Episode 10: Pulp Modern Interview

October 30, 2021

The Writers Triangle

00:00 / 01:01:18

Hello Cinnabar Moths or any kind of mtoh you’d like to be. Welcome to The Writers Triangle, Cinnabar Moth’s podcast about all things publishing and books. Today we are here with Alec, how’re you doing today?

Oh, I’m okay, I got a bit of an earache. But other than that I’m doing pretty good.

I’m glad to hear that you’re doing well, I’m sorry about the ear ache. Hopefully that passes by quickly. So you are part of Pulp Modern, you are the owner of Pulp Modern. And looking at your website and your submission guidelines, it states absolutely no subject is taboo. What made you decide to take that approach to welcome all stories?

Well, I’m a writer first, like most people in indie publishing. And I mean, I’m in indie publishing because I want to write things that might be distasteful to the mainstream. And that’s fine. That’s not a complaint on my part. That’s just the way things are. And I put that – I put that in the guidelines, because I frequently see in a lot of literary, whether it’s pulp or literary fiction, in their guidelines, they say, you know, no violence against women, no racism, no hurting animals, etc, etc. And I feel like, well, you know, what, what, if you want to, like, let’s say, what if Nabakov was submitting Lolita to a publisher today, and they have those guidelines. We would be deprived of Lolita.

Right.

So I think that that’s, that’s like a controversial aspect of Pulp Modern that’s gotten us into trouble with us, you know, people who think they’re gatekeepers in publishing. And I think they don’t understand or, or maybe they don’t want to understand, if somebody sends me a story that is blatantly glorifying, let’s say, violence against animals. I’m not going to publish it. Of course. What what I’m saying to writers is, express what needs to be expressed. If, if we can’t explore dangerous topics in fiction, how are we going to deal with these problems in the real world? So that’s, that’s all that really means. What I just don’t – I see so many of these these stipulations for lack of a better word in in various guidelines. And I just want to say, you know, send the story over. If it’s distasteful to me, it won’t get in the magazine. It’s, that’s simple, you know?

Yeah.

So that’s all it is. I really, I really want to make it clear at – at Pulp Modern, we want to see fiction from everybody. I want to hear all the voices that we have not heard because, because of the traditional gatekeepers in publishing. I want to hear those voices at Pulp Modner and my my publishing imprint, Uncle B Publications, I am looking for – to publish books by writers that, you know, like, when you’re writing about the streets in America, the mainstream cannot deal with the truth. But I can. So send it, send it over to me.

So you’re goal in of all this is, instead of being a gatekeeper, you want to be someone who’s opening the gates to allow these types of topics to be broached, and to be talked about and enter into the discourse, rather than hiding it away as if it’s something shameful.

You know, well, in an intelligent and thoughtful way, I, I get – I’ll tell you, I get it doesn’t happen as much anymore, but when I – Pulp Modern has been around for 10 years now. And in the beginning, I would always get about three or four stories by guys who obviously haven’t gotten over their personal quarrels with women. And they write about awful horrible things happening to women and it’s, they do it in such a way it’s obvious that they’re getting some kind of thrill out of it. And I didn’t want to write back and lecture them. We’re all adults. You know, I didn’t want to say you know this nobody’s gonna want to read this you know, go, go see a psychologist figure out what it is you’re having issues with. You know, because it’ll make you a better writer if you can get over that you got these these stupid vendettas which is what these guys are doing. You know, so I just – I would reject the story and that would be that. You know, I – that’s not, that’s not approaching anything in a thoughtful way what they’re doing.

Yeah.

You know, good, really good fiction makes us have conversations and hopefully advances the species in a in a spiritual way, you know, and by spiritual I don’t mean any kind of religion, I just mean makes us better people overall.

Yeah. I totally agree with that concept of using fiction as a means to talk about and broach subjects and open, a thoughtful discourse that allows people to break into break away from the kind of very restricted don’t talk about anything. system that’s kind of happening in the modern day about a lot of different topics. And that avoidance of conversation often leads to unhealthier thoughts going unchallenged. And also some healthier concepts not being approached or even necessarily discovered, because people aren’t getting the opportunity to talk about it. And so I think it’s wonderful that you’re providing that opportunity. You mentioned that you have a press where you’re publishing books, as well as that you that transfers into the next question of you have a digest as well as offering print along with the E copies, and you’re doing a great job with both, but it’s still quite a bit of work. Where’s the inspiration motivation come from to do both sides?

