First, 2022 is not a real year. It’s science fiction. Blade Runner took place in 2019. Soylent Green takes place in 2022. But I’ll play along and pretend that it really is the Year of Our Lord 2022. If that’s the case, what will I be up to?
When it comes to the dreaded Day Job, there are two big creative projects in the pipeline.
The Long-Distance Team, which is about designing the work culture you really want, is under construction. It will be officially out on January 22, 2023, but available for pre-order before the end of the year.
Also, it’s likely I will be doing a podcast. It won’t be the late lamented Cranky Middle Manager Show, but it will be informative and snarky. Details to follow.
On the fun, creative front look for the second in my werewolf detective series. Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker will be out before the end of the year from Black Rose Writing. The third book in the series is under construction so it won’t be 2 years between installments, I pinky swear.
Check out my latest novel, Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk. It will give you something to do until your next WebEx meeting.
You can find out everything that I’m up to creatively by signing up for my infrequent but action-packed email newsletter. Use the signup box on the side of the screen.
I just put finished to the second book in the Johnny Lycan series. Well, an ugly, squawling, half-assed first draft anyway. Our boy finds himself in Las Vegas, and faces, among other things: a megalomaniac rancher, a honest-to-god Berserker, an ancient relic that may or may not be from Earth, a coven of bad-ass witches, and more about himself than he wants to know.
Believe it or not, book 3 is already outlined and will be started soon. Sorry about the delay between books. Turns out that between buying a house, navigating a global pandemic, a demanding day job and the general yukkiness in the air, I’ve learned something important. Existential dread is not great for the creative juices. You may quote me.
It’s aliiiiiiiive
Watch for Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker coming in 2022 from #blackrosewriting (blessings upon them)
If you haven’t read Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk, there’s still time to be one of the cool kids who find stuff before everyone else and lords it over them. Read it here
A couple of weeks back, I posted an interview with the very kind and funny Gemma Clatworthy. As all well-raised authors do, she returned the favor Here’s her interview with me
If you missed my chat with her, you can find it here on my site.
My stand-up comedy days are long behind me. In fact, a quick check of the math says I started in 1979 and hung up my mic in 1996. But I still remain friends with many of the people I went through the trenches with.
High on the list of talented folks who have stuck it out wayyyyyy longer than I, is John Wing Jr. He is still grinding it out, most notably as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. But he’s also a podcast host, a poet with ten collections under his belt, and a new novel.
It’s a good read, and after knowing him for over 35 years (note to self: stop doing the math), it’s clear there’s a lot of him in it. Seemed like a good time to introduce John to you lot.
What inspired you to tackle a novel?
I have always been a writer. I was a writer first. The first thing I ever tried to write was a novel, or a short story. So it wasn’t too outlandish to try again in my late fifties. I’d tried a few other times but I’d always gotten bored and decided the story was boring. Plus I wanted to see if I set a particular writing regimen, could I finish a novel in a set period of time.
I get that. Count of the Sahara started as a bet with myself. A Car to Die For might seem a surprise to those of you who know you through your standup. Where’d it come from?
I had the bare bones idea of the story — the small-town lawyer who is kind of a gumshoe — for a very long time. The character is based on my father. The main case of the burglar was a case my father had in the 70’s. And there were aspects of the man who keeps others’ secrets that I decided were very interesting.
There’s humor in the book but it’s not necessarily funny. Was it hard switching gears?
I wanted to have as much humor as I could find, but there were no intentions with regard to writing funny or not. I was trying to tell the story. If opportunities for humor came up, great, as long as they moved the tale along its way. I had a few jokey lines that I took out in the rewrite because they seemed contrived. (The draft took three months. I tried to write three pages a day (single spaced). Some days I wrote more, and only two or three days I didn’t make three pages. The rewrite took a year.)
Poetry, jokes, and now a novel. How is writing each different?
