JOSEPH PITTMAN, California Scheming - Author Interview

May 23, 2012 Anthony Cardno

It’s Thriller Thursday (another should-be-hashtag on Twitter), and who better to chat with today than my old friend Joseph Pittman, author of the Todd Gleason crime novels?

JOSEPH PITTMAN was born in the borough of Queens and lived there for the first seven years of his life, before his family moved to Upstate New York. A graduate of Fayetteville-Manlius High School, he then went on to get his Bachelor of Science at SUNY Brockport, where he majored in communication, with a concentration in journalism. While attending Brockport, he was an editor for “The Stylus,” the school newspaper, where he had a weekly book review column.

Upon graduation, he returned to New York City, where he began his publishing career. After short stints at Putnam Children’s Books and at Viking Penguin, he landed his first editorial job at Bantam Books, where he assisted with such authors as Jonathan Kellerman, Michael Palmer, Rita Mae Brown, actress Ali MacGraw and General Norman H. Schwarzkopf. He moved to NAL as an editor and worked with authors such as Max Allan Collins, Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Martha Grimes, Jeff Abbott, Joan Collins, Judith Gould, and many other best-selling and acclaimed names. His career has also taken him to the world book clubs (Doubleday Book Club), and small presses (Alyson Books). He is currently Editorial Director of the new Vantage Point imprint.

His novels include TILTING AT WINDMILLS, WHEN THE WORLD WAS SMALL, LEGEND’S END, and A CHRISTMAS WISH. His crime novels featuring Todd Gleason are LONDON FROG and CALIFORNIA SCHEMING. He’s at work on several other projects.

ANTHONY: The second Todd Gleason novel, California Scheming, is now available. For my newer readers, remind us who Todd is, and where do we find him at the start of the new novel?

JOE: Todd Gleason is a con man. Once a small time con, he only stole from the rich, but never gave to the poor…unless you count him. He’s doesn’t like to talk about himself, his past, and definitely not the father who walked away when he was five. Todd lives alone in an apartment in Manhattan—though he does have a pet frog, named Toad. Todd has a habit of speaking first, acting second, thinking last. It usually lands him in a lot of trouble. After his successful con in LONDON FROG, Todd is taking a sojourn on Bermuda, relaxing in the arms of the lovely Lana Davies. But this being Todd, his idyllic holiday can’t last. Trouble comes looking for him.

The plot revolves around a noted bank robber named Fast Cash, who disappeared seven year ago…never to be heard from again. His “widow” has him declared legally dead—and that’s when the dead bodies start turning up. What Todd needs to do is rescue a long-time friend of his from a loan shark and the only way he can imagine is finding the missing cash that Fash Cash stole all those years ago…all three million. Let the fun begin…

ANTHONY: I hear you had some interesting adventures researching the new book. So dish!

JOE: Not sure “adventure” is the right word. The early chapters of the book are set in Bermuda. I was going to use the Bahamas, but I’ve never been there. Bermuda I knew, so I picked that. There’s a bar in SCHEMING modeled after a local watering hole in the main town of Hamilton. For the Los Angeles sections, I visited LA twice. One of my visits had me staying for 10 days at The Standard Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, just so I could soak up the sun, the atmosphere, and the attitude. There was lots of all. I also got as close to the Hollywood sign as they’ll permit, and did a visit to Marina Del Rey, because there is a scene on a yacht that launches for there. Otherwise, I drew on experience of driving around West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Palos Verdes, all setting for the book. For a guy used to walking all over Manhattan, car culture was a cruel shock. Part of making the LA scenes successful was getting the lingo down—“Take the 101 to the 10 to the 405.” I actually know what all that means, now! There are also some scenes set in Manhattan—when you read the “Raven” bar scene, please remember this book is fiction.

ANTHONY: I’ve already recognized one of my favorite NYC diners in the early pages of the book! For new readers, is it vital to have read the first Todd Gleason novel, LONDON FROG, before diving into CALIFORNIA SCHEMING, or does each book largely stand on its own?

JOE: No. Each book is designed to stand on its own—new characters and cons are introduced in each book. So far I haven’t yet had a recurring character other than Todd…and Toad, the frog. He’ll be in each book for sure. There are recurring themes about Todd’s character, what has helped shaped him. But I haven’t explored all that yet. Maybe Book #5 in the series will reveal a bit more about Todd’s past.

ANTHONY: I know that like me, you’re not a huge fan of outlining. Did any plot twists take you by surprise while writing CS?

JOE: In between the first draft and final draft, there was one big change. The killer. Something just wasn’t sitting right with me about the ending, so I had to go back and think. Maybe that’s where an outline would have come in handy, but what’s the fun in knowing what’s going to happen? I like to go by Todd’s instincts—he has to think on his feet when a problem occurs, so that’s how the writing goes too. I had some other fun things in the book, but they ended up on the cutting room floor. I think I was twisting the plot one too many times, so something had to go. There was a great scene with Beverly Mills of Beverly Hills, my blowsy, big-bosomed real estate lady, executing a scam poolside in West Hollywood. In the end, I cut it and it hurt.

ANTHONY: Maybe the Beverly Mills con can be a short story! Speaking of which, tell us a bit about “The Perils of Penelope Pittson,” the first Todd Gleason short story. Where and when is it appearing, and where does it fall in Todd’s chronology?

JOE: Perils will appear in the anthology, CRIME SQUARE, to be published in the coming weeks. There is no chronology with this story with FROG and SCHEMING…it just exists. The story takes place on New Year’s Eve in Times Square, where Todd is protecting a woman. But he imagines himself back in the 50s, what if he were a P.I. and she a damsel in distress. The two plotlines end up having many parallels. I wrote the story in the style of an old detective movie, so some of the lines and dialogue are flat out funny.

ANTHONY: How is the third book, which takes Todd to the south of France, progressing?

JOE: Ah yes, the long-rumored third book, THE CANNES CON. I’m writing it, but I’m also toying with switching that book to #4 in the series and writing another idea I have. That one is set mostly in New York City and environs and it’s called BROOKLYN HEIST.

ANTHONY: Man, I love your titles. Other than Todd’s adventures, what else are you working on right now?

JOE: The next Linden Corners “windmill” novel comes out in October from Kensington Books. It’s called A CHRISTMAS HOPE. Then in Spring 2013 is BEYOND THE STORM, a stand-alone novel with new characters and town. More Linden Corners books are in the works, too. My big suspense novel, THE ORIGINAL CRIME, may see publication as an original ebook later this year. Still working on those details. I don’t lack for ideas…just time. But I’m having fun writing about these worlds I’ve created. I hope readers are enjoying them.

ANTHONY: More for me to read! And now my usual closing question: what is your favorite book (by someone else) and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

JOE: My favorite book? It’s an oldie, but a goodie. THE PRIZE, by Irving Wallace. It’s set in the world of the Nobel Prizes and features a huge cast of characters. It’s pure storytelling, absolutely riveting. A big, old-fashioned read. Wallace was one of my early favorites and I still have all the hardcover editions of his novels in my collection.

You can find out more about Joe’s projects by checking in on his website. Joe also occasionally appears on Twitter as @JosephPittman13, and he also has an author page on Facebook. You can also find my earlier interview with Joe right here.

LINDA POITEVIN, Sins of the Son - Author Interview

April 4, 2012 Anthony Cardno

This week I’m taking part in the Blog Tour for Linda Poitevin’s SINS OF THE SON, the second book in her series The Grigori Legacy. And don’t forget, after the interview, to check down below for a chance to win TWO different giveaways!

Linda Poitevin was born and raised in B.C., Canada’s western most province. Growing up in an era when writing was “a nice hobby, dear, but what are you going to do for a living?”, Linda worked at a variety of secretarial jobs before applying to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Due to an error in measurement, however, she was turned down when she didn’t meet the height requirement of that time. Undeterred, Linda became a civilian member in the force and was a dispatcher for two and a half years, during which time she met her husband, a police officer.

Following their transfer to Ottawa, Linda went on to become a real estate agent and then a human resources consultant before starting a family. She has been a stay-at-home mom ever since and has homeschooled her youngest daughter for the last nine years. Now that she has realized writing can be more than a nice hobby, she continues to live her dream of being a cop vicariously through her characters.

Linda currently lives near Ottawa with her husband, three daughters, one very large husky/shepherd/Great Dane-cross dog, two cats, three rabbits, and a bearded dragon lizard. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found in her garden or walking her dog along the river or through the woods.

In addition to her books, Linda also does freelance writing and editing. Information about her services can be found at www.lindapoitevin.ca. Linda is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Quebec Writers’ Federation, Romance Writers of America, RWA Futuristic Fantasy Paranormal Chapter, and Ottawa Romance Writers’ Association.

ANTHONY: Welcome back, Linda! It’s always great to have people come back for a second interview.

LINDA: Thanks so much for having me back, Anthony! I’ve really been looking forward to this.

ANTHONY: So let’s start out with a little recap: what is The Grigori Legacy series all about, and who are Alexandra Jarvis, Aramael and Seth?

LINDA: The Grigori Legacy series melds angel mythology with suspense, thriller, and police procedural aspects to create a world where God is a woman, Heaven and Hell are real, and homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis has been thrown into the struggle between them…with humanity’s very survival hanging in the balance. Aramael is–or was, in book 1–an angel who hunts Fallen Ones and the soulmate Alex was never supposed to have; and Seth is both the son of the One (God) and Lucifer and a pawn in their ongoing cosmic game.

ANTHONY: The first book, SINS OF THE ANGELS, was very clearly focused on Alex and Aramael: their relationship and their struggle with serial killer / fallen angel Caim. Some of Alex’s fellow cops and Aramael’s fellow angels play strong supporting roles, and of course there’s a major subplot involving Seth, but mostly it’s Alex and Aramael’s story. The focus shifts for SINS OF THE SON. Not unexpectedly, because the book is about him, Seth joins Alex at center stage. How hard of a decision was it to make Aramael slightly less of a presence?

LINDA: The series really is about Alex as a main character, so lessening Aramael’s presence wasn’t really a decision, per se, it was more just a natural progression in Alex’s story.

