Interview with Greg Keyes

GK: Yeah, it seemed that the only research that anybody did was to read Tolkien. The interesting thing about people like Tolkien and Poul Anderson is they were writing about the same time, pulling from the same source material. They produced these vastly different kinds of Fantasies. Three Hearts and Three Lions.

GK: Yeah, you know not very much like Tolkien except very superficial ways like swords and warriors. Both of those guys had a lot of influence on me. I remember Poul Anderson saying at the time The Broken Sword was a much more brutal novel then he could write now, well at that time he was speaking, it’s one of his early ones. I’ve read and like all his early fantasy.

GK: Actually another book that was enormously influential on my Fantasy writing was The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison.

GK: Another book that’s very difficult to come by these days. And it’s a difficult book to read. The language is a lot like Spenser, I don’t know if you’ve ever read The Fairy Queen. Spenser made up a lot of his language. Language that no other writer in history has ever used, unless its like Joyce or somebody. Eddison does a very similar thing, language has strange intricacies, they are both very beautiful. In a lot of ways it’s [The Worm Ouroboros] a very strange fantasy, it took me several tries to finish it. When I finally did...it’s was actually what I re-read in preparation for The Briar King.

GK: You have to be in a really patient mood. It’s not for everybody. My brother, for instance read it when he was fourteen and reread it every year since. I couldn’t read it, I kept trying thinking "what’s wrong with me, I can’t read this thing." It was years later actually before I finally read it. When I finally finished it, it did have a powerful impact on me.

GK: It may have to do when you read it. I read the Moorcock books in high school. They were really easy for me to read then, his characters are alienated, and its basically easy identify with those characters, at least the high school student I was, easy to identify with the Anti-hero. I may have had a different reaction if I read them later in life.

GK: I suspect. It’s not a thing you hear much about. Writers talk a lot to our editors, but were insulated from a lot of that stuff in so much as they can. Basically the Age of Unreason books were an enormous risk for everybody involved. They were not standard fare, I was not an established writer with a huge following. So there was certainly some effort to make the whole thing economical. At the time, in the late ‘90s there was a perceived wisdom that trade-paperback was the way to go. A lot books with a literary feel come out in trade-paperback.

GK: Not just SF&F, mainstream...airport books, bestsellers, that kind of thing. Ultimately I don’t know how well it did, but probably it was better that they did not come out in hardback. I think we probably did have sell a few more and it got a wider audience, because they were a little more affordable. One of the really interesting things they’ve done with The Briar King is to put in e-book format. It really blew out as an e-book.

GK: I haven’t read that yet, but I’ve followed how it’s done. It was offered at a fairly inexpensive price, but still, I was really astonished by it. I thought it was a pretty good promotional idea.

Terry Brooks helped me out a lot in that he wrote a letter to his fans [on his Web site] and the people who buy ebooks from Pal Digital. Actually that means something from Terry. He was asked to do a quote for my first novel. He didn’t like it and he didn’t do the quote. The Briar King he really had like. That means something because he really did like it, I know that means something coming from him, because he actually liked it, which is not always true.

To thank him, I used to live in Seattle and Terry lives there now. I called this wine shop I know to have them pick out a couple bottles of wine for me and take them to his place. I didn’t tell them who they were delivering it to, but I did ask them to get back with me and tell me exactly what kind of wine they delivered. When the guy called me back, I asked if there was any way he could write himself in a tip using my credit card. He said, "Oh no that’s not necessary, I just read The Briar King on ebook its when I realized who you two guys were. I’ve been a Terry Brooks fan for ages, and I just became a fan of yours a couple of weeks ago with e-book.

GK: Extremely generous of him actually.

GK: Yeah, Del Rey is definitely behind this book, there’s no doubt about that. That’s always nice, it helps.

GK: I’ve learned to be pretty guarded about this sort of thing. All they have really asked is for one book to be successful enough to write the next one...so I can go kayaking and stuff.

GK: Yeah, I’ve been writing full time for about four years now. I moved to Seattle when my wife was going to grad school there. In making that move and leaving the University of Georgia, that’s when I quit teaching. I pretty much had to write full-time to support us, when we lived in Seattle which is a fairly expensive place to live.

GK: Oh yeah, I loved Seattle, but I love Savannah too. They are very different. My life is very different here.

GK: I like them both. Seattle is a little weary me, with the weather because I’m originally from the south.

GK: Yeah (laughs). Nine straight days of rain is not something I’m quite put together to weather. But the beer was good and the food was good. The city itself on perfect day when the sun is out is one of the beautiful places I’ve seen.

GK: Actually a little bit before I moved to Seattle...actually about five years now.

GK: I try to work it like a 9 to 5 job, I don’t always succeed. When I am writing most successfully I do it like a 9 to 5 job.

GK: Yeah, there’s definitely that sort of term-paper quandary. You can work on it all quarter and not have the panic at the last minute. Or you can wait until the last minute and cram it. I find it a lot more pleasant if I work on the book all of the time. Also, most of my friends are work 9 to 5, so what I am I going to do during the day anyway? It doesn’t mean I don’t take a day off or a week off.

GK: Yeah, those can be fun. I’ve toured a few times before and I usually enjoy it.

GK: Yeah, one of the big things about touring is meeting the people who are selling your book. Signings are funny, especially at my level. It could be 2 people or 100 people. But at the very minimum, you meet the people who sell your book, and I think that’s a lot of what touring is about.

GK: Assuming I’m basically a nice guy and don’t come in act like an ass (laughing) and don’t cause any trouble for everybody. I think you’re right, that hand-selling factor is really important. I tend to recommend the books of the people I know too.

GK: Thanks for the interview.