Adam Howe on Writing and Black Cat Mojo

Thanks for having me, Adam.  Before I start plugging my book like a motherfucker – Black Cat Mojo: available now, folks; it’s awesome – I’d like to tell you how I got here.  I won’t start from my birth.  The year 2000 ought to do it.

Back then, Hodder & Stoughton and The Observer newspaper ran an international writing competition to coincide with the hardcover release of Stephen King’s non-fiction book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.  Unpublished writers were invited to write a Stephen King-style story.  The winning story would be chosen by Stephen King, and published in the UK paperback edition of On Writing.  The winner would also be granted an audience with The King. 

Pretty big fucking deal, I’m sure you’ll agree, and I imagine every unpublished horror scribe worth their salt subbed a story; maybe even one or two of you reading this?

The story I submitted – Jumper – follows a mentally unstable shop worker’s reaction to the suicide of a colleague.  It was inspired by a suicide that occurred at the shopping mall where I was wage-slaving at an HMV store.   

One afternoon, a man leapt to his death from the mall’s top floor, narrowly avoiding squishing one of my workmates.  On the ground floor was a bank opposite a McDonald’s.  My friend was leaving the bank when she stopped to check her purse to see if she had change for a cheeseburger.  Stopping when she did saved her life; or the cheeseburger did, up to you.  The man hit the deck directly in front of her.  My friend quickly lost her appetite. 

The mall was closed early that day – for the cleaning crew to get to work – and shoppers asked to leave.  They did so grudgingly, pissed off that they weren’t allowed to ogle the smeared remains of the selfish sod who’d spoiled their shopping experience.  I wrote the story in reaction to the crowd that day, and my own dissatisfaction with my job in retail. 

For some time, I’d had a gag: Suicidal man threatens to jump from building; crowd gathers below, urging him to jump; man drops bomb onto crowd.  Boom-boom, literally.  It got a few laughs when I told it. 

Now I knew what to do with it. 

I’d been writing for years, mostly lame Stephen King knockoffs – funny how things turn out – but Jumper was the first thing I’d written that seemed to really click.  This was due largely to what I’d learned from On Writing, especially King’s crash course in rewriting and editing.  I followed his advice; hacked away at the story till it was lean and mean and more importantly, under the 3k word limit the competition required. 

I was pleased with my effort – it felt like a step up for me – but I had no expectations of winning the competition, and in fact, the morning I got the good news, I’d forgotten I’d even submitted a story. 

On learning I’d won – well, as you’d expect, I lost my shit.  (Remember Goodfellas?  Ray Liotta learns De Niro’s pulled off the Lufthansa heist and he’s pounding the walls of the shower, screaming “Jiiiiimy!”  Like that.) 

In recent months, I’d been doing a lot of soul-searching, racking up rejection slips and wondering if I was chasing a fool’s dream with this writing malarkey.  Just to be published would have been a huge encouragement.  It was mind-blowing to think that Stephen King had read something I’d written, let alone that he’d liked it enough to judge me the competition winner.  I couldn’t comprehend that I’d actually get to meet the man; years later, and it still seems surreal.

I know I’m not alone here: Stephen King was the first writer whose work really spoke to me.  As a kid, I was a sick puppy – sicker dog these days – and I was naturally drawn to the gruesome covers on my mum’s bookshelf.  I can vividly recall the illustration of a bug-eyed, blood-soaked Sissy Spacek on the cover of Carrie; and the nightmares that book gave me, when I snuck it from mum’s shelf.

(King likes to hear he gave you nightmares as a kid, by the way.)

Despite the nightmares, I kept on reading, and soon I was compelled to write my own stories – in crayon, at first – filled with vampires and werewolves, killer clowns and rabid dogs.  Over the years, as I graduated from crayon to pen to typewriter to computer, I remained a Constant Reader and Stephen King the biggest influence on my work.  So to meet the man; to be published in his book…

HOLY SHIT! 

It couldn’t happen fast enough.

And it didn’t.

It was another year before On Writing was published in paperback, and my story appeared.  Seeing something I’d written in print for the first time, and in Stephen King’s book, no less, and with his endorsement: “Stephen King found the raw, punky style of this story appealing, and said that the surprise ending did, in fact, surprise him.”  (I’d punked the King!)  It was hard to believe that I hadn’t gone crazy.  That this wasn’t just the fever dream of a madman.

