The Market List: Q & A with Tom Piccirilli

TOM: Geez, who am I?...now you're getting Jungian on me. I'm the author of five horror/mystery books including Dark Father, Pentacle, and Shards; I'm co-editor of Pirate Writings, fiction editor of Space & Time and the new digest Epitaph, and occasionally review books for Mystery News, Horror Magazine, and The New York Review of Science Fiction.

SHAUNA: What do you do for Pirate Writings?

TOM: As associate editor I mainly go through our vast slushpile and try to pull out as many gems for editor Ed McFadden to peruse as either of us can possibly handle. I also do most of the copyediting, book reviews, and some interviews. The rest of my job, and a lot of Ed's too, consists of moral support and acting as a sounding board on the rough days when putting out a quarterly magazine of SF/F/M tends to get one of us down. It's a great deal of work, but filled with wonderful perks too.

SHAUNA: Recently you've taken on the position of Editor for Epitaph. I have the press release in front of me, but why don't you explain about it in your own words?

TOM: Hey, that press release is my own words. Epitaph will be the dark sister magazine of Pirate Writings. My preference tends to fall upon the eerie, which I get mostly from supernatural/occult tales or just unclassifiable offbeat psychological pieces. I'm not overly fond of most horror staples, being vampires, werewolves, serial killers, and possessed kids or dolls. I look for tales that show a great sense of engaging style, that present the unclassifiable in a gripping, weird (in the best sense of the word), and intelligent manner. For someone like myself who has read so much in the field, it's exceptionally difficult to send chills up my spine--but getting under my skin is another matter. I can always appreciate tight, emotion-packed reads that show an author's confidence and skill, and attempts to do something unusual and rare.

SHAUNA: What are a writer's chances of being published in Epitaph?

TOM: Well, considering the amount of submissions we get, percentage-wise it's fairly rough, of course, but that's true of any magazine. But if you're talking about new writers breaking in, then they've got no harder a job than anyone else. I look for story content, style, chills, and general sense of unease and milieu of the mysterious. Anybody tossing their trunk stories on me doesn't have a prayer. It's the tale that counts, not the author's name, and already I've bought four or five tales from new/under-published writers. Genuine eeriness counts for much more than easy scenes of carnage. Remember that horror is an emotion, a situation, and not simply a setting. It is a means to an end, disturbing and enticing the reader. Do everything you can to make your story as unpredictable as possible.

SHAUNA: How much input will Edward J. McFadden have with Epitaph?

TOM: Concerning content, none, other than whatever advice he's willing to impart. What goes into the issue is my call alone. Ed isn't a big reader of most horror fiction, his preferences lie in the SF/F/M genres, which made this a perfect trade-off. Horror will always be my first love (and doesn't that sound freaky?)

SHAUNA: Do you expect Epitaph to eventually look like Pirate Writings? You know, glossy color cover, etc.

TOM: I'm certainly hoping. PW started exactly the same way as Epitaph, in a digest-size, non-slick cover, and now it's one of the best out in the field, so I can only hope that the subscriptions keep coming in and it becomes a bigger and more viable project for Pirate Writings Publishing. We'll have to wait and see, and pray that the magazine distribution business cleans itself up and kicks out some of viciously corrupt folks that have been ruining the small press for years now.

SHAUNA: You've told me that you prefer writing over editing, and of course you've had a number of things published. Describe a couple of your novels. What subject matter do you play with the most?

TOM: Offbeat mystery and occult supernatural horror are my two areas of interest for the time being. My latest efforts have been in the first person narrative, which lends itself to my particular voice. I find it easier to be acerbic and use sardonic humor when the protagonists are speaking for themselves, as well as mine their foibles and tragedies. I go for darkly internal matters, questions of identity and history and myth, which have always fascinated me. How our pasts impede on our present lives, and how we handle tradition, guilt, trauma, failure, love, faith, children, etc. Shards is a dark mystery tale about a child-murderer's son hunting through a dead woman's life-who's suicide he feels partially responsible for-hoping to lay a lot of personal ghosts to rest. There are killers, corpses and seductions, but the thrust of the novel is the mind in the dark. How we react to the arc of our lives when we're completely alone.

SHAUNA: How are novel sales going for you? Are you able to support yourself from your writing alone?

TOM: Hell no! The sales of novels are actually doing well, considering much of my work has been published in the small press, but I've been lucky enough to hook up with publishers who are on the move, and whose momentum has kept growing. I never realized how widespread the mystery collectors' market is, or how loyal certain fans and book dealers can be. It's nice to know that I've managed to strike a particular chord that people enjoy reading about.

SHAUNA: One of things that impresses me about you is that in addition to being an editor you manage to churn out an awful lot of fiction. How do you do it, Tom?

