Monday, January 27, 2014

Interview with George Daniel Lea.




Full Name:
George Daniel Lea

Do you have a nickname or what do your friends call you?
Some of my closest friends call me “Georgie,” as do most of my family, but that's largely because my family is generally infested with Georges.  Insofar as I'm aware, I'm George the VIII on my Father's side.
Better that than Henry VIII.
I suppose, though that could have led to some funny situations should I ever get married, divorced and/or happen to behead my spouse.
Yeah, but good luck at the trial.  No jury would acquit you with a name like that.
Your Lawyer: “But, your honor, my client is innocent!”
Prosecutor: “I’m sorry… but what was your client’s name again?”
Your Lawyer: “Henry…”
Prosecutor: “Come on.   Out with it.”
Your Lawyer: “…the eighth.”
Prosecutor: “I rest my case!”


Birthplace:
Sutton Coldfield, U.K.

Current hometown:
Tamworth

Favorite city and why?
I generally hate cities; I find them distant, dehumanising, cannibalistic places, but I can tell you which cities I love to hate most: London, most definitely: a vast, pustulent scab of a place that reduces humanity down to its meanest and most animal essentials, all the while painting itself as an icon of civilisation and ascended culture.  That said, I do like some of the bars and theatres down that way...

Birthday / Age:
08/02/1984, 29 years old.  An Aquarian, apparently.

How would you describe yourself physically?
Hirsute.

How would someone else describe you physically?
Hairy.

The first thing people notice about you is…
The fact that I either tend to hug them or emanate an aura of non-specific loathing.  That and my hairiness.

Religion, if any?
Not at all.  I consider myself a student of religions but an advocate of none.  I like ancient mythologies, oral traditions; folktales of every shape and species, but when people come to me proclaiming to not only know that there are divinities, but what those divinities feel about and demand of me, I reserve the right to regard them as ridiculous.  That said, I'm massively interested in metaphysics in a philosophical sense, which, insofar as I can discern, seems to simply concern itself with human function in the abstract; hopes, dreams, dreads, desires...all that good shit.  Far more protean and productive than I've seen anything traditional ideology or religious structure provide.
A man after my own blackened antitheist heart.  I also find metaphysics and folklore fascinating… but not the kind of thing you should base contemporary laws on.  I love learning about new deities and folklore, but I also love learning about new monsters and superstitions.  It’s all part of the same parcel for me.
Ditto: metaphysics is a particularly interesting one for me, as mention of it in circles that ostensibly share my positions on religion etc tends to make people look as though they've smelled something bad.  I find this unfortunate, as it seems that the philosophical term has been co-opted and polluted by hairy-fairy magic, crystal bothering types when, in point of fact, all it necessarily concerns itself with is operation in the abstract: an entirely personal and subjective arena, of course; something to be communicated rather than enshrined or projected, but no less essential and inalienable for that.  When people start proclaiming their particular brand; what moves and inspires them, to be universal; that's when you get problems, as it is the acutest and most profound form of tyranny, which, ironically, much of human culture throughout history has enshrined as though it's wonderful and the very measure of what is good.
Yeah, one of my imaginary friends recently knee-jerked a reply to one of my antitheist posts and I destroyed her.  Another unsatisfied customer.  You don’t want to read my rants, unfriend me.  No love lost.  But to comment on my status and tell me to mind my own business and to shut the fuck up and that I have no moral compass without a religious belief system is going to get you publicly embarrassed.  I take all comers and haven’t had my dick knocked in the dirt yet.  I don’t need to believe there’s an invisible man watching and judging everything I do to have a moral compass.  I have a conscience and I try to adhere to the social contract.  The good old “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” with a healthy side-dish of “Let do as thou wilt be the whole of the law.”
It's something I encounter often in my day to day life; the raw fact of the matter is that, for most people, these arguments occur on a highly abstract level; there is little in the way of manifest consequence in people's lives outside of certain key areas. However, since I identify as a gay man, I often find my extremely personal and private affairs being picked and pawed over with reference to other people's religious beliefs; people who have never met me, who have not the first inkling of how my relationships and romantic entanglements operate, but who feel divinely and uniquely appointed to comment upon and pass judgment on them.  This is an area where I lose all civility: though I operate with strict adherence to the credo of “live and let live,” the instant someone assumes that their highly personal and idiosyncratic belief systems have application for me or anywhere outside of their own lives and choices, is the point at which I will begin to attack the foundations of that belief structure like acid.  They become fair game in my eyes.  What's particularly interesting from outside of the U.S. is the degree to which highly specific forms of religion (e.g. your fundamentalist, biblical literalist variety) seem to be allowed to run roughshod throughout law, politics and culture in blatant disregard for the principles of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights etc, to the point whereby you now seem to have an epidemic of teen suicides on your hands due to enshrined and justified victimisation on the merest perception of being gay, transgender queer et al.  It's appalling, and I have no problem whatsoever calling out those who sit in their pews or attend churches that pour such poison into the culture and saying to their faces: when you sit and allow your preachers and pastors to get away with this tribal nonsense, you are squatting upon the corpses of the young people who will potentially commit suicide as a result.  No problem at all.

