Interview with Josh Hilden.

Full Name:
Joshua Thomas Hilden

Do you have a nickname or what do your friends call you?
Josh

Birthplace:
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Current hometown:
Dayton, Ohio

Favorite city and why?
Marquette Michigan, it’s the most beautiful little city I’ve ever seen.  My daughter’s middle name is Marquette.

Birthday / Age:
8/3/1976 / 37

How would you describe yourself physically?

Chubby, bearded, bald, and four eyed.

How would someone else describe you physically?

I have been told I project a sphere of “Stay the fuck away”.
You remind me a lot of my friend Chad Savage.  He gets that a lot too.
http://youareentitledtomyopinioninterviews.blogspot.com/2013/10/you-are-entitled-to-my-opinion_1884.html

The first thing people notice about you is…

My beard.

Sexual orientation?

Bisexual.

Really?  You look like a real “man’s man”.  I guess in light of your answer, that statement takes on another level of meaning.  How does that play into your marriage?

I didn’t come out to my wife in the beginning and to be fair I’ve only been out publicly for a little less than 2 years.  When I told her there was a long period of adjustment and questions.  But in the end it comes down to me being a faithful guy to whoever I’m with. For me the person I am interested in matters more than their gender.  But in all truthfulness my lovely wife says if I ever have a chance with actor John Barrowman she MIGHT give me a pass.

Religion, if any?

Atheist.

Are you superstitious at all? Any phobias?

I’m not overly superstitious but I am terrified of heights.

Do you smoke/drink? If so, what? Any bad habits?

Non-smoker and moderate drinker.

Current occupation / Dream job:

Currently I am a full time Janitor at a long-term care facility and full time Indie Writer. More than anything I want to be able to quit the day job and concentrate only on writing.
That’s pretty much the dream.  What are you doing to work towards achieving your goal?

I am producing as much as I can as fast as I can without damaging the quality of my work.  Although some of my detractors would say there was little quality there to begin with.

Also I am running my indie press (Gorillas With Scissors Press) and I have brought on a fellow writer who works in the field of erotica.  I publish his stuff and he maintains his anonymity under the Pen Name CT Phillips.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?

Read, write, spend time with my family, and watch really bad television.

What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?

When the dead rise I will be digging in at my home… I have everything I need.

Weapon of choice:

Crowbar.

Do you have any special skills?

I can twirl a baton like you read about.
Did you practice baton twirling?  Or are you just naturally gifted at baton twirling?

I grew up amidst an ocean of female cousins who thought I was a living breathing doll.  When they learned to do something I was forced to learn it as well, hence I can twirl a baton.

Did you go to college and, if so, what for?

Yes, I was going to be a paralegal but became bored by the routine and decided to concentrate on my writing.

If you went to college, did you manage to pay off your student loans?

Yes.

Any pets?   If so, what are they and what are their names?

I have a bearded dragon named Tatsu.

What is your favorite animal?

Polar Bear.

Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?

People who seem to think shoes are optional.

Favorite / Least favorite Food:

Sandwiches / Sauerkraut

What is your favorite quotation / motto / saying?

There is no problem fire can’t fix.

Yeah… but what about fire?  I mean, fixing fire with fire usually isn’t considered a good plan.  Thusly the phrase, “Fight fire with fire.”  Well, maybe that’s a bad example, because it supports your claim.  But I don’t think that when firemen show up at a fire they’re like, “Well, let’s throw some Molotov cocktails at it.  That should fix it.”

Ah, but they can create a controlled counter fire to stop the spread of the wild blaze.

What is the best thing that ever happened to you?

Meeting my wife.

What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?

Losing my house during financial collapse.

Ever had your heart broken? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer?
Yes and yes … but if I told you I’d have to drown you.

I get a lot of death threats from doing these interviews.  If I ever go missing, when people finally notice, there’s going to be a really interesting investigation.

Ever broken someone’s heart? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer? Yes, I was engaged to a very nice girl in 1995 and called her up out of the blue and told her I wasn’t in love with her.  Still feel guilty about that one thanks for making me relive it … where is my vodka?

Where did you leave it last?  Did you try looking there?

I eventually found it in the freezer… unfortunately the bottle is now empty.

What is the best thing you’ve ever done?
My kids, if nothing ever goes right for me again I have them.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?
Driving my family into financial collapse due to my mismanaging of the family funds.
Yeah.  Don’t do that.

If you could kill one person, consequence free, who would it be and why? Whoever invented those damn roller-skate shoes… do I really need to explain why?
Nope.  Whenever I see some spoiled kid zipping around on wheelies I always want to clothesline them.  That’s why I’m not allowed to go to the mall anymore.

