In the lead-up to the release of Hope: The Thing with Feathers, I’m going to be posting mini-interviews with my fellow ToC-mates! You can pre-order Hope: The Thing with Feathers here.
“The Song Lives On” is a short tale set in a dystopian world of trash and barren ground, following Granna and her granddaughter Cora as they seek a bird once friends with the family. While the forests are long gone, will Granna be able to share the beauty that remains despite the devastation, and give Cora an opportunity to see their own world anew?
Writing Question: Do you tend to plan your stories before you write them, or do you write and just see what you discover in the process?
I’m a little of both. I like to have the broad strokes of a story in mind before I start it, but generally things can (and often do!) change along the way. My story Invert House, for example, starts with some rumors about what the house might be or contain — when I started writing it, even I wasn’t entirely sure what the kids were going to face when they got there! But I love that about writing; it’s actually one of my favorite parts, discovering the story along the road, and sometimes finding new twists and turns as the characters do!
Writing Question: What story (published or unpublished) of yours is your personal favorite and why?
This answer changes all the time! That said, I think at the moment it’s a story called Last Requests that I wrote for the upcoming Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Halloween Anthology anthology for Death by TBR Books. I tried something different with the formatting of that one — it’s told almost entirely through dialogue, as though it’s a transcript of a radio broadcast — and I really like how it worked. It’s also got a neat antagonist, and I hadn’t really gotten to write a villain like him yet, so that was a blast too.
Writing Question: Is there any part of the craft of writing that you feel you struggle with? Is there a part of it that comes easily to you?
For me, the difficult part comes in when I know everything and haven’t actually written it yet. That’s part of why, as I mentioned before, I like to not know too much more than the broad strokes of my stories before I start to write them. If I feel like I’ve got everything figured out, it tends to become trickier to get it all onto the page, because to me, it all already exists. The fun part has happened already, and I get the sense that the story’s already told, even if it’s only to myself. Whereas if I still have room to play and explore a bit as I’m taking that journey, I find it much more interesting and rewarding.
Spec Fic Questions: What other writer of speculative fiction do you feel everyone should read, at least once?
It’s actually two: Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a masterwork, and I’m still working my way through the Discworld oeuvre — both Adams and Pratchett are godly in their talent for brilliantly blending memorable characters, humor, wordplay, and world building, while also delivering stories that keep the reader enthralled and entertained, and offering insight on humanity and the world at large.
Spec Fic Questions: What draws you to writing speculative fiction? Do you lean more towards one genre (science fiction/fantasy/horror) more than others, or do you like to mix them together?
I tend to write horror, so this anthology was a bit of an anomaly for me! A line I love to use in my bios is “Louie writes what scares him, which is plenty.” It cuts to the heart of why I like to write (and read! and watch!) horror as a genre — because it allows us to delve into the darkness of the things that cut us to our core, the things that keep us up late at night jumping at shadows and hiding under the covers. It allows us to explore why we feel this way, and what we can do to overcome that fear. Actually, the whole “hope” angle may not have been as far off base as I initially expected…
Oddball Questions: What’s your favorite non-writing hobby?
I’m an avid moviegoer, both current releases and retro films, and when the weather allows it, I love to catch a movie at the drive-in.
Oddball Questions: What are you currently reading?
I’m currently on a cryptid kick (possibly as research for something on the way), so I’ve got a TBR full of picks that were influenced by a recent roadtrip to West Virginia. Included are John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies, Frank C. Feschino Jr.’s The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers by Gray Barker (who happened to be around for pretty much every cryptid and UFO encounter), and J.W. Ocker’s The United States of Cryptids. Cryptozoology is one of my favorite side-topics; I’ve driven up to Vermont for Champ Day (celebrating the Lake Champlain monster, sort of a Nessie lite), read one of my short stories at Squonkapalooza out in Pennsylvania (if you don’t know about the Squonk, you’re in for a treat), and visited plenty of Bigfoot museums and fests. It’s a fun confluence of interest that hits right in the middle of being a sci-fi/horror lover and a fan of bizarre animals.
Oddball Questions: What was/were the best book(s) you’ve read in the last year (or the one you always recommend to everyone you meet)?
I absolutely love Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea. I’d suggest going into it as blind as possible, but what sold me on it is that it manages to perfectly balance being a fun exercise in linguistic flexibility, while also offering satirical insights into much deeper (and unfortunately timely) topics. Highly highly recommend it.
Another good one that I like to toss people’s way is Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven. It’s a horror novel told through interviews (the audiobook is incredible). covering the aftermath of a hurricane that left the mostly-teenage staff of a Florida amusement park stranded. Think “Lord of the Flies” but in a theme park setting. Fair warning, though, that one gets dark.
Louie Sullivan mostly writes about what scares him (which is plenty!), but decided to take a more positive turn for this one. He is a graduate of Fordham University and Saint Peter’s University, reads about a hundred books a year, and goes to the movies as often as humanly possible. You can find his work in the anthologies Doors of Darkness and Doors of Darkness II: Trick or Treat by TerrorCore Publishing, and in issues 62-64 of The Sirens Call.