Stephen Graham Jones
/How did you become a writer?
Just an avid reader who wanted to participate, probably. Stories and comics and novels gave me so much, growing up, and still, that I wanted to step onto that board. Either that or I grew up with a lot of brothers, and was always having to make up more and more convincing lies about who's fault this mess actually was, and I found that I could skate, pretty much, I could spin stories that would completely get me out of trouble. So I just kept doing it.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
William J. Cobb and Janet Burroway were both big parts of the graduate programs I was, and I see traces of their work and words all through my stuff. Philip K. Dick, Louise Erdrich, Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, Louis L'Amour, they're all part of my writer DNA as well. Along with Conan the Barbarian. Of course.
When and where do you write?
Just when—and wherever I can find a moment out of the wind, pretty much. I do a lot of writing in airports, in hotels, waiting for buses. And of course my study at home, my office at work. And I'm always pulling my bicycle over to jot a line or two down. Or, sometimes I think I can just pedal and write at the same time. Sometimes it works out. Often it doesn't.
What are you working on now?
Edits for a slasher novel out next summer. And some scripts—feature, television, and comic. And of course short stories. I'll always be writing short stories.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
Nope. Doesn't seem like it'd be fun, and I think it's all made-up anyway.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
Leave the door to my study open, so my family can come in when they need to, since they're more important than words on a page. That's from Janet Burroway.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Read outside your genre. Choose writing over everything but family and health. Specifically, always choose it over reality television or the bar.
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of twenty-five or so novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Stephen’s been an NEA recipient, has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, a Bram Stoker Award, four This is Horror Awards, and he’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award. He’s also made Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels, and is the guy who wrote Mongrels and The Only Good Indians. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado.