It was another year before I’d meet King. 

At this time, I was working at a crime bookstore called Murder One.  We’d often host author signings.  One of them was Peter Straub – in London with his great collection, Magic Terror – whose work I admired as much as King’s.  Peter was kind enough to sign my ‘lucky’ copy of On Writing.  I hoped it’d be a nice icebreaker for when I met Steve.  (Years later, I met Joe Hill at a signing for NOS4A2, and asked him to sign the same lucky book.  He politely refused, and I realised in hindsight he probably gets that shit all the time: schmucks asking him to sign his dad’s books.  Ha-ha.  Sorry, Joe.)

In 2002, the day finally arrived, and I jetted out to New York City.  (Insert Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talkin’ here.)  The meeting was held at a writer-run bar and grill called The Half King.  I was chaperoned by two lovely ladies from Hodder & Stoughton.  Nervous as hell, but managing to keep my cool – at least until he arrived. 

First impressions: King’s a big dude.  He towered above me, lunging forwards for the handshake.  “Steve King,” he said.  When I introduced myself – stammered some sort of reply – it caused a moment of confusion, because of course I’d used a pseudonym for the story.  (My reasons for using the pseudonym are now lost to me; chances are it’d seemed like a good idea when I was drunk.)

My hour with King was over in a heartbeat, and I was so star-struck, it’s hard for me to recall exactly what was said.  I made a lame wisecrack about being his biggest fan; that he was having lunch with Annie Wilkes.  I remember he was furious with Dubya Bush, whom he said had stolen the presidency; he was delighted when I compared Bush to Greg Stillson.  The release of 28 Days Later was on the horizon, and we debated the merits of slow versus fast zombies.  I’m a slow-zombie man myself.  “What about The Return of the Living Dead?” he argued for the other side.  “Those fuckers were fast, man!”  Conversation moved to the notorious Milgram Experiment.  Eyes twinkling mischievously, he asked if I would have pressed the buzzer on command.  When I admitted I wouldn’t have needed to be told twice, he gave a knowing laugh. 

After lunch – fish and chips for me; macaroni cheese for Steve – he signed a box of books for me.  (Man, this was just getting better and better!)  He also signed my lucky copy of On Writing, now replete with a hello to him from Peter Straub.  He congratulated me on winning the competition, but seemed disappointed to learn that I planned to embark on a screenwriting career.  With a groan and a roll of the eyes, he told me: “Write a fucking novel.”  (Good advice, it turned out.)

And with that, our hour was pretty much up.  He wished me a good stay in New York, and suggested a nice midnight stroll in Central Park.  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked.  He laughed, said: “Duh, yeah.”  King was in town to plug his latest novel, From a Buick 8, and to announce his retirement from writing.  “It’s time to hand it over to the younger guys,” he told us, horrifying the ladies from Hodder, and putting absolutely no pressure on myself whatsoever.  Fortunately his retirement was a bluff.  And of course, no one knew then he was hiding a pair of aces up his sleeve, namely his super-talented sons, Joe and Owen.  Before he left, we had our picture taken.  And then – like Keyser Soze – he was gone.

In one of the books Steve signed to me, he wrote: Don’t give up!

Good advice any young writer should take to heart.

It was ten years before I was published again.

Having turned my hand to screenwriting, I had several original feature film scripts optioned; rewrote, doctored, and edited other people’s projects; took a whole bunch of meetings with a whole bunch of industry folk; but nothing I wrote ever made it to the screen, and I had precious little to show for all my hard work.  I began to understand why King had rolled his eyes when I told him I planned to write screenplays.

Added to this, a drinking problem had progressed to alcoholism.  My work suffered.  If I was able to write anything at all, it was invariably shit.  “Write sober; edit drunk,” Hemingway wrote; who also blew off his head with a shotgun when those lines blurred irreparably.  Not to mention my life had became a real horror story.  In my experience, the romantic clichés of the drunken writer are quite different to the squalid reality.  It was a long time coming, but with the support of my partner, and my family, I finally got help for my problem.

2015 marks my fourth year of sobriety. 


