Interview | Paul Jessup

Paul Jessup is the author of the 'Found Journal' style Werewolves (which we loved on Un:Bound) aswell as a number of other short stories and novels. I am delighted to welcome Paul to Un:Bound to be harassed and prodded about his writing and other things. 


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H: Starting with the fantastic Werewolves, it's an unusual presentation, what drove the style of the book?


PJ: We wanted to do something similar to other found journals that were very art heavy. Like Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book, or Fairies by Brian Froud, or Zombies*. We knew it was to be the perfect size for a coffee table style book, we knew we wanted it to look like a real journal, and we knew that it was to be illustration heavy.

All this stuff had to be thought out long before a single word was written. It dictated the voice of the character, how much to describe and what to leave for the art, etc. It was a delicate balancing act, but a lot of fun to write.

H: So this is different from your other books, tell me something about those?

PJ: The older books are a bit more experimental. Both of them are shorter books, and with the shorter stuff I tend to go crazy. You can't really do that with longer works, it doesn't hold up as well and gets kind of annoying and stupid after awhile. But for shorts? It can be fun and wild and lets me push boundries I normally can't.

The first book I ever got published was Open Your Eyes by Apex Books. It's a novella (very very short for one as well) and I went completely nuts with it. It's a space opera of sorts. But I didn't want to be confined to what those words currently mean to most people. I wanted to do just the opposite. So instead of Hard SF, it became dream like and surreal, with touches of magical realism.

The second book was a collection of stories by the great and amazing PS Publishing. Called Glass Coffin Girls, it basically takes a bunch of stuff from folk lore and fairy tales and then mixes them up in a modern setting, usually involving horror and surrealism. It's a lot like Kelly Link's stuff, or Robert Aickman's short stories, or Angela Carter.  They were huge influences on the style, theme and content for the stories in this book.

H: Glass Coffin Girls sounds awesome. So you like working in a relatively short form?
What about it appeals so much?

PJ: Yes, even my novels are on the shorter side (60-70,000 words versus most fantasy/sf books were it's like over 120,000 monstrous beast). I like shorter works, always have. I don't see the need for big gigantic doorstop novels that the industry has latched onto. I prefer works that are quick, character driven and emotionally complex. And I think most larger novels focus on size and being OMG EPIC than on the humanity of their characters and what makes them interesting.

H: So what captures your imagination most in reading or writing a story?

PJ: The characters!  I love a great character. Well, characters, and really cool ideas. The weirder the idea, the better. I love reading a great imagination, and I get totally in awe of cool, creative, weird and off the wall ideas. Characters are paramount above even that, though. 

H: Cool, and back to werewolves, how do you see them? people with fur or snarling beasts or something in between?

PJ: I see them as being something in between. Sort of like a struggle between beast and human, and with me I think the beast can be far more human than the human side. Even with it's snarling and murderous nature. There is something primal about it that we all struggle with in a way, and the werewolf is a great way to talk about this. To discuss this struggle of what we think we are (as humans) and what we actually are (as animals who have evolved past the need to recognize ourselves as animals). And of course, under all this is the animal nature of murder, sex and mayhem. All good stuff.

H: Ok so for fun, because we like fun, if you could be any kind of supernatural what would you be and why?

PJ: Hm. That's a tough one.  My first impulse is to say some sort of shape shifter of some sort, but it's hard to settle on just on animal. Maybe something a bit more nebulous? I'd like to be a combination were-bear, were-fox, werewolf thing. Maybe I could go old school, and have special belts made from the fur of each, and then don a belt and change into whatever I want?

Either that or a space robot* or one of those cannibal giants from the book of enoch. Cause cannibal giants? They is teh cool.

*Space robots are supernatural. I swear. Esp ones with laser eyes.

H: lmao laser eyes huh?

Ok, favourite childhood book and why?

PJ: Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Saw There. I didn't even have to think about that answer, that one was easy :) I'm not sure why I loved it so much as a kid. But I did. I think I re-read it more times than I could count, and I make an effort to re-read it once a year even to this day (and sometimes more than that). I've actually got more copies of this book than I care for, and yet I can't stop buying more copies if there is a new shiny edition out I don't have.

Maybe it's the whimsy? The play on words, and yet the very serious undertone of leaving childhood behind? I don't know. I just remember the book making me terrified, sad and howling with laughter all at the same time. And I still have the Jabborwocky memorised. Was the first poem I'd ever committed to memory.

H: In which case, to finish off I was going to ask where be dragons, but perhaps where be jabberwock? 

PJ: Probably over there, by the Lake near my house? I guess there are lake things living in it. Poor knock offs of the giant sea serpents of old. It is a great lake after all (or so they tell me), so maybe it houses something else great? Dragons and Jabberwocks. I need to get me a vorpal blade. I can sit around saying snicker snack for as long as I like, but without the vorpal blade it's just a hollow threat.

Huge thanks to Paul to spending some time with me.