by Bruce Buchanan

1. Tell me about the stories and art that inspired you (or maybe gave you a scare!) growing up in the ’80s. What types of books/art/movies/music, etc. were you into?

I was fortunate enough to have parents that weren’t too strict on the content I was consuming. In this day and age, maybe social services would have been involved, but this was the 80’s. Anything went.

We were the first family to have a VHS player so our house was very popular. I grew up with John Carpenter, Wes Craven, early Spielberg and Lucas. I still remember seeing the second Friday the 13th at the drive in and having my dad move the car when I went to the bathroom. Saw Jaws when I was 7. The Thing blew me away. I think The Howling is the best werewolf movie ever made. I was seven when Star Wars came out. Ten for Empire. What an absolute perfect time to be a little boy.

The comics that were being published were incredible. Springsteen was on the radio. I would tape Spider-Man cartoons and Dr. Demento shows on my Kmart cassette recorder and listen to them until they wore out. My first concert was Weird Al.

I am still basically 12 years old. You ask me what inspired me back then?  Everything was an inspiration.

I love reading something and then going back and reading it again because I couldn’t believe it the first time around. When you say “wait! Did I just read that?” And do a double take … that is a gift. That is what I strive for.

I posted a poem online a while back and someone commented simply” Wow”. I coasted on that one-word review for quite a while.

3. You recently wrote about meeting legendary author Clive Barker. What was that like, and what did it mean to you?

That was definitely a highlight reel moment for me. His appearance announcement came within minutes of me getting my first proof of cover art for “Meet Me in the Flames” so it seemed like fate. I have always been a big believer in giving credit where credit is due and if it weren’t for his writing and my discovering him at such a pivotal time in my life, I might not have ever had the desire to do this.

Books that were being written before he came on the scene were pretty tame and somewhat formulaic. I enjoyed them at the time, but his stories were so much richer and more imaginative and really kicked the door open for me as to what could be done in the genre.

Meeting him was a full circle moment for me. I know I will probably never have the chance to see him again but knowing he has samples of my writing and that we were able to have that interaction 20 years after we first met means the world to me.

When my collection is published, I plan on sending him a copy. Just knowing that my words might be sitting on his shelf somewhere makes all of this worthwhile.

4. What is your writing process like? Is there a certain place or time in which you like to write? And is your process different for poetry versus prose?

I’m not sure if I actually have a writing process. I pull inspiration from things I hear or see or phrases and words I come across. Something that may start out as a more tongue in cheek idea may morph into something more disturbing or creepy. It all depends on where my mind takes me. It sounds cliche but it’s the truth. It’s a lot of stream of consciousness type of thing.

I have a desk in my basement that I write at or I’ll go to a coffee shop for a few hours but mostly it’s on my phone for convenience sake. There is a list on it of ideas and fragments of ideas and poems that I have gotten to a certain point and may revisit in the future. I don’t discard anything because you never know when a thought might be recommissioned into something you never even imagined when you wrote it.

It’s fun to challenge myself to come up with new things or expand ideas into longer pieces. Eventually I would like to rework some of these into short stories to go along with story ideas I already have brewing. I don’t know if I have a novel in me but definitely a short story collection.

5. “Meet Me in the Flames” is your first book. What made you decide to do a book of poetry? And how did it come together?

I found myself a few years ago recuperating from a torn tendon in my arm and with some free time on my hands. I was into some newer Americana and folk music at the time and started writing songs with the intention of learning the guitar. A few good things came out of that but eventually, like most things, my attention started drifting toward darker material and the horror poems were born.

I had a goal to reach 100 poems and if I could hit that and have some content I was proud of I would submit them somewhere as a collection. I googled who was taking submissions and Abby at Wild Ink asked for a sampling since she was looking for a horror title to print. She loved the samples, asked for the rest of the collection and I found out she was interested in publishing them around the beginning of 2024.

I’ve been constantly writing and am working towards an even stronger second collection of poetry before trying my hand at some short stories.

6. How did you find Wild Ink Publishing on your writing journey?

This whole journey has been very surreal. I have heard of the trials and tribulations of getting published but honestly, I was not too keen on going the self-publishing route. I wanted the affirmation that goes with someone reading your work and saying “This is good enough that I want other people to read it. I believe in this.” That is what I have experienced with Wild Ink.

I realize how uncommon this is and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity. Everything right down the line has been handled with extreme professionalism and care and the fact that I still feel like this is MY book and it hasn’t been corrupted by someone else’s vision or agenda is the best take away so far. The community of creative people involved have been encouraging and attentive from the very beginning and I hope that other aspiring authors have the opportunity to get their work published in much the same manner.

7. I understand you also did the illustrations for this book! That is so cool – how long have you been drawing?

For as long as I can remember. I have always been a comic book fan from a very young age and spent my childhood reading, collecting, and drawing as much as humanly possible. I would spend hours hunched over a drawing table or any flat surface really and study techniques and anatomy and storytelling. I am proud to say that I am completely self-taught and everything I know how to do artistically came from those years.

I have had aspirations to be a comic artist, but it is a very hard field to break into, especially pre-internet and growing up in the Midwest. I still have a dream to write and draw my own comic and have the story all fleshed out so maybe sometime in the future we will be having a conversation about that.

Between the comics, the movies, the music, and the general carefree nature of the world during those decades, it was a hell of a fun way to grow up.

Preorder Meet Me in the Flames here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/meet-me-in-the-flames-greg-jones/1145985867?ean=9781958531853

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