It is always a pleasure to find fellow writers in their fifties and sixties who have honed their craft, slogged away at the ink-face for many years, gradually coming to people’s attention as they build up a solid body of increasingly stylish work. Sadly, Sam L Edwards isn’t one of those. He’s young, talented and productive, putting stylish work out right now, and thus a complete pest. Worse, he hates black olives, and he comes originally from Texas, which pretends to have the biggest and best of things – it’s a fake, wannabe Yorkshire, basically.

But we do like his weird fiction a lot. So, unable to face yet more youthful enthusiasm, we paid American writer/editor Duane Pesice a vast fortune (in out-of-date dog treats) to talk to Sam for us, as part of a crossover interview sequence shared with greydogtales…

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MAN GRILLS TEXAN, NO MAYO

by Duane Pesice

Greetings, weird children of all ages. For the first part of our Giant Crossover Event, we bring you the words of Sam L Edwards (S L Edwards), a writer and professional Texan who has hijacked the weird horror wagon and is steadily urging it southward, toward the Lone Star State.

It must be confessed, here at the onset, the outset, the preface as it were, to borrow a phrase from Bruce Wolf, that I myself have been guilty of including Edwards stories in many of the anthologies I have edited, and will likely do so in the future. I also have in my possession a contract which says that I am responsible for an entire book of his tales, which Oxygen Man Books will release next year. ‘Nuff said? Onward!

Duane: Where should a reader that is new to your work start?

Sam: Well, I suppose the easiest answer is “at the beginning.” I’ve put the stories in Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts, in what I hope is a thematically coherent manner, but I’ve also organized them by length. The first story ‘Maggie Was A Monster’ is something of a flash-fiction sucker punch. I’m afraid that many people will buy this collection expecting the humor of Borkchito and that’s… just not what Whiskey is. Start with ‘Maggie’, then continue on to ‘I’ve Been Here A Very Long Time’.

Duane: Is there a piece that you are particularly proud of?

Sam: I think that ‘Volver Al Monte’ was a piece where I really began to realize what exactly I was about. This is a piece where there really is no hero to speak of. General Alfonsín Santos seems sympathetic. He’s old. He’s trying to do what is obviously the right thing, but only in this particular moment. We learn that the General cut his teeth on an earlier, more brutal war. And that his ruthlessness continued well past the end of that conflict.

That’s when I started to think about how character-oriented I am as a writer. How I needed to strive even to make my monsters sympathetic. And from reader feedback, I think I did accomplish that to some degree. At least I hope I did.

‘Cabras’ gets an honorable mention, as well as ‘Golden Girl’. ‘Golden Girl’ I really wrote as a fun piece, and I think readers had fun with it. There are other characters, who didn’t make it into Whiskey who I am proud of. I am proud of John Armitage, who will be debuting in the Test Patterns: Weird Westerns anthology, and I’m proud of the Bartred family, who can be found in the pages of Occult Detective Quarterly.

Duane: Whose work do you read, yourself?

Sam: Man when I get asked this question…let me tell you: nothing like an interview to get you to go out and promote the ever-loving **** out of your fellow writers. I’ll start with John Langan, whose latest collection Sefira and Other Betrayals was some of his best work yet. Nadia Bulkin, who changed the game for the sort of political writing that I also try to do. Gwendolyn Kiste, who managed to create a very haunting ghost story in The Rust Maidens. S.P. Miskowski, whose Skillute Cycle and I Wish I was Like You still make me think, two years after going through them.

Matthew M. Bartlett, Michael Wehunt, Jon Padgett, Jonathan Raab, Mer Whinery, Orrin Grey (how great is Orrin Grey?), Christopher Slatsky, Kurt Fawver, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy. Part of the benefit of being friends with poets Ashley Dioses and KA Opperman is that they’ll send you beautiful poems to read.

Then there’s writers who I know I have collections coming out soon. Betty Rocksteady’s In Dreams We Rot*, and Scott R Jones Shout, Kill, Revel Repeat are both slated to be out this year. I’ve been a fan of theirs’ for a long time, and I am very eager to read what they’ve put out. I hope readers of this interview, and Whiskey, will go and look at these author’s works. The shrimp-master himself, Peter Rawlik had his debut collection drop as well.

I also just finished Max Booth III’s Carnivorous Lunar Activities. Outstanding, funny. Fast-paced and also outstanding.

