Novel writing, tropes and themes, assembling collections and more! Welcome, dear listener, to the first of two extensive interviews in which authors Sam L Edwards and John Linwood Grant question each other. “What?” you say. “That sounds terrific!” And then, after some thought: “Oh, you mean nepotistic mumbling between chums about how writers earn squat. Dullsville.”
But hey, hang on! Often we at greydogtales have little knowledge of our interviewees apart from a recent book release, so cut us some slack when we have someone we know.
Today we ask Sam L Edwards about his new collection, and about his writing in general…
ON DEATH OF AN AUTHOR
greydog: Good to have you back, Sam. This time, for obvious reasons, we want to focus mostly on your forthcoming collection, Death of an Author, so, let’s get straight down to it.
First of all, the collection is split into two quite different main sections – Fantasies & True Secrets, and Miskatonic & Madness. Was this a deliberate choice from the start, or simply how the material fell as you assembled it?
sam: Well let me start by saying “Thanks for having me.” You and I have developed a good friendship, along with an online banter which has become sort of infamous. But you were one of the first writers to really welcome me into the fold, and I’ve never not been grateful for that. Also, you know I love your ramblings on greydogtales, and have been hounding you for an interview for some time.
The choice to split the collection into two sections was deliberate, and a third section was added after an emergency flight out of Colombia due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after which I wrote the story ‘The Last Mayflies out of Bogota.’
I’ve always liked collections that are effectively “samplings” of an author’s work, and I think that the first section is a sampling of sort of classic pulp/weird fiction monsters and concepts. I consider my story ‘Bestia’ to be a hack-and-slash adventure tale, albeit focused on mothers and daughters in a dying Texas gulf town. My story ‘Office Hours and After’ is…really I’d call it a “wizard story” but with a twist at Miskatonic University I really shouldn’t reveal. So the idea to have one section designated for what I’d broadly call “Weird Fantasy” and what I would broadly call “Mythos” was always the plan.
greydog: How does this one differ from your first collection Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts?
sam: Again, I like the sampling aproach. When putting together Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts though, there were some stories that really stuck out and had no business being there at all. My story ‘The Cthulhu Candidate’ was one of them. And Congressman Marsh went from this one-off meme to a reoccurring character, both in the background/foreground in several stories. So, I had to have a place for all my “Lovecraft” stuff and it couldn’t be in Whiskey. Then I had stories inspired by Clark Ashton Smith, some Howard stuff…and it just wasn’t fitting with the unifying horror of Whiskey.
These stories…I’m not sure I’d call them “horror.” There are many horrifying stories. I think ‘Christmas At Castle Dracula’ is rather scary because it probes questions of faith, a critique of nationalism and human history, and so on. I think my vignette ‘Standing There’ is one of the scariest things I’ve ever written, because it is about a truly random, inexplicable ghost encounter.
But overall, the stories are more “fun” than those in Whiskey. Even the most grim Congressman Marsh stories have a tongue-in-cheek humor in them, though the tone is not always humorous. The characters are also far more kinetic. My Whiskey protagonists would fall to the floor, weep and tear their hair out. Granted, I believe the reaction was warranted. But in Death of An Author you have a far more diverse cast. A lot of women characters, though this wasn’t intentional. And they fight back. They’re gunslingers, star athletes, vampires, mages, and so on. Not all of them fight back, but most of them.
greydog: We notice that you chose not to include either your Central American orientated ‘political’ stories (excepting ‘Last Mayflies’) or your troubled Bartred clan supernatural tales in this collection. Are you saving them for later, or did you feel they would skew the book in a different direction?
sam: I guess I should start by clarifying “Central American” and “political” stories. I have to tell you: I’ve lived in several Latin American countries, studied the region extensively and thusly really come to appreciate dense jungles as a setting. Out of all of my published stories, only one is explicitly set in an actual Latin American country. The rest are wholly fictional settings, purposely unnamed because I do not think it is the place of a white writer from the United States to write about ongoing conflicts in countries they are not citizens in. That’s not saying I’m taking any judgemental position, but I just don’t want to contribute to any perception of Latin America as “backward” or “violent.” Frankly, I don’t believe the United States is in a place to talk.
Now the second: “political.” You know, I never get comfortable with that. I take it as a badge of honor, but I believe you and I have talked about this in our chaotic Facebook Messenger conversations. I consider all my stories to be about characters and their dilemmas. But I also believe that horror writers should write about what scares them. I’ve done my research on national collapses, insurgencies, coups, political corruption, democratic backsliding, and more. These themes scare me. So I write about them. And of course, no one exists in a bubble. Politics touches nearly every part of our lives and the idea that a writer wouldn’t eventually be forced to explore their feelings on the issue is a very strange idea to me indeed.
