Short Story Library

SSL: Hey Paul, thanks for agreeing to do the interview let’s start out with a little background. How long have you been writing and what was your first big break?

From about the age of seven I’ve strived – on and off – to be a writer, and at college I wrote a few still unpublished short stories. Yet my first serious attempt at writing was in the mid-nineties, while I was working as an English teacher in Zimbabwe. My debut novel, Rumours of Ophir, was accepted for publication by a local publisher, College Press, an imprint of Macmillan Africa.

Rumours of Ophir is probably the first crime novel written in Zimbabwe and has been quite successful. It’s currently taught as an ‘A’ level reading text in Zimbabwean high schools and has been published in German translation as Die Legenden von Ophir.

SSL: Was there an author or book you read that inspired you or has shaped your own writing?

No writer has inspired me more than H.G. Wells. The man was a visionary and an incurable optimist. He believed in the inherent goodness of men. He died shortly after the Second World War ended, and not wanting to sound sentimental, I wonder whether he died of a broken heart.

As for the book that has inspired me most, that would be All quiet on the Western Front. This novel brings home the futility of war and the effect the First World War had on the young men sent to the trenches. Even though in essence the book is a tragedy, the unbreakable bonds of friendship amongst the soldiers, and their indefatigable spirit in the face of adversity, is an inspiration.

SSL: I have read your stories in a few publications and you seem to have a wide range in the genres you write in. Do you have any preferences in genre? Do you consider yourself more of a crime writer than a horror writer? A Poet even at times?

Until recently I was primarily a crime writer. In fact, due to my debut novel being a crime novel, I gained access to the Crime Writers’ Association – a step which gave me access to markets otherwise inaccessible to your average writer. Unfortunately the crime fiction market is extremely competitive and oversubscribed at present, so getting an acceptance can be a frustrating business at times. Because of this, over the past year or so I’ve moved more into the realm of horror fiction, and since the market is quite ‘roomy’ I now have well over a dozen horror short stories coming up for publication in a variety of anthologies.

The label of ‘poet’ is a bit of a misnomer, though. I’ve become well known in some circles for the ‘new’ Canterbury Tales I write, which are upwards of four thousand words, written in iambic pentameters written and rhyming couplets. Okay, so technically these are poems. Yet to my mind this is narrative poetry, which in effect makes such writings ‘storytelling-in-verse’ rather than pure poetry.

SSL: To date how many pieces of short fiction have you had published? How many Anthologies have you been included in?

This is a tough question. Not wishing to sound big-headed, but I’ve lost count of how much short fiction I’ve had published since I started seriously writing short stories about five years ago. This is mostly due to the diversity of publications involved (some being print, others being electronic) as well as the amounts they pay. I’ve had the odd piece published for free, whilst on occasion I’ve been paid upwards of $150 for a short story, so of course the bigger pay days are the more memorable. However, if I’m pushed for a number, I’d say that I’ve probably had close to a hundred pieces published in that five year period.

As for anthologies, I’ve not actually appeared in that many. That said, I’ve made it into the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association anthology twice, and last year had a short story included in Crime Scenes, an anthology published by Wordsworth Editions and edited by David Stuart Davies.

A lot of my short work has appeared in newspapers and magazines though, principally The Weekly News, a British newspaper with a double fiction page.

SSL: What is your secret to getting that many acceptance letters? I know I have received a few books lately that I saw my name next to yours. You seem to be everywhere lately! Any tips for other writers on where you find your leads? How have you improved your writing to get to the level you are at now?

Until recently, I was averse to sending out my writer’s CV with a submission. Yet such false modesty probably reduces the chances of acceptance. An editor is more likely to take an author seriously if he or she has a track record – no matter how humble.

As for being ‘everywhere’ lately, I do tend to spread my submissions around. Although I occasionally dip into Duotrope’s Digest to see what publishers are looking for, I depend more on word of mouth through a variety of writers’ forums (Café Doom and The Write Idea being the foremost). This is largely a reciprocal process between writers, and the sharing of leads is a great bonding experience, especially when several forum members get into a single publication

My advice to budding writers is not to be shy. Get your writer’s CV together, submit your work wherever possible, and watch your CV build. Also, don’t keep a good thing to yourself. Other writers share their leads, so it’s only fair that you do the same.

You asked how I’ve improved my writing. Well, three years ago I started an MA in Creative Writing. The O. Henry module taught me the finer points of short story writing (I’d recommend any short story writer to study O. Henry’s writing techniques), whilst the Canterbury Tales module took me into uncharted territory which has since become home to me.

