Interview: Graeme Shimmin

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this interview here

 

[Thande]

As I've said before - I still have vivid memories of seeing "A Kill in the Morning" on the shelves in Indigo at the Eaton Centre at Toronto and feeling like reality was breaking down - "I remember that thread being first posted!"

 

[Charles EP M.]

An AH thread online to Penguin published, damn that has to be living the dream

Being told "how did you not know Hitler died" about an AH book, ow

 

[Jared]

I must admit, I managed to miss A Kill in the Morning entirely on AH.com and when it came out in traditional published form, but that's a fascinating story for sure.

And my main takeaway is that the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award might well be worth entering (though not sure if it continued given Sir Pterry's lamented departure).

 

[Shimbo]

An AH thread online to Penguin published, damn that has to be living the dream

[hollow laughter]

I mean, it was fascinating working with a big commercial publisher like Penguin Random House, but it was also highly frustrating — you're a small cog in their vast money-making machine. Everyone is lovely, but they've also got a lot of other, bigger things to attend to, and a small launch from a debut author like me could only ever hope for a little of their attention.

It was great seeing the book in the shops/libraries though, yeah.

And my main takeaway is that the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award might well be worth entering (though not sure if it continued given Sir Pterry's lamented departure).

Sadly, the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award is no more. The general point that entering competitions is worthwhile stands, though. That research of mine into getting commercially published showed it's a route that's worked for many people.

 

[Japhy]

I still wind up rereading AKITM every other year or so, absolutely one of my favorite AH books and spy thrillers. Hope this interview helps introduce more folks to it

 

[RyanF]

I remember AKITM standing out as one of the earliest pieces of online AH I encountered that was purely narrative as opposed to a mix between narrative and history book styles.

What I like about the series of interviews is how they touch on many different subjects and @Shimbo's experience going from writing something for an online audience of AH fans to one for wider publication is a very interesting one.