Jokes and poetry are very similar in the writing. A visual picture and some powerful words, good-sounding words, and done as quickly as possible. Fiction is completely different, since you have to weave many strands of the story into the main story by the end. It’s the reverse of a comedy act, which is a river with many tributaries you can choose to go down or not. The novel has to flow into the main river by the end. Narrative is very unforgiving when compared to jokewriting or poetry, which have fewer rules.
Growing up in Canada, we had some different influences than American kids. I also know that you read even more eclectically than I do. Who did–and do–you read?
The two writers I read the most were Philip Roth and Mordecai RIchler, both dead. I read more non fiction now, a lot of scientific stuff, my favorite being David Quammen, a Montana-based writer. I like pulp, too. Stephen King, occasionally, (reading one of his now — The Institute), Thomas Perry, Michael Connelly, and I confess that I’ve read all or most of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child.
Where can people follow you and all you’re up to?
@johnwing5 on Instagram and Twitter, The Bad Piano Player Podcast on Spotify or wherever you get yer podcasts, dude.
Check out my Amazon Author Page for all my fiction and non-fiction work, especially Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk.
I love connecting with other writers. Not long ago, just after I interviewed Jamie Davis about his paranormal paramedic series, we had a chat on an app called Clubhouse. We were joined by a delightful woman, who had the most British name ever. If you were going to choose a woman’s name for a fantasy writer, could you do better than Gemma Clatworthy? Didn’t think so.
As it turns out, she has a new fantasy series, and it’s a lot of fun. What other excuse do I need to ask her some questions?
Alright, Gemma. Give us the wonder that is you.
I’m Gemma Clatworthy, an urban fantasy writer based in the magical county of Wiltshire in the UK. I started writing children’s books during lockdown 2020 (the first book I published is titled The Girl Who Lost Her Listening Ears, which gives you some idea of how lockdown was for us!). When I’m not writing, I enjoy crafting, playing board games, tea and chocolate – not necessarily in that order!
When we were talking to Jamie, I mentioned that Johnny Lycan would have no Fae in it… and THEN I found out they are all over your book. So, apologies. (But Johnny will run into a lot of strange things, fairies and elves won’t be among them. My book, my rules.) Now that I’ve groveled appropriately, what’s your new series about?
My Rise of Dragons series follows the adventures of Amethyst, a half-dwarf jeweller who just wants a quiet life. In the first book, Awakening, her best friend is kidnapped and she’s forced to confront a gang of cultists who want to raise a dragon…and things keep going pear-shaped from there!
Bonus points for “pear-shaped,” which is one of my favorite Brit expressions. What are the roots of the story? It’s so much fun. What was it that hooked you?
The root of the story was really that I wanted to write a character that wasn’t a standard elf or werewolf, (Editors Note: Ouch, but I suppose I deserve that.) which seem to be the leads in a lot of urban fantasy. I was inspired by a friend’s character in a D&D campaign we played – she was a straightforward barbarian who rushed in without really thinking, took a hit and kept going, which is pretty much my main character in a nutshell! I set the story in modern-day Cardiff in the UK because I really enjoyed mixing the magical with the mundane and in a couple of my stories I’ve used real buildings… which may get destroyed by dragons!
Who do you read?
My absolute favourite author is Terry Pratchett – his Discworld series is amazing. I like to think I’m a diverse reader so I also enjoy Ellis Peters (Cadfael series), Phillipa Gregory, Lyndsey Buroker, Nicholas Eames and KM Shea. That’s just a shortlist though because I read a lot.
As you should. So, where can we learn more about you and your work?
As I write this, it is going to be 117 degrees before this day is over. Even at that, I love living in Las Vegas, and one of the main reasons is the writing community. It’s a diverse blend of just about everyone in every genre. A recent addition to the group is a fellow member of Sin City Writers, Taisha Speters. (Shut up spellcheck. That’s her name!) I thought I’d let her tell you about her debut novel, The Princess of Belsaria.
Taisha, we’ve both been in Sin City Writers for a while, but hadn’t met in-person til last week. What’s your deal?
