Kevin Lucia and the Chosen Interview, Pt. 2

If you’ve not read Part One of my in-depth interview with Kevin Lucia, hop to it!

We’ve been talking about Kevin’s new book Hiram Grange and the Chosen One—the tale of a drug-addled monster hunter/occult detective battling demons—both personal and Lovecraftian!! Here’s Part Two of our interview with Kevin. Once again, amazing art is provided by Malcolm McClinton!

Greg Mitchell: Okay, Hiram Grange is a collaborative effort. What’s next for you on the solo horizon? I hear that your first novel has just been picked up by Shroud Publishing. Congratulations, by the way. Are you ready to talk about that novel yet or are you going to be all “writer-y” and dodge it with vague and mysterious generalizations?

Kevin Lucia: It'll be the first novel in my “mythos”, but a standalone. A “ghost story” of sorts. I was initially headed in a very Lovecraftian direction, but now I've toned it down so that readers most likely will only feel a “Hmm. I know I've heard that somewhere before” vibe and that's all.

I'm gonna give you the inspiration for it – be all vague and mysterious – but really, it's the core of the novel without telling you too much. It's the first two lines of a nonsense limerick which, when taken alone, has always sounded very ominous to me:

One bright day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.

So there's two dead, boys, see? And their conflict extends past the grave. One wants vengeance. The other justice. And all these other people get caught up in the middle...but they're not “innocent bystanders”. Not at all.

This is presumptuous: but think of it as a wild “Stephen King/Dean Koontz/Peter Straub” mix that hopefully moves at the pace of a “Repairman Jack” novel, and that's what I've got.

GM: All cool! What’s next for Hiram Grange? Are we looking at a “Season Two”? Will you still be involved? Don’t hold out on us, man.

KL: There definitely will be a Season Two. Scott Christian Carr, author of Hiram Grange & The Twelve Little Hitlers, is currently writing the first title in Season Two, Hiram Grange in Al Queda's Caves. As to what form the Second Season will take, we're not sure yet. Depends on how much attention the first “Season” draws.

In my own opinion – completely unsanctioned by Tim Deal, by the way – I think it'd be best if Hiram followed a very Harry Dresden/Repairman Jack model. Two or three standalone adventures separating “arc-heavy” adventures. Easier for new readers to jump aboard, that way.

GM: True. I know yours was largely standalone with some connective tissue to the other books, but I always like to see big arcs in my series.

KL: Also, there's a Hiram Grange anthology in the works. And right now, every Shroud Digital Edition – free download at the moment – also features Hiram Short Shorts. Most recent was Little Edsel Einstein, A Hiram Grange Story – also by Scott Christian Carr – which follows up on a supporting character from his Twelve Little Hitlers. He's got another Hiram short coming up titled “The Jesus Bomb”.


As for me, I'll always return to Hiram. Two ideas fascinate me right now: one, anything having to do with what happened to Hiram's father; two: a time-travel adventure that would somehow team up Hiram Grange and Sherlock Holmes. We'll see what the future holds.

GM: It strikes me that Hiram Grange is like the new Kolchak, only even more rumpled and self-loathing :p Alright, now, it’s fairly obvious that you’re a “horror guy”, but people might be surprised to learn that you’ve written your fair share of “inspirational” stories based on your own life. Was that a conscious decision—to be a writer not bound by genre—or did you just stumble into that?

KL: I've always wanted to be just a “writer”. My first “novel” - written in a Mead spiral notebook my senior year in high school – was a teenage basketball romance/drama that had nothing to do with my life then whatsoever (wink). My second was the first act to an epic space opera (both sit in a box on my back porch, by the way). So “writing” has always been a generic pursuit for me.

When I first started out, I remember a fellow newbie cautioning me about “writing all over the map” - that I needed to establish a “brand” so I wouldn't confuse potential buyers/fans.

I thought this kind of silly. See, I continue to entertain the foolish and arrogant notion that I can write whatever I want. After this novel is completed, I'll turn to a very different, more heroic, “journey of the hero” contemporary fantasy (already ten chapters in). After that is another very heroic, almost “comic book superhero” suspense/thriller. Somewhere in there, I've got a terse, hard-hitting crime/noir story, I'm sure.

The inspirational thing happened by accident (or maybe not?). I'd just sold my first story - “The Way Station” - to the first edition of The Midnight Diner when I came across a submissions call for a nonfiction story about how my faith had helped me make a crucial life decision.

