Interview with Philip Fracassi | Author of Boys in the Valley
A chat with author Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley, a book Stephen King recently raved about. Photo credit: Philip Fracassi
In my interview with author Philip Fracassi, we talked about how it feels when Stephen King tweets about your work, how he deals with author rejections, and how he’s maintained confidence as a writer over the years. Hope you enjoy!
Hang on to your bookmarks, readers, because author Philip Fracassi may very well be on his way to becoming a household name. Stephen King, the reigning high priest of all things horror, recently tweeted a glowing review of Fracassi’s upcoming book, Boys in the Valley. So how does that make the multiple award-winning author and screenwriter feel? “Let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised,” Fracassi says. “It was very nice of him.”
If you’ve read Fracassi’s work, you know what King was raving about. To dive into a Philip Fracassi story is to immerse yourself in a world of complex characters, breathtaking imagery, and eerie supernatural occurrences. He writes prose with the sensual devotion of a poet — it’s beautiful, jarring and heartbreaking, and often all of these things at once. Consider how he describes an ordinary field in one of my favorite passages from his short story, “Harvest”: Cornstalks reached to the heavens, unfurled green leaves turned upward like praying hands with crispy brown fingertips. It’s a line a lesser writer would have glossed over, but one that Fracassi uses as an opportunity for transcendence. It’s no wonder The New York Times calls his work “terrifically scary.”
In addition to his multiple novels, novellas, and short story collections, Fracassi has penned a poetry collection, Tomorrow’s Gone, and one children’s book, The Boy with the Blue Rose Heart. His screenwriting credits include a Lifetime movie, Girl Missing, and several projects for Disney Entertainment.
Fracassi is a busy man with a busy life. This summer also promises to especially hectic, as he embarks on a tour to promote his latest book, Boys in the Valley. After that, at least three book releases are planned for the next year, including Sarafina, coming from Nightfire press in the U.S. and Orbit press in the U.K. The author lives in Los Angeles with his wife, and together they have one son.
The Dark Word podcast
If you’re a writer looking for tips on how to improve your writing craft, you can’t do much better than Fracassi’s podcast The Dark Word. In 24 nearly hour-long installments, Fracassi gets some of the finest horror authors working to share their knowledge, including Stephen Graham Jones, Joe Lansdale, and Ramsey Campbell. Chock full of advice and anecdotes for readers and writers both, it’s a must listen for fans of horror fiction. At the moment, the show is on indefinite hiatus, “It ended up being very time consuming,” Fracassi says. “Besides that, it felt like it accomplished what I’d set out to do.” While I’m a bit sad it’s on pause, the existing shows are a treasure trove of tips for budding writers. Give it a listen, you won’t be disappointed. For a few of my own personal tips on the craft of writing, click here.
Philip Fracassi books
If you’re unfamiliar with Philip Fracassi’s work, how about a few recommendations to get you started? In his novel Gothic, a struggling authors descends into madness when he comes into possession of a haunted artifact. In the novella Sacculina, parasitic sea creatures attack a broken family on a fishing expedition. Beneath a Pale Sky is a collection of eight stories in which dread takes various forms including a killer tornado and a doomed Ferris Wheel. Behold the Void is another great opportunity to get familiar with Fracassi’s writing—it’s packed with nine stories about dark magic, serial killers, and monsters of every ilk.
Interview
Which format brings you more joy during the writing process: prose or screenplays?
Prose, without question. I wrote screenplays for a long time, and I’m still writing screenplays occasionally, but I don’t like doing it unless I'm getting paid for it. It's a very impersonal, un-fun, technical way of writing and it gets torn apart by 20 other people. Whereas in prose it's all about me — it's very personal, I feel passionate about it, and also, I get the final say in the work I do.
Have you ever had a paranormal experience?
Not really. The closest I’ve ever had is sleep terrors, which happen rarely. But when I have them, they’re bad. You’re awake, and you know you’re awake, but you can’t move. In the last one, I heard this monster charging toward my bedroom door, and I could feel it shaking the room. That one I woke up screaming from. Another time, I felt somebody crawling up my bed toward my face, and it wasn’t my cat.
During the early days of writing, did you ever stop believing in yourself and stop? If so, how did you get past that?
Yes, I still have those days, and I just made my second publishing deal with one of the big five presses! I've given this a lot of thought—I think it's because as writers we're not doctors, we're not lawyers, we're not engineers. We don't have a technical skill set that we apply to a project. Writing is all about inspiration and it creates a lot of uncertainty because, often, as writers, we don't know how we do what we do. So every time you start a project, you're like, I hope it works this time and that my brain kicks in and does what it needs to do.
I rarely feel confident starting a new project because it's kind of like starting all over again. You're kind of hoping that skill set kicks in for you one more time. And you can't force it. So I think that's why it leads to a lot of that uncertainty.
What’s your advice for dealing with rejections?
There’s so much negativity out there for writers, from dealing with rejections from agents and publishers to one star reader reviews to people spewing hate on social media. You have to develop a thick skin. My advice is to stay focused on the work, put on blinders and put all of that energy you would waste on the negativity into what you’re working on right now.
What’s your biggest phobia?
I don’t like crowded places and being around a lot of people. So, agoraphobia? You won’t find me at Burning Man or something like that. Back in the day when there were malls, I couldn’t go to them. When I’m in a crowd of strangers, I can get pretty cagey and anxious.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned as a writer?
Perseverance, you just have to keep fighting. You just have to take your blows, get knocked down and get back up. If you can keep grinding and working hard, you’ll get there.
What’s your advice to newer writers?
Be aware of how much work there is to do when you’re not actually writing. Getting your name out there, promoting yourself, getting your work in front of publishers, going to conventions, meeting other writers, building a website. It’s all work. But if you want to be a successful writer you have to do those things. On top of your writing, that is.
You’re about to be eaten by one of the following movie monsters with no hope of rescue. Which do you choose? The Blob, The Thing, or a pool full of piranhas?
The Thing, for sure. I’m a big fan of both The Blob and The Thing but having another me running around would be cool. Another monster me, at that.
For more interview with other horror writers, click here.
