Questions and Answers
What are you currently working on?
The Sinister Mr. Corpse...the feel-good zombie novel of the year! Though my earlier work has bounced around between genres, such as fantasy (How to Rescue a Dead Princess) and young adult (Elrod McBugle on the Loose), these days I'm focusing on humorous horror, and The Sinister Mr. Corpse fits right into that.
Plug away - what do you have coming out?
Three new books in 2004. Which is nice because 2003 felt like The Year Of Milking The Old Stuff To Death, since I didn't have any brand-new books released but three of my old ones came out in new editions. We're up to the fourth edition of Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) by now, and I think my family is getting a little tired of buying the same book!
There's going to be a new Andrew Mayhem novel: Casket For Sale (Only Used Once). Those weirdos who liked Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and Single White Psychopath Seeks Same will be pleased to know that the third book in the series is, like the others, quite sick. Expect the hardcover of this one from Mundania Press in April.
In August 2004 Mundania Press is going to publish Carnage-a-Plenty! At the present time I'm not at liberty to confirm or deny rumors that the book features plenty of carnage. I will say that it's probably, ahem, not my most subtle piece of work.
And sometime in 2004 Hard Shell Word Factory is going to publish Out of Whack. To be completely honest, it's another reprint of a book that was previously published...but it's new to 99.999999999993% of the reading public, so I'm calling it a brand-new release. This one's a pure comedy that I wrote this one right after How to Rescue a Dead Princess, and it's seriously goofy.
Are you a member of any writing groups?
I'm a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Florida Writers Association, and of course the Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC), where I spent one year as Secretary and two years as President. EPIC should recover from this travesty sometime around 2008.
Is there a book or story you wish you had written?
Pretty much anything I read that's good, I wish I had written. The same is true for mediocre stuff that sells well.
Is writing your full-time occupation? If not, what is?
Sadly, no, I still have one of those annoying "day job" things. I work for a major insurance company as a remittance processing analyst. I know that sounds like a dream job, an endlessly thrilling occupation to be envied by all, but in reality the morning champagne is lukewarm, the naptime pillows are rarely sufficiently fluffed, and the groupies are average-looking at best.
As a reader, do you prefer science fiction, fantasy, or horror?
I read virtually no science fiction or fantasy. I'm a horror guy all the way.
What was your first professional sale? How did it feel when you received the acceptance?
It was an incredibly silly story called 'The Private Diary of Leonard Parr,' which appeared in Twisted Magazine #1, edited by Keith Burgin. I was amazed, because it was the first time I'd ever submitted a manuscript by e-mail. After years of sending out manuscripts and waiting weeks or months to hear back, this time I sent out the story, went to bed, and woke up the next morning with an acceptance in my e-mail! It was too cool for words, unless one of those words was "Yeeee-ha!"
Who is your favorite author?
Dave Barry. I'm also a huge fan of Robert R. McCammon, F. Paul Wilson, David Prill, Christopher Moore, Richard Laymon, and David Martin.
If you could give one piece of advice to a would-be author, what would it be?
"Write, dammit!" I see a lot of aspiring authors who join all of the proper organizations, post on all of the message boards, attend all of the conferences, learn about all of the markets...but don't produce much in the way of actual writing. An hour spent in an online chat can be valuable, but probably not as valuable as working on your book.
Are you for or against e-books?
I'm definitely for them. I love the fact that How to Rescue a Dead Princess was e-published more than three years ago, and anybody with an Internet connection can still easily get a copy (and have it almost immediately).
Of course, I also love having print editions of my books. Print books have some definite advantages over electronic ones, and electronic books have some definite advantages over print ones. I don't care which version somebody buys, I just want the reader to have the best experience possible. For some people, it's sitting curled up on the couch with a nice paperback. For others, it's having 30+ titles conveniently loaded onto their PDA. Whatever works best for that particular reader is fine with me.
Are you a music fan? If so, what?
Yep, I'm a big music fan, but I rarely listen to it while I'm writing. Too distracting, even if it's a CD I've listened to 28,301 times before. I tend to go for the more quirky stuff, and my favorites are They Might Be Giants, Alice Cooper, Barnes & Barnes, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. I also like Henry Phillips, Dar Williams, Christine Lavin, Belinda Carlisle, and the soundtrack to the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Do you have a favorite place to write?