Are you superstitious at all? Any phobias?
Superstitions?  Not really...there are routines and little demands by which I mark the quality of a day, most of them related to writing; the rest relating to cooking, eating and, occasionally, sex (very occasionally).  Beyond that, I'm morbidly and irrationally repulsed by spiders, whilst simultaneously finding them fascinating and brilliant little creatures.  I love those fucked up tensions; all that ambiguity and contradiction; it's so wonderfully human.
That’s how I am when I get my blood drawn.  I can’t watch the needle go in, but I love to play with the blood vials when it’s over.
Ambiguity, contradiction; absurdity: they are what humanity is.  The fact that we've spent more or less the entire history of our species attempting to deny or diminish the fact says a great deal about the core neuroses that motivate us.  That's what I like about disturbing, horrific or surreal subject matter: it presses your nose into it and pins your eyes open; it makes you confront what unsettles and upsets and teaches you why you should love it.  That way lies a kind of enlightenment, for want of a better term; one far more profound than anything we'll ever find in the traditional structures that have co-opted these arenas of human experience.

Do you smoke / drink? If so, what? Any bad habits?
Smoke?  See sex.  Drink?  I like port and mead and mulled wines.  I rarely drink to excess, but enjoy it when I do.  Bad habits?  Being extremely anti-social outside of my job, which makes profound demands on my reserves of social energy.
Isn’t that an odd dichotomy to maintain?  I used to be a brand manager for a horror-genre merchandising company, and part of my job was being boisterous and attracting a crowd and talking to people until I almost loss my voice for a weekend at a time.  Outside of that, I’m the most boring exciting person anyone knows.  I spent the whole day watching the 80s Superman movies, then the new Spider-Man movies while editing interviews.  Comic books movies and me typing away at my laptop.  But I have to make it sound interesting, because as an author, I am my own brand.  If I don’t keep my social media interesting and engaging, then I’ll never sell any books.  People are much more likely to buy your work if they like you as a person.  It’s tough, because I hate people in general, especially in crowds, but I like them as individuals, and I love being in front of crowds.  So I’m a complete shut in 95% of the time and a complete extrovert the other 5% of the time.
I think it's something that most writers and most creative types in general commonly exercise; that tension between the external and internal selves; the public and private.  Not that those are ever entirely exclusive states; I do like to play to a room, whether it's getting into something heated around a friend's dining table or during public readings of my work, I find that energy is infectious; genuine enthusiasm and passion something that radiates and kindles.  It's the same quality I try to capture in my prose, but in a somewhat more fixed way: that ability to ignite and manipulate the passions of others... it's an amazing thing to do, and you can change people on such a fundamental level by doing so... that's really where the pay off comes for me.  That said, I can't deny the monkish serenity that settles when I finally slink home, bolt those heavy iron gates and shut out the world.  I think I'd do rather well in a monastery.

