Interview with an Author - Kevin Shamel
#2 In our Interview with an Author series is Bizarro superstar, Kevin Shamel!
What’s your background, what compelled you to start writing?
My background usually has trees in it. Not lately, being stuck in the fucking desert, but usually. I’ve always written. I always wanted to write books. I considered it a dream fulfilled just to have one book published.
What are your top three books? Bizarro, or otherwise.
This is too loaded a question, really. I can’t remember, and three is too few. I love obscure bizarro books most people haven’t read and heaps that others also love. I like a lot of esoteric shit from the olden times like Hermes Trismegistus and Zen teachings to recent metaphysical stuff. I love Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, Asimov, LeGuin, Clarke, A.A. Attanasio, Anne McCaffrey, Terry Brooks, RAW, S.M. Stirling… literally could just list authors for pages. Basically, I like the people who think far past the world we are presented.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
You’re not gonna be rich from this, dude. But do it, anyway. I wouldn’t change a thing.
What sparked the idea for your latest book?
Just being an idiot inspires all my books. I come up with most ideas being high as fuck, dicking around with my friends and kids. Plus, I think I probably get ideas from other selves in different dimensions. I don’t even KNOW what you’d consider my latest book, and I don’t remember what inspired either of the most recent to be published. Russells in Time, I guess, was mostly inspired by a cool TV show I saw in the 90s about what exobiologists thought would happen with land squid in the future. I don’t know WHY I included celebrities and stuff.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Yes.
What’s brewing? What projects are you working on?
I’m actually working on a book that I started ages ago. I’ve got about 25,000 words on it, and I'm picking up after that. It hasn’t left my head for… 13 years (holy shit), so I have to get it all out. It’s a weird one about people from the Center of the Earth, blue kids, Mayan Sex Priests, the Angel Moronai, RV Life, and a trek across the US with a cast of strange and ridiculous characters. I’m getting back into it, and thinking I’ll actually finish it. Speaking of inspiration, it was inspired by ridiculous names people give their RVs. I photographed about ten of them driving home to Olympia from Mt. Rainier one day, thinking about who can afford such monstrosities. Free Life spawned in my head.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot?
Oscar the Grouch
And, lastly; What advice would you give for any aspiring bizarro authors?
Keep it simple—weird characters, weird worlds, weird situations. Be original. Hilarity wins. I dunno… this is a genre of outcasts and weirdos. Be brave in that with your writing, but don’t be a dickhead. Say something. Say it your way, keeping in mind that your audience is lusting for the strange and untouched while maintaining high standards and being good humans. Your fans are the punk rockers of the world. Write books that show you KNOW the rules, but you’re not gonna follow ‘em.
Kevin's novel, Porn Land, was published in 2022 through Planet Bizarro Press and is available now. This year, 2023, will see the release of his second PB novel, Russells in Time.
