Craig Terlson is a wild Canadian Gene Hackman look-alike, a natural-born teacher and gifted writer. A devoted family man who likes talking to strangers online, Craig splits his free time between family, work, writing, and promoting to interact and connect on a deeper level than is comfortable for writers and readers.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to "1 on 1 with Me!"
Life is hectic, and I had to take some time off. Honestly, I knew I needed to slow down the publication of interviews so as not to overload you all…I really slowed it down. So, after a few months’ break, we are back for more Author Interviews.
What are these Author Interviews I speak of? Well, let me tell you. The world can be a pretty bleak place, and I believe the best place to start changing things (beyond yourself) is by investing in your community, and that is where these interviews come from. It’s my mission to create a compassionate and empathetic world where everyone matters. To strive to maintain positivity and gratitude in all we do, defaulting to compassion and always considering motivations. To fight for resolution, resist fear, and embrace love, practicing hospitality and recognizing that expectation is not communication.
So, for those returning, I highlight a new author in this series and engage in a thoughtful conversation about who they are, what they care about, and their perspectives on various topics. I start with standard questions and then move into tailored follow-ups based on their responses. I like it because I find the format conversational and genuinely enjoy it. My primary focus is to highlight the author I am interviewing.
If you are interested in being a guest, please reach out to me on social media or email me with the subject line "Author Interview." This initiative is my way of giving back to the writing community. The guests you’ll hear from in these interviews come from diverse backgrounds and may or may not be familiar voices in the writing community. That’s the beauty of this platform on Substack—it's free!
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Detective Valdez will stop at nothing to bring a killer to justice—even if it means losing a part of himself.
With the informant and his wife dying, the detective is in a race against time. He’s in pursuit of Kade Carradine, the man who murdered the informant in a bid to keep them quiet. Valdez recruits OHP Trooper Barbara Jones, who is eager to redeem herself after Kade steals her police cruiser and causes her suspension.
Meanwhile, Kade finds his back is to a wall, and it’s not just because law enforcement is closing in. After discovering his best friend plans to kill him now that the informant is out of the picture, he changes the game, acting as an agent of chaos in the ensuing power struggle with his crew.
The Dead Make No Markis an ensemble crime drama focusing on what happens after the dead are buried and the police tape has been taken down. The end is just the beginning for Detective Valdez.
On to the interview!
Today’s guest is my mentor and friend (Pen pal?) Craig Terlson is a wild Canadian Gene Hackman look-alike, a natural-born teacher and gifted writer. A devoted family man who likes talking to strangers online, Craig splits his free time between family, work, writing, and promoting to interact and connect on a deeper level than is comfortable for writers and readers. He truly cares about the people he “speaks” with and what they think, and I could think of no better guest than him to re-launch Author Interviews…maybe I’ll call this season 2.
Craig is a committed storyteller with six or seven novels under his belt. His most well-known ones are the Luke Fischer series, featuring an ex-pat Canuck who denies he is a detective, even when people keep hiring him as one. The fourth book in the series, Sayulita Sucker, was released this last spring (this is where I tell you how terrible I am for putting a lot of these interviews off—some will have some dating issues. I haven’t changed any of the interviews—I have ethics!—but I will note if I missed a deadline.
Also, you can find him here at (Craig Terlson Talks Story), where he talks about writing and publishes the odd excerpt.
Who are you and can you tell me a little about your work? What drives you? What do you hope to accomplish?
What drives me is story, as a reader, as a writer, and most of all as a human. Stories are how we learn about life. I am grateful to be a storyteller, and even more to be a reader. There are authors, and certain books that have changed the way I see the world, even more so, changed the way I think. My goals have changed over the years, especially lately. I’ve been exploring something about myself, and the world I live in—and I’m doing it by writing fiction.
How do you see your relationship with the reader?
I’ve often been accused of telling writers to be kind to the reader. This was a revelation for me, and it took me around ten years to understand it. Early in my writing, I thought obfuscation and vagueness were central to writing work “that mattered.” I laugh, and sometimes cringe, at that belief I once held. If I’m not writing something that is of interest to the reader, then language and complicated structure is not going to make it better. For more on this, read George Saunders. He is deceptively simple in his language and storytelling.
How do you view your characters? What has changed over time, and what has stayed the same? How do you develop complex characters?
If I’m true to a character—which already sounds way too “woo woo mystical”—then I just need to listen and to attend. Maybe I’ve always been a bit of a student of the human condition, or something. Sorry, I read too much philosophy. But central to character creation is asking myself if they are real. Are their emotions real? Are their actions and motivations real? I guess it touches on Hemingway’s Bullshit Detector. And complex characters? Well, those are the realest of all.
