What’s your favorite genre to read?
I enjoy reading urban fantasy, especially Charles de Lint. Lately though, I’m reading mysteries, detective, action / adventure, and non-fiction. I’ve been reading Thomas King’s “Dreadful Water” series, which is fun, and Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield books. And, sadly, I just read the last entry in Ian Hamilton’s excellent Ava Lee series.
With which author would you like to have dinner, and what would be your first question?
Most of my choices would be authors who have passed away, sadly. Probably the American SF&F author, Roger Zelazny, who was (is) one of my favourite writers. I’d probably ask him if he could come back and write one more book, what would it be?
My favorite work:
For a written work, it’s probably Roger Zelazny’s LORD OF LIGHT, one of the greatest speculative fiction novels ever written.
Another is E.R. Eddison’s ZIMIAMVIAN trilogy, a forgotten classic that influenced Tolkien. It should appeal to fans of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Ice and Fire series (but predates it by ever so many decades). Other favourite works include STATION ELEVEN, THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, DUNE, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, LORD OF THE RINGS, DUNE, SONG OF ICE AND FIRE (the Game of Thrones books), and HARRY POTTER.
For TV, it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It remains the most creative TV show ever and is a writing workshop on character development and arcs and dialog.
For my favourite from my own work, it’s usually whatever I’m currently writing.
Have you read any new or lesser-known authors you would like to mention?
If you’re a fantasy fan, then I’d highly recommend that you track down E. R. Eddison’s Zimiamvian trilogy. If you can, get the annotated edition (http://www.amazon.com/Zimiamvia-A-Trilogy-Keith-Henderson/dp/0440503000).
For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I’ve moved exclusively to ebooks. Part of it was a desire to declutter, but I enjoy my ereader (a Kobo) and the ability to carry multiple books with me, browse and buy, directly check out library books, and also the ability to search in the book when I forget who a minor character was.
How do you relax?
Cycling is my favourite activity. Toronto has an excellent network of long bicycle routes, most of which follow the four river valleys that run down to Lake Ontario, plus an even longer system of paths and trails that follow the shoreline of the lake.
And reading, of course. I also enjoy duplicate bridge with my wife, plus we’re a big movie watching and board games family.
Please tell us something about yourself most folks might not know.
My wife and I live north of Toronto, and we have two grown sons and a beautiful granddaughter, all of whom are close by. Our granddaughter is an indie singer / songwriter / performer, whose musical persona is
Housewife.
I worked for a large professional services firm as an IT executive, a job that required extensive global travel, which gave me a chance to see a lot of places and cultures around the world, which I really enjoyed.
I’m an avid cyclist and have cycled in ever so many places around the world, including New Zealand and Peru. I’ve done the Ride to Conquer Cancer three times, a major fund raiser in several cities across Canada, 200+ kilometers (130 miles) over two days from Toronto to Niagara Falls.
What else? Player of duplicate bridge and board games, major movie fan (we see 100+ movies a year), huge Buffy and Doctor Who fan, and musically, Springsteen is my god.
Interesting facts about your work, movies, TV, foreign editions etc.
Well, I’ve been published in, I think, thirty-six countries and twenty-seven languages. That all started when I came across a German anthology shortly after I started publishing, that accepted submissions in English and would translate. It opened up a whole new world of non-English markets for my already published stories. I started compiling a list for my own use and eventually put it up on my website for other writers to use. It’s called the Foreign Market List, where foreign means non-English.
What else? I had an indie director make a 30-minute film based on my horror short story, “By Her Hand She Draws You Down,” which was a fun process. The film is very well done and won a bunch of awards when it toured indie film festivals in North America and internationally.
Who would you most like to be trapped in an elevator with? or a spaceship?
My grand-daughter, because she is awesome.
What would you pack for space? What couldn’t you do without?
My Kobo ebook reader, loaded with books. And the charging cable.
What’s the most important thing you’d like to get/achieve from your work?
I just want the chance to tell the stories that are in my head, to get them down in a form that people can read and enjoy. That’s first. After that, I want people to read and enjoy them. Fame and fortune would be nice, but hey, I’m a writer so I keep my expectations low.
What is the special satisfaction of your work?
Creating a story that is as close as possible to the one in my head. The finished story is never as good as the unrealized version that sits in your imagination, all perfect and pristine. But sometimes you get very, very close. And sometimes the finished product is even better than the original inspiration.
So yeah, the creation process. It is painful at times (okay, most times), but is also wonderfully rewarding.
That and getting feedback from readers. I had a fan scold me playfully once at a con because one of my stories had made her cry in public as she was reading it in a coffee shop. That’s the reaction any writer aims for – to know that a story moved a reader or touched them in some way to elicit that strong a reaction.