Then of course, there’s my friends. Duane Pesice with his gonzo-fantasy horror. I’ll tell you I’m rereading my Robert Bloch (the first dead writer to come up so far) and I see a lot of connections between Pesice and Bloch. Same with my friend Russell Smeaton, who just kickstarted his own collection quite successfully. I’m currently beta reading for Robert S. Wilson, who is coming up with some extraordinary work. John Paul Fitch remains one of my favorite writers, and one who started with me quite early on in the pages of Ravenwood Quarterly.

Then there’s folks like William Tea, Christopher Ropes, Brooke Warra. I need collections from them. Demand it. And if I don’t get to blurb those collections I will be personally slighted. Erica Ruppert does outstanding work too. As does Premee Mohammad. I just ran across Lena Ng in an issue of Gehenna and Hinnom and loved what I read.

Dead writers: Bloch. Gabriel García Marquez. Leo Tolstoy. H.P. Lovecraft. Poe. Poe everything all the time. Blackwood, Machen, Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith. Vasilly Grossman. Lots of Grossman. Neil Gaiman.

Duane: What kind of beer goes with your pizza? And what’s on the pizza?

Sam: Hahaha. Well you know, I’m from a hot climate. And hot weather really pairs best with an IPA or a pilsner. I used to like wheat beers, but they’ve really started to taste like nothing to me. I love stouts, but a stout is an end-of-the-day beer. Mostly a meal of its own, particularly if it’s an imperial. Barleywines too, are whole meals.

So I’m going to throw you for a bit of a loop (broether): I’m going to go with a hazy ipa. They’re still gonna be too hoppy for you IPA haters, but are cloudy and juicy.

As with beer, I like most of anything on pizza. I am a very simple, easy man to please. BBQ chicken, Hawaiian, meat lovers, etc. But I suppose my ideal beer and pizza, today, would be:

Canadian Bacon. Pineapple. Jalapeños. Diced tomatoes. Hazy IPA. I’m also partial to mushrooms, but the pineapple mushroom combination just doesn’t seem to bode well.

However, and I cannot stress this enough, no black olives. I find a black olive on my pizza and I’m gonna riot.

Duane: Do you consider your work weird, or horror? Or do you leave that to the marketing department?

Sam: You know what? “Horror.” I remember getting the first blurbs from Whiskey back and one author, who I really admire, reached out to say “Wow. This is surprising. This is ‘literary.’” And I take that as a compliment, but I’m just not sure what it means. I think it’s one of those distinctions, like “graphic novel” and “comic” that was first made to make fiction seem more sophisticated. But horror is plenty of sophisticated. How could it not be? When dealing with human anguish, smallness, life-after-death, living memories, physical transformations? These are the hardest things that a human being could grapple with, subjects which have seen the dedication of philosophers and scientists alike for hundreds of years.

How could that not be sophisticated?

Duane: You’ve been convicted of crimes against the empire. What would be your last meal? Include something big to hide the explosives in.

Sam: The head of the emperor. He will know my vengeance.

Duane: Are you involved in any arts besides writing? Any odd hobbies we should know about?

Sam: No arts, and this is my hobby. I like to run, hike, exercise. Cook when I can afford it.

Duane: Cats or dogs?

Sam: I like the idea of a cat. They can be very affectionate pets, in tune with the emotions of their people. They are also quite cute. But sadly, I am very allergic. Which I do regret, because people do love them. And they do deserve love.

So, I am thoroughly a dog person. Particularly corgis. I like their fat little bodies and stumpy little legs.

Duane: Tell us about a work-in-progress.

Sam: John Armitage is a warlock sheriff. He currently serves as the sheriff of Freedomtown, a settlement founded by the children of runaway slaves. He’s being called upon to investigate a murder in Night Town, a vampire settlement built in the side of a cliff and hidden from the sun. Next, he’ll have to deal with the arrival of a team of scientists and a young samurai to Freedomtown.

Duane: Thanks for being so kind. Is there anything else you would like readers to know?

Sam: Readers – look at me. It is paramount that you take care of your mental health. I want you to know that no matter how hard things seem now, you’re going to get through it. You’re not as alone as you think you are and I think you’re great just the way you are. I hope you’re getting enough sleep. I hope you’re drinking plenty of water.

But I do want to tell you about my collection, Whiskey. I can’t say I made it alone. I had a great editor in CP Dunphey, an outstanding collaborator in Yves Tourigny. And the horror/weird community has come out of the woodwork to support me. I hope you’ll give me a chance, just like they have.

Thank you.