Current occupation / Dream job:
I currently work for my living as a support worker and personal assistant to vulnerable adults and individuals with mental disabilities.  Beyond that, I already do my dream job: I'm a writer, I make stories.  Ideally, I'd love to have the exposure and influence to have them read more widely, but beyond that, so long as I can keep making them, I'm reasonably content.
I used to work with individuals with developmental disabilities and traumatic brain injuries when I live in Connecticut.  It was decent pay and I liked my job.  Then things went south with the girl I moved there to be with and I moved back to Rhode Island, and the pay was not commensurate with the work so I do security now.  Mostly because the pay is better.  Not a lot better, but it’s also a lot less work.  99% of the job is showing up on time and staying awake, and the staying awake part is optional.  Plus it gives me a lot of time to work on projects.  In a former life, I worked in the field of mental health for eighteen years.  But mostly I was hired as an enforcer because some people seem to think I’m a big guy although I don’t see it.
If I hadn't fallen into the field, I'd likely be huddling in some store front doorway or camping out on the sofa of whoever would be willing to endure me at this point.  I do not do well with traditional avenues or environments of employment.  I don't say that out of some adolescent, “Holden Caulfield” rebelliousness; it is the truth, and a problematic one that I struggled with throughout my early adulthood; the tendency to attempt to better proscribed systems that remain bloated and inefficient leading to frustrations I still find difficult to contain.  Though carework in all its forms comes with its fair share of protocol and political nonsense, it is such an immediately satisfying, various and interesting arena of work, I can't actually see myself doing much else, besides the writing, of course.
I totally relate.  I’ve had something like a hundred different jobs.  And I’m only thirty-eight years old.  Sometimes I’d stick with something for a few years, sometimes a few hours.  More often the latter than the former.  I plan on writing a book of short stories about my employment experience.  It should be interesting.
Well, I'm just on the cusp of turning thirty; I've worked in many, many different fields, from academia to production; from data entry to care work, and I've only come across one that didn't make me want to start clawing eyes out (my own or those belonging to others; I don't think I would have cared very much at the time).  The care work is something I am sublimely and against all expectation suited to; I work well when I have to function on behalf of others socially and domestically, and I have fun with it: my clients are all excellent people whom I admire profoundly for the conscious effort they put in every day to do things that those of us that consider ourselves fully “able” take for granted.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
The vast, vast, VAST majority of my time is taken up with writing; I've been doing it for so long now, it's become psychologically and emotionally essential.  You DO NOT want to talk to me when the routine has been disrupted: imagine a four pack a day smoker who went cold turkey only that morning, and you kind of have an inkling.  I'm also an inveterate and unrepentant geek; I love video games, comic books, various kinds of pulp fiction, movies; table top role playing and war games.  Cooking is my secondary passion, next to writing; I can spend many, many happy hours perfecting a particular dish or throwing together something interesting for friends.  As for reading, I've gotten to the point that I actually feel strange and uncomfortable if I don't have a book with me or within reach; I read on the bus, in taxis, whilst waiting for buses; I'd likely read in the shower if I could find a means of doing so without ruining my books.  There isn't much I won't voraciously devour in that regard, outside of Jane Austen, whom I can't abide.
My profile/author pic is a picture of me posing with a Robert Anton Wilson book… at a bar.  Because I’m the kind of guy that takes a book to a bar.  I also feel you on the scriptus interruptus.  Sometimes I come out of my room to take a piss and my room-mate hits me up for some quality talk time and I feel trapped and can’t focus on anything he’s saying.  I’d keep a jug in my room and piss in it when I’m on a twelve-hour writing jag if that wasn’t a disgusting idea.
Know the feeling.  I also know the feeling of that black lightning instant of pure, apocalyptic rage that strikes when the state or rhythm of high creation is interrupted or broken.  Were it to manifest itself physically, the Earth would find itself scorched of all life and reduced to a barren, smoking rock in the void in the space of a thought.
When I bunker in for a solid writing jag, I disable the wifi on my laptop and turn off my phone.  That way no one bothers me unless they come by the house, and no one comes by the house so it works pretty well.  But my room-mate has the key to the place and he’s kind of an introvert too, so on those rare occasions when he wants to chat I try to indulge him, but if I’m on a writing jag I just cut it short with, “I’d love to chat, but I’m in the middle of writing something.” and turn on my heel.  I think it kind of hurts his feelings because he feels I’m being rude, but if you don’t write, you can’t relate to that pressure of the words waiting to be released and the only thing between the words being in your brain and being on your laptop is you being alone and undisturbed and typing for hours on end.  The only people that understand that are other writers.  That’s why  hope I can get into a relationship with another writer someday.  That way we can just ignore each other for most of the day except for the occasional cup of coffee and peck on the head and no one’s feelings will get hurt.  Just happily clacking away at our respective laptops and every so often asking “Hey, can I read you something and you’ll let me know if it works?”.  Ah, domestic bliss.
I recently discovered the utter bliss of living alone; I am very, very well suited to isolation, which I think most writers and people of a creative bent are. It can, of course, become problematic, too: it's possible to be far too jealous of one's own private time. Again, my work helps immeasurably with that, since it is necessarily social, and forces me to interact out in the world on a variety of levels that I likely would not otherwise.

