Science Fiction and Fantasy
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I've been writing for pretty much as long as I can remember—since I used to make up Hardy Boys-ish mystery stories at seven or eight, at least. I won a literary award in college, which I think was a signpost leading down the road I ended up on. Before I reached the point of making any money writing (although I did have a couple of journalistic works published earlier) I became a bookseller, hoping to learn the business from that end. In fact, this weekend, as I'm answering these questions, is the 16th anniversary of Mysterious Galaxy, the San Diego specialty bookstore (mystery, sf, fantasy, horror) of which I'm a co-owner, and I'm in San Diego for the festivities. My first published novel was a collaboration with my friend Christopher Golden, called Gen13: Netherwar, a book based on comic book characters Chris and I had both written. Since then there have been thirty-some additional novels and lots more comic books.
You're best known for YA and tie-in. Did that happen on purpose or did you fall into those areas fortuitously?
It was not necessarily an intentional career path. I was writing comic books, and working in that industry in marketing and editorial capacities, and the opportunity arose to write the first Gen13 tie-in novel with Chris. That book opened the door into the Buffy and Angel lines, and I started writing some of those. The Angel novels were, in spite of some fairly adult content, officially YA books, so when I decided it was time to branch out into original works—which had been the long-term goal—I thought it best to aim for that market, on the presumption that some of those readers were fans of my work. That's where the Witch Season teen horror series came from.
What inspired the expansion to adult horror?
A big part of my pleasure reading was adult horror and suspense, and a lot of my comic book work has been as well. I always wanted to toil in those fields, and with the southwestern horror novels, the goal has really been to write supernatural thrillers—books that contained elements of supernatural horror but in the context we normally associate with suspense thrillers—hence Missing White Girl is a rural police procedural, River Runs Red is a contemporary spy novel, and the heroine of Cold Black Hearts is an urban cop transplanted to an unfamiliar landscape, but all three books revolve around horrific situations as well.
What authors—YA or Adult—did you learn the most from in reading their work?
There's a long list, and of course I'm still learning every time I read—one of the dangers of asking a bookseller that question is that the answer can take a while. I'll try to keep it brief, but any list of people I've tried to learn from would include Stephen King, William Goldman, Graham Greene, Wallace Stegner, Robert Cormier, Barbara Kingsolver, Ross Mcdonald...we could really be here all day.
What's your favorite word and why?
Wow. No, wait, that's not it—neither are any of those. This is a hard question because any word I put down can be misconstrued as my favorite. Let's say "mellifluous," because it's a word that implies a certain smooth, easy grace, and that's a good way to live or write.
That, or "royalties," I can't really decide.
Cold Black Hearts is the third of your adult novels to be set in the American Southwest (following Missing White Girl and River Runs Red) Which came first—the move to the Southwest or the desire to use the Southwest as the setting for your adult horror?
I've been using the Southwest in different contexts and projects for a long time—in comics like my western/horror series Desperadoes, in a small press horror novel called The Slab, even in my first published short story, a science fiction tale that took place in San Diego (where I lived then) and southern Arizona (where I live now). Although you can't really get further southwest in the U.S. than San Diego, I don't feel like that is really the Southwest as we think of it—you have to go east from the coast to find the real west.
Now I live on a little ranch that's about midway between Tombstone and the spot where Geronimo surrendered, ending the longest single war in American history. Moving into the country after living in a series of cities made me look at everything in new and different ways, and it was that examination that really led to Missing White Girl, which in spite of its terrifying aspects is really a love letter to my new home turf. Our area is a border region, and that led to other aspects of Missing White Girl's story—and then to the other two books, which are set on other parts of the US/Mexico border (River Runs Red in West Texas, Cold Black Hearts bridging the other two with its New Mexico setting).
Speaking of Cold Black Hearts...
As I said above, geographically Cold Black Hearts is the link between the two previous novels. It links them in other, subtle ways too, demonstrating that all three books take place in the same universe. That said, it's not at all necessary to have read any of the books to enjoy the others, as there are no continuing characters or situations. Cold Black Hearts is about Annie O'Brien, a Phoenix police detective who is deafened by a bomb—but the explosion leaves her with highly enhanced empathic powers that ultimately make it impossible for her to stay in America's fifth largest city, where the sheer volume of emotion around her is oppressive. She's offered the chance to escape to one of the country's least populated areas, New Mexico's boot heel, and all she has to do to get the job is to investigate the conviction of a killer who may or may not have done the crime. Her investigation takes her to New Dominion, a town that ceased to exist when almost everyone who lived there was murdered...and things just get worse from there.
Anything you want to add?
Anyone who feels compelled to send the starving writer chocolate chip cookies should feel free to get in touch...
