Author Interview ~ Nate Kenyon

Nate Kenyon grew up in a small town in Maine with dark nights and long winters to feed his interest in writing. He earned a BA in English from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 1993, winning awards in playwriting and fiction.

His dark fiction stories have appeared in various magazines and in the horror anthology Terminal Frights. Kenyon has worked at the Brookline Public Library in Brookline, Mass. and the Boston College Law School as their Director of Marketing & Communications. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers.

Kenyon lives in a recently-restored 1840s Greek Revival home in the Boston area with his wife, Nicole, and their three children.


What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

My first novel, Bloodstone, was released earlier this year in hardcover by Thomson Gale imprint Five Star. It’s a creepy supernatural thriller along the lines of King, Koontz and Straub’s work, and the plot involves an ex-con who kidnaps a woman and takes her up the coast to Maine, where the pair encounter all sorts of strange characters and unnatural presences while trying to uncover the reason they’ve been brought together.

It’s a ghost story, thriller, and a love story all wrapped up together. I’ve been very lucky for the novel to have received the attention and praise it has--from some of my favorite writers such as Douglas Clegg, Brian Keene and Tim Lebbon—as well as from review outlets like Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Fangoria. Early orders sent us into a second printing right after the release date, and things are still going strong. As a relative newcomer, it’s a real thrill to know that there are so many readers out there enjoying the book.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I’ve been reading and writing ever since I was a small boy. I used to read several Hardy Boys mysteries a week (and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on) when I was six or seven years old. A year later I found an old typewriter and churned out “The White Horse.” This was a horrific (not horror, just plain bad) little story that ripped off the Black Stallion right down to the wild horse and the races. I sold copies of it to relatives for a quarter. I still have one buried around here somewhere.

The summer after my freshman year of high school, I made a deal with my aunt (who was raising me at the time) that instead of getting a summer job, I would write a novel. I got about 80 pages in before giving up. It was a Tom Clancy-style spy novel, which was the type of thing I was into reading at the time. I dug that out of my old files a few months back and was surprised to find that it was pretty good. Nowhere near publishable, but not a train wreck, either.

I took writing courses in college, majored in English, and won a couple of awards for a short story and a play. But during that time I thought I had to write “serious” literature, and as a result most of what I did was preachy and really pretty bad. When I graduated I decided that this was the time to take my best shot, and I banged out my first complete novel, a slasher-style horror story about a psychopath loose up in the wilds of Maine. That was more my style! I kept writing after that, although eventually I had to get a day job to pay the bills.

I published a bunch of short fiction in small magazines and finished four novels over the next couple of years, but I never saw a novel published even after several close calls. It wasn’t until another five years later, when I’d pretty much stopped submitting and had moved on to another career in communications, that I decided I didn’t want to let my dream die. So I emailed writer/editor Ed Gorman, who I had gotten to know a while back through the small press, and he asked to see a couple of chapters of something. I sent him Bloodstone (the last novel I had completed) and he forwarded it on to friends of his at Five Star. A few months later I had an email in my inbox offering me a contract.

I remember sitting at my desk at work after it came in, trying not to make too much noise and scare my co-workers. Finally I jumped in my car and drove to my wife’s office with a print out of the email in my hand. She asked me what was wrong, and I just handed it to her. After a bit of hysterics, we went out for a nice, long lunch to celebrate.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Sure, all the time. It goes in cycles—for a few days I’ll think my stuff is just about the best on the planet, and then a week later I’ll find it so horrible I can’t even bear to read a word. I don’t know why this is, but I do think moods like that can offer a clue to writers about why editors sometimes turn down good work. This is a very subjective business, and what works for one person might not work at all for another. What’s more, the very same book might get tossed aside or it might get bought, depending on the editor’s mood at the time they read it!

When I’m writing a book I find the first 50-100 pages come very easily. The characters are developing well, the plot is intriguing, I’m still interested in what’s going on. Then I hit what I call “the wall,” and suddenly plot lines refuse to come together, things get too complicated, characters are boring or don’t seem sufficiently fleshed out. That’s when I want to throw the whole thing in the trash. But if I can fight through that period, things almost always get better again.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication?

Wow, plenty of them. Not understanding the business well enough early on. Not knowing how important writers’ conferences are for networking. Not following up on promising leads or relationships (or giving up too early). I can’t stress enough how important it is to treat this like a business—a writer has a product to sell, and he or she has to act professionally to get the best deal.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

Never give up. It’s really true. If you have the talent and the drive to succeed, someone will eventually notice you. There are probably thousands of writers out there who are good enough to get published, but their books will never see print because they gave up on themselves and their work before they reached the tipping point.