What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?
Survival?  I intend on being the dark power responsible for unleashing the plague of undead in the first place.  When my decomposing children have finally brought the last of the wretched living into their ranks, I will have them carve out a great palace from the largest mountain on Earth, from the peak of which I will hurl storms and lightning across the skies, churn the oceans to maelstrom and generally make a spectacle of myself.
When I finish my post-apocalyptic zombie epidemic book project, you can write the counter-point.  Let’s get famous.
Totally up for that.  Be aware that I'm very good at making people sympathise with the monsters.  Why do you think you're talking with me now?
There’s going to be at least one zombie character, as one of my interviewees, Justin Aerni, gave me a killer idea for the book.  But if you wanted to go in for a co-write and beef up the zombie point of view you’d be welcome to.  The beast is already scheduled to come in around 400,000 words, but more is always better for books I always say, and a couple extra books in the series never hurt.  You’re a smart fella from what I can tell and probably an excellent writer so our work will probably complement each other nicely.
“Brain Food,” my particular take on the zombie genre, would likely give a good indication as to whether our takes on the subject matter would mesh.  One of the things I tried to do in Strange Playgrounds was provide some fairly subtle parodies of the classic subjects: your vampire, werewolf, zombie, demon and angel stories.  None of them are particularly overt or advertised as such, but they are there.  Thus far, only one reader has gotten back to me has managed to spot the werewolf one.
Damn it!  Now I want to read your book.  How am I supposed to get any of my own writing done if I keep on interviewing immensely talented and interesting authors?  Oh, right, just like every other author does.  Put everyone else’s books in a folder in the corner of my desktop and squirrel them away for a rainy day.

Weapon of choice:
Magic.

Do you have any special skills?
I can plait hair.  Does that count?
No.  What else do you got?
All right: I can paint and sculpt, which I do for recreation; I can cook and bake, which I love: I make bread regularly and can brew up various curries that would blow your socks off.
Much better.

Did you go to college and, if so, what for?
I went to university here in the UK because it was generally expected of me and when you're young and marginally academic by nature in the UK that's generally the only path traditional structures provide or encourage.  Still, an interesting experience; allowed me to become somewhat less misanthropic than I used to be as a child.

If you went to college, did you manage to pay off your student loans?
Still in the process of doing so, but here in the UK, they're largely incidental; one hardly notices that they exist, since there is only a requirement to even start paying them back when one is earning a particular amount.
Australia has the same deal.  Apparently I was born in the wrong country.

Any pets?   If so, what are they and what are their names?
Nope; no time for pets, though I'd like a reptile of some species.  I imagine it'd look at me in the same way I tend to look at other people's children.

What is your favorite animal?
Snake.

Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?
People who consistently ask questions whilst you're watching a movie that they'd already know the answers to if they'd only shut up and watch the damn thing.  Also, Dan Brown.

