Black Gate

B Chris Bell and I share a publisher, Airship 27 Productions; I’ve also reviewed a few of his novels for Black Gate. I first “met” Chris on Facebook back in 2011, and later that year met him in person at Chicago’s “Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention.” We hit it off right away, having so many things in common — books, TV shows, movies, and music. Plus, he lives in Chicago, not very far from me. He also knows more about pulp fiction than any three people I know. Over the past few years we’ve become good friends, and he, his lovely wife Darlene, and I get together on occasion to watch movies of all kinds, talk about books, life, and how we can solve all the world’s problems. Chris is a pretty prolific author, and I think everyone should his Bagman series, set in 1930s Chicago. Great fun — and he captures perfectly the era and attitude of Chicago. Not bad for a guy raised in Texas. And like another Texas writer I admire, Larry McMurtry, Chris has a natural-born gift for storytelling. I hope I can talk him into writing that western he talks about writing. I especially love for him to write a weird western.

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Photo by Vanessa Applegate

Gail Carriger has published several series of best-selling and award-winning novels starting with her Parasol Protectorate Series.

Gail, you have developed what the publishing industry considers as a distinctive brand. Not only have you capitalized on the subgenre of Steampunk, but you’ve also added a distinguishing paranormal twist with many of your major characters being Preternaturals, Werewolves or Vampires. What inspired you to carve out this niche for yourself?

From my perspective, I felt that the real momentum of social media happened around 2007. I knew that to be a published author I’d have to choose to have a social media presence. So, I poked my nose about to see what some of my favorite authors were doing — who was doing a good job of it and who wasn’t — and made pretty thoughtful choices form the get-go about everything from how my website was designed as to how I would appear on social media, as well as my public image. That might sound a bit manipulative, but I’m one of those evil authors that are a bit Machiavellian — that all I’m doing as an author is playing with your emotions.

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Well, folks, we’ve survived the first month and a bit of 2017 – barely, some might say. I’m of the mind not to let various disruptions get you down or mess with the writing mojo, which is partly why I’m really glad to be sharing this interview with my fellow rational human being and generally chill writer, Evan May. Below we discuss his first novel, The King in Darkness, which I reviewed a few posts back, as well as the fantasy genre, the writing craft, and Vladivostok (no joke). Here’s a short bio for Evan, followed by the interview:

Evan May is a freelance writer and history professor who lives in Ottawa, Canada. Evan studied Creative Writing at the University of Windsor before moving on to study medieval history, concentrating on scamps and troublemakers in 15th century York and London. He has recently been pleased to return to writing down some of the strange things that live in his head. When not writing or teaching, Evan enjoys distance running and tending to the whims of two lazy cats.

For more about Evan’s work, visit his  blog (emaymustgo.wordpress.com) or follow him on Twitter: @GiantTourtiere.

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