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What
genre do you write and why?
Mostly horror and scifi,
because the "real" world is far too frightening and depressing to
write about.
Tell us about your
latest book.
It's called Partholon,
a title derived from Irish legend. A biological attack on the northeast US
It's the first title in a series, the next being
Tu'an, which follows John's son,
Collier, as he serves in what's left of the US Army. The whole series might be
subtitled, "How the Next American Civil War Gets Started."
It's available from Rebel E Publishers.
Who are your favourite
authors?
Ooh, boy, there are so many. Ray Bradbury is my
all-time, overall first place winner, and I freely admit that his style
strongly influenced mine. I am a huge fan of Mary Doria Russell, and I consider
her novel, The Sparrow, as sharing
first place with Michaela Roessner's Vanishing
Point as the best scifi novel ever written. Kate Elliot is my favourite fantasy
writer, and her Crossroads Trilogy is
a primer for the genre.
Alastair Reynolds is the best hard-scifi writer
around, no question. His Revelation Space
series just blew me away. And when I need humbling, I pick up Umberto Eco.
Coming back to earth, I'm in the middle of
David Downing's Station series, which
follows the exploits of an American journalist-permanent-resident-of-Germany,
holding a British passport and surreptitious membership in the Communist Party,
trying to survive pre-WW2 Berlin
What's your favourite
quote about writing/for writers?
Pens
are too light/ Take a chisel to write. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
What's the best thing
about being a writer?
Nobody knows what I'm up to.
Why
do you think readers are going to enjoy your book?
Because it has no illusions
about this thin veneer of civilization we so smugly take for granted. We are
just one temper tantrum away from the Dark Ages, ya know.
Did you learn
anything from writing your book that was unexpected?
I learned that characters will not
behave. They are an unruly, anarchic bunch who are going to do whatever they
want no matter how much I scream.
What is your
work in progress? Tell us about it.
It's called The Ship to Look for God, and is dangerously close to actual
publication. It lacks a cover and formatting, both of which are being completed
by Damon at damonza.com and EJ Knapp of Rebel E, respectively (unintended
poetry). It's about a government analyst named Otto Boteman, who suffers a
massive heart attack and wakes up in what can only be Heaven, except God is
nowhere to be found. So he joins a group of misfits slapping together a rocket
ship to go find Him.
It was an absolute hoot to write. There
were times when I was sitting at the keyboard just giggling, evoking suspicious
queries from local residents. I didn't want to stop, so there's going to be two
sequels: The Ship Looking for God,
and The Ship Finding God. Looking is done; well, at least the
initial version, and if I will just stop having so much fun rewriting it, then
it'll be out post-haste.
What are your
thoughts on self-publishing verses traditional publishing?
I am in both camps. I really wanted an
agent and trad contract for all of my writing, but I never got much interest for
Partholon or Ship or another WIP called Frank
Vaughn, Killed by his Mom, which concerns the strange odyssey of a
ten-year-old across the South in 1965 (deft slipping of a shameless plug in
here, doncha think?). I attribute that lack of interest to this: my writing is
of insufficient caliber to attract it.
That is the wise and safe approach any
writer suffering constant agent rejection should take. I do suspect there are,
these present days, some political factors that didn't exist five years ago;
namely, that agents and editors are looking for photogenic MFA grads writing
about strong women protagonists and/or politically correct exotic settings. I
believe that's due to the interns screening the slush pile, who are,
themselves, mostly photogenic MFA grads in possession of WIPS with strong
female protagonists and/or exotic settings. This, of course, means I don't
stand a chance of getting an agent, not being photogenic or MFA'd and without a
politically correct bone in my body.
But that’s sour grapes. Agents and
editors have to pay their mortgages, and if the present climate means my stuff
wouldn't draw enough sales to cover their costs, then they'd be insane to take
a chance on me. Most agents/editors are not insane, reports to the contrary
notwithstanding. I regard my writing as niche, which doesn't make it in trad
circles these days.
But it does make it for small press/self-publishing, and that's where I
went. The Partholon series is with
Rebel, and the Ship series will be my
own, primarily because I want to control the pricing. If, at some point, I
become photogenic or write something currently acceptable to the zeitgeist,
then I will think about querying agents again. But, the odds of that happening
are slim, especially the photogenic part.
When
you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?
Mostly doing all the
necessary maintenance and chores to keep the house from falling down about our
ears. I am genetically incapable of executing any kind of handyman function, so
a lot of my efforts border on the hilarious. I'm a far more successful
gardener, and usually have tomatoes and peppers and cantaloupes and watermelons
to tend. A mysterious crop of pumpkins that I didn't plant always appears in late
August. I blame aliens.
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