I decided to give it a shot. The word count was low, the pay decent, and at that point I'd been wrestling with how I wanted to express my faith in writing. I thought to myself: “This would be nice; to just write fiction as FICTION that's only very subtly influenced by my faith, then on the side write honest essays – not about doctrine or theology – but about how faith has impact my family's life. The editor for that collection bought the story, then continued to solicit me for more.

SO here I am, six creative non-fiction stories later: one sold to Tyndale, two to Bethany House and three to Guideposts. They're short, they pay well...but most importantly, they keep me BALANCED. Focused on what's really important.

It's pretty heady stuff meeting and talking with Brian Keene, shaking Joe Hill's hand, learning from writers like F. Paul Wilson, Tom Monteleone, Mort Castle and Gary Braunbeck. Writing these stories brings me back down to Earth.

Of course, there's been a curious drawback. My in-laws and father care nothing for horror and will only read my nonfiction. SO, if I were to win the Stoker Award or something, their most likely response would be: “Yeah, that's nice and all, but when are you writing another NICE story?”

GM: Sigh…I know the feeling. I’ve gotta be honest, I think you are one of the hardest working “up-and-comers” I’ve seen in the writing world. You’re always at workshops and conventions and learning and, like I said, I see your name everywhere attached to a number of anthologies. Plus, I see in you a real desire and effort to balance that and be a family man. I really admire that about you. I don’t think you’d work that hard without some sort of end goal. What do you want most out of this life as an author?

KL: Of course like all pie-in-the-sky newbie writers I once harbored dreams of writing for a living. Four years in, and those dreams haven't been dashed, just spritzed with a heavy dose of realism. It can happen. Still does. But from what I've seen, there's a heavy price to pay for writing full time, and I'm still not sure if that's where I want to go. Might be a moot point: maybe I'm not good enough to be a full-time writer.

I was influenced most by meeting folks like Mort Castle, Gary Braunbeck, F. Paul Wilson and Tom Monteleone. These people have RESPECT, man. Not fame. Respect. Almost reverence. Respect professionally in the business, artistically as writers, and as great human beings. I'll always look to improve my writing, push it to new levels. But fame may not be what I want. Professional and artistic respect – yeah. That sounds mighty fine to me.

Also, I want to be driven primarily by my creative impulses. On one hand – I'm pretty pragmatic. If Del Ray called tomorrow and said, “Hey – we'd like you to write a Star Wars novel,” or HarperCollins called and asked, “Interested in writing Gulliver Travels to Zombieland? I'd say “Sign me up!”

But, I want to pursue things that intrigue me on a creative level. I just finished up editing Shroud's Halloween Issue, and it was a blast, and I can think of two other special issues I'd like to edit someday. Last summer I wrapped up a VERY different anthology with Shroud – The Terror of Miskatonic Falls – that's basically going to be – check it – a Lovecraftian poetry and prose graphic novel-esque collection. I pursued both not to further my career, but because they intrigued me on a creative level.

GM: Well, I’m sure I’ll continue to see “Kevin Lucia” wherever I look, so I’d better start getting used to it :p Thanks for taking the time to hang out! I’d say this has been a pretty probing interview, so let’s end it with an easy one: Better Dracula: Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee?

KL: Bela Lugosi. Easy.

GM: That, sir, is where we must part company. No one will be better than Lee. No one.

:D


www.kevinlucia.com
www.kevinlucia.com/p/store.html
www.hiramgrange.com
www.shroudmagazine.com

Kevin Lucia and the Chosen Interview, Pt. 1

Sigh…Halloween is over. I’ll allow you a moment to lament its passing… :(

But, don’t fret! ‘Round these parts, the monsters remain active year round! Case in point, it’s November and I’ve got the first of a two-part interview with horror author Kevin Lucia!! Kevin stopped by to kick off his November blog tour for his monster hunter/occult detective novella Hiram Grange and the Chosen One—which is actually the fourth book in a mini-series of Hiram adventures, published by Shroud Publishing. Read on to learn more of Hiram and his battles with the things of the night, and if you like what you hear, Kevin is offering giveaways at Goodreads! Also, dig out the killer art by Malcolm McClinton…

Greg Mitchell: Kevin! Welcome! Let’s start off with Hiram Grange. Here we’ve got a pretty unique project in that, it’s a series, but developed and written by different authors. Usually a series like this is created and written by a single author. How did this sort of “series by committee” start? How does it function?

Kevin Lucia: It's really the brainchild of Tim Deal, owner of Shroud Publishing. He wanted to create a unique series that would feature the same character, written by different authors, each of whom would bring their own style and flair to the series.

