Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category
There being no intervening news (curse you, COVID-19?), this is an addition to the post just below, “Great Void Interview Info Sent Tuesday Night,” for July 22. The interview answers went in, and today Editor Aditya Deshmukh’s reply arrived. We will publish the interview on 2nd October. I’ll send you the link one week before, and if you have any changes, I’ll make them within a day or two. Let me know if the date works, or if you have any questions.
The second of October will be a Friday which should be okay — time to savor it all weekend long before a new interview distracts the following Monday. Or, anyway, maybe. In any event, let’s mark calendars now, then watch these pages for a reminder at the end of September.
Ah, interviews. As part of its publicity for UNREAL (cf. July 9, 8, at al.) The Great Void Books will be presenting a series of author interviews starting about August 10. And these look to be fairly extensive matters, with (if the publishers get their wish) detailed comments on individual writing practices (the process, that is, of making an idea become a story), tips for new writers (again in some depth), and the geneses of the anthology’s individual storie
s (in my case “The Garden,” on advanced biochemical science in a gothic setting). Added to these are the more usual general interest questions on, e.g., inspiration, goals, free time interests and hobbies, diet, even thoughts on “the current picture of the world,” some nineteen or twenty topics in all, though we could skip two or three if we felt so moved. So, anyway, after about a week and a half, checking, rewriting, at last I was done, and in the questionnaire went last night, along with some pictures, back to The Great Void.
More information (like when and where will we be able to see it?) to come.
The announcement from author/publisher Weldon Burge is already up as a tag on FaceBook. From, as it were, the horse’s mouth: I’m working on a how-to book on submitting to anthologies. It’s coming along nicely and (I hope) will be valuable to short story writers everywhere.
Not only does the book contain advice from me as the editor/publisher of Smart Rhino Publications, but you’ll read great advice from Nancy Day Sakaduski, Jonathan Maberry, Joe Mynhardt, Andrea Dawn, Christine Morgan, James Dorr, Rick Hudson, Jeani Rector, Lucy A. Snyder, Jezzy 
Wolfe, Adrian Ludens, Shaun Meeks, Greg Smith, Joanne M Reinbold, Joseph Badal, Elizabeth Black, and L.L. Soares.
So it’s not so much “how to write” (though there may be some hints in terms of writing for certain markets) as “having written, how to get it placed,” from an editor/publisher himself who the new writer might submit to, and augmented by the thoughts/experiences of several of us who have sold a number of stories, including some which he himself bought. So we ought to know, eh? In my case, I’ve had work in three of Smart Rhino’s publications, ZIPPERED FLESH 3 (“Golden Age,” see November 28 2018, et al.), INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS (“The Labyrinth,” November 28 2018), and UNCOMMON ASSASSINS (“The Wellmaster’s Daughter,” September 9 2014), along with many, many other publishers’ offerings.
The initial contact on this was at the beginning of January when Weldon asked if I would be willing to answer some questions about anthologies and how they figured in my growth as an author. Why not? I said (or words to that effect), and the result, with comments from the other writers cited as well, is a short ebook, at about 60 pages, tentatively titled GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT: THE WHYS AND HOWS OF SUBMITTING STORIES TO ANTHOLOGIES. So if you’re a bit new to the game yourself, but would like to know more, keep an eye out for it from Weldon Burge and Smart Rhino Publications.
2013, the year that brought us the films GRAVITY and DESPICABLE ME 2, as well as in which my collection THE TEARS OF ISIS was published. And what should I run across this afternoon, through sheer serendipity, but an interview of me dated May 7 that year on LONG AND SHORT REVIEWS (“Reviewing Fiction One Happy Ever After at a Time”)? At that time THE TEARS OF ISIS was about to be published in roughly a week by 
Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing — pre-orders on Amazon were being taken and five free copies being raffled on Goodreads — although the cover was not the one shown in the center column. The cover change only came a year after, acknowledging TEARS having won a Stoker(R) nomination. While other concerns were about a book that was already planned, but had suffered some setbacks in terms of finding a publisher for it: James has a series of short stories he’s been writing set on a far future, dying Earth in and around a vast necropolis called The Tombs. Something more than a dozen of these have been published in various places, including three (two reprints and one for the first time) in THE TEARS OF ISIS, “The Ice Maiden,” “Mara’s Room,” and “River Red” (another new one, “Raising the Dead,” is also scheduled for later this year in the White Cat Publications steampunk anthology AIRSHIPS AND AUTOMATONS). . . .
So it’s not that long a time really, is it? Other “standard” topics are covered too: How did you first become a writer? Advice for new writers? If interested in how the writing life looked at least for a moment back then, the interview as a whole can be read here.
And now for something completely different. Or, well, different at least, a recasting of an interview of . . . *moi* . . . by Rushelle Dillon (cf. October 22 2017) in a video format, or part of it anyway. The title is “Video Refresh: James Dorr Interview” by Stuart Conover and it’s on HORRORTREE.COM. Or, to let the poster speak for himself: A Sample of our interview with James Dorr by Ruschelle Dillon. In the interview, he has a lot of fun details on his take on the writing process. If you delve into the full interview there are a lot of playful details on his 
life on top of that! . . . This is a new format that we’re playing around with for articles, interviews, and potentially Trembling With Fear. Please let us know if this is something that you’d like to see more of!