Within six months of rehabbing, having returned to writing prose fiction, I sold my first short story since Jumper was published; and my second in the same week.  Since then I’ve sold a bunch more, and slowly but surely I’m building towards writing the “fucking novel” Stephen King advised me to write all those years ago.  I’m not quite there yet.  But my novella collection, Black Cat Mojo, is a step in the right direction.

The book contains three offbeat, darkly humorous crime/horror novellas.

Of Badgers & Porn Dwarfs:

To pay back a gambling debt and avoid being castrated, washed-up dwarf porn star Rummy Rumsfeld (of Snow White spoof Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Up Your Ass We Go) must overcome a geriatric pederast, redneck pornographers, a morbidly obese nymphomaniac with serious personal hygiene issues, the ghost of his religious zealot mother, a dwarf-eating badger, and George Lucas.

Jesus in a Dog’s Ass:

Dumbass desperadoes Hootie and Poke incur the wrath of a trailer trash church group, not to mention God, when they kidnap a Jack Russell terrier with the figure of Christ in its butt.

Frank, the Snake, & the Snake:

After testifying against notorious mob boss ‘Snake’ Cobretti, embittered ex-wiseguy Frank ‘The Tin Man’ Piscopo emerges from Witness Protection to embark on a disastrous drug deal that leaves him fighting for his life against a giant Burmese python with a taste for Italian-American.

PLUS the bonus short story,

The Mad Butcher of Plainfield’s Chariot of Death:

Carny barker Bunny Gibbons buys serial killer Ed Gein’s car with plans to exhibit the infamous ‘Ghoul Mobile’…only to realise he’s bought more than he bargained for.

I don’t know quite how it happened, but it took me getting sober and sane to write the craziest fucking book of my life.

Writing this stuff, in a new ‘voice’ for me, I had no idea what response I would get.  Thankfully the advance reviews have been better than I could have hoped.

Walt Hicks for Hellnotes writes: “It’s almost as if someone smashed Dashiell Hammett’s seamless noir patter, Elmore Leonard’s pitch-perfect ear for hapless characters, Quentin Tarantino’s sardonic sense of irony and Clive Barker’s unflinching portrayal of sexual pain/pleasure into a blender, mixing in a heaping helping of Stephen King’s pop culture mise-en-scene framing.  Howe bobs and weaves, pulling it all together in a denouement that is as satisfying as it is completely unexpected.”

David James Keaton says: “Like tuning in to Irvine Welsh’s Animal Planet, Adam Howe has conjured up something pulpy and hysterical here… If you’re tired of all that respectable, snooze-worthy shit with silhouettes on the cover, try something like this, a book best consumed on the subway in a paper bag, or at the zoo.”

And no greater authority than Adam Millard weighs in with: “Utterly compelling, uniquely twisted, and funny as hell, Black Cat Mojo is simply magnificent!”

But don’t take their word for it; check it out for yourself.  

Stephen King will always cast a long shadow over my work, but so many other great writers have inspired me, and influenced the writing of this book: Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Lawrence Block – just to mention a few – and perhaps mostly notably, Joe R. Lansdale, whose work I only recently discovered and whose humour and mastery of tone I found to be a revelation.

On the rare occasions I re-read Jumper – and it’s been a looooong time – I see the work of a young rookie writer with so much still to learn.  But that story won me the opportunity of a lifetime, and has opened so many doors for me.  It also marked a notable improvement in my work, and was the first step towards me finding my ‘voice,’ albeit a ‘voice’ that was still yet to break.  I’ll always be proud of it.  But Black Cat Mojo is where I’m at now, and I hope folks will enjoy reading the book as much as I did writing it.

Coming up next in October is the novella Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet (thanks to Joe Lansdale for that badass title).  This Southern Gothic kidnap thriller is Jack Ketchum/Richard Laymon DARK.  Then it’s Damn Dirty Apes – an insane mix of Jaws, Roadhouse, and Scooby Doo – another novella that might’ve fit alongside the stories in Black Cat Mojo.  I’m also between drafts on my first novel, One Tough Bastard, in which you’ll meet washed-up 80s action movie star Shane Moxie, and his hyper-intelligent chimpanzee sidekick, Duke, and follow their misadventures through the Hollywood underbelly as they butt heads with Bulgarian Mafia.

I hope you’ll come along for the ride!


Click the image below for more information. Black Cat Mojo is out now from Comet Press.

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