the Crowdfunding effort at www.roninrobotpress.pubslush.com, the funds to bank away and use to pay the people who are writing, editing, designing the covers, and proofing our books.

Consequently, I need Ronin Robot to succeed. Sure, I’d like to sell my own books but that comes second to making money. Thus Westerns, Romances, and whatever else will sell. I care intensely about the books I write and I’d like to see them go mainstream but it’s quite possible that the books from other authors will be what keeps me alive.

Tell us about your aims in the crowd funding project.

In truth, it’s a combination. I’ve blown most of my savings on living for three years without an income while I wrote my books and the far longer time I spent waiting for Exhibit A to put them on the market. Then I blew a LOT of money on PR firms that did very little and on going to book conventions which were enjoyable but not sales monsters. As a result, I’m 63 years old and have about enough savings to keep us going for the next six months.

Additionally, I’ve been a freelancer for too long and I believe in paying an invoice the day it comes in the mail. Far too many people have used the Bank of Freelancer to fund their business and left people with nothing when the business craters. More than anything, that’s what I’m looking for with the Crowdfunding effort at www.roninrobotpress.pubslush.com, the funds to bank away and use to pay the people who are writing, editing, designing the covers, and proofing our books.

Consequently, I need Ronin Robot to succeed. Sure, I’d like to sell my own books but that comes second to making money. Thus Westerns, Romances, and whatever else will sell. I care intensely about the books I write and I’d like to see them go mainstream but it’s quite possible that the books from other authors will be what keeps me alive.

Finally, I enjoy sitting in my office and pounding on the computer keyboard. I’ve spent far too many years dressing up in a suit and trying to train tv producers and writers half my age with double the ego. I simply don’t want to do it any more. I enjoy writing my own books, which is rather normal for writers I suppose, What’s odd is that I enjoy editing and/or rewriting other people’s work. Most of my career hasn’t been in original writing but in editing and improving the writing of others and I find that I can work out their “voice” and style. Not all the authors agree with this. In fact, one out of eight has agreed so far. Most independent authors are terrible and quite a few are borderline illiterate but all have a very healthy opinion of their own work.

I’d like to have Ronin Robot Press mean something in the market–a guarantee of a quality, enjoyable book with a comprehensible plot and a minimum of screaming errors. I still will buy a Baen Book almost automatically because Don Baen was a superb editor and I knew I’d like whatever he chose. If the stars align, I would like to be able to do that.

At the minimum, I’d like to put food on the table and money in the pockets of as many freelancers as possible.

Thank you Terry for an informative interview.

Links:

Visit the Ronin Robot Press Pubslush event

Find Terry Irving’s fan page here

A new Ronin Robot Press website is under construction but currently the site resides here

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Keith Nixon

Keith Nixon writes gritty, hardboiled crime fiction. His new novel is The Corpse Role. It is about a major robbery, and features DI Charlotte Granger investigating as her own past threatens to catch up with her. Keith met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his new release and crime fiction.

Tell us about The Corpse Role.

The Corpse Role marks a slight change in direction for me, into the realm of police procedural.

When the body of a security guard implicated in a major robbery two years ago turns up in a shallow grave DI Charlotte Granger is called in. £1.2 million went missing in the heist – the money has never been found and the culprits remain at large. At the time the robbery had been major news and becomes so again, with investigative journalists, her own superiors and career criminals crawling all over the case. However, Granger’s own past threatens to catch up with her…

To what extent do you think crime fiction sanitises crime?

My view is yes it does, but the extent will vary depending upon the individual. In the vast majority of cases both author and reader have little, if any, direct experience of the crimes they are portraying or consuming. In my debut, The Fix, there’s a death within the first couple of pages. I’ve been asked more than once if it’s autobiographical!

It’s not, by the way.

There are so many channels for people to experience an image of crime today – via the internet, news reports or newspapers – most of these are far more graphic in their depiction than a novel.

Do you think that the publishing industry is in a state of crisis?

