Interview - Author Edo van Belkom

An accomplished author with numerous accolades and awards throughout his career, Edo van Belkom has seen his work in numerous magazines, collections, and anthologies in addition to several solid novels. Now, in honor of the release of his new book "Wolf Pack," I talk with him about his early interest in writing, his process as a writer, and the book itself.

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general?

Edo van Belkom: My very first story was published in Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature which was a literary magazine published by East Tennessee State University. While that is as obscure as you’re likely to get, the story was picked up by Karl Edward Wagner and reprinted in Year’s Best Horror Stories XX. I didn’t purposefully start out thinking I’d write horror as I thought I was writing science fiction and fantasy. However, the more I wrote, the clearer it became that my ability in the horror genre was greater than the other two, so I wrote more horror than fantasy, but always dabbled in multiple genres throughout my career.

Me: Were you into genre films growing up? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?

EvB: No exactly a horror movie fan. I enjoyed fantasy films where very cool things happened. I remember watching Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury, and absolutely loving the scene in the library where Mr. Dark is searching for the old man and recounting his life as he tears out the pages of a book. Awesome stuff. I also like Night of the Living Dead as it was basically a modern-day film with this one horrific element… that there are zombies roaming the countryside looking for living flesh to eat. That’s the kind of writing I settled into. Modern-day, with just a single horrific element to make things different.

Me: Who were some of your favorite writers growing up? Do you try to take influences from their style with your own voice in your work?

EvB: I wasn’t all that much of a reader growing up. As a kid, I read books about World War 2 soldiers and aviators. When I was at the end of my teenage years, I read Ray Bradbury’s The October Country and loved every story in it. When I finished reading it I decided that was the kind of writer I wanted to be, one who wrote stories that amazed anyone who read them. Past that I have grown to admire the work of Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, and more contemporarily, Richard Laymon and Joe R. Lansdale.

Me: What was the starting point of becoming a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?

EvB: I always knew I wanted to do some sort of writing. I remember listening to the Tom Jones song Delilah on an album my mother bought and loving the story it told. I also loved the lines, “She stood there laughing – I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.” Even then I knew that was good writing, showing, not telling, and I wanted to write like that. Later I tried my hand at poetry, but it was shitty. I also tried writing songs and singing but we used the word Baby! way too much and you can’t have songs that just go, Baby, Baby Baby. So, I stumbled around in the dark before reading Bradbury’s work and knowing what I wanted to do.

Me: What is your writing process? How do you stay focused on writing?

EvB: I don’t write as much as I used to, but I never had trouble focusing on writing. For close to fifteen years I was a full-time fiction writer and when it’s your job you better be able to produce or you and your family are going to go hungry. Writing was my profession, so I acted like a professional producing every day, keeping a regular schedule and making sure I hit deadlines with quality polished work.

Me: Is there any specific type of genre you prefer writing? Is there any style or format you find easier to get into even without a preference?

EvB: If I wrote a million-copy bestselling horror novel then that would be my favorite genre. But I’ve written in every genre except romance and western but that’s only because no one ever asked me to write something in those genres. I crossed plenty of genres in my career and maybe that was not a good plan because your work is scattershot across multiple genres, but that’s what I did and I enjoyed writing good stories in all of them. I did a time-travel fantasy called Battle Dragon where a dragon gets blown forward in time and ends up in the Battle of Britain. I did a post-apocalypse zombie novel Kilgore and Co. that is pure horror. A truck-driving vampire novel, Blood Road. High fantasy with Lord Soth. Traditional horror with Martyrs. And I had a fifteen-year run writing a serial story, Mark Dalton: Owner/Operator about a truck-driving detective that produced 55 stories, two collections on audiobook, and three full-length novels published by Natural Resources Canada (the Canadian government) to help teach long-haul truckers about fuel-efficient driving practices. I liked writing things that got published, and I went through the doors that opened up to give me those opportunities.

