Cody T Luff’s forthcoming novel, Ration, will be released by Apex Book Company in 2019. Cody’s stories have appeared in Pilgrimage, Cirque, KYSO Flash, Menda City Review, Swamp Biscuits & Tea, and others. He is fiction winner of the 2016 Montana Book Festival Regional Emerging Writers Contest. He served as editor of an anthology of short fiction with twelve contributors titled Soul’s Road.
 
Cody teaches at Portland Community College and works as a story editor. He completed an intensive MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Cody grew up listening to stories in his grandfather’s barber shop as he shined shoes, stories told to him at bedsides and on front porches, deep in his father’s favorite woods, and in the cabs of pickup trucks on lonely dirt roads. Cody’s work explores those things both small and wondrous that move the soul, whether they be deeply real or strikingly surreal.
 
Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I grew up driving the dirt roads of rural Montana. My family moved a total of fifteen times before settling just outside of Stevensville located in the Bitteroot Valley. Sage brush and summer fires colored my youth in smoke and dry greens. My father would set up one of his two teepees every summer, even after my sisters had grown and fled the nest. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting in my father’s teepee around a fire, listening to stories of his time in the Navy or as a guide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. These stories weren’t always true but that was allowable in the light of the campfire. All shadows grow a little on a good summer night. When I grew a little older, I found that I was the one telling stories.
 
I was always in love with stories, the portable kind you find in books and the silent kind I would stumble across in the hills behind our house as a child. Whitetail bones and a long tuft of horse tail clinging to a red curl of barb wire rising from the dry remains of a homestead could hold me in place long enough to annoy my father as we spent a little too much time trespassing on someone’s back forty.
 
College gave me access to a wild rush of new ways to tell stories, film, theater, performance art. I tried a little of everything before finding my way back to the page. My campfire has changed shape several times but in the end I find that what I love the most, what I am always drawn back to, is the intimacy of being a storyteller. Of leaning over the fire and inviting a listener to lean with me.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?
 
I teach writing at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. My nontraditional background has inundated my classroom, my assignments range from a term-long zombie apocalypse survival simulation and journal to the gamification of students’ personal legacies. I want my classroom to be one part laboratory, one part critical reactor, and one part creative explosion.
 
I am fascinated by folklore and urban legends. I find myself hungry for these kinds of stories, collecting them no matter where I find myself. I lived in the Osaka area in Japan for a year, haunting temples and streets, soaking in as many bits of folklore and urban legends as I could. I recently visited Iceland and spent a great deal of my time there lost in hundreds of years of history. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavic captured me for an entire afternoon. The legend of the Necropants alone was enough to make me want to return for another go.
 
Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
I think I’m going to step away from literature and lean into music for this answer. Tom Waits has fueled a great many of my short stories, feeding me blue gravel lyrics and the kind of rusted out love that lives in between work days and weekends. More recently Nina Simone and Nick Cave have been feeding my work. My writing has always been inspired by a variety of authors but music has been equally influential in all periods of my writing. Influence and inspiration are deeply linked, music and prose no less so.
 
The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?
 
The word horror evokes monsters. The kind that slip from dark pools or rise from darker pits. Horror reaches into the part of us that wants to shape our fears into something unreal, something we can safely drown in the pool or rebury in the pit once the story has found its close. Our job as horror authors is to create monsters that do not lose their shape once the story nears its ending. Fear is an essential emotion, one that needs to be felt to be understood. Stitching a monster out of understandable tropes doesn’t evoke true fear. Our job is to find the cloth that is adjacent to the skin of our reader, to stitch the fear so closely to the monster that we are unsure if we are wearing the cloth or the monster is wearing us. After all, the truly frightening thing about monsters that are no longer understandable is that they resemble us. Devils must follow rules, humans do not.


A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?
 
I believe climate-focused horror will lead the way in the next few years. Our monsters are already changing and I think that we can see these monsters rising in unique and disturbing ways. What could be more frightening than how we treat one another in the heart of a terrible drought or the death of small kindnesses in the mouth of famine? Climate horror will break genre boundaries and change our definitions of monster in the next decade.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
This is a tough question for me simply because I have too many I want to share. Dunn’s Geek Love, McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness all have changed the landscape of my mind. But if you ask me this question again tomorrow, I’ll have another list and defend it with equal passion.
 
Bladerunner was my first taste of greatness when it comes to film. I return to it far too often, my family fleeing the room when that particular sparkle finds its way into my eye. Kurosawa’s Rashomon and the television series Twin Peaks are among many that continue to resonate with me. 

How would you describe your writing style?
 
My style is deeply seated in the senses. I want my readers to feel everything my characters feel, smell and taste what they taste. I want every moment of my story to have a body feel, a lingering sensation that will follow my reader long after the story has spun away.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
I once submitted a short story to a publication which will remain unnamed. I received a prompt acceptance letter full of specific praise. The editor loved my style and wanted to publish my work right away. I was ecstatic, the journal was quite popular and I was a very hungry writer.

A week later I received a rejection from the same journal under the name of a different editor. For each and every note of praise written by the previous editor, the new editor gleefully tore my story to kitty litter. The last line was both a question and a statement. It assured me that I was not a poet and that my skill with poetic language failed my story, and did I really think I was a mature enough writer to submit to such a well-known journal?
 
