Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2015. Nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2017. Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2019. Board Member for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Named Horror’s Newest Big Thing by GQ. The laundry list of accomplishments makes it hard to forget that Paul Tremblay is human and not just an exemplar of the new horror scene, taking his place at the top of the food chain. In the best way possible, though, Paul Tremblay is nothing like what you expect him to be.
Paul Tremblay wants to connect. He is open and approachable. As a writer, Tremblay found consistent success in self-awareness and patience. From the moment that Joyce Carol Oates provoked his love of reading, through his deep dives into Stephen King and Clive Barker, and to his eventual leap into writing and publishing, Tremblay has maintained a steady pace upward. Most importantly, Tremblay is human. He worries about mortgages and college tuition payments, and he enjoys his teaching job. He’s a music nerd, a guitar player, a father, and a husband. Things get into his head and, sometimes, he feels overwhelmed. Regardless of all of it, Tremblay produces some of the most interesting and terrifying horror fiction ever written.
Recently, Paul Tremblay granted me an interview. We spoke for over an hour on a Tuesday night. We covered the big stuff (the writing, influences, etc.). But he also took the time to give me restaurant and concert venue recommendations. He’s a Boston native and I’m a recent transplant. We talked about music, guitars, and movies. We agreed that Fred Gwynne is the true Jud Crandall.
What follows is my interview with Paul Tremblay. As I said, we spoke for a long time and, due to the length of our conversation, I have edited sections of the transcript for brevity and flow. (You can find the full transcript linked at the end.)
On writing short stories . . .
Ethan Robles: You’ve had a lot of success with novels. And it’s been since 2010 since you released a collection of short stories. What made you publish Growing Things now?
Paul Tremblay: The collection prior to this one was In the Meantime and that was 2010. It’s eight, nine years later. I had plenty of stories to put together into a collection. Once my publisher agreed to do it, it was exciting and a feather in the cap for a big publisher like William Morrow to publish a horror short story collection.
Frankly, part of it was that I had enough stories. Part of it was that we had a three-book deal and a short story collection in-between, with most of them already written. Honestly, I thought that it would give me a bit of a breather. It didn’t quite work out that way. I wrote some originals for Growing Things.
I didn’t necessarily think of it as a pivot away from novels. It’s funny. I think for people who do read horror and read it frequently, the short story is less daunting. I feel like horror readers are more willing to read short stories. Maybe that’s not true. It just seems like most of the horror fans that I know don’t shy away from short story collections, whereas the mainstream reader typically doesn’t read [them].
Robles: That makes sense with great horror story editors like Ellen Datlow and amazing short story writers like Stephen King and Clive Barker, you have a well of great story writers in the genre.
Tremblay: Yeah, Shirley Jackson and the writers you just mentioned. The first horror writers I read were Clive Barker, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King obviously, Shirley Jackson. All of those authors, maybe with exception of King, the first thing I read of theirs was a short story. Shortly after I was introduced to King, I inhaled his short story collections.
And when I started writing, it was exclusively short stories. When I was learning how to write, I probably spent five to almost ten years writing nothing but short stories before I started trying out novels. Even then, when I was trying out novels my first attempts weren’t very successful. To be in this position where I have been sort of like, “novel mode,” was definitely a shift in thought process or a shift in the gears to go back to writing some shorts.
Robles: What do you think kept you going for a decade with short stories? What drew you to that form for so long?
Tremblay: Part of it was that I enjoyed reading short stories. The story that turned me into a reader was a short story. I was a math major in college. I got my master’s degree in math. One of the last classes I took as an undergraduate was an English class. In that class, we read Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?” I’ll never forget reading that story and being like, “Oh, I didn’t know people wrote things like this.” From there, my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, gave me The Stand (1978) by Stephen King as a gift. So, I certainly dove into King’s stuff, but that first breakthrough for me was a short story.
The importance of patience and never giving your fiction away . . .
As far as more own writing career, I was just super patient with it. For most of those five to ten years, I didn’t think I was very good for one thing. I knew I needed a lot of work. Part of that is a reflection of the time I started writing. I guess I started writing in ’96, but not very seriously at all. For those last three or four years of the 90s, it was very much a hobby. I would mess around with it every once in a while. I was still interested in playing guitar and trying to become a musician. But that didn’t pan out, so I ended up sticking with writing.
Even in the early 2000s, I [was never willing] to give away a short story. Even if it just gets rejected and rejected, I’ll just put away. I’m not going to let someone publish it for nothing. Even if it was only ten bucks, I always made sure I got paid for the writing I did. I always took that patient approach. I had a day job, so it wasn’t like I was depending on my writing for money to live on, which is a nice privilege to have. I did have a good job as a teacher. I always viewed it as this long process and, hopefully, one day I’ll get better. And I could see it in the rejections that I would get. The first rejections were form [letters] and then I would start getting feedback from the editors. Eventually, I started getting some stories accepted by smaller markets. But I got paid and the next stories ended up going to slightly bigger markets. I felt like I could see that slow, gradual climb with no rush to get to the top. No rush to consider myself as a professional level writer.
