10 Questions with W.D. Gagliani
1. When you originally wrote Wolf’s Trap, did you intend it to be a series?
No, it was intended as a one-off. I seriously considered killing the protagonist, Nick Lupo, at the end. The first small press editor who published it thought I should end on a hopeful note, so the book ended up being (maybe) a little goofily up-note rather the nihilistic approach I had intended. If I had killed him I wouldn’t ever have thought to make it a series, and it would have been harder – logically, anyway. So I was glad when Leisure Books said the sales had been superb and asked me if I could write more. It went on to three printings, and the second book (Wolf’s Gambit) to two, I believe. Unfortunately by the third book (Wolf’s Bluff) Dorchester was imploding and I don’t think many copies went out. The company went under shortly after that, so the third book never had a chance to get much exposure.
2. Who has been your biggest influence as a writer?
There have been many, of course. Stephen King started me seriously writing horror when I read him in 1976, while still in high school. I read ‘Salem’s Lot by this unknown guy, Something-King, and I was pretty well done right there. That book scared the crap out of a little latch-key kid in an empty house in the middle of a dark Wisconsin winter. I hoped my dog, a Black Lab, would fight off the vampires! So King jump-started my more serious efforts, but I’d always read in the dark areas. Heck, I read James Herbert long before King. I just wasn’t seeking it out. But before that I was reading across the spectrum – science fiction, some fantasy (but never big into the Tolkienesque), mystery – both quiet and hard-boiled – and thrillers, especially British thrillers: everything from Ian Fleming to Alistair MacLean and others. I was an early reader and voracious. Never went anywhere without a book. Reading from the adult stacks at the library while still in grade school. Reading “naughty” Seventies stuff like all the Harold Robbins potboilers, too, which gave me an appreciation for adding sex to the violence. And in the Eighties I met the splatterpunks… that was when a lot of these influences meshed together for me. King really made me serious about horror, but I had lots of influences. Other touchstone names for me are Jules Verne, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Robert McCammon, Desmond Bagley, Duncan Kyle, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, then pretty much all the splatterpunks, F. Paul Wilson, Joe Lansdale, and some of my biggest favorites: Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Charles deLint. The list is endless.
3. If Wolf’s Trap was being made into a movie and the producer asked you to cast your ideal actor for Nick Lupo, who would you choose?
That’s a tough one. I started it in 1993 (!) so at the time I thought Nick looked like a cross between Joe Mantegna and Andy Garcia (Godfather Part 3, you know). Over the years it’s changed, I guess. Ironically there’s an actor who plays a homicide cop named Nick on the Grimm show (on NBC) who could easily be my Nick, if he was maybe a bit older and more bulked up – David Giuntoli looks right, and sometimes Grimm looks like something I’ve written. Otherwise I’m not sure who else… maybe Hugh Jackman, and not only because he plays Wolverine. He probably doesn’t look Italian enough, but he has the right vibe.
4. How has the digital revolution and the emergence of ebooks affected you as a writer?
Well, for one thing it made me something of a small publisher. I’ve self-pubbed some short stories, some of them collaborations with David Benton, as well as my own short story collection, Shadowplays, and a few odds and ends. They don’t sell in great numbers, only a trickle, but my thriller Savage Nights (which I’d intended as my second novel before being asked for a Nick Lupo sequel) has gotten some great reviews but most houses passed on it, probably because it’s so violent. In any case, I started early – the first version of my Shadowplays collection came out in 2000, with the early ebooks! When the Kindle came about, I updated it with most of my Honorable Mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies, and went with it. I like both ebooks and paper as a reader, but I still prefer paper by a thin margin. I have a basement office stuffed with books! But my shelves are sagging, they’re too full. Ebooks relieve the stress, and they travel well. Both formats have their pros and cons. On a trip I’ll bring both a paper book and an iPad filled with stuff for my Kindle app. As a writer, it’s given me more outlets. One thing it hasn’t done is make me filthy rich… I’m still waiting for that part.