I was … confused. I reached out to the publication and the second editor responded with a terse note that explained that their opinion was the final opinion and that the first editor was no longer employed with the journal. They suggested I pursue other avenues of creativity. I sold the piece a few months later but the sting didn’t quite go away. The idea that my work wasn’t good enough became a ghost that haunted me for some time. But then again, I rather enjoy hauntings so I guess it worked out in the end.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
The most difficult part of a story is separating from my characters. I am sure this sounds corny but I grow very attached to my characters and when I’ve finished a story, I find that I miss them terribly. Even the villains. I am sure a friendly neighborhood therapist could weigh in on this phenomenon but the closer I get to the end of the story the deeper the sensation of loss becomes. Placing these same characters in terrible situations is equally difficult and killing a character has been known to send me on long walks to deal with a bit of guilt or grief. I think it is simply because I follow my characters through their story rather than leading them.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
I have tried to approach my work with the understanding that I will need to write what frightens me if I ever hope to frighten my readers. It is necessary that I feel whatever my reader feels in order for my story to be a living thing, important enough to share. At the same time, I am very willing to admit that there are a great many topics that scare me but I want to hold myself to a very specific promise. I must write about everything, even if it is frightening, perhaps specifically because it is frightening.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Names are always a group effort in my work. My wife has saved my life on a number of occasions, pointing out that four characters all had names starting with J or that one of my character’s names mutated into something entirely different by chapter three. I define my characters so much by what they feel like that their names usually come much later in my writing process. This has annoyed not only my wife but numerous writing groups over the years.

Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
 
Two of the large influences on my development have been travel and the good luck of finding incredible writing groups. This boils down to the influences of other story makers on my own work. Gathering folklore and myths from around the world and working closely with gifted writers has helped me grow as a writer in a myriad of ways. Without the blunt-yet-loving notes of my writing groups or the deep wonder I discover in old temples and dusty dirt roads, I don’t think I could continue to develop in the same way.
 
What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?   
 
Support, a true love of stories, and the ability to listen to critique. These are essential pieces in the puzzle of figuring it all out. The idea that we write alone is false, we need other writers, we need readers and we need them long before we’ve published our life’s work. Writing is a form of insanity, a wonderful form but one that requires others who are in the grip of it to fully understand why you’ve spent the last seven days changing your verb from twitch to pulse when the reader will spend less than a second actually reading it. We also need readers to point out that they didn’t care if it was twitch or pulse to begin with because they weren’t sure what the hell was going on in the first place. And we need to listen to them when they tell us these things, even if they aren’t always right.      

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
A poet who was once referred to by their students as the Velvet Hammer once told me that it’s never really finished but it will tell you when it’s ready.

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?
 
The answer to this question is terribly frightening to quite a few writers. We sit at desks and live in worlds that we create. The way to find notice is to leave those worlds and tell others what you have seen there. We have to find others who are equally excited about our work. Other writers, agents, and if we are very lucky, publishers. I have discovered that this happens more often if you step away from your desk, away from your computer and join the conversations that are happening elsewhere. Writing groups, conventions, even writer meet ups are a way to meet others who are in love with stories. There are so many of us now that it is very hard to find notice in a slush pile. It isn’t impossible but it is so much more likely if you are a part of a community of creatives that come together to share their work and spread their talents.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?

My favorite character to write for was a boy born without a heart. His blood circulated through his body by the action of constant and steady breathing. The story itself contained a cow living on a roof in a large metropolitan city, a love affair with a bus driver, and an old superintendent who spoke with his hands. “Empty”, the name of the piece and the character, was strange and sad, the kind of story that I wrote in one fever dream of an evening and spent a year revising.
 
My least favorite character is an anthropomorphic brain tumor that takes the shape of a woman with a duck’s head. She was an impossible character, a liar and a cheat but also simply a manifestation of the main character as he was dying. Writing her gave me chills.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?
 
I am most proud of Ration. I wanted to write a story that would last beyond the final pages, that could keep telling itself even as I stopped writing.

And are there any that you would like to forget about?
 
I once wrote a short story about two repo men discussing Meatloaf’s “I‘d Do Anything for Love” as they broke into a dual axle club cab pickup truck in Santa Fe. I still enjoy the characters but I’ll never let that story out into the wild again.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
I think both Ration and my short story “Sweat” are the best representations of my work. Ration explores the greater darkness of humanity, of what we might lose and what we might give away. “Sweat” is also a type of horror, the horror of memory and invisibility. Both are ultimately about love and loss, about how thin we can stretch our souls before the silver stuff that holds them to our bodies finally breaks.


Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
This is one of my favorite sections from Ration:
 
The building breathes its constant hush, distorted voices, touches of static, the deep belly gurgle of flushing toilets, running taps. It is the dull music of Cynthia’s sleep. It lulls her, and she closes her eyes. So many nights, lying on her thin mattress in the dark. Smelling the sweat of the place, old, harsh soaps, unwashed clothing, even the mattress itself holds the odor of the girls before her. Backs and shoulders carving out the well in the cotton batting she sleeps in. Heels pressing the gentle craters into the seam at the foot. She imagines all of them, all the girls who came before, curled around one another in sleep, holding one another for warmth in the dark and listening to the building whisper its rumors.
 
