Arlene Hunt

This interview first appeared on CSNI 29th September 2008

Arlene Hunt is 35 and the author of five novels. She lives in Dublin with her daughter, her husband, three cats and her beloved basset Opus. Her latest novel Undertow is in shops now so you should really go and buy it right away.

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

I’m writing my sixth novel Blood Money. Well, I say writing, in reality I’m doing a lot of glaring at the computer and finding other things to do, other vital things, like cleaning out the garage and staring into space.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Arlene Hunt’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

I get up in the morning, check my mail, surf on line for a while, read the papers on line, glance over my notes, make tea, open Word and then, finally-depending on where I am in a book- I work flat out for about four hours or so. I have a daily word minimum and I’m quite disciplined about it. I won’t quit until it has been reached. Anything over it I consider a bonus. I edit my work for about an hour in the evening.

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

If I don’t have my nose buried in a book, I’m pretty active. I like running, going to the gym, kick boxing, walking the dog, faffing about basically. A good friend of mine is a cinema buff, so we usually go to the cinema together twice a month to see the most appalling films.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

Keep at it. Write what you want and what you enjoy. Develop a thick skin, but not so thick that you can’t take good advice if you’re lucky enough to be presented with some.

Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?

Brian McGilloway, David Simon and James Lee Burke.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

The Lucifer Effect- How Good People Turn Evil and it’s by Phillip Zimbardo. I’ve read it before, but it’s such interesting book about human nature. It’s based on the Standford University experiment and a real eye opener to discover how quickly humans can switch off humanity when it suits them.

Q7. Plans for the future?

Professionally, much the same as I’m doing now I’d imagine. Writing, talking about writing and being ridiculously pleased to have a job I love so much. Personally, my husband and I have just bought a house so I envisage many Saturdays traipsing around DIY stores discussing dowels and extolling the virtues of quick drying varnish.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

Nope, it’s been a pretty decent learning curve. The mistakes I’ve made are mine and I wouldn’t have learned Jack if I hadn’t made them.

Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?

When I was writing my first novel, Vicious Circle, I was sharing a computer with my husband and I somehow managed to lose the blasted file. I spent a number of hours pacing around saying’ Oh Jesus, oh Jesus oh Jesus’ while he searched for it. Eventually he found it and that’s when he introduced me to the concept of ‘back-up’. I’m not joking when I say that for those few hours I nearly had to be sedated.

Q10. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

Yes, advice for people who work from home and own pets. Never build your office on the ground floor. Never have access to the garden from your office, at least not if you have cats. Cats are annoying creatures and expect you to immediately open doors. A cat will invariably need to come in and go out approximately one hundred and sixty times a day. If you own three of the buggers that becomes lot of opening and closing of doors. Bassets are excellent creatures and like to sleep for eight hour stretches at a time. The moral of the story is thus- get a basset.

Thank you, Arlene Hunt!

Ian Sansom on Requiems for the Departed

'The best in contemporary crime fiction. One could ask for nothing better: horrible, strange, delightful.'

Ian Sansom, author of the Mobile Library series

An Introduction to HATS OFF TO MARY by GARRY KILWORTH

The Irish goddess Macha once agreed to marry a farmer whose first wife had recently died. The farmer took Macha to a horse race and there fell into the trap of bragging that his new wife could run faster than the king’s horses. The king was furious and ordered Macha to race against his thoroughbreds, even though Macha was heavily pregnant. The goddess did so, beat the horses, and gave birth to twins on the finish line. As a punishment for the men who had used her thus, Macha cursed them to suffer labour pains at a time in the future when they most needed to be fit and strong.

The moral is age-old. A wronged woman will seek revenge. There is something of Macha in all women. ‘Hats Off to Mary’ contains men who use women for their own ends, a bunch of racehorses and a lass whose reprisal for being scorned is equal to that of any vengeful goddess.

Edited by Gerard Brennan & Mike Stone

Requiems for the Departed
Irish Crime, Irish Myths.

Requiems for the Departed can now be pre-ordered on the Morrigan Books website.

Garry Kilworth - An Interview

Garry Kilworth, born in York, raised in Aden. Next year he will be standing on top of seven decades and looking down with wry face. A backpacking traveller to far flung regions. Writes in just about every genre but thrillers, which he would like to write but finds the plotting too complex for his style of work and for the size of his brain.