That’s a very interesting question. It’s definitely in a state of change. Whether a change in the status quo is a crisis depends on how you generate your profits. I’m sure Amazon would see the current game as fabulous for them! But it seems that despite the changes in routes to market the big publishing houses still hold sway online and in the stores.

Whatever your perspective ultimately this is good for the reader because it increases choice.

Tell us what else is on the cards for you this year.

I have another Konstantin novel out May 11th titled, I’m Dead Again.

As for work in progress I’ve another police procedural well underway, which has meant a pause in writing the fourth Konstantin instalment and I’m planning the third, as yet untitled, part of my Roman historical series about Caradoc, the first British General. It’s been a hard choice what to focus on!

Keith thank you for a great interview.

Links:

Get a copy of ‘Corpse Role’ at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

See all Keith Nixon’s books at his website and Amazon Author Page.

Find Keith on Facebook and Twitter

Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Kenneth Weene

A New Englander by upbringing and inclination, Kenneth Weene is a teacher, psychologist and pastoral counsellor by education. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and he is the author of Tales From The Dew Drop Inne. He has a new release, Brooding New Englander. Ken met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about juxtapositions in his writing and the frontier in America.

Tell us about Broody New Englander.

[image error]@Ken_Weene

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Lee Matthew Goldberg

Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of Slow Down. It is a neo-Noir thriller about the effect of speed in the modern age. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and he co-founded the monthly reading series called the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. Lee met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his novel and the age of surveillance.

To what extent do you think we are manipulated by media speed?

I think we’re greatly manipulated by the alarming speed of media these days. Because of a twenty-four-seven news cycle, we’re constantly plugged into everything that is going on. Instead of solely reading the newspaper in the morning or catching a nightly news broadcast, our lives are continuously interrupted by a never-ending flow. On one hand this keeps us very informed, but it can also cause us to become desensitized. Tragedies will always be tragic, but it seems like certain ones are given the spotlight and then fade away shortly for a new horrific event to come and take its place.

The characters in Slow Down are affected similarly. While the world around them plays second fiddle to their own egos, they have become so consumed with a personal drive for success that they’ve lost the ability to discern between what is morally right and wrong. At the beginning of the novel, each would probably argue that they are energized by the onslaught of new media at their fingertips. By the end of the novel, the ones who survive just wish to slow everything down before they become a tragic headline too.

As Dominick the film director states towards the end, “Everything is so fast and awful, isn’t it?” To which, the main character Noah replies: “The world has become like that.”

How does your novel use narrative to counteract the manipulations of speed, for example, regarding contemporary media, or as Paul Virilio analysed it in his work Speed and Politics in reference to ‘the importance of accelerated speed, of the impact of technologies of motion, of types of mobility and their effects in the contemporary era.’

Speed and the idea of acceleration are huge parts of the narrative. Everyone in the novel is trying to cut corners to get ahead as fast as possible. ‘Fast’ becomes the designer drug they all take, which literally speeds up your heart. Noah and his brother Dex see a band called The Speeds. One character dies in a car crash from the breaks being cut. On the flip side, Dominick’s painting of a yellow circle and the yellow circle tattoos on all the actresses’ backs are overt warnings to literally ‘slow down.’ I think the rapid pace of technology these days and the ability to get whatever you want at the push of a button has caused people to become less patient. They are also unwilling to possibly change their oppressive situations because there is so much to distract them into believing they’re satisfied. The characters who survive Slow Down and flourish are the ones able to release themselves from the need for acceleration.

To what extent is identity central to the novel?

Identity is a central part of the novel. Along with a lot of camera-related imagery in the narrative, all the characters are seen in multiple senses. Noah is a spoiled uptown rich kid, but what lurks deeper are sociopathic tendencies alternating with true love for his old high school crush Nevie. Nevie is a gorgeous actress, but a drug-addicted shell of the girl Noah grew up with. Dominick is a supposed genius who directed a hit indie movie a few years back, but his wife Isadora may have be the one supplying him with all his ideas. In Dominick’s new movie called Slow Down, he wants the actors to truly experience whatever it is their characters are actually feeling. Since he’s unable to be real in his life, it’s almost as if he craves to make up for that with his film.