ANTHONY: You expand Heaven’s ranks a bit by bringing in perhaps the most well-known arch-angel ever, Michael. I believe you hinted at the reason for his absence in book one, and we get closer to the full story in book two. Do you have detailed histories written out for each of the major angelic characters (Michael, Raphael, Aramael, Verchiel, Mittron, etc), keeping track of where and when they’ve crossed paths in the past?

LINDA: Wow, the more questions like this that get thrown at me, the more I realize how much of a pantser I really am, lol. Perhaps my subconscious has already worked out these details, but they only surface as I’m doing the actual writing…so no, no written histories as yet. I am, however, working on writing them down as I uncover the details, and I plan to put them up as a series of short backstories on my website…eventually.

ANTHONY: You also introduce two more main human characters, Detective Hugh Henderson and Doctor Elizabeth Riley, who play much larger roles than any of Alex’s fellow cops or family did in book one. Was your plan always to expand the human cast in book two to give Alex a bigger support network, or did you find that the story as it developed necessitated letting Alex share the spotlight with other humans?

LINDA: It was definitely something that developed with the story…poor Alex really needed some kind of human sidekick.

ANTHONY: Good point. Although I have to admit: at one point I thought there was a very real possibility that you’d pull a George RR Martin and kill off your main viewpoint character. Was there ever any thought to killing off Alex and turning the series over to Henderson and Riley? (Hey, even JK Rowling considered killing off Ron Weasley at one point!)

LINDA: Really? You thought I might kill off Alex? For real, I mean? That possibility honestly never even crossed my mind! I cannot guarantee the safety of all my characters, however. (Mwahahaha!)

ANTHONY: Yes, really. And I adore that evil laugh. Now, you gave us a very well-developed, if non-conventional, look at the hierarchy of Heaven in book one, so it makes sense that you’d give us a glimpse of Hell in book two. It’s a small glimpse, most scenes featuring only Lucifer and Sammael. Do you have maps of Heaven and Hell in your head, and how completely does Hell mirror Heaven?

LINDA: I have a clear vision of Heaven, but not necessarily a map of it, no. Hell itself mirrors Heaven very closely, but in an anti-Heaven kind of way. You’ll see more of that in books 3 & 4.

ANTHONY: Taking yourself out of creator/author role for just a moment: as a reader, would you be #TeamAramael or #TeamSeth? (Please don’t say #TeamHenderson….!)

LINDA: #TeamHenderson was never even a possibility, so you’re safe there! And I remain firmly on the side of #TeamI’mStillNotTellingYou, lol!

ANTHONY: Curses, foiled again! You can’t blame a boy for trying, though! On a more craft-oriented note: did your writing process change at all from book one to book two?

LINDA: Hugely! The Grigori Legacy is my first attempt at a series, and while I’ve never been a plotter, book 2 forced me to take a more long-range view of the series…and to start keeping at least a few notes about backstories (just so I didn’t get myself too lost!). I was also writing under contract for the first time and so there was an element of expectation I’ve never had before. For the most part that worked in my favor, keeping my butt in the chair and on schedule, but every once in a while it resulted in some serious performance anxiety, too. Book 2 taught me how to work through roadblocks created by my own insecurities.

ANTHONY: Okay, so you know I have to ask: when’s book three coming out? Can you at least tell us the title and tease us a little of the plot?

LINDA: In book 3, Sins of the Righteous, Seth’s decision in book 2 creates unforeseen complications for the entire universe, Alex is stretched to her limits with trying to keep both her relationship and humanity glued together, and more impossible choices will have to be made. No pub date has been set yet, but you can be assured I’ll let everyone know when I do (most likely by yelling it from the rooftop!).

ANTHONY: You’ve got a plan for the end of the series, right? Have you known it all along, or did it evolve from what you’ve written in the first two books? Does the ultimate series-ending allow for other books/characters in the same world at some time in the future?

LINDA: I do have an end in mind, yes. It evolved through the first two books and cemented itself at about the 3/4 mark of Sins of the Son. I think there would be room for other books/characters in the future, but I’m not sure I’d want to go there. I like the idea of ending this series as planned and moving onto a fresh idea (and yes, I already have one in mind).

ANTHONY: My usual closing question is about favorite books, but you fielded that one last time. So, let’s change it up: what’s your favorite movie and what would you say to someone who has never seen it to convince them that they should?

LINDA: My favorite of all time isn’t actually a movie, but a mini series: the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. If someone has never seen it, I’d tell tell them that it is head and shoulders above the Hollywood version, with brilliant acting (Colin Firth is just sooooo good in it!), and a script that stays unbelievably true to the story itself. I love the series for the snapshot it provides into another era…and for its historical accuracy.

ANTHONY: Thanks again, Linda!

LINDA: Thank you, Anthony, for another wonderful invitation to visit!

Now, on to news about those giveaways:

GIVEAWAY #1: You can win a copy of SINS OF THE SON, just by commenting on this post! It’s easy. Just choose who you think Alex Jarvis should end up with when the series concludes. Are you #TeamAramael? #TeamSeth? #TeamHenderson? Or #TeamSomeoneElse? Have fun with it, and add your reasoning if you feel like it! A winner will be chosen by random, by me, on the last day of the SINS OF THE SON Blog Tour, which is APRIL 26th, 2012. Chosen winner will be notified by email to arrange delivery, so please provide good contact information!

WIN THIS!

GIVEAWAY #2: All of the book winners from all the stops on the SINS OF THE SON Blog Tour will be entered into a Grand Prize drawing for this beautiful necklace/earring set designed by Cemetary Cat, aka @psynde on Twitter: Winner will be chosen by Linda herself, who will then contact the winner to arrange delivery.

Remember, you can find Linda on Twitter as @LindaPoitevin, you can find her author page on Facebook, and of course you can go right to her own webpage for even more information and goodies. And here’s a link to my original interview with Linda when SINS OF THE ANGELS was released.

And you can see the full list of SINS OF THE SON blog tour stops (with lots of other interviews, guest posts by Linda, and chances to win) RIGHT HERE.

MYKE COLE - Author Interview

April 3, 2012 Anthony Cardno

This week’s author interview is with Myke Cole. Credit where credit is due, this is another author I might not have picked off the bookshelves if he hadn’t taken part in Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s #sffwrtcht round-table on Twitter.

As a security contractor, government civilian and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. All that conflict can wear a guy out. Thank goodness for fantasy novels, comic books, late night games of Dungeons and Dragons and lots of angst fueled writing.

ANTHONY: Hi, Myke! Thanks for taking some time to chat with me.

MYKE: Thanks for having me.

ANTHONY: During your visit to the #sffwrtcht on Twitter a few weeks back, we discussed “military fantasy.” Most of the series I can think of in that area are still high fantasy but with heavy martial elements (Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones). How difficult was it to find a publisher for a “modern warfare” setting with fantasy elements?

MYKE: Really, REALLY difficult. Many publishers were skittish about the idea, worried that high fantasy and hard military stories attracted vastly different audiences. They were tempted by the idea that my work might attract both, but more concerned that it would attract neither. In the end, we found someone willing to take a risk on the idea, but it remained a risk. This soon after publication (less than 2 months after release), we still don’t know if that risk has paid off or not.

ANTHONY: Do you think “modern military fantasy” is a market that will grow? Will it ever equal the plethora of military science fiction on the market?

MYKE: That’s impossible to answer. On the one hand, authentic military stories have a lot of resonance in a country that has just wound down one war and is trying to wind down another (all while vigorously rattling sabers at a recalcitrant Iran). Movies like Act of Valor and Battleship are capturing/responding to that Zeitgeist. On the other hand, we’re damn well sick and tired of war (and particularly counterinsurgency operations) and the tremendous drain they have placed on our national energy (emotional, financial and . . . well. . . sanguine). That fatigue might make concepts like SHADOW OPS seem tired even though its relatively new in the fantasy field. But, honestly? Who knows? Nobody predicted the intense popularity/longevity of either paranormal romance or zombie fiction. Who knows where this will go?

ANTHONY: Now that Shadow Ops: Control Point has been out for a few weeks, what kind of audience has gathered around it? Is it mostly military fiction fans, mostly fantasy fans?

MYKE: I’m surprised (and thrilled) by how diverse my audience is. I get a lot of fan mail from service members and the “core” fan base of hard military stories (folks who enjoy Jack Cambell, John Ringo, David Weber, etc . . .). But I’ve also been pretty vocal about my appreciation of romance and have guest blogged for a few major romance writers. This outreach has resulted in a fairly large number of romance readers trying my work, and it’s a real delight to get insights from a mostly female audience who bring a fresh (and character focussed) perspective to hard-edged military work. Here’s hoping those same folks will come back for FORTRESS FRONTIER.

ANTHONY: You’ve drawn from your own military experience to inform the battle sequences. Was there any point where you wrote a scene and thought “no, that’s too close to reality to use?”

MYKE: Absolutely. You have to remember that I’m still in service. Just today, a Commander (O-5), complimented me on CONTROL POINT, which he had read on a plane between duty stations. I am always aware of senior officers like him reading my work and how it will reflect on my service. Balancing that concern with my 1st amendment rights and my duty as an artist to create compelling and thought-provoking stories is a balance I will navigate as long as I combine my two careers as writer and officer.

ANTHONY: The parallels between the fictional US incursion into The Source and the real-world incursion by Europe into North America in the colonial period can’t be ignored, especially in the way the indigenous people are treated by the FOB. Was this something you intended to explore from the beginning, or did it develop as you wrote it?

MYKE: It is absolutely something I intended to explore in the story, but I was thinking more of the relationships between the US military and the native Iraqis and Afghanis that surround (and work on) our FOBs and COPs in those countries.

ANTHONY: You hint throughout the book as to how other nations have reacted to The Reawakening of magic on Earth. Russia plays a role in a particularly brutal scene midway through the book, India is at least mentioned, and there’s at least a few hints that Europe is completely Muslim-run at this point in history. Will we see more development of the political state of the world post-Reawakening in future books? Will that play a major role, or will it stay essentially background to Britton’s story?

MYKE: The SHADOW OPS series was *never* intended to be solely Oscar Britton’s story. While he gets major screen time in FORTRESS FRONTIER, he is not the main character. BREACH ZONE has a different protagonist as well. I had always intended the series to slowly develop a small ensemble (think George R. R. Martin or Joe Abercrombie lite). I strongly believe in fully-formed, fleshed out characters, and the ones I’ve created are far too interesting to me to ignore in favor of Oscar Britton (though he’s interesting to me as well).

