Know a Nominee, Part 16: Peter Adam Salomon
Welcome back to “Know a Nominee,” the interview series that puts you squarely between the ears of this year’s Bram Stoker Award nominees. Today’s second update features Peter Adam Salomon, nominated in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel for All Those Broken Angels.
DM: Please describe the genesis for the idea that eventually became the
work(s) for which you’ve been nominated. What attracted you most to the project? If nominated in multiple categoies, please touch briefly on each.
PS: I was interviewing fellow HWA author C.W. LaSart and we were talking about our favorite words. I mentioned that I’d always thought the word “ghostly” had gotten a cheesy reputation due to the whole Casper thing and that I should write a book titled GHOSTLY to try to rehabilitate the word. So, starting the next day, I wrote one. Unfortunately, the word really has lost its edge so the title ended up being changed to ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS. But, at heart, it’s still a ghostly story.
DM: What was the most challenging part of bringing the concept(s) to fruition? The most rewarding aspect of the process?
PS: The story was written with a very particular “voice.” One that mostly ignored some of the rules of fiction writing while replacing them with the rules of poetry. For example: repeated words, run on sentences, sentence fragments, among others. Here’s an example:
In the corner of the room the shadow screamed, burning the air around me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think, and everything went black and everything changed and everything disappeared and all I knew was pain. Unending, unceasing pain.
One paragraph, with one long run on sentence with two different words repeated three times followed by a sentence fragment. Sustaining that voice was a constant pressure on me. It was so difficult to write that I’d be happy to hit 1000 words a day, which is low for me. I’d also have to read a few chapters a day in order to ‘recover’ that particular voice. Finishing the book, with the voice intact throughout, was intensely gratifying, and a tremendous relief.
I knew while writing it that there would be people who disliked the book solely based on the voice it was written in, so I have been incredibly thrilled at the great response to the book!
DM: What do you think good horror/dark literature should achieve? How do you feel the work(s) for which you’ve been nominated work fits into (or help give shape to) that ideal?
PS: I’m a huge believer in the psychological horror aspect of the genre. That what is behind you is more frightening that what is in front of you. In other words: If I show you a clown with an axe it’s scary, but if I can convince you there’s a clown with an axe in the shadows you just passed, that’s a lot scarier. That’s not to take anything away from the more visceral horror, which I also love. I just find it to be more fun, personally, to write more Hitchcock than Saw, to borrow a film metaphor. ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS has a lot of secrets in it, some of which the reader is privy to and some that they might not be quite sure of. I love that aspect of horror.
At heart, ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS is a love triangle between two people. And one very possessive, obsessive, perhaps mad, ghost.
DM: I’m curious about your writing and/or editing process. Is there a certain setting or set of circumstances that help to move things along? If you find yourself getting stuck, where and why?
PS: I’m not generally an outline type of writer. I usually have just a general idea of where I’m going and where I want to be at the end of the story. With ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS, I turned that all around since the book sold off a proposal, which included a complete synopsis. I found it to be a tremendous help to have that outline, especially when I’d get stuck on sustaining the voice. Having that outline to rely upon saved me so many times.
Plus, the biggest help about writing the book this way was that unlike my first novel where I wrote the book hoping it would sell and people would someday read it, since ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS was already sold, I knew people would read it. It made me feel far closer to my future audience, knowing there’d really be readers someday that I wanted to please.
DM: As you probably know, many of our readers are writers and/or editors. What is the most valuable piece of advice you can share?
PS: First off, write as much as humanly possible. Which is great advice. But the most important piece of advice is this: Learn to LOVE revising. The entire process. Learn to love when your critique partners or beta readers or agent or editor send you tons of notes and constructive criticism. They have all taken time out of their lives, away from friends and family and their own writing careers in order to help you improve your writing and make it the best it can be. Thank them for that. Don’t get mad, or angry, or upset. They’re trying to help. Revising is important. Editing is important. Loving it will help it go faster, will make your beta readers and critique partners and agent and editor love working with you. That’s important to your entire career.
DM: If you’re attending WHC this year, what are you most looking forward to at this year’s event? If not attending, what do you think is the significance of recognitions like the Bram Stoker Awards?
PS: I’m greatly looking forward to seeing people I haven’t seen in years (since the New Orleans convention) or have never met in person at all. Also, I’m looking forward to the panels and readings and such. Of course, as a nominee, I am incredibly excited and anxious for the awards ceremony but am not holding my breath about winning. Simply being nominated with the brilliant authors in my YA category is, for me, accomplishment enough!
DM: What scares you most? Why? How (if at all) does that figure into your work or the projects you’re attracted to?
PS: Most of my nightmares fall into the same categories: Abandonment, bugs, dying. I’ve considered writing bug short stories but, yuck. So I stick to abandonment and dying in my writing. Also, I tend to tie stories of identity issues into my stories. The whole ‘Who am I?’ kind of thing. My first novel dealt with a young boy who had lost his memory so all he knew of himself was what he’d been told. Then he started to have doubts as to whether what he’d been told was actually true. ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS deals with abandonment in a number of different ways, as well as dealing with death and identity.
DM: What are you reading for pleasure lately? Can you point us to new authors or works we ought to know about?
PS: At the moment I’m reading a lot of horror poetry as one of the judges for the second HWA Horror Poetry Showcase and discovering a lot of great poets. In the horror novel field, I just finished H2O about a near future dystopia where the water is deadly. Along with novels such as BIRDBOX, by fellow nominee Josh Malerman, H2O is among a trend in YA Horror where the authors deal with the complexities and fears and worries about the near future. CHARISMA by Jeanne Ryan is another one in that vein. Not to mention the zombies and other monsters of Jonathan Maberry in both YA and ‘adult’ horror. This is a wonderful time to be a writer of horror, an even better time to be a reader of it.
About Peter Adam Salomon
Peter Adam Salomon is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Horror Writers Association, the International Thriller Writers, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and The Authors Guild and is represented by the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. His debut novel, HENRY FRANKS, published by Flux in 2012, was named one of the ten ‘Books All Young Georgians Should Read’ by The Georgia Center For The Book in 2014. His second novel, ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS, was published in 2014 by Flux and has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in the Young Adult category.
His short fiction has appeared in the Demonic Visions series and he was the featured author for Gothic Blue Book III: The Graveyard Edition. He was also selected as one of the Ladies and Gentlemen of Horror for 2014. His poem ‘Electricity and Language and Me’appeared on BBC Radio 6 performed by The Radiophonic Workshop in December 2013. In addition, he edited the first book of poetry released by the Horror Writers Association, Horror Poetry Showcase Volume 1.
He was a Judge for the 2006 Savannah Children’s Book Festival Young Writer’s Contest and served on the Jury for the Poetry Category of the 2013 Bram Stoker Awards. He was also a Judge for the Horror Poetry Showcase of the Horror Writers Association and was the Chair for the Jury for the First Novel Category of the 2014 Bram Stoker Awards. He also serves as a Judge for the Royal Palm Literary Awards of the Florida Writers Association.