Well, that’s an excellent question. Because I I can’t really answer that this has been a labor of love. For like I said, 10 years now I, I start I got into the indie scene are a particular part of the same, there’s no one scene we should make that clear. There’s lots of different writing communities or whatnot. But the the basic one, the crime fiction, one that I sort of became known in. I got it at around, oh, seven, or Oh, eight. And then I started all due respect, in 2010. And then quickly handed that off to Chris Ratigan to take care of when I started Paul modern. And I learned very quickly that there’s no, at least at the time, there’s no profit in it. And I, I just kept I don’t know why I kept doing it. People every time I said I’m going to stop people who write me and say you can’t stop, we don’t have anywhere to send our stories. So I think as a writer, I just I understand that need for markets. And the the indie scene went through a very dark period in the mid part of the last decade. So thug lit, I’m sure you’re familiar with thug lit. They, they they stopped publishing around I think 16 2016 and all the almost all the the journals and presses that were around when I first came into the scene, almost all of them were gone. There was nowhere to send stories, except for pulp monitor. For I think we kept it alive for about two years. Two crucial years. And I was ready to quit after what’s now known as volume one issue 10. And I did quit for about a year. And then I, I asked Richard Krause, who he runs a thing digests called the the digest enthusiast, and he had interviewed me in one of his magazines, and I was looking at the magazine and I thought, my God, this, this guy is brilliant. Let me see if he’ll be willing to come on and do work on pull modern with me so that I can focus on other things. And he can just put it together and make it consistent looking journal from issue to issue. And I think the results are great. I’m, I’m very I boast a lot about postmodern because I have very little to do with it. You know, yeah, I know, some, you know, we’ll probably talk about this. But it really has to do with the the writers and the art director and the illustrators, they make it a great product at my job is insanely easy now.

It’s always nice having a reliable team that can bring things together in a very beautiful and cohesive way. And so you’ve reached out to other people, and brought them in on to the potter the postmodern and you’ve taken a very collaborative approach, similar to how we have our I guess we’re similar to you because you predate us when it comes to taking cloud approach for publishing. And we’re lucky that you’re one of the that we’re one of the publishing houses that you’re collaborating with. I know was it easy for you to take this club approach in an industry that tends to have these kind of gatekeeping personalities and this kind of more Pepto approach at times?

Yeah, again, it’s an interesting question. I have not felt that there was any cutthroat activity until recently. People came after postmodern and tried to basically what we sometimes say cancel it. And they did so on entirely. False grounds. They said, it’s some sort of excuses of misogyny, which, if you’ve read any, you know, and I told them, I said, show me show me where it is. Show me the misogyny Of course they can. But it doesn’t matter today. You all you have to do on social media is make the accusation. It’s like Salem, you just say, oh, you know, like, if you catch your neighbors sleeping with your wife, you go to the tribunal, and you say, Oh, my, my neighbor, my wife, I think they’re witches. And that’s that. Yeah, there doesn’t have to be any nuanced discussion or anything. And the reason that they did it as they want, in the old days, like, let’s say, let’s talk about with musicians, like blues musicians, if there’s a great guitar player in your town, and you think you’re a better guitar player, you go. And you cut heads, right? You get up on stage, and you see who’s the better guitar player. But that’s not what’s happening today. What they want to do is they just want to slander and libel your publication and move it out of the way that way. So they don’t have to do the work, the real work that’s necessary to be a true competitor. I never initially I never thought of any other magazine as a competitor, thug lit was struggling, it was its own thing. Needle was needle, it was its own thing, the great beat to a pulp. That was its own thing. But I guess there’s a new a new batch of writers who think that they really need to just get rid of competition. And it could it could be nice. Yeah, I could be naive. This could be could have been what’s been going on the whole time. And I just didn’t see it. I it just got so graphic over the last year and a half. That that I finally noticed it. But I don’t know why. I’ve rambled here a little bit. What was the original question?

As just was it is it easy taking clever approach in an industry that can be a little bit cutthroat at times? Or? Yeah, quite a bit sometimes.

Yeah. Well, let me yeah, let me do the favor and actually answer your question. I will say that the cutthroat stuff aside, collaborative, working together with with people who have a like mind. And that doesn’t mean you think the same it just means we kind of we see the same destination. Yeah. I can’t think why you wouldn’t do that. Since I asked Richard Krause to be the art director. The the difference between volume one and Volume Two of postmodern, it’s like, and the writers in Volume One were great. It’s not the story. It’s not the quality of the stories. But I was doing everything. And I’m not a professional graphic artist. And so those issues look like they’re put together by a high school staff. Nothing wrong with nothing against high school staffers. But you know what I’m saying like it’s yeah, very immature is now with Richard Krause. And with with illustrators, and everything, we have a product that looks as good and I think better than the pulp journals that are on the newsstands. And that’s because of collaboration. And I’m a former I very briefly, I played minor league football when I was in my 20s. And I learned there because I’m a traditionally I’m an individualist I really believe in the power of the individual. But when I played football, I kind of learned Oh, you know, there are times in life where you do need a team to accomplish something. And I think that in publishing, that’s true, I think the the more people you have working, and that you’re collaborating with as long as you’re all as long as y’all get along and everything, you’re bound to create something much better than any of you could as individuals.

