AMoRaR Interview – Douglas Lumsden

A Month of Rain and Reads Interviews4 months ago12 min readAdd comment

Welcome to A Month of Rain and Reads, a celebration of self-published and indie SFF throughout the entire month of November. To find out how you can take part and view the whole list of content, visit our introduction post.

Today, we share an interview with Douglas Lumsden, author of the Alexander Southerland series and new Shade the Collector series.

Describe yourself like you would a character in one of your books.

Douglas (Doug) Lumsden slid his black fedora over his hairless scalp and pulled the brim down to his bushy gray eyebrows. He stared at his computer screen with eyes the color of the ocean under a noon sun and stroked his gray-white beard as he considered the next steps his protagonist needed to take in order to extricate himself from his latest deadly predicament. He popped a chocolate-covered pecan into his mouth as ideas crowded into his mind, competing to be a part of the story. Confident to the point of arrogance, he knew the ideas would always flow, and that it was simply a matter of choosing the right one for the situation. He wondered how it was that such a mellow, stable, and peace-loving person like himself could put his characters through so much stress, violence, and heartbreak. His childhood had been relatively trauma-free, his life mostly happy, and, at 73 years old, he was healthy enough to run at least 13 miles a week (admittedly a little more slowly than he used to). He’d always had good friends, and his current marriage was the stuff of silly-sweet storybooks. Yet, since childhood he’d always been drawn to books featuring dark fantasy, noir crime, and sardonic political thrillers. Maybe it was the contrast to his own life that appealed to him. He pondered that possibility before deciding that the why didn’t matter. That’s just the way it was, and he was content.

Our theme for November is A Month of Rain & Reads. Do you subscribe to the idea of curling up with a good book while the rain pours down outside. What book would you read? Would you bring tea and a blanket? What would make the moment perfect?

Is there a better time for a book than when it’s raining buckets outside? I’m a mood reader, so I don’t know what book I’d choose until I scrolled through some titles and waited for one of them to say, “This is the one!” I’m a tea drinker, so that would be a given. Probably rooibos with gingerbread syrup sweetener and almond milk made from my Almond Cow milk maker. Plenty of dark-chocolate-covered pecans, too. No blanket, though. Just my well-worn desk chair. What would make it perfect? My wife, Rita, likes to read to me, and that’s pretty sweet.

What else do you want our readers to know about you?

I’m a retired schoolteacher with a Ph.D. in Medieval European History. I started writing after I retired because it’s tons of fun and I needed something worthwhile to do now that I was no longer working. I live on the California Central Coast, which is the best place on earth. In addition to writing and reading, I love watching crime dramas, especially ones produced in English-speaking countries outside the U.S. Jack Irish, Mystery Road, Luther, and Happy Valley rule!

Why did you decide to self-publish, and what has been your biggest success so far?

I wrote my first novel when I was 67, and I had no desire to wait five or ten years (or forever) for a publishing company to pick it up. Also, I bristled at the idea of anyone telling me what to write and giving me deadlines. I’ll write what I want and publish it when I feel like it, thank you very much. Turns out, I love the process of self-publishing! It’s extremely satisfying. I even enjoy marketing my work, although I’m not very good at it. My best-selling book to date is my first: A Troll Walks into a Bar. My biggest success, in terms of which book I enjoyed writing and reading most, is always my most recently written story. So, until I finish my current one, my most successful book is In Deep Coprolite, which I’m extremely proud of.

What is your favourite thing about being an indie author?

The independence. The freedom to write whatever I want, whenever I want to write it. The idea that my work is my own and not the product of a content factory. I have an insatiable ego, and I absolutely love it when readers react in a positive way to my stories. Oddly, I even take a great deal of pleasure in negative reviews and comments. Just the idea that people have read and responded to my work is immensely gratifying.

Your Alexander Southerland series begins with A Troll Walks into a Bar. Other books in the series also feature names that sound like a pun. Where did you get these book names from?

Years ago, I attended a Halloween party. I wanted a quick and easy costume that could be made from things I already owned, and Rita suggested that I tape a cardboard tube covered in foil to my forehead and go as A Man Who Walked into a Bar. When I found myself writing about a troll walking into a bar, the title pretty much wrote itself. My second book began with a witch walking into a P.I.’s office, and A Witch Steps into My Office was a no-brainer. After that, I was stuck with a format: Supernatural Character, Verb of Motion, preposition article, and Location or Object. Sometimes it’s a struggle: I really, really wanted to call my third book The Scream of the Sihuanaba, but, ultimately, I decided to continue with my template, and I changed the title to A Hag Rises from the Abyss. Probably for the best.

What do you enjoy most about the urban fantasy genre? What do you write that feels different?