I’m a new author and I’ve dabbled in the arts for 12+ years but could never figure out where I wanted to go. My first novel, The Princess of Belsaria, was actually handwritten in a notebook when I was a junior in Highschool. Fast forward a few years and when I found the notebook, I won’t lie I was beyond confused on who wrote this drama. So, after some motivation from friends and family, I committed to finishing my first project.
I write mostly fantasy. Before female protagonists became normal, I wanted a woman to save the world. My female character is based off of me.
I currently reside in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I’m from Salt Lake City, Utah. Born and raised. I sometimes feel like an old lady or old soul since one of my hobbies include Crocheting. I take on more artistic projects than in reality I have time for.
Here’s your chance to tell the world. What’s your book about?
My book is about a teenage girl named Marsais Corbin. Outside of trying to apply for a prestigious art college is a relatively normal girl. Raised by her single mother after her father passed away in a car accident. Marsais suddenly falls ill, and the doctors have no indications as to why. Though after a full recovery from the hospital is confronted by a new girl who tells her she’s a witch.
After an incident of her power is displayed Marsais willingly attends training where she finds out just how powerful she really is. Now mastering her powers, she also learns she’s the heir to Belsaria’s throne after she conquers its current ruler.
It’s a wonderful display of magic, love, and royalty. You follow Marsais in her trials to learn about her history as well as her becoming a queen.
What is it about the magic system in this book that appealed to you? Where did it come from?
Honestly, all magic is appealing to me. I find it fascinating which is why Marsais has multiple powers. I couldn’t settle on just one. Through personally I would love a power that connects me to water and telekinesis. The biggest inspiration for my novel is a TV series in the early 2000’s called charmed. Where 3 kickass sisters take on demons and other entities to protect the world while concealing their powers.
Some past authors that I’ve enjoyed will be Stephanie Myer and JK Rowling. I’ve always been an avid reader, but when I hit the age of about 12-13 I found Harry Potter and really grew up in that series. I will ready pretty much anything I can get my hands onto, but these past couple months, my husband got me hooked on a series by Tracy Wolf, The Crave Series.
(We now pause while I weep at how old I am when Charmed is a fond childhood memory for someone. Okay, I’m back.)Where can we learn more about you?
So apparently, I have something in common with a Nobel-winning author. Seems John Steinbeck wrote a novel about werewolves that has been languishing in a vault at the University of Texas for, oh, 90 years or so.
When people ask why I wrote Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk, after 9 non-fiction books and 3 semi-respectable historical fictions, I can now say, “Get off my ass. John Steinbeck wrote one too. At least mine got published.”
Yeah, I know he wrote it before he was JOHN FRICKING STEINBECK, and there’s no word if it was actually finished, and by all accounts it kind of sucks. But one of the great writers in American literature wrote a werewolf story. It’s called Murder at Full Moon, which is kind of lame, but I’ll bet he enjoyed it. It made him happy when he wasn’t writing about huge men accidentally killing women, or prostitutes, or starving Okies, or trying to remember how to say “where’s the scotch” in Swedish during the Nobel ceremony.
Now when people ask me why I write about werewolves I can just say that I’m in good company. Would they say that to John Steinbeck? Well, they did, but you see my point. Have a good week.
If you want to see what a werewolf novel by a non-Nobel laureate looks like you can check out Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk.
Long time readers will know I’m not a big fan of YA as a genre. (You can read my rant about it here.) That said, introducing young’ns to scary stories is a time honored tradition. Hence my interview with eclectic author Jon Robinson. His first foray into Lycan-inspired fiction is Sunshine and the Full Moon. Like 14 year old girls aren’t scary enough…
Jon, welcome aboard. Tell us about yourself.
I used to write about video games, sports, and wrestling for everybody from ESPN to Sports Illustrated to WWE. But now I’m trading in my love of sweat and polygons for werewolves. That’s right … silver bullets, fangs, and fur. I’m all in. Sunshine and the Full Moon is my first novel, and the main character, a sassy 14-year-old girl obsessed with geocaching, baseball, and k-pop is inspired by my daughter. Her encounter with a werewolf is actually something I had a dream about, so I decided to turn that dream into a novel, and here we are.
