Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a former odd-job man. I’ve worked in many jobs including moving corpses in and out of a morgue. I have a wife and two adult daughters and they all seem to approve of my aspiration to become a full-time novelist, which I’m very pleased about.
I’ve written two works of non-fiction (but you won’t want to know about those – trust me on that!) and one novel.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The ame of my novel is ‘Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse’.
The inspiration for it came from many places. I was thinking one day about the fact that most, if not all, zombie fiction, depicts zombies as brutish and unintelligent. I got to thinking: what if they were as clever as us? What would the consequences be? I decided to write a book that would set out to answer that question. In the course of writing it, I decided it would be more interesting if my zombies liked their food cooked, just as we do. It seemed natural to assume that intelligent creatures would desire cooked food. From there, it was just a small step to envisage some kind of chain of events that would transform all the celebrity chefs on the planet into zombies, and ensure that they knew a thing or two about cooking their food (the human species!).
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t write my books in the order in which they’ll be read. I might write a middle bit, and then a beginning section then a closing section, and so on. I flit back and forth along the timeline.
I don’t make any plan for my books, either. I just let them roll out any which way they want to.
I believe that the subconscious mind is far better at planning than the conscious mind.
It works for me, anyway.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Way too many to list here, but I’ll name a few.
Ernest Hemingway. Love his stripped-down style.
The great American pulp-fiction authors of the ’50s and earlier:
E.g., Theodore Sturgeon, Jim Thompson, Richard matheson. Every aspiring writer can learn lots from these guys – how to begin and end chapters, how to pace a novel and build suspense, and so on.
Russell H Greenan. Why is it that so few people appreciate him? – As soon as you’ve rushed out and bought my book and read it, go buy ‘It Happened in Boston?’ by Russell H Greenan. That man knew how to plot, and how to use words.
I could name many more, but it’d take all day.
What are you working on now?
The sequel to ‘Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse. It’s called ‘Zomcats’.
Given that there’s a cat in my first novel, you might be able to guess what the second novel is about.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Facebook, probably.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write the best book you can, then promote it as best you can.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
‘Don’t wait for inspiration; go looking for it with a club’ – Jack London
What are you reading now?
‘Clusterfuck’ by Carlton Merrick III
‘Sun and steel’ by Yukio Mishima
What’s next for you as a writer?
A fuck of a lot more writing!
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
‘It happened in Boston?’ by Russell H Greenan. I’ll always enjoy dipping into that book.
À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel proust ( a good meaty desert island read)
The complete works of Shakespeare (you just have to read some Shakespeare!)
The Bible (not that I’m religious – I just think that maybe I’d get round to reading it at long last if I was on a desert island with a limited supply of reading matter)
Author Websites and Profiles
Jack Strange Website
Jack Strange Amazon Profile
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