Tag: interview

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.

In a dystopian world of dust and murderous, water-hungry hoards, Sora must protect her adopted daughter Veery in a dangerous world. But when her home is decimated by monsters, Sora finds hope in the most unlikely of places, and goes to find the magic she long ago gave up belief in.

Writing can be a tough profession, and authors of all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

Most of all, it helps to remember that writing is an art and is therefore subjective. What resonates with one reader may not resonate for another, which is why we need all kinds of stories in the world. Being a first reader and seeing the other side and how difficult those final decisions can be really helped me better understand this.

Rejections can also be an opportunity to revisit my work, assess whether it may not be quite ready after all or needs to be further revised while remaining true to my vision of the piece. Despite knowing these things, it can definitely still be frustrating and discouraging at times. I find having a list of potential publishers to submit to next helps me cope with a rejection in the moment because I already planned the next steps.

There are hundreds and hundreds of books on writing out there. Do you have one that you especially cherish? 

Leonard S. Marcus’s The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy is a collection of interviews with fantasy authors I read as a child, such as Tamora Pierce, Madeleine L’Engle, and Jane Yolen. Reading about their experiences and vast array of writing styles, processes, and preferences helped me realize that it’s okay to follow your own path.

The other thing that surprised me was how many of them don’t or didn’t outline despite what most writing advice says these days. There is certainly wisdom out there, but I think overall, there is an awful lot of noise about how to write so it was refreshing to read and acknowledge that different things work for different people. There is no one right way, only the right way for you.

Is there a book, TV show, or movie you consistently return to because it just makes you happy? 

All Creatures Great and Small is my comfort show. It’s not speculative but its full of touching, heartwarming stories of humans and animals that takes me through the full breadth of human emotions. Ultimately, that’s what I want in any story I consume whatever the medium or genre.

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 enjoy exploring endless possibilities and using speculative elements to reflect on human experiences. My natural tendency is typically toward fantasy. I am often inspired by fairy tales or myths but I do veer into sci-fi as well. Nature always features in my writing, opening up doors to both science and magic, and the opportunity to blend the two in interesting ways.

It’s the End of the World. Your ideal bunker: what does it have to have in it to make the apocalypse bearable?
Cats! Simply by being, they make everything better. Even the end of the world, I am sure.

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Erin Darrow writes fantasy and science fiction inspired by nature, ecology, myths, and fairy tales. When not writing, reading or getting lost in imagination, she wanders the woods, watches birds, cuddles cats, and takes too many nature photos. After many migrations across continents and oceans, she has found a nest to call home in Aotearoa New Zealand. Find Erin online at www.erindarrow.com

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 flying city of Halora is failing. Its struggles to maintain its heights above the planet, despite its technological advances, despite its data and schematics and intellect. But when a young apprentice finds a mysterious being in the heart of the city, he discovers, too, a new hope and a new way to keep his home aloft.

What story (published or unpublished) of yours is your personal favorite and why?

One of my personal favourites is a horror short story called ‘The Quiet House’. It’s special for me because it was the first story I managed to complete after a long hiatus, where I was struggling for years to connect with writing. ‘The Quiet House’ broke that pattern for me, and writing reminded me of everything I loved about storytelling. It’s the story that rekindled my writing habit, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

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 love to mix them together. Speculative fiction is about bending and breaking the boundaries of realism, and each one of these genres can do that in their own way but also amplify each other. Horror does tend to draw me more often in my writing, but horror so often carries the other genres within it. At the crux of it, I love stories that conceptualise things that are simply impossible in reality. It’s the most powerful strength that writing has, and genre should definitely be more of an accompaniment than limiting factor.

What book or books have changed your life or the way you see the world?

So many – maybe all the books I’ve ever read, in a way? I really think that stories help us figure out who we are. There are probably countless books that I read when I was growing up that I couldn’t name now, but that would have helped shape how I see the world and myself in it. But the authors that I return to again and again are Robin Hobb, Terry Pratchett and Stephen King. They’re all important to me in uniquely different ways and their work will always inspire me.

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Jade Scardham is an artist and writer focusing on fantasy, horror and sci-fi. She particularly enjoys writing creepy stories and designing creatures and characters. You can find her on Bluesky: @arcanepixels744.bsky.social

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.

