I've always been a big reader, since I was very young. Like many kids of the 70s and early 80s I started out on classics such as 'The Wind in the Willows', 'Winnie The Pooh', 'Alice in Wonderland', 'The Hobbit' and very large doses of The Famous Five. I'm not sure when exactly I drifted into more adult fiction and specifically Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror but all those children's books always had an element of the fantastic in them. I was quite young though, because I remember finding a paperback copy of Stephen King's 'Carrie' in 1980, when I was only 10.
That was definitely a turning point in my reading. Anything by Stephen King is still a favourite for me - sure, he's written a few shockers, but when your output is that prodigious I think you're allowed a few misses. It was also about that time that I moved on to fantasy novels like 'Lord of the Rings', 'The Sword of Shannara' and David Eddings' 'Belgariad'. Looking back, many of those early Epic Fantasy novels are quite shockingly bad - terrible imitations of Tolkien - and I could never read them again, but they set me on a path, I guess. There was also quite a bit of classic SF through the 80s too; Asimov, Heinlein, Silverberg, E.E. 'Doc' Smith. When I was about 14 or 15 I first read H.P.Lovecraft and that really screwed with my mind and led me back to authors like Poe and Machen and Dunsany.
Would you say your childhood and teenage reading has had a distinct influence on how you write fiction now, and why?
Very much so. Even though I read just as much mainstream and realist fiction today, my own stories still can't help but have aspects of the fantastic and the grotesque about them. The stuff I read as a child and teenager warped my mind forever.
Pick one of your favourites among your fiction stories or a story which is an interesting example from your fiction. What makes this story one of your favourites or an interesting example of your fiction?
I think the most recently written stories are almost always going to be my current favourites. A writer should evolve a little and improve with each new tale, and so it is easy to see whatever is most recent as being better than what came before. My new short story "Love Death", which is available now in Aurealis #46, is one of those. It is probably my first real attempt at a 'fantasy' story, though it contains many elements of horror, and it is also a bit of a romance. All my previous stories have been quite obviously in the horror mould, set more or less in modern times (with the exception of one SF/Horror story forthcoming in Midnight Echo #6 and a previous 'post-apocalyptic' tale) so this was something new for me. The world is still somewhat recognisable as our own - an alternate 19th century Mexico - and it is still 'dark fantasy' rather than 'epic fantasy' or 'high fantasy' but the story I'm telling is quite different to anything I'd written before.
Who is another author whose fiction writing you admire and why?
Despite all the influences from the worlds of SF, Fantasy and Horror, and my love for the authors who write in those genres, my writing admiration probably extends to authors seen more as 'mainstream' writers. I'd really love to tell a story as beautifully and effortlessly as Tim Winton. And I have an enormous amount of admiration for Cormac McCarthy. His writing really changed the way I looked at the novel form; the way he dispenses with all the rules and restraints of punctuation, the poetry he can bring to a sentence or a paragraph that just makes you want to read just that part over and over again for the shear beauty of it, his audacity to write long sentences most editors I know would cringe at and pull them off with masterful aplomb. His writing has a exquisite rhythmic quality that I don't think anyone else will ever really be able to imitate successfully.
How would you summarise one of your short stories in one paragraph?
"Love Death" - a tale of the lengths people will go to for those they love. The things they will do to prove that love. It is about the death of love, and the love of death, and how those two things can be so entwined within the psyche of humanity that they haunt us and drive almost every decision we make in our lives.
How would you describe the appeal of this short story to readers?
It has romance. It has love lost, and love regained, and love lost again. It has life and death and states in between. It is exotic and erotic and disturbing by turns. And, in the end, there is hope.
How would you summarise a scene or sub-section from this short story in one paragraph?
In the opening scene a man is leading a horse and bier into a city. He's travelled a long way and he's tired and sore and desperately seeking help. The city is in the throes of The Festival of the Laughing Corpse, similar to the Mexican Day of the Dead but more like a Fringe Festival for the undead; the living and the once-dead cavorting about with music and comedy, all this bright gaiety to offset the helplessness and depression he feels. Because, you see, on the bier is the dead body of his one true love. She died unexpectedly days ago and now, after travelling through jungles and deserts to get here, her body isn't doing too well. As she decays he feels his love for her waning too, and if he doesn't get her to a Necromancer soon, all chance of her being resurrected (or his love for her being revived) will be lost.
How would you describe the contribution this scene or sub-section makes to the short story?
This opening scene sets up so much of the story - the main character and his despair at losing his loved one, the ever diminishing hope he has of her possible resurrection. It counterpoints his predicament with the joy of the festival, where the living and the once-dead celebrate together. It introduces the reader to a world where the gulf between the living and the dead may not be as wide as it is in the world we know. It offers many possibilities about where the story might be heading but also, I think, creates questions about what people will do for love, and that is the main thrust of the story I'm trying to tell.
Do you aspire to primarily write novels in the future, or are you more interested in writing short stories, and why?
Definitely, I have novels inside me. Some stories are just too big to be told in a short story. I have a novel in progress at the moment and I'm quite happy with the way it is going. Again, it is a departure for me - an alternate 1942, where President Roosevelt was assassinated and America never entered WWII but has instead locked itself up into an insular, totalitarian fortress utilising Nicola Tesla's 'death-ray' and 'free-energy' technologies. The rest of the world is falling apart without US intervention, and everyone wants (the 'allies', the Nazis) all want to bring the US down and gain those technologies for themselves. Once that is finished I have other novel ideas (Horror, SF, Fantasy) that I'll move onto, but I also think that I'll always be writing short fiction - it is the perfect length for a lot of stories. For some ideas, short and sharp will always the better option.
Do you read many short story anthologies, and why?
I try to. I think short stories can sometimes have a much bigger impact than a novel and a good anthology or collection is just priceless. Novels can often wax and wane in their pace, but that rarely happens in a short story. Stephen King said how a novel can be like a 'long satisfying affair' and that sometimes you can even feel 'married' to it, but that a short story is "like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger", and sometimes there is nothing sweeter than that.
What lengths of short stories do you usually write, and why?
I've got a bit of a problem with short story length, often pushing them into the 'novelette' range of 10,000 words or over. I've been told that this is a bad thing because it is near impossible to get them published but I've been very lucky so far in that I've always been able to get them accepted - in some cases editors have even asked me to add an extra thousand words or so rather than cutting. I guess that, even when writing what I think is a short story, I like to like to tell 'big' stories. I don't set out to write stories of that length though. I've always been of the opinion that any story should be exactly the length it needs to be to tell the tale. I have written shorter stories - "Love Death" is only just over 6,000 words, and a forthcoming tale "Torch Song" is a mere 1,500 - but I generally don't have a word length in mind when I begin. I just start writing and see what comes out.
Do you submit for many short story competitions, anthologies and magazines, and what are your main motivations for this?
I don't really submit to competitions, but I do submit to anthologies and magazines. I guess I'm not a big one for competition and seeing what story or author is considered 'best'. I'll choose an anthology or magazine based on its style or theme and whether I'm familiar with the work of the editors. It's all a matter of finding a place where a particular story will work best in the context of what the publisher is looking for. I'm selective like that; I don't just send out a story to a list of whatever markets are open, I look around and wait until I see something that will give my story the best possible chance of acceptance. This might be a subconscious effort by me to avoid rejection, but it has worked well for me so far. Also, an anthology might open up and their specific guidelines will spark an idea - that gives me the motivation to produce something that fits those guidelines, to write the sort of thing that I know they're looking for. Magazine and anthology guidelines can offer some great inspiration for ideas that might not otherwise have occurred to me.
Author website: www.andrewmckiernan.com
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