Interview with Brian Evenson | Exploring the darkness

Author Brian Evenson, photo courtesy of Brian Evenson

In my interview with Brian Evenson, we talked at length about his writing process and his favorite horror authors. He also shared which classic movie monster he would like to become if he’s ever struck by an evil scientist’s transmogrifying ray, because, you know, it’s always best to be prepared.

About Brian Evenson

Author Brian Evenson is a giant in the world of dark fiction. In a career that spans three decades, the Last Days author has transformed himself into a master of the written word. By fusing literary techniques with his unique writing style in more than fifteen books in the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and horror, Evenson has helped elevate the craft like few of his contemporaries. But don’t take my word for it. Evenson is a multiple award-winning author, including the Shirley Jackson Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. His novel Last Days was awarded Best Horror Novel by the American Library Association, and he’s been a finalist for the Edgar Award and the Ray Bradbury Prize, among others.

“I grew up afraid of everything. The answer to overcoming those fears was to confront them through writing. ”

— Brian Evenson

To read a Brian Evenson story is to surrender your grip on reality. His tales are bizarre, cerebral excursions into the unknown with haunted characters in horrifying situations that spiral wildly out of control. Instead of relying on blood and gore to frighten, Evenson’s horror usually takes unexpected, and often bewildering, forms. In my favorite of his offerings, “Any Corpse”, refugees struggle to survive in an apocalyptical landscape lorded over by strange, alien creatures who, while rather dim-witted, remain surprisingly deadly. In “Stain”, a space traveler is driven first to madness and then to destruction by a smudge on his helmet — that may not even be there in the first place. Evenson’s most recent offering, a short story collection called The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, is available now.

When Brian Evenson is not writing, he’s hard at work teaching hopeful authors as the director of the Creative Writing Program for the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, California, a community in which he also calls home. During my chat with him, I found him a delight to talk to, with a calm, patient manner and thoughtfully chosen responses. Our conversation spanned everything from his literary inspirations to his writing process. Hope you all enjoy!

Interview

For a person who writes so much horror, you tend to stay away from typical tropes like ghosts, vampires, and zombies. What do you find scary enough to write about?

I find people the scariest. I think people, the way our minds work, are really strange. We also end up doing terrible things to one another. Especially people who psychologically manipulate other people. That's really frightening to me.

What can someone who, God forbid, has never read a Brian Evenson story, expect?

If you come into my fiction looking for a traditional horror story, you're not going to find it. You might find the mood of a horror story and some of the strangeness — definitely a lot of uncertainty. For me, one of the most terrifying things is being in a situation where you’re not sure what's going on, what’s happening. A lot of my fiction is about the moments when the cracks in reality start to show, where things that you are certain of or thought you knew, suddenly seem like they might not be so stable after all. A lot of my fiction explores those kinds of moments.

You’ve mentioned your profound respect for the writing of Peter Straub, who recently passed. Which other authors do you look up to in the literary community, alive or dead?

Yes, Peter was a big one. He was just so skilled at something that feels like horror and literary fiction at the same time. He was a big influenced on me in terms of making me think about my work as something that was not only literary but also horror—he called my book The Open Curtain Horror in a blurb and was instrumental in terms of letting me rethink what Horror was. Robert Aickman is a huge influence on me. He’s someone I really love who writes a particular kind of strange story that’s unlike anybody else, as was Ambrose Bierce and M. R. James.

Horror is an amazing field at the moment, there are so many people doing good work. Laird Barron is doing amazing things. He’s one of the few writers out there who consistently scares me, which is not a small thing. Gemma Files and Livia Llewellyn are doing great work. Josh Malerman, too. Paul Tremblay is someone who’s work I really like and is also a friend. Stephen Graham Jones is doing amazing things in terms of horror and complicating the genre. Atilla Veres is a Hungarian writer doing work that’s really unlike anybody else’s. Luigi Musolino. Mariana Enriquez is an Argentinian writer whose work seamlessly blends politics and horror. There are all sorts of people I should mention. I’m sure I’ll be getting phone calls from people I didn’t call out (laughs).

In a recent interview, you alluded to being a pantser vs. a plotter when you write. I’m a plotter who wants to learn how to be a pantser, so could you elaborate on your process for me?

I’m someone who, when I want to plot something out, I’m able to. It’s usually when I do contract novels, like the Alien books or video game novels like Deadspace or Halo, which I, usually write under the pseudonym BK Evenson. But I much prefer to just go for it and see what happens. I think that’s the reason I publish short stories way more often than I do novels. With a short story it's possible to do that without getting too lost along the way. When I've tried to do it with novels, I’m able to do it, but it's like the longer the novel is, the more complicated it is to keep things all clear in your head.

But, yeah, there’s this real joy in not knowing where I’m going with a story, the joy of having a blank page and not knowing what I'm going to do with it. I often will sit down to write with a kind of a very vague idea of what I'm going do with something and just see what happens. Or I have something that I'm interested in, like a first line or an idea caught in my mind, then I’ll just sit down and see what happens.

To press you a little more on the topic. You have these stories that spin your characters’ lives out of control in wild, horrifying ways. Do you think of it all in one sitting, or do you write a bit, and then put it down for a while, only to come back later when you know where it’s going?

When I first started, I would always write the story in one sitting. But as time went on and the stories got a little longer, I found that impossible to do. The thing I do is write everything by hand. Then when I get to a place where I'm not sure where I'm going or if I feel stuck, I’ll usually stop, type in what I've written, print it out, and I revise what's there by hand. Then I keep on writing after that to see where it goes. Often, when I’m finished with a story, I will have revised the beginning many times already. It just depends. Some stories come quickly, like “Windeye”. Other stories are much harder and take a lot longer. It really just depends. I often put myself in a position where I have multiple projects going on, so if I get stuck on something, then I just switch to something else, like another short story or a novel. And usually when I'm over there working on that one, my subconscious will solve what is going on in the problem story.

Writing dark fiction can lead one to dark places, mentally and spiritually. What do you do to keep that darkness at bay?

So, when I grew up, I was really phobic. I was afraid of everything, the heights, the dark, etc. For me, the answer of being able to overcome those fears and anxieties was to confront them through writing, through this type of experience that's a little bit removed from my life. I can write about these things and think them through and experience them in a way that I’m protected from. I feel like I’m able to both tap into those fears I had when I was young and also to have the ability to overcome them at the same time. There’s something really sublime about that experience. It seems like a weird paradox, probably. But I think there is something therapeutic about being able to explore darkness through writing, so for me it ends up a positive thing.

What’s your favorite piece that you’ve written, and why?

That’s a hard one, it’s like asking someone to choose between their favorite children. I think “Windeye,” which is a piece in which I figured out how to do something that I hadn’t done before. And also in which I’d done things I’d done before but maybe did them a little more cleanly and precisely. That’s a piece in my development as a writer that I feel is very important so I can’t help but still be fond of it.

An evil scientist shoots you with a ray that transforms you into a movie monster for the rest of your life. What monster would you be, and why?

Ah, there are so many good movie monsters out there. I’d have to say The Creature from the Black Lagoon, because that’s a movie I loved so much as kid. Or maybe it would be the stag-like monster from Adam Neville’s The Ritual, the Jötunn. Both are great.