Yeah, we definitely agree with cinnabar moth we agree with your philosophy that the individual can do a lot and the individuals very powerful, but many individuals coming together for like a goal and working towards that. Create something more beautiful than just one person could truly, really matter. themselves. And that requires building a team that works well and fits well together, and requires quite a bit of planning and organization. And so we had several off, we took about six years of planning, to plan it out and to build our team. How long did it take for you to fully conceptualize postmodern from start of concepts to creation? Uh,

well, I would say, if I were being fully honest, I would say, seven, six years, because I, you know, had the idea right away, and I just, I’m the kind of person I just launched into it. I’m ready. You know, as soon as I have the idea, I’m ready to go. Which is not always a good thing. And so we had that volume one, where if you look at every issue is an experiment. And it took it really took me to say, You know what, I need help on this to create a consistently good journal. So yeah, I would say six, six years, that’s about the same that you guys said.

Six years is perhaps a magic number. The

magic? No, that’s right. Yeah.

So you have any new issues coming out that you could tell us about what we can expect with Pokemon, you mentioned that it initially was a bit more experimental has become more consistent, and has evolved in a lot of ways. And so what’s coming down the pipe that you might like, or be able to share with us?

Well, the the issue that is due any day now is the 10th anniversary issue. And so I asked, I normally don’t do a theme anymore. There was a period where I did a theme during volume one that was one of the many experiments, but for the 10th anniversary, so let’s go back to the year 2011. Because I’m sure you know, like, it was radically different. The world was radically different in 2011, which is hard to believe. Some reason, right? It’s only it’s technically it’s only 10 years ago. Now, if I think between 2011 and 2001. It doesn’t seem like that much of a change. But, of course, we’ve just had so many bizarre things going on the last 10 years COVID itself, you know, it feels like if you think about 2019 That feels like it was 10 years ago.

It really does. Yeah, so

So I told the writers that, you know, 2011 should have something to do with your stories. And so we have, we have a nice mix of stories that in one way or another are related to something that happened in 2005. I think a couple of writers just threw some 2011 stuff in there, which is fine. You know, if it ultimately if the if the story is good, I’m not going to turn it away. And then of course, and we have Edward Granger, that’s the writing. One of the the names that David crammer writes under and David Cranmer is the founder of beat to a pulp. He’s kind of like my mentor in this whole thing. Like he’s who I spoke with back in 2010 and 2011, when I was putting all these things together. And he had a he has a character called Cash Laramie, who’s a it’s an old western martial. And he had a story in the first very first issue of Paul modern in 2011. So we brought him back for another cash Laramie story in this upcoming issue, and it’s exciting. Yeah, Anthony Perconti. He started doing nonfiction articles for us. And here’s an article about Walter Mosley in this issue. And we as I always discover I don’t like I’m not I’m not discovering them like discovering a star or anything but I’m always learning about new writers in this in this job and every issue there’s one or two writers that I was previously unfamiliar with and this time around one of those writers is woman named Karen Harrington who she accomplishes with her writing one of my personal I don’t know what you’d call it the things I want to see in a good story. She writes really good clean prose. Not not like free of profanity, but but like the prose itself is just very well crafted. And so your your your I just, it I always compare it to like slicing through warm butter with a knife you know, it just your eye just goes right through that prose and she’s a really good writer and she takes off the the So and then I’m looking forward to that. And of course, Rand Scott is our Illustrator. And as usual, he’s he’s coming up with I think like, you know, the Mac magazine Heavy Metal, I think this guy should be drawing for heavy metal. He’s, he’s just that good. In fact, this is kind of a secret. But it doesn’t need to be a secret. I actually, and I never told RAM this, but I sent a letter of recommendation to heavy metal on his behalf, I just I sent them a letter, I said, You got to hire this guy. I hope it doesn’t get him in trouble. Because, you know, some people will, they’ll take offense to that, they’ll be like, ah, nobody tells us who to hire. But he’s such a good illustrator, I just thought I, I got to help this guy get, you know, bigger and better work. So. So that’s, that’s what we got to look forward to. And then later this year, we have an issue because we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary. Year that for some reason is very meaningful to me is 1981. And so we just got those stories in the 1981 theme stories. And so that I haven’t, I haven’t even started going through those yet. But I’m looking forward to it. So that’s, that’s what’s on the horizon. And, and I’ll really, I’ll just kind of reveal here, buy in 2022, we’re going to do some different things with Paul modern, because it’s, it’s just time to, you know, mix it up a little bit. So it’s gonna be a little bit different in the future.

Okay, so that’s, that’ll be an exciting thing for everybody who’s been falling postmodern to see what new things come out and for new followers of postmodern to experience, this change and this evolution into an a new port modern again, and hopefully you things will continue to evolve in a way that people are able to connect with, and they’ve connected so far, and I’m sure they will continue to do so.

I hope so.

And you mentioned going back to talking about the stories that you really enjoy clean prose, for writing. And that’s one of the things that you look for in a story. What are some other things that make up the perfect pulp modern story? If you could describe one?