5. What made you decide to write about werewolves?
In the Nineties it was all about vampires. Everywhere were bloodsuckers. I liked some. Like Anno Dracula, by Kim Newman. Fever Dream by George R.R. Martin. Lots of work by Elaine Bergstrom (with whom I workshopped all of Wolf’s Trap, by the way, as we are both Milwaukeeans), and P.N. Elrod, Tanya Huff, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tamara Thorne… Ray Garton’s Live Girls is a classic that pushed me toward more extreme content. In any case, those where what I liked, but there was a lot I didn’t care for. And while I watched the syndicated TV show Forever Knight, I remember thinking it was good, but it would have been more badass if it were a werewolf. Having grown up on Universal monster movies, I related to Talbot in The Wolf-Man, and later in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (!)… and also since I had been reading Robert McCammon I was blown away by The Wolfs Hour. All those elements just went into the hopper and I came up with the idea of presenting logically what a guy would have to go through if he was a werewolf and also a cop. Plus Silence of the Lambs had just made a huge splash and I thought I could replicate that sort of memorable antagonist. In Wolf’s Trap, I was going for a sort of hick version of Hannibal with Martin Stewart, except he wasn’t a cannibal. But I always loved the idea of the beast inside, the dual nature (Wolf’s Trap is loaded with dual natured characters), and the question where does evil come from? I thought the werewolf was an interesting metaphor, and I liked that it complicated life a lot more than just having to work nights… all those bloody meat cartons in the trash, waking up naked in the woods, and so on. I liked all those tropes and I had my way with them.
6. What current writing projects are you working on?
My next Lupo novel is in the plotting stages – but upcoming is Wolf’s Blind (the 6th) due from Samhain in November. I’m working on a novel with my collaborator Dave Benton, as well as a couple short stories. We have other things in the pipeline. We have a story in Jonathan Maberry’s upcoming anthology THE X-FILES: TRUST NO ONE that we’re very proud of, and we’ve had stuff in two of Cohesion Press’s SNAFU anthologies. We have more ideas than time, that’s for sure. We have other projects in various stages, but we sometimes get in the mood for a change and work on something else.
7. Do you prefer writing a series or stand alone novels?
I like both equally. With a series, you’re comfortable with the characters you’ve developed over time and you get to pit them against new people. With a stand-alone you have to start from scratch, but I’m a big fan of letting characters dictate their own backstories and their own destinies, so that’s fun too. I don’t have a preference, though my series has resonated with some and that’s why I’m more invested in that right now.
8. What made you start writing?
I was an early reader (in Italian), and it was just natural that I would want to write down stories myself. Probably by the age of six I knew I would write, and by eight I was writing creatively routinely in school. I wrote all through high school and less so in my undergraduate work, but back to the writing when I switched and went back for my MA. I could almost say I wanted to start writing the very first day I read a story. I just thought immediately it was what I wanted to do. What was the trigger before King? It was probably the Disney tales I read in Italy (which looked remarkably like graphic novels in the Duck Tales vein in the Sixties). They were multi-genre, really, too, so that seed was planted early.
9. Is there any subject that is off limits for you as a writer?
None whatsoever. I’ve written graphic sex, graphic child abuse, graphic torture. You name it. I’m not afraid of tough, gory subjects. The splatterpunks left a deep mark in me (thanks Richard Laymon, David Schow, Ray Garton, Skipp and Spector, Joe Lansdale, Robert McCammon, et al.), and I’m grateful to have met almost all of them during my career. They were like Joe Walsh’s contribution to the Eagles – they gave my work an edge. I just feel that a writer should be willing to go wherever he or she wants, explore anything, without flinching. I mean, what’s the point of soft-pedaling when the world is so outrageously violent? I could name about six world events that just happened in the last week that would look like horror porn if I stuck them in a movie, yet they’re all true. Why avoid the tough stuff? I don’t believe I write “art,” but I do believe that “art” in general should evoke strong feelings. I find landscapes beautiful, but it’s stuff like “The Scream” that makes my mind work overtime. I’d rather go for the throat, literally, if I have the chance.
