Interview with Mike Al-Amiry
Published 2015-07-24.
What do your fans mean to you?
By my nature I am a hospitable host, an entertainer, a story teller. Fans are my guests and my audience, and I love nothing more than to thrill them, mystify them, terrify them, tickle their ribs, and collect their teardrops.
Life is nothing without raised emotions and heightened senses, and when I do my job well, my own senses are elevated to their highest zeniths.
Who are your favorite authors?
Wow... here is a question impossible to answer in fewer than several volumes of epic proportions, starting with Homer and ending with J.K Rowling when you are like me, endowed with a Catholic taste across several genres. But I will mention a few contemporary authors who capture my imagination and get my juices running.
Stephen King. David Baldacci. William Peter Blatty. Sarah Langon. Dean Koontz. Cliuve Barker. Thomas Harris. Peter Straub. Graham Masterton. John Farris. James Herbert. Robert Ludlem. John Grisham. Fredrick Forsythe... Phew... my mind has gone blank... I can only apologize to the many other great authors, whose work I enjoy, but I've missed off this list...
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
I like this one... Eggs and bacon breakfast, my computer keyboard crying for me, and backache..!
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
First I have to divert my thoughts away from what I'm working on at the time. I read, spend a little time with my buddies in an online debating forum, play online poker, connect with family and friends, cook a spectacular dinner, and finally snuggle-up with my partner Rachael and watch a good movie.
How do you choose what you read?
When my attention is not drawn to an existing publication, I love discovering new authors with edgy styles and fresh outlooks.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
Yes, it was a comic adventure drama that I started to write over 10 years ago.It was inspired by my years in the leisure trade and the bizarre tales that were told to me by tongues loosened by alcohol. I have taken this would be book off its shelf, dusted it down, and I am working on completing it as a first person narrative of the heroic adventures of a consummate antihero. "Heroes and Ugly Ducklings" will be published in the early part of 2013... If I can stop myself laughing for long enough to finish the thing.
What is your writing process?
An atom of a topic splits in my brain, and starts radiating outwards. That sets me off on a background research crusade, and the more I learn about the topic, the more intense that radiation becomes. The story-line begins from the nucleus, starts to grow, and a story is born that more or less writes itself... Rewrites, edits and re-edits are thereafter the hard slog that I have to do.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
I can't be quite sure, but one that jumps to mind was the Pide Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, and between the ages of 7 and 12 I was very keen on learning to play any musical instrument I could get my hands on, but I kept away from anything that I had to blow into... You see I hated rats..!
How do you approach cover design?
That couldn't be easier. Every writer should have a (Robin), and my Robin is a cover designer whose imagination is as warped as mine. I tell him what I have in mind, and he does as he pleases.
What reactions do you hope for, from reading your book Ingress?
If I can make you nerve endings tingle, and you start seeing shadows around your home that have no business being there... Then I've done my job well.
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