Poe Girl: What or who inspired you to be a writer?

R.M Francis: It started way back in childhood when I shared a bedroom with my older brother. He used to bully me into telling him bedtime stories. We used to sit at the window and make up tales about the cats on our estate. Being two young boys, we’d create the rudest and crudest stories we could. A few years later I got into metal music - Iron Maiden being my absolute favourite. Steve Harris and his band turned me on to Huxley, Coleridge, Machen, Wyndham and Campbell. I began writing imitation Maiden lyrics, then bit by bit, following The Smiths into Wilde and The Manic Street Preachers into Larkin, I became more consumed with poetry and narrative.

In the background, always, was Hammer House of Horror, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Tales of the Darkside. I knew very early on I wanted to try and be part of the ranks of these funny, terrifying and Romantic creatives.

 

Poe Girl: What do you like most about writing?

R.M Francis: There are two sides here. The first joy is the impulse of being a godlike Promethean figure who can channel the energies of the world and build new landscapes, with my own rules and my own whims. The second is the ability to shift and play and hone those worlds – to give it form. It’s almost like in real life, I’m never as articulate as I’d like to be, and through the redrafting of work, I can become that graceful. It’s all ego, innit?!

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Poe Girl: What writing projects are you working on?

R.M Francis: I’m currently working on the edits of my short story collection, Ameles / Currents of Unmindfulness; a sequence of horror stories that seek to disquiet in different descriptive and formalist ways. Ameles refers to one of the rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology and is known as the river of unmindfulness. I consider this the main thematic and formal thrust for this sequence of fiction - as Christopher Priest said, to "induce a sense of 'otherness' in its audience, like a glimpse into a distorting mirror". The pieces vary from dark or bleak social realism, to hallucinatory flash fictions, to reconfigurations of "classic" horror / weird traditions. I really hope people see the collection in the same way as those classic portmanteaux films like Dead of Night or the Amicus productions, where one story might disgust, another might make you laugh, and then other might just linger for a few days without you knowing why that might be.

I’m also working on a horror novel called Webs, which deals with carnal demonic creatures called Cambion. It tells the tale of a young woman returning to her hometown after many years away and reconnecting with her childhood friendships. She soon discovers more than just memories, mates and old haunts. She stumbles on a primal, elemental force – it wants to use her for its own re-genesis. 

 

Poe Girl: What other writers would you compare your writing style to?

R.M Francis: Joel Lane, author of the some of most remarkable horror and weird fiction of the last forty years, has been a fundamental touch stone for me. We share a preoccupation with the edgelands and overlooked landscapes of the West Midlands and use it to explore dark forces and darker psychologies. I’m also indebted to the Mexican writer, Juan Rulfo, who weaves, with dread and beauty, between the terrestrial and the fantastical. Although my writing is less sensual and explicit, Clive Barker’s visionary aesthetics and fearless execution is something I also try to keep in my quiver.

 

Poe Girl: What is your writing process?

R.M Francis: This question reminds me of a joke from poet, Iain Duhig: Why do poets spend so much time staring out of windows? What else are they going to do for the other 22hrs of the day!

Seriously though, I’m quite organised and disciplined. I write every morning and try to make sure I put in at least two hours each day. I wake early, work out for half an hour, take a cold shower and then, full of adrenaline and powered by the sympathetic nervous system, I write. I tend to give myself a few warm up exercises – write a haiku, for example – and then kick straight into whatever projects I have going.

I tend to have several projects on the go simultaneously – poetry, fiction and scholarly work – all loosely related, so that if I’m struggling with one element, I can shift to another. I find a plot or character problem in one thing can be unpicked by working on something separate but thematically similar.

 

Poe Girl: What's your favourite book of all time?

R.M Francis: I’ve mentioned this writer already, but Juan Rulfo’s novel, Pedro Paramo, is the book I’ve reread more than any other. It’s a lush, hallucinatory story of haunted people, places, and memories and full of the bleak beauty of great Latin Gothicism.

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Poe Girl: Who is your favourite writer and why?

R.M Francis: I’m getting repetitive now. Sorry. Not Sorry. Joel Lane is my favourite. He managed to carry so much drama, narrative and imagery in a single sentence and had the most exquisite attention to pace, perspective and setting; leaving readers in a state of incomparable uncertainty and unease. His fiction was full of abjection – but it was always more than just disgust and gore – it was layered with a unique spirit of place and sensitivity to his characters.

 

Question 8: Where do you see your writing taking you in five years’ time?

R.M Francis: I’d like to see my work challenging the unhelpful and often snobbish attitudes of the “Literary” establishment. Horror fans know what force and artistic worth is holds, but I’d like to play a part in broadening the awareness. On a personal creative note, I want to continue to tame the shadows in new ways to produce uniquely disturbing stories. A Shirley Jackson or Bram Stoker Award would be pretty nice too, but I’ll settle for a few readers having sleepless nights.

 

Poe Girl: Tell us a something unique about yourself?

R.M Francis: As a sixteen year old, I got really interested in Shamanism.  I was inspired by Jim Morrison and took to figuring out ways to alter states of perception and consciousness. Once, after fasting for a week, I sat out in the local woods for 48 hours – in a circle, next to a tree, without moving and without food or sleep. I sensed things real and “unreal” and got bitten to death by insects. As I rose to walk out of the woods, something caught my eye and I turned to see an ashen, lanky and semi-translucent figure stood by a bush, glaring at me. I’ve never run so fast in my life. I don’t know what it was or if it was real. I don’t know if it was startled by me or a thing to be feared. It still haunts me.

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Poe Girl: If you weren’t a writer, what career would you have loved and why?

R.M Francis: I’m tempted by geology and archaeology – there’s something about seeking out the residues that lie just beneath our everyday lives. Or maybe a Shaolin Monk – I’m really motivated by rituals and disciplined rites of passage. But, melding the two drives, and as this is an anything goes sort of question, I’m going to opt for a Spy. I’d work for a secret service team with an eye to the same basement office as Fox Mulder. We all know they’re there, don’t we? Maybe I already am, and this answer is a double-bluff full of the necessary plausible deniability?

 

Poe Girl: What one, key writing tip would you share with other writers?

R.M Francis: Treat your setting as a character itself. Treat the lay of the land in your work as the compost for the drama and poetry. Following the layers and dynamic webs of place helps build a vital current that pushes the plot and drives the characters, forging immovable and anchoring atmosphere in your work.

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Poe Girl: What would you say to educate or inspire new writers?

R.M Francis: To educate, I’d say don’t fear being short, sharp and concise. Too many new writers get lost in overwriting. Also, try and get into good habits that can’t be ignored. Have a think about my answer to question three – writing is a bodily thing and it’s good to prime yourself for it.

To inspire, I say don’t let anyone tell you you’ve got nothing new to say or that there’s nothing of value in what you enjoy working in. These people are all over the place; they’re snobs and they’re thick as pig shit. If you come up against one of these sorts, it probably means you’re on to something cool so stick with it.

 

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