What is your version of success? Has it changed during your writing journey? How so? What’s different now versus when you started?
Fucked if I know is the first answer. It has changed so much. The very first query I sent out, years ago, the agent requested an exclusive, and I figured… okay, here we go. Then I began to understand how publishing works.
Success for me is now as simple as being read. The last few years, I’ve gained a lot more readers. I’m deeply grateful for this. I listen to my readers, both in their reviews, or convos I have with some of them. It goes back to that reader/writer relationship thing. It is a dance, and I understand that now more than I ever have before.
What type of reader are you? How do you view books you read, and how do they affect you and your writing?
I read a wide variety of books (he says, avoiding the word genre.) I’ve always been a voracious reader, my sisters would say they rarely saw me without a book in my hand. I’ve ripped through sci-fi, fantasy, historical, non-fiction essays, theology and philosophy, and oh yeah, crime fiction. I read a lot of that now. I never used to. I read, to quote Francine Prose, like a writer. I’m analyzing all the time, I can’t help it. But there are times when a book takes off for me, and all I can do is marvel at it and enjoy the ride.
How do you find readers? What works and hasn’t worked for you? What resonates with you when readers share thoughts about your work? And where do you see yourself in the writing community and publishing world?
Social media, notably the platform run by that jerkward, has been the number one way I have found readers. I’ve dipped my toe, and my wallet, into different promotional campaigns. Some have been more successful than others. Some have been kind of useless (like Amazon ads, which I never do anymore.) I keep trying stuff, it’s all part of getting the work out there and being read. Anyone doing it knows how hard it is, no matter what form you are published in.
I’ve been completely blown away by readers who see influences in my work that I thought no one would notice. Or even better, when they compare me to someone I’ve heard of, but never read. A case in point here is Charles Willeford. More than a few readers pointed out some similarities in my work to his, so I needed to finally read him. When I did, it was a surreal experience. I have never felt such a kinship with another writer as Willeford. I’m not saying that our lives were similar, I never enlisted in the army, rode the rails as a hobo, or participated in Cockfighting. (Oh stop it, go look it up.) But damn. I felt like he did exactly what I’m trying to do. It’s hard to articulate really, just something I feel deeply.
In the writing community, it seems like a more people know of me now. Maybe as that weird Canadian guy with the quirky sense of humour and love of denim jackets. I dunno. Recently I held my first ever writing clinic (online). The class filled up fast, and was a complete blast. This was also hugely encouraging to me. Not to say I didn’t still fight the imposter syndrome that so many of us do.
—Please provide a brief blurb about yourself, and feel free to promote your recent book or work.
Hmm. Well, I remain a committed storyteller, with six or seven novels under my belt. I’m not being coy, I can never remember the number. My most well-known ones are the Luke Fischer series, featuring an ex-pat Canuck who denies he is a detective, even when people keep hiring him as one. The fourth book in the series, Sayulita Sucker, is almost finished and I hope to have it out this spring. I also have a substack (Craig Terlson Talks Story) where I talk about writing, and publish the odd excerpt.
—Tell me something interesting about yourself that these questions stimulated thought about. And tell me something you want others to know.
Whenever I stop to analyze my work in an interview like this, I wonder if I come off as pompous or arrogant. Don’t get me wrong, I had a river of arrogance flow through me in my 20s and 30s. That and an ego the size of Montana allowed me to take certain risks that I’m not sure I could do any more. Those who know me well, understand my obsessive personality, and how I will completely talk someone’s ear off about stuff I’ve been learning. (Hey, ask me about Samurai culture or the hidden history of LSD.) But hopefully my passion also emerges. I couldn’t imagine my life without reading, and most days, without writing.
What is the source of your love for fiction, and how do your studies and readings of authors like George Saunders impact and reward you? Ever since I was a kid, I’ve read everything. It’s like my brain can’t get enough, I’m forever thirsty. My parents would often find me in the basement pouring over a set of encyclopedias, spread out on the floor (they were our internet then – the best part being, “see also…”). Certain writers have fueled this deep curiosity about, sigh, the human condition. It sounds cheeseball, but that’s what it is. My favourite writers have made me see deeper into what makes us us. And the ones who change the way I think. The list is short, DeLillo is on it, as is Flannery O’Connor. Saunders might be at the top of the list. He writes about what it means to be human. Add Jennifer Egan to the list, because she is one of our finest living writers.
Craft has played a significant role in our conversations and relationship. You have generously taught me and others for many years. What inspires your love of teaching? Additionally, how do you think craft is being applied to current fiction, both positively and negatively?
I’ll be honest, for years I was the most reluctant of teachers. But people kept asking me to do it. At times the love of teaching was selfish, as I learned more than any of the students. Now that I’ve taught so many things (drawing, painting, fashion illustration, design, writing), I’m finally getting used to the idea that I’m pretty good at it. I still learn a lot doing it.
