Interview with Ivan Ewert

by Jennifer 9. August 2017 09:18

Interview with Ivan Ewert, author of Famished: The Gentlemen Ghouls Omnibus. Pre-order here.

Ivan Ewert was born in Chicago, Illinois, and has never wandered far afield. He has deep roots in the American Midwest, finding a sense of both belonging and terror within the endless surburban labyrinths, deep north woods, tangled city streets and boundless prairie skies. The land and the cycles of the year both speak to him and inform his writing; which revolves around the strange, the beautiful, the delicious and the unseen.

How did it feel to finish up the series finally?
To be honest, it was an unbelievable relief. Finishing every book gave me a little shot of joy, but the series as a whole was like removing a ton of bricks from my shoulders. As you mention below, some of the story elements weren’t very pleasant to dwell on – and I carried them around in my head for over ten years. My procrastination and masochism seemed to enjoy joining forces for this process.

Of course, relief’s not the only feeling, and the project was worth its weight to me. I was very proud of finishing three novels and several short stories. While there are more writers today than ever before in our history, many of whom are far more prolific than I, it still felt like a great accomplishment. My father had encouraged me to get something printed on the way to his deathbed, so there’s a great deal of emotion tied up with that as well.

The one thing I’ll certainly miss is an excuse to work directly with Apocalypse Ink Productions. Nothing I’ve done would have seen the light of day without their encouragement, professionalism, and understanding.

 

Where did Gordon and the Ghouls come from? (Inspiration)
Gordon’s got a lot of me in him. Probably more than was wise, but I started this series when I was young and (more) foolish. I wanted my protagonist to suffer from self-doubt, especially after he unknowingly takes part in such a terrible act, rather than the kind of cocky swagger so many of my protagonists have manifested. Making him Catholic let me reflect that great snowballing guilt – from one sin to another, and with little means of confessing to anyone who would listen after all he has done.

The origin of the Ghouls themselves is in the little towns that dot the Illinois prairie. Towns like Mahomet, Lick Creek, Kinmundy... all these tiny places that seem wrapped up in something older and more terrible than a rail stop, a bar and a lone crossroads. I pass through them driving south to Georgia, or west to the Quad Cities, and I can’t help but cast them with terrible secrets.

On top of that, there’s my sense that America has been devouring itself for centuries. The constant, rapacious hunger of the American character turns itself inward and perverts its original drive. Making the Ghouls some of the first inhabitants let me play with that idea.

 

How did you choose your settings?
Google Maps. I mean, I started in Madison, Wisconsin because I’m very familiar with it and its surroundings; but after than I had to locate places that were far enough off the grid that a group like the Ghouls could actually function without too many questions being asked by neighbors.

You would not believe the trouble I went to in The Commons to find Carol’s house. I’ve still got it pinned to my personal maps, with notes on where the cul-de-sacs end, which forests are where, the location of fast food establishments. It’s a really remarkable tool, though it’s no substitute for actually being there.

In terms of broad geographical settings, I only intended to tell the story of The Farm at first, in the region I’ve lived all my life, the one I know best. When I was asked to expand New England, the South and the West were the most obvious divisions across America, the different tribes at war. Moreso now than before, but regardless.

 

What's your writing process?
It’s what you’d call scattershot. I don’t (yet) have a standard time of day to sit down to write or revise – so I write when I have some time to myself, and plenty of time in the day. Solitude is important, I’m not a coffeehouse writer, partly because I know too many people in town. Every time I’ve tried it, I run into a friend, and writing time turns into catching up. Which is lovely, in its way, but not conducive to finished product. By the same token, when my family’s in the house, I feel like I should be present for them rather than sequestering myself in a writing den. So it’s mostly early mornings or evenings after dinner when everyone has a movie to watch.

I typically turn on music and attack the next chapter in order of appearance. I can’t write jumping from chapter to chapter or scene to scene, things get too chaotic and the connecting scenes take much more work to re-write if I don’t get them down organically. Sometimes something in the future will come to me, and in that case I try to write it down and stick it in a different file, then paste it in for edits later. For the most part, though, it’s always 1-2-3-4-etc.