Favorite / Least favorite Food:
Favourite?  Tricky; I like all manner of cuisine for a whole host of different reasons, but if you put a gun to my head, I'd have to say: Indian.  I adore Indian traditions in food; the continent has such a rich and varied history in that regard; it'd take several lifetimes to properly explore and master it all.
Least favourite?  Fast food, anything bland or uninspired.

What is your favorite quotation / motto / saying?
“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.” William Blake, A Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

What is the best thing that ever happened to you?
Getting my short story collection, Strange Playgrounds, published, and learning that people seem to be responding well to it.  I tend to sometimes forget that I'm technically quite a young man; I don't have half of the life experience of most of the writers I tend to engage with; getting the work out there knocked my back a little; made me feel genuinely agitated and somewhat unsettled for a time, until I started getting feedback, at which point, I began to realise that the stories, for all their surrealism, make sense to someone outside of my own head.  That was and remains very important to me; I want people to be moved and unsettled by what I provide more than anything in the world; I do not ever want people to put down anything I've created and walk away from it feeling unconcerned or reinforced.

What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?
There are lots of little tragedies that seem so significant at the time; that seem to utterly consume your being, but which the experience of proves so utterly transformative... the blackest moments allow us to realise ourselves and, if we respond well, to transcend those qualities and characteristics we may not appreciate: to, in effect, become different people.  If we're neurotic, we rail against that experience; we whine and moan about fate and the unfairness of the world. If we're not, we take our time; we grieve the life that has been sloughed off or shorn from us and move on, ready for whatever trials come after.  So, lots of things, but nothing, absolutely nothing, that I'd be without, because they make me who I am, and, against any and all expectation of my murdered younger selves, I like who I am.

Ever had your heart broken? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer?
Yes, and see the previous question.

Ever broken someone’s heart? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer?
Yes, and see the previous previous question.

What is the best thing you’ve ever done?
The writing notwithstanding, which I consider to be the reason I exist (as, I am sure, does anyone who fancies themselves a writer), I find my care work to be routinely fulfilling on a daily basis; the fact that, simply by going to work, you can have such a profoundly positive impact on the quality of someone else's life is profoundly rewarding.  I imagine we wouldn't be having this conversation if I hadn't fallen into the profession; not unless you happened to pass by the street corner I'd most certainly be sleeping on.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?
Avoided or denied a lot of opportunities personally, romantically and professionally in my youth owing to a profound misanthropy that was most certainly born of an extended bout of insomnia-fuelled depression.  It's the stuff not done that keeps you awake at night.
Insomnia is a symptom of depression.  Depression is a symptom of insomnia.  The only way out is happiness and a good night’s sleep, but sometimes they’re hard to find.

If you could kill one person, who would it be, and why?
No one.  Despite having no great or particular love for humanity, I don't bear it any particular ill will either.  What I see are particularly inventive and ambitious primates still sadly belaboured by the biological constraints of their evolutionary history, some of whom do everything in their power to transcend it whilst others do everything in their power to enshrine it.  The latter are my enemies, but also fellow victims of history.





What do you do?
I write.  I cook.  I occasionally have sex.  I work.  I sleep.  But mostly, I write.

How did you get started doing what you do?
Can't remember; I do recall vaguely answering the standard question of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with the same answer since I was five: I want to be a writer.  It wasn't until I was around thirteen that I realised that, to be a writer, all you actually have to do is put pen to paper and put one word after another and keep doing it until something coherent appears.  Been doing the same ever since.

