I am so thrilled to be posting an interview today with one of my favorite authors. I have been extremely lucky and I have been able to read a number of Mr. Kennedy’s stories. Each one has been absolutely incredible!
Horror fans, if this author isn’t yet on your radar, take note! 🙂
Let’s dive into the interview!
Interview with Kevin J Kennedy, co-author of You Only Get One Shot & Screechers, and publisher of several best selling anthology series!
Who is Kevin J Kennedy?
Kevin J Kennedy is a horror author & editor from Scotland. He is the co-author of You Only Get One Shot & Screechers, and the publisher of several best selling anthology series; Collected Horror Shorts, 100 Word Horrors & The Horror Collection as well as the stand alone anthology Carnival of Horror. His stories have been featured in many other notable books in the horror genre. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association.
He lives in a small town in Lanarkshire, with his wife and his two little cats, Carlito and Ariel.
Keep up to date with new releases or contact Kevin through his website: www.kevinjkennedy.co.uk.
What is your first memory of writing for fun?
Weirdly, I don’t really have any. I wrote my first story about 5 years ago. It was never something I thought about. I always liked reading and I enjoyed English at school, but I left when I was 16 and just got on with life. I had said a few times it would be cool to have a story in a book but never planned on writing one. A few years back I seen an ad on Facebook for an anthology taking stories and I wrote one. It got accepted and I decided to hunt out some other anthos that were looking for shorts and it just grew from there. After about a year of sending stories off to other people’s anthos I decided it was time to put my own together and since then I’ve just kept myself busy.
How many books have you written (or worked on)?
I’ve published 9 anthologies & 2 co-written novellas. I’ve also guest edited a few anthos and published a novel by J.C. Michael called Pandemonium. Oh, and my solo collection has just been released, called Dark Thoughts. There are another 2 anthos and 2 co-written novellas in the works, not to mention 2 solo novellas I’m working on.
What are some of your other interests outside of writing?
Reading and spending time with my family. I don’t have many hobbies unless you count watching movies and box sets. Lol. The writing/editing/publishing takes up a large chunk of my time these days but when the weather is nice, I tend to take my wife, mother and father away to wee coastal towns for the day. I love the seaside and its nice to go away for the day and have some lunch with my favourite people.
Are you also a reader?
Of course. I love reading. It’s something that has suffered due to lack of time these days but I read less than 30 books last year if my memory is correct. I made a promise to myself I would read more this year and I’m sure I’ve read at least 20 already. It’s much slower going but I could never give up reading. I tend to stick to horror. I used to read a lot of biographies but not so much these days. I still read anything that Irvine Welsh releases as well.
What genres do you reach for the most?
As I said, horror is my go to genre. My fave sub genres are post-apocalyptic, coming of age, bizarro, carnival and backwoods/redneck type stuff. I’ve found myself reading some dark stuff that falls into the sci-fi genre over the last few years as well.
Do you have an all time favorite book or author?
All time favourite author is Laymon. I don’t have an all time fave book but a few that have never left the top of the list are Swan Song by McCammon, Blood Crazy by Simon Clark & The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. I used to read a massive amount and I have at least 25 authors that I used to read everything they wrote. I have several fave books by each and there are too many books by Laymon that I love to list, but the three books I have named are books that have stuck with me for probably 20 years for one reason or another.
Book Related Questions
You recently published your first collection of short stories that are all written by you. What prompted you to put together this collection?
I had always planned to write a collection at some point and had never found the time. I also got into a habit of writing stories for any antho I noticed that was open to subs but it wasn’t leaving me time to do my own thing. I hit a stage where I had the rights back to enough stories that I really liked and time to write a few extra stories to add to the collection. I put everything together then stripped a few stories out and what was left was Dark Thoughts. Michael Bray designed a fantastic cover for it and Lisa Lee done an amazing job with the editing. It has only just been released but the feedback has been great so far.
It’s obvious that you are very talented storyteller and absolutely nail the drabble and short story format. Do you have any plans to write a longer tale?
The two novellas that I have worked on have been written with other authors. I mentioned earlier that I’m working on 2 solo novellas. One is called Halloween Land and it’s an extension of an 8000 word short I wrote a while ago. It’s the story most people comment on or ask if it will be extended. The other is called Summer of ’95 and it’s a coming of age tale. I’m also working on the 2nd Screechers novella with Christina Bergling and another novella with Andrew Lennon. I can’t see me writing a novel anytime soon as I prefer quicker projects.
While many of your tales are horror, are there any genres outside of horror that you’d like to dabble with in the future?
Screechers was a dark sci fi novella. You Only Get One Shot was a noir thriller. I’m not even sure what genre Summer of ’95 will fit into. Most of my shorts are horror but I often write short urban crime stories. As long as it’s dark I am cool with it. Genres are a strange thing. One persons opinion on where a book sits can often be different from someone else’s.
Just one last question; Where can readers find you (blog link, social media, goodreads, etc.)?
Thanks for reading!
Thank you again to Kevin J Kennedy for taking the time to answer these questions!
Snag one of favorites through Bookshop to help support local indie bookshops:
Additional Reading:
Feel free to also check out my reviews of his work below:
- 100 Word Horrors: An Anthology of Horror Drabbles
- 100 Word Horrors Part 2
- Carnival of Horror
- Collected Christmas Horror Shorts 2
- Collected Easter Horror Shorts
- Collected Halloween Horror Shorts: Trick ‘r Treat
- Dark Thoughts
- The Gatekeeper
- Screechers by Kevin J. Kennedy and Christina Bergling
- You Only Get One Shot by Kevin J. Kennedy & J.C. Michael
Yay!! This was so much fun to read and I’m so excited to see what more is coming.
Planned in for this year, there is 100 Word Horrors Part 3, Collected Christmas Horror Shorts 3, and The Horror Collection Purple Edition which will be out very soon. I’m not sure of dates for any of the 4 novellas I’m working on at this stage.
Wahoo!!! <3
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Awesome interview, Erica!
Thank you! <3