As a fiction writer, many of your stories have been in the horror genre, and you\u2019re currently at work on a novel that\u2019s a horror-western set during the Civil War. What is it about darker fiction that draws you in?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s kind of like being an adrenaline junkie\u2014some of us that like dark fiction want to look death in the face. I think, if done right, dark fiction tends to force us to confront some harder truths about life, some of the ugliness that makes us sit back afterward and wonder, \u201cwould I<\/em> do that?\u201d The answer to that can be surprising.<\/p>\n Have you always been a fan of the genre, or did you develop a love for it later in life?<\/strong><\/p>\n ALWAYS been a fan, both movies and books! I read King\u2019s Skeleton Crew<\/em> when I was probably way too young to be reading it and I was sold.<\/p>\n You act as first reader at Pantheon Magazine. How (if at all) has sifting through the slush pile changed your approach to your own writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the first bits of writing wisdom we all hear is that we need to compel the reader to turn the page. Nowhere is that more apparent than when you\u2019re a slush reader. I go through hundreds of stories a year and always sitting forefront in my mind is \u201cwould I keep reading this story if I picked it up off the rack?\u201d As a result, it\u2019s become a more conscious tactic in my own toolbox as I write my own stuff\u2014is there anything I can do here to make the reader more willing to turn the page or move to the next chapter?<\/p>\n You\u2019re currently working on your MFA through Seton Hill University\u2019s Popular Fiction department. What\u2019s the most important thing you\u2019ve learned so far in the program?<\/strong><\/p>\n Out of your published works, do you have a personal favorite?<\/strong><\/p>\n My first attempt at horror was a story called \u2018Take the Flay Train\u201d which was published in Pantheon Magazine\u2019s Ares volume. I wrote it as kind of a Clive Barker tribute, because I\u2019d just finished Books of Blood<\/em> and said to myself \u201cThat\u2019s<\/em> what I want to write!\u201d I\u2019ve written some stinkers since then, but I still hold that story close to my heart.<\/p>\n Where would you like to see your writing career in five years?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019d like to say my first novel will be on a bookshelf somewhere by then, but I\u2019d be happy if I just continued to improve steadily in the interim.<\/p>\n Big thanks to Matt Andrew for being part of this week’s author interview series. Find him online at Facebook<\/a> and learn more about a few of his stories at his Amazon author page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Happy reading!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome back to our author interview series! This week, I’m super excited to spotlight Matt Andrew. Matt is a fantastic speculative fiction writer who has several great stories already out in the publishing world and more awesome tales on tap for release in the coming months. Recently, he and I discussed his inspiration as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Matt-Andrew.jpg\")
<\/a>I wrote a bit when I was a kid, like most writers. As a lifelong fan of horror, I authored my share of one-page werewolf stories with Crayola illustrations. But, I spent most of my adult years drawing and painting semi-professionally. About three or four years ago I went through this massive creative slump. None of my projects panned out\u2014they all seemed like garbage. A friend suggested shifting my creative gears for a while to get out of the doldrums, so I went back to writing\u2014just whatever popped into my head, at first. I\u2019ve been hooked ever since. Although it had been over two decades since I\u2019d written anything fictional, what made all the difference was the fact that I\u2019ve been a heavy reader my whole life. My favorite authors are Cormac McCarthy, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Elmore Leonard, Tom Spanbauer, and more recently, Megan Abbott.<\/p>\n<\/a>From a technical standpoint, I couldn\u2019t even begin to answer that. The mentors and professors are top notch and the learning curve has been very steep. But on a more personal level, the most important thing I\u2019ve learned has been time management. In the program, you have a certain number of pages of your thesis novel that you have to complete each month. But you have several other responsibilities, too. We also have critique groups in which we have to provide feedback for other people\u2019s thesis pages. There are also readings from within our preferred genres, which come with their own bit of homework. Not to mention my own projects, unrelated to the MFA program\u2014I always have at least one short story I\u2019m working on, usually more. Procrastination can mean failure in these endeavors and you learn to pace yourself real quick.<\/p>\n