Featured Interview With Kyle M Scott
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in a small town called Bellshill, just outside the city of Glasgow…
One of those small industrial towns that seemed to sort of rot away in the wake of Scotlands failing steel industry. The town consisted of a main street, (two shops and a couple of pigions), a small but wonderful cinema called ‘The George’, (where I spent a great deal of my free time watching such unheralded classics as Condor-man and Flash Gordon), and a couple of schools that annually pumped out a whole host of misfits, reprobates and rebels. I was one of the rebels.
I was raised in a working class family, and grew up in the late seventies and into the eighties, when music was abysmal and horror cinema was masterful.
They were great times. The shine of childhood blinded me to the economic woes of the day, of course, but there were few families that didn’t feel the post-Thatcher meltdown in some way. As for me and my one sibling, a brother, the world was one of movies and imagination.
I stayed in the same town until my mid-twenties, playing in a number of psychedelic bands, before moving to Manchester to write and direct Theater.
Eventually I moved back to Scotland, Glasgow, and have resided there ever since.
The people are incredible. Insane…but incredible.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books came rather late in my development. I always had a problem with authority in my youth, and I had a somewhat elergic reaction to being forced to read material that didn’t gel with my passions, being horror and science fiction. It was my love of cinema that led me to the written word – namely the fact that when the James Caan and Kathy Bates starring adaptation of Stephen Kings Misery was released, I couldn’t go and see the damn thing. There was no internet back then, of course, so it was either a case of, ‘death by anticipation’, or read the book. I found the novel in a local newsagents and the fella sold me it, no questions asked.
I was riveted from the very start. The depth of character. The insights into motivations. The detail with which the whole thing bristled. I had, at that point, my moment of clarity, and realized that cinema, as brilliant as it was and is, was no match for the written word. I read all of Kings early works back then…I couldn’t get enough of them. It was around the age of fourteen that I first began writing. We were asked at school to hand in a short story – around four pages or so – and by the time mines was completed it was three schoolbooks long, and violent as hell.
I handed it in but, alas, it wasn’t the roaring success I had imagined.
Stephen King didn’t bother calling, and hot older women were nowhere to be seen.
Not much has changed actually.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
For many years my favourite author has been the late, great Richard Laymon. In many ways it was his work that not only inspired me to dive far deeper into the genre and it’s darker, underground roots, but to begin writing altogether.
The first time I read Laymon’s work I was disgusted…not by the content, but by the style of writing. I’d read little else besides King, Koontz and Herbert at that time, and was far more used to writers who took a great deal of time describing the full spectrum of characters thought/feelings and spend an equal amount of time on describing locations, objects, appearances and so on. When I read Laymon, I found his work to be almost childish. I tossed the book aside and went back to my well trodden genre mainstays…the book wouldn’t leave my thoughts, though, and eventually I picked it up and read it from the start, all the way through….I’d never read a book as fast OR one as vivid. I was in the world, (The book was called The Woods Are Dark and it’s highly recommended).
With Laymon, a few sentences would give birth to fully formed characters and situations. It’s highly intelligent and expertly crafted. Not to knock King or any of the classic authors, but for me, personally, I find it to be a far appealing writer that can place a reader deep in the heart of the story with the minimal amount of description and wording.
Both styles have their merits, and both are vastly skillful in very different ways, but for me, the fast, no nonsense approach always wins the day.
In the process of reading his work, I learned a great deal about writing with clarity and focus, and probably the best lesson I’ve ever learned about the craft – the reader is no fool. They are every bit as intelligent as the author, and deserve the respect, and the freedom, to allow their imaginations to do much of the legwork. Laymon understood that, and inspired a whole army of authors to push in new, startling directions. I see his work as a sort of hub, from which all manner of varied, brilliant writers have emerged.
It goes without saying that horror is the genre I love, and the majority of what I read is within its realms.
Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Bentley Little, Wrath James White, J F Gonzalez, Brian Keene….all these writers constantly surprise and inspire my work. They represent the next generation of horror, and cover the whole spectrum of what the genre can be.
In recent years my biggest influences have been Bentley Little, (his blending of social issues with horror fascinates me), and Edward Lee, whom I consider a man of limitless ability.
All the writers I mentioned are people I admire and whose work fuels both my imagination and my work.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book, (and my first), on the digital shelves, is called CONSUMED : VOLUME 1.
Its a quartet of satirical horror tales that cover a number of the more troubling aspects of our consumer society from varying angles and in varying styles. One tale unfolds via a narrator, for example – a hapless Gen X fella who’s marriage is burning down around him, just as the rest of our planet is going up in flames via a mysterious phenomena. Another deals with the trials and tribulations of a cannibalistic mutant, (of the variety we see so often in horror cinema), as he finds himself running low on human meat and facing a terrifying reality…the supermarket. There’s a battle between redneck and television that turns very dark, very quickly and in another tale, a pizza delivery boy finds himself delivering the wrong food to some very wrong people.
There are a lot of topics touched upon amidst the blood and mayhem among them being the pull of avarice, the mainstream media’s power to control and direct our thoughts on world events and our own lives, the class divide and religious fanaticism and the damage it can do.
I try to cover all the topics with a lightness of touch. There’s a great deal of black humor in there, too, and the whole thing is constructed as a ride. I’m not interested in heavy handed politics, only in entertaining. It’s nice to throw in some food for thought along with the body parts, though. It goes without saying the tales are very violent. At it’s heart, CONSUMED is hardcore horror written by a fan and for the fans.
My next book, due in late July, is called DEVILS DAY, and is a very different beast. This ones a story of a town under siege by demonic forces, come to claim what’s owed. Its a full length novel, and is a fast-paced, hyper violent throwback to the classic 80’s horror movies that sealed my fate. It’s set in 1985, on Halloween night, and its packed with all the goodies that entails – movie/toy/comic references and TV references from the era, horny teens in peril, young horror-literate kids on an adventure, and bad-ass demons with murder in mind.
Imagine The Monster Squad/Night of the Creeps/The Gate, combined with hardcore, visceral (and very adult), sex and violence, and you’re there.
I’m really pleased with it, so far, and can’t wait to share it.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles