D. Harlan Wilson is the author of several books of fiction, including The Kafka Effekt, Stranger on the Loose and Pseudo-City. His stories, essays and reviews have appeared in pop and scholarly publications throughout the world in several languages. He holds a M.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts , a M.A. in Science Fiction Studies from the University of Liverpool , and a Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University . Residing in Ohio with his wife Xtine and daughter Madeleine, Wilson teaches writing and literature at Wright State University-Lake Campus.
Questions and Answers
What are you currently working on?
In addition to short stories and literary criticism, I'm working on two novels, Blankety Blank and Code Name Prague. The first is subtitled A Novel of Vulgaria and set in near-future Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up. The plot concerns several upper class, dysfunctional, Dutch-American families who live in a sprawling McMansionhood and are plagued by Mr. Blankety Blank, a Ripperlike serial killer with a barbershop pole for a head. Code Name Prague is a SF/Detective/Kungfu novel. It's the second installment of what I'm calling The Scikungfi Trilogy, the first of which is my novel Dr. Identity, or, Farewell to Plaquedemia. That's being published by Raw Dog Screaming Press in March.
Are you a member of any writing groups?
No. Never really have been either. When I first started writing seriously, I got together with a fellow wannabe writer. We'd trade stories and talk about them. That didn't last long, though - the guy had difficulty talking about anything or anybody except himself and it wasn't very productive for me. Since then I've always written on my own, bouncing ideas off of friends and family on occasion. My wife helps me edit my work, too.
Who or what has been a major influence on your writing and why?
I'm influenced by film almost as much as by writing. Maybe even more. If I had to choose one figure and work, I think it would be David Lynch and his film Wild at Heart. The combination of dreamlike aesthetics, dark humor, and gritty, quirky characterization is something I always try to capture in my narratives. This combination is visible in nearly all of Lynch's films. But in Wild at Heart it's especially pointed.
Who (fact or fiction) would you most like to meet, and what would you ask them?
Kiefer Sutherland's character on the American TV show 24. And I'd ask him: Why are you such a badass?
Is there a book or story you wish you had written?
Yes: A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess's linguistic prowess, dynamic prose, sinister humor, characterization, story, imagined future—it's all genius. The novel was popularized (in good and bad ways) by Kubrick's film, which is excellent in its own right, but, like most film adaptations, it doesn't compare to its novelistic blueprint.
Is writing your fulltime occupation? If not, what is?
Kind of. I'm an English professor at Wright State University-Lake Campus in Ohio. Teaching is my main source of income, but I'm expected to produce and publish scholarship on a regular basis, so writing (critically and creatively) is an inevitable part of the gig. I don't think I could ever just write for a living. I'm a gruesome multitasker, and I'd go crazy without something else to do.
As a reader do you prefer science fiction, fantasy or horror?
Actually I prefer stories and novels that employ all three speculative genres, although my first love is SF. I received a M.A. degree in Science Fiction Studies from the University of Liverpool in 1998, and I wrote about SF in my Ph.D. dissertation, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction, which will be published in book form by Guide Dog Books in 2008. But my favorite authors throw fantasy and horror into the mix. Foremost among them is British author Steve Aylett, who I've been reading (and envying) for about 10 years now.
What was your first professional sale?
To a now defunct magazine called Akkadian. They paid me $25 for my story "The Fire Drill", which is about an emotionally unstable substitute teacher who freaks out on a class of disabled, mentally impaired students. That was in 1999. I never cashed the check and still have it in my desk drawer. I keep meaning to frame it. Every now and then I take the check out and look at it fondly.
Who is your favourite author?
Philip K. Dick. His prose is sort of shitty, but he makes up for it in the quality (and quantity) of his ideas. And he had a wonderful sense of the absurd.
If you could give one piece of advice to a would-be author, what would it be?
Become intimate friends with rejection, and don't give up.
When did you first decide that you wanted to be an author?