Johnny Lycan started as a dream too, and look where that got me. Tell me about Sunshine…
A 14-year-old girl named Sunshine goes on a geocaching adventure and uncovers a werewolf den. Turns out, the town her grandmother lives in up in the California Gold Country has had a mysterious string of deaths, and Sunshine stumbles headfirst into the mystery. When a young girl in town goes missing, can Sunshine figure out the clues behind the creature wreaking havoc throughout the small town before it’s too late?
What is it about that form of magic or character that appealed to you? What are the roots of the story?
I’ve always been a big fan of werewolves. Vampires are cool, zombies are fun, but to me, werewolves are king! Anyway, I had this dream where there was a werewolf attack, and the creature bites down on a young girl’s arm, but the girl had a cast from where she broke her arm, and the werewolf’s teeth get caught. So you have this moment where it’s staring eye-to-eye with the girl, saliva dripping down on her as it tries to wrestle its way free. I decided to work backward from that point in the story, develop a plot and main character around my teenage daughter’s personality, and Sunshine and the Full Moon took on a life of its own.
I’m a big fan of everyone from James Lee Burke to Shea Serrano. I also really love to read sports books that take you behind the scenes, like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.
Good urban fantasy usually starts with a good, “what if?” For just one example, what if an average joe who wanted to be a detective happened to be a werewolf? That’s a pretty simple one. Other stories are more ambitious: what if all the evil characters–Lucifer, witches and demons had to band together to save the world? That’s the kind of thing that goes on in the head of Leslie Swartz, and her newSeventh Day series.
Leslie, who are you and what’s your deal?
I tell people I’m a poet-turned-novelist which sounds pretentious but I think it’s important if they want to get a sense of how I write. My style has been described as blunt, honest, and evocative. I don’t write beautiful prose for the most part. I don’t spend too much time describing things like what characters are wearing or what color walls are painted. I write to inspire emotion. I want the reader to feel something.
As for who I am outside of my work, I’m a 41-year-old woman in Indianapolis homeschooling three kids during a pandemic. I’m tired. I get maybe an hour or two of free time a day that I usually spend watching easy TV to calm my brain down. My favorite show right now is The Challenge. Team CT for life!
What’s the big idea behind the first book in your series, Seraphim?
The Seventh Day Series is seven books of rowdy angels, vampires, witches, and Lucifer fighting monsters and preventing one Apocalypse after another. Really, though, it’s a story of found-family, complex relationships, trauma, and redemption. It’s character-driven, dark, funny, and chock-full of twists.
That’s a lot going on. Where did the idea come from?
“Wyatt” came to me in a vision when I was sixteen. I can’t explain it so I won’t try but he was very clear to me; steely eyes, dark hair falling in his face, angry and depressed but like, resigned to it. I didn’t create him so much as I just kind of became aware of who he was. So, I spent years researching religious lore and different mythologies. I’d have an idea and start writing but inevitably, I’d throw it out. No story was ever good enough for the character. So, one day I was watching Guiding Light and this actor, Tom Pelphrey came on the screen and he looked exactly like the character in my head. It was uncanny. Obviously, I became a fan and watched other things he was in.
Over the years, his facial expressions and his very precise way of speaking became part of “Wyatt”. Years later, I was watching an episode of Iron Fist and Tom Pelphrey did this scene that broke me in half. I lost it. Complete meltdown, hysterically sobbing on my couch for forty-five minutes. When I got myself together, I had all this renewed gumption to get these books started. I had a ton of plot ideas but none of them made sense if “God” was who I said he was. So, I was going over everything with my husband and he looked at me with this how-have-you-not-thought-of-this-before face and said, “What if ‘God’ was asleep?” Mind. Blown. Everything else fell into place. It all worked. That day, I wrote character bios, a few scenes, and outlines for the first four books.
Inspiration is a funny thing, ain’t it? What do you read?
