Author Mike Robinson

 

When did you first want to write for a living?

That would be when I was seven years old, just a little tyke, getting my hands dirty (or bloody?) in the likes of Bruce Coville, Stephen King, R.L. Stine, H.G. Wells, Dean Koontz and, a little later, Edgar Allen Poe and the rest of the gang. I loved the titillating thrill of not only getting sucked into a story but making my own. There was no pretense or conscious decision, really -- it was rather like a cerebral or emotional version of having to go to the bathroom.

What made you decide on horror?

I originally wrote sports stories, as at the time I was very much into baseball (I still am, but those were the days when I thought I might be a professional MLB player, before setting my sights on the far more practical dream of becoming a bestselling author :-) ). Then, once I began reading those Alvin Schwartz Scary Stories anthologies, I was attracted by the sheer creepy coolness of them (helped by the wonderful illustrations), and like a number of fairy tale protagonists I was strung further on into the darkness, succumbing to the treats of the aforementioned authors, and more. Movies and TV helped, too -- many a wonderful evening I spent with mutual-minded buddies watching such things as Creepshow and The X-Files.

How long have you been writing?

For 22 years, now that I'm 29. However, there was an unfortunate "high school lull". I started writing professionally when I was 19, when I sold a story to the Canadian magazine Storyteller.

What kind of inspirations do you have?

I get inspiration from many sources. I get story inspiration from wonderfully-crafted, tight and tense plots, usually from more commercial authors. I get language and spiritual inspiration from the Beethovens of prose, such as the Joyces or the Faulkners. Stimulating conversation, which I thankfully get on a regular basis with those I'm close to, also gets my juices flowing. New places. Nature -- I love hikes, woodsy areas, the sea (I have a very Melvillian fascination with all things marine). And, last but not least, I can sometimes find inspiration at the bottom of a good glass of vino or ale.

Favorite authors/or books?

Oh geez. I can go on and on with this one. But the "short" list would be: Ray Bradbury, James Joyce, Dante, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, Italo Calvino, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Saul Bellow, Sinclair Lewis, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyvesky, Miguel de Cervantes, Cormac McCarthy, Stanislaw Lem, Jules Verne, Hermann Hesse. I sometimes like to joke that my two favorite books are Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, because, in very artful and genuine ways, they embody polar-opposite philosophies. But it'd be impossible for me to pick a favorite book. I would make special mention, though, of Stephen King's IT having wrenched me from my adolescent stupor and put the pen back in my hand.

What can we expect to see from you in the near future?

On February 9th, Curiosity Quills Press will release my new existential / survival horror novel The Prince of Earth. In the next year, my novel Negative Space, set in the same universe as The Green-Eyed Monster, will make its debut.
 

 

Martin Smith and John Becker: bestselling authors with ordinary names and extraordinary minds.

Their words have power — to heal, to kill, to change the lives of their “characters” in shocking and unexpected ways. Famous for their uncanny similarity in both physical manner and literary voice, their childhood rivalry spins out of control into adulthood.

The death of one at the hands of the other brings to light their troubling past — and a mysterious presence, watching on from the shadows— an authorial entity with roots beyond our time or dimension. An entity with far-reaching designs.

The pen is truly mightier than the deadliest sword.

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Bio:

Mike Robinson has been writing since age 7, when his story Aliens In My Backyard! became a runaway bestseller, topping international charts (or maybe that was also just a product of his imagination).

He has since published fiction in a dozen magazines, literary anthologies and podcasts. His debut novel, Skunk Ape Semester, released by Solstice Publishing, was a Finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Currently he’s the managing editor of Literary Landscapes, the official magazine of the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (glaws.org). He is also a freelance editor.