Author Interview: Paul Jessup

Listen to the interview here!

Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I'm Paul Jessup, and my writing has appeared, and will be appearing in many venues, including PostScripts, Fantasy Magazine, and Apex Digest. In early spring 2009, PS Publishing is putting out a collection of my short stories called Glass Coffin Girls. I write strange stuff, weird stuff, usually stuff that breaks the molds.

Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
The story is called "A Word Without Ghosts" and it appeared in Fantasy Magazine in April 2008. It's a riff on Peter Pan and the Hare Bride fairy tale and Snow White/Rose Red fairy tale as well as a reversal on sleeping beauty/snow white. Plus all sorts of other weird stuff. It takes in all places and no places at once.

1. Cooling - Tori Amos
2. Maid in Bedlam - New World Renaissance Band
3. My Uncle Dan McCann - Mick Maloney
4. Exit Music (for a film) - Radiohead
5. Bells for Her - Tori Amos
6. Erin's Green Shore - Mick Maloney

What does music mean to you? To your writing?
It's important- I need to listen to music while I write, it sets the tone, pulls me in faster and keeps me going as I plug away at the keyboard. It also makes writing easier- for some reason writing seems much harder when I'm not listening to music. Note, though, I cannot listen while editing. I need complete silence for that.

What kind of music do you like to write to?
All sorts, depending on what I'm writing. The tonal quality of the music needs to reflect the tonal quality of a story. If I'm going to do an Space Opera remix on Kerouac's On the Road, I'm going to pop in Miles Davis's E.S.P. and go to town. If it's going to be a moody surrealistic magical realism story, I usually pick Tori Amos or Nine Inch Nails. If I'm doing horror, it's got to be Aphex Twin or Skinny Puppy. If I'm doing renaissance fantasy it needs to be something like Lord of the Rings soundtrack or New World Renaissance Band.

If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Hmm. Trent Reznor. He did an amazing job with Lost Highways and Natural Born Killers.

Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
The two seem interconnected somehow. In my teenage years I was a musician, and was in the Sonic Youth inspired noise rock band, Recycled Mozart. Somehow, music has always been tied to creativity for me.

To learn more about Paul, visit his website!

Next week, I'll be interviewing author Catherine Schaff-Stump.