And then I’ll point out: Congressman Marsh is a politician. His stories are, in fact “political” in that they involve politics. And they also show one doesn’t have to travel far to find their own horrors in institutions, individuals and powers. Joe Bartred… all I’ll tell you, John, is keep an eye on one of the characters in Death of An Author. There is, in fact, a planned Bartred connection.
But the shortest answer? Yes. There is in fact, another collection put together. Like the others, it’s split into two halves. The latter half is a series of stories taking place in a fictional character/location, Antioch. This is also the setting of my novel. Without spoiling too much, all I can say is Antioch and its stories are supposed to reflect very contemporary themes and anxieties about democratic backsliding, nationalism and its consequences.
And one day I’d like to write more Bartred stories. I wrote the bulk of them when I was a new writer, so Joe just seems like a different person to me now. Someday soon, hopefully.
greydog: What made you decide on the overall title? Your story ‘Death of an Author’ itself, though a lovely, moving piece, is probably one of the least typical Edwards story we’ve read.
sam: I’ll take that as the least typical Linwood Grant compliment I’ve received.
The answer is simple: it’s the most important story to me in the collection. I’d had the idea for the story for some time before writing it. It’s a novel enough premise: a dying pulp writer being visited by all of the characters he’s ever written. But then my grandfather went through hospice and died of cancer. Without getting to much into the inner stories of my family, which belong to more people than myself and thus aren’t wholly mine to share, it was a tender time for us. It was sad, yes. But we also tried our best to step up for each other, and we were all much more vulnerable during those days than we had been for some time.
The experience totally changed the emotional core of the story, and gave me an imperative to write it. Being with my grandfather the night he died, not the moment he died but the night, really changed me. And it changed the story.
greydog: Very understandable. OK, the Fantasies & True Secrets sections is strongly tilted towards re-interpretations of classic mythic and horror concepts. We take it that you like challenging common tropes?
sam: Honestly, I would love to just write haunted house stories with all the tropes attached. But to do that, you have to be a very good invoker of tone and feeling. Say what we will about Lovecraft, the man could layer on dread like few others. But I’m not that talented, so I rely on characters, who act as my guard rails to make sure that my stories don’t go too far afield.
I never considered myself one who challenged tropes, to be frank. Writing about vampires, I tend to just think about them as people. Awful people, heroic people, who struggle to live in the sun. I would say more than anything else, I enjoy producing writing that invokes some sort of adrenaline when I’m writing it. Whether that’s terror, disgust or the sort of a feeling of a kid playing with all of their favorite toys at once.
greydog: The source of Miskatonic & Madness is more obvious, but what’s your relationship to the whole Lovecraftian Mythos business? Peripheral, close, or haven’t really thought about it? You mentioned his handling of ‘dread’ just now.
sam: Like a lot of us, Lovecraft was my gateway drug. I came to Lovecraft by way of Metallica, which was a band my dad and I bonded over when I was younger. I’d always had a morbid fascination with horror, but Lovecraft was an entirely different level. I admit that at the time I read him I was very young and was really blinded to much of the racism until I encountered that rather unfortunate cat name.
I don’t spend too much thinking about Lovecraft and mythos these days, but that will probably change. I think Lovecraft stays relevant for many reasons. I think Scott R. Jones said in an interview once that as long as racism is at the forefront of society, Lovecraft’s racism will remain a constant topic. I agree with that sentiment, and I really don’t see how we run away from it or accept it. There’s a reason that the young man defending Innsmouth in ‘The Referendum Over Innsmouth’ is so seamlessly an alt-right provocateur.
At the same time, yeah, no one invokes an atmosphere of dread like Lovecraft. And I think the novelty of the Mythos as a shared playground that people can bring their own toys to means it will always be a place writers flock to.
greydog: Which stories here are particularly important to you the writer?
sam: Oh wow. Let’s see. Obviously ‘The Death of An Author.’ I think that ‘I Keep it In A Little Box’ is a very important one, given that I wrote it for my friend Christopher Ropes, who himself has a collection coming soon which you should all invest in. ‘With All Her Troubles Behind Her,’ might be my favorite child. I love the main character, and I love weird westerns. I had an absolute blast writing that one.
‘The Referendum Over Innsmouth’ was written by a very angry writer. There has a lot which happened in the United States over the past five years that really dispels any myths that our institutions are invincible, or that there is something exceptional about them. Charlottesville was the moment which inspired the story.
I also have a soft spot for ‘She Never Killed Her Spiders.’ I don’t know why. I just do. It has a lot of banter and I like writing banter.
Then there is ‘The Last Mayflies Out of Bogota,’ which was really my COVID trauma story. We all have COVID trauma stories, but my sudden departure from Colombia still makes me sweat to this day. All this time later.