Not until I took a course in fiction writing in graduate school. In 1995, I believe. I had written lots of poetry before taking the course, but after I wrote a few stories I didn't look back. I really enjoyed being able to create new worlds and characters - something I couldn't do in poems, and something I was afraid to pursue on my own, fearing inadequacy. Thankfully the course forced me to begin pursuing it.
When did you first feel that you were an author?
I still don't feel like an author! Writing consumes a large part of my personal and professional daily life, but I don't know if I'll ever feel like an author.
Are you for or against e-books?
For. E-books are good promotional tools. I have an e-book called Irrealities, an eponymous collection of my stories published by Pulp Bits in 2003. Admittedly I don't read e-books myself. I prefer something I can hold, touch and sniff. There's nothing like the smell of musty paperbacks! I don't like scrolling down, either, and I get annoyed if I stare at a computer screen for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
Are you a music fan? If so, what?
Yeah, although I don't like much contemporary stuff, namely the pop and hip-hop shit made by the glamtrash skanks and dirtbags who are widely considered to be the pinnacle of twenty-first century Talent and Desirability. I miss my MTV. There are hardly any videos anymore on American music channels, most of which now run dumbass reality shows starring dumbass twentysomethings and burned-out celebrities doing dumbass things. I'm a 1980s fanatic. Plenty of crap back then, too, but it's more of a nostalgic thing. Listening to 80s music brings me back to my teenage years, which were pretty good for me. Duran Duran, Men at Work, Men Without Hats, The Police, Survivor, Twisted Sister, Wang Chung, Falco, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pat Benetar, the Culture Club, Guns N' Roses, the Fat Boys, Hall & Oates, Billy Idol, the Beastie Boys, Cindi Lauper, Def Leppard ... you get the picture. Good, clean, late Cold War pop! I also like classical music and jazz a lot.
Do you have a favourite place and time to write?
Not really. I usually write in my office. I enjoy writing most in the morning, with a cup of black coffee, when my head is clearest and sharpest.
Do you enjoy book signings/conventions?
It depends on the signing and convention. I've been to some that are fun and productive and others that are boring wastes of time. But I enjoy them, for the most part, if for nothing else than people tend to wear their party hats.
Why do you like SF/F/H?
The main reason is that the SF/F/H genres are the ultimate sites of narrative innovation and experimentation. They also invite authors (and readers) to stretch their imaginations to the Nth degree and escape the physical confines of the real world.
What is the scariest story you have read?
Honestly, I don't really get frightened by things I read - overexposure has desensitized me. Not so when I was younger. I distinctly remember reading Whitley Strieber's alien-encounter novel, Communion, and not being able to sleep for months, expecting skinny white bug-eyed monsters and little blue dwarves to pour out of my closet in droves.
What gives you nightmares?
Watching the news. The dark. The sound of Julia Child's voice. Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks. Listening to George W. Bush talk out loud. Listening to college and professional athletes talk out loud.
Have you ever used real life horrors for inspiration?
No. I haven't experienced many horrors in my life - compared to stories I've heard from other people, at least. Horrors that I've used for inspiration occur exclusively in my nightmares (see previous question).
Given the high quality of horror fiction available, why do you think there are so few great horror movies?
Movies are visual media distinguished by increasingly innovative uses of imagery. This is true of all genres, but especially speculative genres. Generally speaking, horror movies are preoccupied with gore and violence against the body, which takes precedence over things like character, plot, story, diction, figurative language, etc. - the stuff of prose and print media. Fiction or film, though, it's all driven by market desire. Horror films are depthless gorefests because that's what viewers want. The same goes for the quality of horror novels and stories that are published - it's dictated by the readership.
Is there anything more that can be done with vampires, demons and zombies?
I suppose there's always something new that can be done with a character. Still, we need new monsters! And yet vampires, demons and zombies have such rich cultural and literary histories. They clearly continue to interest people.
Short story, single novel or novel series - which do you think is the best medium for horror?
I think all three media are savvy for horror, or any genre. But each serves a different purpose for authors and readers. Basically, short stories function as launching pads for longer works that require different levels of investment. Authors can make the most money with trilogies or series, for instance, whereas writing short stories renders little if any money. Then again, as the Computer Age continues to wean our attention spans, fewer readers are willing to wrangle a 1,000 page trilogy, or even a 300 page novel. Nobody has time, or rather, nobody wants to make the time - they'd rather knock off a flash fiction on the toilet.
