Brett Alexander Savory is the Bram Stoker Award-winning Editor-in-Chief of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words, is a Developmental Editor at Scholastic Canada, has had over 40 stories published, written two novels-In and Down and The Distance Travelled-and writes for Rue Morgue Magazine.
He co-edited an anthology with M. W. Anderson called The Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three, which was released last year through Arsenal Pulp Press. His latest release is a novella called My Eyes Are Nailed, But Still I See, co-written with David Niall Wilson.
In March 2006, Necro Publications will release signed limited edition hardcover and trade paperback editions of Brett’s dark, comic novel The Distance Travelled.
When he’s not writing, reading, or editing, he plays drums for the southern-tinged hard rock band The Diablo Red, whose debut album, Rojos, was released in late 2005. Recently, Cemetery Dance author and reviewer David Niall Wilson had a chance to chat with Brett about The Distance Traveled, and his writing in general.
DNW: Your novel The Distance Travelled blends surreal, literate fiction with some odd elements . . . tossed pigs, for instance. Can you tell us where the inspiration for this particular novel came from, and what inspired the imagery you chose?
BS: I’m not sure where my fascination with pigs comes from. I suppose it cemented itself in my brain, though, after you and I wrote “That’s SOME Pig!” back in 1998. After that, pigs just seemed to keep popping up in my fiction. They even make a minor appearance in the literary novel I just sold, In and Down.
As for the inspiration for Distance: The obvious answer is that it came from the novelette of the same name, which was published in 2001 by Prime Books. As to where that came from? Your guess is as good as mine. I have a pretty crappy memory, so trying to remember where story ideas come from is usually an exercise in futility. This weird shit just pops into my head and I write it down.
The imagery itself, however, I can be a bit more specific about. I think the whole idea of Hell is pretty ridiculous, so I knew I wanted to create a Hell that was sort of absurd, and yet quite practical in the way it operates. Nothing too mysterious-torture sessions are scheduled, Hell hires people to carry them out, there’s a governing body that oversees things, etc. It’s an exceedingly poorly run version of our world, but a whole lot hotter.
DNW: When choosing a locale for this piece, why did you choose Hell? In other words, do the standard old Christian symbols have deep meaning for you, or could this have as easily been set on the banks of the Styx with three headed pig dogs guarding the way?
BS: Hey, there’s an idea for the sequel! Thanks! 😉
Seriously, though, no, the old Christian symbols don’t hold any meaning for me. I’m agnostic, so religion of all stripes is hard to swallow. Considering how close all religions are in their basic tenets, I think they all might just be manifestations of people’s general loneliness in the universe. A creation to comfort ourselves, bring meaning to our existences. Regarding Christianity, specifically, if there is a God (since I’m agnostic, I don’t rule out the possibility) and he ever did speak to humans regarding his will, his words have been fucked with so often throughout history by people inserting their own desires and biases into them that God only knows-quite literally-what his true intentions might have been.
DNW: Your web site, group, and phenomenon “The Chiaroscuro—Those Who Walk Alone,” has developed into quite the success story. Can you explain how it came to be, and how you brought it from its humble beginnings to one of the highest paying on-line fiction markets, and the only one (to my knowledge) with support from a NYC publisher?
BS: Oh, boy, that’d be a long story! I’ll try to break it down into bite-size chunks, though.
In 1997, a guy named Vanace Fidler and I were discussing online how there was a dearth of good horror sites on the ‘net, so we decided to start one up. I wound up doing all the actual work of building the site, etc., so within a year or so, Vanace kind of drifted out of the picture and I kept going with it. We started out by just having a few short story contests, but then in July of 1999, I launched the first issue of the fiction and poetry arm of the site, ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words. We paid 1/2 cent per word and I sold banner ads to small presses and individual authors to cover the costs. We raised it up to 1 cent per word the following year, and then I approached Don D’Auria at Leisure Books about sponsoring us. Within a month or two, Leisure agreed and we were able to raise our rates to 3 cents per word, making us a professional market (back in 2001, anyway)—and I was free to stop hassling people to buy banner ads (a job which I absolutely loathed). That same year, we won the Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in editing.
Skip ahead a couple of years and—due to increased traffic and a growing reputation for publishing quality material—we got the nod from Leisure to increase our rates to 5 cents per word, again matching the current pro-market level. We were nominated again for a 2004 Stoker, received a big jump in traffic, and raised our rates to 7 cents per word, which is where we are today.
DNW: Everyone asks this, but it’s relevant. Who are the major influences on your writing? Broadening this further from the usual what writers influenced you, I’d add other media into the mix, music, movie, television, anything you think was formative.
BS:
BOOKS: Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Chuck Palahniuk, Mark Z. Danielewski, Craig Davidson, Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman, Philip Nutman, China Miéville, Iain Banks, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Brian Lumley, and some chimp named David Niall Wilson. 😉
MUSIC: Thievery Corporation, Slipknot, Slayer, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, My Dying Bride, Bjork, Harry Connick Jr., Henry Rollins, The Misfits, Bad Religion, Type O Negative, Lamb of God, Meshuggah, etc. (I sometimes name stories after cool bands or song titles.)