Duane: Oh, and thank you, Mr. Edwards, and you, dear reader. Myself and Mr. Grant will be pleased to present interview #2 with the outstanding writer John Claude Smith as soon as is humanly possible. Until then, we’ll have the usual kind of content featured here.

* A review of Betty Rocksteady’s novella The Writhing Skies can be found in a recent greydogtales post.

QUIET AND WRITHING HORRORS FOR ALL TASTES

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Sam L Edwards debut collection, Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts, is out on 15^th July from Gehenna & Hinnom Books:

‘whiskey’ at amazon uk

‘whiskey’ at amazon us

More Joe Bartred will be coming in Occult Detective Quarterly #6, out this Summer, and ‘Ritual Killings’ a substantial Bartred novelette, can already be found in the massive ODQ Presents anthology of longer dark fiction.

ODQP at amazon uk

ODQP at amazon us

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Weird fictioneers may also wish to know of Duane’s editorial duties on such recent anthologies as Test Patterns, Test Patterns: Creature Features, and Caravans Awry, all available through Amazon.

He can be found at: https://moderan.wordpress.com/, and one of his latest published works is included in Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh, from Silent Motorist Media:

amazon

Do you want to read something different? Then join us today, dear listener, as we hop all over the place, and consider a few things which might interest you – including ominous skies full of eyeballs, dark poetic prose and a graphic horror novel project. And then, as we are far-famed at greydogtales for having the intellectual rigour of a fish kettle, we’ll leave the rest to you.

Our picks of the day are a novella, The Writhing Skies, by Betty Rocksteady; news of fresh fiction from Farah Rose Smith, a collection entitled Of One Pure Will, and the re-launch of Sebastian Cabrol’s The Gatherer… Continue reading QUIET AND WRITHING HORRORS FOR ALL TASTES →

Editing for anthologies and magazines is a strange game. A true editor is knowledgeable, fast, crisp and ruthless. “We regret that we cannot offer your story a place. Thanks. Goodbye.” A true editor has a single-minded vision of what they want, and a rule of iron. A dozen submissions processed with a steely glance and the press of a key.

I’m the Other Guy/Girl. I’m relatively slow and painstaking, unless confronted with clear genius; I read and re-read submissions, in case I missed something. I wonder if my original concept could be diverted slightly for a particularly fine piece of writing. I know the horrors of Being A Writer, and I shift between wanting to send interesting borderline stuff back immediately, and waiting to see if I might squeeze it in somehow (answer: send it back asap with a positive note – another market might want it). I occasionally suggest developmental rewrites, when I should say No, not enough time.

Which means that I please a small cadre of people, and probably annoy a much larger one. It makes me a Half-Blood Editor. But I have been thinking about this a lot recently, having just completed another anthology. And had I been editing fiction for twenty years or more (though I have edited an awful lot of non-fiction over the decades), I might be well placed to make some acute observations. Instead, after a few years of hacking away at it, I end up with a few idle reflections…

Continue reading THE HALF-BLOOD EDITOR: ON REJECTIONS →

I rarely read articles about being a writer. They vary so enormously, from ‘How one woman achieved her stunning fifteen book deal and still knits cardigans for Africa’ to ‘How writing destroyed my marriage and my liver, but who knows, I might still have sold my kids for medical research anyway’.

Pundits grow fat on their Seven Secrets of A Successful Writing Life, with free bullet points and a video for only $149. Established authors slam out articles and interviews, hoping to pick up a few extra bucks in case none of their scripts sell and they’ve dried; nice, wholesome writers talk about their process for writing pleasant, formulaic fiction. Posh authors show you round their beautiful oak-panelled writing space, complete with the first edition Dostoevsky which so inspired their Uncle Jocelyn – and every few months a complete unknown is found by an agent, and given brief fame in the more ‘literary’ journals and papers…

I am, of course, a sarcastic old sod, and not a deep thinker. I have a gadfly brain which allows me to simulate intellect and make it appear as if I think about things. I often write articles that are in fact made up of nothing more than curious trivia and cheap satire, the two proud cornerstones of my cerebral life. And any advice I give on being a writer is usually tongue in cheek – or an ill-tempered croak in response to a particularly annoying habit which I’ve seen in too many stories and submissions that week. But I was intrigued to find a serious piece on the subject by author Tim Waggoner, posted on his Writing in the Dark blog site the other day – and this time I read it all the way through.