As for the foreign countries question: Yes. India is a major player in FORTRESS FRONTIER, and I am currently planning to have an independent Quebec play a strong role in BREACH ZONE.

ANTHONY: How did you decide on the breakdown of the various schools of magic and which abilities would be rare/”prohibited?”

MYKE: The basis for the magic system was always elemental (along the Greek conception of elements), and it developed with the story. I knew there was a baseline of incredible institutionalized fear in the global reaction to magic, and I tried to logically extrapolate how that fear would play out along religio-cultural lines. That thinking gave rise to the Geneva Convention amendments and special religious prohibitions. Fortunately, I have many years in civilian government service dealing with international relations/policy making, and that helped me to think about what fears/reactions might play out on a strategic scale in various countries. It was a really fun exercise and I’m still doing it with each book I write.

ANTHONY: You put your main character through one hell of an emotional roller-coaster. Some of the worst moments are almost blink-and-you-miss-it they happen so fast and yet they have lasting repercussions through this, and I suspect future books. Did you ever think “enough is enough for one book, give the guy a break?”

MYKE: Hell, no. Perhaps my three favorite fantasy authors are Peter V. Brett, George R. R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. They beat the crap out of their protagonists, nonstop, book after book after book. It’s so bad that I actually posit in a forthcoming essay that many of Martin’s characters suffer from PTSD. You can read about that essay here.

ANTHONY: There are also some great secondary characters developed, and some great character reversals as well. Without giving too many spoilers, did you outline heavily for this and know all the character arcs before you started, or did some of the developments catch even you by surprise?

MYKE: I am a religious outliner. I have detailed character arcs planned for everybody before I write a word of prose. I envy those writers who say that they can just put characters on the stage, stand back and take dictation. That never happens to me. That said, there were a few points in the story where beta readers came back to me saying that a character behaved in a way that didn’t gel with that characters established personality. In those cases, I did have to think carefully and rework it (usually with a lot of self-derision. I really come down hard on myself when I don’t get character right, because I think it’s the most critical element of good writing).

ANTHONY: It seems like you worked hard to make even the scuzziest characters at least somewhat likable (personally, I’m think Fitzy here, but other characters could fit that description as well). Was there a temptation to let characters fall into various military-related stereotypes just to advance the story?

MYKE: Not at all (though I do believe that stereotypes are a useful thing in writing and not to be totally ignored). My favorite villains are the ones I can identify with (Jardir, Jamie Lannister, Inquisitor Glokta, Jorg, Elric of Melnibone, Dr. Doom, Magneto, etc . . .) I worked really hard to understand what motivated my villains. I wanted them to feel like they were justified in pursuing their goals. They might be wrong, but THEY, at least, should believe they are right.

ANTHONY: And my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

MYKE: I can’t pick a favorite, but if you haven’t read Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle, you MUST. The first book, THE WARDED MAN is a singular work of fantasy and is the most influential piece of literature in my life. If you like my work at all, THE WARDED MAN is a big piece of the why.

You can find out more about CONTROL POINT and Myke’s other writing by checking out his website, following him on Twitter as @MykeCole, and friending him on Facebook.

GORDON McALPIN & THE MULTIPLEX - Interview

March 7, 2012 Anthony Cardno

Today I welcome Gordon McAlpin back. It’s been a week of returning favorites. You’d think there was an anniversary coming up or something.

Gordon McAlpin lives in Minneapolis with his cat Punk. In his twenties, he watched over a dozen movies a week. Gordon has written movie reviews, co-hosted a movie podcast, and edited a movie news blog, but now he just writes and draws Multiplex. While he has never worked at a movie theater, he has had several equally terrible jobs.

From 2004–2006, Gordon created Stripped Books, a series of non-fiction strips covering book- and comics-related events in comics form. Multiplex began in July, 2005, and is Gordon’s first on-going comic strip.

Gordon draws Multiplex in Adobe Illustrator CS5 on a Mac and happily endorses the Astute Graphics’s Phantasm CS and VectorScribe plug-ins. He uses Coda to update and maintain the Multiplex website and hosts the site on Rackspace Cloud Hosting.

ANTHONY: Welcome back, Gordon! Thanks for agreeing to chat again.

GORDON: No problem. Thanks for asking!

ANTHONY: You used Kickstarter to successfully fund the publication of MULTIPLEX BOOK ONE: ENJOY YOUR SHOW. It’s time to get Book Two: THERE AND BACK AGAIN. How long is this campaign running for, and what are some of the rewards you’re offering to those who contribute?

GORDON: This campaign is running for 23 days total. This is a bit shorter than most, and much, much shorter than my first project, which went for the maximum of 90 days. When I ran the Kickstarter project for Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show, I was literally the first webcartoonist to do it — not the first cartoonist, jus the first webcartoonist. So I assumed more time = more money. What I didn’t realize was that it would be more stress and more work, because I had to promote the project for three months. That got old kind of fast. So I decided to do a much shorter one this time: three weeks, which I rounded up to 23 days so that I could end it on midnight before an update day. This way I get the initial flurry of interest and the last-minute drive much closer together. That might have been a mistake, but it’s been doing well so far. We’ll see how it plays out, won’t we?

As for the rewards, you can get artist’s editions of the book (or both books, even), a T-shirt with some as-yet-undecided movie parody image (like the Breakfast Club one I did for Book 1), a print, sketches, an original hand-drawn Multiplex comic on the subject of your choice — on up to some kind of jokey ones like a print of a Multiplex comic with yourself “George Lucased” into it or me flying/driving to your home to watch the movie trilogy of your choice on Blu-ray.

ANTHONY: You’ll really watch any trilogy of the person’s choice if they donate at the highest level? This makes me hope I hit the lottery before your Kickstarter ends, just so I can make you sit through The Never-Ending Story movies. Seriously, what trilogy would you most and least like to sit through if someone did donate at that level?

GORDON: Absolutely! I mean, it was really mostly a joke, but yes, I would absolutely do it. It’d be great if the staff of a movie theater were to make that pledge collectively. I can’t imagine any single person wanted to give me THAT much money. I was shocked that someone went for the “Leet Pack,” which gets them a portable hard drive with every Multiplex file (strip, reference file, background, etc.) in its original Illustrator format, signed by me. And some other stuff, of course.

The trilogy I would most like to see… I think the Mad Max movies. They’re pretty awesome, and I’ve only seen each of them once or twice ever, so they’ll feel pretty fresh.

Least like… probably the Matrix. The first one is awesome, of course, but I can’t even look at it anymore because the sequels were so bad, especially the third one.

ANTHONY: Book One got some really good reviews, and I remember how excited I was to find a copy randomly on the shelf at my local Borders (alas, poor Borders, we knew it well, Horatio…). What lessons did you learn from the production of Book One that you’ll apply to producing Book Two?

GORDON: I was mostly very happy with how the book turned out, physically. There were some mistakes that slipped past me and the freelance proofreaders I brought in, so there’s stuff I’ll be able to keep my eye out for now.

Johanna Draper Carlson gave a review of the book that pointed out a few things I hadn’t thought of, like a table of contents or providing a better introduction to the strip in the front matter than I did. I’ll be taking some of those comments to heart with Book 2’s design.

But I’ve produced books and other printed stuff as part of my “day job” as a freelance print production artist for over a decade, so there wasn’t much I was going to learn from doing yet another book. The only big difference was that this was MY book, you know?

ANTHONY: There are those who say “why bother buying a print edition of one storyline when I can see the entire series archives online for free.” So what can we expect in the print edition of book two that we didn’t see online?

GORDON: About 236 dpi? (Mathematically not accurate, I know.) Aside from much better reproduction, there will be something like 25 bonus comics. Those will also be in the Chapter eBooks that I’ll be releasing as I get the material done, just like with Book 1. Chapter 6 is already out.

There isn’t a new story in this book, like the “Prequel” story in Book 1, because I felt like there was already a pretty strong main thrust to the volume and that any new, longer story I added would just feel like filler. But the bonus comics here will serve the same purpose as in Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show — fleshing out the narrative and characters in a way that I couldn’t (or failed to do) the first time around.

ANTHONY: For those who don’t follow Multiplex on line, give us a summary of who the main characters are, and where we find them as THERE AND BACK AGAIN starts.

LtoR: Kurt, Melissa, Becky, Franklin & Jason. Your friendly neighborhood Multiplex 10 staff

GORDON: Jason is a movie snob, a bit of a jerkass, but always honest (some might say to a fault), so… that’s his one redeeming quality, I guess. Oh, girls think he’s cute, too, but his mouth gets in the way.

Kurt is a horror movie buff and just in general muuuuch easier to please. He’s goofy, but not stupid, and has a cruder sense of humor than Jason (although it’s slowly rubbing off on Jason).

Becky is a quiet, bookish science nerd with a romantic streak, who was kind of in love with Jason for a bit (see Book 1), but might just be getting over it…

Melissa, Kurt’s girlfriend, is a bit more worldly than Kurt. She’s pretty protective of Becky (her roommate and best friend), so she can be a bit of a scold when Jason is a jerk to her, but otherwise she’s sort of aimless and just likes to enjoy the moment. Which is how she can handle with Kurt’s abysmal taste in movies.

Franklin hasn’t done a whole lot at this point, but he’s a ladies’ man and computer nerd rolled into one.

Jason’s girlfriend at this point is Devi, who worked at the theater over the previous summer but is now attending the SVA in New York, so there’s going through some long-distance drama (still). Devi is a lot like Melissa: worldly but also a little boring. (I hate to say that about her, because I love her, but that was always the idea.)

Book 2 picks up where Book 1 left off, but there’s not a long going on with them yet. Multiplex didn’t really have a whole lot of continuity at this point, and it’s not really a plot-driven comic. It’s the 2006 Christmas season. Devi is back home from school for the winter break, and that pretty much sums it up, really. It’s a pretty good jumping-on point.

ANTHONY: Your art and story pacing clearly improved over the course of the strips collected in book one. What noticeable differences are there over the course of book two?

