A Horror World Conversation with Simon Wood
By Steven E. Wedel

William Shakespeare. Charles Dickens. J.R.R. Tolkien. James Herbert. Simon Wood. Jolly old England has given us some fine authors. Most of them have stayed in England, but that last fellow, Simon Wood, did what so many Brits did during the 17 th and 18 th centuries and migrated to America, where he was first an engineer before becoming a full-time writer in 1998. Since he’s employed, and married to one of our American girls, we should probably go ahead and keep him.

But for the next several minutes we’ll play INS and interrogate him as if we caught him sneaking into the colonies.

Horror World: What brought you to our country, Mr. Wood? When did you arrive? Have you already gone through the cavity search?

Simon Wood: A woman brought me to these fair shores. That was ten years ago. She later became my wife and pretty much stopped me from leaving, thus averting a cavity search.

HW: Is that a pencil in your pocket, or are you just glad to be here? Why’d you give up driving locomotives to become a writer? Was being an engineer too hard for you?

SW: Coming to America killed my engineering career. My qualifications prevented me from gaining the licenses I needed and to get them meant going back to college. The idea of returning to a classroom just didn’t appeal, so I had to look for new work. I needed something where qualifications meant nothing and writing fit the bill. In a lot of ways, coming to the states was the perfect time to indulge the idea of writing. I’d always been a daydreamer as a kid and I’d tried experimenting with short stories leading up to me leaving the UK. Writing was the logical thing to do. That’s a sentence you don’t hear too often.

HW: Are you smuggling blood pudding into America?

SW: Sadly, no. There are things I won’t go near and blood pudding is one. I don’t even drink tea. Actually, that led to my expulsion from Britain. Her Royal Majesty’s Order of All Things English told me it was in my interests to leave for the new world or face charges of treason.

HW: Let’s talk about this writing career of yours. We already have a lot of horror here. Why did you come here to spread more? Why not write romance, fantasy or pornography?

SW: They say to write what you know, but you have to write what you love. Horror is a genre I love, so I have to write it. It’s as simple as that.

HW: You say you write thrillers, too? You mean, like mysteries? Like that Sherlock Holmes fellow wrote? What’s the difference between a horror story and a thriller story, anyway?

SW: No, when I say thrillers, I mean things like Alfred Hitchcock used to put on the silver screen. For me, horror has to have a fantastic element. That doesn’t mean it has to be supernatural, but it’s a crisis that doesn’t exist in real life. With thrillers, the stories are grounded in real issues. I’m attracted to the compromising positions we put ourselves in as people and how they can topple a life.

HW: In searching your house we found some books with your name on them. Which one was published first, and how did it come about? What inspired you to write it and how did you break into print?

SW:Accidents Waiting to Happen was my first book. It was first published by the now defunct Barclay Books in 2002 and then a revised version was published by Dorchester last year. The book was inspired by a piece on Dateline that cast a light on the practice of people buying out life insurance policies of people who are still alive. Immediately, I saw how this confidential transaction could be breached and all go terribly wrong. I broke into print by not taking no for an answer. I knocked on the door of every publisher and agent until one listened. First Barclay Books did. Then again with Dorchester. With Dorchester, I pitched the book to Don D’Auria face to face. He loved the book and that led to Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. I’m finishing up my fourth book for him right now. Sandwiched between these books were two short story collections, Dragged into Darkness and Working Stiffs. Dragged into Darkness was a collection of short horror fiction published by Medium Rare Books and Working Stiffs was a collection of short crime fiction which centered on the theme of workplace crime.

HW: You claim to have written well over 100 short stories. Can you identify some of the places these purported stories have been published? Which ones are you most proud of? And, is writing short stories necessary before writing a novel?

SW: I’ve been published in a number of anthologies over the years, Horrorfind and Darkness Rising to name a couple. My stories have appeared in Dark Wisdom magazine and even Horror World. I’ve been an active face in the small press for a number of years.

As to which stories I’m most proud of, Acceptable Losses remains my favorite. It appeared in Dark Wisdom and Dragged into Darkness. It’s set during the Second World War and is about the soldiers who clear the beaches after the battles. The captain has struck a no-win bargain with a creature in order to win the war. It was inspired by an account given by an Australian girl I met in Thailand. She was telling me what her grandfather did during the war. We were sitting at a war grave next to the River Kwai. It had profound affect on me. Other stories I have a soft spot for are My Father’s Secret, which is about a father turning his son into a hit man (the story won the Anthony Award last year), Shadow Chaser which dealt with a rehabilitated killer coming face to face with his shadow self, and The Hoarder, which was about woman who couldn’t throw anything away in her life.

