Hello all!
It's interview day again, and today, by special request of one of my wonderful readers, we are talking to Irish horror author Darren Gallagher.
PB: Hi Darren! Welcome to pjbermanbooks.com. Tell us a bit about your background.
DG: Hi Peter, and thank you for having me. I am a horror author of three books, two collections, Strings and Abyss, and a novella, Love’s Curse. I also have a short story, The Cucumber Man available on Kindle Short Reads.
The path to becoming an Author wasn’t a straight forward one for me. I left school at 14 and when the time came that I decided to write, I had to relearn all the dos and don’ts of English, grammar all everything else.
PB: What made you decide to become an author?
DG: I think it was always just a part of me. I have an over-active imagination and I’m always creating different scenarios in my head. Writing them down was the next logical step.
PB: When did you first start writing?
DG: I’m not sure. I always wrote stuff as a kid, and I remember writing a few stories when I was a teenager. But it was only in my early twenties that I started to take writing seriously. It has been a fun journey since then.
PB: What was the first story that you can remember writing?
DG: The first story I remember writing was for a homework assignment in 4th class at National School. I can’t remember what prompt the teacher gave me but I remember writing a story about aliens landing in the park behind my home. My teacher loved it and gave me such praise for it. Unfortunately I have no idea where that story went.
PB: When you begin writing a new story, do you always know the ending?
DG: Not always, no. Sometimes I have a good idea of how it is going to end up, and then there are times where a story will take on a different direction of its own.
PB: If you could meet any of your characters, who would you meet, and what would you say to them?
DG: My character Kenunes in Flight of a Deadman, a short story in Strings. He is a magical being thousands of years old that has enormous wings on his back, which he easily can conceal. He has such a history that I would ask him to tell me about it.
PB: Where did the idea for come from?
DG: Before Strings came about, I had been getting a lot of short stories accepted for publication in anthologies. Then there came a call for submissions or either a novel or short story collection from one of the publishers. At the time I had enough stories written to fill a book so I put them all together and I ended up with Strings. The name Strings itself was an idea that I liked how everything was connected and if anything were to happen to one of the strings then anything was possible.
PB: Tell us about your recent book, The Cucumber Man.
DG: The Cucumber Man actually came to life in a group read on Instagram. We were all talking and having a little fun and one of the guys said, “Be careful or Darren will kill you in one of his books”. That was it, the story came to life there and then and I had fun writing it. Something short and full of dark humour for my Instagram friends.
PB: Of all your achievements, which are you most proud of?
DG: Finally getting Strings published. Not only was it my first book published, I also had a lot of hassle with the first publisher that accepted it. They disappeared not long after I signed the contract and wouldn’t respond to any emails I sent. So it was with great relief and delight the day I finally got a copy of the book in my hands.
PB: What is your favourite book series to read and why?
DG: I have quite a few actually. The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower, The Broken Empire… and the list goes on. All of these books shaped me to be who I am as a person, and as a writer.
PB: What are your long term ambitions with regards to writing?
DG: I love writing as much as I love reading, and I love others reading what I have wrote. To see some of things people have said about my work is truly inspirational and I would love to keep creating more books and stories for people to enjoy.
PB: If you weren’t an author, what career would you be in?
DG: I honestly have to idea. I think since the idea of being a writer has entered my mind, it has never let me consider any other alternative.
PB: What’s the next target for you?
DG: My next target is to finish my current book, The Children are Laughing Again. After that I would like to get back and finish my incomplete fantasy novel The Father of Hounds. Hopefully I will have both finished by the end of the year.
PB: Tell us a random fact about yourself.
DG: I used to be able to hold a handstand for one minute without support, now I’d be lucky if I could hold for five seconds… Time to start doing them again...:)
Thank you so much to Darren Gallagher for speaking to us today! If you'd like to try out his work, you can do so via the links below:
Until next time, happy reading!
Peter