I’ve become a planner rather than a pantser. I want to know what needs to happen in every chapter before I sit down to write them, to construct at least a skeleton. In short fiction that’s less true – I’m happy to be surprised in those cases – but for long form novels I need to know.

 

How did you handle revisions?
I print out the entire work and read it through, line by line, usually tracing it with a red pen. I’ll mark the document up that way, then fix the work in the computer. That’s mostly just for typos and minor edits.

After that I print up a second copy which I read, aloud, on my own. That lets me catch any awkward dialogue, runs of my beloved alliteration or too much poetry in the prose for this work’s taste. While I’m doing that I will mark up areas that need to be stronger, sharper, or entirely rewritten. Then it’s back to the computer to do that work.

After that it goes to beta readers. I immediately fix any additional typos or grammatical issues, and file away any comments on things they don’t understand or disagree with. Once everyone’s comments are in, I look for common threads and attack those first, then go through individual commentary to see if I understand or agree with their issues.

After all of that is set, it’s off to Apocalypse Ink’s editor for the final go-round. I’ve been fortunate in that most revisions at that stage have been relatively minor, and relatively agreeable to me.

 

You didn't flinch at some of the story elements, how did that make you feel?
The technical term is “squicky.” The final scenes of the trilogy were very, very difficult to write and keep my head on straight – not to mention keeping my appetite. Gordon’s experience in the Pen, his solitary anguish in the north woods, the perimeter around Carol’s house, probably more. All of these were difficult to push through, and required me to recognize the darkness I carry around. I work hard to repress that darkness in my everyday life, so in some ways, fiction is a nice release valve. On the other hand, I’ve kept myself up nights after writing some scenes.

It’s a curious thing, writing horror, when you identify more with the innocent victims than the “interesting” killers. I’ve always felt more pity for those in trouble than excitement around their plight. I never had the fascination some do with serial killers or mass murder. I’ve never watched Dexter, Hannibal... I’ve never even watched Silence of the Lambs, which seems strange when I say it aloud, but it’s the truth. I’m not a fan of watching horror. I enjoy reading it, but seeing it visually creates more of an issue for me; and when I write I have to see the images in my mind. So it causes a certain amount of queasiness.

 

Do you think there are more Gordon stories out there?
I know there’s at least one: The Chainfields lay in the Southeast, the final bastion of the Gentleman Ghouls.

However, I’ve grown a great deal since initially coming up with that concept and that name, and I’m now keenly aware that I am not the person to tell that story. Even if I were, it’s a story that hardly needs to be retold and recast, particularly at this stage of history.

While my wife and her family are from the region, I’ve got no ties to it aside from them. My family has always been north of the Mason-Dixon line, and as such we only have the ties to slavery that all Americans everywhere must carry. It’s not something I can expunge with a horror novel, and I’m not about to try anytime soon.

 

What's next?
I’m working on a young adult urban fantasy which should be lighter in tone than Famished: The Gentleman Ghouls. One of the neighborhood kids has been asking why he can’t read my stuff, so I promised him something he’d be able to read. It would be nice to have something my wife and mother could read as well!

Aside from that, I’m also working on monologues to be delivered live. I’ve performed in a number of one-man shows and truly enjoyed them, and would really love to be able to present my own work onstage one day. So I’m studying people like Spaulding Grey and Mike Daisey, working to see how they transformed their own experiences into spoken word. Of course, they’ve had more interesting lives. No matter. Just means I have to work at spicing things up a bit.

 

 

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Urban Fantasy Roundtable for Under an Enchanted Skyline

by Jennifer 27. December 2014 10:08

The authors of Under an Enchanted Skyline box set ($0.99, available only until Dec 31st), participated in an urban fantasy roundtable. AIP authors Jennifer Brozek and Peter M. Ball have the first books of their respective series in this box set of urban fantasy. It's a great time to see if they, or any of the other authors, suit your fancy.