GORDON: I think my writing — in terms of character — is what improves the most throughout this book. The art evolves less noticeably in Book 2 than Book 1. You have to keep in mind that I was basically relearning how to draw in the material you see in Book 1, so it was bound to start off VERY roughly.

Mostly, I think, I just get a little better at the actual drawing/posing/whatever of the characters in Book 2.

ANTHONY: The estimated delivery date for the rewards is November 2012, which I guess rules out Book Two making its’ debut at NYC Comic-Con this year. I don’t suppose you’ll be getting a table anyway?

GORDON: If things pan out with financial aid, I’ll be a poor grad student when NYCC rolls around, so I don’t think so.

The November thing is definitely an estimate, though, for the ebooks. The print books will be out in March of 2013. If I end up going with a Chinese printer, it could be later than that. We’ll see.

ANTHONY: You know I have to close with a question. Last time we talked your favorite movies and favorite books, so this time, tell me what each of the Multiplex main cast’s favorite movies are, and what they would say to convince someone who hasn’t seen that movie that they should go watch it immediately.

GORDON:

Jason: The Apartment. “It’s the perfect blend of comedy and drama, with just a bit of schmaltz-free romance.” And then he would blather away for another few minutes.

Becky: Sense & Sensibility. “It’s so wonderful. Emma Thompson makes me start bawling every single time.”

Melissa: The Princess Bride. “Cary Elwes. yummm Oh, it’s inconceivably funny, too.”

Franklin: Die Hard. “It’s the best American action movie ever, man!”

Kurt: Night of the Living Dead. I wrote a whole storyline leading up to Kurt introducing this flick, so I’m just going to give you the URL of the strip where he explains it… http://www.multiplexcomic.com/strip/606

ANTHONY: I loved Kurt’s intro for Night. Thanks again, Gordon!

GORDON: No problem!

You can follow Gordon on Twitter as @gmcalpin and be updated about the webcomic by following @multiplex10. You can join in the current action at Multiplex, where Jason, Kurt and the gang are filming a zombie flick (yes, a zombie flick). And of course you can (and I hope you will) donate to Gordon’s Lightning Round Kickstarter for MULTIPLEX BOOK TWO: THERE AND BACK AGAIN. Oh, and Multiplex has a Facebook page as well.

DELIA SHERMAN - Author Interview

March 1, 2012 Anthony Cardno

Today I welcome fantasy author Delia Sherman, a long-time favorite of mine.

Delia Sherman, Photo by Laurence Tannaccio

Delia Sherman was born in Tokyo, Japan, and brought up in New York City, with occasional visits to her mother’s relatives in Texas and Louisiana and her father’s relatives in South Carolina. Much of her early life was spent at one end of a classroom or another, including Brown University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies in 1981, and Boston and Northeastern Universities, where she taught Freshman Composition and Fantasy as Literature until she realized she’d rather edit and write. Pursuing her love of history and travel, she has set novels and short stories for children and adults in many times and places.

Her books include Through a Brazen Mirror (Ace, 1989), The Porcelain Dove (Dutton, 1993; Plume, 1994), Changeling (Viking, 2006), The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen(Viking, 2009) and her latest, The Freedom Maze (Big Mouth House, November 2011).

Delia lives with fellow author Ellen Kushner in a rambling apartment in New York City. She is a social rather than a solitary writer, and can work anywhere, which is a good thing because she loves to travel, and if she couldn’t write on airplanes, she’d never get anything done.

Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine. In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn’t happy about spending summer at her grandmother’s old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can’t resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant. When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish inspired by her reading, hoping for a fantasy adventure of her own, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. On her arrival she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grandmother’s house, where she is at once mistaken for a slave.

ANTHONY: Delia, thanks for taking a few moments to chat with me about THE FREEDOM MAZE. I have to start by saying: I absolutely loved the book. Such a great story, told in a straightforward manner but still with a touch of whimsy in the right places. At the end of the book, you say you’ve been working on this story for eighteen years. I know Neil Gaiman had a similar experience with THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. He said that although his initial idea came years ago, he never quite felt his skill was up to the task of telling the story until recently. Why did it take you eighteen years to bring Sophie’s story to the page?

DELIA: One reason is What Neil Said. My reach exceeded my grasp in a big way. When I started it, I’d never written for young readers before, so I had to learn a different way of pacing, a different way of dealing with exposition, a slightly different focus of attention. Another is that the first publisher I sold it to asked for revisions I did not feel comfortable making, which ended in my buying the manuscript back from them. Yet another is that new research became available, which allowed me to make the book more historically and sociologically accurate than it could be when I began. And a third is that the dialogue on race and representation and Writing the Other came out into the open, making it more possible for me to address the troubling question of what a white woman was doing writing about slavery. I guess the bottom line is that THE FREEDOM MAZE took the time it took because that’s the time I needed to get it as right as I humanly could.

ANTHONY: Sophie clearly follows in the footsteps of the Pevensie siblings, Alice, and most specifically the kids in Edward Eager’s THE TIME GARDEN, which you reference repeatedly. But Sophie’s adventure is not quite like her literary predecessors. When did you decide that you would concentrate on the, shall we say, more mundane aspects of living in the past, rather than sticking to “the grand adventure?”

DELIA: Oh, I knew that from the very beginning. I’m not good at writing about “grand adventures.” Never have been. I like reading them, but writing them? No. My second novel, THE PORCELAIN DOVE, is all about what happens at home while the hero is off achieving the quest. My favorite chapters in THE LORD OF THE RINGS is “The Scouring of the Shire.” I love the magic that surrounds, grows out of, and leaks into ordinary daily life. It’s pretty much what I always write about, in different contexts.

ANTHONY: Have you been made aware of any impact your book has had on awareness or republication of THE TIME GARDEN or the rest of Edward Eager’s books?

DELIA: Like any other author, Edward Eager goes in and out of fashion, but he is plenty important enough to remain in print. I hope kids who aren’t familiar with his work will be inspired by THE FREEDOM MAZE to read it, but I suspect there are always going to be more kids who read Eager than who read me.

ANTHONY: I know you go on a lot of writer’s retreats. How much of THE FREEDOM MAZE was written “communally,” so to speak, and how much at home / in private? This also leads to a larger question: how has attending retreats and conferences affected your own writing habits over the years?

DELIA: None of FREEDOM MAZE was written on retreat–or at least not the kind of retreat in which several writers get together to share writing time and brainstorming sessions. I did take time away from home, once alone and once with Ellen (who was crunching her own project), to work on it away from the distractions of Real Life. That kind of retreat is, and will always be, invaluable to my process. The kind of community that helped me with THE FREEDOM MAZE was more my reading group and the kind friends who read and commented on the history, the structure, the pacing, the representation of slavery and slaves, the dialect, the botany, the costuming, the emotional plot, Sophie’s development, the rites and rituals of Voudon and symbols of the Orishas, and just about everything else (except the commas, which NOBODY messes with if they know what’s good for them). That community is something I have accrued over the years, mostly after the early drafts of FREEDOM MAZE were already written. Recently, I’ve learned to talk plots through, to brainstorm, to try out ideas and trajectories of emotion and action, figure out which ones are worth pursuing and which lead only to blind ends or places I’m not interested in going. Macro-plotting is a skill, both for the one who is asking for help and the ones who are giving it. It involves trust on the one hand, and flexibility and non-investment in your suggestions on the other. The helpers have to learn to ask questions. The helped has to be open to new ideas and ways of looking at things without falling into the trap of letting somebody else’s aesthetic take over their book. I have found I love writing in community. It makes my task easier and keeps me from following quite so many false narrative trails. But finally, it’s my obsessions, my tarot deck of characters, my sense of style and story that goes down on the page.

ANTHONY: THE FREEDOM MAZE clearly is a tale complete in-and-of itself. Then again, to my mind so was THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. So I have to ask: will readers see Sophie Fairchild Martineau, “the creature,” Papa Legba and the rest again?

DELIA: I haven’t the slightest idea. When I first turned in this book, back in 1990, I think, I had sketched out a sequel in which both Antigua and Sophie come to New York in their different times, and perhaps overlap briefly. I could still write it. But not in the foreseeable future. There would be a LOT of research involved, and although it would be fun, I’ve got other projects I need to work on first. But thank you so much for asking.

ANTHONY: You’re welcome! Now for my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

DELIA: I love many books. My favorite tends to be the one I just finished that I can’t stop talking about (right at the moment, Jeanette Winterson’s WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN BE NORMAL?, which is a stellar memoir about adoption, the feral mother to end all feral mothers, love, and madness). However, if what we’re talking about is the thing I go to when life gets to be too much, when I want to crawl into a text and pull it up around me like a magic robe, I read THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s one you can live in over and over again. I think I’ve read it 20 times, and every time, I find new things to think about–or maybe new ways of thinking about the things I find. It makes me laugh, it moves me, it makes me believe in community and friendship and hope. It scares the living daylights out of me and saddens me and comforts me. It’s one of the great books of the 20th century, and it has had a greater effect on how I look at the world than almost any other book I can think of, except maybe Francis Hodgson Burnett’s THE SECRET GARDEN, which turned a New York girl into a gardener who believes in magic. And if all that didn’t convince someone to read it, well, then, I’d just have to feel sorry for them.

ANTHONY: Thanks again, Delia!

You can follow Delia on Twitter as @deliasherman, and you can learn more about THE FREEDOM MAZE and Delia’s other books by visiting her website.

KAARON WARREN - Author Interview

February 29, 2012 Anthony Cardno

Today I welcome one of my favorite Australians, author Kaaron Warren. (Australians and Canadians seem to be a theme around here…)

Kaaron Warren sold her first short story, “White Bed,” in 1993. In the time since, she’s published over 70 short stories, and multiple novels (including MISTIFICATION, SLIGHTS and WALKING THE TREE) and short story collections (including THE GRINDING HOUSE, THE GLASS WOMAN and the forthcoming THROUGH SPLINTERED WALLS). Currently in Canberra, she’s lived in Sydney and Melbourne. The unusual spelling of her first name was a personal choice, she says, “Even at 17 I wanted my writing to be remembered, and I thought that a memorable spelling would help me in that quest. Does it work?”

