Chris, was there a single moment when you knew that you would be a published author?

I don’t think there was a single moment, more a growing feeling spread over a long time that I was close.  There were rejections that came back with editors actually saying something about the story, sometimes with requests for more.  It almost seems that that feeling of certainty grows slowly–as if it’s  there all the time, you plant an acorn, you know it’s there, you just don’t notice it until there’s a whole tree–and by that time a couple editors are accepting your stories, you win a contest, you struggle less with every sentence.  It just all starts rolling.

I started writing and submitting stories when I was not much older than my daughter is now, fifteen, and my first accepted short story was in 2006.  Keep in mind I wasn’t writing the whole time–school, work, and all that, what’s interesting to think about is that if I’d known back then I wasn’t going have anything published for twenty years would I have kept writing?  I think I would have.  I like to write.

How do you combine your two passions — art and writing?

The drawing and painting began as a way to help with my writing, a way to see characters and scenes clearly, and has led to submitting illustrations–had a pen and ink illo in the last issue of Shimmer–and working on a weekly comic, Saltwater Witch.  I wrote the novel Saltwater Witch after Seaborn–although it takes place five years before Seaborn.  It’s been with an editor since, and hasn’t moved.  In the meantime I had this idea to build up the visual side of my skills, gain enough experience storytelling with not much more than still images and dialogue to be able to offer that along with novels and short stories.  We’ll see if that pays off.

It must be wonderful for your fans to have access to your online graphic novel for free.

I hope so!  I definitely love the work–even if it does make me late for everything else.  I post two to six pages of story every week, usually working on the weekends to complete and post each set.  I’m flying out to World Fantasy Con in San Jose in a few hours, so this week’s set is going up early, just before I leave for the airport.

Tell us about your novels and short stories.

I just finished my fifth novel Winterdim, which is about friendship–about a character who trusts no one, who thinks every action leads to betrayal, and the difficult path she walks in building, tending, and finally coming to understand what friendship really is.  Winterdim is contemporary fantasy–although set in a post ascension future. (I like describing magic in modern terms). Not really part of this story, but humans have mostly gone on to something better.  Earth is nearly unpopulated, there’s still some infrastructure, remains of cities, and many of the powerful things that used to roam this world when it was young and wild–we’d call them gods, goddesses, dryads, etc.–have returned to settle and make some mayhem.

My first novel Seaborn came out last year from Juno Books.  The sequel, Sea Throne is done and with my agent.  I just sold a short story “Lost Dogs and Fireplace Archeology” to Fantasy Magazine.  Can’t wait for that to appear because it’s different from the things I normally write.  And I’m working on a couple short stories and the sequel to Winterdim!

Chris, are there any authors that you use as a benchmark for the quality of your writing?

I don’t know about using anyone as a quality benchmark, or even trying to write–or wishing I could write like a particular author, but there are certainly authors whose works have influenced me deeply–and that has to show in the way I write.  Growing up, I loved all things Dune.  Herbert is a clear, strong, early influence on what I still like to read and write–along with Joe Haldeman (I wore out copies of All My Sins Remembered), but there are plenty of recent authors whose works have really stuck with me, got deep into my head, and kicked my ass–in a good way.  They’re all over the map. I’d include the works of Caitlín R. Kiernan–picked up Murder of Angels several years ago and have not been able to stop getting anything Kiernan writes.  Scott Lynch with Locke Lamora–one of my favorites.  Sabriel by Garth Nix, I’ll go to my grave saying she’s one of the coolest characters ever created.  Connie Willis with To Say Nothing of the Dog, Passage, and everything else.  I know I’m missing so many, but that a good few!

To learn more about Chris Howard, visit: http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/

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