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Category: Interviews

SF Signal Roundtable with Enge, Jones, and O’Neill

SF Signal Roundtable with Enge, Jones, and O’Neill

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sf-signal-iconWhile SF Signal’s Patrick Hester was at Worldcon a few weeks back, he went on a whirlwind series of adventures. Seriously, starting from his long drive from the western United States until his long return, I’m not sure he got in more than a few hours of sleep every night.

Along the way, he corralled John O’Neill, James Enge, and me, which was a little like herding cats, except that I was so tired I was pretty easy to get moving. James and I talked about our new and upcoming releases (so, plenty of info on Morlock and the writing thereof, as well as Dabir and Asim and the writing thereof). And John O’Neill talked about the past and future of Black Gate and what lies in store for writers and readers of my favorite magazine.

Patrick kept the interview moving along with thoughtful questions and insightful follow-up, and I think the result is pretty interesting — if you’re into Black Gate, sword-and-sorcery, or historical adventure, that is. I hope you’ll drop by and give it a listen!

The interview can be found by following this link.

Goth Chick News: The Creature Had Good Taste and So Does Tim Burton

Goth Chick News: The Creature Had Good Taste and So Does Tim Burton

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image0021As it may have been with you, for me it all started with the original Universal Studios’ monster movies.

By “it,” I mean a lifelong fandom of the black and white, the subliminal scare, the camera angles and the long shadows; the classics created not because they were drenched in buckets of gore and nauseating realism, but because, as Bela Lugosi said in Ed Wood:

They were mythic. They had a poetry to them

Sigh.

Naturally, meeting someone associated with one of these films is the Goth Chick equivalent to winning the lottery; especially as those individuals who still are around to meet often do not venture far from the sunny and warm climates where they have retired.

Last weekend, Christmas came early when two of my all-time favorites from vintage Hollywood horror found their way to Chicago to attend The Hollywood Show.

Ms. Julie Adams, whose very presence and bearing makes you want to call her ma’am, is best known to many for her portrayal of bathing beauty Kay Lawrence in Universal’s 1954 classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Admittedly, my knowledge of Ms. Adams’ fifty-seven year career was extremely limited which she teasingly pointed out.

I wasn’t just the bit of cheesecake in the Creature movie you know. I actually worked with Elvis too!

Correct on both counts.

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Jane Lindskold gives Black Gate its First Ever Audio Interview

Jane Lindskold gives Black Gate its First Ever Audio Interview

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photo by Pati Nagle

Jane Lindskold was kind enough to talk to me in her home about a month ago. We discussed wolves, TreeCat culture, enduring friendships with other writers, and of course, her writing. This is the first audio interview I’ve ever done, and as I’ve just learned from Jane, hers too. I found that rather shocking, given how eloquent she was.

The duration of this interview is approximately forty minutes, so find a good time to kick back, relax, and be edified and entertained.

Interview with Jane Lindskold

Conducted by Emily Mah, September, 2012

jane-lindskold

The link to the audio file is above. A picture of the book cover for Fire Season, which we discuss in some detail, is below.

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Goth Chick News – Behind the Screams at Fear City

Goth Chick News – Behind the Screams at Fear City

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image002Much like a debutante in a designer tulle dress, only different, we here at Goth Chick News also count down the days until the start of “the season.”

What is “the season” to those of us who will never be invited for cucumber sandwiches at Buckingham Palace?

It’s that time of year that kicks off after Labor Day and runs through November 1.  It is bracketed at one end by the appearance of Spirit shops in every empty strip mall location and the 75%-off-sale in said stores at the other, and is affectionately known as Halloween to everyone else.

Considering this may well be the very last one, this year we kicked off “the season” in a spectacular and appropriately apocalyptic fashion (it is 2012 after all).

As mentioned last week, Black Gate photographer Chris Z and I had the pleasure of meeting the devious master minds behind one of Chicago’s premier haunted attractions: Fear City.  Co-owners Chuck Grendys (also the proprietor of the movie-building shop, Big City Sets) and Jim Lichon (an Emmy-winning set decorator for Harpo Studios) invited us to visit during the day before all the screaming starts, and we burned rubber out of the Black Gate office parking lot to bring you the scoop.

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My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

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So yesterday afternoon I got a phone call. It was from the Madison, WI area and I was like: I don’t know anyone in Madison. So I let it go to voicemail.

A few minutes later, I get a private message on FaceBook…

Cool surprise number 1: It was Pat Rothfuss. He’s like: give me a buzz. So I do (realizing that the missed phone call was probably from him). Pat answers and says there’s been a bit of a mix-up and he’s sorry for the short notice, but would I like to be on his new Geek & Sundry show, The Story Board.

What follows is a dramatic presentation of the two seconds that followed that question:

Me to anyone watching at that moment: O.o

Me in my head: Hell yeah, I’ll be on your show.