What is your advice to other people that want to get started doing what you do?
Inspiration is cheap; don't believe that the magical and visionary nature of your ideas are going to carry you through: every human being on this planet, from the lowliest to the most ascended, experiences inspiration in a daily basis; the difference between most and those who make something of their inspirations is work and the willingness to fail: that's it.  To be better at what you do or what you want to do, you have to do it and do it and do it, and fail and fail and fail, and hate it and hate it and hate it, but still love it more than anything, and eventually, you'll get there, crawling over the broken and cast away carcasses of the countless works you've abandoned or bludgeoned to death out of sheer frustration.  Nothing like it in the world.
I like what you said there.  I started a group for authors that want to take the twelve in twelve challenge.  Twelve novel-length book projects in twelve months.  I believe that a sword only gets sharper when honed against something harder than itself, so I created the group to help people push each other to achieve greatness, or at least twelve books in twelve months.  Not a lot of authors have bought into it, which surprises me.  Almost every author I know says they write 2K a day.  I blame Stephen King.  If you write 2K per day, that’s 60K per month, so a novel a month should be no problem.  I’m just looking for people willing to put their words where their mouths are.  If you’re interested, I’ll add you.
Definitely interested; sounds like a good framework for providing focus and discipline.  I'd have to finish the (myriad) projects I'm currently working on before I could fully commit, but I'm definitely game for that.
I added you to the group.  Try to keep up.  *laughs*

What are some of the projects you’ve worked on/finished in the past?
Give us a little history if you will.
The most significant piece, barring one or two bits and pieces of short fiction, is my short story collection, Strange Playgrounds.  The collection represents many years of work, and my own evolution as a writer in many respects; some of these stories were started almost a decade ago, whilst I was still at university, whilst others are extremely recent.  I'm very pleased to have produced something that people seem genuinely unsettled and disturbed by; something that moves rather than consoles and upsets rather than placates.

What projects are you working on now?
Something simultaneously lighter yet more ambitious; a pulpy, violent, metaphysical science fiction novel set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

What are you watching?
Adventure Time.  I love cartoons.

What are you listening to?
A series of music tracks my composer and performance artist friend, Ray Curran, produced which were inspired by his reading of Strange Playgrounds.
Oh wow!  That’s so cool!  I wish someone would do that for my shit!
Something I've discovered during the process of getting Strange Playgrounds published: I am surrounded by creative and extremely generous people.  My friend Nick Hardy, who is an amazing photographer, has more or less become the de facto publicity manager for the work, and thanks to the promotional photographs he has produced; the website he set up etc etc, the project has spread further and become more than I could have ever hoped.  My friend Grace Burley, who is an amazing artist, produced the front cover as well as a fantastic alternative piece, and numerous friends have contributed with readings, pieces of music and art inspired by the collection.  Nick and I have a mind of turning them into a kind of sister volume that we can publish independently and then distribute whatever money happens to come in from it equally amongst all of those that have contributed.  It truly has been an amazing revelation.
That’s a great idea!  This whole interview blog thing has been a great resource for networking too.  I’ve received about a dozen invitations to participate in anthologies since I’ve been on a jag of interviewing authors.  No money in it for the most part but I’ll take the contributor credit and the extra exposure.  Plus I publish collections of interviews when I see a theme arising and just published my third collection of interviews last night.  It’s a collection of interviews with zombie-genre authors.  The response for the call for interviews was so positive that I had to split it into two volumes.  One for people that took it seriously and got their interviews finished in an expeditious manner and one for those scatter-brained procrastinative “artistic” types.  I have thirty interviews in the first collection and it weighs in at 434 pages / 107,537 words so it’s a bit of a beast.  And I’ve got around twenty-five interviews lined up for the second one and more inquiries coming in so it looks like that one’s going to be just as big of a beast.  Now if only I can manage to sell enough copies that I can afford to buy paperback copies of my own damn books!  *laughs*

What are you reading?
Betrayer and Angel Exterminatus in the Horus Heresy series, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and Pain God and Other Delusions by Harlan Ellison.

Favorite author / book?
Far, far, far too many which I appreciate for far, far too many different reasons to make a coherent list.  I'd say my work has been most profoundly influenced; my imagination most significantly shaped, by the likes of Clive Barker, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Poppy Z. Brite; writers and storytellers whose obsessions with the macabre leads to a kind of dark metaphysics.
If you’re going to pick heroes you might as well pick good ones and your picks are spot on.  Now I want to read your short story collection!
It could have very easily gone another way: when I was (very) young, I was obsessed with epic fantasy mythologies such as those drawn by Tolkien and Alan Garner; those are the stories I originally intended to write.  But when I discovered the likes of Barker, Gaiman, Brite et al at around the age of ten, my preconceptions of what the fantastic and the surreal could do were blown away.  I realised that fantastical subjects could be used to confront and explore very real, very ambiguous and human aspects of reality, rather than just providing idealised, escapist dreamscapes.