What book are you reading at the moment?
I usually have a few books going at the same time. Right now I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, Mark Leyner's Et tu, Brute?, Terry Eagleton's After Theory, and Annalee Newitz's Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. I'm also rereading Frankenstein and 2001: A Space Odyssey for a course in SF literature I'm teaching this semester.
Do you enjoy collaborating?
I've hardly done it. The only thing I've collaborated on is a screenplay, The Cocktail Party, based on a story of the same name that appears in my first book, The Kafka Effekt. I co-wrote the screenplay with graphic artist and filmmaker Brandon Duncan. Brandon recently completed the film. It's a 10-minute, animated, black-and-white, rotoscoped film made in the vein of Richard Linklater's recent feature film A Scanner Darkly (previews and DVDs are available at www.corporatedemon.com). Brandon's a great guy and hugely multitalented - he also did the cover illustrations for The Kafka Effekt and my third book, Pseudo-City, and he's a musician, and he writes fiction. I'd like to do more collaboration. Horror author John Lawson (www.johnlawson.org) and I have talked about writing a zombie novel together, but we're both so busy, we haven't had a chance yet. Hopefully soon!
Do you always know a story's ending when you begin writing?
Rarely. I always begin with a core image, idea, scenario, curio, scene, or strand of dialogue and take off from there. Sometimes I have a vague inclination of where the story will go, but it usually ends up somewhere else.
What's the most memorable thing said in a review of your work?
The best praise I've ever received came recently for Dr. Identity from Larry McCaffery, editor of Storming the Reality Studio, probably the greatest anthology of cyberpunk fiction and theory ever compiled, in my opinion. Here's what Larry said:
"Let's dispense with the usual predictable analogies ("Kafka/Cronenberg-on-laughing-gas"), redundancies ("Phillip K. Dick/William Gibson-on-acid"), or accurate-but-somewhat-obscure references ("the most intense and, in a certain sense, the most significant young prose writer since Mark Leyner and Ben Marcus ... establishes Wilson as the Steve Katz of the post-everything generation ... vies with Derek Pell's The Little Red Book of Adobe Live Motion for being the funniest book of the new millennium"), and cut to the chase: D Harlan Wilson's hilarious meta-pulp SF novel, Dr. Identity, is a funhouse mirror whose cartoonish distortions continually amaze and amuse - until one realizes that what we're seeing is a disturbingly accurate vision of ourselves. An instant avant-pop classic by a major new talent. Two surgically-enhanced, stainless-steel thumbs way, way up!"
Pretty cool, huh?
Have you won any awards for your writing?
I received an award for my first M.A. thesis, which I did at the University of Massachusetts-Boston in English literature before attending the University of Liverpool for the M.A. in Science Fiction Studies. My thesis analyzed the innovative use of language in three SF novels (Neuromancer, A Clockwork Orange, and Riddley Walker), and the award recognized outstanding achievement in research on the relationship between literature and language. As for my fiction, Dr. Identity has received a fake, metanarrational award called the Stick Figure Prize that doesn't exist in the real world.
Is there something you are particularly proud of?
I'm very proud of my books and degrees, all of which I sweat blood for. But nothing makes me prouder than the prospect of fatherhood. My daughter, Madeleine Sue, will be born in February.
Plug away - what do you have coming out?
Here's a concise list of my upcoming book projects:
- Dr. Identity, or, Farewell to Plaquedemia: Book 1 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2007)
- Counting Earps & Other Rejekts (Bizarro Books 2007)
- Blankety Blank: A Novel of Vulgaria (Bizarro Books 2008)
- Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (Guide Dog Books 2008)
- Code Name Prague: Book 2 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2009)
- The Kyoto Man: Book 3 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2011)
Many Thanks!
Relevant Links
D. Harlan Wilson's Main Listing
D. Harlan Wilson Website