Most Urban Fantasy stories focus on magical creatures and entities. Even so, ordinary people still play important roles within the story line. Do these “normals” have much of an impact in your story…and if so, in what ways?


Erik Scott de Bie: As a superhero adventure, Eye for an Eye is a bit of a black sheep: it features exactly one character with magical abilities—Lady Vengeance. In addition to her high-tech hero opposite, Stardust, the story features a series of mundane characters, including The Raven, who is the tech-based vigilante you’d get if you combined Iron Man and Batman, and Elizabeth Stevens, Stardust’s non-superhero wife, tech company tycoon, and the smartest person in the whole novella.

Phoebe Matthews: Always. It is the normals who have to solve the problems created by magic and by paranormals. Sorry, no superheroes here.

Django Wexler: Yes, definitely. Again, a common UF trope is that the protagonist is in some way special, somewhere between the monsters and the normals so he or she can serve as a guide to the fantastic for the readers. In the John Golden stories, this is literally true, since John’s only real power is to transport himself to the fairy burrows and back again. But since fairy burrows run on real-world computer systems, he has to deal with the “normals" who build and maintain them – system administrators, executives, users, and so on. He’s more or less an exterminator, since fairies are a nuisance!

Janine A. Southard: As the collection’s compiler, I don’t have a story in this boxed set. I have, however, had the chance to read them all. Each author in this bundle blends fantasy characters into the normal world, or vice versa. There couldn’t be a super-natural adventure without a familiar jumping off point. In some cases the protagonists are as magical as magical can be, making their way in our normal world. In others, simply touching the magical world transforms a normal person’s experience.

Cedar Blake: Well, Luke and Chalice provide the impetus for Rachel’s “transition,” and Rachel’s rotten manager Margie supplies the push that gets her going. Her pal Ashli (inspired by a real-life friend of mine back when I lived in the Bay Area) adds an essential (in)sanity check for Rachel, and Kim the Yoga Girl acts as sort of a benevolent archon figure, watching over the point of transition and providing a small yet significant test as the hero steps from one threshold to another. So yeah – Rachel’s story could not exist without these key figures. “Normal” or otherwise, they provide foundations and activities that make everything else possible.

Jennifer Brozek: Absolutely. The mundane people in a story become the “everyman” characters that the Reader can identify with. They are the normal people who have to face extraordinary circumstances. Many characters in my UF series are normal people just trying to get by as they are affected by the supernatural events going on around them. Many times, they show that the normal person can be just as effective as the supernatural creature.

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Other questions and their roundtable answers are with: Phil, Erik, Phoebe, Doug, and Janine. This was a great roundtable. And I hope you all enjoyed it.

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Intereview with Dylan Birtolo

by Jennifer 19. May 2014 08:58

Interview with Dylan Birtolo, author of The Shadow Chaser.

What drew you to Speculative Fiction?

In all honesty, I have to blame this on my parents. I grew up in a home where science fiction and fantasy were everywhere. Heck, the first stories that I remember my parents reading to me as a child were the Chronicles of Narnia. It fed my imagination when I was young and I’ve always had an overactive imagination. That just helped give it shape and a playground to run amok in. There is something fascinating about those two words “what if” that just entertains me.


Was there a reason you started writing?

I think that I started writing when I realized that it gave me even more freedom than reading a book. Sure, reading a book was a great way to escape, but a lot of times I would want things to end a different way or would want some different element pulled into the fantasy world. It just clicked that if I wrote the stories, I could do anything I wanted. And then there was the idea that I could share it with other people, and create a world for their imaginations to run wild in. It was just too much to pass up.


Where do you get your ideas?

