A Horror World Conversation with Thomas Tessier
By Steven E. Wedel

Reading Thomas Tessier's novels, one is struck by the poetic flow of his prose. It's obvious this is an author who knows how to use the English language. It should come as no surprise then to learn that his first three books were collections of poetry.

Thomas began publishing in the 1970s, about the same time as his friends, a couple of guys named Peter Straub and Stephen King. Critically and commercially, his novels did well, appeared with some regularly, and yet he never became a household name. Between 1978 and 1982 he published four novels. His next novel didn't appear until 1986; between 1986 and 2001 he published five more novels and a short story collection.

His new novel, WICKED THINGS, hit bookstore shelves right at the end of May, ending a long drought for fans. He was kind enough to give Horror World some time to talk about his career, writing, and his new book.

Horror World : Thomas, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Let's start with the new stuff. Tell us about WICKED THINGS. What's it about? What inspired it? How is it doing?

Thomas Tessier : I'm never sure what inspires any of my stories. WICKED THINGS is set in a small, isolated city that is visited by an outsider who finds more, much more, than he was looking for. That's an old and worthy platform in horror literature, one I've been drawn to many times in short stories and novels. So far, it seems to be doing all right.

HW : How long did it take you to write WICKED THINGS? How does the time spent in the writing of this one compare to previous novels?

TT : I wrote the first draft a while back, made some revisions and changes, and then set it aside for some time. When I went back to it this past year, I saw it in a new, very different way, and I completely rewrote it into its present form. Overall, it took longer than I would have liked, but I wrote many other things in between, short stories and novellas. I wrote some of my earlier novels rather quickly, but others, like PHANTOM and FOG HEART, also took me quite a while.

HW : Okay, let's back up now. In 1970 and 1971 you published three collections of poetry. What were your career goals at that time? Did you want to make a living as a poet?

TT : Back then, I didn't really think in terms of career goals! I just wanted to write and to see my writing accepted for publication. I wrote a great deal of poetry, but also several plays that were professionally produced. And I wrote a fair amount of free lance journalism for newspapers and magazines. It was all part of the process of learning how to write, becoming a writer.

HW : Now, if I read my homework right, you were living in England during the early 1970s and you met another American author living there and he suggested you try writing fiction. Tell us about your relationship with Peter Straub and how he influenced you.

TT : We met at a great time for both of us -- we were both starting out as young writers -- and quickly became great friends. Peter was already well ahead of me, writing novels long before I even dared to try narrative fiction. He influenced and helped me in more ways than I could begin to say, not only in terms of writing, but in being one of the best friends anyone could hope to have.

HW : THE FATES was published in 1978. What was your inspiration for that first novel?

TT : Wreaking havoc on my childhood hometown might be part of it (smiling). I think THE FATES was clearly influenced by the SF and horror movies of the 50s and 60s that I still love, especially the ones in which a seemingly normal small town comes under aTTack from some terrible outside/alien force.

HW : What was your writing process like back then, and how has it changed over the years?

TT : It hasn't changed much over the years, except that I do a lot more revising and rewriting now. I write every day, and even when it's going very slowly I still work at it, through it.

HW : Did you have a day job when you began writing? If so, what was it? And, how about now?

TT : Yes, I had a full-time job at a publishing company in Dublin, and later became managing director of Millington Books in London. We published general trade books, both fiction and non-fiction. We published some very good science fiction and horror. The last few years, I've been working part-time as an office manager for a small local business.

HW : The Washington Post called you “horror's best-kept secret.” How do you feel about that? Did it affect your career at all?

TT : That goes back a long way, though publishers do still like to use it as a marketing point of some kind. I don't mind either way, and I have no idea if or how it has affected my career -- I'm still not very good at thinking in terms of a career.

HW : The supernatural elements in your stories are usually ambiguous. Maybe it's supernatural, maybe it isn't. How do you toe that tricky line?

TT : I think it's partly in the nature of such experiences for most people, the gray area, the edge of uncertainty. Was that a ghost? Did I actually see it, or merely imagine it, or was it a trick of the light, something else? I try to write convincingly, as if these things are indeed real and are happening. Sometimes the result is fairly explicit, other times it's more shaded in uncertainty. In general, spelling things out too much is self-defeating, it just dismantles everything you're trying to put together.

HW : Not all your work is really horror, though it's often bleak. Do you think about genre when you sit down to write, or do you just focus on story?

TT : Most of the time, no, I focus on the characters first and their circumstances second, because those are the two places that generate what happens in the story or novel. But if it's a story meant for a particular anthology -- a story about Van Helsing, for instance -- then of course I do think about the genre too, how to be faithful to it while at the same time trying to use it and do something different with it.

HW : You're had some plays produced. What can you tell us about those? What are they about? How were they received? Will they ever be published?

TT : The three that were staged at the Peacock Theatre and The Project Arts Centre in Dublin were titled THE ROSE IN THE FISTED GLOVE, EVERYBODY SAW THE SUN SHINE, and IS PAUL McCARTNEY DEAD? They were youthful aTTempts at a kind of black humor drama involving disconnected twenty-somethings. They received preTTy good, encouraging notices, but I eventually worked playwrighting and the theatre bug out of my system. And no, the plays will not be published.

HW : Let's talk about the state of the horror genre for a minute. You were there when it was born in the ‘70s, rode the boom in the ‘80s and survived the crash in the ‘90s. What do you think caused publishers to make horror a fiction category? Was it a good idea at the time?

TT : A few writers enjoyed huge success -- King, Straub, Rice, Koontz -- and that probably encouraged a lot of other writers and publishers to try geTTing in on the upswing in the market. Some very good writers did emerge, but the audience for horror fiction was not endlessly expanding, nor was it all-consuming.

HW : The general perception is that publishers then crippled the genre by publishing too many bad books in the late 1980s and ‘90s. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

TT : Probably, but it was not just some publishers, it was some authors as well. Too much of anything, and the market corrects. But there was a horror genre before the boom and there is one after the crash, so I don't think the genre was crippled. People are just more realistic now about the horror audience, how to reach it and expand it.

HW : What do you think of the state of the genre today? Has it recovered?

TT : Sure, it's much beTTer now. We have so many fine writers who are very serious about horror literature, and a lot of indications that the readership is growing again, a new generation of horror fans.

HW : What are your thoughts on the role of the small press in the horror genre?

TT : It has helped enormously, not only in providing new outlets for writers but also in expanding the horror community. As has the Internet.

HW : What advice would you give a young writer trying to launch a career writing horror today?

TT : Write horror, first because you love horror literature, not because you think it's a smart or easy career move. Then, persist.

HW : What's next for Thomas Tessier? Will we have to wait years for another novel from you?

TT : I sure hope not! I'm finishing up a new collection of short fiction and I hope to have the new novel ready for publication late next year.

HW : What should I have asked and didn't? Anything else you'd like to say?

TT : Thank you very much.