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
Ration is about hunger, primarily the hunger of the body but also the hunger of the mind and spirit. The world of Ration is defined by the lack of food, of warmth, safety, and honesty. The characters struggle to determine just how much of themselves they are willing to let go to feed the hollow places inside of them.
 
I am currently working on a novel in which a family, fractured and reknitted after a separation by war, faces the growing discordance of a corrupt local government as the father continues to practice a strange ritual of speaking to the dead by drowning himself over and over again.

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?
 
Knowable terrors and understandable monsters. A silver bullet, a sharpened stake, placating the unquiet ghost, all horrors that we can put away safely at the end of the night.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
I have been making my way through Sidney Williams’s novels at the moment. I am addicted to his style. Midnight Eyes is a clever thriller with deep touches of darkness that I enjoy tremendously.
 
I have been spending a lot of time with graphic novels, and I have discovered that I tend to shy away from the characters and stories that tend to treat their readers with a lack of trust.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
I have always wanted to be asked Which? The answer, of course, would be both. 

For more information on Cody and to follow him on social media please click on the links below 

https://codytluff.com/
 
Amazon author page
 
Twitter: @codytluff
Facebook.com/cody.luff

Preorder today and receive 30% off your book! Be sure to use checkout code RATION30 when you place your order. All trade paperback preorders will include the advance reader edition of RATION and will be delivered immediately to your inbox.

Also available for preorder from the following vendors: Amazon (Trade Paperback) |Amazon Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | B&N.com | Google Play
Coming August 13th!
Set in the far future, Ration is an unflinching take on the ways society can both thrive and go wrong as pressure to survive builds.
All the girls who live in the Apartments are forced to weigh their own hunger against the lives of the others living in the building. When Cynthia is wrongly accused of ordering an "A" ration, she punished by the other girls. Eventually, she is forced to leave the Apartments along with Ms. Glennoc, one of the former managers who has tormented and abused her for years. Together, they encounter a world of even more scarcity, but one filled with politics and intrigue. Cynthia struggles to return to the Apartments and help the girls who are still there.
Forced to reconcile her role in the destruction of these girls with the greater needs of society to find any sustainable source of calories, Ms. Tuttle makes one bad decision after another while she grapples with a mother who is growing more and more impatient with her mistakes.
Ration is a dark and forceful book, written in a surprisingly nuanced and accessible way. It combines the darkness and despair of The Road and The Handmaid's Tale, but has notes of charm like Lauren Oliver's Replica.
Cover art by Mikio Murakami
ISNB (TPB) 978-1-937009-75-5

Today we welcome author Jon Black to the site with an interview to promote his new book Gabriel's Trumpet.  We are also offering a chance for the readers of the site to win one of three copies of his book, details of how to enter can be found at the end of the interview, and be sure to check out the excerpt from Gabriel's Trumpet, which was featured on our site yesterday by clicking here 

Multi-award winning author Jon Black Jon Black writes historical fiction with pulp, supernatural, or horror flavors.

His Bel Nemeton series combines 6th century Arthurian historical fantasy with brainy 21st century pulp. Its first book, also called Bel Nemeton, won Best Thriller Novel of 2018 in the Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll. Reviewers have called the novel “An Intellectual ‘Tomb Raider.’”

Jon is also a two-time winner of P&E’s Best Short Story (All Other Genres): in 2017 for his Jazz Age supernatural mystery, “Gabriel’s Trumpet,” and in 2018 for his pulpy mystery (and Sherlock Holmes homage) “A Scandal in Hollywood” set in Tinsel Town’s Golden Age.

His other publications include “Swinging Londons,” a novel-length Dr. Who story included in Defending Earth, an anthology of Sarah Jane Smith stories raising money for cancer research, as well as many other novellas and short stories.

Jon is also an internationally-published music journalist and music historian, a perspective he brings into much of his fiction. His other writing work includes ghostwriting, speechwriting, and roleplaying games. He has spoken on author outreach, writing for roleplaying games, and the use of music in fiction to ArmadilloCon, the Texas Library Association, and other audiences.
​
Jon began writing fiction when he was 43 years-old … and wishes he had started much sooner. Raised in a university town north of Dallas, Jon lived in Egypt for several years, bounced to various locations around the world, and ultimately landed in Austin. His previous jobs include archaeological excavator, Benjamin Franklin impersonator, embassy worker, graduate assistant, newspaper reporter, pizza jockey, political speechwriter, small business owner, substitute teacher, and summer camp counselor…not always in the order one might expect.

WEBSITE LINKS 

www.jonblackwrites.com
www.facebook.com/JonBlackAuthor/
@blackonblues
https://www.amazon.com/Jon-Black/e/B01MEFVIWT

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I am best known as a writer keeping one foot in historical fiction, while using the other foot to drag in elements of horror, pulp, and the supernatural.

In addition to fiction, I am an internationally-published music journalist and music historian, an obsession working its way into much of my fiction. My other writing work includes ghostwriting, speechwriting, and roleplaying games.

