STALKING R. NARVAEZ

VISIT R. NARVAEZ WEBSITE HERE http://richienarvaez.com/

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, R. Narvaez has had work featured in Murdaland, Long Island Noir, Indiana Country Noir, and Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery. His first collection of short fiction, Roachkiller and Other Stories, was published in 2012. 

B.OC.

WHAT INFLUENCED YOU TO START WRITING?

RICHIE

My brother, who used to beat me up religiously, started writing to get extra credit in school. I always competed with him, so I started writing too. Then he became a sports fanatic, but I was stuck--I had caught the writing bug and was doomed for life.

B.O.C.

 WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE WRITERS?

RICHIE

Wow, there are many. Currently: John Cheever, Andre Norton, Chester Himes. To touch on your first question again for a moment, I think many writers are first turned on to writing by certain dynamic writers, and I think for me, and no doubt for many others, there was Stan Lee. And from him on to Raymond Chandler, Somerset Maugham, Robert E. Howard.

B.O.C.

 WHAT KIND OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE A WRITER THAT’S JUST STARTING OUT?

RICHIE

Go into accounting because frankly I don’t need any more competition. Also, take up smoking and excessive drinking.

B.O.C.

 DO YOU SCAN THE NEWSPAPERS OR INTERNET SITES, OR EVEN TV FOR IDEAS?

RICHIE

Every time I read a newspaper I get an idea for a story. Newspapers are easier because the items come to me one page at a time. The Internet can feel too much like an ocean of ideas crashing over my head.

B.O.C.

 IF YOU HAD THE POWER, WHAT DEAD CELEBRITY WOULD YOU BRING BACK TO LIFE AND WHAT USE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR THEM?

Elvis Presley. I’d ask him to kill and eat Justin Bieber like livestock. Metaphorically, of course, and with a new Comeback from the Dead TV Special.

B.O.C.

 TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT YOUR NEW BOOK.

RICHIE

My latest book is Roachkiller and Other Stories. It's an anthology of 10 of my early genre stories. Overall, every story has a noir quality -- in terms of emotional darkness -- and they range from literary to crime to private eye to postmodern to one semi-erotic one or maybe that one’s just a dirty story to sci fi to post-apocalyptic to horror. So, there's variety! I’m very proud to say the book was just nominated for a Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection.

B.O.C.

 IF YOU WERE STUCK AT HOME ON A FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES AND YOUR CHOICE FOR TV WAS DUKES OF HAZZARD OR KNIGHT RIDER. WHICH ONE WOULD YOU WATCH?

What, you mean Greatest American Hero was preempted? Knight Rider, but only because, as much as I lust for Daisy Duke, I couldn't stand wading through the rest of that show to see her wiggling into the General Lee. Honestly, in either case, I'd probably just leave the TV on in the background and read through all my comic books again.

B.O.C.

 WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE CRIMINAL OR CRIME COMMITTED, HISTORICALLY?

RICHIE

Favorite is not the right word, but the criminal I find the most fascinating is Richard Kuklinski, "The Iceman," who apparently killed not only for organized crime outfits but also for his own enjoyment, for more than 30 years! And he did all this while being a family man! There are some haunting, disturbing videos of him on YouTube discussing his life and some of the murders he committed. If you write about crime and want to understand the seriousness of the subject, I think it’s important to see how dark and ugly that world can get.

B.O.C.

 WHAT’S THE BEST AND WORST BOOK YOU’VE EVER READ AND IT’S OK TO TELL US YOU’RE GUILTY PLEASURE AS FAR AS BOOKS OR OTHER ENTERTAINMENT.

RICHIE

So many good and bad books--how can I remember? Let’s say, for now, I Am Thinking of My Darling, by Vincent McHugh, which uses a lovingly detailed hard boiled type of narration with a fantasy plot. It’s a funny, sexy book that also serves as a love letter to a New York City that no longer exists. As far as worst, I've read plenty of stinkers. Most recently, I tried to read Michael Crichton's Timeline. It read like a movie script fisted into a movie. Every story is a contrivance, but you shouldn't see the seams. In this book, you can see all the seams, the glue, the fakeness of the contrivances. I enjoy a lot of Crichton's work, but this was a disappointment.

