Interview with D. Harlan Wilson

Tell us about what you write.

I blend a lot of genre fiction together—science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective/spy fiction, magic realism, irrealism, critifiction, and others. I guess my writing could be classified as interstitial insofar as it is difficult to classify, or at least pigeonhole, because it resides within the boundaries of multiple genres.

Do you have anything in print? If so, where can we get it?

I have published eight books as well as hundreds of stories and essays. The books include fiction collections, novels, and one work of literary criticism and cultural theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (Guide Dog Books). My latest novels are Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria (Raw Dog Screaming Press) and Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance (Shroud). The best place to get my books is online at Amazon, B&N, etc.

Do you have a favorite character or subject that you write about?

This is the main theme that consistently informs my fiction and criticism: the pathological affects of technocapitalist media on the human condition.

Almost every writer is inspired by someone else. Does anyone inspire you?

People themselves don’t tend to inspire me, but the art people create does. For instance, I’m profoundly inspired by cinema, especially the films of David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick. Now that I think of it, though, people themselves do inspire me. The stupid things they do inspire me. I write a lot of satire and human idiocy is a requisite component.

How long have you been writing?

I sold my first story in 1999. Before that I had been writing seriously for about five or six years. I wrote a lot of stories and a few novels, but none of them were very good, and I never submitted any of the novels for publication. All told, I’ve been writing for about 15 years.

What made you want to start writing?

I remember wanting to write fiction for years before I actually started doing it. I was an imaginative kid and lived very much in my head, so to speak—daydreams all day, nightmares all night. I wanted to write stories and novels, but the prospect was just too daunting, and I put it off until I was in graduate school and took a course in fiction writing. I wrote my first stories in that course because I had to. That’s what I needed. Since then I haven’t stopped.

Do you participate in NaNoWriMo? Why, or why not?

No. I don’t know what NaNoWriMo is. But I like the name.

Who drives the story, you or your characters?

Both. Sometimes I have a clear, detailed idea of what I want to do in a chapter. But sometimes my ideas are nebulous and I have to make my characters interact in order to figure out what the chapter will do and where it will go.

Who proofreads and critiques your work?

My wife, first. Then my publishers’ editors. I’m a meticulous reviser and my grammar, syntax, writing mechanics, etc. are rather sharp. My wife helps me tremendously with conceptual issues, though, and no matter how meticulously I revise a manuscript, I always miss something.

Where do you get your ideas?

Dreams. Films. The news. Other books. Sheltered, ignorant, insecure, unperceptive people. People who believe in things without doubt. Men with goatees.

Where do you write?

The library in my basement and the table in my dining room.

When do you write – set times or as the mood moves you?

I write every day, more or less, and I prefer to write in the morning, but mostly I do it whenever I can, even if it’s only for 15 minutes at a time.

If you could invite any other writer to dinner who would ask and why?

I know a lot of contemporary writers and I don’t like many of them. Writers are social deviants. Annoying and awkward and sloppy and traumatized and shitfaced and captivated by their own egos. That’s why they write, right? I’d like to have dinner with Poe, but he’d just get drunk and obnoxious and make me pay for everything. Same goes for Hemingway. With a few exceptions, I don’t think I’d ever want to meet an author, or an artist of any kind, whose work I really like. The person behind the author would let me down.

Do you use the Internet to check facts, or the library?

The Internet, primarily, although I’m able to access a lot of library books, articles, etc. online via where I teach, Wright State University-Lake Campus. Sometimes I’d prefer to use an actual library, if only for the aesthetic and the smell of books, but the Lake Campus is in the middle of nowhere and I don’t have a choice.

When you're not writing, what do you like to do?

My wife and I are both fulltime English professors. We also have a 3-year-old daughter, and we have another daughter on the way at the end of March. So between writing and work and family, life is busy. I do find time to work out, 4-5 days a week, for anywhere between 60-90 minutes at a time. I’ve always exercised, but in the last few years I’ve take up bodybuilding with resolve. It helps me blow off physical and psychological steam.

Who's your favorite author and why?

Steve Aylett, the British novelist. His wit, style, sensibility, and technique are incomparable. And consistently strong. He’s written fifteen or so books, among them Slaughtermatic and LINT, the latter of which is currently being made into a film. I’m always looking for authors with unique perspectives, voices and modes of storytelling, and I rarely find them. Steve is a big reason I write what I write.

What's your favorite book (other than one of your own) and why?

Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. The first novel I wrote, in fact, was a kind of sequel to it, and I wrote my first M.A. thesis (at UMass-Boston) on A Clockwork Orange. It’s a dystopian novel and I love dystopias. Truly remarkable are Burgess’s innovations in style, voice, and linguistics. He creates a new language in A Clockwork Orange derived from Russian and cockney English, among other sources. Stanley Kubrick’s film version articulates the essence of that language, but only to a small degree. You have to read the novel to really experience it.

What's the last book, other than your own, that you read and really enjoyed?

Moby-Dick. I’m teaching the novel in a 19^th century American literature course this quarter. I haven’t read it since I was in college, about 20 years ago, and I wasn’t in an intellectual position to understand or appreciate it. Melville was a wildman; I can’t believe he managed to publish Moby-Dick in the mid-19^th century, despite the fortitude of its lyricism; it reads more like a post-postmodern text (whatever that is).

Some writers say that they have to write a certain amount of words every day. Do you do this? Why or why not?

I don’t count words. The key for me is writing every day. I might only produce a sentence or two. On a good day, I will produce 500-1,000 words. Usually I don’t have pressing deadlines, so I can take my time. With deadlines, it’s a different story.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I will simply encourage readers to check out my website: http://www.dharlanwilson.com.

D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and English professor. His most recent works include two novels, Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance and Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria, and a book of cultural theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. Hundreds of his stories and essays have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies throughout the world in several languages, and he is the editor-in-chief of The Dream People, a journal of irreal texts. Visit Wilson online at www.dharlanwilson.com.