An Interview With Jonathan Janz

Today folks I'd like to present my interview with Jonathan Janz.  Jonathan is an author from the US and along with folks like Ramsey Campbell, Greg Gifune, and Frazer Lee is heading up Samhain Press's new horror line .

GNOH – Hi Jonathan, how are you doing?

Amazingly! How the heck are you?

GNOH – Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a teacher and a writer, but more importantly, I’m a husband and a father (sadly, I’m neither an officer nor a gentleman). My wife and kids mean everything to me. That’s a pretty boring answer, but I don’t mind being boring as long as my fiction is lively. As far as my writing is concerned, I write horror and suspense, with a strong lean toward the supernatural.

GNOH – Have you always been a fan of horror?

Pretty much. The bio on my website (jonathanjanz.com) explains that I grew up between a dark forest and a graveyard. I think that predetermined the genre in which I would one day work. I was always terrified of those trees and those gravestones, but I was also weirdly attracted to them. Now I get to channel both of those emotions—the dread and the longing—into my writing.

GNOH – What are your five favourite films and authors?

Great question, but a really hard one to answer. Both lists change by the day, but as of right now, here they are (and since we’re talking about horror here, I’ve stuck to that genre for my choices)…

Films:

1. Jaws

2. The Exorcist

3. Halloween

4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

5. Ravenous

Books

1. Ghost Story, by Peter Straub

2. ‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King

3. The Road, Cormac McCarthy

4. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum

5 (tie). The Nightrunners, Joe R. Lansdale

5 (tie). Hell House, by Richard Matheson

GNOH – So what prompted you to put pen to paper?  Was it always your intention to become a published author?

I got into a horrible car accident during my senior year in high school. I’d actually begun writing a novel a couple months prior, but after I got hurt so badly, the only two things I could do for quite a while were to read and to write. The novel, by the  way, was dreadfully written, and I never did finish it. But the experience was positive and transformative enough that I decided to try it again when I was twenty-six. What I wrote at that time was only slightly less dreadful. I’d say I’ve begun to come into my own over the past couple of years. I still, however, have a heck of a lot to learn, and I love that process of discovering, striving, failing, and improving. It has always been my dream to get my stuff published; thankfully, Don D’Auria and Samhain have acquired my first two novels, which has been a dream come true.

GNOH – Who and how would you say are the biggest influences on your writing?

Stephen King above all. I wouldn’t even be a reader without his work. After King there are several authors who’ve influenced my style: Elmore Leonard, John Steinbeck, Richard Laymon, Richard Matheson, Cormac McCarthy, Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Peter Straub, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, Harry Crews, Ernest Hemingway, Ian McEwan, Larry McMurtry, Ira Levin…so many others. To answer your question more succinctly, I’d say that King’s ability to characterize has influenced me. For pace, Richard Laymon has been a huge influence. Structurally, I lean on Straub. On a paragraph-by-paragraph structural level, Richard Matheson has really affected me. With word choice, Bradbury and Campbell have done an awful lot. With confidence and invisibility, I’d say Leonard and Ketchum have helped me a great deal. And Lansdale has taught me that you can have a distinct voice and a sense of humor, but you can still stay out of your characters’ way. That’s a fine balance, but Lansdale understands it. Hopefully, I’ve absorbed some that balance, too.

GNOH – And how would you describe your writing style?

Reading a great book is a lot like watching a great movie. Sure, they’re different mediums with different characteristics. But when I watch a movie like Jaws, I completely inhabit that world. I’m in the water with the shark or I’m on the boat with Quint. For me, a great book should be like that. Don D’Auria at Samhain often says “It’s all about the story,” and I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want anything—anything—to distract my reader from the world of the story. If I keep this in mind, every single decision begins to fall into place—characterization, plot, setting, word choice, pace, everything. So, to be more specific, I’d say I have a very cinematic and easy-to-read style, but I hope people can see the depth and the subtexts, too.

GNOH – Your first novel The Sorrows is about to be published by Samhain Press, how did this come about?  Was this the first time you had submitted the book to a publisher?

I originally wrote The Sorrows for Leisure Horror’s Fresh Blood Contest. I was named a top ten finalist and then a top five finalist by the editors. Though I didn’t win the “fan voting” part, I honestly didn’t care about that. The fact that Don D’Auria and others thought enough of my story and my writing to choose my book twice was as good as winning for me. Additionally, the publisher (Dorchester) basically fell apart after that, so not winning might have actually been better than winning.