Coming to fiction writing relatively late in life, I submitted my first short story when I was 43 … and was fortunate enough to land a book deal out of it.

My previous employment include archaeological excavator, Benjamin Franklin impersonator, embassy worker, graduate assistant, newspaper reporter, pizza jockey, political speechwriter, small business owner, substitute teacher, and summer camp counselor.

To get the ball rolling and get everyone relaxed, here is a hopefully lighthearted question to break the ice, which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life and have them complain at you about they way you treated them in your work.

That would have to be New Orleans photographer E.J. Bellocq -- and he would probably be right to do so. A historical figure, Bellocq is justly celebrated for candid and humanizing photographs of the inhabitants of Storyville, New Orleans’ famous/infamous red-light district at the turn of the last century.

In Gabriel’s Trumpet, a visit to Bellocq’s studio provides a clue pivotal to the protagonist’s investigation. While history documents that Bellocq could be eccentric and irascible, my portrayal of him adds a layer of creepy menace that was beneficial to the narrative but not supported by the historical record.

Whenever I deviate from established sources in portraying historical figures, I am careful to detail this in the notes at a story’s end. While Gabriel’s Trumpet is no exception, I’m still not sure I’d want to hear what Mr. Bellocq would have to say about it.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Long before trying my hand at fiction, I worked as a music journalist and music historian. Through that vocation, I cultivated a highly descriptive, sensate writing style intended to put readers right there at concerts beside me. I bring the same approach to my fiction, especially horror. That passion for music is something I am unable to keep out of my stories. While few are as explicitly musical in their orientation as Gabriel’s Trumpet, music weaves its way into almost everything I write.
 
The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?
 
I embrace the term horror, though such a broad label often benefits from supplementing with something more specific, such as Mythos, Gothic, supernatural mystery, etc. I am far from convinced whether there are assumptions regarding horror which need to be broken past. To the extent that a liability exists, I wonder if that is a burden we place upon ourselves by sheepishly acting as if there is something unseemly about what we do rather than singing it loudly and proudly to the world.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?
 
As a private person, I bemoan so much about our world’s current condition. As an artist, I can at least appreciate that moments of sociopolitical tension are fertile ground for art (Exhibit A: punk music). While much of our current tension will no doubt manifest through the subconscious as good general horror, I think we will see some issues (most notably climate crisis and privacy/identity issues posed by new technology) manifest more explicitly in the horror of coming years.
 
Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?
 
From the Epic of Gilgamesh to the oldest surviving epic poetry of oral traditions, it is clear storytellers and their audiences have always enjoyed an element of the supernatural, the terrifying, and the grotesque. I think horror allows humans to process their fears and anxieties in safe, comfortable, and even pleasurable environment via storytelling.
Regarding supernatural horror specifically, I believe there is an extra appeal because even the darkest of tales contain a hopeful element –positing the presence of “something more” and a broader meaning and context to existence.

What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre?
 
As with every corner of fiction, we would benefit from a more diverse cast of characters: as protagonists, antagonists, and in every other kind of role. 
 
In the past authors were able to write about almost anything with a far lesser degree of the fear of backlash, but this has all changed in recent years.  These days authors must be more aware of representation an the depiction of things such as race and gender in their works, how aware are you of these things and what steps have you taken to ensure that your writing can’t be viewed as being offensive to a minority group? 
 
This is a critical point. Though our journey is far from complete, authors are increasingly aware of how important respect and sensitivity are in portraying our characters and themes as well as realizing that the concept of “the other” in fiction requires radical reconceptualization.

At the same time, there is a risk that if we grow so timid that we only tell stories about characters like ourselves, we cut ourselves off from the rich and diverse tapestry of human culture, tradition and personality – and writers, readers, and stories themselves are poorer for it.

For writers, this requires a constant balancing act. There will never come a point where we “get it perfectly” with no need for continued refining of our efforts. Rigorous research is the foundation of walking this tight rope. Sensitivity readers are a great resource that authors should take advantage of. It has been my experience that people want you to succeed in telling stories about their community and will usually bend over backward to help you.

All of this was constantly on my mind when writing Gabriel’s Trumpet. It intimately weaves elements of African-American history and culture into its narrative. I was privileged and fortunate to work with historian Jordan O’Neal to ensure I treated these elements as accurately, clearly, and sensitively as possible.

I wrestled with one other point in this regard for Gabriel’s Trumpet. One of the story’s major settings is New York City at the height of Harlem’s Renaissance. But “Harlem Renaissance” is a retronym. The period appropriate term was “The New Negro Movement.” That is a term I was uncomfortable using and ultimately elected to use the anarchistic language (I admit it didn’t hurt that “Harlem Renaissance” is so much more evocative that “The New Negro Movement.”)
 
Does horror fiction perpetuate its own ghettoization?
 
Perhaps. If we do, it is mostly self-imposed through behavior and attitudes that imply we deserve to be in our own dark little corner rather that bathing in the sunlight with other genre fiction. Again, we sometimes as act as if there something shameful and unseemly about what we do.