ANTHONY: Kaaron, first of all: congrats on your recent Stoker Award nomination for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Where were you when you got the news, and how does it feel?

KAARON: Because I live in the future (Australia) it felt as if I had to wait an extra day! It was midnight when the email came. I wasn’t quite sure I read right, so re-read it a few times. It was amazing. Just amazing. Making this sort list has been a long-time career goal.

HWA members who are considering their votes can read the story by contacting me.

ANTHONY: Is this your first Stoker nomination?

KAARON: Yes, it is. I made the preliminary ballot with my novel Slights.

ANTHONY: You’ve had short stories published all over the map (geographically and thematically). How does your writing/revising process differ from editor to editor?

KAARON: Writing stays the same, though obviously style may alter depending on the market. If the story is for a specific anthology then I’ll take on a different voice.

Every editor is different in the way they approach things, but I’ve seen the same actions from all the good editors I’ve worked with. Firstly, they want to make sure the story is right, so they’ll ask for more clarity in some places, check continuity, find the plot flaws, ask for more information. They they’ll want the words to fall well, and will look for repetitions or clumsy phrasing. All editors have slightly different processes and I try to work within them.

ANTHONY: I know some authors approach the writing of a novel differently than they do a short story or novella. Are there any differences in your own creative approach to different length works?

KAARON: Creatively, writing a short story and a novel are very similar. I come up with my Spark (the central idea, a character or title), the thing that sets my mind buzzing. That’s the same for all lengths, including novellas. Then it’s the hard work of turning it into a story. Whether it’s long or short will depend on how many paths I take; how much I want to expose of a character’s life.

ANTHONY: They say “write what you know,” and some beginning writers I think that the adage too much to heart. How do you interpret that saying, and how does it apply to your own work?

KAARON: I used to say I wasn’t a fan of ‘write what you know’ but I do think it depends on how you interpret it. If it applies to the senses and the emotions then yes, you should use these to bring your story to life. If you’ve smelt a rose, or horse shit, or old sweat, or bread baking, you’ll know how to describe it.

But as far as writing your own life onto the page? Ugh. An office worker writing about what it’s like to catch the bus every day? No. unless you use it as part of a larger story. Many of my ideas came while catching public transport, and the people I observed. Like the man who would always run from the train to the bus stop, even though we had 20 minutes to wait before the bus came. It made me so curious. Why are you running? I haven’t written about him yet, but I will.

My story “The Wrong Seat” was written during the four hour bus trips we used to take between Canberra and Sydney when we first moved to Canberra. They were very smelly trips and I always wondered; how do people make so much stink? And why? I wrote a sad ghost story about a woman haunting the bus.

So my interpretation is this; take the things you see, hear and feel and imagine them in someone else’s life.

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren

ANTHONY: Your next release is Through Splintered Walls. Tell me a little about the book, and when it will be available.

KAARON: Though the Splintered Walls will be launched at the Australian National Convention in Melbourne in June. You should come along!

It’s part of the Twelfth Planet Press Twelve Planets series. The book holds four stories inspired by the Australian landscape.

“Sky” is a horror-SF novella about a finger found in cat food and where it came from. I think it’s one of my most disturbing stories. I had to work hard to allow it to fall the way it fell. I’m writing about abhorrent people and practices and trying to make them sympathetic. That’s part of the trick of horror writing, I think. Making awful things seem believable.

“Road” was inspired by the many roadside memorials you see when you travel anywhere in Australia. They are heartbreaking, I think. So I wrote a nasty ghost story about them.

“Mountain” began when a truck full of cat food overturned on Clyde Mountain, the main route from Canberra, the inland city where I live, to the coast. The thing was, the truck was cleaned out. People stole that cat food; almost all of it. And this greed shocked me, and started me thinking about what there was on the mountain that made people behave that way.

“Creek” is a sad story about loss, love and women who quake.

Next year’s Australian National Science Fiction Convention will be held in Canberra, and I’m one of the special guests along with Nalo Hopkinson, Marc Gascoigne and Karen Miller.

ANTHONY: And my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

KAARON: This question will make a good friend of mine laugh, because of what he calls my FBOAT. Favourite Book of All Time. Because there are lots! And each time I see him I say, Oooh, this is my FBOAT.

These are some of them. I think it’s a tough list to get onto. I’m pretty picky. All of them are on this list because they make the world slow down when I’m reading them, and that’s why you should do so.

Georges Perec “Life: A User’s Manual”

Barbara Kingsolver “The Poisonwood Bible”

Suzy McKee Charnas “Walk to the End of the World” and the whole Motherlines series.

D M Thomas “The White Hotel”

ANTHONY: Thanks again, Kaaron! Good luck (or break a leg, or whatever charm you Aussies use) on the Stokers and the Ditmars!

You can find more of her work on Kaaron’s website. You can also follow her on Twitter as @KaaronWarren. The link to Twelve Planets Press’s website is above.

SEANAN McGUIRE - Author Interview

January 31, 2012 Anthony Cardno

This week I welcome the lovely and talented, and occasionally just a little bit — okay, occasionally a lot — scary Seanan McGuire.

Seanan is the author of the October Daye series of urban fantasies, the first seven of which have been purchased by DAW Books; the InCryptidseries of urban fantasies, the first two of which have been purchased by DAW Books; and the Newsflesh trilogy, published by Orbit under the pseudonym “Mira Grant.” She’s working on several other books, just to make sure she never runs out of things to edit. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies, and she was a 2010 Universe Author for The Edge of Propinquity. Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. In her spare time, Seanan writes and records original music. She has three CDs currently available (see the Albums page for additional details). She is also a cartoonist, and draws an irregularly posted autobiographical web comic, “With Friends Like These…”.

ANTHONY: Seanan, thanks for taking the time out of your absolutely insane writing schedule to chat with me. How many different series do you have running at the moment?

SEANAN: It’s either three or four (or possibly five, depending on how you count), it’s hard to say–I have one series on the way out, the Newsflesh books as Mira, but I still have one book yet to be published. At the same time, I’m working on the next Mira Grant project, which isn’t even properly announced yet. So the number is sort of squiggly.

ANTHONY: Do you find any significant differences in your work ethic or habits from one series to another?

SEANAN: Nope. I am a very efficient little Halloween girl, and I approach everything with the same set of checklists, research habits, and absolutely rigorous schedules. It’s how my brain naturally functions. Now, I do tend to listen to different music depending on what I’m doing, but that’s all part of setting the proper mood.

ANTHONY: Let’s talk about your newest series, INCRYPTID. Where are we at the beginning of the series and who are the main characters, both heroic and villainous?

SEANAN: At the beginning of the series we’re following Verity Price, the latest in a long line of cryptozoologists, as she undertakes her journeyman studies in Manhattan and tries to get to know the local cryptid community. Her family–now the Prices, formerly the Healys–split off from an organization called the Covenant of St. George about four generations ago. The Covenant hunts monsters. The Prices protect them. Conflict is inevitable.

Verity’s family currently consists of her parents, Kevin and Evelyn, her siblings, Alexander and Antimony, her Aunt Jane and Uncle Ted and their kids (Arthur and Elsinore), and assorted grandparents. She also has her adopted cousin, Sarah Zellaby, a telepathic mathematician who looks human but actually evolved from a species of parasitic wasp. It’s complicated. I am super excited.

ANTHONY: Fantasy, horror and SF seem to move in ways — we’ve been riding the vampire/werewolf/zombie wave for a while, angels seem to have peaked recently … cryptids seem to be the upcoming thing. In a world that seems to grow smaller and more interconnected by the day, with less unexplored/”dark” places to capture our imagination, why do you think the concept of cryptids is more interesting than ever? I mean, we even have shows like “Bigfoot Hunters” on cable television, “reality” rather than scripted dramas.

SEANAN: Because the smaller the world gets, the more things we’re discovering in the shadows. Twenty years ago, the giant squid was barely a real thing, and now it’s not even the biggest thing in the ocean. Ten years ago, we were just discovering that the tree lobster–a stick insect the size of your hand–wasn’t extinct. Every time we say “that’s it, we know everything,” we find something else. Cryptids represent a mystery that might actually be something we can solve. And they’re a part of our cultural makeup. No matter where you go, there are cryptids, ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night.

ANTHONY: Without risking any spoilers, what can we expect for Verity Price and the rest of the characters moving forward?

SEANAN: You know. Stuff. More books, hopefully. I’ve finished the second volume, Midnight Blue-Light Special, and I’m itching to get to work on the third. There are talking mice. The usual.

ANTHONY: One question I always hate to get is “which of your characters is your favorite?” (Followed quickly by “Who would win in a fight…”) So I won’t ask you either of those, but it’s natural to want to compare all of your strong female leads. So: what do you admire most about Toby, Verity, etc.?

SEANAN: Toby has more than her fair share of stubborn. She could be stubborn on an Olympic level, and once she says she’ll do something, she will. Not. Give. Up. Verity is fearless when she’s defending her friends or the people (and cryptids) she cares about, and while she knows she’s mortal, she really doesn’t give a shit. Velveteen is more powerful than she thinks she is. And Rose Marshall is all about doing the right thing, no matter how much she whines.

ANTHONY: The Field Guide to Cryptids on your site really whetted my interest in the book, perhaps moreso than reading the descriptive blurb on various bookstore websites. Who did the illustrations, and will we be seeing those in the book itself?

SEANAN: The Field Guide illustrations were done by the amazing Kory Bing, who is just incredible to work with, and does a fabulous web comic called “Skin Deep” that you should totally check out. I’m so excited to be working with her, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next. The illustrations won’t be in the book; it’s not that kind of book. But maybe we’ll do a picture book or something somewhere down the line…

ANTHONY: How much fun was it cataloging and categorizing the various extant and extinct Cryptids of North America?

SEANAN: So much fun. Sooooooo much fun. And there’s so much more to come.

ANTHONY: And my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

My favorite book in the whole history of all the books ever written, ever, is IT by Stephen King. And you should read it because every twenty-seven years Pennywise the Dancing Clown kills a bunch of people, and now that it’s 2012, the twenty-seven year cycle is starting again, and you want to know how not to wind up on his dance card.

