We’re delighted to welcome living legend Kim Newman to WAYR today.
Kim Newman is a novelist, critic and broadcaster. His fiction includes Anno Dracula and Life's Lottery; his non-fiction includes Nightmare Movies and Horror: 100 Best Books.
What are you currently reading?
Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism, Sean McCann. It’s research for my current novel project, but the sort of thing I might read anyway – though I can only take abstruse academic stuff in small slices. I’ve been reading collected editions of Marvel comics between chapters – recently, I’ve been especially taken with Squirrel Girl.
What's the last great book you read?
The Wise Friend, Ramsey Campbell. A new novel by the scariest living horror writer – he’s probably scarier than many of the dead ones too.
What's your best advice for aspiring writers?
Don’t even think about writing something set in or dealing with the events of 2020 for at least ten years. Seriously, don’t. Or, if you can’t help yourself, put it in a drawer for a while. No one wanted to read books and see films about World War I for ten years or so after the war.
What's the most interesting fact you've learned recently?
There’s a supernatural presence in Raymond Chandler’s novel The Little Sister that almost no one has ever noticed or talked about. That came up during more research on my current novel project, which is called Something More Than Night and is an occult mystery set in Hollywood in the late 1930s.
What film or TV show do you never tire of watching?
The Rockford Files, The Avengers, Sgt Bilko, Homicide Life on the Street. Film: 1940s film noir, Hammer horror, 1960s pop musicals.
Thank you, Kim! And thanks to you for reading and subscribing to What Are You Reading. Have a great weekend!