Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Interview with Jeremy C. Shipp.



Full Name:
Jeremy C. Shipp

Do you have a nickname or what do your friends call you?
Jer or Jer-bear.

Favorite city and why?
Idyllwild, California is one of my favorite places in the world. It's a land full of trees, magic and gnomes.

How would you describe yourself physically?
I'm a giant potato with googly eyes, dressed in a zombie Smurf t-shirt.

How would someone else describe you physically?
A giant potato with googly eyes, dressed in a zombie Smurf t-shirt.

The first thing people notice about you is…
My spork necklace.
Thanks for that. I’ve been meaning to add “spork” to my spell-check dictionary.

Religion, if any?
Every Thursday, I sacrifice a Smurf to the Goddess of Blue Things.

Are you superstitious at all? Any phobias?
I have this deep-seated fear that after the person in the box office says “Enjoy your movie” I'll say “You too.”
If I had a dollar for every time I did that I could watch movies free for a year.

Do you smoke/drink?   If so, what?   Any bad habits?
I've never smoked, but I do enjoy a nice wine made of gummiberries every now and again.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
I enjoy hiking, watching good movies, watching bad movies, hanging out with friends and family, cooking interesting foods from around the world.

What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?
Spears! I don't know why people keep using knives, swords, guns. Spears are much more effective.
Weapon of choice:
Titanium spork.

Do you have any special skills?
I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.
Duly noted.

Any pets?   If so, what are they and what are their names?
I have two cats. Lattis and Oliver. Scientists recently discovered that my cats are the literal center of the universe.

Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?
My biggest pet peeve is when somebody pushes me into a pit of giant raccoons. It's so annoying.

Favorite / Least favorite Food:
I'm a big fan of peanut butter and cheese. If there was some dish that perfectly blended peanut butter and cheese, I would eat that every day. Is there such a dish? Please tell me. My least favorite food is wheat, because it tastes so good, but it hurts my body. WHY MUST YOU HURT ME, GLUTEN. I LOVE YOU SO.
There is such a dish. Mix two table spoons of your favorite peanut butter into your favorite variety of macaroni and cheese. Enjoy!
Hey, that sounds delicious! Thanks!

What is your advice to other people that want to get started doing what you do?
Read every day. Write every day. Don't let rejection get you down. I don't think you have to write about what you know, but it's important to write about what makes you happy, sad, angry.

What projects are you working on now?
I'm editing an anthology called YARD GNOMES OF THE APOCALYPSE for Evil Jester Press. I'm also writing short stories and a new novel. I'm also putting together a podcast called Attic Clown Podcast. The Halloween episode is going to be epic.
Can I be on your podcast?
That's up to the Attic Clown.

Tell us a bit about Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves.
Cursed is my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novel about a support group of sorts for cursed individuals. Together, they try to figure out who cursed them, why, and what the heck they can do about it. Sheep and Wolves is a story collection full of twisted tales. And Vacation, my first novel, is a strange novel. Here's how a snippet of a review from The Harrow: “Vacation irresistibly reminds the reader of Chuck Palahniuk’s acerbic social commentary, but with less gore and more science fiction trappings. The novel deftly points out discomfiting truths about American society and the global tourist industry while keeping the reader entertained by Johnson’s misadventures through a world in which nothing is what it seems. Jeremy Shipp delivers a first novel that is surprisingly readable and thought-provoking; one worthy of being included in a college course on dystopian fiction.”
Can I get a copy of Cursed and Sheep and Wolves for review? I’m sure I’ll enjoy them and have something suitably complimentary to say about them in review as I remember enjoying Vacation.

What are you watching?
Every weekend I watch a bad movie with the Bad Movie Club. We're a community-based MST3K-type group on Facebook, and I'm the founder. Other than that, I watch a lot of internet-based shows. Some of my favorites: THE GUILD, LET'S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING, ON CINEMA AT THE CINEMA, AVGN, NOSTALGIA CRITIC, BAD MOVIE BEATDOWN, etc.
Can we get a link to the group?

What are you reading?
I'm reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
OMG! I loved that book… in high school. I wonder if it still holds up?
It's genius.

Favorite author/book?
I love THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy. Her use of language in this novel is creative and magical.

Desert Island Music/Movies/Books: You know the deal. Five of each.
Music: Pink Floyd's The Wall. That's all I need.
Movies: Princess Mononoke, Robin Hood, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Labyrinth, Eraserhead.
Books: 1984, Jane Eyre, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Giver, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Who would you want to meet that you haven’t met? You get three choices:
Alive. Dead. Fictional.

Alive: Hayao Miyazaki. Dead: One of my ancestors from 200,000 years ago. Fictional: Falcor.

Summary and thanks:
Thank you kindly for the interview!
No, sir, thank you for allowing me to interview you!

Pitch parade:
Give me all of your links for things you want to promote.   All of them.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jeremywriter
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jeremycshipp
Website: http://www.jeremycshipp.com

About the Interviewee:
Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves. His shorter tales have appeared or are forthcoming in over 60 publications, the likes of Cemetery Dance, ChiZine, Apex Magazine, Withersin, and Shroud Magazine. Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California with a couple of cats and a legion of yard gnomes. The gnomes like him. The clowns living in his attic--not so much.

About the Interviewer:
Scott Lefebvre has probably read everything you've read and can write about whatever you want him to write about.
Mostly because when he was grounded for his outlandish behavior as a hyperactive school child, the only place he was allowed to go was the public library.
His literary tastes were forged by the works of Helen Hoke, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.
He is the author of Spooky Creepy Long Island and a contributing author to Forrest J. Ackerman’s Anthology of the Living Dead, Fracas: A Collection of Short Friction, The Call of Lovecraft, and Cashiers du Cinemart.
His reviews have been published by a variety of in print and online media including Scars Magazine, Icons of Fright, Fatally Yours and Screams of Terror, and he has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue and HorrorHound Magazine.
He is the Assistant Program Director for The Arkham Film Society and produces Electronic Music under the names Master Control and LOVECRAFTWORK.
He is currently working on a novel-length expansion of a short-story titled, "The End Of The World Is Nigh", a crowd-funded, crowd-sourced, post-apocalyptic, zombie epidemic project.
You can check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
You can check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
You can check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
You can follow him at GoodReads here: www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
You can check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
You can check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
You can check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
You can follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
You can follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
You can check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/people/arkhamscreenings
You can join the group for The Arkham Film Society here: www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
You can stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
You can e-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com




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