Inasmuch as we live in an age of surveillance do you think it is also true we live in an age of voyeurism?

In a lot of ways we do live in an age of voyeurism. From reality TV, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Twitter feeds, there is an obsession with the minutiae of other people’s lives that didn’t exist 15 years ago. Look at the Kardashians. I’ve never seen the show, but millions of dollars have been made from a glimpse into a family that really has no special talents and who was introduced to the world through a sex tape. This age of voyeurism bleeds into Slow Down as well. The characters are more comfortable viewing each other through a lens than they are face-to-face. Noah films the first time he has sex with Nevie. After she leaves in the morning without warning, he’s glad to have a documentation of their night together. It is something he can watch over and over to relive the experience, even if it never winds up happening again.

Marshall McLuhan wrote, ‘The medium is the message.’ While we document, do you think we are being documented and is it possible the records that are kept are part of social engineering?

It’s interesting because everyone has their own virtual diary these days. Through social media sites we can pinpoint exactly what we were doing five years ago today. Children are born and immediately given Facebook pages, dogs and cats are even given pages too. I just read an article about Marshall McLuhan on Pacific Standard that talked about how each generation gets some kind of a new medium, which the previous generation fears a little. 100 years ago it was radio, 60 or so years ago it was TV, and now we have teenagers who never knew what life was like before the internet and cell phones. If aliens came to Earth they would definitely think that a cell phone was a part of a human’s anatomy. But soon, a new medium is bound to come into fashion, or we might have a generation of Luddite-like kids down the line who will think it’ll be cool to live unplugged.

Who are your literary influences?

For Slow Down I was really influenced by Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. Some of my favorite novels from them have been American Psycho, Rules of Attraction and Bright Lights, Big City. Also James M. Cain, especially Double Indemnity. Overall F. Scott Fitzgerald has probably been my biggest influence. I remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and being blown away. I’m still blown away every time I read his work.

Do you think The Great Gatsby is the classic on the great American dream? And what do you make of Mailer’s view of the American nightmare?

I agree that The Great Gatsby is one of the classic novels about the great American dream. It’s a book I re-read every few years and it always amazes me because it’s literally perfect. I love that the book clocks in at under 200 pages but feels like a giant opus every time. I think that there are elements of Gatsby in a lot of what I write. In a lot of ways Slow Down is about the darker side of the 21st Century American Dream where fame and success become paramount to everything else and lead the characters down a disastrous path.

I read Mailer’s The American Dream in grad school and it was my first introduction to him. It’s interesting since the book showcases a character that initially might have been viewed as a hero in a Hemingway novel and then chronicles his demonic breakdown. It’s also a book that can be uncomfortable to read, which is why I remember being drawn to it.

Grahame Greene wrote, ‘There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer.’ What do you make of his observation?

All writers do have a splinter of ice in their heads. We become emotionally attached to our characters because we create them, but we also have to be cold-blooded and realistic about what happens to them. They won’t all get fairytale endings and sometimes their outcomes will be brutal. I think it also means that sometimes you have to live in the headspace of an unsympathetic character. Noah in Slow Down has more and more sociopathetic tendencies as the novel progresses. It wasn’t always pleasant to be in his head, but it was a requirement to tell his story.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a trilogy of thrillers that center around a corporation called The Desire Card, which promises “any wish fulfilled for the right price.” I’m also working on a TV pilot that would be a dark drama. Eventually I’d like to adapt that into a novel as well. Lastly I have a literary novel that I’ve been writing forever, which has to do with hot chile peppers.

Where do you typically write?

When the weather is nice I have a tree in Central Park that I write under. I like being outside as much as possible. During the winter, I’ll either write from home, the main library on 42nd St., or I’ll rent an office space at Paragraph, which is a shared space for writers.

Thank you Lee for a great interview.

Links:

‘Slow Down,’ sold in all good book shops.

Online quick-links are Amazon US and UK, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.

Find Lee Matthew Goldberg at his website and on Twitter @leematthewg