Stunning in its pain and empathy, “When an Angel Molts,” begins when the daughter of a sorceress helps to gather the magic feathers of an angel her mother has captured. But angels can’t live in dark basements, not for long, and daughters grow up and grow wiser, no matter what their mothers want. When the angel is near death, the daughter must decide if freedom for herself or freedom for him is what matters the most.

Writing can be a tough profession, and authors of all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

So fun fact: the first story I submitted to the Hope anthology was rejected–which is usually the end of the road; however, the submission guidelines allowed for submitting another story if rejected and I had a reprint that fit the call, so I sent it in. And that story was held and eventually accepted. 

There are so many more rejections than acceptances. So many. But…you only need one Yes (unless we’re talking reprints.) So persistence helps. And confidence–to send out a story I have to believe that someone will buy it. I never know who or when, but if I still believe it’s saleable I will continue to find places to send it. Which brings us to hope.  It helps. (although it can also make a particular rejection sting a bit, but well, that’s hope for you.)

And speaking of reprints…a published story has already proven saleable; the difficulty there is finding markets that will consider reprints. 

Is there a book, TV show, or movie you consistently return to because it just makes you happy? Or what’s your go-to strategy to feel better when life or the state of affairs gets you down?

Lately, I’ve been relying on stand-up comedy specials and I’ve gone from watching any I hadn’t seen previously to re-watching those with bits that still make me laugh because when things are crap, you have to get your laughter somewhere. And the ephemeral nature of it is particularly appealing. For reading, I’ve been mostly borrowing mysteries because I know there will be a resolution at the end and I need to see someone solving something somewhere. 

What’s your favorite non-writing hobby?

I refinish furniture from secondhand shops or tag sales. I even have some pieces I’ve re-refinished to fit in my current space/vibe. I recently found an old sideboard that I’ve refurbished into a TV consul and started on a curio cabinet that was a deal I couldn’t pass up. The cabinet is still being stripped down and I haven’t decided on its final form yet, but I sometimes stare more at my consul than what’s playing on the TV. I think there’s a lot of overlap in the process for how I approach writing and refinishing and how there’s so may different possibilities at the start and pick and refine your idea as you go along.

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H.L. Fullerton writes fiction—occasionally about  about angels, sometimes about small hopes carried defiantly into the dark; uses words instead of emoticons; likes semi-colons and the occasional interrobang; might be in trouble with prepositions; loves lists and bullet points; believes apostrophes are commas gone wild; saves dangling participles (sometimes); has upwards of 75 short stories published in places like Mysterion, Tales to Terrify, Lackington’s, Underland Arcana, and Kaleidotrope. On Bluesky as @HLFullerton.bsky.social

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.

In “A Touch of the Wind,” a successful knight finds a mysterious woman cloaked in feathers sitting in a tree and assumes she’s a woman of the court. But she proves to be much more strange than that, and in his attempt to understand her, he learns a great deal about himself, too.

If you could sit down with one author, from any time in history to today, to get a writing lesson, who would it be?

I would have a hard time deciding between Ursula K. Le Guin and Andre Norton, two of my favorites and both authors whom I admire greatly. Because Le Guin has already left us a very excellent book on writing and many helpful quotes and wise bits of advice, I would likely choose Norton. I spent much of my adolescence lost in her worlds, and if nothing else, I would love to say thank you. 

What SF/fantasy fandom are you particularly devoted to and what about it draws you so strongly?

I’m going to really date myself here and say Alien Nation. I adore the movie, of course, but the TV series has my whole heart (hearts?). For its time period, the show dealt with issues of gender, sexuality, racism, sexism, and bigotry while introducing a believable and fascinating alien culture that was in no way a mono-culture. I admire the work and the characters, and though it suffers from some dated approaches, the message was always one of inclusion and acceptance. 

It’s the End of the World. Your ideal bunker: what does it have to have in it to make the apocalypse bearable?

Three non-living things: good books, fine tea, and a really nice vintage typewriter. I would also insist on sharing it with my family and pets, but as far as inanimate accessories go. There must be reading, writing, and very excellent tea. Not the bagged stuff. If it’s the end of the world, I want a hearty stock of well-aged puerh or I’m not going. 

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Frances Pauli writes about animals because she finds them infinitely more interesting than people. She’s not terribly sorry about this, though she understands it might cause some of the latter distress. Still, given the choice between a starship piloted by a human and one with a hippopotamus at the helm, she will inevitably favor the hippo. You can find her work and her associated goodies at: francespauli.com

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.

