Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Reggie Oliver
Photo by Caroline Webster
Reggie Oliver is an actor, director, playwright, illustrator and award-winning author of fiction. Published work includes six plays, three novels, an illustrated children’s book, The Hauntings at Tankerton Park (Zagava 2016), nine volumes of short stories, including Mrs Midnight (2011 winner of Children of the Night Award for best work of supernatural fiction), and, the biography of the writer Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed (Bloomsbury 1998). His stories have appeared in over one hundred different anthologies and three “selected” editions of his stories have been published, the latest being Stages of Fear (Black Shuck Books 2020). His ninth volume of tales, A Maze for the Minotaur was published by Tartarus Press in 2021.
See:
http://www.tartaruspress.com/reggie-oliver.html
Reggie Oliver (writer) – Wikipedia
Amazon.co.uk: Reggie Oliver: Books, Biography, Blogs, Audiobooks, Kindle
Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror?
Ever since I could write, I have written stories: horror stories, comic stories, adventure stories, detective stories, but from very early on I had a particular taste for stories of the supernatural, the macabre, and grotesque. My earliest professionally published work, however, was a play, a comedy about the amorous misadventures of a secondhand bookseller. I have written a lot of plays and am, or perhaps more accurately, was, a professional actor. The theatre remains a great love and I have set a good many horror stories in and around theatres and the world of show business. I also wrote a biography of the writer Stella Gibbons which Bloomsbury published in 1998. By this time, I had also written several novels, two of which have been subsequently published. One, The Dracula Papers, could be described as horror. Then in the year 2000, I remember very distinctly going on a walk near my home in Suffolk and thinking about my writing, and asking myself the question: “Regardless of what I think might sell or be prestigious what do I really want to write?” I stopped walking, and I can recall the exact spot in Mitford Lane, almost opposite Benhall Vicarage when it suddenly occurred to me: “I want to write stories of supernatural terror, ghost stories, horror stories.” So, when I returned from my walk, I started writing, and the stories came, the first two being: “The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini” and “Beside the Shrill Sea.” As soon as I had sent these two very different tales out to two different journals that published such things, they were accepted and published. Then a couple of publishers asked if I was interested in making a collection, and it went on from there.
Who were your influences as a writer when you started out and who, if anyone, continues to influence you?
Stella Gibbons, whose biography I wrote, was my aunt. I had huge admiration for her as a writer, and she was not only a loving aunt but a friend with whom I could discuss anything. She encouraged my writing. She continues to influence me. What is great about her writing — novels and her very fine and still underrated poetry — is her ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to make humor an essential means of illuminating a situation. Her characters are vivid, her prose beautifully crafted, and she searches out the spiritual dimension in life. (She wrote a very remarkable novel with elements of supernatural horror in it, incidentally, called Starlight. She also wrote several very fine supernatural short stories including, most notably, “Roaring Tower” which has often been republished.) Other writers who influenced me in various ways were Saki, Evelyn Waugh, Charles Dickens, Anthony Powell, and — of course! — M. R. James.
How have the changes in horror publishing over the past decades affected you?
My experience in horror publishing spans only just over twenty years. During that time I have not noticed much change. And I write what I write; I could not change my style to suit any new trend, and, luckily, I am still asked by publishers and anthologists to write stuff for them.
Do you think you’ve encountered ageism? If so, how do you counteract or deal with it?
No. I neutralize it, if it exists, in two ways. Firstly, I frequently write stories set in the fairly distant past, notably the 17th to the 19th century, so these, being historical, are not “dated.” Secondly, if I have a young protagonist, male or female, I have them young when I was young, i.e. the 1970s. I have just finished a story narrated by a man in 2023 revisiting a place where he had a horrific adventure fifty years before in 1973, and now re-encountering the horror in a different guise. I think this double perspective gives a kind of depth to the story. Ageists may think not, but that’s tough for them, not me.
What do you wish you knew when you were just getting into the field?
I can only speak for myself, but I have discovered great kindness and goodwill among writers, publishers, and editors in this world. There may be rancor and vicious competitiveness, but I have yet to experience it. I suppose what I wish I had known, at any rate with more certainty, was that a rejection by one editor or publisher does not mean that what you have written is worthless. Tastes differ, and another publisher may well see the merit in what you have done and take it up with enthusiasm. (Think of the number of times J. K. Rowling’s work was rejected before one publisher, Bloomsbury, took a chance and was proved right.)
Do you have any advice for writers just starting out?
There is only one real piece of advice, and that is to write what only you can write, and not to bother about what you think others will find acceptable. Two practical tips from my mentor Stella Gibbons I would pass on. When describing a character, try to keep it down to very few distinctive characteristics (e.g. handmade jewelry and a squint). Long descriptions muddle the reader. Secondly, try to balance the objective and the subjective: feel your characters from the inside, but also observe them from the outside. This is also something I learned in the theatre from acting. As that great actress and human being Dame Sibyl Thorndike once said: “When you’re acting, you have to be the person, but also God looking down on them!”
Do you think older characters are represented fairly and honestly in horror fiction?
Yes! I think I represent them fairly, as do others! And I have no objection to there being plenty of horrible old men — and, for that matter, horrible old women — in horror fiction. Some are horrible, after all.
What are some of your favorite portrayals of older characters?
Tolstoy couldn’t stand King Lear, probably because, as George Orwell pointed out in a famous essay, the great man was too much like King Lear to be comfortable with Shakespeare’s vivid portrayal of the capriciousness, irascibility, and pathetic helplessness of old age. But I think it is a masterly characterization. Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a wonderfully wise, generous-hearted, and funny portrayal of an old lady living out her last days in a hotel. I love Anthony Powell’s novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time because there you can see the characters going from youth to old age. It was Powell who said: “Old age is like being increasingly punished for a crime you did not commit.” A slightly gloomy aphorism, but I rather like it!
Do you have anything you’d like to add that we haven’t asked?
No, but thank you for asking.
The viewpoints expressed in this interview are the opinions of the individual being interviewed and do not necessarily represent the views of the Horror Writer Association.
