Chat w/ Laird Barron

 

Erik Williams:  Ready to feel inferior? Laird Barron not only has raced in the Iditarod, been a strength trainer, and fisherman on the Bering Sea, but he also writes poetry, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and his short stories can regularly be found in Year’s Best collections and Ellen Datlow’s anthologies. Oh, and he’s also a hell of a nice guy. What more can you want?

 

Laird’s latest collection, Occultation, contains eight incredibly intricate and stylized stories of horror marked by an authenticity and mood that make it easy to see why he’s becoming (or has already become, by my point of view) horror’s most consistent voice.

 

His first novel, The Croning, will be published in 2011 by Night Shade Books. If we’re really lucky, a collection of his non-fiction will be available at some point, too. (If you’ve never read his entry to Publisher’s Weekly’s Why I Write series, you’re missing out).

 

Welcome, Laird.

 

Laird Barron:  Hi!

 

Kurt Dinan:  I think what tends to get overlooked by a lot of the critics and fans who extol your work is the level of authenticity you bring to your stories.  Could you talk about how and why this became a seminal part of your writing style, the level of research that goes into giving your stories this realism, how it fits into your writing process?

 

Oh, and I meant to say “hello” first.  Forgive my rudeness.  Heh.

 

Laird Barron: LOL.

 

My work is heavily informed by my upbringing in rural Alaska. We were poor, lived in bad bad neighborhoods, so to speak. I worked a lot of blue collar jobs. Fishing, construction, and the like. Much of it was on the edge. I knew people who’d fit right into the noir or crime thriller of your choice. I don’t have to reach far for the seedy realism that inhabits much of my writing

 

John Mantooth:  Laird, do you still work a day job, or are you able to write full time?

 

Laird Barron:  It’s borderline. If I sell another novel I can probably scrape by. Writing full time at the moment.

 

Kurt Dinan:  Just a quick follow-up – How much research goes into your writing?  Is getting things “right” – the level of detail, the locations, etc – important to you?  Why?

 

I’ll shut up now.

 

Laird Barron:  Kurt, I do quite a bit of research. I try to be accurate, but more importantly I attempt to conceal the research. For my Bulldozer story, I researched the Pinkertons and various aspects of 1880-90s life and used a fraction of it. I aim for verisimilitude without too much data/research exposition.  I researched those elements for several weeks non stop…

 

Sam W Anderson:  Hello!   See, I’m not nearly as rude as Kurt – or John!  But totally more rude than Kim.  However, I can grow a beard much better than she…

 

The influence of Lovecraft is obvious in your work.  How intentional is this, and what do you think writers need to do to keep Lovecraftian themes “fresh?”

 

Laird Barron:  I admire Lovecraft’s vision, the cosmic horror angle, especially. I feel that we both show marked influence by certain aspects of Christian faith. The greatest horror story I’ve read is the Bible.

 

Sam W Anderson:  In your “Why I Write” segment, you compare a lot of the Lovecraft Mythos to Christianity – can you expand on what you were getting at there?

 

Laird Barron:  The Old school God is a monstrous entity if you come at it as I do, sans faith. He is the beginning and the end, encompasses good and evil, thus may be neither. He destroyed the world. He’s more invested in humanity than the Lovecraftian entities, but His dreadful aspect is similar.

 

Keeping themes fresh–I try to downplay the mythos aspects of the horror and concentrate on the timeless themes such as man v the universe, man v nature, man v man. I concentrate on characters.

 

Erik Williams:  Your main characters are definitely not of the Lovecraftian cut.  Do you ever resent the Lovecraftian tag on your stories?

 

John Mantooth:  Good question, was wondering the same thing

 

Laird Barron:  No. An identity is preferable to not possessing one. I’ve gotten sufficient credit for my many other influences…

 

John Mantooth:  I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your writing routine? I’ve heard stories (don’t recall where at the moment) that you spend quite a bit of time writing each day.

 

Laird Barron:  Just a follow-up before I get to John: Early on, Gordon Van Gelder asked me if I minded being referred to as a horror author and I gave him a similar answer. He thought it was sensible to for me to pursue an identity, advised me to stick with that for a while. He wasn’t wrong thus far.

 

Kurt Dinan:  That’s really interesting – never thought of it all that way

 

John Mantooth:  Yeah, I’ve been told to embrace the horror identity as well, even though my instinct was to resist.

 

Laird Barron:  Over the past couple of years I try to write five or six hours a day, pretty much every day. I spend another three our four hours per day editing and researching (screwing around on the web!!). This model is necessary because I write like old turtles screw. It’s basically slow motion, or drive a stake in the ground to measure my progress.

 

Gordon didn’t advise against branching out–he simply thought it wise to establish a brand, so to speak.

 

Erik Williams:  I take it you don’t write more than one story at a time then?

 

John Mantooth:  That’s pretty amazing.  Well, inspirational really.  I should definitely up my game.

