Confessions of my Past, Present and Future
by
Robert E. Dunn
The Past
The question everyone gets when talking about the book’s
they’ve written is, who were your influences? That’s a question, both casual
and serious. Casually speaking, it’s basic curiosity to wonder who we think
about when we try to be our best. Every author can give you a list of the
people that inspired them. All writers are readers by nature. In fact, it is
from that nature that the desire to tell our own stories come. An honest list
from any of us would give a few surprises, like hearing that your favorite
rocker also has a thing for Yo-Yo Ma.
I’ve admitted many times that I grew up on comic books. I
had hundreds of copies of 1960’s and early 1970’s comics. They were mostly DC
and the old horror comics from Warren like Eerie
and Creepy. A lot of us kids on
military bases could not come up with the change for all the comics we wanted
so we used to trade. That created both an opportunity for more reading and a
community within which to share. That’s is an amazing incubator for any writer.
Casually, I will tell you that my influences are kind of
obvious for a writer of horror or spec fiction. Aside from the comics, I read a
lot of classics by Poe, Lovecraft, Burroughs, Robert Lewis Stevenson, that kind
of thing. Later I discovered Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov
and the hundreds of authors in those orbits. The book that most defined me and
my reading at the time was a copy of Adventures
In Time And Space that I kept, with a duct taped spine, until it was lost
in a house fire in 2009.
Later, after discovering William Peter Blatty and the
nightmare The Exorcist inspired, I
began seeking out the horrible more than anything else. That, of course, led to
Stephen King. My first exposure and forever my favorite was Salem’s Lot.
Seriously though, the other side of the, who influenced
you, question is really, who laid the path you hope to walk? There are so many
writers that I read and wish I could match in skill or out-put. But, in the
1970’s, Stephen King started something. He, his books anyway, made it okay to
be known as a horror writer. Before him, there was acceptable literary horror
that was not so scary or pulp horror that was usually, well, pulpy. Horror had
not yet developed the kind of geek culture that it has now. You had Universal
horror monsters and Japanese big stompy things, or Vampirella and Aurora, glow
in the dark models defining horror.
King said, horror is just another kind of good story and
he defined it by writing well, not by what he wrote. There were others, yes but
he was the name that was on everyone’s radar. He was our poster-boy just like
Lucas/Spielberg became the touchstones for the movie geeks out there.
By writing a series of books that were called horror, but
were really just good books and good stories, King and the other big names,
Straub, Matheson, Barker, Koontz, Herbert and others created a market that has
bloomed into the most prolific, and exciting niche in publishing. Horror has
the largest, most active small publishing community out there. It has the most
diverse readership that supports everything from, weird western to splatter
horror, cryptids to sparkly vampires. I believe that would all be there without
those big names but I also believe it would still be fringe instead of the
commercial force it is. And the one thing those reader groups have in common is
Stephen King. We all read him. We may not worship, some do, but I bet we can
all tell you a favorite of his.
The Present
I can give you a list of the writers I read. I have
shared my list with pretty much everyone many times. In fact, that has become
most of my social media presence, finding the writers I enjoy and basically
saying thank you. I make a pest of myself sometimes just expressing how much
the work of other author’s means to me. I’ve never met or talked with Stephen
King. I don’t expect to. But he made the path so many of us have started out
on. We all add our own trails but when we say, I write horror, someone will
always ask, Like Stephen King? No, not like King but, in a small part, because
of him. Thanks, Mr. King.
These days I don’t actually read King as much. The new
stuff that is. He’s gone his direction and I’ve gone mine. These days I’m
reading Richard Kadrey’s books, Jonathan Maberry, Nick Cutter, Joe Lansdale, Chuck
Wendig and of course Hunter Shea.
Yeah I like monsters and I like the monstrous. There are
so many others it’s impossible to simply list the authors we read. I imagine it
will be the same in the future. I have turned my daughters into geeks. They
remind me of this every chance they get. One is more into Tudor history than
she is into zombies but she’ll go to any monster movie with dad. The other two
are D&D loving, ghost hunting, chips off the ol’ block. So that’s really my
future.
The Future
There is another future though, more in the realm of
hopes than expectation. I hope to see the horror I love become the horror
everyone can relate to. It does that by inclusion. I don’t think my daughters
have any interest in becoming horror writers but if they ever express any, I’ll
be right there cheering them on. To any other women who want to write a scary,
or gory, or just plain creepy book, I say go for it. Actually I’m asking,
please go for it. Everything is changing, publishing, marketing, reading.
Finding new voices is the only way the most exciting of genres stays relevant
and expands.
To the writers I know, most of us white guys writing
white guy characters, we can help the future unfold in the best of ways.
Support a woman who wants to write the same way we support the guy’s. Support
the writers of color with your interest in their point of view and experiences.
Step out of your comfort zone and write a character that is very different from
you, female main characters, gay heroes, African antagonists. Then treat them
the way you do every other character, put them through hell and kick their
butts while you make them grow. I think it will be good for us all.
In 2045 I will turn 85, with any luck. I started novel
writing late in life after having made my living writing for corporations and
more than anything else, video programming. It was probably the day to day
making a living thing that made me need to write a novel. Then the next one and
the next one after that. Life builds on itself I think. In that sense we’re all
these walking bits of coral reef.
I hope I’m still writing so close to the center of this
century. I hope a few people know my name and one or two buy a book. If nothing
else, as long as I breathe I know I will be reading. I can’t wait to see what
scares the books have in store for me.
You can buy The Red
Highway here.
You can buy any of Robert’s other books here.
If you would like to help support Confessions of a Reviewer,
then please consider using the links below to buy any of the books
mentioned in this feature. This not only supports me but also lets me know
how many people actually like to buy books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Robert E. Dunn was born an army brat and grew up in the
Missouri Ozarks. He wrote his first book at age eleven, stealing, or
novelizing, as he called it at the time, the storyline of a Jack Kirby comic
book.
His college course of study, philosophy, religion,
theatre, and film/TV communications, left him qualified only to be a
televangelist. When that didn’t work out, he turned to them mostly, honest work
of video production. Over several years he produced everything from
documentaries, to training films and his favorite, travelogues. Still always
writing for the joy of it he returned to writing horror and fantasy fiction for
publication after the turn of the century. It seemed like a good time for
change even if the changes were not always his choice.
He lives in Kansas City with three daughters, a young
grandson, and an old dog.
He is the author of the horror novels, The Dead Ground and Behind The Darkness: Alien Invasion, from Severed Press as well as The Red Highway from Necro Publications.
In 2016 he will be releasing Motorman
and The Harrowing from Necro, and A Living Grave from Kensington/Lyrical.
In addition, he is the author of romantic/erotic suspense novels written under
a pen name. He dares you to find out that name.
And for more about Robert, visit his site or find him on
social media:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Amazon Page
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