SSL: Let’s talk about your new big book. So you escaped short fiction for a little while and moved up to a novella. Tell us about this book. Was it hard to write the longer story? Maybe even a little background about the story itself, some plot structure?

Earlier this year, Coscom Entertainment was looking for submissions for an anthology of zombie poetry (yes, really) titled Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes. I passed the word around various writers’ forums and about half a dozen of us got acceptances. One of my acceptances was for the book’s end piece, a 1,100-word narrative poem called Payback Time.

The owner / editor of Coscom Entertainment told me that if I could write an 18,000 – 20,000 word narrative poem along the lines of Payback Time, he would publish it as a novella. So in July this year I spent five hours a day combining the gory requirements of Zombie-Lit with the finer points of Chaucerian English. This I incorporated with a medieval setting and the folklore surrounding Robin Hood, and a new Canterbury Tale was born.

Below is the blurb to what started off as The Monk’s Second Tale, but which, for marketing purposes, became the awesomely titled Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers – A Canterbury Tale by Paul A. Freeman:

“Medieval civilization was under threat from the undead:
When lion-hearted Richard ruled the roost
Of England, he decided that to boost
His regal reputation he should mount
A war to wrest from Turkish men the fount
Of Christendom; yet in that desert land
A zombie plague emerged from ’midst the sand.
A necromancer’s alchemistic spell
Reanimated corpses bound for Hell
(And even bound for Heaven’s pearly gate).

Soon after ’twas apparent that the fate
Of all on Earth–the evil and the good–
Was in the hands of Robin of the Hood
Whose outlaw men, along with Friar Tuck,
Against rampaging hordes of zombies struck.
They fought to save the likes of you and I,
Not caring that one slip might make them die.
Their tale lies here, within this humble book–
I pray you’ll spare the time to take a look.”

Having written novels in the past, writing Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers was an exercise in being methodical. The whole tale was roughly planned out beforehand; then I set myself a six-week deadline and wrote about 500 words per day until the novella was done.

Also spurring me on, I must admit, was the fact that this is probably the first published Canterbury Tale that has been written in 600 years.

SSL: Which authors still writing today do you read? Are there any authors who are still working to make a name for themselves today you would recommend?

I rarely get time to read these days, so I stick more to the classics – M.R. James’s short stories and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are gradually being devoured at the moment. However, in Abu Dhabi – where I presently live – I’ve recently joined a book circle and was impressed enough by Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to send him a letter asking about some points of interest in the book

SSL: Which publications do you read on a regular basis? Subscriptions to any online or print magazines?

I subscribe to Writers’ Forum magazine, and although much of what’s written gets a bit repetitive, the advice given helps keep me on my toes and often the articles are great motivators.

SSL: Outside of writing, tell us about yourself. Hobbies? Interests?

Being a married man with three young children, there’s little time for hobbies or interests, unless you call taking the kids to the beach, the park and the cinema once a week as hobbies and interests.

SSL: Do you have some goals for the 2010 writing year? What are they?

Ever since I wrote the Chaucer module of my MA, I’ve realised that my Canterbury Tales project combines my major strengths as an author – I’m no mean short story writer, I can write cross-genre and I can write narrative poetry.

My goal for 2010 is therefore to sell the idea of my ‘new’ Canterbury Tales project in its entirety to a mainstream publisher.

However, in the meantime I’ll still be pumping out those short story submissions.

SSL: Paul this week I hear you got some great news, care to share?

I’m still trying to absorb this news!

When my ‘zombie’ Canterbury Tale got accepted by Coscom Entertainment, I emailed the news to a Chaucer scholar in England (Dr. Lesley Coote – lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Hull University) who had encouraged me in my project in the past. To my utter surprise, Dr. Coote told me that she was putting together a volume of ‘neo-medieval creative writing’, and has now asked me to contribute a Canterbury Tale.

The publisher is the ‘very respectable’ and highly academic ‘Brelpols Publishers’

The piece that Dr. Coote has accepted is ‘The Miller’s Second Tale’. It’s based on the short poem ‘Rapunzel – The Real Story’ which appeared as a flash on ‘The Write Idea’ some time back. It won’t be published until the end of next year, but I’m ecstatic that my ‘new’ Canterbury Tales project has been validated.

And just for those of you who haven’t yet had a look, ‘The Monk’s Second Tale’, aka ‘Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers – a Canterbury Tale by Paul A. Freeman’ can be checked out here!

SSL: Congrats Paul and best of luck with your books and continued success with your writing. If you have enjoyed hearing from Paul, please be sure to pick up one of his books to support him!