 

Sam W Anderson:  Yes, you’re lame

 

John Mantooth:  You have a way of putting things so succinctly, Sam

 

Laird Barron:  One story at a time, although that’s a newer habit since I’ve gotten steady work from editors.  I have a quarter million words of unfinished stuff sitting on the hard drive from pre 2007.

 

Kim Despins:  How do you handle the editor-imposed deadlines? Does that ever get frustrating?

 

Laird Barron:  Hi, Kim. No, but they induce panic sometimes. Stories seldom emerge on a schedule for me, no matter how many hours a week I put in. So, it scares me (and the editors) on occasion. I do sort of enjoy working toward a deadline in some ways, however. It means the tunnel has to end and I can wash my hands of whatever project is driving me nuts.  I don’t particularly enjoy the writing process.

 

Kim Despins:  Really? Why do it then?

 

Laird Barron:  Because I like art. I also, usually, like the result.

 

Kim Despins:  So it’s not about the journey, but the destination? 

 

Kurt Dinan:  Nice one, Kim

 

Laird Barron:   Yeah, screw the journey! It has its pleasures, but the greatest for me is typing END.

 

Sam W Anderson:  It’s actually nice to hear this.

 

Erik Williams:  Do you like revising?

 

Kim Despins:  I know the feeling sometimes. But when the story is coming out easily and I like it, that’s fun too.

 

John Mantooth:  Yeah, I agree, Sam.  I’ve been hating writing lately.

 

Kim Despins:  Geez, what a bunch of whiners

 

Laird Barron:  I love revising as a rule. Different part of the brain engages and it’s almost peaceful. Plus I get to laugh at my creative self a bit picking over the flaws.

 

I will say writing far and away beats any other job I’ve held.

 

Kim Despins:  I read in your blog that you’re working on a novella with John Langan. We’ve tried collaborating with each other in the past with little success. So I’m curious… Is this your first collaboration? What’s your process? And how do you like it?

 

Laird Barron:  We intend to start later this winter, so I’ll have to get back to you. We’ve critiqued one another’s work quite a bit, so I suspect this will be work well. We share an aesthetic or two. Yes, this will be my first team effort.

 

Erik Williams:  I respect that you don’t “spell things out” in your stories.  Yet sometimes, I wish you’d spell things out.  “Procession of the Black Sloth” still messes with my head.  Great story.  But do you ever get tempted to just write a straightforward schlock story?  Vampires at the El Rey or Hell comes to Frogtown stuff?

 

Laird Barron:  Absolutely. I think a couple of the stories in Occultation are conservative in respect to Sloth. The Broadsword and Mysterium Tremendum are straight up pulp. I want to write some archetypal ghost stories ala MR James and perhaps something to do with ghouls.

 

John Mantooth:  Mysterium Tremendum was my favorite from Occultation.

 

Kurt Dinan:  I’m still going “–30–”

 

Laird Barron:  –30– is pretty fucked up. I had few nightmares working on that one. It’s inspired by a CSI dig at the Manson Ranch.

 

Sam W Anderson:  When you started writing short stories – after you’d been a poet – what influence did you poetry have on your writing?  Were there any challenges in making that transition, and does the poetry affect your storytelling now?

 

Laird Barron:  I wrote poetry and fiction from early childhood. Poetry demands such precision, such heft. I try to apply that to prose.

 

I’m a huge fan of Simic, Stevens, Plath, Strand…

 

Kurt Dinan:  On your blog a couple of months ago you wrote – “I don’t know what would’ve become of me had I not hooked up with editors who encouraged me to be my weird, unorthodox self, early on.”   Can you be more specific in how Datlow, Van Gelder, and other editors have pushed you to further your writing?

 

Sam W Anderson:  And how we get them on our side?

 

Laird Barron:  They haven’t so much pushed (although both are quite demanding) me as allowed me great latitude in storytelling technique. I’ve never been warned off from overt weirdness, or breaking “cardinal rules’.

 

Kurt Dinan:  That has to be empowering

 

Laird Barron:  Yes. I feel as if I am free to try anything and they’ll receive it with an open mind. Truly empowering.

 

There is so much chatter in our field regarding thou shalt nots. I hate those damned things.

 

Erik Williams:  What has been your worst criticism?  From without and within?  Writing wise.

 

Laird Barron:  From within–I get sick of listening to myself, my inner voice. After a bit everything creative tastes like chewed up gum

 

From without–where do I begin?

 

A lot of criticism really just boils down to You suck!  By criticism, I mean reviews.

 

John Mantooth:  Will the novel be a departure from the short stories or similar?

 

Laird Barron:  The novel is related to Mysterium Tremendum and The Broadsword. I leave it there for now.

 

Kim Despins:  When is it due out?

 

Laird Barron:  Fall 2011.

 

Erik Williams:  Thank you again, for joining us Laird.

 

Laird Barron:  I enjoyed it, guys. Great questions. I hope to see some, if not all of you at a Con one day soon.

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