MOVIES: Halloween, Fight Club, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, anything by David Lynch, The Fog (the original), The Evil Dead films, Romero’s Dead films, Fulci’s Zombi, Top Secret, Kairo (creepiest fucking film ever), Cemetery Man, Battle Royale, Pulp Fiction, Dead Alive, Reservoir Dogs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original), etc.
DNW: I know you work as an editor, and have been responsible for kid’s books involving underwear…how has your education and working in the field influenced your fiction?
BS: Not much, I don’t think. If anything, it makes me want to write the opposite of what I work on all day. ‘Cause there’s not much bloodshed, creepy moments, or absurd hilarity in Scholastic titles!
DNW: The Distance Travelled started life as a novelette, if memory serves. What was the journey from beginning to Necro?
BS: I originally placed the novelette with Steve Savile’s Imaginary Worlds Press. When Sean Wallace took over Steve’s operations and renamed the press Prime, I left the book there and Sean put it out in 2001. I then expanded the story to novel length, shopped it around to various houses until it finally found a home in 2005 with Dave Barnett at Necro Publications.
DNW: Any tips picked up along the way—lessons learned?
BS: Know your market! If a house hasn’t published any horror-comedies in the past, odds are they’re not going to start with yours.
DNW: Did you prefer it at the shorter length, or did it find its own as a novel?
I really prefer it at novel length. I added several more characters to the mix and that’s what really brought the environment and the story to life, in my mind.
DNW: Your wife is a talented poet and author in her own right. How do the two of you cope with / share / involve yourselves in one another’s creative careers? Do you play off of one another creatively, or is it hard—success at different times, and different levels?
BS: We don’t write the same kind of stuff at all, so it’s kept quite separate: she mostly writes poetry; I write prose (haven’t written a poem since 1998). So there’s no competition, which I think is a good thing. We like each other’s work and are very supportive of what the other is doing, so overall it’s a healthy balance, I think. When something great happens with respect to one of our careers, the other is hooting and hollering about it as much as the one whose career got the boost.
DNW: I know you play in a band, along with the day job and the writing. What sort of influences do you tend toward musically, and how does your musical career parallel your writing career—or does it?
BS: See above for musical influences. As for how the two careers parallel each other, there’s the aforementioned naming of stories after cool song titles, but other than that it’s pretty separate. I don’t write any of the lyrics for Diablo Red, so my presence isn’t felt there at all. I’m strictly the drummer.
DNW: You chose an El Camino for your unlikely heroes to travel about in, what’s up with that? Is this a dream car of yours, or is it symbolic in some way?
BS: Not a dream car, no, but certainly the type of car in which I saw my weird and disheveled gang of characters. I’m not sure where I got the idea to use the Camino, except that it’s a tough car, you know? It’s seen as a badass set of wheels. Sure, I could’ve gone with a Mustang or something like that, but the Camino has that big open bed in back, so Tom China, the 11-foot HellRat in the story had a way of getting around with the rest of the characters. *laughs*
DNW: Your earlier writing tended to be much darker, more violent and shocking. Have you shifted mental gears, and will the shifting continue? Where do you see your writing now, and then, again in five years? In other words, do you have a plan?
BS: Yeah, I’ve certainly eased off on the blood and guts-though Distance was written before I started easing away from it, so there’s plenty of carnage in this book. I think what happened is that I sort of exhausted all of my really brutal ideas early on, then subtler ideas started coming to me, instead. Still dark—I can’t seem to get away from that aspect, and I don’t think I really want to-but not necessarily violent. I started writing more surreal pieces. Definitely more Lynchian in nature.
Of course, I can’t know where my writing will be in five years, but I suspect I’ll keep treading this slipstream line I’m on right now. Maybe when I’ve exhausted all of those ideas, I’ll have to move to mainstream literary novels. And then right into Harlequin-style romances! Heh. Okay, if I ever do that, you all have permission to shoot me in the face. Seriously.
As for a plan? Hell, no. I have a vague idea of what direction I want my career to go, so I publish with houses that I hope will help me down that path, but I have no Grand Scheme.
DNW: Finally, in order to sum this up, and to give you a chance to say all the things you wanted to say had I not led you about with oddball questions…here’s a convoluted, catch-all question. Are there any things you’d like readers to know about The Distance Travelled that weren’t carried here?
BS: It’s funny! It’s carnage-filled! It’s introspective! It’s adventurous! It’s heart-warming! And Christopher Moore says this about it!:
“A completely unique take on life in hell. Snappy dialog and a bizarre backdrop set this adventure tale apart from the pack.” — Christopher Moore
Are you saying Christopher Moore’s wrong? Are you?? I should think not. Go thee forth and purchase:
From the publisher: http://necropublications.com/titles/distance.htm
From Shocklines (hardcover): http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/ditrbybralsa.html
From Shocklines (trade paperback): http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/ditrbybralsa1.html
DNW: What’s next for you? Upcoming projects?
BS: After Distance, there’s the trade paperback release of my and David Niall Wilson’s My Eyes Are Nailed, But Still I See in December 2006 from Delirium Books. Then in 2007, my deeply weird literary novel In and Down will be released (can’t give details on the publisher until contracts are signed). Also in 2007, Delirium will publish my first short story collection, The Time Between Lights.
As for projects I’m currently working on, there’s my third novel, Running Beneath the Skin, a comic-book adaptation of The Distance Travelled with artist Homeros Gilani, and a dark YA novel called The Soul Projectionists.
