Ashley Lister is a prolific writer of fiction across a broad range of genres, having written more
than fifty full length titles and over a hundred short stories. He is the co-host of Blackpool's Pub Poets and a regular participant (and occasional winner) in their monthly Haiku Death Match.Aside from regularly blogging about writing, Ashley also teaches creative writing in the North West of England. He has recently completed a PhD in creative writing where he looked at the relationship between plot and genre in short fiction.
1. Tell us three things about yourself.
1)
I own the two cutest dogs in the world. This is Oswald and Dee. Dee
is sticking out her tongue in this photo. Oswald is looking fed up
with Dee’s flippant shenanigans.
2)
I’ve got a PhD in creative writing. I wrote a thesis that looks at
the relationship between plot and genre in short fiction.
3)
I’ve written a book called Blackstone Towers, a horror
novel, and I think it’s awesome.
2.
Many writers have said the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown have
made it harder for them to create. Have you found this? Has the
outbreak affected you as a writer and if so, how?
Perhaps
we should call it ‘Writer’s Blockdown’? I will admit it hit me
hard.
Lockdown
gave me a lot of free time. I was able to work from home in the day
job, you can still deliver lectures online, but I had free time
because I wasn’t traveling to work, or going to the gym, or walking
the dogs very much, or doing any socialising.
But
I didn’t have the enthusiasm to do any original writing.
Then
I had the idea to self-publish some of my back catalogue. I hadn’t
done much in the way of self-publishing previously. I’ve usually
worked with established publishing houses, but rights had reverted to
me on a handful of titles so I thought I would see what the
experience was like. Once I’d finished revising and uploading the
previously published titles, I wondered if I should try to release a
novel that I hadn’t yet placed with a publisher.
I
surveyed my Facebook friends to establish the most effective title
for the book and that’s how I come to be here, today, talking about
Blackstone Towers.
3.
What was the first thing you had published?
When
I was eight, I had a poem published in a school magazine. Not only
was the poem dreadful (rhyming ‘boy’ and ‘toy’) but I seem to
recall it was also plagiarised. After that, when I was in my early
teens, I had a letter published in the British comic Bullet,
and they managed to change my surname from LISTER to LISTEN. After
that my first success as an adult writer came when I wrote an erotic
story for the adult magazine Forum.
4.
Which piece of writing are you proudest of?
I’m
torn between two choices here. Part of me wants to say my PhD thesis,
which can be found at this link. It embodies research from four and a half years of my life, includes
a variety of original short stories in a range of genres, as well as
my supported arguments for the difference between the semantic and
syntactic aspects of genre.
However,
another part of me wants to talk about my poetry. During lockdown I
managed to put a lot of my poetry into a single collection (Old
People Sex and other highly offensive poems), and I like that
book because I know it makes readers laugh. My late father was a
stand-up comedian and it’s always been an ambition of mine to
entertain an audience in a similar way to him, so I think this book
would have made him proud.
This
is the opening stanza from the title poem of that collection:
Granny pulled on her surgical stockings
She put her false teeth
in the glass
She took the Tena pad out of her panties
And
said, “Grandpa, could you please f**k my ass?”
5.
…and which makes you cringe?
There
is a trilogy of erotic stories that I wrote a few years ago.
If
I found a genie in a bottle, and I was granted three wishes, rather
than doing something nice like removing illness and disease from the
world or establishing a fairer balance of economic distribution, I’d
ask the genie to remove each of those books.
6.
What’s a normal writing day like?
When
writer’s blockdown isn’t happening, I have a fairly rigid
schedule. I get up at five and go to the gym for an hour. When I get
back I breakfast, shower, shave and dress. A couple of days a week I
go onto the campus and deliver lectures on creative writing and other
English-related subjects. This completes my nine-to-five.
On
the days when I’m not lecturing, I’ll spend a couple of hours
writing from nine to eleven, walk the dogs, and then spend the
afternoon either working on edits, researching, blogging or immersing
myself in other tangentially related writing projects.
I’m
very lucky in that I can spend so much of my time immersed in writing
and stories.
7.
What work of yours would you recommend for people on lockdown and in
need of a
good book?
My
horror novel Blackstone Towers is due out on August 22nd.
I’m very pleased with this one because it contains ghosts, zombies,
daemons and lots of background supernatural elements. I think it was
Toni Morrison who said, “If there's a book that you want to read,
but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Blackstone
Towers is the book I wanted to read that I had to write.
This
is the blurb from the back of the book.
The
talismans of the magi control seven realms of the mortal world. One
can grant the bearer immortality; another gives its owner
unfathomable wealth; a third gives the holder unerring foresight.
There is a talisman to control reality, success, the deliberate and
the accidental, and a talisman that governs the balance between love
and hate.
The
planets are now aligning, and one worldly resident of Blackstone
Towers knows the talismans urgently need collecting and destroying
before they fall into the wrong hands.
The
only problem is establishing whose hands are the wrong ones.
8.
What are you working on now?
I’m
about to embark on a blog tour to promote Blackstone Towers,
with dates and locations below. [Ed: the blog tour's now complete, but why not check it out anyway? :) ]
My
next project is going to be a series of horror novels, each one set
around the same fictional university. There’ll be a Lovecraftian
theme to all of the stories because I’ve recently been binging my
way through the Herbert West – Reanimator stories and they have a
definite allure that I think is always overshadowed by the Cthulhu
mythos.
On
top of that, I’m planning to spend a little downtime reading The
Feast of All Souls because it looks like it’s going to be a
delightful read. [Ed: Aw, shucks - thank you!]
Thank
you for inviting me to visit your blog today. It’s been a genuine
pleasure.