That and write every day. To get better you have to practice. You have to keep writing. Otherwise, you’re not a writer at all.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

There’s an awful lot of bad advice out there. I’ve heard people advocate making up publication credits in query letters, just to look more impressive (you don’t think editors know how to use Google?) Others talk about self-publishing so that you’ll have a finished book to show the big NY houses. I know there are self-publishing success stories out there, but those are the exception rather than the rule, and unless you sell several thousand copies on your own, a self-published book isn’t going to impress anyone in New York. I’ve also heard a lot of people talk about joining a writers’ group. This is more of a subjective thing, I guess—I’m sure a lot of people find them really productive—but for me, it just muddies the waters and can actually be really damaging if the advice is lousy.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

I’ve addressed this a little bit already, but I’d have to say that understanding the value of networking and writers’ conventions would have helped me tremendously when I was just starting out. I was writing like crazy just after college, but I never got out and met other professional writers. I could have used a few connections (and mentors) to help guide me through the maze.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

The very first novel I wrote was under contract with a small press way back when—a somewhat shady company that I probably should never have gotten involved with, but I just didn’t know any better. Before the release date they went bankrupt and shut their doors, but not before treating a lot of authors pretty badly in the process. It was eye opening, for sure, but it taught me to be more careful and was ultimately a valuable learning experience.

What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

Let’s see: The Shining by Stephen King, Light in August by Faulkner, Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, Neuromancer by Gibson, Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales by Norm Partridge, The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum, First Blood by David Morrell, Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates…I could go on and on.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

A dark little story called Breeding the Demons, which is yet to be published. To me, it’s as close to a perfect story as I’ve ever written, and it explores the split of the artist between his artistic and “normal” lives—what sort of sacrifices he makes, and how he keeps them separate. It’s my attempt to understand why I write what I do, and how others might not understand what I go through to do it.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

I guess I’d have to say the retail side of things—how books get distributed and the nasty little inside games retail stores play with co-op money and pay-for-placement and all that. Most readers have no idea how much of their own purchases are shaped by the retail chains. Those paperbacks you see in the cardboard display case right by the front door aren’t always there because the store thinks they’re the best books, but because the publisher put up money for the space. Books are more and more frequently the product of big business, and bestsellers are shaped to perform from day one.

I understand why it’s done, though. This IS a business, and it’s bottom-line driven. I just wish the independents could have a more level playing field, and more books could be stocked and displayed prominently across the country.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

Well, I’m still working a full-time day job, and I have three young kids, so my day is pretty hectic. I get up at 6:30 with the 5 year old, give her and the two older ones breakfast and make lunches before my wife takes them to school. Then I get ready and head out to work. I’ll try to spend my lunch hour on a writing project, and then at five I’m off to pick up the kids on my way home, have dinner and get them to bed. After 8 pm I’m on my laptop again, working on my writing or promotional efforts for Bloodstone, and by midnight I’m usually getting ready to hit the sack.

On the weekends, I try to get in a couple of hours a day on a book or story, but lately I’ve been pretty busy traveling to promote the book, so my time has been squeezed a bit more than usual.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

So many to choose from…I guess I’d like to have Thomas Harris’s ability to write with such impact. He can say more with one sentence than most writers can with a page of description. That’s some talent.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

I’d like to land a major deal with a big NY house, and see my novel on the NY Times bestseller list. Beyond that I just want to have a long string of novels published, and look back in thirty years knowing that I kept at it and didn’t give up.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

Sure, many times. I almost did, in fact—I went five years or so without submitting at all, even though I kept writing on and off. But eventually I just decided that I didn’t want to let it go, and that’s what keeps me going now, remembering how I felt back then.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

My favorite part of being a writer is the high I get when a story is really going well, when things are clicking and I’m getting up in the middle of the night to write down one more idea and rushing home so I can start on the next new scene. My least favorite part would be the polar opposite of that—when a story has bogged down and I just can’t stand to face it for one more second. That’s always a very tough time for me, even though I know it’s going to come sooner or later and that I can get through it if I just keep fighting.

How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

I do a lot of marketing, because I understand how important it is these days. A writer’s job isn’t finished when a book gets sold—it’s really just beginning. There are so many distractions these days for readers, it’s easy for an individual book to get lost in the din. So a writer really has to get online and go to message boards, use email lists, visit bookstores and participate in chats, keep up a website with great content, go to libraries and conventions and signings and do everything else that successful authors do. Just remain visible and keep spreading the word in as many places as possible. I’m lucky because I do marketing and communications work for my day job. I can design print materials and websites on my own and I understand the process, which saves a lot of money and headaches. But ultimately it’s about making connections with people who can help you. If you do that, and keep those connections fresh, you’ll do well.

Parting words?

I’d just like to thank you for the opportunity to do this interview! I had a great time with the questions. I’d like to invite anyone who is interested to come visit me on the web at www.natekenyon.com. I have a lot of fun stuff on my site, from a neat book trailer to free excerpts and stories to tons of reviews and the occasional contest. I always love hearing from readers, so feel free to drop me a line using the contact information on the site. Of course, I’d love for readers to pick up Bloodstone from their library or bookstore or online from Amazon.com, and let me know what they think of it. And thanks again for your support!