Today, I know that’s really hard to do. I think a whole lot of writing advice is not great because it’s so subjective. But the one thing I do try to tell people is that it’s okay to be patient. I know it’s almost impossible to be [patient] with social media and seeing everyone talking about their writing successes. I could only imagine how that could get into the heads of new writers. It gets into my head, who’s been publishing novels now for 10 years. It’s hard not to feel that anxiety. That “oh my god, everyone’s doing this great work, I gotta rush something out really quickly.”
On writing novels . . .
Robles: What pushed you out of that patient, steady, consistent production and improvement in story writing and into the mindset to say, “I’m going to write a novel.”
Tremblay: I think some of it was being a little more confident because I had had a few short story sales. For so much of my career, what inspired me was reading something that just sparked the “oh, I want to try something like that feeling.” The first stories I liked were short stories. But eventually I read a ton of novels and I got to the point where I want[ed] to try that.
The Little Sleep was my first published novel in 2009, but it was really the fourth and a half that I had written. There was one that I wrote, which was a Stephen King rip-off, that is safely hidden in the trunk. I have another novel that I probably have only gotten halfway through, if that, that was more Clive Barker-esque. That’s hidden. Then I have a novel that was not genre at all. It was a comedy of manners, almost. It’s about a character living in Boston who has these odd fears, like the fear of the inability to complete simple tasks. So, it was this plotless, mainstream novel. I never sold it, but I did get my agent with it. I feel like that book did its job.
Even then, I took to novel writing with the same approach. I didn’t think that my first attempt at a novel was going to be publishable or great. I thought it was going to be like the short stories. It took me a little while to be able to write some stories that ended up getting published. I thought it was going to be the same thing with the novel because I didn’t know what I was doing. Based on my prior experience, I thought this first one is not going to sell. You dream about it selling, but I didn’t build up any expectations that it would. Part of it, again, was giving myself the permission to be patient.
Robles: Knowing that you’ve made a big name for yourself in horror, The Little Sleep is a bit more noir detective fiction. So, where did the choice of detective or crime fiction come from and why did you move away from that genre?
Tremblay: Before I started getting serious about trying to write a novel, like when I mentioned the goofy comedy novel in Boston, that was the first time I felt like I had written a pretty good novel. Like I could do this. Even though it wasn’t great, I felt like this is something that is representative and could be published.
Becoming a horror writer . . .
All my short stories were always horror—that’s just how it ended up. All the novels I wrote in the 2000’s, the first decade, tended to be humorous. They were still dark, but they ended up being darkly-humorous. Somewhere along the way, when I first started writing I was like, “Okay, I’m a horror writer” and that was the badge I wore.
This was important for me in my early development. Someone had mentioned a short story I wrote and said that it was a really good story even if there wasn’t any of the horror element to it. That stuck with me. So, I can’t tell you the day it happened, but it almost felt like one day I woke up and said, “You know what? I’m not a horror writer. I’m a writer who writes horror.” What that meant to me is that I was going to write whatever idea that I had and try my best to serve the story. If that story was supposed to be a horror story, I would write a horror story. If it was something else, I was going to write it. It sounds a little glib, but it meant that I wasn’t going to force the story to be something that it wasn’t.
I have read crime, but I am certainly not a crime expert. I just happened to have this idea for this detective novel. I had the image of the opening chapter. A stereotypical, hardboiled P.I., a beautiful woman comes into his office. When he’s trying to figure out what she wants, she holds up one of her hands and there are bandages wrapped around the bases of her fingers. She tells him, “Someone stole my fingers and replaced them with someone else’s fingers. You need to help me find them.” So, when I first had that idea, I tried to write a horror/sci-fi hybrid like a Philip K. Dick kind of thing. But I had no idea where to go with that and I put it away for almost a year.
And I happened to be online and stumbled across narcolepsy. I was researching something else, but then I was reading about narcolepsy and how narcoleptics have the worst symptoms of narcolepsy when they fall asleep, they’ll fall directly into a dream state. That detective chapter, her fingers weren’t missing. He was dreaming.
I had read some Raymond Chandler, but then I went and read all his stuff including his letters. And I read some of the other classic stuff too. Part of it was allowing myself to write something that wasn’t horror. Even though it was still plenty dark. Although I will say, I remember back then that I would say obnoxious things like, “It’s not horror, but I wrote it with a horror attitude.” Because it was weird to be introduced as, “Here’s Paul Tremblay: Crime Writer.” Like, who’s that? Even if the books were super successful, I didn’t see myself as a crime writer. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It was just not my sweet spot in terms of interest. So, [then] I wrote A Head Full of Ghosts (2015). I was excited to be finally writing a horror novel that I felt good about. I guess that broke the dam for me to be able to write more horror novels.