Yeah, um, yeah, it’s funny, I’m, I’m a very fickle reader. I do like clean, clean prose is one of the best ways to get my attention. And want to, you know, just to clarify a little bit, one thing, one of the marks of clean prose is we don’t see a lot of needless repetition of words and phrases, that tells me that the writer has really done their revision work. That’s, that’s a really technical thing. I’ll tell you that the to two things that are really important to get a story on my radar. One is, you absolutely have to get to the plot, quickly. Because we are we are dealing with short stories with Pulp Fiction. And I get a lot of stories where the writer sets up, sets the stage for about 10 pages. Well, in a 5000 word, story, you know, that’s a 5000 words, double spaced is about 20 pages. So you’ve used half your story for the setup. That means that means the things that really need to be attended to which is the the resolution of the conflict, which is what the story is really about. You only have half the story to do that. And so I try I really try to encourage writers to you have back story information stuff that that we need to know. You can you can bring that in later. It’s called backfilling. You know, it’s the story should start as close to the conflict as possible. In fact, I have a story that tells me the conflict, the first sentence, I’m always I’m riveted right there. I’m like, this writer really knows what they’re doing now. I’m sure there are people that will argue with me on that literary writers, I’m sure are horrified. Which is fine literary. I think I think of literary fiction as a genre. And it’s a different kind of genre. Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s a genre where you, you have a lot more freedom in terms of how you tell the story. We don’t have that in Pulp Fiction. We are we are telling the story of the old cave painting of the you know, the the caveman hunting the the the mammoth, right? Yeah, like we got to get right to it. We don’t want to know what the caveman had for breakfast. We don’t know that. Whereas literary fiction might tell you that like that might be more important to literary fiction that’s getting a little bit off there. But that’s, that’s that’s one thing that, you know, if your story is just struggling to get to the conflict, you’re gonna be in trouble with me as an editor. The other thing is, you hear all the time, there are no new ideas. In terms of story structure, that might be true, because I’ve really, I’m someone that’s really tried to experiment with story structure. And it seems like the harder I try to veer away from story structure, the more stubborn and persistent story structure is sneak into the story. Yes. It’s, it’s weird, our brains are just, they’re wired for a certain kind of story structure. But you can have new ideas, you can have new concepts. And so something just something a little bit original, is going to be necessary. And, you know, when we talk about traditionally unheard voices, those writers have a bit of an advantage, if they’re sending it to me, because the chances are, they can bring in something I’m not familiar with. And I’ll just, I’ll think, Oh, this is unique, that will really help them. So in the in the new issue of POP mode, and the one coming out, a writer named I think her name is Sarah Cabano, I hope I didn’t mess that up. She has a kind of a monster story. And it’s from the point of view of a woman with her baby in an abandoned bus station. And just all those elements just for me, they just came together and really held my attention. And then of course, it’s a monster story. I like Monster stories. So she had an original monster. So that’s it, I really, there’s no set formula at the end of the day. And the way that I reached I just read stories over and over again, I have a folder where I keep them. And then gradually, by the fourth or fifth time, I’ve read that I start to see which stories are really sticking with me and which ones are not really holding my attention. And that’s how that’s how the process of elimination starts.

Same process for you is isn’t you just read it once you know you view the story, revisit it, and kind of see how your feelings for the story evolve over time.

For the most part, now that there’s some stories, I had to take a drink, there’s some stories that

I can tell right away, it’s not going to work. Here’s something I’ve seen in recent years, I don’t know why this is happening. I’ll get stories by writers who will try to write a character from another country who has an accent who speaks English with an accent, they will try to write that accent. And I’m a firm believer in just letting the reader figure that out. And letting the reader have the accent in their head. Like, if you tell me this guy’s come from Spain. I already know as a reader, he probably speaks with a little bit of an accent. Yeah. So you don’t need to. It’s really weird to me. And I see that. And again, I don’t want to lecture another adult, what to do with their lives. I don’t want to tell them what to do. So I just quietly rejected. I mean, that’s a really some people might think that’s that’s fickle, or whatever. But I

think that that’s very reasonable say, hey, we don’t need to be so kind of ham fisted about this. We can allow the reader to fill in some of the gaps here. And just, we can just express it with a couple words and then let the reader figure out what that means to them, and just how their mental voice that character evolves and develops.

Right. Well and and then I mean, that’s that’s a lesser crime. I mean, there’s, you know, writers if I if I detect something that’s that’s just blatantly offensive, because you have, unfortunately, with this whole free speech thing you have the issue appears to have been taken over by the right and in some cases, the far right. And they, a lot of them, I don’t want to make any generalizations, but a lot of them feel like battling on behalf of free speech means being intentionally offensive. Well, that’s not to me that’s not productive, then you’re not accomplishing anything there other than you it’s it’s that’s like, the former guy as everybody calls him now, his tweets where he’s clearly just trying to make people angry. Yeah. I don’t mind fiction that makes people angry if it makes them angry for a reason.