Such behavior is absurd. If horror has a problem, it is that we are a prisoner of our own success. Whether you’re talking about movies, television, books, graphic novels, roleplaying, or video games; horrific elements have become so ubiquitous in genre fiction that is almost impossible to find an example completely free of our influence. Indeed, if we have a real challenge, it is how to define “pure horror” in contrast to a horror-saturated SF/F multiverse.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off?
 
In alphabetical order to avoid favoritism:

I’ve been enjoying J. Patrick Allen’s Dead West series, both as wonderful works in their own right as well as inspiration and insight for my own newly completed Weird West novel.

Recently, I was thoroughly charmed by Madeleine D’Este’s The Flower and the Serpent, a tale straddling the line between horror and supernatural mystery, set against the backdrop of a high-school production of Macbeth.

While fantasy, I want to mention indie author R.J. Hanson’s Roland series. His work contains enough dark elements that I think most horror fans will be satisfied.

I’ve also enjoyed Heidi J. Hetwett’s “paranormal procedural” Past Lives. With its blend of temporal investigation and supernatural overtones, it invokes a flavor very similar to that of Gabriel’s Trumpet.  

Back to horror, but deviating from the printed word, I am also a big fan of Ian Murphey’s gritty urban horror podcast Under the Shroud.
 
What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?

I am a fan of the “good-bad” school of 80s and 90s films. Three films, Big Trouble in Little China, Hudson Hawk, and The Golden Child, are particularly powerful influences. I secretly believe all three of these films took place in the same universe and try to steer my fiction so it would fit seamlessly into such a world.

Harry Turtledove’s alt-history and Caleb Carr’s Alienist series are my gold standard for historical fiction and the use of historical figures in fiction.

A more unusual and subtle influence is YA author Daniel Pinkwater, and his stories of misfit children struggling to fit in to the banality of daily life, before being initiated into the weird and wonderful world hiding just out of plain sight.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
I’m still tickled pink by having my historical fantasy/pulp novel Bel Nemeton described as “Tomb Raider for intellectuals.” Also, positive feedback regarding my use of music in fiction has only further encouraged me in this direction.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?
 
There are two. First, I’ve always needed to resist the temptation to indulge in massive exposition dumps at a story’s beginning. Second, I still struggle with dialogue. Only by ongoing editing can “hear” how dialogue is wrong and gradually fine-tune it to be both believable and interesting.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
Anything involving cruelty to an animal. I just wouldn’t be able to do it.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?

Names are critical. Readers can feel if a name is right for a character and, when they’re not, it distances them from the character and the story. Names usually come pretty easily to me. When I get stuck, I will usually pull out a map (either in real life or online) and look it over until I find a community, a river, a mountain range, whatever, with a name that inspires me.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?
 
In recent works, I find myself gravitating more toward ensemble casts of protagonists, albeit usually still with a clear “main” character. I also tend to do more hinting rather than telling about characters’ backgrounds, except where absolutely essential to the narrative. Additionally, I feel I’ve learned how to whet a reader’s appetite by teasing information out in small bits over time.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

“Don’t get too hung up on making your first draft perfect, or even necessarily good. The first time around, your only job is to vomit the basic concepts up onto the page.”
A close second is “The only rules in writing are the ones you haven’t gotten away with breaking yet.”  

For many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?

Dr. Vivian Cuinnsey, the main character of the 21st century arc in my Bel Nemton series, is my favorite “child.” Her interests are pretty much identical to mine (but she is much more successful), she owns a wry wit to which I can only aspire, and, let’s face it, who doesn’t want to write the academic with a two-fisted streak?

He’s not a “least favorite” but the most difficult character I’ve ever written is another historical figure appearing in Gabriel’s Trumpet, poet and author Langston Hughes. My conundrum was this: how does a writer write a better writer?

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
That is a surprisingly tough question. Gabriel’s Trumpet is the epitome of my passion for music working its way into my writing, and many of its locations are places intimately familiar to me. But, in the end, I have to go with Bel Nemeton because it ties together so many of my interests and passions: travel, archeology, folklore, academia, linguistics, adventure, and even occasionally international cuisine.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
It’s funny, it’s not even a major line, but I’ve always loved the sound and imagery of one line from Bel Nemeton, “From the air, Samarkand appeared to be a place apart; a separate creation by some god whose first love was desolation.”
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
Most recently, I completed The Clash at Crush a novel-length Wild West caper story set against the backdrop of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, with a light dusting of steampunk and weird west.

I am now turning my attention to Mark of Cornwall, the third installment of the Bel Nemeton series as well as editing Overdue, an anthology of stories set in a “shared universe” joining the Bel Nemeton books with M.H. Norris’ All the Petty Myths series.

Finally, I am very excited about the ambitious new series from Soteira Press, HorrorUSA, envisioning a 50-volume series, with each volume offering an anthology of horror stories set in a different American State. I have a pieces appearing in their California, Texas, and Washington anthologies and am hopeful my work may make an appearance in several other volumes as well.    
 
If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

I’m not sure that there is truly such an animal as the irredeemable cliché. That being said, there certainly are ones that suffer from overuse and poor use. One that bugs me in particular is the (mis)use of Native Americans (and other indigenous groups) in horror: everything from the “Ancient Indian burial ground,” to the tribal legend providing exposition neatly tied-up with ribbon and bow, to the “magic minority” archetype.