That’s a great question! As a kid, I loved fairy tales (the unadulterated ones kids weren’t supposed to read). Then I read Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes when I was 10 or 12 or so, and it woke something up in me. Dark fantasy has always resonated with me, and putting it in a contemporary context makes it more immediate. What do I enjoy most? I’m not sure. Maybe the idea that reality is larger and more mysterious than it appears on the surface. Maybe the idea that magic makes anything possible. I don’t know that I do anything terribly different with my stories from what other writers do. I merge noir crime with urban fantasy, but I’m hardly the only one who has ever done this. I try to keep things real: injuries hurt and have consequences; too much snark makes you an unlikeable asshole; getting falling-down drunk is not glamorous. Romances in my books, when they occur, are down-to-earth: no middle-school-level will-they-or-won’t-they teasing–it’s ubiquitous and I hate it (unless it’s handled exceptionally well, you know, the way Tru Skies does it). In my books, they either do it or they don’t, and the details are mostly implied rather than explicit (as opposed to my violence).

Both your Alexander Southerland series and your new Shade the Collector series feature shifters. What do you find fascinating about these types of characters?

I am UTTERLY fascinated by the idea of blurring the distinction between human and beast. Humans are just another kind of animal, and, while we humans like to think that our brains operate at a higher level, that’s certainly not always the case. When I was a kid, my friends and I would sometimes fantasize about what kind of animal we would like to be. One of my friends preferred strong animals, like bears and elephants. Another friend wanted to be an eagle. I always wanted to be a leopard or a cheetah, because they were fast. The idea of being more than human was very appealing to us.

What themes are important to you, and how are they reflected in your writing?

My characters tend to be interested in the idea of justice in the sense of receiving or paying what is owed, of balancing accounts. They (like us) live communally in an existential universe, that is, a universe with no inherent meaning or purpose, where people must create their own reasons for continuing, and where they are free to find meaning and purpose for themselves. You will never be able to convince me that “Everything happens for a reason,” or that “There are no coincidences.” We aren’t actors following a script in a play leading inevitably toward a happy ending. As thinking human beings living in communities with other human beings, we are responsible for our own thoughts and actions, and for our impact on our neighbors. I hope that my stories reflect these ideas.

What are you working on next? Can you tease us?

I’m currently working on Book 3 of my Shade the Collector series, which doesn’t have a title yet. Benedict Shade is still trying to find Kodoyanpe the Earthmaker, who is believed to be imprisoned in some sort of artifact. It’s basically the Holy Grail for collectors of exotic magical items. Shade, a shapeshifter who transforms into 12 black cats, will encounter a creepy necromancer (is there any other kind?) and find out just how much power can be generated by the dead.

And a few quick questions. What’s your favourite…

…book, in recent times?

So many! Of the books I’ve read in the past three months, I’ll go with Dark Drinker (Gunmetal Gods #4) by Zamil Akhtar. I’m a HUGE fan of his Gunmetal Gods series, which takes place in a fantasy version of the 15th- and 16th-century Ottoman Empire.

…writing advice?

The best writing advice I’ve ever heard is to write the story you want to read.

…advice for someone who wants to publish their own book?

Do it! But do it because you love writing, and don’t expect to make any money. If you don’t love writing, find something else to do.

…source of inspiration?

I don’t know–life? For immediate inspiration, I go outside. Something about being outside jumpstarts my creative juices.

Do you have any last words? Any shoutouts to authors who have supported you or whose books have inspired you?

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Assaph Mehr, author of the fantastic Togas, Daggers, and Magic series: urban fantasy set in an alternate version of Ancient Rome in which everything the Romans believed (such as the existence of gods and magic) is real. When I wrote A Troll Walks into a Bar, I figured only a few friends and relatives would read it. I ran into Assaph on Instagram where I complimented him on his book, Murder in Absentia. He read Troll and convinced me that I had the makings of a series. He’s beta-read all my books sense, and his advice and support have been invaluable.

I want to give a big shoutout to my wife, Rita, who is a constant source of support and encouragement. She reads all my work out loud to me while I read over her shoulder, and we edit the manuscript together. I mean, how cool is that?

About the Author

My parents raised me right. Any mistakes I made were my own. Hopefully, I learned from them.

I earned a doctorate in medieval European history at the University of California Santa Barbara. Go Gauchos! I taught world history at a couple of colleges before settling into a private college prep high school in Monterey. After I retired, I began to write an urban fantasy series featuring hardboiled private eye Alexander Southerland as he cruises through the mean streets of Yerba City and interacts with trolls, femme fatales, shapeshifters, witches, and corrupt city officials.

I am happily married to my wife, Rita. The two of us can be found most days pounding the pavement in our running shoes. Rita listens to all of my ideas and reads all of my work. Her advice is beyond value. In return, I make her coffee. It’s a pretty sweet deal. We have two cats named Cinderella and Prince who are happy to stay indoors. They demand that we tell them how pretty they are.