I've always been attracted to the darker side of life. I find it fascinating.
Q: James Kidman is your pen name-why did you decide to use a pseudonym?
There were a couple of reasons for using the pseudonym for this book (and hopefully some future titles, if all goes well), but there was one deciding factor for me. The core of Black Fire is tightly focused on one character and the events that occur over two very intense, but very short periods in his life. I have five or six other novel length manuscripts that may or may not ever see the light of day (probably not), but I've noticed they fall into two different types of storytelling -- both of which I really enjoy. The first group is like Black Fire, very tight and focused on one or two characters. The second group, which I tend to write more often, has larger casts and more sprawling settings and storylines. (I like to believe there's still a lot of heart at the center of the story, though.) After considering some long-term factors, I decided I'd be better off publishing these two rather different types of books under two different names. It's mostly for marketing and categorization. And short stories will be under my real name since they happen so infrequently.
Q: BLACK FIRE is your first novel…how did the idea for it come about?
Now that's a tough one. It's a novel I wrote over a period of several years, taking breaks to work on other projects. There's a nightmare sequence in the book, though, when Eddie finds a body under a sheet, and that chapter was originally the opening of the novel. I have no idea what brought the image to mind, but the idea of the character standing there, seeing the body under the sheets, watching blood soak through the cloth, was too compelling to let go. The novel changed quite a bit over the years but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
Q: Are you happy with the response it is getting?
Reviews have been excellent, especially the one in Publishers Weekly, and I've been thrilled with what readers have been saying. I've also gotten some great feedback from my favorite authors in the genre. Check out their thoughts on the praise section of the JamesKidman.com website.
Q: What influences your writing?
The world around me. My secret fears. The true horror stories we see on the nightly news.
Q: What is your next novel about?
I've just sold a book under my own name to a very well known novella series, but I can't give out too much information yet. Let's just say that a bunch of old friends go hunting in the woods and things get very ugly, very quickly...
The next novel is going to be very different than anything I've done before but I can't say more right now.
Q: How can readers contact you?
JamesKidman.com for all things BLACK FIRE related, and BrianFreeman.com for information on my short fiction and my upcoming projects.