B.O.C

 WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE JERRY LEWIS MOVIE?

RICHIE

First of all, I love Dean and I love Jerry, but I don't love Dean and Jerry, so all those movies are out. Then, anything with a message or is that is too cute, Delinquent Delinquent, for example -- out. Many people love Nutty Professor, but it seems needy and cloying in that mawkish Robin Williams way. No, my favorite Lewis movie is probably my favorite because they showed it so much on TV when I was growing up: Hook, Line, and Sinker. It's probably not his best, but his mugging doesn't dominate, and it hints at something dark and cynical in its plot. And hey I love that last shot!

LISTEN TO RICHIE NARRATE HIS STORY OLD PENDIJO ON DARK DREAMS PODCAST  http://darkdreamspodcast.blogspot.com/

STALKING JOE LANSDALE

Joe Richard Lansdale (born October 28, 1951) is an American author and martial-arts expert. He has written novels and stories in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. He has also written for comics as well as Batman: The Animated Series.
Frequent features of Lansdale's writing are usually deeply ironic, strange or absurd situations or characters, such as Elvis and JFK battling a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy in a nursing home (the plot of his Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella, Bubba Ho-Tep, which was made into a movie by Don Coscarelli). He is the winner of the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the American Horror Award, the Edgar Award, and nine Bram Stoker Awards. The World Horror Convention made him the recipient of the 2007 Grand Master Award for contributions to the field of Horror fiction.
He is perhaps best known for his Hap and Leonard series of novels which feature two friends, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, who live in the fictional town of Laborde, in East Texas, and find themselves solving a variety of often unpleasant crimes. The characters themselves are an unlikely pairing; Hap is a white working class laborer in his mid forties who once protested against the war in Vietnam, and Leonard is a gay black Vietnam vet. Both of them are accomplished fighters, and the stories (told from Hap's narrative point of view) feature a great deal of violence, profanity and sex. Lansdale paints a picture of East Texas which is essentially "good" but blighted by racism, ignorance, urban and rural deprivation and corruption in public officials. Some of the subject matter is extremely dark, and includes scenes of brutal violence. These novels are also characterized by sharp humor and "wisecracking" dialogue.

B.O.C.

 YOU’RE KNOWN FOR BLENDING GENRES. HAVE YOU  EVER HAD AN EDITOR SEND YOUR STORY BACK WITH WHAT THE FUCK WRITTEN IN A NOTE?

JOE

 I've had editors not get it, but mostly early on. They sometimes said the tone was wrong for a Western, or such. Or that you can't cross them up that way. Or it was too literary. Or too pulp. But mostly, after a period of time, I don't get that. Doesn't mean they might not be thinking it, though.

B.O.C.

 YOUR HAP AND LEONARD NOVELS PRETTY POPULAR. WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THE BOOKS?

JOE

 Real life. A lot of Hap's experiences are mine. I also wanted to write a book about my earlier life without doing it directly. It's not my adventure, but a lot of the ideas, thoughts, experiences are Hap's. I also wanted, at that time, to write about the sixties folks I knew, and was among. Leonard just showed up in the story. He's based on a number of people I know or have known.

B.O.C.

DO YOU SCAN THE NEWSPAPERS OR INTERNET SITES, OR EVEN TV FOR IDEAS?

JOE

 I don't do it consciously, but now and again, from reading, or viewing, something will stimulate an idea, and I'm off.

B.O.C.

 WHAT WRITERS INSPIRED YOU TO START WRITING?

JOE

So many. Poe. Twain. London. Kipling. Stevenson. But Edgar Rice Burroughs in particular. Later so many more. Kuttner, Bradbury, Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Chester Himes, Raymond Chandler, James Cain, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Flannery O'Conner. Too many to name

B.O.C.