Tips for aspiring authors:
Chase your dream and never give up. Most importantly–write. Writing is a craft, and the only way to develop a craft is to practice it regularly. And get feedback, whether in a writing group or from some trusted readers. Your early work will suck. Early attempts in any endeavor will suck. Being a Canadian, I will use a hockey analogy. Wayne Gretzky was probably the greatest player we’ve ever seen. He started skating when he was three years old. I guarantee the first time he stepped on the ice on that rink his father had made in the backyard, he fell flat on his face. Beginners do that. Just keep getting up, keep trying, and you will become publishable.
What is your most precious tip for a new indie author?
Focus on improving your craft as a writer, not on promoting yourself. Let your work speak for itself. It’s a numbers game, and the writer with the most good quality books and stories out there will have the best chance.
What advice to you have for writers starting out in the field of speculative fiction?
I still recommend to new writers to start with short fiction. Short stories let you learn the craft of fiction in more manageable chunks and provide a built-in measure of how your craft is progressing, via when you start to sell your stories. You can try out ever so many genres, story structures, voice styles, and so much more in 100,000 words of short fiction than you can in a single 100,000-word novel. Your craft will advance faster if you start with short stories.
There are a lot of other advantages to starting with short fiction, and I discuss them all (and much more) in my writer’s guide, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. I wrote that book to try to make it easier for beginning writers to understand the business side of short fiction, and as my way of paying-it-forward.
Has your interaction with fans affected your work?
I love to meet fans at cons or readings or any writerly event, and to receive emails from them as well. I love getting feedback from people who’ve read my work. I’m not sure that any particular comment from readers has affected my work, though. By that I mean that I can’t point to any instance where I’ve decided to write (or not write) some planned story based on interactions with fans.
Rather, I’d say that I’m constantly surprised by the favourites that fans pick from my work. While some stories get mentioned more than others, I’ve been pleased with the variety of the stories fans select as their favourite tale.
That tells me that I need to continue to write the stories that I want to write and not try to predict what stories will be popular or well received. So, on reflection, yes, I suppose that interaction with fans has affected how I look at my work.
Is there any particular incident (letter, meeting, comment) that stands out?
I published a translated collection of my fantasy stories, La Danse des Esprits (Spirit Dance), in France with a fine small French press, Dreampress, in 2010. The editor, Benoît Domis, asked me if I could suggest a recognized writer who would be willing to write an introduction and whose name on the cover might help sales.
That collection contained three of my Heroka shapeshifter urban fantasy stories, which use Canadian First Nations story telling traditions and mythologies. Because of that, I thought that one of my favourite writers, the multi-award-winning Charles de Lint, the father of urban fantasy and whose stories often employ similar myths, would be a perfect fit. Plus, Charles is a fellow Canadian. Benoît agreed.
One problem. I had never met or communicated with Charles. I had no idea if he’d even consider writing the intro. But I emailed him anyway, and he was kind enough to reply, a reply in which he apologized for not having had the opportunity yet to read my work. Which was a polite and very Canadian (and very Charles) way of saying that he had no idea who I was. But despite that, he offered to read some of the stories and get back to me.
Which he did, saying that he loved the collection and would be happy to write the introduction. As I’d hoped, his favourite stories were the Heroka tales. Later, Charles wrote saying he’d seen that I was writing a novel in the Heroka universe and that he’d love to look at it when I was done. Wow! Major fan boy moment for me.
The novel was my first, The Wolf at the End of the World. I sent Charles a draft copy, which he loved. He again kindly agreed to write the introduction for it as well. His intro is beautiful — lyrical, and touching, highlighting the ongoing struggle of our First Nations peoples for justice to address past and current mistreatment, and set against the indifference of our federal government, a key theme of the novel.
So, one of my favourite writers and an influence on my own work had become a fan, and since, a friend. Very cool and still hard to believe.
Douglas Smith is a five-time award-winning author described by Library
Journal as “one of Canada's most original writers of speculative fiction.”
His latest work is the multi-award-winning YA urban fantasy trilogy, The
Dream Rider Saga. Other books include the urban fantasy novel, The Wolf
at the End of the World; the collections, Chimerascope and Impossibilia;
and the writer's guide Playing the Short Game.
His short fiction has appeared in the top
markets in the field, including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science
Fiction, Amazing Stories, InterZone, Weird Tales, and
many others.
He is a 4-time winner of Canada's Aurora Award as well as the juried IAP Award.
He's been a finalist for the Astounding Award, CBC's Bookies Award, Canada's
juried Sunburst Award, the juried Alberta Magazine Award for Fiction, and
France's juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane.
Website * Facebook * Instagram * Bluesky *
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