ON WRITING STUFF
greydog: Now, let’s go wide a bit. We know that over the first few years of your literary life, you’ve encountered both the pleasures and the frustrations of small and independent presses. What would you advise new and emerging writers, on the basis of what you’ve experienced?
sam: I guess I’ll give the advice I would have wanted about a year ago:
Expect this writing thing to come in waves. The first wave is your creativity. I’m a runner, or someone who is trying to get back into running, so I like the concept of “the wall,” this thing you hit that seems insurmountable and exhausting. You may hit a writing “wall.” And that’s not writer’s block, that’s different and I’ve never really had it. I mean that moment where you just don’t want to write. At all. The idea of opening a Word document may make you depressed, physically ill. That’s normal. Don’t write those days. Talk to other writers, read. Step away. It’s okay if you do.
Another wave is a popularity wave. For a moment there, John, it seemed like I could sell all of my stories in a matter of days. But that stopped, particularly as a lot of my reliable markets started to close. And I, at the time, took that to be a reflection of the quality of my work. What else am I supposed to think after all, if my work is no longer good enough to sale? Well, now people are biting again. Sure, it’s not at the pace it was when I started out, but honestly that’s okay. I look back on young Edwards and that guy…he could hustle. Elder Edwards does not have that sort of energy.
So, it’s okay to not write and to not sell stories. This is weird advice for writers, who write and sell stories. But remember you’re also a person, not a machine.
greydog: Given how much we’ve talked over the years, we might as well ask: your writing career mainly blossomed in the same five or six years as did that of failed plumber John Linwood Grant, and you were in regular contact. He also wrote the introduction to your new book. Clearly, he was both a protective auntie and a proud uncle, telling you to stay on your skateboard and to pay no attention to Mrs Pralowski and her annoying cat. Her trash-can was hardly dented. Do you see any areas in which your work or approach coincides with his?
sam: I’d like to think so. It would mean a lot to me. You and I both write character-centric stories. We both like occult detectives. We have strong opinions about dogs. Truly, I couldn’t think of a more apt comparison.
greydog: We also remember that we were also going to ask you something about Russians, but maybe that was because we’d finished our home-made Turkish Delight vodka. The coffee bean vodka didn’t work – it was horribly bitter. Maybe it was to do with your love of Russian literature. We’ll let you take over on this one.
sam: <Russian cricket noises> I just finished some short stories by Nikolai Leskov. I recommend ‘The Spook’ and ‘A Robbery’. Leskov is Russia’s answer to Saki and O. Henry, the missing link between the humorous fantasy of Gogol and the heart-breaking realism of Tolstoy.
greydog: There we are – a two-line guide to Russian literature. That’ll do, unless we ever remember the point we had. So, we know that you’ve now completed your first novel – so lots of time dictating flowing paragraphs to your secretary, in between sipping mint juleps. Or was it slightly harder than that?
sam: Remember when I talked about “the wall?” I hit “the wall” about 9,000 words into my novel. Which is far earlier than other writers I’ve talked to who have made the decision to write a novel.
It was difficult, because I had a very big idea and had never told big stories before. There were muscles that I had never used. I’d liken writing a short story to building something you can hold in your hand. You can carefully mold it, hold it. A novel is more like building something you have to live in.
So my first secret to novel writing is finding a very interested publisher who entices you with allusions to money. I talked about my “wall” with the venerable Ross E. Lockhart, who told me to send him what I had. Mr. Lockhart read it, and told me that if the manuscript were complete he would be making me an offer.
That lit a fire under me. I then took every weekend in the summer of 2020 to work on the novel. I mean, full day shifts writing the thing and reading Russian Literature (Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad and Life and Fate, two of the best novels ever written). I quickly learned that my outline was not going to work. There are characters in the final story who were not in my outlines, unplanned events, abandoned conceits. I very quickly got over my wall and moved the novel forward by asking “what would I want to read next?” As a consequence, there’s not much in the way of filler or padding in the story now.
greydog: Finally, is there one single tale in Death of an Author which you would recommend as ‘quintessential Edwards’? And when is the book due out?
sam: A younger Edwards would have a recommendation, but after the damn cat story from Whiskey became the most consistently popular story I don’t think even I know what a ‘quintessential Edwards’ story is. If any stories have cats in them, that’s the one. The book is due out on 25th June.
greydog: Sam L Edwards, thanks for joining us, and all the best for the new collection.
sam: Thank you, John, and good luck with Biscuit. He seems like a handful.
<Biscuit the Appalling, puppy of this parish, eats remaining notes>
Death of an Author, by Sam L Edwards, is currently on pre-order from the publisher:
https://journalstone.com/bookstore/the-death-of-an-author/
In a day or two, Sam L Edwards interviews old greydog. So be there, or be… well, someone who isn’t there…