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

The second historical war novel in a series involving the beginnings of the military police. Ensign Early is made Provost-Marshal during the Anglo-Zulu wars of 1879 and annoys everyone by trying to solve murders while the fighting is in progress.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Garry Kilworth’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

I try to write 2000 words a day, but I don’t work every day. In fact, as with most full-time writers, other more mundane things seem to demand far more attention than the latest story or novel. Sometimes I wonder how the damn things ever get written.

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

I travel. I play golf, tennis and badminton. I do country walks with my wife Annette. I cycle with her. I sit and stare. I visit my five grandchildren. I do the garden. I do the housework. I fix things that are broken. I watch TV. I sleep, perchance to dream.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime (or science) fiction scene?

There’s only one way to become a published writer, and that’s to enjoy writing for its own sake.

Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?

This year? Haven’t read a crime book this year, but normally Scott Turow, Ed McBain, others - I know, I’m an old-fashioned reader.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

‘Redcoats and Rebels’ by Christopher Hibbert.

Q7. Plans for the future?

More short stories, which are my forte. I love them like I love my own children.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

I sometimes wonder if I was not such a gadfly with my subjects and genres - eg writing different books each time - whether I would have been more successful financially. But then, would I have had as much satisfaction and fun? Nah, I would probably do the same think all over again. I’m a philanderer when it comes to writing.

Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?

Writing my ‘The Navigator Kings’ trilogy after intensive research, receiving the best reviews I’ve ever had, feeling that the trilogy was probably the best set of novels that I’d ever written, to have it bomb on the market. Nobody bought it. Fantasy readers thought it wasn’t fantasy and straight readers thought it was fantasy.

Q10. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

Am I rich and famous after 35 years of being published? I wish. Actually, I don’t really want to be as famous as JKR, nor as rich as Terry Pratchet - both would ruin the essential me - but I would like more recognition than I’ve had, and I would like to be comfortable enough not to worry as I cruise into old age.

Thank you, Garry Kilworth!

An Introduction to THE HOUND OF CULANN by TONY BLACK

I first heard about Cuchulainn growing up in Galway in the 1980s and the tales have stayed with me to this day; that’s why I chose to write about him. That and the fact that I like getting dogs into stories ... dogs in crime fiction rule!

Edited by Gerard Brennan & Mike Stone

Requiems for the Departed
Irish Crime, Irish Myths.

Requiems for the Departed can now be pre-ordered on the Morrigan Books website.

Tony Black

This interview first appeared on CSNI 15th June 2009


Tony Black is the author of the Edinburgh-set Gus Dury novels, GUTTED and PAYING FOR IT, both published by Preface/Random House. Marcel Berlins of The Times, said: “Tony Black is the latest in a seemingly unending stream of good Scottish crime writers … The dialogue fizzes and the whole is suffused with black humour. Celtic Noir is in rude health.”

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

I'm just at the early mapping out stage for the fourth Gus Dury novel, which is going to be called LONG TIME DEAD. I've just finished the third, LOSS, and I had a really good experience with that one, got some great reactions from editor and agent, so I'm on a bit of a high and raring to go again ...

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Tony Black’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

Well, there's no two the same ... chaotic's the word. I like to try and get to the laptop in the morning but sometimes I don't quite make it. So long as I get those words down though, it's been a good day. I stick to fairly rigid word counts, 2k minimum, and if I fall behind I double it the next day. I can get a first-draft together pretty quickly if I'm really working it, but the proper graft comes in the rewriting, I take my time over that.

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

Read. Study writing. Talk about writing. Quiz writers on writing. I'm shitting you ... I eat lots of take-away and bitch at the telly. Hang out. Y'know ... stuff.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

If I knew the secret to cracking this racket, I'd have done it a lot sooner myself. At the outset it's like sticking your face in a fan ... wouldn't advise anyone to do that.

Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?

Bruen, as ever, SANCTUARY is a ripper and ONCE WERE COPS is too good for words. The man is a genius. G-E-N-I-U-S. Russel D. McLean's THE GOOD SON kicks all kinds of ass. The reliable Ray Banks, soar-away talent that he is - loved GUN, haven't got to the new Inness yet but looking forward to it. And, Guthrie's SLAMMER is one of his best ever... but he'll top it, cos he's like that.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

Would you believe, Leonard Cohen ... it's very dark. Like, you'd expect less, right?