He posted a call for submissions on the Shroud Forum. People showed interest. Eventually from those folks, “The Hiram Five” arose: Jake Burrows, Scott Christian Carr, Rob Davies, myself, and Richard Wright.

We brainstormed for a LONG time on WHO Hiram should be. Was he a drug-addled misanthrope who cared about nothing but his perversions? Or would he possess a strange code of honor? Maybe throw in personal traumas that would endear him to audiences. Should he grow? Develop? But also fall back and regress? Was he an atheist? Or did he believe in – and hate – God?


For two years, we wrote our novellas simultaneously. The crisscrossing emails were fast and furious and spasmodic. We'd confer by email for a week – sometimes 20-30 messages a day – then would fall silent for awhile as everyone feverishly wrote. And sometimes rewrote, when the need arose.

GM: I’ve not read the other books, I’ll admit, but I found it fairly easy to jump into your book (Book Four, for you guys keeping score at home). I was really pleased that it felt like a really fleshed out world—it seemed to be very organized, which, again, is something that’s pretty neat considering the creative process that brought Hiram to life. Talk about your contribution to the Hiram Grange Mythos—Hiram Grange and the Chosen One. Was this a mapped out story in the life of Hiram that you were assigned to write, or were you just given a book number and you created the story based on what you thought needed to be told of Hiram at that point in his literary life?

KL: All the stories are originals developed by the authors. We did collectively decide on a very LOOSE background arc to connect the stories, and we had to edit Hiram's behavior in each novella for consistency, but for the most part, Tim let us have at it.

I specifically requested a later title. I have to be honest, my original gut instinct upon reading the submissions call was: “Nah. I'll pass.” But as the conversations progressed, I saw Tim very much wanted Hiram to grow, so I thought: “I'd love to write about this character down the road. After he's lost people close to him. After he's racked up enough miles to start asking some really BIG questions about himself and...well...his destiny.”

Hiram is an antihero, make no mistake. He saves the world on a daily basis, but might be just as dangerous as the monsters he hunts. He has terrible, degrading habits. Yet, I wanted to focus more on the internal causes of this. On how Hiram views HIMSELF. On the things he's suffered – and DONE – that makes him see a monster staring back from his mirror.

Also, my style leans towards subtle suggestion. Innuendo. I'm a “less is more” kinda guy, and the great thing is Tim let me be that guy, while still writing Hiram. I think Tim even referred to my rendition of Hiram as “elegant” - which pleased me to no end.

GM: Yeah, I caught that. I’ve read my share of Steve Niles’ Cal MacDonald series and some old school Constantine comics, so I get the whole “hard boiled drug addict occult detective”, but you managed to write that without glorifying it. It seemed like a legitimate struggle in his life, rather than something to make him look all cool and anti-hero-y. Aside from those seedy addictions, what’s Hiram Grange all about? Give us the skinny on this guy.

KL: Hiram Grange is a covert operative working for a privately funded woman named Mrs. Bothwell who runs an organization that combats supernatural monsters. Hiram hunts down all manner of monsters and demons, investigates “confluences” - supernatural breaches that serve as portals for these monsters – and closes them. Through any means necessary.

He knows his guns. Martial arts. The occult. Likes to play with explosives. And, though he distrusts it, he knows a smattering a magic. Everything is tool. Except technology. He hates it.

He's also terribly alone. Though he possesses a kind of “animal magnetism” that attracts all manner of odd, strange women, he's ugly, repulsive, addicted, obsessed, guilt ridden and conflicted. All the important women in his life have died before him. His father disappeared after his mother committed suicide, never to be heard of again. Even Mrs. Bothwell – the closest thing he has to family – routinely and callously sends him into the worst kinds of danger.

And…he's the only thing standing between the world and its destruction. He's terribly lonely. Open to temptation. He's lost so much. What would happen if offered the power to bring all those things back? And there you have the crux of The Chosen One.



GM: Plus you have lots of shooting slimy tentacled monsters! The book was never boring! So, Hiram Grange and the Chosen One is your first novella, but you’ve written a ton of short stories, right? It seems like, wherever I go, I see the name “Kevin Lucia” attached. How many short stories do you have in circulation? It’s got to be at least a hundred, right?

KL: HA! A hundred. I wish. Really, I've had only six GOOD short stories published, and I say good because I had quite a few stories “published” my first year of writing in “4theluv” collections that only offered “token” payment – or maybe no payment at all. Those stories are very, very bad and will hopefully never be read by anyone.

