Recently I was able to interview author Rob Graham…Rob describes himself as a romantic heretic. Indeed, he travels a path few male authors venture…that of an erotic romance writer.
LS: How long have you been writing and when did you have your first release? Where and when?
RG: I’ve been writing just a little over of three years now. My first release was In The Dark, an anthology of vampire stories I’ve written. It was released by Aspen Mountain Press in February 2007. They feature my favourite character to date, Georges Belleveau. It’s a lot of fun chronicling his adventures.
LS: Do you have a writing routine? What is it? GH: Sad to say, no. I don’t have a writing routine. I am trying to learn one though. Mostly I write when the muse moves me.
LS: Do you have a “day” job? or are you able to write full time?
RG: No day job. I can’t work anymore. Rather I can work, but most jobs consist of things that don’t have much to do with work. That’s where I have the problems. Sigh. So I guess I’m a ‘full time writer’. LS: Who inspired you and how? RG: My first inspiration was from hanging out at the Author’s Hangout at Literotica. I wasn’t an author and set about fixing that with a story called Fatima. That story by the way will be released in an upcoming anthology from Aspen Mountain Press with the title Gillian’s Place. My single greatest inspiration is probably Colleen Thomas. She was a person I knew over at the Author’s Hangout. A wonderful writer and a very sweet, strong and intelligent person. I say ‘knew’ as we lost her last year to a heart attack. She was thirty-six. I keep her in my heart and hope that my work pleases her whereever her soul rests.
LS: Where is home? Have you lived your entire life in one place?
RG: I live in Toronto, Canada. I’ve pretty much lived my whole life here. It’s a lovely city. I like being in one place. My family moved at least once a year the first decade of my life and I got really sick of being rootless.
LS: What genre do you write in? Is there one you’d like to try? What is it?
RG: I’ll write just about anything.
LS: What was the most memorable, positive experience of your life?
RG: It’s not the sort of thing a gentleman talks about. *wink* I’ll extend my thanks once again to the beautiful woman I shared it with though. LS: What was the toughest thing you had to go through and how did you manage?
RG: Going insane was a hard thing to do. I ended up in a very dark place for a long time. I handled it by removing myself from the stresses of my life, making sure I took my medication properly and taking a long look at myself to decide who I was and what I wanted.
LS: In The Dark is a special book to you. Can you tell my readers about how this book came to be?
RG: The best way to describe this book is that it accreted, grew over the space of a year. I had read a couple of Colleen Thomas’ stories, Latin and Latin Ch. 02. I found the main character quite interesting and rather revolting, a woman who was falling into evil because of the hurt she’d suffered at the hands of others. She’d discovered power through sorcery and was misusing it. That sparked something in me. “What,” I wondered, “would happen if she encountered something truly powerful and evil?” The first truly powerful and evil thing I could think of was a vampire. I started wondering what a conflict between Colleen’s character and a vampire would be like. In the process I created Georges Belleveau, a vampire, and he grew into something more than just your standard bloodsucking creature of the night. He became, in many ways, an avatar of humanity. Someone with power and dark wants. Unlike most people, he’s aware of this and works very hard not to act on them. He became a perfect foil for Mandy, Colleen’s character, who isn’t aware of how she’s falling and wouldn’t care if it was pointed out to her. She loves her power and what it allows her to do. Eventually the story became Abyss, one of the pieces that comprise In The Dark. I asked Colleen if I could use her characters in my story and she graciously agreed. When I finished it, she loved it! I was very pleased. I entered Abyss in the Literotica Halloween 2005 Contest. To my great surprise it won! A good trick with over 160 entries and some by very fine writers.
That was when I first started to think about getting published. After Abyss I picked up another vampire story that had been sitting on my hard drive and rewrote it so that Georges was the central character. Then I wondered what happened after Abyss, and I got the story Embrace out of it. After that came the story You Can’t Go Home Again, which covered events after Embrace. All these stories ended up on Literotica and all were well received.
Then, one evening, I was on a chat at Realms Of Love. Cyn was there and she said that her company, Aspen Mountain Press, was looking for vampire stories. I directed her to my work at Literotica. I got to work polishing them up for publication and put together In The Dark.
She must have liked it as I got the contract the day after I sent the manuscript in. *wink* The rest is history. In The Dark is the best selling of my work to date and has received glowing reviews. How it affected me is that all these events have really done wonders for my self confidence as a writer. LS: Some one or the other questions:
Coke or Pepsi products - Thanks, but no.
Julia Roberts or Kim Basinger - Uhm, no thanks.
CSI or Bones - Never seen either. I don’t watch TV. Movies or Theater - I like theatre, but it’s too expensive for me to go to often.
Rocky Horror Picture Show or Reservoir Dogs - Both.
Nicole Kidman or Drew Barrymore - Nicole Kidman. Mmmmmm.
Spain or France - France.
Leonardo deCaprio or Mark Wahlberg - Uh, straight guy here.
Florida or California - France
The Eagles or The Beach Boys - Elvis Costello