You can follow Seanan on Twitter as @seananmcguire. You can become a Fan of hers on Goodreads. You can friend her on Facebook, follow her adventures on her livejournal and check out all of her books on her own website.

LARRY CLOSS - Author interview

January 10, 2012 Anthony Cardno

This week, I welcome author Larry Closs.

Larry Closs is the author of Beatitude, a novel, and a New Yorker who often wanders far from home.

He has been a national writer, editor, photographer and videographer for nearly 20 years for publications and websites at News Corporation, TimeWarner, Hearst and Viacom, including TV Guide, TVGuide.com, Road Runner and Nickelodeon. At Gesso, a communication design studio he co-founded, clients included Sony, Estee Lauder, Smithsonian Institution, USAID, National Cancer Institute and the NBA. He has produced digital shorts for the Travel Channel, co-produced two mobile apps and freelanced for Out, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine and The New York Aquarian.

As Director of Communications for Next Generation Nepal, a nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families, he oversees communications and marketing, and his photographs and video from Nepal have been used by CNN, The Huffington Post, USA Today, HarperCollins and The Nate Berkus Show.

ANTHONY: Larry, thanks for taking some time to chat with me. Beatitude has been in print from Rebel Satori Press for a little while now, and you’re doing your first reading and signing in NYC on March 12 (7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 82nd and Broadway). Nervous?

LARRY: I’m more excited than nervous. I’ve invited everyone I know—and everyone I don’t know is welcome! A good number have already told me they’ll be there. It will be interesting to see people from different areas of my life—many of whom have never met—all in the same place. I’m also looking forward to meeting a few people who have read the book and written to me. Until now, we’ve only known each other through the emails we’ve exchanged.

Also, I recently realized that March 12 is Jack Kerouac’s birthday—he would have been 90. Kerouac and On the Road figure so prominently in Beatitude I couldn’t have planned a more perfect date if I tried. And it was a total coincidence. Unless, of course, there’s no such thing as coincidence, as Beatitude suggests, which makes it even more perfect.

While we’re on the subject of my reading, I’d like to mention Lou Pizzitola, who organizes and schedules events at this particular Barnes & Noble. Lou goes out of his way to feature appearances by authors who are published by small and independent presses, giving them a chance for the kind of exposure they rarely get. An author couldn’t ask for a better advocate.

ANTHONY: This is the first signing—any immediate plans for more?

LARRY: There are a few things in the works that will be announced when the details are finalized. But I’d like to add that I am open to any and all invitations. Book stores, book clubs, literary salons—any type of salon, actually.

ANTHONY: I know you’ve discussed this elsewhere, but tell us a little about the genesis of Beatitude. What brought you to write about the Beat Generation through the eyes of two New Yorkers in the 1990s?

LARRY: Beatitude began as a much simpler story about two young men, Harry and Jay, who become friends as a result of their shared fascination with the Beats. I set the story in the mid-90s because that’s when the Beats last experienced one of their periodic rediscoveries, which seems to happen every 15 or 20 years. We’re actually about due for another surge of interest, and the long-delayed movie version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, which finally comes out this May, will probably fuel one.

There had to be more to the story, of course, and as the characters developed, I began to see the potential to explore the mysteries and subtleties of attraction. Jay’s girlfriend, Zahra, had always been present, but in the background. When she became more central, she took on an unlikely role and that really took Harry and Jay’s relationship to an unexpected place. Harry’s former infatuation, Matteo, also appeared, inspired by the need to provide insight into Harry’s past and why he was prone to making the same mistake over and over.

The Beats themselves evolved from a few references to full-fledged characters when I saw the parallels between Harry, Jay and Zahra and Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. The Beats were as famous for their complicated loves lives as they were for their literary efforts, and each of the Beats experienced unrequited love from both sides of the equation—either falling for someone who couldn’t reciprocate or being the reluctant object of affection. I realized that the situation in which Harry, Jay and Zahra find themselves was not unique but universal and the Beats provided the perfect counterpoint. That left me with Beatitude’s biggest questions: What do you do when you find yourself on either side of that equation? What must you each give up to keep the other in your life?

ANTHONY: You ultimately were published by Rebel Satori Press. What are the pros and cons of being published by a small independent house like RSP?

LARRY: The biggest pro is being published. That’s the hardest thing for any author to achieve these days—finding a publisher who believes in a book so much that he’s willing to invest in it.

The most unexpected pro was that I was able to get a literary agent after trying to do so for a long time. Why get an agent after a publisher had accepted the book? To help with the contract. My agent helped me retain the foreign and adaptation rights, which are, aside from royalties, the two avenues with the greatest potential to generate revenue. The agency has individuals dedicated to foreign sales as well as contacts in the film and television industries that neither I nor my publisher have, so there’s a much greater chance of selling those rights than if I attempted to do so on my own.

I also negotiated control of the cover design, which was important to me. I’m not a designer but I used to co-own a design studio and have a design sensibility. I knew what sort of aesthetic I wanted and I was able to engage an amazing illustrator—Anthony Freda—for the cover, and an amazing designer—John Barrow—for the equally important back cover and spine. Every author imagines what the cover of his or her book will look like. Mine turned out better than I’d ever dreamed.

As for the cons of being published by an independent press, there are none—again, you’re a published author!—but there arechallenges. Advances are small, rare or, in my case, nonexistent, so there was no immediate financial reward. I was responsible for clearing the rights and paying the licensing fees for song lyrics and excerpts from other literary works featured in my book, which was a long and tedious process. I had to print my own galleys for publications with long lead times. I had to trade my author hat for my publicist hat and spend nearly every spare minute promoting the book on my author website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. Pinterest is on my radar. It goes on.

I will say that every review, article, post, mention, tweet, share, like or email from a reader makes it all worthwhile—especially an email from a reader. To know that what you’ve written has affected someone you’ve never met, that your book spoke to even one person—so much so that he or she was inspired to write to you—is the most heartening response you can ever receive.

ANTHONY: In the scene at the Whitney Museum’s Beat Culture exhibit, Harry, Jay and Zahra meet Allen Ginsberg and see a different side of their Beat Generation heroes. Did you always plan to include that real-life event as a seminal part of the novel?

LARRY: Beatitude is a novel set in the real New York City of 1995, populated by fictional characters who occasionally interact with versions of real people, like the characters in Titanic. The real-life Beat Culture exhibit aligned with Beatitude’s timeline and provided the perfect backdrop for Harry, Jay and Zahra’s encounter with Ginsberg, which didn’t turn out as expected.

There are several moments in Beatitude when the main characters must accept the difference between what they want something to be and what something actually is. When Harry and Jay view the legendary scroll manuscript of On the Road, they realize that Kerouac didn’t produce a perfectly polished and publishable novel in three weeks. When Harry, Jay and Zahra meet Ginsberg at the Beat Culture exhibit, he shatters their image of him as an eternally beneficent dharma bum. When Harry and Jay hit a speed bump in their friendship, Harry is forced to acknowledge his true feelings for Jay.

A reader summed it up very well: “Beatitude captures an experience that is universal to all people—that the greatest source of human suffering comes from our wanting things to be other than what they are.” I like when readers tell me what Beatitude is about!

ANTHONY: You have two previously unpublished Ginsberg poems in the book. How did you get access to those?

LARRY: I had a recording of a Ginsberg poetry reading at MoMA, and when I wrote the scene in which Harry, Jay and Zahra go to see him there, I selected excerpts from a few of the poems he read. After Rebel Satori Press accepted Beatitude for publication, I had to clear the rights to the poems and I contacted Peter Hale at the Allen Ginsberg Estate. In the course of his research, Peter discovered that two of the poems—“Like Other Guys” and “Carl Solomon Dream”—had, surprisingly, never been published (“Like Other Guys” appeared only as a 26-copy broadside).

I initially thought that I would have to rewrite the scene with other poems but Peter put me in touch with Ginsberg’s literary agent at The Wylie Agency and, long story short, I was able to include the two poems—using excerpts in the scene at MoMA and the full text in an Appendix. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed that two previously unpublished poems by Allen Ginsberg would be featured in my first novel. Beatitude, indeed.

ANTHONY: The character of Harry Charity hit particularly close to home for me. Did the characters of Harry and Jay instantly hit the page running, or did they grow and change in unpredictable ways over the course of writing the novel?

LARRY: They definitely grew and changed, and, as a consequence, so did their relationship and their story. I really didn’t realize what the book was about—or what the book could be about—until the fourth or fifth draft. From the beginning, Harry and Jay were friends, united by their shared interest in the Beats. But that’s the surface. What was beneath their interest in the Beats? What part of each other did the Beats stir? What really drew them together?

I set out to write a novel that uncovered truths in everyday experience by blending fact and fiction to create a more epic version of reality. The perfect analogy is Instagram, the popular iPhone photo editing and sharing app. You take photos of real-life people, places and objects, run them through a variety of filters—adjust the color saturation, play with the contrast, convert to black and white, change the crop, blur or focus—and you can achieve something much more evocative than the unvarnished original.

I read an interview with one of my favorite musicians, Tom Waits, and he said, “The truth is overrated. Avoid it at all costs.” He meant that reality can almost always be improved upon. What actually happens is irrelevant if you can make it more interesting while retaining the essence. With each draft of Beatitude, I added more filters, and the story—as well as Harry and Jay—gradually became more apocryphal.

ANTHONY: I especially liked the way you work Harry’s personal history into the narrative—what we assume at first are dream sequences about Jay turn out to be memories of Harry’s most recent relationship, but eventually you have Harry tell the story in more “gory” detail as he recognizes that old patterns are repeating themselves. Developing it this way added a great underlying secondary tension to the main tension between Harry and Jay. How did you decide which tidbits of Harry’s past to reveal when? I guess what I’m asking is a variation on that old standard: are you a detailed outliner or a “see where it goes” type of writer?

LARRY: The structure and pacing were the most challenging aspects of the book for me. How to build tension and reveal just enough information along the way to keep a reader interested in knowing the resolution? Initial drafts were “see where it goes.” Then I created a detailed outline. Then I tossed the outline. In retrospect, I employed something similar to the cut-up method that William S. Burroughs espoused. The difference is that Burroughs believed in randomly reordering chapters or sections of a book to subvert traditional linear storytelling, while the story I wanted to tell was, ultimately, very linear, with a beginning, middle and end. Still, our approaches were the same.

