Four Live Rounds by Blake Crouch
Authors: Blake Crouch
Tags: Abandon, serial, J.A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, locked doors, snowbound, desert places, scary, bad girl, Suspenseful, perfect little town, four live rounds, serial uncut, thrilling, draculas, shaken
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Who is your first reader?
BC: My wife.
HW: What’s your favorite procrastination
technique to avoid writing?
BC: Playing my acoustic guitar.
HW: Now that you’re in the business, do you
find as much time to read as before? Do you avoid fiction for
fear of unconsciously copying someone’s stories?
BC: I read more now than ever. You have to.
I’ve never avoided fiction for fear of unconsciously copying
someone else’s stories. You can’t help but be influenced by
the work of others. No one is unique. As Cormac McCarthy said, “The
sad truth is that books are made of other books.”
HW: I happen to know you’ve written an essay
about Jack Ketchum’s Off Season for the upcoming International
Thrillers Writers project Thrillers: 100 Must Reads .
Was that format difficult for you? Did the experience
provide you with any special insights into your own writings, or
into thrillers in general?
BC: It was the hardest thing I’d written all
year. I felt like I was in college again working on a term paper.
That being said, it was a great joy to delve into the life and work
of Jack Ketchum. I had great editors on that project. (HW: Full
disclosure time: the editors for that worthy project are the
esteemed David Morrell and yours truly. End of plug.)
HW: Tell us a little about future projects.
You have a short story slated to appear in the ITW anthology, Thrillers 2 ?
BC: Yep, it’s called “Remaking” and also
happens to be set in a beautiful Colorado town called Ouray.
It’s premised on a question: What would you do if you were in a
coffee shop, saw a man sitting with a young boy, and suspected the
boy wasn’t supposed to be with him, that maybe he’d been
kidnapped. I’m over the moon and humbled to be included in
such a stellar collection of writers. Joe Konrath and I have just
released a free short story as an eBook with the help of our
publishers. It’s kind of groundbreaking, both in how Joe and I
collaborated, and how our publishers came together to make it
available everywhere. It’s called “Serial”, and is probably the
most twisted thing either of us have ever written. The Abandon audiobook will have a short story that I read called
“On the Good, Red Road,” and finally Jen Jordan’s new anthology, Uncage Me , publishes in July, and I have a story in that one
called “*69.”
HW: Are you working on a new novel at the
moment?
BC: I am.
HW: Where are you in that process?
BC: About a hundred pages in.
HW: Can you talk a little about the new book,
or would that jinx things?
BC: I’m pretty sure I would deeply regret
talking about it at this point. I find if I talk too much about
works-in-progress, it takes the wind out of my sails.
HW: Any book recommendations?
BC: Joe Konrath just published a novel under
the name Jack Kilborn. It’s called Afraid , and I think it’s
one of the best pieces of horror fiction to come out in recent
memory.
HW: Work uniform?
BC: A white tee-shirt and pajama bottoms with
snowflakes on them. I know, it’s awful.
HW: Misconceptions about people who graduated
from UNC?
BC: That if by some rip in the space-time
continuum, Al-Qaeda managed to get a Division I college basketball
team together, and if that team somehow made it to the NCAA
tournament, and then survived March Madness, and, now here’s a real
stretch, were facing Duke in the championship game on Monday night,
that UNC fans would put aside their petty rivalry and root for Duke
over the terrorists.
DESERT PLACES
Published in January 2004 by Thomas Dunne
Books
DESCRIPTION: Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful
writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in
the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he
receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his
sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing
his future, and for the
BC: My wife.
HW: What’s your favorite procrastination
technique to avoid writing?
BC: Playing my acoustic guitar.
HW: Now that you’re in the business, do you
find as much time to read as before? Do you avoid fiction for
fear of unconsciously copying someone’s stories?
BC: I read more now than ever. You have to.
I’ve never avoided fiction for fear of unconsciously copying
someone else’s stories. You can’t help but be influenced by
the work of others. No one is unique. As Cormac McCarthy said, “The
sad truth is that books are made of other books.”
HW: I happen to know you’ve written an essay
about Jack Ketchum’s Off Season for the upcoming International
Thrillers Writers project Thrillers: 100 Must Reads .
Was that format difficult for you? Did the experience
provide you with any special insights into your own writings, or
into thrillers in general?
BC: It was the hardest thing I’d written all
year. I felt like I was in college again working on a term paper.
That being said, it was a great joy to delve into the life and work
of Jack Ketchum. I had great editors on that project. (HW: Full
disclosure time: the editors for that worthy project are the
esteemed David Morrell and yours truly. End of plug.)
HW: Tell us a little about future projects.
You have a short story slated to appear in the ITW anthology, Thrillers 2 ?
BC: Yep, it’s called “Remaking” and also
happens to be set in a beautiful Colorado town called Ouray.
It’s premised on a question: What would you do if you were in a
coffee shop, saw a man sitting with a young boy, and suspected the
boy wasn’t supposed to be with him, that maybe he’d been
kidnapped. I’m over the moon and humbled to be included in
such a stellar collection of writers. Joe Konrath and I have just
released a free short story as an eBook with the help of our
publishers. It’s kind of groundbreaking, both in how Joe and I
collaborated, and how our publishers came together to make it
available everywhere. It’s called “Serial”, and is probably the
most twisted thing either of us have ever written. The Abandon audiobook will have a short story that I read called
“On the Good, Red Road,” and finally Jen Jordan’s new anthology, Uncage Me , publishes in July, and I have a story in that one
called “*69.”
HW: Are you working on a new novel at the
moment?
BC: I am.
HW: Where are you in that process?
BC: About a hundred pages in.
HW: Can you talk a little about the new book,
or would that jinx things?
BC: I’m pretty sure I would deeply regret
talking about it at this point. I find if I talk too much about
works-in-progress, it takes the wind out of my sails.
HW: Any book recommendations?
BC: Joe Konrath just published a novel under
the name Jack Kilborn. It’s called Afraid , and I think it’s
one of the best pieces of horror fiction to come out in recent
memory.
HW: Work uniform?
BC: A white tee-shirt and pajama bottoms with
snowflakes on them. I know, it’s awful.
HW: Misconceptions about people who graduated
from UNC?
BC: That if by some rip in the space-time
continuum, Al-Qaeda managed to get a Division I college basketball
team together, and if that team somehow made it to the NCAA
tournament, and then survived March Madness, and, now here’s a real
stretch, were facing Duke in the championship game on Monday night,
that UNC fans would put aside their petty rivalry and root for Duke
over the terrorists.
DESERT PLACES
Published in January 2004 by Thomas Dunne
Books
DESCRIPTION: Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful
writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in
the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he
receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his
sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing
his future, and for the
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