faq

Jones: PEN OR PENCIL?
SGJ: I can’t really han­dle how loud pen­cils are.

Jones: HOW FAST CAN YOU TYPE?
SGJ: Can’t quite hit the 220wpm Philip K Dick was sup­posed to. But I plan on liv­ing longer, too.

Jones: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE X-FILES EPISODE?
SGJ: “Jose Chung’s Lit­tle Green Men”

Jones: WHY WRITE?
SGJ: Because I can’t help it.

Jones: THREE MOST IMPORTANT NOVELS OF THE 20th CENTURY?
SGJ: Catch-22, Deliv­er­ance, and White Hotel.

Jones: WHY IS THIS SITE ‘OFFICIAL?‘
SGJ: Surely it doesn’t say that any­where. But, if it is, I don’t know: because I made it? Where ‘made’ means ‘stole,’ of course. But, the other site, the one before this, stephengrahamjones.net, yeah, it was ‘offi­cial,’ in the sense of ‘autho­rized’ : these three guys (Drew, Dan, Nick) asked if they could do it. I said yeah, won­der­ful, thanks. Some of the con­tent on this site’s from there (thanks much to Nick for it).

Jones: YOU’RE INDIAN, RIGHT?
SGJ: Black­feet, yes.

Jones: THAT’S WHY THE LONG HAIR?
SGJ: No. Long hair because I used to want to look like George Lynch, back when he was part of Dokken. Indi­ans, actu­ally, can have any-length hair. It’s a crazy world.

Jones: ARE YOU THE STEPHEN JONES THAT EDITS THOSE MAMMOTH HORROR ANTHOLOGIES?
SGJ: Can I get free copies if I am? But, no, he’s the rea­son I use my mid­dle name.

Jones: BEST TRUCK EVER?
SGJ: 1979 Bronco XLT, met­alflake blue on Ford White. Prefer­ably with the 351C and a 4-speed.

Jones: READ COMICS?
SGJ: Reli­giously.

Jones: WHAT ARE YOU WORST DAYS?
SGJ: Any­time I find myself some­where with­out a pen.

Jones: YOU TEACH FICTION AT TEXAS TECH?
SGJ: Yep.

Jones: YOU WRITE SCREENPLAYS TOO?
SGJ: My ex-publisher sent me to most of those Robert McKee sem­i­nars, and I’ve taken some other classes besides. It’s a fun medium, yeah. I try.

Jones: ZOMBIES OR VAMPIRES?
SGJ: Were­wolves.

Jones: ADVICE FOR JUST STARTING-OUT WRITERS?
SGJ: Inhale fic­tion, night and day. Soon enough it’ll come bleed­ing back out. And, this whole thing about “other peo­ple” is over­rated: all that exists is you and the page. Too, if you have to choose between the bar or a cou­ple hours writ­ing, then go ahead and hit the bar, I say. Because you’re not doing fic­tion any good.

Jones: YOUR AGENT?
SGJ: Kate Gar­rick, of Brian Defiore and Co.

Jones: HAVE A GREAT UNDISCOVERED WRITER FOR US?
SGJ: He’s not really “undis­cov­ered,” but not enough peo­ple have read Charles McCarry’s Paul Christo­pher series. The guy writes with a pre­ci­sion and grace you don’t see very often at all. Stanis­law Lem, too: the guy was sim­ply bril­liant.

Jones: IN YOUR BIOMATTER, YOU SAY YOU GOT YOUR TONGUE CUT OFF?
SGJ: My teeth cut it off, but it was because of a bat to the face. It’s sewed back on now though, my tongue. I grew up wor­ship­ping Gene Sim­mons. When I wear make-up, how­ever, it’s usu­ally Paul Stan­ley style. I can’t explain this.

Jones: MAKE-UP? IS THIS FOR HALLOWEEN?
SGJ: For Hal­loween I’m always either a pirate or Jason Voorhees.

Jones: YOU GOT A PhD IN WRITING FROM FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY?
SGJ: Yep.

Jones: YOU USED TO RUN THAT MOVIE SITE, YEAH?
SGJ: Like you can remem­ber that far back? Yeah though, Cin­e­muck. But then for­got to renew the URL one foggy day. It’s all archived now, here on the site (scroll down a bit…) and here. Only messed up on a cou­ple of them. Pretty obvi­ous which.

Jones: CLAIM TO FAME?
SGJ: I own the sin­gle coolest shirt in the world. But it’s too small for me. Here:

Jones: THERE ANY WRITERS WHO SHUT YOU UP?
SGJ: When I read them, you mean? Yeah: Philip K Dick, Kurt Von­negut, Jr. Elmore Leonard’s not very help­ful either. They all intim­i­date me silent.

Jones: WHO DO YOU LISTEN TO, MUSIC-WISE?
SGJ: Way­lon and Bob Seger and Spring­steen and Steely Dan. Frank Zappa, unhealthy amounts of Meat­loaf. Lot of Mule­head, I sup­pose. Despise the radio, except when it plays Bon­nie Tyler.

Jones: SCARIEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN?
SGJ: Cer­tain com­mer­cials ter­rify me. I keep all com­mer­i­cals muted, just in case one of those bad ones comes on. Don’t want to be caught unawares.

Jones: DO YOU WRITE NON-FICTION?
SGJ: So far, I’ve acci­den­tally writ­ten two sto­ries in which I for­got to lie. Not sure if that counts. “Bes­tiary” and “The Wages: an Argu­ment” (in Con­trolled Burn).

Jones: POETRY?
SGJ: Nope. Though I have had some sen­tences and para­graphs pub­lished in poetry-only places.

Jones: WEREWOLVES?
SGJ: Yes.

Jones: WORKING ON SOMETHING NOW?
SGJ: Over the sum­mer wrote a novel so sick it infected me. Dis­turb­ing stuff; every­time I sat down at the key­board, my stom­ach would just turn. I love it though. Call­ing it maybe The Dog Mother (part of the title of a chap­ter from Greg Bear’s Vitals). Then in Novem­ber I wrote a hard-boiled detec­tive piece, Tar, Baby. Last thing I wrote — few days ago — was a story about a rab­bit. It was twelve pages, I guess. Before that, an eighty-page story, “Ster­ling City.” It’s sci­ence fic­tion. Right now I’m writ­ing a zom­bie west­ern, and about four other things. As for what I have in the drawer now: Seven Span­ish Angels, Blood­lines, No Rest for the Wicked, and a novel I wrote for that 3-day con­test, The Hedo­nist Chron­i­cles.

JONES: CORRECT WAY TO SPELL THE COLOR MIDWAY BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE?
SGJ: ‘Grey.’ It’s so clunky if you do it with the ‘a.’

Jones: IN CLOSING?
SGJ: I will not will not with a goat.

Posted: 01|22|06 at 8:38 pm. Filed under: Author.

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