All over. My mind wanders a lot when I am not actively engaged in something and sometimes I will be walking down the street when I will see something that will trigger an idea. Like if someone is jogging with their dog I suddenly might start thinking about what if the dog was the one in charge taking the human for a walk, or something like that? I also tend to get a lot of ideas from my martial arts. I like to write combat, and most of my stories have a lot of combat in it. One of the exercises that we do is shadow sparring, where you imagine fighting multiple opponents. It is inevitable that I will be doing this and then start adding in other fantastical details, like telekinesis or energy shields and the like. I can’t help it – I just pull in these ideas. Those usually blossom into a world or into a character, and then that becomes something I want to right about. So what will start as a random thought will grow into a universe where I might want to tell a story.

Now if I have to write for a specific anthology with a specific theme, I usually mull the theme over in my head for a few days, trying to think of a twist to it that I can add. I want to put in something unique. It doesn’t necessarily have to be “the big twist” at the end of the story. For example, I was invited to submit to an anthology about time travelers. I wanted to do something different, so I thought “what if there was a time traveler, but he could only go back in time for fractions of a second? What would he do with this? What COULD he do?” And the story evolved from there.
 

What's your current writing process? Outliner/Pantser, when, do you play music? pen/paper or keyboard/ink? any rituals? Etc

I definitely have my rituals. I have one notebook which I use for every story I am about to start writing. When I am in the planning stages, that is the extent of my ritual. I don’t so much like music, but it doesn’t bother me either. The thing is, I never know when the idea will hit me. As I said, my mind wanders a lot. So I have the notebook and a pen with me at all times. That way when the idea does hit, I can write some notes and sketch out the storyline. I will do this until I have a pretty good idea of the story scene-by-scene.

After that, it becomes a bit more ritualistic. I always write on the computer and always in the same font and format. The interesting part is that this is not the font or format I want to submit a story in. But, it is what I am used to and what I like, so I keep it even though it means more work on the back end. I play (either on headphones of my speakers) one of two playlists. Each one runs for about 4 to 5 hours. I usually alternate between the two and will skip to certain sections in the playlist if I need a specific type of music to fit the scene. And once the writing starts, it HAS to be on the computer. I simply cannot write fast enough with pen and paper to keep up with my brain. Heck, sometimes I have trouble typing fast enough.


How did you get started with AIP? 

I got started with AIP because I met Jennifer Brozek several years ago. She was actually the first person to buy a piece of short fiction from me and publish it. That was for the Edge of Propinquity, before AIP existed. When I decided that I wanted to run a Kickstarter project for my novels, I needed to get a publisher to buy into the project and back it provided enough funds were raised. Naturally, I approached Jennifer to see if AIP would be interested. She is an amazing editor and has excellent business savvy, so I knew it would be a good choice for me if they would be up for it. Thankfully, they said they were and that’s what started our working together.
 

Talk some about the Sheynan series.

The Sheynan series is a collection of books set in the modern day, but with a twist. As you’ve learned by now, I like twists. There are a bunch of people who exist that can change into an animal form. But they keep their existence hidden from the rest of humanity. It was important for me to make the stories seem realistic. I tried to create it in such a way that it might seem like these people do really exist and it isn’t pure fantasy, because I think it is more fun that way. So I spent a lot of time thinking about things like how they would hide their identity, what steps would they take to keep it a secret, what resources would they need at their disposal to keep from being discovered, and so on. I wanted to make it believable enough that someone might just wonder “what if…”

As for the individual books, they follow a young man who has the very rare ability to shift into any animal. Needless to say, this makes him a very valuable ally or asset depending on who you talk to. I don’t want to spoil too much, but basically he is a normal guy living a somewhat normal life who gets put into this crazy world and realizes that nothing is going to be the same again. This trilogy is about him, and the evolution he goes through. At the end of each novel, he is substantially different than he was at the beginning.
 

You mentioned before that you practice and teach martial arts (and joust- so cool!) Did that make the action scenes easier for you to write?

Most definitely. I have always been good at writing action scenes. Most of my early stories were almost exclusively action and fighting because I knew it was my strength. I think a lot of that comes from my experience. I know techniques and I know weaponry and can pull that in to make the fights a little more believable. You would be surprised at how much a little bit of believability makes any scene that much stronger.


What are you working on now?

