Interview with Akis Linardos | Author of Crooked Gods
Interview with Akis Linardos, author of dark and weird fiction
Readers of dark fiction have noticed one name popping up a lot recently—Akis Linardos. Originally from Greece, Akis has been mopping the floor with publication credits in some of the most desired publications for writers, including Apex Magazine, Uncharted and Strange Horizons. His stories and poems alluringly weave themes of body horror, existential dread and generational trauma into strange, weird and often terrifying situations. A human-birthing cave. A sentient fungal street. Plant-human hybrids. Cosmic parasites. In less than five years of writing, Akis has released over fifty works ranging from dark fantasy to horror—impressive, since he works full time as a biomedical AI scientist. His first chapbook, Crooked Gods, is available now, and you can learn more about the rest of his available works here.
Interview
What are you most afraid of?
I fear isolation and infinity. Both of those things cause me dread. I know infinity is such a philosophical concept it shouldn’t have impact on my life, but I’ve spent large periods obsessing over big questions like that. Now I’m over that, but they definitely come out in my work as cosmic horror and existential horror. Isolation is more self-explanatory I feel. We all are social creatures. I also find the demons that people create for themselves terrifying. I feel a lot of empathy for people who don’t see the true shape of the world because they are trapped in certain circles often through generational trauma. Kinda makes me wanna snap them out of it. I think you can also see that a lot in my work.
What’s your memory of having that first eureka moment about writing, when you knew you wanted to do it?
It was the first time I ever played RPG as a storyteller, the Lovecraftian game Call of Cthulhu. I got so into it, I became immersed with building that world. For three days, it was all I could think about. I was not much of a reader back then—I was more confident with the idea of doing some kind of video game work. But soon, I realized it was the storytelling I was interested in. After that I began reading a lot and finally decided to take the plunge and start writing. That was five years ago.
What’s been the most important lesson you’ve learned as a writer?
Don’t give a fuck. (Laughs.) If you start caring too much when you write, you end up judging yourself. Do that, and it's game over. It will stop you in your tracks. Let me put it in more sophisticated terms. There are two parts of your brain—the creative and the critical. The critical part is just there to stop you. It says, “Oh there’s fire, don’t put your hand in it.” The creative part is like, “Oh there’s fire, let’s just dance in it.” When you write, you have to let the kid inside you play. At that point, it's best to forget about publishing.
What’s your advice to aspiring writers?
Okay, for aspiring writers, you actually have to give a bit of a fuck. You have to listen. You have to get mentors, people who are getting sales in what you want to do. Also attend as many workshops as you can. After awhile, you reach a point where you’re confident in your work and your productivity. Also you have to learn to write consistently. This is the most important bit. Writers gotta write.
Are you an outliner (plotter) or discovery writer (pantser)?
Discovery writer, 100%. When I started I was using outlines, which helped me figure out all the boxes that need to be checked off in story. After that, I started letting my inner child play more, so now I’m a discovery writer.
Talk about your writing process from ideation to completion.
Sometimes I will start even without having an idea of what I want to write. That’s what happened with the Apex flash piece, “What is Conjured Shall Vanish”. The theme was “grimoire”. And this one was funny. I was trying to maximize my possible targets so I was looking at another market’s theme, which was “rice”. So I thought I would combine both themes, and then once I got the rejection from Apex, I could send it to the other market. But it won the contest.
For that one, I started with a title that interested me. And then I started writing. By the time I reached the end of the first paragraph, I had a witch who was feeding conjured food to her starving mother. But it wasn’t providing nutrients, because the next day the food would vanish so the point was to let the mother die painlessly. That’s usually my process, is to come up with a title that hooks me and then I just start writing. I figure out the story as I write. Most of the time I don’t know how it will end when I begin, sometimes I don’t know until I reach the denouement.
Which single work are you most proud of?
This is a hard question for me, because I don’t like discriminating about my babies. But for published works probably “Daughter, Mother, Charcoal”. It was my first big sale at Apex, so I have a soft spot for it. I’m also very proud of “What is Conjured Shall Vanish”, which won the monthly flash contest at Apex. For unpublished works, I have a story that is very personal called “He Bites Mama in the Night” which somehow often gets close at big places without making the cut. I grew up as a glass child—I have a brother with profound autism—which inspired the story.
Let’s pretend Netflix is making a fictional miniseries of your life. What would that look like?
I use a lot of humor in my life but some friends call me a tortured artist, so I’d love to see Hugh Laurie play me. I’d love for it to be like the show House but a lot weirder. I think I empathize with a lot of the struggle that he feels in that show. It would be my life probably, just going from country to country and the different drama that follows, and Hugh Laurie just being angry at people in lovable ways.
Read more interviews with horror authors here.
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