“What We Had Left” is a beautiful story about finding connection when all else in the natural world fails. Audrey finds Tara as she searches her apartment for lingering survivors after a cataclysmic event in the oceans releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Together, they head inland, away from the seas and the clouds of gas that will smother life. While Audrey and Tara grapple with the reality of the Sixth Mass Extinction, they also find hope in human connection against all odds.

Writing can be a tough profession, and authors of all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

Once my original project is out the door, it’s basically dead to me. I still love it and I hope it finds a home, but it’s out of my hands at that point. Sure, the “nos” still hurt, but the sting is diluted if I direct my energy towards a different project. Focusing on something new also takes up too much brainpower for me to ruminate on the fate of the submitted piece.

What piece of writing advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you started writing?

Be Persistent. I thought I’d achieve “success” (whatever that is) quickly; in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t. I had a lot to learn about the craft and the business. Statistics say it takes years for many traditionally published authors to get a book deal, with most writing multiple books before they’re published. Imagine giving up on the first book or story you ever wrote? I took this to heart and just keep marching steadily ahead. Now, a slew of my short stories have been published in anthologies and literary magazines and I have a romance novel out on submission to publishers.

There are hundreds and hundreds of books on writing out there. Do you have one that you especially cherish? 

I really enjoyed Stephen King’s On Writing, but my go to writing resource has to be Jane Friedman’s The Business of Being a Writer (Second Edition!). Jane has so much information for writers of every kind; her book, website, and newsletter(s) are invaluable.

What’s the best SF short story you’ve ever read? What about it really spoke to you?

Several have stuck with me, to the point that I think about them years later. But by far my favorite is “Pig Son” by Sequoia Nagamatsu. It’s speculative more than sci fi with themes of grief, ethics, and animal agency and I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in short stories. “Pig Son” is weird, funny, heart-wrenching and makes me feel deeply every time I come back to it.

What’s your favorite non-writing hobby?

I’ll dabble in just about anything creative. I’ve done a lot of fine art like oil painting, pencil drawing, and digital art, and fiber arts like crocheting, knitting, sewing, and (briefly) bobbin lacemaking. My favorite craft recently has been making pop up books for my young nieces (apparently this is called “paper engineering”). It is so fun to figure out little mechanisms that will work for the story I’m trying to tell. I thought I was going to make just one book as a special gift, but I’ve finished three already, and have way too many ideas for more.

What was/were the best book(s) you’ve read in the last year (or the one you always recommend to everyone you meet)?

The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt! (and its sequel, The Unkillable Princess.) The moment I finished reading, I turned it around and started again. The Immortality Thief takes place on an abandoned spaceship where several different groups are trying to find valuable data before the others. It’s action-packed, deliciously spooky, and you’ll fall in love with the characters instantly..

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Gabrielle Contelmo spends her time writing short stories, which often feature monsters with a twist, and character-driven romance novels, which always feature kissing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in What Lurks: A Cryptid Anthology, 3Elements Literary Review, NECKSNAP, and Grim & Gilded, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Learn more about her work at gabriellecontelmo.com.

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.

In “The Letter Writers” two part-human, part-bird children, born of a hawk larger than a man, are rescued from hunters by a cold-eyed man. But he has his own designs, and uses their blood and feathers to serve him as tools for writing letters for the patrons of his great city. But how much can the narrator’s brother sacrifice to protect her, and what of their own hopes for escape from captivity? This story is probably one of my favorites in this collection, and will appeal to anyone with a soft spot for Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities or the surreal magic of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.

Writing Question: Writing can be a tough profession, and authors of all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

Is it too on-brand to say that it’s a matter of keeping up hope? JK, JK. Actually, my goal is not to put too much energy into hoping for the eventual “yes,” since there’s no guarantee that will ever come… That sounds very defeatist, but I don’t mean my response that way. It’s more that recognition (in the form of story sales, or positive reviews, or just someone else complementing my work) is something outside of my control. Working on my fiction, finishing stories, even sending them out—those are all things that I can act on, but whether anyone likes my writing… well, it’s amazing when it happens, but I can’t center my relationship to my work around the chance of getting that rush. The act of writing, creating worlds and stories that I can disappear into, engaging in craft study and practice—that’s what I try to make my goal, in-and-of itself, so that my work feels meaningful to me, first, before I look for any outside validation. That’s the idea, anyway. I don’t always achieve that level of equanimity, but I keep trying.

Spec Fic Question: What’s the best SF short story you’ve ever read? What about it really spoke to you?