Music and writing . . .
Robles: In the liner notes for Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, you reference the album The Seer by Swans (2012) as an album you listened to while writing the novel. Is there a soundtrack to any of your other books? If so, what are they? Do you see any type of connection between music and writing?
Tremblay: As far as soundtracks go, I don’t think there’s necessarily one record like “The Seer” was for [Disappearance at Devil’s Rock]. But for Head Full of Ghosts, there were a couple that I wrote to consistently. Both were instrumental. [One is] a Mogwai EP. This will sound strange, but the soundtrack to the movie, Ravenous (1999) has been a go-to writing soundtrack or background for me.
It used to be that if it was quiet in the house, I wouldn’t need to play music. I would only play it if I needed to drown out what was going on, because I don’t really have a closed off office. Now, I’m to the point where I’ve trained my brain a little bit. I kind of need instrumental stuff just to turn it on.
The connection between music and writing. For me, it’s definitely about inspiration. I’m a huge music nerd. In my heart, I think I’m a frustrated musician. If I could choose and go back in time and someone said, “You can be where you are now as a writer or you can be a semi-successful punk musician and guitar player.” I would choose guitar playing still. Not that I don’t love what I’m doing, it’s just music is a big deal for me.
I definitely go to music for inspiration all the time. Whether it’s the sounds and definitely the lyrics, a lot of my titles have come from lyrics. When the idea for A Head Full of Ghosts hit me, it happened to be the same time Bad Religion put out their album True North (2013). On that album there is a song called “My Head is Full of Ghosts.” I listened to that song, probably, a hundred times. It seemed like a synchronicity, kismet kind of thing. I don’t believe in either, but I let the creative side of the brain make those things happen. If I feel like I’m ever stuck, I’ll just walk away and listen to music. It just tends to make things bubble up a little bit.
On writing while teaching . . .
Robles: You’re still teaching. So, is there ever a point where writing will become a full-time job? Is there a mark that you want to hit?
Tremblay: I do like teaching, but I would like to make a go at writing full-time. I’m in a position now where we have a house, a mortgage, a kid who just started college, and when he graduates my second child will start college. So, we’re staring at 8 years of some form of tuition payment. It’s a little scary to do that. If a movie happened, then maybe I could give it a shot. There is also part of me that is afraid, because that’s a different kind of writing.
I have friends who write full time and they have to hustle and it’s a lot of stress. Even writing, and I’m not in any way complaining, with a book deal is stressful. I would much rather have a book deal than not. But it is a stressful thing. You have to have a novel in at a certain time. You have to write when you don’t feel like writing. I can’t afford writing rituals and waiting for the muse to show up. If you have a deadline, you have to write. You can’t just sit there and fuck around and hope it’s going to happen. Sometimes you have to make it happen.
I don’t know any different way. I didn’t start writing until I started teaching. One has always gone with the other. It’s weird. There’s part of me that’s superstitious like, “If I stopped teaching, would my writing suffer?” I would like to find out, without burning down my life, obviously.
Robles: You have a family, a job, commitments to the Shirley Jackson Awards, and then you write books and promote them. How do you manage it?
Tremblay: If I sit and think about it, I start to stress myself out. Because I’ve been doing it for so long, I have a seasonal flow to things. In the fall and winter, I don’t put as much pressure for me to get stuff done. That’s the busiest time for me at school. Typically, in the spring and summer I get a lot of stuff done. It feels like it’s getting harder and harder to manage. I do feel like I’m getting busier.
On finding time to write . . .
I will admit that I’m spending too much time on social media. That’s increasingly become a part of the job. You have to be out there. You have to be approachable. Not that I’m being fake online. But the idea of being approachable helps keep readers. If you’re a nice person and not an asshole online, they’re more likely to stick with you for the next books. Very few lucky writers don’t have to be online. I don’t know who those are, aside from Cormac McCarthy. Maybe, Donna Tartt. It is fun, too. It can be a wonderful boost and ego stroke, but you can get addicted to it.
As far as, how I do it. I try to take advantage of the time that I have and not think that I need these chunks of four hours or five hours. Especially during the busy time of the year, if I can dedicate an hour, hour and a half that’s good. It’s about breaking it up into those manageable pieces. That’s also how I work as a writer. I know there are writers who spill it all out and then revise, revise, revise. That’s just not how I work. I go in little, small chunks. 400-500 words a day. 500 if it’s a really good day. Probably closer to 400, especially if it’s the beginning of a novel. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you do that for 8 months it really adds up.
On possible adaptations . . .