 IF YOU HAD THE POWER, WHAT DEAD CELEBRITY WOULD YOU BRING BACK TO LIFE AND WHAT USE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR THEM?

JOE

 Mark Twain. I'd just like to hear him talk and have him write more books.

B.O.C.

WHAT ADVISE WOULD YOU GIVE WRITERS STARTING OUT?

JOE

Read. Lots. Then write. Lots

B.O.C.

OK, YOU’RE A TIME TRAVELER AND YOU END UP IN 1956, TWO CONCERTS ARE HAPPENING AT THE SAME TIME. LIBERACE AND ELVIS. WHICH ONE WOULD YOU GO TO?

JOE

Elvis, hands down.

B.O.C.

TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THE NEW BOOKS YOU HAVE OUT.

JOE

 EDGE OF DARK WATER in paperback from Mulholland, and watch for the new one from them in hardback, THE THICKET, later this year.

B.O.C.

WHAT HITCHCOCK FILM HAS HAD THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON YOU AND?  IT’S OK TO TELL EVERYONE YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE ANY ENTERTAINMENT.

JOE

9. Toss up. Psycho or Shadow of A Doubt. My guilty pleasure, well, I don't feel all that guilty about any of it. I like ROADHOUSE and lots of old fifties S.F. films that have not stood the test of time that well, but they are fun for me.

B.O.C.

 I HAVE TO ASK THIS: BUBA HO TEP, MY FRIEND---WHAT THE FUCK? WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR THAT GREAT STORY?

JOE

Elvis fan. Mother in a rest home for a while due to injury. JFK was shot when I was young. My sister-in-law graduated high school with Elvis. My brother tried to record at Sun. They are about seventeen years older than me, but I was around when Elvis first became known. The first music I remember was Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, and Elvis Presley. And, I promised a story.

ALSO CHECKOUT A NARRATION OF JOE'S STORY TINY STITCHES IN A DEAD MAN'S BACK ON DARK DREAMS PODCAST

http://darkdreamspodcast.blogspot.com/ 

STALKING T. FOX DUNHAM

T. FOX DUNHAM Published in nearly 200 journals & anthologies. Creator of the Ragtime Cycles & The Saga of Seth-7. Regular stories on Beam Me Up. Author of New World, a wild zombie novella from May-December Press.
  His first novel, The Street Martyr, based on the flash fiction piece Kid Louie published by Flash Fiction Offensive, will be published by Out of the Gutter Publishing. This is a crime, hardboiled, grit-literary novel about the struggle of a low-level drug dealer against a system of poverty and drugs designed to keep him imprisoned in the lowest class of society. 

B.O.C.

WHAT INFLUENCED YOU TO START WRITING?

A: I was born with an innate and spiritual love of the craft. Then my mother imbued me with a love of books, and I wanted to emulate this love. And, it was a way to escape the trials of my early family life, always having a book with me, a shield. I still do it.

B.O.C

 WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE WRITERS?

A: There are certain authors that ease the pain and comfort me. Truman Capote. Ernest Hemingway. Joseph Heller. J.D. Salinger. I adore Jonathon Safran-Foer and wish he’d write more. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbuy and Philip K. Dick. These are the parents of my work, and I live in their vision.

B.O.C.

 WHAT KIND OF ADVISE WOULD YOU GIVE A WRITER THAT’S JUST STARTING OUT?

A: Depends where you’re starting out. If you’re starting to write, then most importantly, finish your work, even if you hate it. Crafting is about encoding that vision in your head onto the page so others can share your vision. It takes time, and you only learn by finishing stories.

A: If you’re starting to seek publication, then build a C.V. Many authors will tell you that only paid work validates, but what’s really important is getting read. You need to build a C.V., and free markets are a good place to start. Care less about other authors. We congratulate each other and create an illusion of success. Readers! Care about readers.