I love Shakespeare, Poe, and Dickens, as we all do, right? Anne Rice and Stephen King are, of course, huge inspirations for me. I remember being in the fourth grade and relating so hard to “Gordie” from The Body. I started writing stories when I was four, so that character was everything. My favorite newer authors are Evelyn Chartres and J. Edward Neill. I love anything creepy with lots of twists and they deliver in those departments in spades.
Full disclosure- zombies aren’t my favorite monster, horror or fantasy trope. (Train to Busan is an exception.) Still, the ability to manipulate the dead with a little necromancy does offer great potential for storytelling. So I took this chance to check out MG Gallows first novel, Death Dealers.
I also asked some questions of the Red Deer, Alberta author. If you’ve never been to Red Deer, picture putting Waco , Texas exactly halfway between Edmonton and Calgary and you come pretty close.
M. G, tell everyone what your deal is.
I am a lifelong nerd, non-practicing edgelord, semi-retired resurrectionist, olympic-level procrastinator, and a recovering anatidaephobic. I love my homeland of Canada, because the deadly chill prevents Australia’s giant spiders and drop bears from touching my feet while I sleep. My friends all have real jobs, to which I secretly envy and resent their success (they won’t read this, will they?). I’m kidding about the Australia part. A very good Aussie friend is the reason I’ve even made it this far. Since 2016 I’ve cut my teeth writing freelance fiction for Wyrd Miniatures, and their awesome Malifaux gameline. I love writing stories, I think I’m pretty good at it. Death Dealers is my first novel.
What’s Death Dealers all about?
M G wouldn’t provide a head shot so we can only guess what someone who writes about this stuff looks like.
Death Dealers is about Alex Fossor, a necromancer trying to pull his life together after a bad breakup. He settled in the Pacific Northwest after discovering a community of wights – your garden variety ‘thinking’ undead – living in self-imposed exile underground. Compelled to help them deal with their condition, Alex sells his services as a crime scene cleaner to the city’s crooks, ‘disappearing’ bodies so the wights have a steady supply of the human flesh they crave.
The story picks up when a client is murdered, and Alex is framed for the deed. This leads to a confrontation with the Rimbault Society, a centuries-old organization of mages who quietly run the world. Alex barely avoids an execution, but the clock is ticking..To clear his name, he’ll have to deal with intrepid detectives, silver-tongued femme fatales, undead frat boys, foul-mouthed Irish Loa, and expose the true culprit before a hex on his heart burns him to ash.
“Undead frat boys” feels both creepy and redundant, but that’s my issue. Where did this story sprout from?
Alex’s beginnings stretch back decades, to my earliest experiences with vampires, zombies, and all things necromancy. I’ve always been fascinated by undeath, from Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, to George Romero’s zombie plague that has become such a mainstay of our culture. Getting to play a necromancer in tabletop or video games was always an easy sell for me. But there’s a huge stigma against necromancy in most fantasy settings, one I feel is largely hypocritical. A wizard can magically burn someone to death, and nobody panics. But then he reanimates the body to fight for him, and everyone loses their minds. I wanted to write a protagonist that walked that narrow shade of gray. Alex is someone you can relate to and even cheer for, but his methods are those classically given to a villain. He’s the slasher-killer stalking victims at a summer camp, the coldly pragmatic mastermind using every resource – even the recently dead – to help him win, and occasionally he dips his toes into the stereotype of the cackling and sadistic necromancer. And he does it to serve his idea of justice, and protect the people he cares about.
Who do you read that folks should know about?
I discovered my love of fantasy with writers like RA Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham, and Paul S. Kemp. It was Elaine who introduced me to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Harry Dresden’s colorful, cosmopolitan world of modern-day monsters has been a huge inspiration for many authors, including myself, but I would be remiss not to mention Diana Rowland’s White Trash Zombie/Angel Crawford series. Punk rock and flesh-eating zombies go as far back as Return of the Living Dead, and I’m proud to carry that tradition forward in my novel.
Where can we learn more about you and your book(s) Goodreads, Amazon links, twitter, Facebook author page, website etc.
You can signup for my newsletter on https://mggallows.wordpress.com/ Subscribers get access to free short fiction that ties in to the Alex Fossor novels.