Q7. Plans for the future?

I'm gonna take an extended trip to Oz, month or so, next year to map out a Melbourne-set thriller. Might go no further but I'll have a blast trying and I need some sun. Christ, I do ... much as I love Scotland, we don't see much of the big yellow fella in the sky.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

Hmnnn ... probably loads, but what's the point looking back? I'm chuffed to bits with the editor I have and my publisher so I can't grumble.

Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?

It's not quite the 'wife loses manuscript on train' that Hemingway suffered but I have lost an entire first draft of a book before. I had the second and third drafts but losing the first fucked things up for me at the time ... the novel was never published but I don't think the two incidents are related. I was sore at the time.

Q10. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

Don't do drugs, kids.

Thank you, Tony Black!

An Introduction to QUEEN OF THE HILL by STUART NEVILLE

Queen Macha wasn’t a difficult choice for my story. After all, my home town of Armagh is named after her. So Ard Macha, meaning Macha’s high place, becomes Queen of the Hill, and she allows me to set a story in my own neck of the woods for the first time. But Macha is a slippery customer, and she could be any one of three mythical figures. Rather than choosing one, my Queen of the Hill takes a little from each. For example, the legend of the race against the king’s horses in which she gave birth to twins as she crossed the finish line becomes a game of poker and a ruined pair of shoes.

But one aspect of the legend is universal in all versions: her domination of the men she rules. She is a fearsome warrior of course, but she also used her sexuality to control those who desired her. In other words, she was that great archetype of noir fiction, the character that drove so many men to their dooms: she was the original femme fatale.

Watch out, or she’ll be the death of you.

Edited by Gerard Brennan & Mike Stone

Requiems for the Departed
Irish Crime, Irish Myths.

Requiems for the Departed can now be pre-ordered on the Morrigan Books website.

Stuart Neville

This interview was first posted on CSNI on 7th July 2008

Stuart Neville has been a musician, a composer, a teacher, a salesman, a film extra, a baker and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian, but is currently a partner in a successful multimedia design business in the wilds of Northern Ireland. He has published short stories in Electric Spec and Every Day Fiction, but it was a piece in the online crime fiction zine Thuglit that caught the attention of legendary New York literary agent Nat Sobel. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, Stuart's first novel, is currently the subject of many emails between the author, his agent, and various editors. James Ellroy described it as: "The best first novel I've read in years … It's a flat out terror trip."

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

I'm just starting to rev up the writing engine after it lying idle for a few months. I've been surprised by how much business there is in working with an agent like Nat Sobel, and the very stressful process of selling a book. Things like the submission package and marketing plans have been taking up my time recently, as well as kicking around ideas for the next novel. So, I've been digging out some short stories that need finishing, just to get that part of my brain working again.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Stuart Neville’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

Because my agent is in a different time zone, along with most of my network of writing friends, I usually have to take care of some correspondence first thing in the morning. As soon as that's done, it's off to my office in Markethill. I'm a partner in a multimedia design business there, and that can often push me beyond the usual nine-to-five hours. I get home, eat badly, ignore the piles of laundry and dishes, catch up on more correspondence, and hopefully start writing. I usually work quite late into the night if I've got a project on the go.

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

I play guitar and watch movies, mostly. Outside of writing and reading, music and cinema are my two great loves. I've taught guitar for twenty years, but it's being phased out now because I just don't have the time for it anymore. I had been gigging fairly regularly with a singer-songwriter called Nina Armstrong up until the end of last year, but that's also fallen by the wayside due to various circumstances. I always have a guitar within reach when I'm writing; I noodle on it the same way people will doodle with pen and paper as a way to help me think. And it came in handy when I needed music for my book trailer.

