Chizine Publications is currently running an interview with Stephen Graham Jones. Jones has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and is the winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, as well as the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction. He has served as an associate professor of English at Texas Tech University, and is now a full professor of English at University of Colorado at Boulder.
In response to a question about his literary talent in relation to his interest in genre fiction, Jones says, “I’m considered literary still? Kind of sucks. But I understand, I guess. Only one, maybe two of my books are horror, so the scales tip towards that default ‘literary’ setting. I hope to remedy this soon, though. Oh, and being a professor, teaching in an MFA program, all that, it doesn’t help me slouch out from under that ‘literary’ trick, yeah? Man. This is the horror story right here. One guy trying to be horror, science fiction, fantasy – even western or romance – but always getting mis-shelved. But. I mean, Samuel Deed Laney’s done it, right? Brian Evenson? Could be the trick’s just to write as best you can, about the stuff that interests you, and tell it however you want to so long as people are reading. Be Joe Lansdale, yeah. That’s the goal, always. King’s my hero, yeah, but when I aim for stuff, for some way to be down the line, it’s Lansdale. Meanwhile, I just keep writing the stuff that interests me, writing it as best I can. And hoping.”
It’s a fascinating interview, conducted by Mark McLaughlin.
You can catch it in its entirety here: Stephen Graham Jones
