TheNovelBlog.com - Harry Shannon

Octobers's Featured Author: Harry Shannon
Interview by: Daniel S. Boucher
Author's Website: www.harryshannon.com/

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Harry Shannon has one hell of a resume. He’s been an actor, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, a recording artist, music publisher, VP of Music Production at Carolco Pictures and a Music Supervisor on numerous films such as “Basic Instinct” and “Universal Soldier.” He’s published dozens of short stories. His novels include “Night of the Beast," “CLAN," “Daemon," "Dead and Gone” (also a Lionsgate movie) and "The Pressure of Darkness," as well as the Mick Callahan suspense novels “Memorial Day,” “Eye of the Burning Man,” “One of the Wicked," and “Running Cold.” His collection “A Host of Shadows” was nominated for the 2010 Stoker Award by the Horror Writer’s Association, his second nomination.

How many more careers do you plan on trying before retirement?

Are you serious? I’ve got a daughter in Middle School, there is no retirement on my horizon. Hell, I may take a shot at quarterbacking the Indie Colts, since Manning has gone down with a neck injury. Of course, I’d look like a gunny sack full of door knobs in one of them there uniforms…

Tell us about your newest project, The Hungry.

I love it, it’s an entertaining trip to the zombie apocalypse. Joe McKinney approached me to contribute a short story to a charity anthology about zombies. Steven W. Booth, a friend who’d been doing all of the e-book formatting for Top Suspense Group, had been wanting to collaborate. We came up with a story called Jailbreak. It was whacky and full of the kind of outlandish country dialogue that always makes me chuckle. I also fell in love with the character of Sheriff Penny Miller, who has a pair, as compared to the hapless males surrounding her. We traded an outline back and forth, and just picked up where the story had left off, and spun it out into a complete novel. We had a blast. As I said, I love it. It’s a riot, and creepy as hell, too.

You have some great advance praise on the cover.

Joe McKinney did an introduction about Penny, Steve Hockensmith—who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—did an Afterward for us. Jonathan Maberry gave us a wonderful blurb, as did Ed Gorman. Some of my favorite zombie writers. Frankly, I think they all have a crush on Penny. I know I do.

You also have a solo novel called CLAN out there, tell us about that one. Wasn’t it out before in a less complete version?

Yes, CLAN was originally an award-winning small press novel called Night of the Werewolf, out in 2003. I revised it thoroughly with help from Norm Rubenstein, who is now with Genius Books, Steven W. Booth’s new publishing venture. It’s a much better novel now, and still one of my personal favorites.

What have you got up your sleeve for 2012?

A fifth Mick Callahan novel, tentatively entitled Rough Men. Earlier this year I released Running Cold. For the uninitiated, Mick is a recovering alcoholic counselor, a young fellow with a bad temper and a tendency to get in trouble to rescue his friends and various damsels in distress. And later this year, keep an eye out for The Dead Man: Kill Them All! That book is part of a series created by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, and will be released via Amazon’s new publishing company Thomas & Mercer. I’m excited about that one. It’s a great series, a return to the men’s pulp fiction I grew up on.

You seem to move smoothly back and forth between horror and crime novels. Do you have a favorite genre?

Not really, they each satisfy a different need. The Hungry was a complete blast to write. In some ways horror is less work and more fun. If you put a gun to my head, and forced me to choose just one, I’d probably pick crime fiction because it is so grounded in reality. It’s very challenging to do well, and more of a statement than an escape, at least for me. I love horror fiction too because it’s a bit like decorating the yard for Halloween. I’m trying to scare you, but just to entertain and amuse.

Thanks for spending some time with us.

Thank you, guys. Hope you enjoy reading The Hungry! It is out on Kindle, Nook and via iBookStore. The paperback will be out in about three months.

Daniel S Boucher
Editor-in-Chief
TheNovelBlog.com

Harry Shannon

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