TOM: It's the same as anything-if you need to, you make time, and I need to write, so I find the time wherever I can. You've got to eat, you've got to sleep, you've got to catch Seinfeld or the X-files--you do what you have to do.

SHAUNA: Do you have any advice to help combat writer's block? Do you ever get writer's block?

TOM: I get stumped but not exactly blocked, and I'll try to clarify the difference because I think it's what affects most writers. I never hit a wall where I have no ideas left to work with, but I do struggle with theme, storylines, characters, etc., wondering if what I'm doing is the 'right' thing to do with a particular tale. I ponder and fret and get tied up in knots because I don't want to misstep anywhere, and so things occasionally go slow while I run notions through my head, hoping that they all fit together in the best manner possible. Despite the fact that this occasionally causes troubles and lost time, I think it's also how we can get to the best art we have to offer, because it's in that quandary to do our very best that we manage to provide our strongest works.

SHAUNA: What is your "Self" series about?

TOM: It's about a wandering modern-day necromancer and his demonic familiar 'Self' dealing with all forms of supernatural events seemed a fun way to write a varied series a la Manly Wade Wellman's 'Silver John the Balladeer'. The great thing about having a series character is that you can take time to do other things, and when you want to return it'll still be waiting for you. I've done more stories outside the original five that comprise Pentacle. There will be an excerpt to a Self novel I've been working on called "A Lower Deep" which will appear in Ken Abner's hardback anthology Terminal Frights, which is due out by the World Horror Convention this May. I'm glad I was able to touch upon a concept that allows me to continue coming back to the well.

SHAUNA: Do you believe having online access has helped you as a writer, or do you feel it has hindered your performance? Many people believe the Net is a drain on writers because it is addictive and time consuming. I know you spend a great deal of time in cyberspace (I should know, I talk to you enough!) so I thought I'd ask you: What's your perspective on this?

TOM: I'm still trying to figure that one out--it is addictive and time-consuming, and one usually wastes a lot of time just hunting around chatting about the weather as much as meeting other authors or tracking down better markets, but I think it's a worthy trade-off. I've discovered a lot about publishing, met many editors and writers in cyberspace, been able to spend more time dealing with the genres and the business as a whole from any number of perspectives that I wasn't able to do off-line. The fact that communication is virtually instantaneous, and that you can deal with a number of people at once, is of great convenience most of the time (not all, but most of the time).

SHAUNA: What are some of your favorite short fiction markets?

TOM: I was saddened by the loss of Deathrealm because Mark Rainey is one of the most knowledgeable and professional editors in the industry. Other incredibly friendly and proficient folks are Patrick and Honna Swenson at Talebones, Rod Heather at Lore, and Ann Kennedy and Jeff VanderMeer at The Silver Web. Ed McFadden has published a number of pieces of mine in Pirate Writings, but despite my being associate editor, it hasn't been easy. He's got a high set of standards, and editors like him force writers to do their finest.

SHAUNA: Would you suggest that a new writer submit their work to the pro markets right off, or do you believe it is better to gain experience in the semi-pro markets first? How did you go about it?

TOM: I did it completely ass-backwards. I was lucky enough to sell my first novel out of the box to Simon & Schuster, and then spent several years writing novels I couldn't sell because the horror market had dropped out. I got into short fiction much later in my career than most folks probably do. The ladder theory is one to generally practice, I believe--being that you submit your story to the highest paying markets first, and then move down the ladder as necessary, but that's not always the tack to take. Familiarize yourself to some extent with the markets at hand, and if you write something that would be perfect for a semi-pro market, then why waste time and effort sending it elsewhere? Try the smaller venues first. Chances are you'll always have more output then available markets; that's why so many pros deal with the small press, because there really isn't that much of a pro industry to begin with.

SHAUNA: What advice can you give new writers?

TOM: Simple, really, there's no magic answer: just keep writing, sending out tales, and learning your craft. One of my big lines is that "Everything helps a little." Nothing is wasted if it assists your career, even minimally. Study the marketplaces, read as much as you can and note how your favorite authors manage to capture your imagination. In time, if you stick with it, you'll find your own voice. Don't just write for yourself and don't just write for an audience: writing/reading is a shared venture, and you've got to think of both sides in all your endeavors.

SHAUNA: Last but not least, what would you like me to shamelessly plug? If you have anything to promote or sell the floor is all yours. :)

TOM: I appreciate that. My latest dark mystery novels Shards and The Dead Past are available from Write Way Publishing, 10555 E. Dartmouth Suite #210, Autora CO 80014. And I'm lucky enough to be sharing the spotlight with Edward Lee and Gerard Daniel Houarner in our tri-fold collection Inside the Works, which will be out from Dave Barnett's Necro Publications later this year.

SHAUNA: Thanks, Tom!

TOM: Thank you, Shauna.

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[Shauna Skye may be reached at ShaunaSkye@aol.com]