Why Did I Write a Werewolf Novel?

I have been asked this. More than once. Sometimes by people who don’t know why I “waste” time writing speculative fiction anyway. Sometimes by people who think the genre isn’t popular). Sometimes by people who are genuinely curious.

There are two answers to this question.

The first answer is: I wanted to and an idea came to me and I acted on it.

In fact, through there are of course many changes from the initial draft of Black Marks to the final production, the guts of the story remained the...