Another one of the people I wanted to interview for skatronixxx.com was another one of my good friends and top fantasy author James Brogden. We first met at London Film and Comic Con, when myself and my author client RJ Truman were at a trade stand and got chatting to an author who was friendly. This turned out to be James! The next year both James and RJ Truman were lucky to enough to be guests together and we all had a great time. James has agreed to do an interview for skatronixxx.com
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1) How did you get into writing?
Someone accidentally left the door open and I sneaked in when they weren’t looking. If you mean how did I get published, the answer is sheer bloody-minded stubbornness and the conscious decision to adopt a professional mindset about it. Basically this meant a) listening to people when they told me what sucked and doing something about it, b) deciding that it was also okay NOT to listen to them, and c) not taking any of it personally. Also having a Plan: building up a CV of short work so that the longer work gets taken seriously. Not that it’s actually happened that way, mind you, but I still think a Plan is a good idea, regardless of whatever kind of profession you choose to enter.
2) How would you describe your writing style to the casual reader?
Unable to take itself seriously, despite my best intentions. I’m an Australian; irreverence is part of the cultural DNA, especially towards oneself.
3) If I remember right you’re also an English teacher, how do you find that compares to being an author? Do you find that the children you teach are less or more passionate about reading, compared to previous generations given all the other options available e.g. social networking/online gaming?
Well it certainly pays better, but the hours are crap. The biggest thing I found when I actually started to think about how I was writing, was that I stopped telling the kids that they had to plan their creative work, because I certainly don’t. I’ve tried, and I can’t. I’ll plot a novel and set myself a schedule to write a certain scene at a certain time and that goes right out the window as soon as I start because I’ll immediately think of something really cool that I hadn’t planned but which just demands to be written. So I tell my students: write the coolest moment you can imagine, and then work backwards, forwards and sideways from that until you have a story. Some of them think it’s very impressive that their teacher is a writer; some of them frankly couldn’t care less if I turned up to school riding a flaming unicorn. The thing with kids being passionate about reading is that up until about the age of fourteen they seem quite able to balance a digital existence and be rabid bookworms at the same time – just look at the huge success of some YA authors out there. Then for a few years they go into their adolescent cocoons and it’s not considered cool to be a reader, and when they come out again in the Sixth Form maybe a tiny percentage have grown that passion into a desire to study Literature. I know a lot of students who drop English in favour of all Maths & Sciences at A-level still love their SF and Fantasy, which is nice. It gives me hope that I haven’t killed it completely for them with the GCSE. I know from my own daughters’ experiences that social networks are allowing them greater opportunities to connect with their fandom tribes and explore links and connections to other genres and writers. They’re much more widely read than I was at their age, but then their Dad’s a teacher, poor little sods, so maybe that’s not such a surprise.
4) Perhaps your most well-known books to date are ‘Tourmaline’ and ‘The Narrows’, how you would describe these book to someone who has not read them yet?
I love ‘most well known’. A more accurate word might be ‘only’, since you’ve just described my entire literary output to date. The Narrows is urban fantasy, about ley lines, arcane acupuncture, and monsters in the back alleys of Birmingham. Tourmaline is, again, urban-based fantasy, with stronger horror elements, a parallel-steampunk-world, tentacled beasties, dreams intruding on reality, and the crucial importance of extra-strong mints when dealing with demon-possessed children. I refer you back to my answer to Question 2.
5) If a film was made of either ‘Tourmaline’ or ‘The Narrows’ who would you like to play the main character and why?
I’m afraid I honestly have no idea. I watch so little actual TV and go to the cinema so rarely that I don’t know the names of anybody currently in the public eye who might suit, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by name-checking somebody decades out of date. I come from a background of hardcore role-playing gamers, so I tend to imagine my characters as played by my mates – apart from anything else it helps me keep their reactions a bit more grounded.
The front cover to James’s book ‘Tourmaline’
The front cover to James’s book ‘The Narrows’
6) We first met at London Film and Comic Con back in 2013, do you do lots of conventions and can we hope to see you at LFCC again this year?
I will definitely be at LFCC this year, pimping my new book – the sequel to Tourmaline, called ‘The Realt’. That’s the only convention I go to where I’m actually selling stuff, though. I’m trying try to get to more of the various genre cons like Fantasycon, and such like, to meet up with fellow writers and pick up advice from the panels. I’ll also be at Edge Lit 4 in Derby this year, hopefully launching my first collection of short stories courtesy of the Alchemy Press.
7) I read online that you say that HP Lovecraft was one of your early inspirations, he’s an author that today’s generation may not necessarily know much about, what book would you recommend to read by him and why?
I’d actually suggest that if someone wanted to get a handle on Lovecraft, they go out and read the Laundry Files series of books by Charles Stross, which have a modern and much more approachable take on the same mythos coupled with a dark and uniquely British sense of humour. They follow the career of a computational demonologist called Bob Howard who works for a government agency called the Laundry which deals with occult threats. It’s a bit like the X-files but with added bureaucracy, and no David Duchovny, which is also good. Get addicted to that as an entry-level drug and progress to the hard stuff.
8) What can we expect to see from you in 2015?
Sorry, I’ve already spoilered that: Tourmaline Book 2: the Realt, and a short story collection (I’m still hovering indecisively about a title). My current work-in-progress is a novel about a bog-mummy found in Birmingham’s Sutton Park, and the supernatural wackiness which ensues.
9) Tell our readers one fun fact about yourself that they may not already know?
I have more Lego than is reasonable for any grown man, and every Christmas I build a winter village on my desk.
Everything is awesome when you like Lego like James
10) Finally what advice would you have any advice for an upcoming writers?
Write the things you like to read; there’s a pretty good chance that there’s an editor out there who likes it too. Do your research; find out who those editors are. Finish things; even if you think they’re rubbish. Do not take rejection and criticism personally; if you want to identify that closely with your own work, become a starving poet. And when you finally get published, send a thankyou card to your English teacher.
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There you go readers, James Brogden! A fantasy author, teacher and lego-phille. Be sure to check out James’s books ‘Tourmaline’ and ‘The Narrows’ they are available on Amazon now.
Follow him on Twitter he’s https://twitter.com/skippybe
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