The reason is just to make people angry. That’s not a reason,

right? Yeah, but there’s no reason to do that. Or well, actually, somebody could argue with me on that. But me personally, I’m not interested in somebody shouting, you know, offensive stuff just just to get a rise out of somebody like, like, why are you saying that? The it kind of goes back to Kubrick saying, I’m also a filmmaker, and Stanley Kubrick’s my favorite director. And he said, he said that a successful film should have both form and function. And I believe that about all art. So it’s, it’s entertaining, but it also, it’s, it’s having a conversation with the audience about life in some way. Some people might call me pretentious, and that’s fine. But But I really do, I just feel like if you’re, if you’re just being offensive to be offensive, I don’t think that it’s, it’s worth anybody’s time. And so if I, if I detect that right away, that story’s gonna be rejected, of course, really poor writing. Or if it’s obvious that the writer has not edited or revise their work, I will notice that right away. And I’ve gotten to the point where I can, I can read the first three pages of a story. And I know whether or not this is something I need to consider.

I think that’s good having that experience, especially when you’re getting a lot of submissions, being able to sort through them quickly and kind of figured out, okay, these are ones I’m going to consider again, and I’ll revisit, but these ones, I’m good, they don’t quite fit with my image and my beliefs regarding how writing should function. And I think that having your beliefs is, is good, and helps to create a consistent profile for postmodern that is quite successful. As you’ve seen, you’ve been around for a long time and survived through times that other places have shut down for a myriad of reasons. And that success is borne in part due to your standards and the work that you’ve put in to make sure that the stories fit in and are good. And so I think that, that looks and represents very well. And then following up on that, you mentioned that the length for the story is about 5000 words, on the long end, if I recall correctly, it’s roughly 3000 5000 words is the length that you’ve chosen? And how do you decide on that length for the stories that you’d like to say?

Well, I think that a short, if you’re going to call something a short story, you really, you really don’t want to go over 5000 words. Now, we know there are always exceptions. But once you go over 5000 words, you’re starting to wander into what I consider novelette territory. That’s that’s up to 10,000 words. And then of course, after that you’re in novella territory, etc. We want we want short stories. And honestly, I I find kind of a real sweet spot for short stories about 3500 words, not because the thing about a short story is your your basic the skeleton of the story should be very simple shot very simple conflict. And very, it should be very simple situation, you should think in terms the way that a like a low budget filmmaker thinks they don’t. They don’t think they’re going to have lots of different locations and, you know, hundreds of different actors and whatnot. It’s usually it’s like night living dead. It’s like six actors in a house. And, and your short story should kind of be the size should be you should keep it simple. That’s a, I have a coin from Alcoholics Anonymous, it says Keep It Simple, right? As a writer, I keep that over my desk, to remind me, you know, it’s the best way to to hold the reader’s attention is to not bombard them with too much like with fantasy and science fiction. We know there’s world building and whatnot, that goes on. So for a short story, you got to keep that simple. You know, give give us a little bit of the world get us into that world with the conflict and resolve the conflict. So I just that’s just comes from experience, I really think about 3500 words 35 to 45 really the right amount. But you know, there’s always exceptions.

Yeah, I think there’s always going to be times when someone amazes us on thing outside of what you would normally expect, or think of as the ideal. And that’s wonderful, right? We love to see people bring something new. And that amazes us.

Yeah, that’s true. And I would just like to interject there you were talking about beliefs about writing. And it’s true, I do stick to my beliefs about writing. But I don’t want anyone, any writer listening to think that my beliefs in general cannot be challenged or questioned. I really welcome that. I love stories that forced me to reconsider my opinions or my beliefs, even if it doesn’t change my mind. I love the

effort. Yeah, I think that goes back to what you said earlier in the interview, when you’re talking about sections should be in some form, or at least have a discourse or a topic that is discussed, or opens the discussion for, and that allows you if the discussion is comes from a different angle than white dangle that you come from, to be able to have that kind of consideration involved?

Yeah, we really, I think our culture here, at least in the West, I don’t know about the rest of the world, I think we’ve really lost sight of the fact that everybody has a different life experience. And we really need to, like, before, somebody says something that that doesn’t jive with what you believe we right away, we jump to, ah, it’s offensive for How dare you say that or whatever, or you’re, you’re an idiot, blah, blah, we need to stop. And remember, we need to communicate some more and learn why why does that other person think that way? You know, and usually you talk to somebody after a while, you’ll realize oh, they’re, I see why they think that way. I don’t agree with them. But I see why they think that way.

Yeah. And there’s always that room where you can be respectful that the person’s view while holding your own.

Yeah, I, I wonder, you know, I really don’t know what’s happened if it’s socially. The writer that I know named Andrew Miller said, it’s it’s social media, social media has disrupted the way human beings communicate, and not in a particularly good way. And I don’t know what if that’s true, but if it is, I don’t know what the route back to or, or the route onward, to a more enlightened way of communicating is.

