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| Major Influences http://horrorworld.org/msgboards/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=5007 |
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| Author: | David T. Wilbanks [ Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:18 am ] |
| Post subject: | Major Influences |
| Author: | Tom Piccirilli [ Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:06 am ] |
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I've gone through several shifts over the years. Early influences included a lot of the real off-the-wall 60s/70s literary but speculative and just weirdass writers. Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Tom Robbins. That was probably the worst thing that could've happened to a young writer who didn't have anywhere near the chops to write like those brilliant authors. After that, I focused on horror/speculative writers. Jack Cady, Dennis Etchison, TM Wright--again, very stylish, thoughtful, bizarre writers with a lot of years of honed skills that I didn't have. But they spoke to me. Their narrative voices weren't the same old shit, they told stories in unique and beautiful and weird ways. Then we mix in the crime writers, the old GM authors who had so much power and intensity. David Goodis, Charles Williams, James M. Cain, Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe, Bruno Fischer, Gil Brewer, Charles Willeford, Cornell Woolrich...these guys practically bled onto the page. Hard, gritty, but also highly emotional in a lot of ways. Sorrowful, melancholic, but dark as hell. Anyhow, from that mix, and adding about another 500 authors into the mix, I found my own voice. But the process is ongoing. An author's voice is an evolving creature. The core stays the same, mostly, but we strive to sharpen and tighten and strengthen as we go. |
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| Author: | David T. Wilbanks [ Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:00 am ] |
| Post subject: | |
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