The role of craft goes back to curiosity, with not a small amount of obsession. I need to know stuff. I mean, I REALLY need to know. I spent two and half decades learning how to paint watercolour. Sometimes art is tedious, I won’t sugarcoat that. But the reward is the work continues to improve. I brought that mindset along when I started to write. I’ll be honest, there are writers who don’t care about craft—and even resist the notion that writing can be taught, or good God, that there might be some rules. I always say those rules can be broken but should be learned first. At the risk of making me a target, those who don’t work on the craft, it shows. And at the same time, I’ve met those who deeply love the craft—that also shows. I’ll wait for your emails.
Speaking of ego, why do writers feel compelled to tell certain stories? Where does this desire originate, and how does it influence culture?
I don’t think it’s ego. Well, for some, maybe. A poet I know said something I’ve never forgot. She said, “I write myself into the world.” As if the act of writing is what allows her to exist as a person. Sure, it’s high-minded stuff. But I dig it. I’m compelled to write certain stories, because I’m trying to figure out the world, and where I fit. That may seem odd coming from a guy who writes a lot of crime fiction. But I’ve noted, and hopefully my readers have as well, more and more of that humanity stuff is seeping into the work. How can it not? Oh, and culture? I want to say again, “how can it not?” We are a people of story. For millennia it’s how we’ve learned.
Your writing journey has inspired many because it reflects reality. Why do you keep writing? Why do you continue to read? What do you hope to achieve or learn?
To be honest, this makes me blush. I would be deeply honoured if what I do has inspired anyone. Authenticity is very important to me. It’s perhaps why I started as a literary writer. But even “literary” is a bullshit genre term. Stories are stories, and we are moved and changed by them. Not every story… but the good ones.
The follow up questions could be answered in the same way. I keep writing to learn about myself and the world. Same goes for why I read. I’m a slow reader, but I remember like a motherfucker. Why would I want to rip through books that writers spent month or even years on? Someone said that writing is the only thing they do where (in the midst of it) they never feel like they should be doing something else. This speaks of the creative essence that fires my soul. There is nothing else I do (well, perhaps loving my family), that feeds me like writing.
It took me a long time to understand what you meant by being kind to the reader. In some ways, I was being too kind, even to the point of being condescending by over-explaining. What exactly does this concept mean, and where does it originate? Who taught you about it? How can a writer effectively develop and implement this skill? This question is a great example of why writing is so bloody hard. I’ve called writing a novel the longest chess game—not in that you must think many moves ahead, but the intensity of thought, emotion, and focus that it requires. So yes, being kind to the reader is forever grounding them in the story. I know I learned that from Vonnegut. I made the mistake of thinking that cleverness, and obfuscation, was the path to being a great literary writer. I was wrong. From Vonnegut (rule 8): Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. Other writers have taught me this, and how hiding things from the reader is being unkind, and often is more a sign of the writer’s insecurity that the story is not strong enough without keeping things hidden, (To heck with suspense.) But the challenge, and you allude to it, is what happens when we are “too kind.” By that, I mean not giving the reader enough credit for being smart. Lately, I’ve been saying: allow the reader into the story: Reader, you are smart, I admire that, so we have a contract for me to respect your intelligence. I don’t need to tell you everything, because when you figure things out, it will be a richer experience.
A lot of this I know came from George Saunders. So it’s about balance. Yeah, right, Craig… how do we do that? It comes down to asking two seemingly simple questions when we write something: why this story, and is it true? This requires courage. Again, it’s what Hemingway meant by the bullshit-detector. It’s what’s meant by that adage, “writing is easy, just open up a vein and bleed.” It also requires good editors, and readers who will give it to you straight. I have been blessed with both.
Mark Atley is an author known for writing crime fiction. His works include "Too Late to Say Goodbye," "Trouble Weighs a Ton," and "The Olympian." Atley has been recognized for his storytelling through complex characters, engaging dialogue, and narratives centered around crime themes. He is also a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW).
Mark Atley fiction is often characterized by complex characters, engaging dialogue, and narratives that build tension towards explosive climaxes. Atley's approach to writing often involves creating intricate plots where characters' histories and motives are deeply interwoven, providing readers with both entertainment and a commentary on crime and morality. Mark Atley also engages with his audience through social media, where he can be followed for updates on new releases and insights into his writing process.
If you are interested in being a guest, please reach out to Mark on social media or email with the subject line: Author Interview.
Just wanted to drop in and say "Hi" to two excellent writers whose stories are always great reads.
An insufferable hack, even if he does look like a bizarro Harry Moseby who got his life together