Currently, I just finished up the rewrite for The Bringer of War, the second novel in the trilogy. While I am waiting for the editor to get back to me on that draft, I am working on a couple of short stories for anthologies I was invited to submit to. I am also plotting out the third book in the series since that one will be brand new and is not just a rewrite. I have the general outline completed but need to compose my scene by scene layout. And at the same time – because you can never have too many irons in the fire – I have a classical sword and sorcery novel on hold. The Sheynan trilogy comes first, but I am antsy to get back to this other new novel I have partly completed.


Best and worst advice you've received or heard about writing.

The best advice I ever received was on how to know you’re a writer. You’re a writer and you should be if you have these story ideas clawing through your head and you feel like you need to get them out. If you don’t have that level of passion, and that need to tell a story, you should seriously consider if professional writing is for you. Because it will take that level of drive.

The worst advice I ever heard was that you need to write and publish four books a year to make a living off of writing. Whether or not that is true, I think it is horrible advice because it takes what should be, in my opinion, a very creative and enjoyable process, and breaks it down into a “realistic day job”. Now, I realize that sometimes people need a reality check, especially about how hard it is to make a living as a writer. And I fully admit that I don’t know how close to true that statement is because I’ve never been just a fiction writer for a living. But, even just hearing it put a bad taste in my mouth.


Any last words?

Enjoy what you do. There’s this other piece of advice that isn’t specifically related to writing that I absolutely love. Two people are having a conversation and one asks “What’s the purpose of life?” and the other responds “To live.” Yes, that can be viewed as a smart ass comment, or can seem very shallow. But, I think there is a much deeper truth to that. Living is going to be different things for different people. For me, a large part of it is telling stories, and hearing or reading other people’s stories. That’s why I do it, and I think it is something important to keep in mind. To pull it back to writing – the minute you start writing for someone else, or start writing for a specific goal or “market” other than something you enjoy creating, nine times out of ten that’s the moment you are going to lose the reader.

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Interview with Ivan Ewert

by Jennifer 8. April 2014 09:36

Ivan Ewert is the author of Famished: The Farm. Its sequel, Famished: The Commons, is going through the editorial process right now.

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What drew you to Speculative Fiction?

Ha, I just did a blog post about this! My father was a huge speculative fiction fan. His library was the thing I coveted most in my young life. When I started reading, I was actually more interested in legends like King Arthur, Robin Hood, and such – things that Disney probably turned me onto initially – but the trappings of fantasy were there.

Therefore, as I was reading, dad would suggest things I might enjoy. In third grade, I think, there was a confluence – my mother was teaching (voluntary) art classes to grade school kids, and she brought in the Brothers Hildebrandt, where I learned about The Hobbit. That was it. Done. Fantasy all the way.

Lovecraft was my introduction into horror, straight out of dad's library. He also had a lot of originals from Van Vogt, Asimov, and such, but he preferred hard science fiction, which I just don't find interesting. When I found social science fiction, I got more into it.


Was there a reason you started writing?


I drove my mother nuts with "Let's pretend" as soon as I was old enough to communicate. She humored me, though there was the occasional "Let's pretend you're Ivan, a human boy, and I'm his mother, okay?" I loved make-believe so much more than reality. (Let us leave that in past tense for the moment …)

So again, in grade school, I sat down and wrote a play at some point for my friends at school. I remember a cuckoo clock, living toys, and a lost girl. Not much else. Everyone loved it, though, and I was hooked on both the creative aspect and the attention it garnered.

Role-playing games distracted me for a long time, and didn't write much in high school – I was making stories but not having to work at writing them down. After college, I took it more seriously.


Where do you get your ideas?

Do you know I think you're the first one to ask? Ideas have always come to me most easily when moving through the darkness – driving before dawn, flying through the night. Moving silently, alert for danger, other travelers, and story fragments.


What's your current writing process? Outliner/Pantser, when, do you play music? pen/paper or keyboard/ink? any rituals? Etc.

