MEET THE SPSFC2 FINALIST!
A special interview with Drew Melbourne!
Name and where you are from?
Hi! I’m Drew Melbourne. I’m originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia and also live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but for a long time I lived in New York City, which is how you know I’m cool.
(I’m not cool. I don’t know why I lied just now. I’m very sorry.)
How many other books have you self-published?
My novel Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days is my first and also most recent self-published novel. I hope to have the next book in the series done soon, Percival Gynt and the Inevitability of Days and Other Cases. Probably the one after that’ll need a shorter title. Just mathematically.
I’m also the author of a graphic novel called ArchEnemies which was published by Dark Horse Comics back in the day.
Tell us a little bit about your discovery of science-fiction (books, shows, movies) and why did it stick with you?
It comes from my mom and my brother mostly. My mom was a hardcore Doctor Who fan in the 80s and 90s. She brought me to cons with her. My brother introduced me to superhero comics and D&D. The TV was always on. I grew up with Stars Trek and Wars. All of my earliest writing was in the medium of “action figure battles.”
My house was full of books growing up, and we were always at the library. I got a lot of fantasy early on: Narnia. Prydain. Lots of mythology and Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure. Hitchhiker’s Guide made an early impression.
There was a lot, and I never really compartmentalized it, which I think is why my writing has always been a blender of influences.
What/who made you want to become an author?
Lloyd Alexander lived down the street from my grandmother. I met him a couple of times. Playing Dungeons & Dragons with my brother had an impact too. Watching him create stories in front of me. Reading comics and following writers from title to title. I understood from an early age that writing was a thing that people did and that it was a thing I wanted to do too.
What elements do you feel make your book unique?![Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days by [Drew Melbourne]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5140Ad0KoXL.jpg)
Are any of us really unique? I just try to tell stories that I’d enjoy reading: Stories that are funny and exciting and heartbreaking at all the right moments. And if there should be a wizard in a story, I’m going to put a wizard in it. Conventions be darned!
What are some themes or ideas you like to explore in your writing? What may have inspired these?
Conspiracy of Days is a frequently silly story, but it’s deeply concerned with questions of fate, of identity, of the past’s stranglehold on the future. I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, which puts a lot of my life in stark perspective. I’ve always been struggling against limitations I didn’t fully understand. My writing has always involved characters who can’t quite overcome the forces that separate who they are from who they want to be.
Also I like puns.
What are some of your favorite tropes and how do you explore these in your writing?
When I was first outlining Conspiracy of Days I included a list of all the different tropes and elements I wanted to squeeze into the book. I think partially this was a defensive move. What if they never let me write another novel? (Not sure who “they” is. The CIA, maybe?) Somewhere there’s a Word doc with a list that’s like “costume party, punch Nazis, talking animals, dinosaurs, wizards in pointy hats, math, trains, clockwork, gorillas, stage magic, hanging from things, musical numbers…”
I don’t think I actually got all of it into the first volume, but that’s what sequels are for.
It’s possible that I didn’t answer the question. Look over there!
What’s something about your book we might not get from the blurb?
The book is called Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days, but there are a lot of other fun characters to discover along the way, whether it’s Um, the pugnacious three-armed frog-faced cop, or Esme, the ever-logical street urchin-turned-nun-turned-something else or Nevin, the rat chef who’s grasp of the obvious is exceeded only by his good-natured uselessness.
It’s possible that some of them die.
What was your path or decision to self-publish? Had you queried for publishers or planned to self-publish?
Before I wrote Conspiracy, I was doing comics. I was working with one of the big comics publishers, but the experience was in many ways more akin to self-publishing. I assembled the whole creative team and brought them to Dark Horse. I was involved in every decision, down to cover designs and marketing copy.
Self-publishing Conspiracy just felt like the natural thing to do, and the best way to maintain my vision. That said, I really had no idea what I was doing, and I’ve learned a lot since then. When it comes to self-pub vs. trad publishing, there’s definitely no wrong answer.
What’s something you’ve learned about the self-publishing process?
Have a plan. Relationships matter. Be kind. Support the community. Never repeat yourself. It’s not a race. Marry into a family of editors. Don’t give up. No one can stop you from writing whatever you want in the acknowledgements. Never repeat yourself. Some day someone will come along and say a robot can do what you do. Look them right in the eye and you tell them, “No. But a robot can do what you do.”
What is one thing you love about the current state of Science Fiction and what is one thing you wish you saw more of?
I’m so thankful that we’re moving towards a place of more diversity. More gender diversity. More LGBT writers. More racial diversity and neurodiversity. I want to hear from everyone.
Traditional publishing is still driven by market forces. A lot of decisions are made based on what’s on trend and what isn’t. That’s okay! We still get new trends somehow! Quality can break through. But it’s also exciting to see what’s happening in self-pub where the barriers to enter are much lower and the gloves are really off.
What’s up next for you as a writer?
Percival Gynt and the Inevitability of Fire and Other Cases will hopefully be out later this year. It’s a collection of stories that take place before Conspiracy of Days and explore more of our hero’s backstory. Find out how Percival cracked his first case, how he spent his worst day, or how he saved Christmas! Plus lying robots, dying universes, interdimensional war, card games, and Murder She Wrote. And in the featured novella, you take control of Percival’s fate in the tradition of the Choose Your Own Adventure books from my childhood.
Maybe you’ll do better than I did!
Website: http://drewmelbourne.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrewMelbourne
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40231491-percival-gynt-and-the-conspiracy-of-days
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