Again, I’m not saying that these need to be taken completely off the table. Stephen King’s Pet Sematary shows that even the “Ancient Indian Burial Ground” can be handled deftly and to great effect. The problem is that they’re usually not. These tropes have become magnets for ham-fisted plot development, lazy exposition, and (at best) questionable cultural sensitivity.

The reason I’m so irked by their misuse is because I would like to use them. Especially in Cosmic Horror, in not unreasonable that phenomena have histories stretching back hundreds or thousands of years, at which point indigenous perspectives become the best lens for exposition. However, because these themes are typically handled so poorly, I tend to shy away from them lest readers get their first whiff of them and immediately set down the book.

This is an ongoing internal debate, maybe someday I’ll take the risk and bite the bullet. I don’t know.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
I just finished Paddy Hirsch’s The Devil’s Half-Mile, a tale of murder, organized crime, and financial shenanigans set in 1799 New York City. There is a plethora of historical fiction set in 1800s New York. But stories set there in the previous century are at least two orders of magnitude less common, and The Devil’s Half-Mile ranks as a jewel among them. It does what great historical fiction must do: present believable characters which readers can connect with across the centuries while still pulling them viscerally into another time and place, and teaching them a few interesting things along the way.

It’s hard for me to talk about books that disappointed me because I generally don’t let it get that far. Life is too short to read books I don’t want to. As soon as am I confident a book isn’t working for me, I put it down and try something else.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
I’ve always wanted to be asked “What’s the weirdest feedback you’ve ever had from a reader?” And I’ve wanted that question specifically so I could relate the following story. It’s probably bad form to make public a comment from a reader, but this one is so singular that I’ve been dying to share it.
​
I got an email from reader upset that Bel Nemeton fudges the tenure of Gainas as Archbishop of Alexandria by a couple of years. I understand that every reader has a unique relationship with each story, but it is counterintuitive to me that someone would be okay with the whole “Arthur and Merlin were real people” premise, and all the others implausible-but-not-impossible ideas I inject into the relative tabula rasa of 6th century history, but this tiny little inaccuracy drove them sufficiently to distraction that they had to email me about it.  

That’s the question confronting Dr. Marcus Roads, physician and investigator for the Boston Society for Psychical Research, in this Jazz Age supernatural mystery. Gabriel Gibbs, a jazz trumpet player, was murdered in New Orleans two years ago. Now, Gabriel is back … with a gleaming silver trumpet and preternatural musical talent.

Marcus’s superiors task him with a high-stakes investigation. Is it really Gabriel? Or is someone (or something) claiming to be him? From tracing the musician’s origins in the tragic Mississippi Delta community of Pilate’s Point, Marcus follows in Gabriel’s footsteps through New Orleans and into the mysterious deep bayous. Ending in Harlem at the height of its Renaissance, Marcus searches its streets for his ultimate goal: a face-to-face encounter with the trumpeter whose life threatens to consume his Marcus’s own.

The latest work by award-winning novelist and music historian Jon Black, Gabriel’s Trumpet simmers in the music and musical scene of the 1920s. Having walked in the same footsteps as his characters, Jon vividly brings to life the great locations of America’s Jazz Age, putting readers right in the action alongside Marcus as he struggles to answer two questions…

Who, really, is Gabriel Gibbs?

And what is the truth behind Gabriel’s Trumpet?

​Read an excerpt here 

Despite his choice of subject matter, Lee Glenwright describes himself as, the nicest person called Lee Glenwright you could ever hope to meet. His short fiction has been published in the anthologies, 'Forever Hungry,' from Far Horizons Press, 'Mrs Rochester's Attic,' from Mantle Lane and 'O, Unholy Night in Deathlehem,' from Grinning Skull Press, among others. He has recently published 'Ripe, and Others,' his first collection of short fiction. Lee Glenwright lives in Sunderland UK, with his family, far too many reptiles, and a dark sense of humour. He can be stalked on Twitter (@LeeGlenwright) and Instagram (@leeglenwrightwriter), or through his Facebook page (@LeeGlenwrightWriter). He has an Amazon author page, and his website can be found at www.leeglenwright.weebly.com
 
 Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
 
I don’t usually like talking about myself, but since that’s the whole point of an interview really, here goes. I first started writing when I was in my late teens and into my early twenties, stopping when the need to find gainful employment got in the way. About eight years ago, by now settled down with a family, I thought to myself that if I didn’t take it up again, I would end up a bitter old man, forever wondering, what if? My short fiction has been published in several small press anthologies and magazines and I’ve recently self-published my first stand-alone collection (Ripe, and Others). I live in Sunderland, in the North-East of England, with my family, a menagerie of reptiles and other pets, and the voices in my head that get louder if I stop writing for too long.


To get the ball rolling and get everyone relaxed, here is a hopefully lighthearted question to break the ice, which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life and have them complain at you about the way you treated them in your work.
 
