Dragon Soul Press interviewed Paul Lonardo, an author featured in Rogue Waves and The Fear Doctor.
I am a freelance writer and author with numerous titles, both fiction and nonfiction books. I have placed short fiction and nonfiction articles in various genre magazines and ezines, and I am an active HWA member. I live in Rhode Island with my wife and teenage
son. I was born here, in Providence, the very same city where the great H.P. Lovecraft lived and wrote most of his weird fiction and cosmic horror tales.
I earned a B.A. in English from the University of Rhode Island, as well as a A.S. in mortuary science from Mount Ida College. Yes, I did work in the funeral service industry as an embalmer for a number of years.
- What prompted you to begin writing?
- I’ve been writing in various forms most of my life, though my initial interest was in cinema and
filmmaking. I was in high school when I borrowed a friend’s Super-8 movie camera, which
touched off a personal, creative spark. I began making my own blend of action and horror
movies. I wrote the scripts and was behind the camera shooting scenes around the
neighborhood with my friends playing the parts.
We had lots of laughs making those movies. I took it more seriously because they were all
projects I had envisioned, and I wanted to see them through to completion. It was really a
creative outlet that I was experimenting with, and the experience got me thinking seriously
about screenwriting. In those early years, I went to movies all the time, so I learned everything I
could about how screenplays were written and tried my hand at them, writing several original
stories for the screen. They were certainly awful, but they were mine.
Growing up in the 80s, I was a fan of dark fantasy and horror, in books as well as film, so when
I turned to other forms of writing this was the genre I focused on.
Stephen King and other contemporary horror writers influenced me in those years when I
started writing my own short fiction, developing ‘my voice,’ as they say about a writer’s early
efforts.
I’ve written more than twenty books to date, including novels, novellas, short story collections, as well as a host of nonfiction titles. I continue to work with other people on collaborative nonfiction projects, and I also ghostwrite and edit books for aspiring authors.
As evidenced from my list of books, there are numerous other genres represented in my fiction besides horror, including romance and a childrens’ adventure novel. My nonfiction ranges from true crime, to sports, to biographies, and assisting others with their autobiographies. I really enjoy the challenge of writing in a genre that is new to me. It keeps me feeling fresh and eager to learn different styles of writing and approaches to a topic or subject matter. This also ensures that I continue reading, because you have to read in the genre you are writing.
- I’ve been writing in various forms most of my life, though my initial interest was in cinema and
- Do you have a favorite story or poem you’ve written? What’s it about?
- I would have to say my recent book of haiku horror poetry (titled PENNY
DREADFULS) is probably the work I am most proud of, even though it is not a singular
poem, but a collection of 365 poems.
As a writer whose focus has always been prose, up until recently, I had never even
considered attempting writing in verse. The thought of composing a poem had always been
intimidating to me. Just the mention of iambic pentameter makes me break out in a sweat. I
thought that poetry was for deep-thinking, brooding, scholarly types who possessed some
arcane ability to plumb the depths of the human soul and mortal existence with strings of
words that held meaning I did not understand, nor even capable of comprehending.
I didn’t think poetry was for me, and therefore I never tried it. Until last year, anyway,
when I saw a call by HWA for poetry submissions for their Horror and Hope Mental
Wellness anthology. It was a great cause that I thought deserved public support, and that was
what initially drew my attention. But I wasn’t really thinking about writing a poem.
Or was I?
I tried to push the notion aside and forget about it, but something kept gnawing at me. I
wondered if I would be letting myself down by not at least trying to write a poem for HWA.
I saw it as a personal challenge, to try something that made me uncomfortable as a writer.
After all, I had taken chances with my prose through the years, delving into topics and
genres that were new to me, and I learned that there is always a reward in the process,
regardless of how the book was received. Trying something that is unfamiliar and little scary
provides authors with an opportunity to become more well-rounded, enabling growth by
expanding a writer’s literary horizons.
All right, so I was going to write a poem. Now what? I didn’t know the first thing about
writing poetry, and I had read only those poems that had been on the syllabus of various
English classes I’d taken in college. What was I going to do, write a Shakespearean sonnet?
Or an epic poem like Homer? God, no.
What am I getting myself into?
Haiku was a form I was at least familiar with. It seemed simple enough, anyway, and
with the submission call not being open all that long, it was my only option. Requiring just
three lines didn’t actually make writing the poem any easier, I quickly found out. I began
with some research about the art and approach to haiku writing. Examples were plentiful.
And then it was time for me to begin my three-line, seventeen-syllable adventure into poetry.
To my amazement, I found that it was just writing. Not prose, but still, it was writing. It
was a process that allows for a continuous flow of creativity, which has the ability to take a
writer to unexpected places. Even the rewriting was the same. You may not think rewriting
would be required given the economy of words in a haiku, but it requires just as much
editing consideration, if not more than prose.
To that end, I did write and submit a poem to HWA, and to my utter astonishment and
delight it was accepted, appearing in the 2022 Horror and Hope Mental Wellness anthology.
Having conquered my fear of poetry, you may think this is where my adventure into poetry
ends, but last fall when I saw calls for Halloween-themed poetry by various ezines, I sat down
and wrote a batch of horrorku, as they are called, and submitted them. Five were accepted by an online publication, and from there my interest in haiku only grew. I soon put aside the fiction
projects I was working on to begin writing an entire book of haiku horror poems, one
representing each day of the calendar year. With a total of 365 poems, the book would retail for
$3.65 and would fittingly be titled Penny Dreadfuls.
I know, a little ambitious of me. I wasn’t sure I could write one poem, now I’m going to
attempt to write 365 of them. It was quite daunting. How would I even be able to come up
with enough content for a collection of this size. However, I was surprised how many odd,
creepy and really disturbing things exist in nature, with regard to humans as well as in the
animal kingdom. It was a real eye-opener as I discovered all kinds of fears, folk monsters,
myths and legends to write about that I never even knew existed.
I found that once I got going, it got easier. As I devoted more time to writing haikus, the
collection took on a life of its own. I would write poems with a similar theme until it
naturally took me in the direction it wanted to go, similar to the way it does when writing a
piece of fiction. So, although this is a collection of many separate haiku horror poems, they
are all connected, with a natural rhythm and flow. I wrote haikus relevant to the season and
to specific days of the month. It was a fascinating experience.
Haikus may be short, with no rhyming required, but they are challenging in other ways.
More importantly, haikus can be a lot of fun. They’re like word puzzles, in a sense, with a
very specific set of parameters to follow. Some seemingly perfect words don’t fit, so you
have to find just the right words, and sequence of words, that not only will elicit the
meaning or mood you want, but they also have to have the right syllabic configuration. But
that’s the challenge and the fun of writing haikus.
- I would have to say my recent book of haiku horror poetry (titled PENNY
- How many projects do you have planned over the next few years? Tell us about one.
- I am writing a lot of short fiction at this time, checking the submission calls of various genre
magazines and ezines. They are very inspirational in getting the creative juices flowing. With a
theme and a deadline, it becomes a challenge and it’s a great test to see how you are improving as a writer.
Short stories have always been a favorite of mine. Maybe that’s because I grew up reading
comic books (some superhero comics, but mostly the horror comics). The tales were short and
exciting, with new ones every month that I couldn’t wait to read.
- I am writing a lot of short fiction at this time, checking the submission calls of various genre
- What is your writing process like?
- For me, a comfortable place to write is important, and I actually have two places I can work.
Which location I use depends on the time of the year. Besides the quiet and still of the night that
I prefer, I also require cooler air temperatures. In the summer, I have a basement office area
that is always cooler than the rest of the house. In the winter, the upstairs living room is where
I’ll be working, with a window air conditioning unit at the ready if the heat ticks up to high.
A lot of the time I come up with a title first, even if I don’t have an idea for the story itself. I
have lists of potential titles for stories. Although, it is difficult to be original no matter how
obscure the title sounds. It’s always disappointing to search and find that the title has been used already, often by multiple authors in different genres.
Once I start writing, I let the story take me where it wants to go. For longer projects, a novella
or novel, I’ll plot out some points that I want to reach so I don’t meander too much, but I find
that when I get a kernel of an idea for a story, it is usually going to pop for me if I put the time in to write it to completion.
- For me, a comfortable place to write is important, and I actually have two places I can work.
- Where do you draw inspiration from?
- I still read quite a bit, and I continue to be influenced by writers and their books. These days, I
read a lot more lesser-known or unknown writers. But as far as those writers who have
influenced me early on, I have to credit Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Clive
Barker, Robert R. McCammon, Dean Koontz, to name a few.
There is no telling where a character or story idea will come from, but it doesn’t happen in
a vacuum. Such ideas sometimes come from something I read, see in a movie or on
television, or something I hear someone say that sparks an idea for a character. Once that
little seed gets in my brain, it starts to germinate. I keep a notebook of ideas for characters,
but often if the initial idea is not cultivated fairly soon in a story, it will wither and die.
Whether you call it a muse, an inner voice, or some other extraneous force whispering in a
writer’s ear, wherever inspiration comes from, it cannot be denied. Maybe all people hear
these whisperings, but a writer cannot simply dismiss them.
- I still read quite a bit, and I continue to be influenced by writers and their books. These days, I
- Who is your favorite author / what is your favorite book?
- That’s a tough question. The genres I read most are still true crime and horro. I read a ton
growing up. Being the late 70’s and early 80’s, serial killers were everywhere, and horror
was king, so a Stephen King book was never far from me.
While King was my favorite author, I would say that Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is my
favorite book. It is one of the few that I have read more than once. What I like so much
about the book is the perspective that Capote offers the reader in the telling of this brutal
story. He does not sensationalize the crimes or make the murderers out to be rock stars. It
is an approach that works on so many levels, and you see the approach emulated in true
crime books today, but never surpassed by Capote’s signature work.
- That’s a tough question. The genres I read most are still true crime and horro. I read a ton
- Where can readers learn more about you?
Dragon Soul Press 