AIP turned me into an outliner. Once I have the outline done, I carve time in my daily calendar, aiming for a minimum of one hour (usually my lunch hour at work).

When that time hits, I turn off my email notifications, my telephone, and any instant message programs. I work in Microsoft Word, though I just bought a new laptop and plan to give Scrivener a whirl. I don't like writing by hand as much. That distracts me.

Music is key. KEY. For horror and science fiction work, I'll usually go to bandcamp.com and search tags for ambient, downtempo electronica, or doomjazz. Fantasy is either Azam Ali Radio on Pandora.com or Darkfolk Radio on Last.fm.

Then, I just write until the time I allotted is up.

I don't have any real rituals. I do give a short "thank you" every morning to whatever's given me all the good in my life, which includes an imagination and the ability to convey it.


How did you get started with AIP?

I met Jennifer Brozek online through Livejournal; I think it was a friend-of-a-friend thing. I had a lot more spare time at that stage in my life, and I posted little snippets of tales and writing exercises online. We became friends online, then met up at a convention and – to my mind, anyway – became friends in real life.

When she founded The Edge of Propinquity, she asked me to contribute; and I can't tell you how happy that made me. I really enjoyed the work, and the discipline it required. Not that I was perfect. At all. I did enjoy it, though; and I'm beyond flattered that AIP continues to believe in me and work with me. They are wonderful, wonderful people whom I love very much.
 

Talk some about the Gentleman Ghouls series.

The Lovecraft short story, "The Picture in the House," which scared me sleepless, inspired the main subject matter. I wanted to examine the way that closed, insular societies work. Cults and secret societies have always fascinated me, as has the American experience as a whole, which I hope will come across more clearly as we release the books.

I wrote the first book, FAMISHED: THE FARM, over the space of four years. FAMISHED: THE COMMONS took a little over one year. I've written quite a bit about the process of editing those.


What are you working on now?

I have a dear friend named William Dolan who paints tremendous Chicago street scenes (check him out at http://www.dolanart.com/). His motto is, "I never talk about my work. Talking about it makes me feel like I've done something about it, and as such, the work never really gets done."

I saw a lot of truth in that. Talking about the work dilutes it for me and makes it easy to pretend it's moving along faster than it is. I'm still focused on the Gentleman Ghouls series as well as some poetry and short stories, one of which I'm very excited about.


Best and worst advice you've received or heard about writing.

The worst advice is "write what you know." I hate that phrase with a passion; it lines shelves with copyists and endless memoirs of suburban alienation. I've said it before; write what you're excited to know more about.

The best advice … Steven Raichlen, one of my cooking idols, says, "Set concrete goals with realistic timetables." Creative work is still work, and if you just dream up this great big book you want to write "someday," well. Someday never comes.


Any last words?

Not last, I hope.

But I believe in you. I believe in everyone reading these words … you can do anything you want to. It might not be easy, it might not be fun; but it's possible. When you think nobody has any faith, think again. I want you all to succeed and live a life that you find worth living.

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Read more about Ivan at his website.

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Interviewed by the Shadow Minion

by Jennifer 26. January 2014 11:18

AIP is currently open to query submissions for 3 linked novellas. We are looking for well-written, modern day, dark speculative fiction. The kind of story that could be happening around you as you walk out the door.

As creative director, what are you looking for?
I want to be transported. I want to read the story in a coffee shop, look up, and imagine it happening in around wherever I am. I want supernatural elements that intrigue me and horror elements that affect me. The worst thing is to have a story that I care nothing about.

Why go with 3 linked novellas?
Think of it like a serial novel. We want to get the novellas out 3 times a year in e-format only and the release a compilation of the stories in limited edition hard back, trade, and e-format. This way, content is coming out quicker throughout the year.

Can or should the link be obvious or subtle?
The link needs to be obvious enough that the three novellas together tell a whole story.

Why not Zombies?
I don’t like zombies. That’s not subtle. They’ve been done to death. They bore me.