My personal favorite favorite is “An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell . It’s a heartbreaking story about luthiers and climate change and making peace with impossible dreams. I cry every time I read it. Despite that, and despite the grim vision of the future it paints, I think it’s a powerfully hopeful story, highlighting the way that humans can persist and find new ways to support each other, even as the world burns around them. It’s also stunningly written, and it folds in history and detail I never knew I wanted to learn about the science of building musical instruments. 

Oddball Questions & Hope-related: Any life hacks you’ve learned that you couldn’t live without?

I’m not sure this this is a life hack, per se, but something I’ve particularly appreciated recently is my connection to a community of fellow writers. I really value the mutual support, encouragement, and understanding that comes from knowing people engaged in the same struggles, especially as it counterbalances the inherently isolating nature of writing and the anxieties that come from trying to carve your strange imaginings into coherent words.

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Chloe Smith’s short fiction has appeared in Haven Speculative Fiction and Bourbon Penn, among other places. Her debut novella, Virgin Land, came out from Luna Press Publishing in 2023. She is a graduate of Your Personal Odyssey 2024 and a member of the Clarion Writers Workshop class of 2025. When she’s not writing, she works as a middle school teacher librarian. In past incarnations, she’s been a classroom teacher, a proofreader for Locus and Fantasy magazines, a barista, and a ballet dancer. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. You can find more information about her work at https://imaginaryresearch.wordpress.com/, and she is semi-active on Bluesky @chloehsmith.

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 Lay-by-rinth” is a tale of a future that has taken as many twists and turns as a labyrinth. Matt works along the old M25 making food stops and Waypoints with Avi, a wanderer from America. Avi’s Waypoint ideas are mystical and intricate, not unlike the feather vein fungus that has consumed and crumbled the old cities. But what meaning will these Waypoints of old ruined tech give the pilgrims who walk the cracked asphalt, or to Matt, still seeking someone to call home? 

Writing can be a tough profession and authors at all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

I tend to approach submissions with the spirit of a keen but inexperienced player lobbing balls at a basketball net. So each miss is just a prompt to try again, but I make sure I indulge in unbridled ecstasy when I get a slam dunk. I find sharing rejections with fellow writers in a spirit of hangdog humour helps too. 

What’s your go-to strategy to feel better when life or the state of affairs gets you down?

As a sustainability professional who often has to look at the climate crisis in the face without blinking, this is a regular challenge. I often reflect that the future is always uncertain, which means that doom is never a foregone conclusion, any more than the perfect outcome. 

What book or books have changed your life or the way you see the world?

Four Ways To Forgiveness by Ursula K. LeGuin. It’s such a sophisticated and deeply moving take on redemption, and the many forms that can take.

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Anna lives in London and works for an environmental charity. Her short horror fiction has appeared in Mslexia, the Gothic Nature Journal and the anthologies ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Rewired’, published by Ghost Orchid Press. Her essay, Bihexuality in The Craft, is published in the Off Limits Press anthology ‘Divergent Terror’. In 2022, she won a poetry competition hosted by Hot Poets, a project which pairs poets with scientists to create work that transcends the doom and gloom of climate change, and focuses on mitigation and solutions. ‘The Moon Doth Shine’ won the 2023 XR Solarpunk showcase. Her eco-horror novella ‘Phengaris’ is now out with Nefarious Bat Press.

Learn more about Anna at annaorridge.com.

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.

“For All That Is and Still Lives” is a quiet story of yearning for things already lost and the hope of appreciating what exists before it’s gone. On the tail end of a dud-date with a supposed nature-lover like herself, Marissa finds herself searching the familiar woods for the crow she befriended over the years. When all she finds is a single dark tail feather and a mysterious man of the wilderness, Marissa must decide if the well-beaten path is the right trail for her life, or if she desires something less predictable. 

Writing Question: Writing can be a tough profession, and authors of all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?

I cope with rejection through exposing myself to it. During 2025 I’ve set a goal to receive a hundred rejections. It’s now June and I’m only at twenty, but I’ve got quite a few stories out there waiting for responses, and I’m always writing and submitting. The good thing with this project is that I occasionally get acceptances too. The story in this anthology is the second one I’ve had accepted this year, and I’ve also had a picture book manuscript in my native Swedish accepted for publication. Of course some rejections will hurt more than others, and for me the worst ones are the near misses. Recently a story a mine was short-listed among several hundred submissions, but then it fell at the last hurdle, and those are the hardest to accept.