What do you do?

I tell lies in the form of made up stories and people actually buy them.

How did you get started doing what you do?

I wrote my first coherent story when I was 5 and my first competent story when I was 12.  I’ve always been a story teller.

What is your advice to other people that want to get started doing what you do? Write, rewrite, rewrite again, and then be prepared for everyone to tell you it sucks. Then do it all again.

What are some of the projects you’ve worked on/finished in the past?

Give us a little history if you will.

I have written and published a series of books called “The Shores of the Dead” along with too many other stand-alone and serial projects for me to mention here.  Before that I cut my teeth in the Role Playing Game industry working for Palladium Books and Third Eye Games.

I think that maybe you should mention them.  People are here to read about you and your work.  Take advantage of their attention.  Promote that shit.

I am working on two serialized stories at the moment.  The Preserve is kind of a mashup of Lost and The Most Dangerous Game and Summer Camp of the Dead is a young adult zombie series.  The first seasons of each are available through Amazon. I also do a weekly project called Free Story Friday (FSF).  Every week I put up a new free tale on the website (Freestoryfriday.com).  The story stays up for seven days then is replaced by a new offering.  The old story is then uploaded to Amazon for $0.99.  After I feel I’ve reached a sufficient number I collect the stories in an anthology.  The Free Story Friday Collection Vol. 1 is available on Amazon.

What projects are you working on now?

I am currently gearing up for the second season of “Summer Camp of the Dead” my Young Adult Zombie serial.

What are you watching?

The Black List, Once Upon a Time, Agents of Shield, and Adventure Time.

What are you listening to?

Mostly Podcasts, but I am usually rocking really bad 80’s music.

What podcasts do you listen to?  I’m on a big Doug Stanhope podcast bender.

SModcast, Tell’em Steve Dave!, The Self Publishing Podcast, and Better Off Undead.

What are you reading?

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Favorite author / book?

Stephen King / The Stand

Favorite band / song?

REM / Man on the Moon

Least favorite band / song?

I have no idea, I like a lot of bad music.

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

I always wanted to be a painter, but I have zero aptitude for graphic arts.

Who would you want to meet that you haven’t met?

You get three choices: Alive. Dead. Fictional.

Alive – Stephen King

Dead – Isaac Asimov

Fictional – Captain Picard

What’s the best and worst job you’ve ever had?

The worst was when I was a security guard at a newspaper.  The best is being a writer, although it never feels like work.

That’s so weird, because I was a security guard for a newspaper when I was in college.  I worked third-shift and weekends so that probably made it suck a bit less than working first or second shift.  I didn’t mind it.  If the pay had increased to match the rises in the cost of living I’d probably still be doing it, just bringing in my laptop and working on my writing instead of just reading books and catching up on my sleep like I used to do.

Most of the time it was a pretty good job, but it ended badly.  I had a boss who was sleeping with one of the female employees.  I caught them fooling around in the security van one night and within a month I was given the option of quitting or be fired.  Being 20 and not too bright I quit, if the same thing happened today I would have scorched the metaphorical ground.
Or at least you could have held out and waited to get fired.  That way you could collect unemployment and could have used the free government money to get your writing career started.  That’s what I did for my first book.

Are there any questions that I didn’t ask that you wished I had asked that you would like to answer now?

No I think we are good … pay no attention to the cries for help from my basement.
Whose basement?  Yours or mine?

It doesn’t matter. Ignore it and it will go away!

Thanks for letting me subject you to being interviewed!

Pitch parade:
Give me all of your links for things you want to promote.   All of them.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/josh-hilden-author/116260821801432
Twitter: http://twitter.com/josh_hilden
Website: www.joshhilden.com
Blog: http://joshhilden.com/universal-josh/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Josh-Hilden/e/B0094ACFPA/

About the Interviewee:
When I was born on August 3, 1976 in the great state of Michigan the hills shook and the sky was swept with fire.  These were portents of the greatness for my future that was written in the stars... I'm still waiting for that greatness.

My name is Josh Hilden and I am many things.  I am a husband, a father, a son, a friend.  These are all important things but at my core I am an artist and the medium that I work in is words.  I am a writer of Role Playing Games, short stories, essays, poetry, novellas, and novels.

In the everyday world I can be found spending time with my family and friends.  I have been married to my lovely wife Karen since September of 1996.  We have six amazing children.  We tend to be a family of unabashed geeks and gamers who were geek before geek was chic.

If you are really interested in me I am very active online with a personal and a writing blog along with a plethora of social media outlets.  All links are available at my website (www.joshhilden.com).  If you have any questions or just want to chat hit me up!

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