Why have other queries been rejected?
For a number of reasons. For not fitting the dark speculative theme (urban fantasy / horror). For not being an interesting story. For having really bad world building rules.

Common flaws you've seen in submissions?
Weirdly, I’m getting a lot of people who don’t have a story idea. Instead, they want me to tell them what story I want written and to hand-hold them through the synopsis and outline. I have to admit, this was not something I expected. Other than that, just not suiting AIP’s chosen niche.

What would your dream submission be like?
A synopsis of 3 linked novella length stories with diverse characters (LGBT, POC characters encouraged), a fascinating take on the real world, with an interesting plotline. The synopsis is erudite and concise. The author is responsive and willing to take editorial direction. I want an emotional story with action.

 

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The Next Big Thing

by Jennifer 3. January 2013 10:18

Both Ivan Ewert and Jennifer Brozek have talked about their "Next Big Thing" in blog posts. As it happens, both of these are AIP projects.

Jennifer talks about The Children of Anu in her post.

Ivan talks about Famished: The Commons in his post.

Bonus! Ivan talks about a local eatery naming a sandwich after his book series that sounds very tasty.

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Talking FAMISHED with Ivan Ewert

by Jennifer 8. August 2012 09:46

1. Why did you choose to write about something as disturbing as ritualized cannibalism?
Ivan: When the opportunity to write a horror story came along, I knew I had to be both frightened and fascinated by the subject matter. None of the usual paranormal situations fit the bill - I like supernatural tales but they don't usually scare me any longer. So I asked myself, "what's the most frightening thing you ever read?" It was a Lovecraft story titled "The Picture in the House," about a South Sea captain who had encountered - and been changed - by exposure to cannibalism. It probably didn't help that I read it around age 12, but I still remembered it vividly.

As to the fascination, it's something so difficult to imagine. Even in times of desperation, the way this would change a normal person is almost unthinkable. That's why I made Gordon so normal - he's nobody's hero at the start of the book, and probably would have lived a quiet, normal life if he hadn't been brought into this circle. Watching him break down in my mind, then watching him rebuild, was a great process.

2. How much research did you do for FAMISHED: THE FARM?
Ivan: The land, weather and physical features of the novel were already familiar. I spent some time on a working farm in Allegan, Michigan while writing the first draft, which helped to get the sense of rural isolation down.

Most of my research for the Farm itself revolved around isolated compounds like Warren Jeffs' and the Minutemen, with information gathered from news reports, interviews with former members, and various hate watch organizations. Not fun research, but important.

The supernatural elements were made up of memories from things I'd read before, then re-read and altered to fit my view of the FAMISHED universe.

3. Is there a sequel forthcoming?
Ivan: With three more known bases for the Gentlemen Ghouls, I've definitely got two more books in mind. Gordon will change quite a bit over the next year, and so will the fabric of the cannibal cult.

4. What was the most disturbing part of FAMISHED to write?
Ivan: Martin's betrayal in the pigpen, during the siege. It came ripping out in a short night's work and I wanted to keep that raw, immediate, emotional feel of betrayal and pain as I went through edit after edit. The hurt, the blood, the weakness and the helplessness were all things I felt strongly while setting it down. It was definitely the most difficult and emotional section to write.

5. What was the best part of FAMISHED to write?
Ivan: The climactic scene at the Farm. There were so many moving pieces to keep track of, so many conflicting agendas and ways in which to cross one another. I had this great map all laid out across my desk for weeks and would just tear it off, re-create it, and figure where everyone belonged to get the most out of the scene. It was work that rarely felt like work.

6. Where can we find all things about Ivan Ewert?
Ivan: You can follow me at ivanewert.com. In addition to news on all upcoming creative endeavors, I can promise that all recipes posted there are perfectly safe for human consumption.


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Apocalypse Ink Productions

A small press publication house specializing in dark speculative fiction.

Latest Releases

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Five Minute Stories Podcast
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A is for Apex
ABC book
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The Prince of Artemis V
comic book
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Karen Wilson Chronicles
Omnibus

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Industry Talk

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