I don’t think you have to write short stories to become a novelist. Some people prefer one of them over another. For me, I like telling stories and sometimes they're going to be short and sometimes they're going to be novel length.

HW: All right, Mr. Wood. Reliable intelligence tells us you had a new story released last month. Something called THE SCRUBS. You stole the title from our TV series, didn’t you? No? Then tell us what your story is about?

SW:The Scrubs the real life nickname for the London prison, Wormwood Scrubs. It’s one of those magical names where anything could happen and should. So, in my fictional version of the prison, several of the inmates volunteer for the North Wing Project and never return. The latest volunteer is Michael Keeler, a lifer looking for redemption. He discovers the prison is having an effect on Jeter, a notorious serial killer with psychic abilities. He has the ability to create an alternate world and Keeler’s mission is to enter this world, learn the identity of Jeter’s last victim and bring back the inmates who've gone before him.

HW: Why does the cover list the author as Simon Janus? Mr. Wood, what are you trying to hide by concealing your identity? Is the book that bad?

SW: I think I’ve confused the public a bit flitting from horror to thrillers and back. Horror readers think I write crime and thriller readers think I write horror. So I’ve decided to go with a pen name for all my horror work from now on. I hope it will clear up the confusion. J

HW: Leisure has just released another of those thrillers you wrote. Tell us about WE ALL FALL DOWN. What’s it about and what inspired you to write it?

SW:We All Fall Down is based on three suicides that occurred in Bristol, England, in the 1980s. All three men worked together and no one found any connection or a reason for their deaths. Their deaths always stuck with me, so I created a possible scenario to explain why they killed themselves. The story is told from the point of view of Hayden, the guy who joins the company and is literally filling dead men’s shoes.

HW: THE SCRUBS is from Bad Moon Books. Your previous novel, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN, and the new one WE ALL FALL DOWN are from Leisure Books, while WORKING STIFFS was from Blue Crucible Press. Again, reliable intelligence tells us the big presses pay more. What’s the draw of publishing through a smaller press?

SW: Small presses are great venues for experimenting with storytelling and writing things that don’t meet commercial requirements. The Scrubs is a novella and WorkingStiffs is a collection. Novellas and collections are tough to sell in the marketplace and rarely interest a major publisher, but they are things that smaller presses are willing to snap up. At the end of the day, I want to tell stories and I’ll work with those who help me do that.

HW: How has your writing changed over the years?

SW: Yes, I think I’ve found my theme or point of view as a writer. With my horror stories, I tell tales about dark forces that will go after the innocent and try to destroy them, whether they did anything to provoke it or not. With my crime fiction, it’s different. Those stories feature characters who stray from the straight and narrow and it comes back to bite them in the ass.

HW: Are you touring this year to promote the book? Will you willingly consent to us implanting a tracking device in your left butt cheek so we can keep track of your movements?

SW: I’ve just gotten home from being on the road promoting We All Fall Down. I’ll be promoting The Scrubs from the comfort of my home, so I won’t need you coming anywhere near my butt cheeks.

HW: What will you be releasing on the world next, Mr. Wood? What publishing company will be your accomplice in this endeavor?

SW: Horror Library will be publishing a horror novella under my Janus identity called Road Rash. It’ll be appearing in a four-novella anthology soon. My short story My Father’s Secret is being translated into Japanese for a mystery magazine in September. I have a true-life horror story appearing Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues. My next novel will be Disgruntled, but I don’t have a date for that.

HW: And what are you working on now?

SW: I’m working on a novel which will be the first in the series of mysteries based on my experiences as a racecar driver. I hope to do what Dick Francis did for horse racing. I’m also working on my first horror novel and the sequel to The Scrubs.

HW: How would you compare American horror to that produced in the British Isles? What do American and British authors handle differently?

SW: I don’t really know. I didn’t start writing until I came to the US and my work has become very much US-centric. You should ask someone with a little more perspective. J

HW: If we took you into custody and threw you into one of our famous detainment camps right now, which of your works do you think would define your career?

SW:Paying the Piper, I think. It demonstrates what a devious tale I can tell.

HW: Mr. Wood, we’re going to release you for the moment. Do you want to confess to anything I might have forgotten to question you about?

SW: No, I think I’ve said enough already. Any more and I think the mob will turn against me. L

HW: To step out of character for a moment, Simon, thank you for taking the time to talk to Horror World. I’m sure many of us look forward to reading the new books.

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