Favorite band / song?
The Eagles, Hotel California.

Least favorite band / song?
Anything derived from television “talent” shows such as the X-Factor or Pop Idol.

If you could do anything other than what you do now, what would you do?
Psychology.

Who would you want to meet that you haven’t met?
You get three choices: Alive. Dead. Fictional.
Alive: Clive Barker.
Dead: Aldous Huxley.
Fictional: Any creator deity.  I have a few... not complaints, exactly, but... questions I'd like to put to them.

What’s the best and worst job you’ve ever had?
Best: What I do now.
Worst: Making sandwiches on the production line in a sandwich factory. Didn't do that one for long.

Are there any questions that I didn’t ask that you wished I had asked that you would like to answer now?
If there were, I think I weaseled the answers into the previous questions.
As all good interviewees should.

Anyone you recommend I interview that you can put me in touch with?
If you're interested in subjects other than writers, I can certainly recommend Ray Curran, who can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/ray.curran.731?fref=ts; a performance artist, singer, song-writer, musical director and composer of no small talent, Nick Hardy who can be contacted via: https://www.facebook.com/NickHardyPhotography?fref=ts; a photographer and actor who helped to produce much of the promotional materials for Strange Playgrounds and DeKay: https://www.facebook.com/dekayx?fref=ts; a singer, song writer and rap artist from the streets of London.
Oh, also, local artist Grace Burley, who produced some amazing work for Strange Playground's front cover: https://www.facebook.com/grace.burley?fref=ts
I do interview more than authors.  I’ve just been doing a lot of authors lately because I was collecting interviews for a zombie-genre-author collection of interviews and one interview led to another.  I’m not complaining.  I’m almost all caught up and will be able to get back to throwing words at my own work again soon.  You make the introductions and I’ll handle the follow-through.

Got any questions for me?
Where's the Milky Bar you promised me?
That question doesn’t really translate well on this side of the pond.  In America that just sounds dirty.
Would it sound any better if I asked for a Peanut Butter Cup?  Because that just sounds even more filthy to me...
What’s so filthy about a peanut butter cup?  I eat those by the bagfull when all of the candy goes on sale the day after Halloween?  Wait, forget I asked.  I don’t want you to put me off them.  They’re one of my few candy-related vices and a man’s got to have something to look forward to in this life.

Thanks for letting me subject you to being interviewed!
No problems; a pleasure.



Cover design by Grace Burley.



Pitch parade:
Give me all of your links for things you want to promote.   All of them.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Strange-Playgrounds/392011607551898
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnigmaticElegy
Website: http://www.strangeplaygrounds.com/

About the Interviewee:
George Daniel Lea is a bizarre and curious specimen that can most often be found wandering dazedly around certain environs of the U.K. Midlands.  He likes stories above most things; even more so than the fact that his hair is going profoundly grey at the age of 29 and that he has felt inwardly ancient since the age of 8.  Never expecting to live as long as he has, he currently spends his time attempting to upset the delicate psyches of other human beings with stories of utmost absurdity and surrealism.  Also likes chocolate. 


About the Interviewer:
Scott Lefebvre 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.
He is currently working on ten novel-length book projects which will be released in 2014.
He also publishes themed collections of interviews from his interview blog You Are Entitled To My Opinion.
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.
Check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
Check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
Check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
Follow him at GoodReads here:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
Check out his publishing imprint Burnt Offerings Books here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnt-Offerings-Books/1408858196016246
And here: http://burntofferingsbooks.blogspot.com/
Check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
Check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
Check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
Follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
Follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
Check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/shop/ScottLefebvreArt
Join the group for The Arkham Film Society here:
www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
Stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
E-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com

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