For more, press here (yes, it is kind of fun)! And there’s also a link if you wish to read the whole interview as it had been originally posted.
Then a quick word on the two Kickstarters we followed earlier this month. The ITTY BITTY WRITING SPACE one (see February 3, January 29) will be over this Thursday, February 21, so there’s not much time left if you’re tempted to participate. The other for Gehenna and Hinnom Books (see February 1), with as of now a few extra rewards added, will end just past the close of the month, on Saturday March 2. Links to both can be found in their posts on the dates just noted.
Though dated Wednesday February 6, today, writer/blogger Carl Alves’s interview of me, “10 Questions With James Dorr” (see February 1), actually went live Tuesday evening on THIS IS CARL’S BRAIN (a.k.a. CARLALVES.COM), shortly followed by a link via 
Facebook on DIGITAL FICTION PUBLISHING LEAGUE. What questions, one asks? Well, ones concerning such matters as differences in writing poetry vs. writing prose, overall themes, the desire to write horror, and which is best: short stories, novelettes, or novels? Also, in lieu of my normal mug shot are portraits of Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
And why those, you ask? — for answers press here.
For those who’ve enjoyed the four part series on Lovecraftian influence on Films and TV (see January 30, 29, 28, 24), I thought I might mention compiler/publisher C.P. Dunphey also has a Kickstarter started for his publishing company, Gehenna & Hinnom Books. The goal, to keep up the good work (over and above supplying lists that I can reference on this blog) and, hopefully, begin to pay writers professional rates. “Gehenna & Hinnom’s 2019 enterprise! We aim to bring you the greatest releases in Weird Fiction and Cosmic Horror of the year,” or, of their staple publication HINNOM MAGAZINE, even considered “a possible successor to WEIRD TALES” according to THE MISKATONIC REVIEW. And I am not entirely myself without a finger in this pie, my story “Flesh” having been published a while back in G & H’s YEAR’S BEST BODY HORROR 2017 ANTHOLOGY (cf. October 25, September 25 2017, et al.).
And one might add, for those who pledge nifty treats are offered, for which to see for yourself check here.
Then in other news, earlier this week I completed and sent in my answers, etc., for my part in a series of interviews that writer and blogger Carl Alves is running. So word has come back, my first interview for 2019 is tentatively set for Tuesday next week, February 5, more on which will appear here as it becomes available.
Exciting times! A story of mine is running neck and neck in Carrie Ann Golden’s latest A WRITER AND HER SENTIMENTAL MUSE competition, this one for a tale of 100 words or less as prompted by the picture just below. And as 
of last notice there were two entries in the running, each with exactly fifty percent of the total vote. Or most likely, each has just one vote.
Should you wish to tilt the odds, you can find stories “A” and “B” in their entireties, the picture again, and a link for voting in the poll here. And as a bonus, scroll toward the bottom and there’s a link to an interview Carrie Ann did of me on her blog back in 2016. See early comments on my as yet to be published novel-in-stories TOMBS, as well as some dish on THE TEARS OF ISIS and on New Orleans’s filles à les caissettes. What better to read on a warm, sunny Wednesday?
And, as for which of the stories is mine, well, you know me. It’s likely to be the more “horrible” of them.
No, this isn’t the one I mentioned June 16 as having received the questions for (though I’ve since sent the answers back); nor is it the one previewed on June 3, published in England on the 6th. No, this is the interview mentioned May 8 for Grim and Grimmer Books’s DEADSTEAM anthology, conducted by Editor-Publisher Bryce Raffle, on such subjects as dreadpunk, historic fiction, Victorian funeral directors, and . . . 
well, you know. If I’ve done it right, there’ll be mentions as well of THE TEARS OF ISIS and TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, the books I’m flogging for myself. But the major point of this one is DEADSTEAM, the anthology due out later this fall in which my entry is “The Re-Possessed,” a saga of the funeral profession in 19th Century England (originally published in CEMETERY RIOTS by Elysium Press in 2016) and inspired by thoughts during a real-life memorial service.
This will be the fourth interview Editor Raffle has done of DEADSTEAM authors, previous ones having appeared on June 8, May 11, and February 25, and can be read by pressing here. Or if you would like to read some of the others (presumably after mine, of course) the blog main page can be reached here. Or, for mini-biographies of all DEADSTEAM authors, one can indulge by pressing here.
And here it is, as promised (June 3), UK writer and blogger Jacky Dahlhaus’s Wednesday MEET THE 
AUTHOR with the interviewee for the start of June, me. Find out the answers: What do I like to do in my free time (excepting reading)? Favorite authors, and how they’ve influenced me? Pen or typewriter or computer? My favorite genre (well, you probably know that) but also why? Pseudonyms, writing styles, the moral of TOMBS? And more on both TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH and THE TEARS OF ISIS — for these and more, along with a “thank you” to Jacky from me, press here!
jamesdorrwriter 