When Don landed at Samhain, I sent him a new-and-dramatically-improved version of The Sorrows. He emailed me to tell me he wanted to acquire it. I performed a quadruple cartwheel around my living room and then signed the contract. Working with Don has been even better than I thought it’d be. He’s an amazing editor and an incredibly nice person.

GNOH – The press has a good balance between well know names and up and coming authors, how do you feel about being published alongside the likes of Ramsey Campbell and Greg Gifune?

Well, I love being mentioned in the same sentence with Gifune. He’s one of those guys who’s known and respected within the horror community, but who also deserves a much broader audience. I think, with time, he’ll be recognized by people outside of horror for being the excellent writer he is. I’m honored to be published alongside him.

And Ramsey Campbell? That’s a bit awe-inspiring. I truly believe Campbell’s work will be remembered a hundred years from now the way the work of other writers like Stephen King and Peter Straub will be. Campbell does what he does better than any other writer. I’ve written elsewhere that, like Poe, Campbell is able to achieve a cumulative, unified effect with his writing. The prose itself is elusive at times and a bit off-beat, but those traits are intentional and only add to the weirdness of the spell Campbell casts. Novels like The Doll Who Ate Its Mother and The Face That Must Die helped make me the writer I am today. I don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with him, but I’m extraordinarily proud to be published by the same company that’s now publishing his work.

GNOH – So let’s talk about The Sorrows, what is the significance of the title?  Is the title a reflection of the mood of the book?

The title comes from several sources, but here are a couple of them. One, music plays a huge role in the novel, and the great-grandfather of one of the main characters once wrote a symphony called The Sorrows after his wife died during childbirth. The role of fatherhood—in all its incarnations—is central in the book, and the various fathers experience sorrow and also inflict sorrow on others. There’s more to it than that, but that’ll do for now.  

GNOH – Can you tell us what the book is about?

There are two main stories: the story that takes place in the present and the story that takes place in the past. This Gothic structure has always appealed to me because in it, the past ultimately influences the present. So to answer your question, here are the two stories:

The Past (1913): When Robert Blackwood found the source of the music in the Greek forest, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Just six, the naked boy produced a melody so intoxicating that Robert—a struggling composer—decided to wrest him from his home and spirit him away to the Sorrows, the Blackwood family’s island off the coast of northern California. Robert named the child Gabriel and spent the next twelve years stealing his music. But when Robert pushed Gabriel too far, the horror really began.

The Present: Ben Shadeland and Eddie Blaze, movie music composers who are struggling to score a big budget horror film for the most demanding director in Hollywood, pay Chris Blackwood—heir to the Blackwood fortune and target of a homicidal loan shark—to let them and two young women spend a month on the Sorrows. Eddie believes a month in a haunted castle will inspire Ben to write a masterpiece.

But a god once named Gabriel is waiting. And he’s ready to feed. 

GNOH – You list a number of influences on the book, from Arthur Machen, Brian Keene and Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in a C Sharp Minor, can you tell us about how these things influenced the novel?

I love talking about these subjects. Arthur Machen, in his seminal novella “The Great God Pan,” introduced me to the ancient Greek god. Gabriel (one of the main character in my novel) and Pan have a very, very close kinship.

Brian Keene is one of my new favorite writers. Yeah, everyone else has known about him for a decade now, but I’ve only been reading his work for the last couple of years. He wrote a wonderful book called Dark Hollow (also titled The Rutting Season, I think) that helped me imagine my own antagonist in a slightly different way than I had initially. Basically, I’d already written the novel before I read Keene’s book, but studying the way he’d drawn his villain showed me that I’d done quite a bit right in the creation of my own antagonist. It gave me confidence to clarify a few things in the rewrite.

The Rachmaninoff song is one of my favorites. It demonstrates how frightening and evocative music can be, and this book is steeped in the world of music composition. Specifically, the composition of suspenseful, frightening music.

GNOH – How important is music to you?  How much power does it have over your life?

Music is very important to me, and while I think I have good taste in music (who doesn’t think that?), I’m not a talented musician or songwriter. My wife, thankfully, is, and through her abilities I get to appreciate music more than I otherwise would. But I love it. Classical, heavy metal, country, all of it. I write to music all the time, though in this respect I’m very specific. I can only write to classical music and film scores—no lyrics or I’m distracted—and over the past three years I’ve developed a powerful affinity for baroque music. It moves and flows in a way no other music can; I’ve come to regard it as a creative partner in my writing.

GNOH – You say the role of fatherhood plays an important role in the book.  Have you used this to talk about your fears and theories on fatherhood.  For me fatherhood is the scariest and most rewarding thing I have ever done.