I think that things like this, where we have discussions and a bit more of a long form can help people to see us and get a deeper view into who we are. And for example, you being able to express your views on writing and fiction and have people kind of get a peek behind the curtain because it’s really hard to get more than a bite sized samples on with just social media. And so I think things like this help. And I think, of course, having being open to these discussions and expressing openness helps to bring people in that were willing to do it. Now, of course, there’s always going to be people who aren’t necessarily interested or may not have the emotional space or energy necessary to come to the discussions, but some people may even despite that, read it and be able to enjoy the discussion from afar. I think that having these opportunities is really, really wonderful. And part of that is due to social medias reach as well. So it kind of has a positive and a negative effect in different ways. And we just kind of work our way through it is my take on it?

Yeah, well, I hope that I hope that happens. I hope we I hope social media itself evolves.

And so moving on to the next question for you is, you mentioned before, that you have superb graphics designers and workers, who do amazing work for post modern, and we loved the issues and the art in them. And do you have a list of artists that you’re like, yes, these are the wonderful people. And I always rely on them. And I know I can always rely on them to get a job that you would like to perhaps talk about?

Yeah, I’ve Well, I’ve mentioned two of them a couple times already. Richard Kraus, Richard Krause should be working in big time publishing. The fact that he’s not, of course, is criminal, but you know, that we know lots of people like that who do great work and, you know, they don’t get the accolades that they should. Him Rand Scott, our Illustrator, we’re working with a new illustrator, named I think Melo Guerra, and I hope I didn’t mess up his last name. He’s Italian. He’s very good artist. I have a web person that I work with, who was genius. It’s another person who should be making millions of dollars doing this and is not, you know, just to put it in, I guess, capitalist terms, you know? It’s because it’d be nice, you know if these these great artists, these great people, if they could quit their day jobs and do what they’re clearly meant to do you know what they are clearly put on this earth to do. Richard Kraus like I said, I think this guy is a genius. What he does with independent publishing is it’s mind boggling. I, you know, I? Why isn’t he Why isn’t he designing Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazine? It’s, it baffles me. So I definitely do have that that list. And, yeah, I, you know, to, to anyone who’s listening, who is thinking I’d like to start a digest. First of all, you’re always welcome to because writers always need places to send their work, but really take to heart what we’ve been talking about with regards to collaboration and teams and all that. Don’t try to do it by yourself. It’s much, much more rewarding to work with a group of people.

We definitely agree. And we also have some artists that I’d like to give a quick shout out to we hire. There’s a site that we go to called Nibley, where we hire artists, for our books, cover artists, we absolutely love the work of Ivan Zahn, not about kovich I hope I didn’t get that name. Wrong. And Fay, Constance, and all of them are wonderful artists that we’ve worked with. And we really enjoyed working with them. And part of the process that is most pleasurable for us and working with artists and working with authors experiencing their creativity and also, in some ways, giving them the opportunity for the creativity to come out and be viewed by the world. But what do you love most about the process with working with these creative and talented people?

I just love that they, they have someplace where they their work can be displayed. I, I would be remiss real quick if I didn’t mention to Janae who is designing the majority of our book covers at Uncle V publications. She’s another person that’s a genius, just a genius. And but I like I really like when he like I said each issue when I discover those one or two writers I haven’t heard of before. And they’re really good. It’s exciting. I think I’m sure since you’ve you’ve participated in this process, you know, like, you know, when you’re when you get ready to introduce other people to a writer that you know, is good, it’s exciting. It’s it’s like it’s just, it’s you know, it’s like the I don’t know how old you are. But when I was in high school, I was in high school in the 80s. And when you had to, in order to alternative music back then was really alternative and then it was not on the radio, you had to go to the record store. Yeah, and, and flip through the records and look for the obscure bands. And you know, I would, uh, even though I’m not good with graphic arts, I’m a big graphic arts person. So I would often get an album based on the cover, and everything is that that’s real hit or miss. So when I would discover a band that was unbelievable, I just couldn’t wait to share it with my friends at school. You know, it’s, it’s that kind of feeling.

I also feel similar excitement, just sitting on I’m 27. So a little bit round for the 80s. But I do understand what you’re talking about with the excitement of sharing the these people that you’ve discovered, or this or the bands that you discovered in high school, because I think about the authors that were that we’re publishing currently and have plans to publish in the future. And it’s just so amazing to be able to be like, the books coming out. People are gonna read this, we’re bringing people the opportunity to read the story that we were excited and loved and enjoyed. And have that moment and that experience of also experiencing the author’s excitement when their book is being published and their enthusiasm during the process. It’s all very, very wonderful and inspiring. And I think it’s probably one of the most rewarding aspects of the job.