10. If you could invite five people to a dinner party (alive or dead, real or fictional) who would you invite?
Assuming I’m not inviting family or friends, I would want to have a confab with some of my favorite writers: Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Ian Fleming, Philip K. Dick, and probably Harlan Ellison. The question is, would they bother to come? Well, it would be a pretty stilted conversation, anyway! But I’d enjoy it…
No, it was intended as a one-off. I seriously considered killing the protagonist, Nick Lupo, at the end. The first small press editor who published it thought I should end on a hopeful note, so the book ended up being (maybe) a little goofily up-note rather the nihilistic approach I had intended. If I had killed him I wouldn’t ever have thought to make it a series, and it would have been harder – logically, anyway. So I was glad when Leisure Books said the sales had been superb and asked me if I could write more. It went on to three printings, and the second book (Wolf’s Gambit) to two, I believe. Unfortunately by the third book (Wolf’s Bluff) Dorchester was imploding and I don’t think many copies went out. The company went under shortly after that, so the third book never had a chance to get much exposure.
2. Who has been your biggest influence as a writer?
There have been many, of course. Stephen King started me seriously writing horror when I read him in 1976, while still in high school. I read ‘Salem’s Lot by this unknown guy, Something-King, and I was pretty well done right there. That book scared the crap out of a little latch-key kid in an empty house in the middle of a dark Wisconsin winter. I hoped my dog, a Black Lab, would fight off the vampires! So King jump-started my more serious efforts, but I’d always read in the dark areas. Heck, I read James Herbert long before King. I just wasn’t seeking it out. But before that I was reading across the spectrum – science fiction, some fantasy (but never big into the Tolkienesque), mystery – both quiet and hard-boiled – and thrillers, especially British thrillers: everything from Ian Fleming to Alistair MacLean and others. I was an early reader and voracious. Never went anywhere without a book. Reading from the adult stacks at the library while still in grade school. Reading “naughty” Seventies stuff like all the Harold Robbins potboilers, too, which gave me an appreciation for adding sex to the violence. And in the Eighties I met the splatterpunks… that was when a lot of these influences meshed together for me. King really made me serious about horror, but I had lots of influences. Other touchstone names for me are Jules Verne, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Robert McCammon, Desmond Bagley, Duncan Kyle, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, then pretty much all the splatterpunks, F. Paul Wilson, Joe Lansdale, and some of my biggest favorites: Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Charles deLint. The list is endless.
3. If Wolf’s Trap was being made into a movie and the producer asked you to cast your ideal actor for Nick Lupo, who would you choose?
That’s a tough one. I started it in 1993 (!) so at the time I thought Nick looked like a cross between Joe Mantegna and Andy Garcia (Godfather Part 3, you know). Over the years it’s changed, I guess. Ironically there’s an actor who plays a homicide cop named Nick on the Grimm show (on NBC) who could easily be my Nick, if he was maybe a bit older and more bulked up – David Giuntoli looks right, and sometimes Grimm looks like something I’ve written. Otherwise I’m not sure who else… maybe Hugh Jackman, and not only because he plays Wolverine. He probably doesn’t look Italian enough, but he has the right vibe.
4. How has the digital revolution and the emergence of ebooks affected you as a writer?
Well, for one thing it made me something of a small publisher. I’ve self-pubbed some short stories, some of them collaborations with David Benton, as well as my own short story collection, Shadowplays, and a few odds and ends. They don’t sell in great numbers, only a trickle, but my thriller Savage Nights (which I’d intended as my second novel before being asked for a Nick Lupo sequel) has gotten some great reviews but most houses passed on it, probably because it’s so violent. In any case, I started early – the first version of my Shadowplays collection came out in 2000, with the early ebooks! When the Kindle came about, I updated it with most of my Honorable Mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies, and went with it. I like both ebooks and paper as a reader, but I still prefer paper by a thin margin. I have a basement office stuffed with books! But my shelves are sagging, they’re too full. Ebooks relieve the stress, and they travel well. Both formats have their pros and cons. On a trip I’ll bring both a paper book and an iPad filled with stuff for my Kindle app. As a writer, it’s given me more outlets. One thing it hasn’t done is make me filthy rich… I’m still waiting for that part.
5. What made you decide to write about werewolves?
In the Nineties it was all about vampires. Everywhere were bloodsuckers. I liked some. Like Anno Dracula, by Kim Newman. Fever Dream by George R.R. Martin. Lots of work by Elaine Bergstrom (with whom I workshopped all of Wolf’s Trap, by the way, as we are both Milwaukeeans), and P.N. Elrod, Tanya Huff, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tamara Thorne… Ray Garton’s Live Girls is a classic that pushed me toward more extreme content. In any case, those where what I liked, but there was a lot I didn’t care for. And while I watched the syndicated TV show Forever Knight, I remember thinking it was good, but it would have been more badass if it were a werewolf. Having grown up on Universal monster movies, I related to Talbot in The Wolf-Man, and later in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (!)… and also since I had been reading Robert McCammon I was blown away by The Wolfs Hour. All those elements just went into the hopper and I came up with the idea of presenting logically what a guy would have to go through if he was a werewolf and also a cop. Plus Silence of the Lambs had just made a huge splash and I thought I could replicate that sort of memorable antagonist. In Wolf’s Trap, I was going for a sort of hick version of Hannibal with Martin Stewart, except he wasn’t a cannibal. But I always loved the idea of the beast inside, the dual nature (Wolf’s Trap is loaded with dual natured characters), and the question where does evil come from? I thought the werewolf was an interesting metaphor, and I liked that it complicated life a lot more than just having to work nights… all those bloody meat cartons in the trash, waking up naked in the woods, and so on. I liked all those tropes and I had my way with them.
6. What current writing projects are you working on?
My next Lupo novel is in the plotting stages – but upcoming is Wolf’s Blind (the 6th) due from Samhain in November. I’m working on a novel with my collaborator Dave Benton, as well as a couple short stories. We have other things in the pipeline. We have a story in Jonathan Maberry’s upcoming anthology THE X-FILES: TRUST NO ONE that we’re very proud of, and we’ve had stuff in two of Cohesion Press’s SNAFU anthologies. We have more ideas than time, that’s for sure. We have other projects in various stages, but we sometimes get in the mood for a change and work on something else.
7. Do you prefer writing a series or stand alone novels?
I like both equally. With a series, you’re comfortable with the characters you’ve developed over time and you get to pit them against new people. With a stand-alone you have to start from scratch, but I’m a big fan of letting characters dictate their own backstories and their own destinies, so that’s fun too. I don’t have a preference, though my series has resonated with some and that’s why I’m more invested in that right now.
8. What made you start writing?
I was an early reader (in Italian), and it was just natural that I would want to write down stories myself. Probably by the age of six I knew I would write, and by eight I was writing creatively routinely in school. I wrote all through high school and less so in my undergraduate work, but back to the writing when I switched and went back for my MA. I could almost say I wanted to start writing the very first day I read a story. I just thought immediately it was what I wanted to do. What was the trigger before King? It was probably the Disney tales I read in Italy (which looked remarkably like graphic novels in the Duck Tales vein in the Sixties). They were multi-genre, really, too, so that seed was planted early.
9. Is there any subject that is off limits for you as a writer?
None whatsoever. I’ve written graphic sex, graphic child abuse, graphic torture. You name it. I’m not afraid of tough, gory subjects. The splatterpunks left a deep mark in me (thanks Richard Laymon, David Schow, Ray Garton, Skipp and Spector, Joe Lansdale, Robert McCammon, et al.), and I’m grateful to have met almost all of them during my career. They were like Joe Walsh’s contribution to the Eagles – they gave my work an edge. I just feel that a writer should be willing to go wherever he or she wants, explore anything, without flinching. I mean, what’s the point of soft-pedaling when the world is so outrageously violent? I could name about six world events that just happened in the last week that would look like horror porn if I stuck them in a movie, yet they’re all true. Why avoid the tough stuff? I don’t believe I write “art,” but I do believe that “art” in general should evoke strong feelings. I find landscapes beautiful, but it’s stuff like “The Scream” that makes my mind work overtime. I’d rather go for the throat, literally, if I have the chance.
10. If you could invite five people to a dinner party (alive or dead, real or fictional) who would you invite?
Assuming I’m not inviting family or friends, I would want to have a confab with some of my favorite writers: Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Ian Fleming, Philip K. Dick, and probably Harlan Ellison. The question is, would they bother to come? Well, it would be a pretty stilted conversation, anyway! But I’d enjoy it…
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