Featured Interview With Graham Downs
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Alberton, South Africa, in the province of Gauteng (Well, it was called PWV back then, and formed part of the Transvaal).
I didn’t stray too far from home. After finishing High School, I continued to live in Alberton with my parents for a few years, but quickly became involved in chatting online in IRC channels. It was there that I met my current wife, who was in Cape Town at the time.
What followed was a three year long-distance relationship, with us taking turns to fly to each other every three months or so. At one point, I asked her to move up and live with me. She told me that if I bought a flat, she would.
So I did. I bought a flat in Germiston, which is about fifteen kilometres away from my parents’ house and, true to her word, she moved in with me. We were married about two years later, and the rest is history!
Pets? Well, growing up in my parents’ house, we had lots of pets. At any given point in time, we had two dogs, a cat, fish, and a bird. My wife and I used to have a white-fronted Amazon parrot, but he died about three years ago. We haven’t replaced him. Such is life….
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve ALWAYS had a fascination with books, instilled in me by my mother, who used to read me stories from a very early age. My earliest memory is of her reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss to me. Over and over again.
I was reading on my own by around age six or seven. I loved Enid Blyton, especially The Famous Five and Secret Seven. My dad tried to get me to read The Hardy Boys (by F.W. Dixon), which was what HE grew up on. I never got into that, though.
In my later pre-teen years I discovered Asterix, and proceeded to buy every Asterix comic ever published. I still have fond memories of those early stories, but my tastes have refined a little since then.
I’ve always loved telling stories, and in High School I played a lot of table-top roleplaying, where I always ended up as a Game Master, because I was the best story-teller. I wrote my first book, a gamebook, at around age eleven. It never got published, and I’ve since lost it. Which is a pity, because from what I can remember, it was pretty good!
My first published story came in December 2012. It’s called A Petition to Magic, and it’s a fantasy short story about a new queen, and a wizard who refuses to cast any spells. I never even considered going through the rigmarole of pitching to agents and trying to find a publisher, but when I saw a few of my friends successfully self-publishing their stories, I just HAD to give it a try. I’ve never looked back!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My tastes in reading and writing are quite varied. My favourite traditionally published authors are probably Stephen King and Terry Goodkind, but I also really enjoy Terry Pratchett. On the indie side, whatever I can get my hands on – I’ve been reading a lot of JD Nixon lately, and I read Rebecca Cantrell’s The World Beneath a couple months ago. I thoroughly enjoyed that one!
In terms of my writing, I’ve written fantasy, thriller, young adult, and horror. I think Fantasy and Horror are by far my most favourite genres to WRITE, but I think Fantasy is probably the most difficult, because it involves so much research.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is called Billy’s Zombie. It’s a really short horror story, and I think it falls nicely into the category of literary fiction as well.
It’s about a young boy who is a bit of an outcast, and finds himself constantly the butt of other peoples’ jokes, mockery, and bullying. One day, he decides to exact his revenge on everyone who’s wronged him, which he does by taking a book on Necromancy out of the library, and raising a zombie from the dead.
Because it’s so short, I have decided to make Billy’s Zombie permanently free, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep it that way.
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