Robles: You mentioned the potential for film. If you look at the entire horror genre, it’s a huge renaissance in every form of media. Do you see yourself getting into the realm of film or television?
Tremblay: I hope so. A Head Full of Ghosts and Cabin at the End of the World (2018) are both in development. In various stages. I don’t think either are going to be filming this year, but hopefully soon. But who knows? It’s an exciting process, but it’s also frustrating. A Head Full of Ghosts has been optioned since 2015. The producers have had it for more than four years now. They’re still clearly interested in doing it. There are just hurdles. Especially, if you are trying to do a more traditional studio-backed movie. Those typically take a lot longer.
I’m not going to lie to you. I’m getting impatient. I’m seeing all these different adaptations and different horror movies. My books have done okay, let’s see them on the screen somewhere big or little. There’s only so much I can control. I wasn’t hired to write any of the screenplays or be a producer. I thought maybe I might try my hand at writing a screenplay at some point in the near future. But not at the detriment of my novel writing. That’s what I am, where my strength is.
Favorite writers, TV, film . . .
Robles: What authors are you reading right now?
Tremblay: Horror-wise, I read everything that Laird Baron writes and John Langan. Nadia Bulkin had a great short story collection come out a couple of summers ago. Victor LaValle is always doing interesting work. I try to make sure I’m not only reading things that are considered horror.
I don’t read a lot of science fiction or fantasy. So, if I do read non-horror, it tends to be more mainstream and literary fiction. I’m always pleasantly surprised at how dark those stories tend to be, even though they’re not marketed as horror. An author named Idra Novey has two wonderful novels that I think skirt genre. Her first novel is Ways to Disappear (2016) and in her most recent novel, there may or may not be a ghost in it. It takes place in a fictional central American country where the government is falling apart, Those Who Knew (2018). I also like reading, when I have the chance, graphic novels. I really like Jeff Lemire. He’s one of my favorite comic artists.
Robles: What are you currently watching?
Tremblay: I wish I had more time. There’s so much great TV. When you say, how do you do it all? I don’t get to watch much TV. Watching something feels more like a decadent treat for me. I did, this summer, watch the second season of Mindhunter (2017). I mean honestly that was it for television this summer. The summer was way too busy. Between having to finish a book, promoting Growing Things, and moving my kid to college it was an insane summer.
I am very much looking forward to seeing The Lighthouse (2019). It’s funny. Last October I was a guest at the Telluride Horror Film Festival. That was wonderful because I got to go and watch movies that weren’t out yet. Two of them that I saw just came out on streaming this year. One is Terrified (Aterrados) (2017). Just terrifying, pure nightmare fuel. That movie messed me up. The Witch in the Window (2018). That’s one of my favorite movies of the past year. Tigers Are Not Afraid (Vuelven) (2017). I would describe it as early Guillermo Del Toro.
A new short story . . .
Robles: This question is kind of breaking news. Amazon Original Stories Series: Forward. You have The Last Conversation. Where did that come from and what’s it about?
Tremblay: Last summer, Blake Crouch approached me and said he was doing this Amazon shorts collection and it was going to be called Forward. He invited me to write a story. When he told me who else was writing stories, it was like, “Oh, wow. Okay.” All he said was it had to involve science fiction around a loose theme of discovery. He left it as a very open prompt. He asked Andy Weir, who’s a science fiction writer. But he got N.K. Jemisin, who’s more fantasy. Amor Towles, who is historical fiction. He wanted to get writers who weren’t science fiction to write a science fiction story.
It’s hard to describe my story. It’s a second person narrator and I try not to give a gender or who the “you” is to try and really make it that the reader is you for as long as possible. The second person narrator wakes up in mysterious hospital, futuristic room. The story is about someone outside the room trying to rebuild this person’s memories and muscles. And it goes into a fairly surprising and strange place.
Robles: Has there ever been anything that you’ve always wanted to be asked? If so, what’s the question and the answer?
Tremblay: This is something I don’t think I’ve talked about much. One of the hurdles to becoming a guitar player/musician was figuring out the gear. I was so disappointed that, beyond like a peddle or two, that to play live you need a lot more gear. I’m not very handy, so have to have all that other equipment to play guitar live was disappointing. That’s my really lame excuse as to why I didn’t become a guitar hero.
You can read the full transcript of the interview here.
Horror Homeroom, Paul Tremblay Interview Transcript 9-17-2019
Ethan Robles is a writer and higher education consultant working out of Boston, MA. He is currently working on an edited collection dedicated to youth-focused horror film and television. You can follow him on Twitter @Roblecop and on Instagram @Robo_gramm.
Ethan has written for Horror Homeroom on Black Summer and zombie minimalism, Gerald’s Game, Hulu’s original series, “Castle Rock,” Annihilation, and horror documentaries. And check out his list of the top 10 episodes of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?“