I have been fortunate to sell just as many nonfiction, personal essays as short fiction. So I guess in total, there are about twelve stories I'd be happy if folks found and read.

GM: Ah, a dozen. I was close. Which one are you most proud of?

KL: I'd say my best two stories – the ones I look back on and DON'T hate – are “The Water God of Clarke Street”, featured in Shroud Publishing's Abominations anthology, and “Lonely Places”, featured in the most recent edition of The Midnight Diner.

GM: Which also includes my short story "Flesh and Blood", featuring the Arbigast Group. There you go, folks. You can get both stories for the price of one! :p Okay, Short Fiction versus Long Fiction: Do you have a preference? I’m actually finding that, as I grow older, I enjoy writing short stories a lot. That might have to do with how busy my life is now that I have kids. Or maybe my attention span is shortening. I don’t know, but I certainly see the appeal in doing something on a smaller scale and just getting it done.

KL: I enjoy short fiction. A lot. But the question I've yet to answer for myself is this: am I really any good at it? Money isn't everything, but I still haven't managed to crack the pro-rate market (5 cents a word). It seems like right now, longer stories suit me better. I'm really a “character development guy” over “slick plotting guy”, so that makes sense. I need room to really make readers care about my characters. Maybe this will change with growth and experience.

Right now, I've decided to take a break writing short stories. The problem I found is the brutal turnaround on rejections. Totally diving into Hiram, however, and just writing every day for months on end, getting completely engrossed in the story and not worrying about getting dinged by yet another short story rejection felt awesome.

I have three stories out there right now, waiting on a final word, and I've decided not to “cold” write any more. The markets are too thin, and I write so much better when asked: “Hey, we're putting together a collection centered around X-theme. We'd love to see a story from you.” Sounds arrogant, but I'm holding out for more of those and just concentrating on long fiction right now.

GM: I can’t help but mention this, as I’m a sucker for this in my own work, but readers might notice that a lot of your works reference each other. What’s the genesis of that “connected universe” feel for you?

KL: Oh. You know. That's the whole: “OOH! Look how clever I am; I'll create a whole mythical town that's a connected universe and it'll be SO unique because NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THIS BEFORE!”

Then you read King's Dark Tower series. Get into Brian Keene's Labyrinth mythos. Stumble across Gary Braunbeck's Cedar Hill novels and short stories and realize that Ray Bradbury did the same thing with his mythical Green Town YEARS ago. And then at every Con, every newbie writer you meet has their own connected universe mythos they're working on, and you think:

Crap. Really?

In all seriousness, I'm doing what all writers do at some point: writing what I like to read. I'm a sucker for those things and while some folks don't like them because they think they're marketing ploys, I love 'em. I'm a “big puzzle” kinda a guy, and I love thinking that I'm only looking at one part of a puzzle, and this novel over here or that short story in that collection over there adds another piece.

But also, I like the idea that even though I've brought a story to its most logical close...it's not over. It's never over. This character might pop up somewhere else as a supporting or bit character. Why? Because LIFE IS STORY, and all of our stories – lives - are interconnected. Seems very natural to do that with fiction. Probably why so many authors do it.

GM: I agree. I always find it exciting to catch up on old characters, even if it’s just for a while. I like to see the characters grow with the audience (or, in my case so often times, the writer).

KL: My very first horror novel crashed and burned halfway through about six years ago, never to be resurrected…but I was left with tons of cool character vignettes. Fodder for smaller stories. And that's where a lot of them have come from.

GM: So is all this clever story-connecting headed somewhere? Does Kevin Lucia have some maniacal scheme?

KL: A direction? Not sure. That sort of thing can get too premeditated. Feel too arranged.

GM: I agree, totally. That’s something I have to remind myself as I’m a “connector” all the way :p

KL: The novel I'm working on right now is the first full length work in my “mythos”, but any connections to other stories I've written will be incidental: a name here, a bar or shopping mart there.

GM: Sounds very cool, indeed! I’m ready to read it already!

Well, folks, this draws Part One of our in-depth chat with Kevin Lucia to a close. Tune in tomorrow for Part Two. It will. Blow. Your. Mind.

Maybe… : p

www.kevinlucia.com
www.kevinlucia.com/p/store.html
www.hiramgrange.com
www.shroudmagazine.com
Goodreads Giveaway: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/6421-hiram-grange-and-the-chosen-one-the-scandalous-misadventures-of-hiram-g