Most of them! I tend to get a buzz from writing characters into uncomfortable, yet inevitable situations. With that in mind, I don’t think too many of them would be overly pleased to meet me and it would probably end up being mutual. There is one character, a journalist called Frank Popper, who makes an appearance in a couple of my short stories, as well as two (so-far unpublished) novels. In my first few stories featuring him, I wrote him as an unashamed, grubby hack journo, with few redeeming features, something that he would probably be quick to complain about. In a second novel that I’m currently working on, he takes more of a central role, and I’ve made it my mission/challenge to make him a little more sympathetic.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?
 
Ray Bradbury is my all-time favourite author, without a doubt. Although not horror in an explicit sense, so much of Bradbury’s work, especially his earlier tales, is incredibly dark. If you don’t believe me then check out stories such as The Whole Town’s Sleeping, Skeleton, The Man Upstairs and The Jar, all of which are a stone’s throw away from being out-and-out horror. Those last three are prime examples of body horror. His story, The Lake, is one of the few pieces of fiction to make me cry like a baby.
I draw inspiration from a variety of sources, too, usually by following some weird or obscure news story, or by taking a real or imagined situation and asking myself what if? But then again, that’s how all stories start out, right?
 
The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?   


At the risk of sounding cliched, horror is more than a genre, it’s an emotion, a state of mind. There’s no other genre that has the same connotation or effect upon a reader or viewer. I think that horror tends to be slighted, looked down on, all too easily, to the extent that some writers experience more mainstream or literary success when they break away from it. I’ve already mentioned Ray Bradbury. His trick was to take themes that were often horrific, and relocate them to some otherworldly place, Mars for instance, thereby making them slot into the wider, more respected genre of fantasy. I think that horror is sometimes treated like a dirty little secret by those outside looking in, something that people like to enjoy vicariously, without always being quick to admit it. Seriously, everybody likes a good scare, even if they wouldn’t freely tell you so. Horror is a healthy genre, learning the limitations of your fear is an exhilarating experience, not a morbid one. Unfortunately, as long as certain arms of the media continue to label horror as something that can rot impressionable young minds, then the wider audience will continue to perceive it as such.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?
 
Onwards and upwards. We’re living through strange, dark times at the moment. Given the current state of the world in general, there is just so much going on to influence writers, both seasoned and emerging. It seems to me that the genre goes through certain boom and bust cycles, and I feel like we’re on the threshold of one hell of a big boom. Horror seems to be permeating the mainstream at the moment, influencing so many movies and TV shows, the likes of which are gaining far more exposure than they would have even just a few years ago. I think the latest upward trend was kick-started by the likes of The Walking Dead (I lost interest in the series about three seasons ago, by the way), but there is plenty of real-life darkness going on right now to help things along, just like the genre has far more to offer than TV zombies.

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?
 
Going back to something I said earlier, I reckon that, in many cases, the love of horror is a vicarious one, to which some people wouldn’t necessarily be quick to admit. My own feeling is that sometimes, if you read about the worst that can happen, then that makes reality a little easier to bear - something that seems to be getting more difficult sometimes in the current climate. More generally, I do think that a lot of people do get a sadistic kick out of seeing bad things happen, knowing that it’s okay, since no one really gets hurt. Kind of like guilt-free aggression, with a clear conscience at the end of it.

What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre?
 
Me (I’m laughing on the inside)! Seriously though, of course, there’s always more room for diversity in the horror genre. The situation is changing on that front, but it is proving to be a slow process.

In the past authors were able to write about almost anything with a far lesser degree of the fear of backlash, but this has all changed in recent years.  These days, authors must be more aware of representation and the depiction of things such as race and gender in their works, how aware are you of these things and what steps have you taken to ensure that your writing can’t be viewed as being offensive to a minority group? 

There are obvious cases where something that was a product of its time just wouldn’t wash with people nowadays. Things that were once considered acceptable, or in some cases almost lauded, are pretty much treated as taboo subjects today and, in the case of areas such as racism, quite rightly so. I feel that the work of authors such as Lovecraft can still be admired for what they are, but, at the same time, there has to be a degree of distance placed between the creator and his work. It is possible to learn a lot from HPL’s work whilst, rather than eschewing the negative aspects, learning from them too. We can’t hope to change peoples’ negative perceptions if we bury our collective heads in the sand and pretend that they don’t exist. It’s far better to confront that negativity and call it out for what it is. I have tried to incorporate variety and diversity into my own work where necessary, although I have been admittedly nervous about doing so, mainly for fear of doing a disservice. Representation is important, but it’s more important to get it right.

Does horror fiction perpetuate its own ghettoization?  For example Julia Armfield’s latest collection Salt Slow has a cover that most horror fans would walk past in a book shop, and is one that probably is not marketed as horror, does the genre’s obsession with horrific covers cause more harm than good?
 
Nah! As a kid, I used to love being freaked out by the garish, pulpy, downright bloody covers on the paperback stands in most local shops. I remember having several nights worth of nightmares just from looking at the cover to Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot in a local department store. Some of those old covers actually suggested that you were going to get more than you actually ended up with anyway! About a year ago, I finally read a copy of Paperbacks from Hell, by Grady Hendrix. That book was such a blast down memory lane!

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of?
 
Rachel Autumn Deering made the successful transition from comics to prose fiction a few years ago now, and has a few things under her belt, so to speak. Her debut novella, ‘Husk,’ was a pretty impressive character study, focusing on real-life horrors, such as addiction, trauma and alienation. Worth checking out, if you haven’t already (which you have of course, right?)