B.O.C.

 DO YOU SCAN THE NEWSPAPERS OR INTERNET SITES, OR EVEN TV FOR IDEAS?

A: Any source of humanity is my font of ideas. Most of my ideas come from my experience, like my battle with cancer or the people whom I have loved and loss. Any source that exhibits human nature is your source.

B.O.C.

 IF YOU HAD THE POWER, WHAT DEAD CELEBRITY WOULD YOU BRING BACK TO LIFE AND WHAT USE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR THEM?

A: Right now, Tony Clifton—whom I’m not going to say was Andy Kaufman. I’m writing a book about Andy and his lost son, and I’d love to wreck a few nightclubs with the Vegas singer.

VOLARE!!!

B.O.C.

 TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT YOUR NEW BOOK.

A: The Street Martyr is my first long fiction. It’s a gritty, crime, hard-boiled novel that transcends the genre into a literary realm of theme. It explores the harsh issue of enforced poverty and the means people employ to escape it: drugs, crime, insanity, and religion.

Vincent is a low-level drug dealer, selling mostly prescription narcotics to college kids in University City in Philly. He and his partner, Louie, operate under a local mob boss, Dominic, and make a poor living, which Vincent uses to take care of his mother who is dying of cancer.

A priest at the local church looked after Vincent as he grew up, Father Gabriel, and on the night of a Nor’easter, he asks that Vincent take care of problem: the new priest, Father Mills, is a known pedophile, and Gab wants Vincent to scare him into restraint until he can get him transferred to a safe place. That night Vincent visits him, leaves him alive, but in the morning, city workers find the priest’s body in a local park. The city, the PPD, and mob start to hunt down Vincent.

At first, Vincent tries to escape, but after losing everything, he decides to join the Philly homeless population and find the only witness to the murder—a local prophet among the lost.

The book will be released by Out of the Gutter Publishing in the Fall.

B.O.C.

 IF YOU WERE STUCK AT HOME ON A FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES AND YOUR CHOICE FOR TV WAS DUKES OF HAZZARD OR KNIGHT RIDER. WHICH ONE WOULD YOU WATCH?

A: I doubt I could hear either with my head in the oven.

B.O.C.

WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE CRIMINAL OR CRIME COMMITTED, HISTORICALLY?

A: I’m a great fan of Myer Lansky. He was one of the few members and founders of the mob who died an old man, surrounded by his family, one of the wealthiest people in the world. That bloke had style, self-control, and brilliance.

B.O.C.

WHAT’S THE BEST AND WORST BOOK YOU’VE EVER READ AND IT’S OK TO TELL US YOU’RE GUILTY PLEASURE AS AFAR AS BOOKS OR OTHER ENTERTAINMENT.

A: Gods… are you trying to keep me up at nights? How can I pick just one book? 9 Stories by J.D. Salinger comes to mind as best along with The Grass Harp by Capote. Cosmos by Carl Sagan is my bible. As for worst . . . I usually put books I don’t like down, so I don’t know about worst. Certain books in the Christian bible teach hate and intolerance–and the characters are just so two dimensional.

B.O.C.

 WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE JERRY LEWIS MOVIE?

A: Oh. A modern one. Cracking Up. One day, I have to fly Jolly Fats Wehawkin Airlines.

ALSO CHECK OUT FOX'S STORY NARRATED BY EARL WYNN ON DARK DREAMS PODCAST  http://www.spreaker.com/user/deadrecords0/dark_dreams_thomas_f_monteleone
http://darkdreamspodcast.blogspot.com/

BLACKOUT CITY SERIES LAUNCHES!

I COULDN'T WAIT! HERE IT IS! JOE SMOKE AND HIS BIZARRO WORLD!

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COMING APRIL 5, 2013 BLACKOUT CITY : COME LIVE IN JOE SMOKE'S WORLD!

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                                  ART BY BOGBRUSH