On a luxury cruise ship, surrounded by nubile buxom women feeding me grapes. Aside from that, I do a lot of my writing on my back porch on my AlphaSmart, which is a wonderful lightweight portable word processor that does not have e-mail, games, or anything to keep easily-distracted individuals such as myself from getting any writing done.
Do you enjoy book signings/conventions?
Oh yeah. When I do a book signing, it's almost always with a group of authors. That way, even if sales aren't great, at least it was a day spent hanging out with my fellow writers! I'm a guest at Necronomicon (a science fiction, fantasy, and horror convention in Tampa, Florida, USA) every year, and I never miss EPICon, where I've been the master of ceremonies for the EPPIE awards all four years that they've existed. I'm doing it again in March 2004, so more fun is on the way.
What is the scariest story you have read?
I'm going to translate "scariest" as "most disturbing" and say The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I'm not alone in this assessment.
Is there anything more than can be done with vampires, demons and zombies?
I sure hope so, since The Sinister Mr. Corpse is meant to be a new twist on the zombie genre! I think there are always new ways to look at old ideas, even something like vampires that have been done over and over and over and over and over. Of course, by this point most treatments of vampires won't be anything we haven't seen dozens of times already, but the potential for something original and exciting is always there.
Short story, single novel, or novel series - which do you think is the best medium for horror?
Probably novels, because things are more horrific when they happen to people we care about, and novels offer the opportunity to get to know the characters better. By that reasoning, a novel series would be the most effective, but in a series we can generally count on our lead characters surviving from one book to the next, whereas with a single novel it's not nearly as certain that the hero is going to get out alive. Now, if you've got a series where the author is willing to kill off anybody, well...
What's the most memorable thing said in a review of your work?
A review of Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) said that it was the kind of book that "might excite a necrophile voyeur." I really wasn't aiming at the necrophile voyeur audience with that one, but I did enjoy the quote.
Have you won any awards for your writing?
I've twice won the Dream Realm Award for Best Horror Novel, for Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and Single White Psychopath Seeks Same. I've also won an EPPIE for Best Young Adult Novel for Elrod McBugle on the Loose. Graverobbers won the Inscriptions Engraver Award for Favorite E-Book of the Year. I've also finaled for a few awards that I failed to win, which always kinda sucks.
Do you always know a story's ending when you begin writing?
I don't generally outline, but yes, I try to have an ending in mind to keep myself on track, not that I always stick to it. Single White Psychopath Seeks Same was originally going to have a much darker ending, and Mandibles (the only book I outlined from beginning to end) veered off completely from the ending that I'd planned. But I like to have a final destination even if I don't have any idea how I'm going to get there.
Have you ever used real-life horrors for inspiration?
Because my work contains so much humor mixed in with the horror, I've purposely avoided any kind of real-life inspiration. This is all changing in a big way with Carnage-a-Plenty!, which deals in a highly satirical manner with such horrors as the Columbine massacre and, more specifically, the tendency to place the blame on stuff like video games and heavy metal music. Don't expect to see this one in many school libraries.
What gives you nightmares?
Too much spicy food before bedtime.
Is there something that you are particularly proud of?
Before I was published, I had an agent who insisted that for me to sell a book, I needed to write something that had little or no humor, that fit solidly into a single genre, and that was preferably modeled on another popular book.
Had I followed his advice, I'd almost definitely have a much more successful career.
I didn't take his advice, and so I'm here in the small press, reaching only a tiny fraction of the audience I'd like to have. But I'm writing the books I want to write, for an audience that may be small but is also wildly enthusiastic. So while I certainly want to be published by the big boys some day, I'm particularly proud of the fact that I'm not making my work more generic to achieve this goal. I write goofy, violent, over-the-top horror comedies that don't fit into the lists of most publishers. And when a magazine like Cemetery Dance says "No writer working today comes close to Jeff Strand's perfect mixture of comedy and terror," I've gotta believe that I'm doing the right thing.
Many thanks Jeff
Relevant LinksJeff Strand Main Bibliography
Jeff Strand's Website