After I had a draft of the book, I experimented with splitting some scenes in two and rearranging others. In a way, it was very mechanical. But it made me realize that what you don’t say is just as important as what you do—and actually more intriguing. Tell the first half of a story at one point and readers will likely stick around for the second. The process also revealed the need for scenes I hadn’t included. There were brief references to why Harry was so damaged at the beginning of the book, but what really happened to him? I needed to know, so I wrote the flashback sequences with Matteo, initially, as one long piece.

Wayne Hoffman, a friend and fellow author (Sweet Like Sugar, Hard), once observed to me that there are scenes authors have to write for themselves that never make it into a finished book. I wasn’t sure the flashbacks were going to make it into Beatitude but I had to write them so I could fully understand Harry. Eventually, they became an essential part of the story, but I reworked and rewrote each of them as self-contained scenes and placed them at pivotal moments in the narrative to mirror Harry’s relationship with Jay.

ANTHONY: In my review in Chelsea Station, I admit to not knowing very much about the Beat Generation other than the names, and yet I never felt like you, or your characters, were talking “over my head” about things only a “true fan” would know. Was there a conscious decision as you were writing to make sure the book stayed accessible to as many readers as possible rather than targeting only folks who were Beat fans?

LARRY: It was essential that Beatitude be a self-contained experience, whatever a reader’s familiarity with the Beats. Having read nearly all books by the Beats as well as a multitude of books about the Beats, I realized I knew a lot more than most. I did assume, however, that some of the more iconic stories were general knowledge—the fact that Kerouac wrote the first draft of On the Road on a 120-foot roll of Teletype paper in three weeks, for instance, or that the publication of Ginsberg’s “Howl” prompted a landmark censorship trial—and so I short-handed them in the book.

As I collected feedback from friends and colleagues on the manuscript-in-progress, however, I discovered that most weren’t as familiar with those stories as I would have thought. So, I employed a technique travel writers often use, providing in-depth background information as asides, although I integrated the information into the narrative. Readers unfamiliar with the Beats will be intrigued, I think—many have told me that Beatitude inspired them to seek out On the Road, “Howl” and Naked Lunch—and will also understand Harry and Jay’s fascination with them.

ANTHONY: So what’s next on the horizon for you, other than continuing to promote Beatitude? Is there another book in the works? And can you give us a tease or two about it?

LARRY: I have a folder on my laptop called New Novel, but that’s all I’ll say. I didn’t tell anyone the title of Beatitude or what it was about until I had a first draft—not even my best friend, who tried every which way imaginable to get something out of me. I like a book to arrive complete and stand on its own, with no preconceptions. Also, my writing process is organic. Beatitude took many unexpected turns as I wrote it and I expect the next book will do the same. What I believe it will be about right now is not necessarily what it will be about when it’s finished.

ANTHONY: And my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to convince someone to read it?

LARRY: I have a lot of favorite books and the list changes with every book I read. But, related to this discussion, one of my favorites is On the Road. It will make you young again.

ANTHONY: Thanks, Larry!

JERRY ORDWAY, Comic Book Creator - Interview

September 7, 2011 Anthony Cardno

Sometimes I get to interview my friends, sometimes I get to interview folks whose work I’ve stumbled across recently and enjoyed, and sometimes I get to interview my creative heroes. This week, I’m talking with comics creator Jerry Ordway, who definitely falls into the “heroes” category.

Jerry Ordway has been working professionally in comics since 1980. He had a long run as finisher and then full artist on DC’s ALL-STAR SQUADRON, which is where I first encountered him. He co-created the original INFINITY INC, had a eight-year run on the SUPERMAN family of titles, and a fantastic four year run redefining THE POWER OF SHAZAM. He’s also done work for Marvel Comics.

ANTHONY: Hi, Jerry. Thanks for agreeing to let this long-time fanboy pester you for a while.

JERRY: No problem, happy to chat.

ANTHONY: DC Comics recently announced a black-and-white SHOWCASE reprint edition of the early issues of All-Star Squadron. I couldn’t find a contents listing on Amazon. How much of your work on the series will be seen in this first volume?

JERRY: I assume you’ll see the finishes I did on Buckler, as well as those on Adrian Gonzales in issues 1-14, including the first annual. Maybe they’ll include the Justice League portion of the JLA-JSA crossover. Not sure what the page counts is, on those collections.

ANTHONY: You started out inking Rich Buckler, who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at a couple of New York Comic-Cons, but he eventually left the book and you shifted to pencilling duties. Was there any pressure to mimic Rich’s style in the beginning, or did the editors just let you jump right in?

JERRY: Well, since I was doing finishes on All Star Squadron from the beginning, the editor felt that my “veneer” so to speak, was the selling point, especially since I was working over Adrian Gonzales’s work from around issue #6(?) until I started pencilling. In fact, I had been wanting to pencil from the start, but doing the monthly All Star book was something DC didn’t want to mess with, or derail. By the second year, Roy Thomas had me doing so many art changes, I was frustrated. I decided to take up an offer to draw an 8 page Creeper back-up in Flash, and quit the book. But Len Wein, the editor told me I could pencil All Star, instead. Not wanting Adrian to lose work was my concern, and he was apparently happy to shift over to Arak, instead of drawing a dozen costumed heroes in a period backdrop:) So, no pressure to have to follow any style but my own.

ANTHONY: I have to say that I think part of my enduring love for the Golden Age Flash, Green Lantern and Starman over and above their more modern counterparts has to do with your take on them back in the Squadron days. Why do you think Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, Ted Knight and even the original Captain Marvel still have such a fan-base 70 or more years after they debuted?

JERRY: Well, I think they are all compelling characters in their own right, of course, but I think in the case of the JSA-ers, that Roy, with some help from me, imbued them with personalities that didn’t exist in earlier incarnations. Roy lived and breathed those characters, and that is what made the JSA characters special in our time frame, via All Star Squad, and also Infinity Inc in the mid 1980’s. That material directly inspired the Goyer and Robinson (later Geoff Johns) material, much as the 1940’s to 1970’s stuff inspired Roy and myself.

ANTHONY: You got to redesign some WW2 characters and create some brand-new characters for All-Star Squadron. Looking back, what was your favorite costume design, and who would you like to have (re)designed given the chance?

JERRY: Again, at Roy’s insistence we gave Tarantula new life, outside of being a Sandman clone. That costume is a favorite of mine. Amazing Man was a new creation, though also a fun design, an attempt to design as if it was 1940 instead of 1980. I was never compelled to redesign any of the classic ones, though. I felt I could make them work in the drawing, if they appeared a bit clunky, as Alan Scott’s 1940’s outfit was. That one had every color in the paintbox, but worked fine if you drew it consistent.

ANTHONY: When you wrote and drew The Power of Shazam!, including painting the series covers, you gave the book a look that seemed to sit squarely between the cartoony look of creator CC Beck and the realistic look Don Newton used in the short Adventure Comics run he did. Was this a conscious decision, or just a function of how your own style had developed at that time?

JERRY: Well, I was a fan of Don Newton’s work overall, from his Charlton days on the Phantom, and I also respected C.C. Beck’s vision. To me, the only way Captain Marvel ever looked correct, was when he was on model with the Beck head design. I’ve always tried to make my heroes different in subtle ways, for storytelling clarity, and with Cap, that was the iconic look, much as Joe Shuster and Jack Burnley’s golden age Superman was the correct model for that hero.

ANTHONY: How has your creative process changed over the years? Do you still use basically the same tools, or have you switched completely to digital? And how do you think digital tools have affected the style of newer artists in the field?

JERRY: I work with paper and pencils, ink and pens. I scan work and do digital touch-ups, but the appeal for me isn’t in inking or drawing digitally. It’s a tactile experience, feeling the pen tip on the paper. Digital is an improvement in many ways, allowing for color separations to be done better, and I’ve seen painted work that looks great digitally, but the training is the same, learning to draw, learning to use color, or black and white.

ANTHONY: You’ve worked extensively for DC, you’ve done some work for Marvel. Is there any character out there you haven’t had a chance to work on that you’d still like to take a crack at?

JERRY: I love drawing Captain America, and also always wanted another shot at the Fantastic Four. I grew up a Marvel reader, so those characters connect me to my childhood, you know? But sometimes, you are better off not working on material that you love to much at the start, because it hampers your vision, in a way. I learned to love Superman, as well as Captain Marvel, and I think I did my best work on them because I could be objective about what worked and what didn’t.

ANTHONY: What are you currently working on?

JERRY: I just finished a 6 page Alfred story for the Bat-books, with a Halloween theme, so I suppose that will go into inventory for next year> Also I have 5 pages in the second issue of the new Thunder Agents series, drawing a 1960’s flashback, which was fun. I have a couple of projects lined up, but can’t spill the beans just yet. The first is a new take on a 1960’s era DC book, which is all I can tease.

ANTHONY: You’ve been auctioning original art on e-bay. Is there any piece of your own work that you would never ever part with?

JERRY: I have a hard time parting with most stuff, which is why I’ve been selling prelims and sketches for the most part. Each drawing represents a day or two of my life, you know?

ANTHONY: Thanks again, Jerry!

You can find Jerry all over the web. He’s on Twitter as @JerryOrdway, he’s on Facebook, he blogs on Ordster’s Random Thoughts, and there’s still content up on his website as well.

ELLEN DATLOW, Author - Interview

January 12, 2011 Anthony Cardno

This week, I’m happy to be interviewing another one of my personal favorites, editor Ellen Datlow.

(From her website:) Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for almost thirty years. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the horror half of the long-running The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Ellen is currently tied with frequent co-editor Terri Windling as the winner of the most World Fantasy Awards in the organization’s history (nine). Ellen was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” She lives in New York.

ANTHONY: Between April and September of 2011, you’ve had four anthologies hit the market. That’s a lot of pages in a short period of time! Are you planning on resting any time soon?

ELLEN: Those anthologies were finished more than a year before they were published, and Naked City was essentially finished two years before it came out. I should have only had three original anthologies published in 2011 (I also had The Best Horror of the Year volume three) but Naked City was delayed by a year as I awaited a promised story that never came in (by a BIG name). Publicizing four anthologies within a six month period became very complicated. It was difficult for me to remember which writers were in which book. Honestly. I occasionally screwed up and set up two different signings for which I asked the wrong writers to participate—embarrassing.

