{"id":1354,"date":"2011-09-20T03:05:13","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T01:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1354"},"modified":"2011-08-29T17:40:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-29T15:40:22","slug":"writers-cornered-scott-brendel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/09\/20\/writers-cornered-scott-brendel\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Cornered: Scott Brendel"},"content":{"rendered":"

interview by Joe Vaz
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<\/td>\n\"\"
\nFrom Issue 13 (Sept 2011)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where is home? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I grew up in a small town along the Erie Canal in upstate New York\u2014the kind of place they could have filmed Stand By Me<\/strong>\u2014but after moving around a bit, I settled in Colorado.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are you a full-time writer?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve worked as a writer and editor for several companies over the years, doing marketing material\u2014which some would say is just another form of fiction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What inspired this story?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first line of the story woke me up in the middle of the night. It was persistent enough that I stumbled over to my desk and wrote it down. After that, it was a matter of figuring out who was trying to tell the story and what he had to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s quite a lot of humour in Groundswell. Was this intentional or did it just come out in the telling?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t set out to write a comedy, but my narrator \u2014 twitchy, hapless sort that he was\u2014 turned up with a cosmic \u201ckick me\u201d signed pinned to his back. I decided to let him do the talking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you often blend comedy with horror in your work?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As it turns out, I do. Humor can come from the peculiar outlook of characters or their reactions to stress and make them more real and even appealing to the reader.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the most recent short story you read? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a story called \u201cPorter\u201d by Alexei Kalinchuk, in an anthology called Broken Links, Mended Lives<\/em>. It\u2019s a touching story about a retired widower struggling with change who takes in his obnoxious neighbor\u2019s dog and then is accused of stealing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are you working on anything right now?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m finishing up a novel about a man dealing with the accidental death of his wife who finds it easier to believe in ghosts than God. He\u2019s also struggling to connect with his teenage son. When the two of them return to the lakeside summer home of his childhood, he discovers that it\u2019s not the safe haven he remembers\u2014and that something supernatural walks the woods.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where might we be able to read more of your work?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seventh Green at Lost Lakes\u201d appeared in Read By Dawn, Volume 1<\/em>\u2014it\u2019s horror on a golf course, with a twist of humor. \u201cThe House Beneath Delgany Street\u201d appeared in Subtle Edens<\/em>, an anthology of Slipstream. It\u2019s about a man\u2019s search for a mythical house that moves from place to place, always just out of reach. And most recently, \u201cAtaraxia\u201d\u2014a tragedy set in a post-apocalyptic near future\u2014 was published in an anthology called Day Terrors<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\n\"\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockOpen’ \/]<\/p>\n

Joe Vaz<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Joe Vaz<\/em> is the founder and editor of Something Wicked<\/em>, which occasionally affords him the honour and good fortune to hang out with really cool people.
\nIn his other life he is a film and television actor who gets small parts in big movies, most recently in Dredd 3D<\/em><\/a>, due to be released in September 2012.<\/p>\n

[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockClose’ \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

interview by Joe Vaz
\n\"\"<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n
\n

I didn\u2019t set out to write a comedy, but my narrator \u2014 twitchy, hapless sort that he was\u2014 turned up with a cosmic \u201ckick me\u201d signed pinned to his back. I decided to let him do the talking. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFrom Issue 13 (Sept 2011)<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[63,111,39,115,100],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-non-fiction","tag-interview","tag-issue-13","tag-joe-vaz","tag-scott-brendel","tag-writers-cornered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1357,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}