Me: How did you settle on the plot for your new novel Wolf Pack?

EvB: My wife, who was a children’s librarian first suggested I write for young people. I started in young adult fiction by editing a couple of anthologies for young readers, Be Afraid! And Be Very Afraid! I proposed a third anthology called Shit Your Pants, but the publisher didn’t go for it so I transitioned to writing a YA novel. My goal was to write about teenagers with all the types of problems teenagers have… PLUS they were werewolves and had that to deal with on top of everything else.

Me: Was there any special significance to making the characters werewolves with a secret?

EvB: Well, since any werewolf living in our modern times would either be revered, admired, hated, persecuted, or studied by science until one’s life was lived under a microscope, there is plenty of reason for someone with that affliction to keep it under wraps. Sure it would great to have special abilities such as being a vampire or a werewolf, but after a while, it would likely become a curse because it puts you on the outside of society and everyone just wants to belong.

Me: Was there any part of your real self injected into the characters?

EvB: Not really. But I did spend three years as a school bus driver for teenagers and during that time I saw how utterly selfish, vicious, mean, and spiteful teenagers can be toward others, especially if they detect a weakness. Once that person is identified and it’s clear that anything can be done to them without any reprisals or that person fighting back, then the rest of them will join in, making that one person’s life hell. It was like, as long as I join in teasing the one, then the attention will never be turned on me.

Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process for having it published?

EvB: I wrote the books, but I didn’t publish them. Basically, I pitched the first novel. Tundra Books agreed to publish it and offered me a contract. I signed the contract, wrote the book, and handed it to them prior to the deadline. Then, months later, the book was published.

Me: How did a TV show adaptation of the book come together?

EvB: That’s something you need to ask the Wolf Pack show creator Jeff Davis. I got an email from my agent telling me there was interest in the film/television rights to the Wolf Pack novel. They made an offer, and we agreed to it, then nothing happened for six or seven months when an announcement came from CBS Viacom that Jeff Davis would be doing a new TV series for Paramount Plus called Wolf Pack. Six months after that they started filming in Atlanta. My wife and I visited the set, and later attended the premier of the series in Los Angeles, and since then I’ve been watching every Thursday to see what happens, just like everyone else. People seem to think I’ve had something to do with the adaptation, input, or suggestions, or that I was asked my opinion, but none of that happened. I wrote the books. Jeff Davis created the show and guided its story arc over eight episodes in season one. He’s done a terrific job adapting my book for television and it’s clear he had a clear vision for the story and characters and I can’t wait to see what happens later in season one and beyond.

Me: How do you do to keep your creative energy flowing?

EvB: I’m not writing as much these days so there’s no creative energy to keep flowing. When I was writing, it was hard work. And on those days – and there were many of them – when you didn’t feel like writing, then I sat in my chair and got to writing anyway. When I taught writing classes I used to tell my students that there was no such thing as writer’s block. I would say that writer’s block is the thing writers run around at night to keep in shape. If someone says they want to write but they don’t have time, or can’t get motivated, then they’re just making excuses for not writing. Writing is a job, like any other job. No one would ever say and no one would ever say, “I’d love to build your house today, but I’m not quite feeling it. Maybe I’ll be in the mood tomorrow.”

Me: Lastly, what else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers? Thank you again for your time!

EvB: I’m not working on any new fiction, but I am hard at work learning social media and creating content for different platforms with an eye toward promoting both the Wolf Pack TV series, and the novels in print, e-book, and audio format. I’ve been on Facebook for years, but I’ve been learning about Twitter and Instagram and having a blast posting things to do with the books. I’ve also got a YouTube channel where all sorts of videos can be found, from the Halloween bumpers I did for Fox TV in Buffalo, to the introductions I did as a horror movie host on SCREAM TV. There are also some great videos there where I explain how the Wolf Pack novel made the unlikely journey onto the screen. I encourage people to seek me out and if you can’t find me on social media, then you’re not looking hard enough.