I think those adjectives—scary and rewarding—are both appropriate ones for fatherhood. The former because I’m always afraid I won’t be the daddy my kids deserve, the latter because I derive far more joy from being a dad than I do from anything else.

The book takes a hard look at men and their dramatically varied feelings about fatherhood. This might sound cynical, but I think society gives men too much of a free pass. Like women, we have flaws, but unlike women, it’s considered natural for us to succumb to our flaws and to shirk even the most basic aspects of fatherhood. If a woman ignores her child, she’s a monster. If a man does the same, he’s just into his career or still a kid at heart or some other such nonsense. The ironic part of that is that for many men—and there are thankfully a great many awesome dads—the paternal urge is fierce and passionate. In fact, I think many women underestimate how powerfully men can love their children. The problem is, there are still far too many guys who think with their private parts or who are simply too selfish to bother with their kids. I explore all of this and more in The Sorrows.

GNOH – Who would you say the book is aimed at, and how would you sell it to them?

Adults, first of all. This is not intended for kids. There’s a good deal of violence, sex, and adult language in the book, but all of those elements are used for specific purposes. Still, this book is written for adults who can handle adult themes.

Secondly, I think the book will have a broad appeal. Sure, horror fans are part of the target audience, but I feel my style and the various aspects (suspense, romance, humor, etc.) of the book will make The Sorrows a tale that readers who normally gravitate toward other genres take notice, as well.

GNOH – You also mention that you stumbled upon Craigievar Castle, how exactly did you stumble upon it, where you travelling around Scotland at the time?

Okay…confession time. I left that part vague in my blog post because I’ve never actually been to Scotland. Or Europe, for that matter. But I did do a ton of internet and library study about castles and the architecture involved in their construction. When I saw Craigievar, it was like seeing my own imagination right there on the computer screen. This castle was what I’d been envisioning for the better part of sixteen years (the story had been in my head since I was an undergrad), so I read everything there was to read about Craigievar and utilized certain features of that castle in my novel. I hope to travel there someday. Or buy it, if the book sells enough copies. 

GNOH -  How excited are you in the days leading up to the release of the book?

I’m incredibly excited, but I’m also sort of frightened. I know how strange and wimpy this will sound, but I’m still trying to get used to the idea of people actually, you know, reading my work. It’s one thing to believe one’s stuff is good and worthy of being read by others; it’s another thing entirely to realize that, oh my goodness, people are soon going to be reading and making judgments on what I’ve written. So I’m in a peculiar mental state right now. Luckily, I’m editing a novel and a novella, and also working on a new novel, too. Those things take my mind off of the impending release.

GNOH – Like the rest of their books it is being released as an e-book first with a paperback to follow next year is there a reason for this?

I think it’s a fairly standard technique for Samhain, but I’m not certain why they do it that way. Perhaps it’s due to so much of their sales being from ebooks. I can say, however, that my next novel (House of Skin, which you ask about below) will be released simultaneously as both an ebook and a trade paperback this summer.

GNOH – You also have a second novel coming out from Samhain, called House of Skin, can you tell us anything about the book?

Indeed I can! House of Skin is a Gothic horror story about a love triangle between an aspiring author (Paul Carver), a beautiful-but-troubled woman (Julia Merrow), and a monstrous-but-seductive temptress who has been dead for fifteen years (Annabel). Here’s the synopsis that Don D’Auria wrote, which is far better than the one I created myself:

Myles Carver is dead.  But his estate, Watermere, lives on, waiting for a new Carver to move in.  Myles’s wife, Annabel, is dead too, but she is also waiting, lying in her grave in the woods.  For nearly half a century she was responsible for a nightmarish reign of terror, and she’s not prepared to stop now.  She is hungry to live again…and her unsuspecting nephew, Paul, will be the key.

Julia Merrow has a secret almost as dark as Watermere’s.  But when she and Paul fall in love they think their problems might be over.  How can they know what Fate—and Annabel—have in store for them?  Who could imagine that what was once a moldering corpse in a forest grave is growing stronger every day, eager to take her rightful place amongst the horrors of Watermere?

GNOH – How does it differ stylistically from The Sorrows?

A couple of the main characters in The Sorrows are truly horrible people. Even though there are no zombies in the book, The Sorrows reminds me a bit of a zombie novel in that the human beings are just as monstrous as the supernatural entities in the story. In Keene’s The Rising and in the film 28 Days Later, for instance, some of the soldiers are far more terrifying than the zombies. The Sorrows is like that, at times.