I’m six years older than Tim Waggoner. In fact, I was older than he is now when I was first published , which is a scary thought. I have the literary fame of that bug over there, the skinny bug that just went in your shoe (the left one), but I have plenty of working experience, in and out of writing.

I’ve had magazines and presses fold on me, signed contracts where the publisher has then done a complete flit, written for royalties which never arrived, had a novel almost taken and then thrown into the void, seen anthologies come out in my speciality areas where I was never asked to participate, been invited to things I didn’t know existed, and turned up in other markets that totally surprised me.

I’ve had stories rejected by minor markets and then taken up ages later by bigger ones for much more money – and had some of my best work never go anywhere, despite my love of it, totally positive feedback, beta-ing and so on. That’s all part of the job. I treat it as a job, and pretty much let it wash over me. I sell most of what I produce, so when I read about writing, I always reserve the right to shout ‘Hey, you kids, get off my lawn’ and wave my fist impotently.

I read this article, Riding Out the Storms, and I decided not to yell at Tim. Not at all. He’s done a hell of a lot of writing over many years, and knows his stuff. He knows the thoughts that many of us have, and the foolishness of our internal ruminations. His article, dealing with the ups and downs of being a writer, is really rather good. It’s pertinent, accurate to situations I’ve faced and seen friends facing, and it makes a number of points of genuine value to others. For example, this passage of his caught my eye:

Envy is the writer’s disease. I have no idea who first said this, but I’ve heard it many times over the years. It’s too easy to compare ourselves to other writers who get larger advances, have greater sales, larger audiences, better reviews, more awards. Don’t do this. I repeat DO NOT DO THIS. This way lies madness. Admire other writers’ work, learn from it, learn from their accomplishments and their setbacks, but never compare yourself to them. Unless you’re a narcissist, you’ll always come out second best when you compare yourself to someone else, if for no other reason than it’s impossible for you to be someone else. You can’t have anyone else’s career. You can only have yours.

He adds:

Social media makes envy worse… now every writer trumpets their successes (no matter how minor) on social media as part of relentlessly promoting themselves (as they’ve been told they have to do). Now there’s a shit-ton of information out there to make us feel bad about ourselves. It’s harder than ever to stop ourselves from making destructive comparisons. That’s why it’s so vital that we keep fighting the writer’s disease.

All true. That constant announcement of sales and successes is motivated by everything from a desperate need to say “I’m still alive, still trying,” through to meeting contractual obligations – passing along the way with moments of genuine excitement, and moments of panic that no one will really read your story/book.

I too make these announcements on and off, occasionally taking the piss out of myself, because I probably should –both make them and take the piss, I mean. Every so often I am genuinely thrilled at a particular sale, and play it straight. Every other so often, I’m painfully aware that the publisher has virtually no marketing budget, and someone has to do it (a specific commitment to social media presence and promotion seems to turn up in more and more contracts these days).

And the more author Friends you have on social media, the more you will see news of sales and successes. So you see ten (or however many) exciting announcements in a week, and you yourself haven’t finished or sold anything for months. Bummer. These are ten (etc) different people, but it feels like THE WHOLE WRITING WORLD IS SUCCEEDING EXCEPT YOU. Never mind that it might have taken one of us eighteen months – or three years – to achieve that sale, or it might have come about almost by accident. I’ve sold stories as a result of a chance Message or enquiry at a key moment, and if I hadn’t been on the computer at the time, it would never have happened. I’ve lost opportunities the same way, by gardening instead of monitoring the Interweb undercurrents. You can’t do it all (I have high hopes for the climbing beans this year).

Also remember, we’re far less likely to post about failures (except the spectacular ones which make a good anecdote) and the routine churn of rejections, maybes and so on, because a) it makes us look like depressive whingers, and b) it gets boring very quickly…

Envy, as Tim Waggoner indicates, is no bloody use to anyone.

Which is all to say, why not let him play on your lawn for a few minutes, and read his full article (link below). I really would check that shoe as well. Some of these bugs can be weird…

riding out the storms

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You can find plenty of jolly interesting Tim Waggoner publications out there. We have a copy of his collection Dark and Distant Voices (Nightscape, 2018) nagging at us right now, and really must review it soon.

A full bibliography is available at his website:

http://www.timwaggoner.com/index.htm

He’s also written two dark stories for Occult Detective Quarterly, in ODQ #2 and ODQ #5, both featuring his character Ismael Carter. Occult Detective Quarterly can be picked up here:

ODQ #5 on Amazon US

ODQ #5 on Amazon UK