Thomas Ligotti as won the award for best author of horror/weird fiction from Small Press Writers and Artists Organization (SPWAO), 1982, for story "The Chymist"; