Strangely Funny III: D J Tyrer Interview

DJ Tyrer, who is the person behind Atlantean Publishing, was short-listed for the 2015 Carillon 'Let's Be Absurd' Fiction Competition, and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, such as Warlords of the Asteroid Belt (Rogue Planet Press), Strangely Funny II (Mystery & Horror LLC), Destroy All Robots (Dynatox Ministries), Steam Chronicles (Zimbell House) and Chilling Horror Short Stories (Flame Tree), State of Horror: Illinois (Charon Coin Press), and Irrational Fears (FTB Press), as well as issues of Sirens Call and Tigershark ezines, and also has a novella available on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor).

What would you like people to know about you?
As little as possible! Perhaps, that I edit the Atlantean Publishing small press, which is currently working with the press Carrion Blue 555 on a King in Yellow anthology titled A Terrible Thing which is planned for release in paperback towards the end of 2016.

When did you begin writing?
Well, I've been writing ever since I could hold a pen, but in a published sense, around twenty years, for the first decade within the British small presses, but internationally and with greater visibility in recent years.

How did you get the idea for your story in Strangely Funny III, "Attack of the Rad-Zombies"?
Bad B-movies!

Is there a genre you haven't written in, but would like to?
I've tried most genres (whether successfully or not is another question!) as I enjoy the challenge of tackling the unfamiliar, but the ones I would like to do more of and have success with are crime and thrillers (without a supernatural element). I'd also like to have the time to tackle my ideas for novels!

Who are your current favorite authors? What do you enjoy about them?
I frequently reread HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and RW Chambers, while I enjoy James Patterson and Clive Cussler for relaxation with a fun adventure. Naturally, I read a lot of fiction and poetry submissions and review material for Atlantean Publishing and I always look forward to work by writers such as Neal Wilgus, Steve Sneyd and Cardinal Cox in particular.

What are you working on next?
Other than the usual round of short stories and poetry for submission to various anthologies and magazines, I've got three novellas in various states of progress, as well as a couple of collections that I would like to progress to the publication stage.

What is your favorite writing snack food/drink?
I seldom snack when writing, but I do drink a lot of Pepsi Max (although I've been cutting back in favour of water recently).

Thanks for your virtual visit!

To read "Attack of the Rad-Zombies" and a bunch of other hilarious stories, check out Strangely Funny III, now available at Amazon in print and Kindle formats.


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Strangely Funny II Authors: Meet DJ Tyrer!

Once again, we invite DJ Tyrer to an interview. When we last met him, he had a story in All Hallows' Evil. We learned then about his fascination with the King in Yellow and his involvement with The Yellow Site wikia. This time, he's come to the funny side and joined us for Strangely Funny II!

When did you know you wanted to become a writer?
I've always wanted to be a writer as far back as I can remember and have written stories ever since I could write. I grew up surrounded by books, so writing has always been part of my life.

How did you pick the genre/setting/era you (usually) write in?
A lot of my fiction falls within the boundaries of horror and I also write quite a bit of humour (because if you push horror too far it becomes comedic and if you push humour too far it becomes horrific). However, I've never consciously chosen to write in a specific genre or style, as I like to experiment and prefer to let my writing go where it will rather than force it to conform. I think I've confused a people when they discover that I write quite divergent fare!

How did you come up with the idea for your story in Strangely Funny II? 
The idea for Costumed Hero popped into my head when I was attempting to come up with a horror story for a Hallowe'en-themed anthology. As I thought through all the aspects of the holiday the title for this story came to me. Initially, I played with various permutations of partygoers dressing up as superheroes to no success when the plot just came from nowhere.

Do you think certain genres lend themselves to a humorous twist?
Horror is easy to blend into humour, as they are effectively either ends of a sliding scale. If you push horror too far it ceases to be scary and becomes humorous in its grotesque absurdity, whilst humour pushed too far ceases to be funny and becomes horrific. Paranormal fiction that isn't intended to be horror per se (such as that which my story draws upon) is also ripe for humour as it can easily be pushed into absurdity. It's much the same for other genres – push them through the unpleasant until you find yourself laughing rather than crying or cringing – it's just that the darker genres are already close to that point.

Plotter or pantser?
In almost every area of my life I like to have everything planned out. However, when it comes to plots, that's not generally true. Even when I write a plot down I usually treat it as an aide memoir of points to include rather than a map – when I have crafted a detailed plan, it usually gets binned before the halfway point as developments render it irrelevant! However, whilst I sometimes go into a story 'blind' having no idea where it's going – or perhaps knowing how it should end but having no idea how it'll get there – I frequently have a constantly-changing mental map of the plot. Or, to be it another way, a bit of both!

Which author do you most admire, and why?
I struggle with requests for my top ten favourite authors/books, let alone whittling them all down to one! Different authors have different strengths, so it's difficult to put one above the other in terms of quality or importance.

Which place that you haven’t visited would you most like to go?
I would love to visit the archaeological sites of Egypt and the Middle East, as the ancient world is one of my passions.

Okay, so you're an author. What do you enjoy reading?
I read a wide variety of fiction from different genres, but the authors I return to most often are the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Robert W. Chambers, HP Lovecraft, JRR Tolkien, Weis & Hickman, Arthur Machen, Clarke Ashton Smith, CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde. Other Cthulhu Mythos fiction and the various Doctor Who novels also feature regularly and I also enjoy reading JK Rowling, Clive Cussler and James Patterson. A nostalgic fondness for the Nancy Drew series and the Worst Witch stories of Jill Murphy never fails to baffle some!

I also read a lot of non-fiction, especially history, which has always been an obsession of mine.

Thanks for talking with us!

DJ Tyrer's story The Promised Messiah can be found in the new Steampunk Cthulhu anthology from Chaosium, whilst his sorcerous fantasy Kamilda of Ys can be found in the new Tales of the Black Arts anthology from Hazardous Press, both of which are available now from Amazon. You can learn more about DJ and his publications from his blog at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/ .

Strangely Funny II is now available in print or Kindle from Amazon, plus it is also available on Smashwords. You can also get a shot at a free copy right now via our giveaways!

Goodreads Giveaway: Undead of Winter

You may wonder what I've been doing between posting interviews. Well, I was editing and helping format Undead of Winter, the newest offering from Mystery and Horror, LLC. As part of our launch, we're giving away three copies on Goodreads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Undead of Winter

by Sarah E Glenn

Giveaway ends December 13, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

This book is darker than our previous offerings. Some of the stories have a little warmth or humor, but the majority of them are best described as... chilling.

I encourage you to enter the giveaway, and to check the lengthier description of the book on Amazon. It might be the blast of cold air you're looking for!

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All Hallows' Evil Authors: Meet DJ Tyrer!

Today, we meet multitalented DJ Tyrer, the person behind UK small press Atlantean Publishing as well as the driving force behind The Yellow Site, the King In Yellow wiki. He also figures prominently in the sold-out Sorcery and Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen, coming out in late October from Hieroglyphic Press.

He is also the author of "An Echo of Samhain", one of the stories in All Hallows' Evil. All Hallows' Evil is now available in print and Kindle format. We're also doing a giveaway on Goodreads.

Q. In "An Echo of Samhain" the crime and its investigation are both supernatural in nature. I'm curious about the magical system. Did you draw from actual practices, magic in popular entertainment, other sources..?

The magic system behind "An Echo of Samhain" is intended to evoke the feel of real-world occult and folkloric beliefs, although I have drawn inspiration from those sorts of fiction that are closest to it, mainly horror and the magic of the Shadowrun setting. Although there is a lot of fun to be had with the sort of fantasy settings where wizards can toss around fireballs, I've always be most drawn to the idea of a wizard as a manipulator and magic as something that is difficult to use and comes with a price, rather than something that can be tossed around casually and on a whim.

Q. Tell us more about The Yellow Site.

I became involved with The Yellow Site, a wiki of anything and everything to do with the Yellow or Carcosa Mythos inspired by the works of Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers, after editing a small press anthology of "King In Yellow" fiction and poetry. My involvement spiralled from there and I ended up, entirely unplanned, as the major driving force behind the site (although, as a wiki, anyone is free to work on it) due to the feedback nature of the process – the more I added, the more topics I realised needed to be added. Even though there is still a great deal more work to be added and the project, by its nature, is open-ended, I believe that it is currently the most comprehensive collection of information on this sub-genre.

Q. Who is your favorite author (I could take a guess) and what really strikes you about their work?

In terms of the authors who have most impacted my writing and dominated my time, Chambers is, of course, there at the head of the list, along with the other greats of weird fiction such as Lovecraft, Machen and Clark Ashton Smith. There is something about the dream-like ambiguity of Chambers' "The King In Yellow" that bewitches me. I suppose it is the desire of the mind to impose order even on the most nebulous of things. There are an infinite number of stories that could be told from that same basic template, each interpreting the source material quite differently.

Q. What is your current project?

I've just finished writing my second "King In Yellow"-inspired novella (the first, "The Yellow House", was released in a limited edition that received some amazingly positive feedback) and am currently in the midst of submitting short stories to a variety of anthologies, both on spec and by request.

Q. What was the first story you wrote? Did you try to publish it?

What I regard as my first 'proper' completed story was "The Legend of Harley", a horror story that I first wrote in my early teens, then reworked in 1996 (according to my records). I included it in an early issue of Monomyth in 1999 and it has been republished since (and there is even a heavily reworked and expanded version of the legend currently under consideration for an anthology at the moment). The location of the story, Harley's Mount, and its environs have gone on to feature in a number of published and unpublished poems and stories, even an article on conlanging. In fact, around 1995/96, I wrote an as-yet-unpublished novel set on The Mount (recently rewritten), which, by coincidence, was the first appearance in my fiction of Paul Starling, who features in "An Echo of Samhain".

Thanks for talking to us today!

Learn more about DJ Tyrer via his personal blog at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/ , and check out The Yellow Site if you're a Chambers fan.