I’m currently only working on one original anthology plus The Best Horror of the Year volume four so have it relatively easy this year as far as editing goes. But overall, I’d much rather be editing more than less.

ANTHONY: The anthologies seem to work in pairs. For instance, NAKED CITY: New Tales of Urban Fantasy from St. Martin’s Griffin and SUPERNATURAL NOIR from Dark Horse. From the titles, a casual browser might assume both feature gritty city-based detective tales with a supernatural angle. Aside from different publishers, what distinguishes these two books from each other?

ELLEN: The two anthologies aren’t meant to be related at all. Naked City is mostly comprised of stories reflecting the traditional definition of urban fantasy as written by John Crowley, Ellen Kushner, Peter Beagle, and Delia Sherman—fantasy that takes place in cities, with the city almost always crucial to the action. It mostly includes fantasy and some dark fantasy.

Supernatural Noir is a horror anthology-combined with the flavor of the film noir of the 40s-50s. In my guidelines I made it clear that I didn’t want only detectives as main characters and that in fact I’d prefer that writers avoid that kind of set-up. And mostly they did.

Blood & Other Cravings

ANTHONY: I can ask the same question of TEETH: Vampire Tales from Harper and BLOOD AND OTHER CRAVINGS from Tor. Both are, on the surface, books about vampires. One thing that distinguishes these two books from each other is the target audience. TEETH is aimed directly at the YA market, BLOOD is for the adult reader. What else separates them?

ELLEN: Teeth is a young adult anthology in which vampires play a major role. Every story has an actual blood-sucking vampire in it.

Blood and Other Cravings is an adult anthology focusing on vampirism, the concept rather than the creature, even if there are vampires in some of the stories. It’s a follow up to my two vampirism anthologies from 1989 and 1991: Blood is Not Enough and A Whisper of Blood (both recently brought together in one big beautiful new hardcover edition titled A Whisper of Blood from the Barnes & Noble imprint Fall River Press).

ANTHONY: Only one of your four recent anthologies has been with a co-editor: TEETH, with long-time editing partner Terri Windling. What are some of the key differences between solo editing and co-editing?

ELLEN: With co-editing, some of the material might include stories that one editor loves more than the other. When I’m editing solo it’s completely my taste. We both approach writers and wrangle them (to get the stories in on time). We both read and choose the stories. We split some of the tasks. Terri writes our meaty introductions, I put together the bios of each contributor and compile the front matter. Depending on how strongly one of us feels about a particular story we want to buy, either Terri or I will work with the writer on the substantive editing. I do most of the line editing.

ANTHONY: You’ve worked with Terri quite often, but I think you’ve had other co-editors as well. Is there a quantifiable difference between working with Terri and, say, Nick Mamatas?

ELLEN: I’ve worked with Terri on six young adult anthologies, two adult anthologies, and three middle-grade anthologies. (For our Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror we each chose our halves independent of one another.) They were all fantasy.

The only other editor I’ve worked with has been Nick Mamatas. Nick and I worked on Haunted Legends, a horror anthology, together. Nick knows a different pool of writers than Terri and I do so it was interesting to work with some of “his” authors. Since it was our first anthology together it was also a little worrisome at the beginning as to whether we’d be on the same wavelength. Luckily we were and I’d be happy to work with him again.

ANTHONY: You’ve occasionally been accused of having a sort of stable of writers: “If this is a Datlow anthology, I don’t even have to look at the ToC, I know Authors A, B, C and D will be included.” And I’m sure other editors receive similar accusations. Do comments like that have any influence on your story choices?

ELLEN: I don’t consider having a stable of writers an negative, and it’s certainly not a limitation. It’s a fact of editing over a long period of time. One works with writers whose work one enjoys and who produces great stories –on time. So of course the editor will keep buying stories from those writers over the course of time, as long as she can –see my note in the next paragraph. I have a huge stable of writers from my seventeen years at OMNI Magazine, my almost six years at SCIFICTION, plus the twenty-five Best of the years I’ve edited.

In every original and reprint anthology I edit there are some writers whose work I use repeatedly, but there are always other writers I’ve only rarely or never before published in my anthologies. This is especially true in my best of the year anthologies. Just in the last two years of The Best Horror of the Year I published twelve stories by writers I’d never worked with before—some of whom I’d never even read before. The crucial thing to know about writers is that they often stop writing short stories once they publish their first novel, so to me it’s important to use their best short fiction while they‘re still writing it. Very few of the hundreds of writers I published in OMNI write many if any short stories today. So yeah. I’m delighted to be able to continue to publish writers like Jeff Ford, Kathe Koja, Kaaron Warren, Laird Barron, and Richard Bowes as long as they continue to produce great stories. I’d be stupid not to.

ANTHONY: We’ve talked in the past (mostly on your livejournal) about the importance of story placement, especially in the lead-off and concluding positions of an anthology. Is there ever pressure from a publisher to ensure Author X gets the lead-off, even if you personally feel the story is more appropriate for the middle of the book in relation to the rest of the stories you’ve accepted?

ELLEN: No –that’s generally my decision. Twice, in-house editors have suggested a switch, but when that happened it had nothing to do with who the writer was but the feeling that a different story would work better as the lead. And thinking it over I concurred.

ANTHONY: How intimately do you work with writers before a story is officially accepted? Have you ever initially accepted a story and then through the editing process realized that it wasn’t going to work out?

ELLEN: I never accept a story before I’m certain that it will work out. If I love a story but feel it needs too much work to buy outright, I’ll ask the writer if she’s willing and able to work with me on it (setting out what I see are the problems). If she is, I’ll make it clear that until we’re agreed on the revisions and I see the rewrite I can’t commit to taking the story (giving specific suggestions and asking specific questions about the trouble spots). But if I and the writer put that much time into rewrites I know that ultimately I will take the story.

When I was a lot newer to editing I had a few experiences in which I requested rewrites but the writers didn’t “hear” what I was saying–they made changes I didn’t ask for and in so doing made their story worse. Which is why I’m much more careful now how I ask for rewrites and try to be very specific.

Also, because I’m not working on a magazine/webzine with a slush pile, I usually work with writers whose work I’ve solicited. That means I’m familiar with their work and hope we’re on the same wave length. Going back to your questions about “stables”–that’s the advantage of working with writers you’ve worked with before. You know that you can work with them, saving a lot of time and energy on both sides.

ANTHONY: You’ve said in recent interviews that all of your anthologies are “invitation only.” I can’t resist asking: how does one go about getting invited? Or, to phrase the question more seriously: what catches Ellen Datlow’s attention these days that might cause you to invite a writer to a future anthology?

ELLEN: By me noticing your fantastic stories when I read for The Best of the Year. And since I skim so many sf/f/h/mystery short stories (and some non-genre) being published in a given year, I’m pretty aware of new writers as well as the more established ones.

ANTHONY: Speaking of the future. I see that one of your and Terri’s classic anthologies, SNOW WHITE, BLOOD RED, was recently reissued. Are there any plans to continue the Adult Fairy Tale series?

ELLEN: We’re very pleased that Snow White, Blood Red has always done so well. It sold 72,000 in mass market pb which is amazing for an anthology. It was in print for over ten years and it’s great that it’s in print again from Fall River Press.

I grew tired of reading so many re-told fairy tales after six volumes of adult tales and three of middle grade (for children). The sub-genre exploded after we did ours. I don’t know if there’s much of a market for new anthologies on the theme any more– I’m not convinced we could sell a new one these days. Black Thorn, White Rose, and Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears are both currently in print from Wildside Books. What we’d love is for the last three volumes to be reissued, as they’ve been out of print for awhile.

ANTHONY: What else are you working on at the moment?

ELLEN: Terri and I recently finished a young adult anthology called After: Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic Tales that will be published by Hyperion next fall. And we’re working on an adult Victorian Fantasy anthology for Tor. And of course, The Best Horror of the Year volume four, my bête noir.

ANTHONY: Finally, can you tell my readers about the Fantastic Fiction readings at KGB in New York City?

ELLEN: It’s a monthly reading series started in the late 1990s by writer Terry Bisson and Alice K. Turner (former fiction editor at Playboy), originally pairing genre and mainstream writers at the KGB Bar, an east village institution (in New York City). I took over for Alice in spring 2000 and when Terry Bisson left for the west coast in 2002, Gavin J. Grant began co-hosting with me. Matthew Kressel took over for Gavin in 2008 and we’ve been co-hosting ever since.

ANTHONY: Thank you for taking the time to chat, Ellen! Always a pleasure!

* * * * * *

I somehow managed to not ask Ellen my usual closing question (“What is your favorite book and what would you say to convince someone who hasn’t read it that they should?”), so I’ll mention that my favorites of Ellen’s anthologies are The Beastly Bride, co-edited with Terri Windling, and Naked City.

You can go to Twitter to follow @ellendatlow, and you can find Ellen on her own website.

I’m also happy to announce my first Interview Giveaway! Ellen and her publisher, Dark Horse Books, have been kind enough to provide me with a copy of SUPERNATURAL NOIR to give away in conjunction with this interview.

Supernatural Noir

SUPERNATURAL NOIR is a “masterful marriage of the darkness without and the darkness within … an anthology of original tales of the dark fantastic from twenty modern masters of suspense,” including Gregory Frost, Paul G. Tremblay, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elizabeth Bear, and Joe R. Lansdale.

To be entered to win the book, leave a comment on this post sharing the name of your favorite Ellen Datlow-edited (or co-edited) anthology. Winner will be picked at random from all comments left here by midnight Tuesday, November 29th. That’s one week from today, folks! Comments are screened, so you won’t show up on the post right away, but rest assured I will approve all comments that are not obviously spam (and I do seem to get a lot of that) and chose from all eligible comments!

Photo credit: Bonnie Jacobs

Anthony’s favorite punctuation mark is the semi-colon because thanks to cancer surgery in 2005, a semi-colon is all he has left. Enjoy Anthony's blog "Semi-Colon," where you will find Anthony's commentary on various literary subjects.