Interview with Greg Mitchell, author of "The Strange Man"

Please join me today for an interview of Greg Mitchell, author of The Strange Man.

Thanks for having me!

Who do you think would like your book? (Or alternately: Please tell prospective readers why they’d like your book.)

Much to the chagrin of “high literary” types, I tell people this is a book for “movie people”. My background is in screenwriting and I’m a “movie guy”, so the book is really designed to play out like a movie in your head. Very fast, very exciting. I’d like to think that anyone who enjoys scary stories and fun, personable characters will gravitate towards The Strange Man. It’s a very unapologetic book—I don’t apologize for sharing my Christian faith, and I don’t apologize for all my gruesome monsters :) I’m passionate about both!

What is your favorite thing about your story?

I love the characters. I’ve grown up with these guys in my head and I love moving about in their monster-filled world and living in it for awhile. It’s kind of like a second childhood as I’ve dumped all the things that I love into this series. It’s just a chance to relive my boyhood dreams.

Do you remember how long it took you to write? How about to edit and find a publisher?

I’ve said this so much people will think I’m a broken record, but I’ve been writing The Strange Man for over ten years. It started as an unproduced screenplay, then I wrote it in novel form. I had an agent for awhile and we pitched it to about a dozen different places and I got the age-old “not right for us” line. In 2007, determined to prove myself, I self-published the book through a POD company, but I wanted it to get a wider audience. I “pulled it off the shelves”, as it were, expanded it and shopped it around again. Suddenly, people were interested and the problem became finding the right publisher. After many sleepless nights, I finally settled with Realms Fiction and I’ve been happy so far—especially happy that now we can move on to the other two books in The Coming Evil Trilogy!

What is your favorite type of book to read? Do you have any favorite books or authors?

I actually read a lot of Star Wars “tie-in” novels. I know some people might not consider those “real books”, but there’s something really interesting about how the Star Wars “Expanded Universe” has evolved over the last thirty years. All these different writers with different voices are adding to this single continuity begun in the original movies, respecting each other’s work and building on this fictional universe. It’s constantly amazing to me.

What’s your favorite movie or TV show?

Ask me a couple years ago and I would have said my favorite TV show was Supernatural, hands down, but that show seems to have plateaued in its storytelling, sad to say. I still enjoy it, but it’s sort of a letdown—I don’t think they take enough risks anymore. Honestly, the show that’s really got me excited every week is Vampire Diaries. That’s got more twists and turns in a single episode—sometimes before the first commercial break—than some series have in a whole year. It comes back to the characters—they’re constantly changing in unexpected ways and the story just grows and grows. It’s an incredible pace and I’m not sure how long the creators will be able to keep it up, but I’ll be there to find out.

As for movies, I love the Back to the Future Trilogy, and I love the fun monster movies from the ‘80s—The Monster Squad being a major inspiration to me. I love the Rocky series, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies—especially the second two, Harry Potter (both the films and the books). I just like series, in general. I like stories that take many installments to tell and I like to see characters evolve over the course of time. Apart from that, I’m also a crazy fan of John Carpenter’s movies. There’s a certain sublime quality to them—I feel very relaxed and comfortable watching his movies. The cinematography, the music. They instantly put me in a happy mood.

Can readers contact you?

They can find me at my blog—www.thecomingevil.blogspot.com

Is there anything else you’d like your prospective readers to know?

I hope everyone checks out the blog. The story doesn’t end with The Strange Man—aside from the trilogy in the works, I’ve also written a number of short stories that “fill out” the lives of the main characters, and I’m looking to write many more. New adventures, new insights—and all totally free! It’s my ode to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. They’re designed to be rewarding to those who have read The Strange Man, but they also don’t give anything away in case you haven’t read the novel yet.

Please share a synopsis or blurb, and a brief excerpt from your book.

Here’s what it says on the back cover!

Dras Weldon lives in a world of horror movies and comic books. Twenty-two and unemployed, he is content to hide in the shadow of adolescence with a faith that he professes but rarely puts into action.

But when a demonic stranger arrives and begins threatening his friends, Dras is drawn into a battle that forces him to choose which side he is on. In a race against the clock, he must not only fight these evil forces but also somehow convince his best friend, Rosalyn, to join him--before she is lost forever.

Engaging and darkly humorous, The Strange Man is the first act of a trilogy that depicts a world where monsters are real and simple men and women must overcome their doubts and fears in order to stand against the unspeakable creatures of the night.

Realms has also provided a link to read a PDF of the prologue for free. Here’s the link:

http://www.charismahouse.com/images/stories/pdfs/thestrangeman.pdf

Thank you for your time, and best of luck with your book! :)

Thanks!

The book is available in stores or you can order direct from Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Man-Coming-Evil-Book/dp/1616381949/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283736797&sr=1-2

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