Q&A with Kevin L. Donihe

(up on this site since April 14, 2002)

 

(1) What authors- both well known and not so known- do you often read?

 

When I was younger, it was Stephen King and Dean Koontz all the way.  That's why most of my very early work is horror-based.  (Really had a thing for brain-dead flesh consumers back then.)  In time, I moved on to other horror authors who weren't quite so well known.  In most cases, these people wound up being more interesting than the big guns.  

 

Now, however, I mostly read subs for my horror magazine BARE BONE.   That means I get the chance to read a lot of supernatually bad stories.  But I don’t publish these.

 

I do, however, manage a little pleasure-reading every now and then.  Here's the last few books I've read:  THE ULTIMATE HITCHIKER'S GUIDE by Douglas Adams, FROM THE CORNER OF HIS EYE by Dean Koontz, and DEMIAN by Hermann Hesse. 

 

I'm still in the process of working through WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF by Edward Albee.

 

 

(2) How did you come about Eraserhead Press and what are your thoughts on how well they work with their writers?  What advice would you give to someone interested in having their work published, even through Eraserhead Press?

 

How did I find Eraserhead?  Providence, I guess.  I was just scanning the internet one day and happened upon Eraserhead's site.  At this time (Fall of 1999), EP had yet to branch out and start publishing novels.  It was, however, open to submissions of short fiction and poetry.  This excited me as I was writing a lot of absurdity and surrealism that Fall.  I considered myself lucky to have found such a place since anything absurd is usually a hard sell.  

 

I soon learned that Eraserhead Press also accepted chapbook-length novellas.   Then and there I decided to write THE GRAND DICTATOR -- a circus-midget-commune and end-of-the-age based concept that had been swimming in and out of my head since October of 1998.  (THE GRAND DICTATOR is now Section I of SHALL WE GATHER AT THE GARDEN?.)

 

Anyway, this novella was eventually accepted by Carlton Mellick III, head-honcho of Eraserhead Press.  This made my day and encouraged me to write two more weird-ass novellas (ZEN AND THE ART OF MURDER and THE CHURCH OF THE BYRDS VS. THE CHURCH OF LIONEL RICHIE).  I knew that it would be almost impossible to find a publisher for these strange things.  I couldn’t send them to Eraserhead Press.  Carlton already had one novella from me.  Nevertheless, I kept on keeping on because I loved writing them.   (Those were crazy days . . .)

 

I remember thinking to myself:  "I would really like to have these three novellas published together as a collection -- but that'll never happen."  Then, as if by magic, Carlton notified me that he was planning a line of full-length books.  The three novellas collection dream was, at that moment, a sudden and inexplicable reality.  

 

Finally, in early 2001, I decided to build a textual bridge that would connect these novellas and turn them into a unified mosaic novel.  (As mentioned earlier, I always thought those three novellas belonged together, even when they were three separate entities.)  This bridge wound up being built and SHALL WE GATHER AT THE GARDEN? was born.  

 

Anyway, Eraserhead Press itself is great.   I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes stuff that’s out-of-the-ordinary.   On the business side of things, Carlton makes it a point to keep his writers informed and offer feedback.  We even share a list-serve.  Carlton’s also a pro when it comes to cover art and text layout. 

 

In short, Eraserhead is 100% okay in my book.

 

When it comes to submitting to Eraserhead Press, perhaps the best thing to do is aim first for their on-line magazine, THE DREAM PEOPLE.   (The best stories from every six issues are collected into a book, so it’s really more than an on-line zine.)  For other places, just start submitting.  Stories and poems can’t be read when they’re stranded in desk drawers.  Don’t forget to familiarize yourself with manuscript format first.  It’s important as some editors won’t read a weirdly formatted story.  Self addressed stamped envelopes (SASE) are pretty much mandatory, too.   These are used for the editor’s reply. 

 

Finally, Ralan.com is a great source for those who write horror, sci-fi, or various types of speculative fiction.  There are other free, on-line sites that give addresses for magazines and anthologies that require submissions.  Do a search and you’ll probably wind up finding something.

 

(3) What is your writing pattern like? (Do you spend months a time writing for a couple of hours every day, or do you seclude yourself for a few months and just write non-stop) Has your writing effected you at all socially? Has it isolated you from a lot?

 

When I was finishing up SHALL WE GATHER . . . I stayed awake until roughly 6 A.M. each morning.  I even started smoking again.   The novel was accepted before I had fully finished it, you see.   This put me into ultra-high-gear-write-mode-delta, but it was fun.  I rarely went insane.  Only a few scattered pieces of private property were affected. 

 

Sleep deprivation, oh my yes . . . I still haven't gotten myself back on a normal cycle and I finished work on my novel back in September!

 

But I usually write . . . well . . . when I feel like it.  That's the only way to put it.  There are days I want nothing more than to do something creative, but simply can't.   I have to wait until the time's right and hope I've got no prior engagements, scheduled or non-scheduled, when that hour finally rolls around. 

 

 

(4) Having your experience as an editor, does it bother you when you're reading a major publication like a newspaper or a magazine and they have errors?

 

You’d think that big publishers could weed out all the errors.  (Do they not have decently paid teams devoted to this very thing?)  These days, however, it's pretty common to see typos in major books.

 

Are all products getting shoddier, or is it just my imagination?  Craftmanship seems to be going to the dogs.  Perhaps errors in major papers are just a sign of the times.
 

(5) How did you really get into all of this to begin with and where are you going?

 

I've never not written.  (Well, that's not true.  I didn't write as an infant -- but you get my drift.)  However, I only started submitting my stories and poems back in 1994.   The first year or so was hard.  Form letter rejects spewed forth from my mailbox in bountiful profusion.  I finally received my first acceptance after six-months of sending and sending and sending and SENDING.  It was from THIN ICE.   A little while later, THIN ICE folded before they got around to publishing me.  At that point, I hadn't gained any more acceptances.  I thought I was doomed to be almost-but-not-quite-published for the remainder of my sick and miserable life.  That changed -- but only after a few additional months -- when THE BLUE LADY printed one of my stories in the Fall of 1995.  

 

Since that time, I've managed to get my work into over 70 magazines and anthologies in five countries.  Most are small-press, semi-pro, and literary publications, but a few are pro rate affairs, including CEMETERY SONATA II (Bram Stoker nominated anthology from Chameleon Publishing) and THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF LEGAL THRILLERS (from Carroll and Graf in the US and Constable and Robinson in the UK).  John Grisham is in that last book with me.  That's really weird.  I don't even like the guy's stuff. 

 

Where's the future taking me?  Oh well . . . can't say.  Guess I just gotta flow with it.  I still want to be writing years and years from now, sure.  And I still want to be putting out issues of BARE BONE.  I don't need fame and fortune, though.  One of my goals is to make at least $15,000 a year by writing.  If I can pull that off, I'll be one happy camper.