Me on the phone: I’d be delighted.

So we exchange all the details. I knew about his new show. A few weeks ago, I’d watched part of Episode 1 with urban fantasists Diana Rowland, Emma Bull, and Jim Butcher. And back then, I was all like: man it’d be cool to be on a show like that.

Little did I know…

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The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part V: Saladin Ahmed and Throne of the Crescent Moon

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part V: Saladin Ahmed and Throne of the Crescent Moon

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imagesSaladin Ahmed‘s been very, very busy as his career takes off after the success of Throne of the Crescent Moon, the first novel in an exciting new Arabian fantasy series that received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, so I was lucky that he was able to take the time for an interview.

I always try to fake up some confidence in an interview and not think of how famous or talented my subject is, so imagine my horror when I got the answers back and found I’d mistyped the title for his book in the questions. I’d planned them carefully and had his book open as I wrote them, but used an abbreviation of the title from my notes.

I can only speculate about the fingernails on a chalkboard feeling Saladin had while answering questions from some random woman who sounded like she barely knew what she was talking about, but he was gracious. At least I didn’t misspell his name.

Read on for some tantalising hints about his next two books.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

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image001As you know, we here at Goth Chick News are great fans of the indy film industry and there’s nothing we love better than getting a peak behind the clapboard.  Well, there was that one intern who refused to watch any film that didn’t have a title soundtrack by Celine Dion, but oddly enough he got sent out to pick up a YooHoo for Scott Taylor on his second day and just never came back.

Funny that.

So you can imagine the excitement when Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures), Billy Hartzel and Corey Logsdon (State of Mind Productions) agreed to give Black Gate an exclusive look at their short film Outpost 13 before it launches into what will surely be an exciting journey.

Clearly recognizing a bandwagon headed down the yellow brick road of success, it was obvious the only thing to do was jump on.  But not before squeezing a little insider information out the boys on how they turned their creative imaginations into movie magic.

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The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part IV: C.A. Suleiman

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part IV: C.A. Suleiman

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C.A. Suleiman (center) with his band, Toll Carom

I met C.A. Suleiman online as I was working on this Best of Modern Arabian fantasy series. While Colin is not the only person of Middle Eastern descent I’ve interviewed, he is the first to appear.

A writer, musician, and game designer, Colin has built many worlds and milieus, many of which are inspired and informed by his Middle Eastern heritage. It was fascinating to discuss modern Arabian fantasy with a modern Arab-American.

Read on to hear his thoughts on this increasingly popular subgenre.

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The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part III: Kai Meyer and The Stormkings

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part III: Kai Meyer and The Stormkings

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img_2632While I was looking for more authors of modern Arabian fantasy, Kai Meyer found me, after reading part of my series here on Black Gate. Already a bestselling author in English (his book, The Water Mirror, went into three printings before its release date), he’s written 51 novels in his native German, including the Middle Eastern influenced, The Stormkings, a trilogy which has not been translated into English… yet. After hearing the description, I’m hoping it will be. The film rights have already been acquired by Oliver Scholl, who has worked on movies such as Independence Day and Jumper.

It’s interesting to note that the Arabian trend isn’t confined to English language fantasy, and it’s very interesting to hear the direction Kai took the genre when he created a Middle Eastern milieu.

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Playing Favorites: A Talk with Myke Cole

Playing Favorites: A Talk with Myke Cole

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Myke ColeMyke Cole is a badass. OK, I’ve never met him, but seriously smalls, take a look at that square-jawed, large-armed headshot. Badass. He looks like the kinda guy who could jump-punch a shark from a speedboat. He probably has. In fact, did you know that Myke Cole once pulled Chuck Norris from the gaping maw of a Great White? True story.* The next day, he saved seventeen pugs and a heretofore unknown, complete vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible from a warehouse fire on the docks.** Yeah, he’s that guy. You’d hate him if he weren’t so dang nice. Instead, you want to bump into him at a coffeeshop.

His first novel, SHADOW OPS: Control Point, makes for hella good weekend reading. Oscar Britton is an Army officer turned fugitive sorcerer. Britton isn’t a bad guy, but he is dangerous. He’s manifested magical powers that he can’t control (like thousands of others across the world) and the government he formerly worked for is now determined to collect and control him…or take him out.

Cole has the chops to write military fantasy. He’s been a security contractor, government civilian and military officer. Dude’s worked everything from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare, in addition to serving three tours in Iraq and being recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

We here at Black Gate pride ourselves on asking the questions that dare not be asked. Yes, constant reader, we got a hold of Myke Cole and asked him about his favorites. These sort of questions are usually scoffed at…how can someone pick a favorite book? THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD ONES! But Cole graciously answered us.

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