In House of Skin, there are people who also do terrible things, but the three main human characters (Paul Carver, Julia Merrow, and the sheriff, an awesome dude named Sam Barlow) are essentially good people put in horrible circumstances. In The Sorrows there are two characters like that (Ben Shadeland and Claire Harden), but there are several others who are truly wicked. In House of Skin, by far the most wicked character is the supernatural antagonist Annabel. She’s the literary descendant of H. Rider Haggard’s She and Peter Straub’s Alma Mobley (from Ghost Story).

GNOH – You have also written two novellas, was it always your intention to write them as a novella, as a way to hone your writing before you attacked the novel?

Well, I never thought that consciously, but now that you mention it, I think there was a subconscious fear of the novel that might’ve precipitated my forays into the novella. The funny thing is that writing a novella is really no easier than writing a novel—in some ways it’s harder. Sure, novels come with their own built-in challenges, but writing novellas requires more precision, more unwavering focus.

Both novellas were crucial to me and my development. The first (Witching Hour Theatre) I’ve come to view as a divine accident. I really had no idea what the heck I was doing, but the story somehow turned out quite well. I hadn’t studied fiction-writing at all, but I’d been reading voraciously for years and years beforehand. I think all that reading was responsible for whatever is good—and I think there’s a lot of good—in Witching Hour Theatre.

Old Order was a little different. I’d been working exclusively at novels for a few years without any feedback or affirmation to show for my work (at least, external affirmation). I decided to write a shorter story mainly because the idea came to me and had to be written down. I worked hard at it, edited it like crazy, and sent it to Jay Hartman at Untreed Reads. He responded very positively, published it, and it has been steadily growing ever since. It’s the first story I’ve made any money off of, and that’s a neat thing. Jay’s confidence in me and that story’s success really did a lot for my writerly self-esteem at a time when it was sorely in need of a boost. Since then, things have steadily gotten more exciting!

GNOH – How much would you say your writing has progressed since writing the novella’s, and what lessons did you learn from writing them?

Since Witching Hour Theatre, my writing has progressed so much that I don’t even consider myself the same writer as the kid who wrote that story. Old Order’s more recent, but I still see a lot of growth between last year and this year, which is very encouraging. I still have a great deal to learn, but I am learning, and that’s the point.

The most important lesson I learned from them is that any story takes a heck of a lot of work. I’m not a first-draft magician. My first drafts are glorious train wrecks. On both those novellas, I learned how to enjoy the editing process, and though that first draft is always fun, I’ve found that the editing can be just as enjoyable. On average, I write a first draft in a little under three months. Then I spend double that time editing it. The novellas showed me that wonderful things can occur during the editing process, which was an invaluable lesson to me as an author.  

GNOH – What is the best thing about being an author?  And does it still have the same sense of enjoyment as it did when you first started out?

The best thing, strangely enough, is being able to read my work to my six-year-old son. I don’t read him the scary parts or the other stuff that he shouldn’t hear, but I do read him quite a few passages. Then we talk about them. He asks me questions and listens to my answers. He puts in his own thoughts, and sometimes those thoughts make me look at my work in a different way. I know I’m biased, but he’s a pretty extraordinary little boy.

As far as having the same enjoyment as it did when I started out…it’s more fun now than it has ever been because I’m more confident now than I’ve ever been. Not cocky—my perfectionism will never allow me to become arrogant—but more confident. That also makes for better writing.

GNOH – What do you do to relax?

I don’t relax. That’s my biggest flaw as a human being. About once every two weeks or so I’ll remember to relax, and when I finally do for a few minutes, it’s almost like a novelty. It feels so good that I can hardly believe I don’t do it more often. In fact, because of your question, I’m going to make an effort to relax as soon as I’m done typing these answers. Thank you for reminding me!

GNOH – Can you tell us about any future projects you may have lined up?

Indeed I can. The novel after House of Skin is tentatively titled Loving Demons. It’s done and in yet another stage of my editing it. I have a longish short story I’m getting ready to send off called “The Clearing of Travis Coble.” It was initially published several years ago, but I’ve learned a lot since then and have subsequently changed quite a few things in the story. I’m halfway through a novella called “Dust Devils,” which is a vampire story in the Old West. Yet another novel is about a month from being done; it’s called Native, and it’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done. The novel combines several Native American and Canadian myths and places them in a remote campground that has just been opened. I’ve written a hundred-and-fifteen-thousand words in it and will write about thirty-thousand more before I start chipping away at it and fashioning it into a tighter narrative. 

Thank you so much for asking me these questions. It has been a blast! 

You can buy Jonathan's books from all good online retailers 

or by clicking the links below 

AMAZON.COM 

AMAZON UK



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