#070: Paul Michael Anderson – Writing moral murkiness, making short stories work, and prioritizing life.

Activated Authors

English - January 15, 2021 00:01 - 57 minutes - 53 MB - ★★★★★ - 2 ratings
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Previous Episode: #069: Chris Allen – Games writing, storytelling through role-play & “Aren’t we all writing fanfic, anyway?”

Next Episode: #071: Laura Kendrick – A Master's degree in Creative Writing, fan fiction, and being authentically you.

Paul Michael Anderson is the author of the collection Bones Are Made to Be Broken, which Jack Ketchum called “a dark carnival of rigorous intelligence and compassion, the title novella alone of which is well worth the price of admission”, as well as the novellas I Can Give You Life, and How We Broke (with Bracken MacLeod), and dozens of short stories, articles, and reviews.

His new novella Standalone launches tomorrow (as of the time of recording), and Stephen Graham Jones describes it as “A metaphysical science fiction slasher that doesn’t scrimp on the gore and might just get you rooting for the guy with the machete, the ax, the knife, and that certain glint in his eye that lets you know it’s all over.”

In this episode we go deep into:

Paul’s entry into blogging and building his website
How Paul wrote his way out of a driving ticket
Balance content and expectation with a knowledge of your privilege
Why Paul writes fiction alongside his blogging
Paul’s encounter with a fan that spurred on his writing
Paul’s journey into horror writing
How Paul got featured in collections with such heavy-hitters of the genre
Building a reputation in the short story world
What to look for when entering into an anthology
Why writing short stories is a numbers game
Why “Standalone” was the book that ’needed to be written.'
The power of the anti-hero and moral murkiness
How to approach people to blurb your book
Why Paul writes

Find out more about Paul:

Twitter: @P_M_Anderson

https://thenothingspace.net/

Links from the show:

www.danielwillcocks.com

Stephen King’s "Pet Semetery" https://books2read.com/u/bw7kDy

Jack Ketchum https://www.jackketchum.net/

Joe R Lansdale http://www.joerlansdale.com/

Harlan Ellison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison

Get your Great Writers Share merchandise!

https://www.danielwillcocks.com/merch/gws

GWS Press books: