Authors

Interview by Will Tupper

POP QUIZ:

Writer Shawna Kenney is which of the following?

A.    The Johnny Depp of Journalism
B.    The Lois Lane of whips and chains
C.    The living embodiment of your “average” Chuck Palahniuk protagonist
D.    Author of the award-winning, tell (almost) all memoir,   I Was A Teenage Dominatrix, as well as the just-released look at popular celebrity character hustlers, Imposters

The answer obviously is:

E.    All of the above

East-coast punk with a pen turned west-coast punk with a tan (and then back again), Shawna’s story is the embodiment of Joseph Campbell’s prime directive. “Follow your bliss,” he said. And she most certainly has.

Interview by Joshua Jabcuga

"Learning to Trust the Tale and Question the Artist": An interview with Jack Ketchum by Joshua Jabcuga

Stephen King was once asked, "Who's the scariest guy in America?"
His response? "Probably Jack Ketchum." King added "no writer who has read him can help being influenced by him, and no general reader who runs across his work can easily forget him."

Interview by Garrett Faber

Snarl, Grunt, Welshy Ya Cunt

Irvine Welsh is the incendiary writing machine hailing from Dublin, Ireland. He's writen several amazingly miraculous books including Ecstasy, Glue, Porno, Filth, The Acid House, Bedroom Secrets Of Master Chefs, Marabou Stork Nightmares and his most well known work Trainspotting, which was subsequently made into a movie starring Ewan McGreggor.

Interview by Will Tupper

Ariel Gore is an adventurer, the Indiana Jones of literature. Full-time author and part-time teacher, she’s a novelist, a memoirist, a journalist, a zinester, as well as the writer of the brand new How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights.

And how does one do it? Ariel asked Marc Acito, novelist and Palahniuk protégé, who got his big break because Chuck had read his newspaper column.

She asked poet and memoirist Michele Tea the secrets to spilling your guts on both page and stage, and got them.

Reclusive Dave Eggers offers fresh insights on both writing and publishing. DIY demigod Jim Munroe of www.nomediakings.org tells how (and why) you should take your word show on the road, and Pulitzer-prize winner Dave Barry talks with honesty about how hard it is to be funny.

Interview by Joshua Chaplinsky

I know many of you are already familiar with author Steve Erickson. In fact, it was on the forums here and at Cult sister-site, The Velvet, that I was first introduced to his work. I read The Sea Came in at Midnight and screamed for more like a hungry child. Erickson fills the void, writing the type of mind-bending, genre-less fiction that simultaneously challenges and excites. Less than a year and 10 books later, his is one of the first names mentioned when I'm asked about my favorite authors.

Interview by Rob Hart

Craig Clevenger and Will Christopher Baer have long since graced this section, adding to a valuable tool for writers - ramblings from the wordsmiths themselves, about what they do and why they do it.

Now, the third and final arm of The Velvet has gotten his chance to weigh in - Stephen Graham Jones.

The Texas resident is author of All The Beautiful Sinners, Bleed Into Me, The Bird is Gone, The Fast Red Road and the upcoming Demon Theory, as well as a slew of short stories.

His work, steeped in his own Native American heritage, is tense, funny and at times, viciously heartfelt. And, as luck would have it, he loves to talk writing.

Stephen was gracious enough to sit down with me (on AOL Instant Messenger) for a rock-star session that lasted over two hours.

This is the result.

Interview by Will Christopher Baer

The writers and artists of comic books may live in the dead zone between novels and film, borrowing narrative technique from the one and the visual vocabulary from the other-but it's the dead zone as defined by King, who gave Johnny Smith the power to see the past and future, and to step into alternate realities. The pages and panels of a comic book allow for infinite variations of composition and dramatic sequence, giving comic writers and artists the power to routinely rewrite storytelling physics, to not only stop time, but to treat time as a liquid and spin ripples in it. To make our eyes track from right to left and left to right at once, to read along verticals and diagonals-such dreamweaving stunts that filmmakers and novelists rarely attempt; and more rarely pull off.

Part II: "The Return"

Interview by Dennis Widmyer

Return? For many of you Craig Clevenger hasn't gone anywhere. He's been right here on the web, posting topics, answering questions and even revealing some new work. For others waiting for this new book has been like standing in line on opening day for a long-awaited summer release. Craig's debut novel The Contortionist Handbook was, in Chuck Palahniuk's words, one of the best books he had read in maybe ten years. Now, really let that sink in for a second. In my opinion, Chuck isn't far off.

Interview by Dennis Widmyer

Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Pscyho, The Informers and Glamorama... do these titles sound familiar? Of course they do. You're on Chuck Palahniuk website, so you know who the hell Bret Easton Ellis is. His novel American Psycho made the term "transgression" a literary household item a full five years before Fight Club was even published. Now he returns, after six years, with his latest novel Lunar Park, a pseudo memoir about fatherhood, a failed marriage and the attempted redemption that comes after a career of drugs, booze, women and men.

In Lunar Park, Ellis tackles these topics... and somehow, also includes everything from creepy stuffed animals, a haunted house, and an obsessed fan who poses as Patrick Bateman and recreates the murders from American Psycho.

Interview by Dennis Widmyer

Joey Goebel is a moron, and I mean that in the best way. He's one of the goofiest, most care-free dudes I've had the pleasure of interviewing in a long time. But I shouldn't say mean things about the guy. Hell, he's 23 and has already written two novels and fronted a band that's toured the country and released two EPs and a full length album. You don't see me writing any novels, do you? And the only successful band I ever fronted played one show at the Portuguese Heritage Society.

So what is it about Goebel's two forays into fiction that got be so addicted? Is it the fact that he lacks any and all pretensions? Maybe, but it's the world of his novels that attracts me so much. Tales of dissident outcasts in society, plagued to be living in a time when the airwaves are teeming with boy bands and insecure hip hop performers. And when the only choices in your local cineplex are a remake, a sequel, or a remake of a sequel.