As for movies, I have a stupidly large DVD collection. Everything from art house to blockbusters, from Billy Wilder to the Coen Brothers. I spent a couple of years trying to break into writing music for film, and got a little bit of work, but I can tell you it's an even tougher business than publishing.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

It sounds rather glib, but read and write as much as you can. It takes time to learn your own voice. You can't rush it. The biggest thing, though, is give and receive critique. Taking subjective criticism isn't easy, no one likes to hear their baby isn't perfect, but the ability to stand back from your own work and see its weaknesses is the difference between a professional and an amateur. The two people you'll work most closely with to get a book published are an agent and an editor. When they pick your writing apart, they'll show no mercy. They're not interested in sparing your feelings; they want to make the book the best, and most saleable, it can be. The first time I sold a short story, the editor (the wonderful Betsy Dornbusch of Electric Spec) asked me to cut an entire section. When I first hooked up with Nat Sobel, he had me rewrite the novel from start to finish. If I hadn't gone through the mill of receiving and acting on critique before I got that far, I might not have had the ability to stand back and say, "You know, maybe they're right." If you're precious about your writing, if you're unable to extract your cranium from your rectum, then you won't get very far.

There are plenty of online venues for sharing your work with other writers. One of the best is http://crapometer.blogspot.com/. I sold my first short when Betsy Dornbusch read it there. The short that went on to become THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST got its first airing there. Then the short that sold to Thuglit, and subsequently prompted my agent to contact me, first appeared there. Critique is not only good for your writing, it's also great for networking.

Q5. Which crime writer(s) have impressed you this year?

I've only recently read Ken Bruen for the first time. An American friend, an excellent writer called Chris F. Holm, recommended BUST by Bruen and Jason Starr to me. It's published under Dorchester's Hard Case Crime imprint in the USA, and I haven't enjoyed a book so much in years. I'm not sure how much is Bruen, and how much is Starr, but it's a cracking novel, and its sequel, SLIDE, is just as good. Both foul-mouthed, nasty, joyously trashy little treats. The third instalment, THE MAX, is due later this year. I'll definitely be investigating Mr. Bruen's work further. I've also been going back over some James Ellroy; American Tabloid is a masterpiece I've recently reread, and enjoyed even more the second time around.

Q6. What are you reading right now?

I'm reading THE CHOIRBOYS by Joseph Wambaugh. It's not at all what I expected. It's really a collection of short stories revolving around a set of characters, rather than a straightforward novel. After that, it'll be James Ellroy's THE COLD SIX THOUSAND for the second time. My To-Be-Read pile is quite large.

Q7. Plans for the future?

To make a dent in my To-Be-Read pile. And finalise a book deal. It's been a stressful few months, and it's now reached the endgame - if bagging an agent was like the Good Friday Agreement, then getting a publisher is like the St. Andrew's talks, all protracted negotiations and brinksmanship. Once the deal's in place, I'll be starting in earnest on a follow up to THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST which will introduce a new character into the same world with a view to creating a series. It's something very new and I'm really excited about it, so watch this space.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

I sometimes wish I'd started earlier. I've wanted to write ever since I was a kid, but then I discovered guitars and Van Halen, so my teens and twenties were lost to the belief that rock stardom was just around the corner. Plus the insecurity of wondering if someone like me had any hope of writing anything worthwhile held me back for a long time. Having said all that, I think it takes a certain number of miles on the clock to make a writer. You need some life experience to draw on. I've started various novels over the years, but none ever got past a few chapters. But about three years ago I went through a difficult time that forced me to examine who I was as a person, and I guess it was that experience that planted the seeds for me starting to write seriously about twelve months later.

So, the short answer is no!

Q9. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

You forgot to ask me what the best Van Halen album is. It's 1984, of course.

Thank you, Stuart Neville!

Pre-order Requiems for the Departed Now

Edited by Gerard Brennan & Mike Stone

Requiems for the Departed
Irish Crime, Irish Myths.

Requiems for the Departed can now be pre-ordered on the Morrigan Books website. So this seems like the right time to begin a CSNI promotional push in the hopes that I can convince some of you to dig in to your wallets and spend a little cash on this incredible collection of short stories. Go on, make it your 2010 book for the beach, yeah?

Anyway, I plan to run an interview for each of the contributors and post a short introduction to the story they've written for the anthology.

First up, the super-cool Stuart Neville. Stay tuned.

Newry Democrat covers Requiems for the Departed

Hopefully you'll be able to make out the text by clicking on the image. I don't have a scanner, so a pic from my mobile will have to do. The Newry/Down Democrat was the first paper to take an interest in my blog so it's only right that they get first dibs on this story.

It's a great article but I should point out one error -- I live in Dundrum, not Dromore. Lot of people seem to mix the two places up, so I'll forgive them. Besides, they were pretty generous, calling me a star and all that.

Enjoy.