Novelist, poet and short story writer Christopher Conlon is the author of the debut psychological thriller, Midnight On Mourn Street, just released by Earthling Publications and described as a "masterfully moving tale" by Booklist. Conlon's work has appeared on numerous publications such as Poets & Writers, America, Filmfax, Poet Lore, The Long Story, and Tennessee Williams Annual Review, as well as in such anthologies as Masques V and September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond. I recently had the pleasure of reviewing his novel for Blogcritics, and found it a haunting, beautifully written work.
Thanks for being here today, Christopher. When did you decide you wanted to become an author?
I never decided I wanted to be an author - to be honest, I’m not sure what an “author” is. It sounds stuffy and pedantic to me - I picture someone wearing a smoking jacket, pipe in hand, looking a bit like Somerset Maugham. No, I never wanted to be an author - I wanted to write. There’s a difference.
Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading?
Oh my God, yes. And I still am. I started with the usual people kids find first - Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London. Mystery and adventure classics. Poetry, too, started for me then, with Poe - “Annabel Lee” was my first favorite poem. Eventually I found my way to science fiction and horror with people like Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Clifford D. Simak. Oh, and I must have read every Alfred Hitchcock anthology ever published. I loved those kinds of stories. Still do.
Tell us a bit about your latest book.
Midnight on Mourn Street is a short novel, what might be called “psychological suspense,” focusing on the relationship of a middle-aged man and the teenaged runaway he meets one rainy night. They seem to be strangers to each other, but in fact the young girl knows exactly who he is, and she pushes her way into his life with a very specific, destructive agenda. The slow revealing of the secrets of these people — and how they are connected to each other — is what drives the story forward. I’m happy to be able to say that the early reviews have been mostly excellent - Booklist has called the book a “masterfully moving tale” and a “top-drawer first novel.” That’s a little embarrassing for me to quote, but there it is.
From the moment you conceived the idea for the story, to the published book, how long did it take?
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