Yeah. Hey, let me let me interject here. So us older folks, oftentimes we we tend to chastise the younger generation for music and everything and but the truth is Not much has changed. And you probably know this, if you want to find a great band, you have to go looking for it. Yeah. Because even the the main, most of the mainstream music in the 80s is kind of nonsense. That’s always the case, the the, the mainstream people who produce music and books and movies and all, they have a financial risk that we that, you know, independence that we don’t have. And they, they can’t take tremendous risks on something that might not sell millions of copies. And so I just because, you know, it seemed like I was bragging a little bit about going to the record store, but today, you know, you just, you go on ReverbNation or Bandcamp, or something and search around, you’ll find this great music, the unmade you know, somebody in a garage in Kansas, right now is recording of the greatest rock album ever. The same with indie publishing, you know, it’s, it’s it for people who want to experience something really different and new. You have to go the indie route, you have to and it’s, you know, it’s again, it’s not a slam on mainstream. I really wish I could write a mainstream book. But that’s just not who I am. And that’s okay. It’s okay. You know, sometimes people think that’s, that’s whining or complaints not whining, or complaints. Just it’s an objective fact. Yeah. The mainstream and independents are different. And that’s good.

Yeah, it opens up the possibility for books that don’t necessarily fit into one or the other to find a place in the one they fit into. And I, he didn’t sound to me just just seen Aiden sounds to me, like you’re bragging about going to the record store. I understand even in the more modern way you’d use the internet and look in places even on YouTube still, right? There’s these small channels that people don’t really know about, maybe got only 100 views. And no back then, that might have been a lot. I don’t know. But nowadays at the end, it’s like, okay, 100 views? Basically nobody knows about it.

That’s true. Yeah. Unfortunately,

yeah. And it’d be great if all these people could be discovered. And so having the places where maybe the less known can have their work be taken in and then shown to other people and shared. And then there’s also places for things that fit into a more, I don’t want to say standard, but the more mainstream, as you mentioned, mainstream form. And those are different forms, right? They’re different genres in a way, even if it’s the same. Even if it’s same fantasy fiction, there’s still differences that make it fit better in one category or the other.

Right. Right. And I applaud, I applaud anybody who can write a book that shows up in the drugstore. Man, I think really, every writer is secretly dreams of that, at least at least every genre writer does. Right. You know, I grew up listening to the, the song Paperback Writer by The Beatles, that was my, that was my goal. I love these these old paperback books, I wanted to have a book in, in, you know, in the airport, newspaper stand, but it’s, that’s, that’s a sensibility to to write that kind of something that that the the, you know, the businessman who’s taking a trip across the country, he’s just gonna grab it really doesn’t want his life complicated by a book. Right and, and to write that book is a is a tremendous skill. So I really have to make that clear, because I get accused every now and then of whining, I’m not whining. i These these are Objective observations.

And you mentioned before that you have a wonderful web designer on your team. Do you have multiple web designers or is it just the is he working alone? Or

it’s a it’s one person it’s an it’s a she and I call her my secret weapon? Because she makes she makes she makes million dollar websites. There’s no other way to say like see, she she has made us some incredible websites. I don’t want anybody to steal her from me right now. That’s why keeping her top secret, but most people can probably figure out who it is. But again, she should be she should be working for Microsoft or something. It’s It’s It’s unbelievable. I just don’t know how the all this talent falls through the cracks. I don’t get it.

But I think it’s wonderful and lucky that you managed to find her. And

yes, yes, it is. That’s right. It’s, I should look at the silver lining.

And so, for postmodern you have, you do have a gorgeous website, and we are totally amazed by as cinnabar moth is beautiful. And both, did you have her on the team initially? Or did you discover her after the launch of pulp modern? And if you didn’t find her until after what part was most challenging when you didn’t have that access to your secret weapon?

Well, the part that was most challenging was that my, my website looked like absolute garbage. I had a before I had a, what’s it called blogspot, a blogger, whatever they call it, you know, with just the guidelines, which I felt was enough at the time. But this person came to me and said, you know, you if you really want to sell your books, you’re going to have to work on your presentation. And she’s she’s absolutely right. And that’s, uh, that’s, that’s how that happened. I mean, this, this is, this is all very recent stuff. That website is very new. And yeah, it’s exciting, because it’s, like I said, you know, you have to, you have to you have to re up every now and then with what you’re doing. Make it I guess it’s like a marriage, you know, you have to have to add a little spice every now and then. And this these websites, have, they’ve reinvigorated me they’ve retuned my, my interest in putting out great products. So

I think that’s, that’s amazing that it’s also invigorating you as well, in this process.

Yeah, well, it’s, you know, what someone else is excited about. You know, again, it’s another member of the team, and they, they, they see the, the end the finish line, or whatever, they see the horizon you’re traveling toward, and they get it. That’s what’s really important. Everybody that works on the team. Like I said, we’re not clones. But we do kind of have the same interests, like my web person. Just like me, she’s just constantly overflowing with ideas, which is a little bit dangerous. Because you can, you can get to a place where you don’t get anything done, because you’re constantly working on a new idea. But from that, that kind of mutual character trait, we can really we can communicate well, and accomplish things which is important.