Hope-related Question: What’s your go-to strategy to feel better when life or the state of affairs gets you down? 

Our lives in these times are so fragmented, so one thing I do is to always have notifications and sound switched off on my phone. This gives me control over my time and I try my best spend one dedicated hour per day to reply to messages and check in with my Substack community. But phones are built to be addictive so I don’t always succeed. After trying to market myself as an author on Instagram and Facebook, I stepped away earlier this year. I found they were trying to lure me into an endless feedback loop, but which only made me feel inadequate and unhappy. The final thing I’ve done is to stop reading and watching the news. This doesn’t actually sit well with me as I like to know what’s going on in the world, but again the aim of news reporting seem to be to always keep us in a state of fear and I chose to step away from that. All of these actions have given me more time to write stories, as well a longer concentration span. My choice is to engage with the world through writing.

Oddball Question: If you could meet one fictional character, who would it be and what kind of venue would you meet at? 

Without a doubt, Dr Marinus, the involuntary immortal of author David Mitchell’s universe, who has no obvious superpowers, but who wakes in the body of a child 49 days after dying, alternating between living inside a female and a male host. Dr Marinus is a calm and benevolent being who occurs in several of David Mitchell’s books, but who makes his first appearance as a man in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is on my list of top ten books ever. With regards to venue, I’m expecting to see them every day, at the bus stop, in the coffee shop, at the hospital, either whenever I most need them, or just for a passing chat.

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Lisa is a bilingual writer living on the south coast of England. In her native Swedish, Lisa is an award-winning children’s author, while in her adopted English she’s a writer of short fiction and novels. Her first novel, The Shape of Guilt, is a piece of literary fiction with streaks of magical realism published by époque press. She also works as a literary translator and a mentor of young writers. You can follow Lisa’s writing on https://lisafransson.substack.com .

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.

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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.

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.

In “Going Home,” Dimitriy Semenov is a brilliant physicist underemployed as a teacher at a secondary school, but when he’s approached by a government official about a top-secret study examining fragments retrieved from the Tunguska meteorite region, he finds himself entangled in a mysterious force beyond his (or anyone’s) comprehension. But is finding out the truth about these strange fragments worth losing his family, his sanity, or his life?

“Going Home” is a wonderful story that has a classic sci-fi vibe that will appeal to those who love a good scientific romp and the excitement of unravelling the mysteries of the universe.

Writing Question: There are hundreds and hundreds of books on writing out there. Do you have one that you especially cherish?

I have accumulated quite a few of those books over the years! I would not say that I cherish it, but a book to which I have returned several times is Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. King’s part-autobiographical account offers consolation for those experiencing repeated setbacks at the beginnings of their writing careers, but also sternly reminds his readers that perseverance is an essential part of the author’s toolbox. Indeed, the book is strong on all the tools of the trade that an author should have or should acquire. In the same vein, Fay Weldon’s Why Will No-One Publish My Novel: A Handbook for the Rejected Writer reminds budding authors of the importance of getting the basics right.

SpecFic Question: What other writer of speculative fiction do you feel everyone should read, at least once?

The author would be Stanislav Lem and the works I would particularly recommend are Solaris and The Invincible. In a sense, they are both very well written and entertaining first encounter tropes, but they address a fundamental question that humanity would do well to think about. What if we encountered an intelligence  – in one case an organic ocean, in another a mechanical swarm intelligence – with which we couldn’t communicate and which we couldn’t understand? In their Roadside Picnic Arkady and Boris Strugatsky philosophically address a similar question, though their alien intelligence is either unaware of humanity or completely indifferent to it. 

Oddball Question: A lot has been written about exercise and its effect on productivity and creativity. Do you have an exercise routine you find helpful?

We have a very large and boisterous flat-coated retriever who requires a lot of exercise. Those daily walks provide excellent space in which to think through plotting difficulties and all the other knotty challenges that budding authors can face. Also, I find it helps to write every day and to understand that the process of revision is as important as the process of writing. 

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The only thing Martin Westlake has ever always wanted to do is write creative fiction. His short stories in various genres have been published in a number of outlets, including Metaphorosis. ‘Going Home’ was his first paid piece of fiction and Metaphorosis and its editor, Morris Allen, therefore hold a special place in his affections. Westlake’s full-length creative historical novel, Other Than an Aspen Be, is currently on submission (Bill Goodall literary agency).