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?
 
Books - I’ve already mentioned Ray Bradbury. I was also influenced by Robert Bloch, along with the more obvious choices, such as Lovecraft and Stephen King. Growing up, I was lucky enough to happen upon Russ Cochran’s EC Comics reprints from the early ‘90s, and I’m still the proud owner of complete runs of all the EC horror title reprints.
I was raised on the old Hammer movies. I’m old enough to remember ITV’s Fear on Friday, along with the first forays into 24-hour broadcasting, with the Night Network - Monday night was horror night! From there, I gravitated towards Romero, and Night of the Living Dead remains my all-time favourite movie. With Martin, George Romero crafted what I think is possibly the best ever vision of a vampire committed to film. That is what I hope to aspire to in my writing, something extraordinary that can be found hiding somewhere in the totally believable.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?
 
No, as a new writer (albeit who has been practicing for a long time), I’ve yet to experience the joy/heartbreak of reviews of my work. One thing that has stayed with me though is a Tweet from Brian Keene. There was a Twitter discussion about traditional versus self-publishing, and I had yet to try my hand at the latter at the time. I made a comment along the lines that I was just submitting my work to whoever I thought might take an interest. Brian Keene replied to it, and his response was pretty supportive, something that has stuck with me. I’ve heard that his supportive nature is something that he’s renowned for.

What aspects of writing do you find the most difficult?
 
Finding the time. I have a full-time day job and a family, so time management is a struggle sometimes. Priorities, and all that.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?
 
Probably, but I haven’t found it yet. For a while, I shied away from writing anything sexual. I feel that it’s far too easy to write badly about sex, with the whole thing ending up contrived and forced-looking, or at worst, laughable. However, I’ve come to realise (no pun intended) that sex is sometimes a necessary evil in the horror genre, with the two things sometimes going hand in hand. The sex act involves insertion of one body part into another. If you were to describe it to a person from another planet in those sort of terms, what could be more horrific-sounding?

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
 
Wherever possible, I try to give my characters ordinary-sounding names. I usually want them to sound like the kind of people that you would walk past on the street, probably without looking twice at them. Doing so makes for more relatable characters, I think.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?


In my teens and early twenties, I used to write for the sake of the gross-out, although I wouldn’t have admitted it back then. Nowadays, I think I’ve grown, where it’s all about telling a story - one that just happens to have nasty things going on within it. I like to think that I’ve stopped emulating other writers, developing what I feel to be my own voice. With my first novel (currently unpublished), I primarily used first-person narration, and I tried to get a relaxed, almost conversational flavour into it. I wanted to create the illusion of having the reader engage in a conversation with the narrator, making him into someone that they could almost want to be friends with.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?
 
Ernest Hemingway was right; the first draft of anything is shit. Also, I once read in a biography of Roald Dahl, that he was notoriously slow and would sometimes only write 200 words a day. In my low moments, when things aren’t going well on the writing front, I’ll sometimes remind myself that it’s only storytelling, and if I can at least be as prolific as Roald Dahl then I’m doing good enough.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?
 
I like my hack journalist, Frank Popper. He's getting easier to write as I become more familiar with him. Besides, it's fun to be able to write about someone so unashamedly seedy. For me, part of the enjoyment comes from writing about people as far removed from myself as possible. I don't think I've ever come across the problem of writing someone I hate yet. Bearing in mind some of the characters I have written about, perhaps that says more about them than it does about me.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?
 
I wrote a story called ‘The Feast of Stephen’ for a 2018 Christmas charity anthology ‘O Unholy Night in Deathlehem’ from Grinning Skull Press. I was pretty proud of that, not just because of the association with a great cause (The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation), but because it captured pretty well what I like to think I’m about as a writer; drawing upon a real life experience (I won’t say which part!) and building everything up into a not very nice payoff. A deserved payoff (it was a Christmas tale, after all), but a not very nice one, nonetheless.


Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
“Our scars are what shape us, define us. They are us.” A line from an unpublished short story I wrote, called Little Wounds: A Love Letter.
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?
 
My first solo collection of short fiction, ‘Ripe, and Others,’ has just been self-published in both physical and ebook formats. I have what I hope will be my first novel, ‘Mutt,’ with about a dozen publishers and agents, I’m waiting on responses, which will determine where I go with it. I’m biding my time working on a second novel, a body horror tale with the working title of ‘Insatiable.’


If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?
 
Sparkling vampires. Romero nailed it with ‘Martin.’

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
Last great novel: ‘The Girl Next Door,’ by Jack Ketchum. I came to it shamefully late and found it a brutal read. I actually put it down more than once, thinking that I couldn’t finish it, but I’m glad that I did. Last non-fiction: ‘Paperbacks from Hell,’ by Grady Hendrix, I’ve already said why.
I’m not often disappointed by novels. One exception was ‘The Survivor,’ by James Herbert. It’s not that I thought the book was terrible, I love James Herbert’s work. I managed to guess the ending about three pages in, which is usually a killer for me.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
Q: “I really like the sound of your book, where can I buy a copy?”
A: “Check out Amazon.” I’ll give it time.