And that helps to your ability to accomplish things. And your ability to create new ideas helps you to keep Pope modern, very dynamic, and very active and change in ways that allow people to see evolutions very clearly. And I think that’s amazing. And I think also that you’ve worked hard from what we can see us and Ramallah, we worked hard. And you seem to be working hard to build a sense of community, not only on the publishing side of things, but also for authors. And I think you’ve gone into a bit already, but could you dive a little bit deeper into why that community building is so important for you?

Yeah, well, it’s tricky. Community, that’s a word that can, it has a great meaning and it can also have very dangerous meaning when when community becomes a kind of a hive mind, then then you have problems because what’s going to happen is there’s not going to be any progress, right? Things get stagnant when everybody is exactly on the same page. You need you need some people who are looking a few pages ahead and also taking some cues from a few pages back, you know, to figure out what you’re going to do on the current page and hopefully, I killed that metaphor completely. But um, you know, community is, is it’s interesting writing. Writing fiction is a solitary activity, it’s a solitary sport, you have to ultimately sit down and do the you the writer, you have to sit down and spend many hours working on a manuscript. So the it’s it’s almost a bit of a contradiction that there’s a writing community. Most mostly what I see with the writing community, at least on social media, for the most part is a lot of encouragement. You have like this very famous guy Gabino Yglesias, who is always posting inspirational things on Twitter to writers and you can do this right? No matter what’s happening in your life, you can get up today and right, just go do it. And I think that’s good. I think that’s that kind of encouragement is a good thing. But like I said, you every now and then you get gatekeepers? Who can dis? Disrupt? And even halt? Progress? I don’t know, I, I think community works if you have the right people involved. And I think that all those people have to be supportive of each other, regardless of whether or not they have personal differences. You know, what I’m saying? Like,

you might have disagreements about the exact details of of your philosophies, but being able to support each other and be like, Hey, I think you can do what you’re going to do. And I think that, like, it’ll be awesome, what you put out? I may not agree with it, but put in the effort put in that work anyway. Yeah,

they’re really something I’d like to see more of is a kind of a live and let live. Because we have we do have some people in the writing community who want to define exactly, for instance, what crime fiction is, well, that the moment you define something, you’ve kind of ruined it. There’s no, there’s no room to experiment to grow. And I’ve seen I’ve seen writers get attacked for what they write and get told, they can’t write that. I think that’s, that’s not productive. You know, so I would just say, community is good. Just make sure everybody’s getting along.

Yeah, we definitely agree with that. People do need to get along for a community to really work well together. But we also want to avoid, you know, making sure everybody fits into a specific mold. And that’s the hive mind you’re talking about kind of falling into the groupthink trap and away. Right. And so with that, and talking about, you know, talking about gatekeeping, and trying to avoid that and talking about your philosophies regarding writing and fiction, and wanting a place for people to have a home for their work with Pope modern, is there one thing within all these great things that you’ve talked about? That if you could choose that Pope modern to be known for is the one thing that you could pick?

Well, yeah, I would, I would, I hope that people will always remember that that postmodern bulldozed right through all the the lols in the moments where the indie scene was going to die, postmodern chugged along and made sure that that there was a place to send stories until a new crop of magazines came up. That’s because I’m, I’m not making any money with pop modern, and so that the reward has to be that you know, that we were there for writers.

And that’s a very beautiful message too, and beautiful desire for volt modern, have it be a place where people can find a home, even when everything else seems to be kind of falling apart in the scene, when there’s not really any other place we can go, we can always rely on this kind of pillar and the community to keep things and to provide a place for people to go to. And so,

and, and provide a place where if, if you write a story, and you’re you think, Oh, I’m a little bit embarrassed about this, I don’t think anybody will publish it. You know, I don’t I don’t publish smart or anything. But if there’s some value to it, if you think like you didn’t sit down and write it, you know, there must have been a reason you wrote it. And rather than be ashamed of it, send it to Paul modern and you know, at worst will be ashamed right along with you.

So, on that note, thank you, Alec, for talking with me today and being on the writers triangle.

No, no problem. I love it.

And it was wonderful having you and thank you to all of our beautiful moms for listening today. And so Alec, can you tell the people where to find you and everything put modern

Well, you can go to pulp modern.net. And that is the main pulp modern site. Of course, we have a flash fiction site that’s Polt, modern flash calm. That’s, that’s, uh, why don’t we go to that I’m Uncle B publications.com. And I would say, look for us on Twitter, but I’ll be honest with you, I am trying to figure out a way to leave Twitter to do what I do without having to use Twitter, I find it very toxic. So. So, yes, I just, I don’t want to lead anybody to the Twitter sites, and then suddenly it’s gone. You know.

That’s understandable. But for all of you listening, be sure to check out postmoderns beautiful website. And be sure to visit cinnabar moth.com to check out the transcripts. And we will also have all of the links that Alec just mentioned available for you to find there. Alec once again, thank you for coming on and talking each day. It’s been wonderful having you. Well, thanks for having me. And I hope you have a good night. Goodbye. All right. Thank

you