10 Questions with Adam Cesare
1. Who has been your biggest influence as a writer?
Everyone’s living in the shadow of King, but I wouldn’t say he’s my biggest influence but I did grow up reading him, so he’s definetly a gateway drug/influence. Probably Richard Matheson, there’s such simplicity in his prose, but still thematically dense. When I was first starting to try writing salable stuff (in college), I was reading a lot of Elmore Leonard and Cormac McCarthy, but I don’t think I can write like them.
2. What inspired you to write a novel about eighties Italian grindhouse movies?
Tribesmen is a real “chicken/egg” situation. John Skipp put out a call for manuscripts that were lean and mean and could be read in the same amount of time as a feature film and I kind of tailored the pitch to that. I have a weird love/hate/repulsed/respect relationship with not only the Italian cannibal genre, but the mondo film genre as a whole. Yeah they are balls-to-the-wall (and most horror fans will leave it at that), but it was also super exploitative. There’s a great interview with Jess Franco where he discusses his dislike of the subgenre, and he made a couple!
3. What’s the greatest moment in your writing career?
Not to turn this into one of those touchy feely kumbaya answers, but I really don’t think I can give a definitive one. In my short career I’ve already gotten to work with more heroes of mine, people whose work I admire, than I ever thought possible. So every moment is an amazing moment. Case and point: I just wrote a book with Cameron Pierce and Shane McKenzie.
4. What is the best horror movie you have watched and why?
Never going to be just one. We’ll got “best I’ve watched this week” and I’ll say Curse of Chucky. Movie came out of nowhere, it’s straight to video but that seems like the only way to do a movie like this and get it right any more. Although You’re Next was great, too. That just had to wait like three years to get a release.
5. Who is your favorite writer?
We’ll restrict it to living/working and I’ll say Joe Lansdale, Junot Diaz, Stephen Graham Jones and Joyce Carol Oates. We’ll say it’s a fourway tie so I can get away with that as a real answer, I’m sorry if it seems like I’m dodging your questions. I’m a bad interviewee.
6. If you had to choose between being a New York Times bestseller or a successful Hollywood screen writer, which would you choose?
7. What type of scenes do you most enjoy writing?
It’s a crutch, I know, but I still like to look at the bottom of the page and watch my word count go up. So I’ll say action sequences. They write the fastest, you blitz through, then go back and fix all your blocking and bad language.
8. What made you want to start writing horror?
I’ve never not been into horror, most horror fans are like that. I just wrote my first non-horror book, it’s a crime novella called The First One You Expect and it’s going to be released by J David Osborne’s Broken River Books, and even that one is about a DIY low budget horror director. I can’t get away from horror, even when I’m deliberately trying.
I try to read outside the genre a lot, and I enjoy basically everything the lit world has to offer, as long as it’s quality, but when I write, I write horror.
9. What is your best quality as a writer?
“Write what you know” is kinda lame advice and always gets taken way too literally, but I like to think I’m good at that. I write about people that interest me, people that even if I can’t explicitly relate to, I try and liven them up by giving them hopes, fears and quirks that I’ve observed in other people.
10. If you could pick one other author to collaborate with on a novel or story, living or dead, who would it be?
I’ve recently gotten to collaborate with some amazing folks, writers and film people, but I don’t think I can divulge all their names yet.
But for a “dream answer” let’s go with: David Cronenberg, all the way. Guy’s got an amazing mind, and is clearly an avid reader with great taste. He’s the only filmmaker who can be considered a “master of horror” whose work today is still as strong and vital as his early work, maybe even more so (horror geek sacrilege, I know).
Everyone’s living in the shadow of King, but I wouldn’t say he’s my biggest influence but I did grow up reading him, so he’s definetly a gateway drug/influence. Probably Richard Matheson, there’s such simplicity in his prose, but still thematically dense. When I was first starting to try writing salable stuff (in college), I was reading a lot of Elmore Leonard and Cormac McCarthy, but I don’t think I can write like them.
2. What inspired you to write a novel about eighties Italian grindhouse movies?
Tribesmen is a real “chicken/egg” situation. John Skipp put out a call for manuscripts that were lean and mean and could be read in the same amount of time as a feature film and I kind of tailored the pitch to that. I have a weird love/hate/repulsed/respect relationship with not only the Italian cannibal genre, but the mondo film genre as a whole. Yeah they are balls-to-the-wall (and most horror fans will leave it at that), but it was also super exploitative. There’s a great interview with Jess Franco where he discusses his dislike of the subgenre, and he made a couple!
3. What’s the greatest moment in your writing career?
Not to turn this into one of those touchy feely kumbaya answers, but I really don’t think I can give a definitive one. In my short career I’ve already gotten to work with more heroes of mine, people whose work I admire, than I ever thought possible. So every moment is an amazing moment. Case and point: I just wrote a book with Cameron Pierce and Shane McKenzie.
4. What is the best horror movie you have watched and why?
Never going to be just one. We’ll got “best I’ve watched this week” and I’ll say Curse of Chucky. Movie came out of nowhere, it’s straight to video but that seems like the only way to do a movie like this and get it right any more. Although You’re Next was great, too. That just had to wait like three years to get a release.
5. Who is your favorite writer?
We’ll restrict it to living/working and I’ll say Joe Lansdale, Junot Diaz, Stephen Graham Jones and Joyce Carol Oates. We’ll say it’s a fourway tie so I can get away with that as a real answer, I’m sorry if it seems like I’m dodging your questions. I’m a bad interviewee.
6. If you had to choose between being a New York Times bestseller or a successful Hollywood screen writer, which would you choose?
7. What type of scenes do you most enjoy writing?
It’s a crutch, I know, but I still like to look at the bottom of the page and watch my word count go up. So I’ll say action sequences. They write the fastest, you blitz through, then go back and fix all your blocking and bad language.
8. What made you want to start writing horror?
I’ve never not been into horror, most horror fans are like that. I just wrote my first non-horror book, it’s a crime novella called The First One You Expect and it’s going to be released by J David Osborne’s Broken River Books, and even that one is about a DIY low budget horror director. I can’t get away from horror, even when I’m deliberately trying.
I try to read outside the genre a lot, and I enjoy basically everything the lit world has to offer, as long as it’s quality, but when I write, I write horror.
9. What is your best quality as a writer?
“Write what you know” is kinda lame advice and always gets taken way too literally, but I like to think I’m good at that. I write about people that interest me, people that even if I can’t explicitly relate to, I try and liven them up by giving them hopes, fears and quirks that I’ve observed in other people.
10. If you could pick one other author to collaborate with on a novel or story, living or dead, who would it be?
I’ve recently gotten to collaborate with some amazing folks, writers and film people, but I don’t think I can divulge all their names yet.
But for a “dream answer” let’s go with: David Cronenberg, all the way. Guy’s got an amazing mind, and is clearly an avid reader with great taste. He’s the only filmmaker who can be considered a “master of horror” whose work today is still as strong and vital as his early work, maybe even more so (horror geek sacrilege, I know).
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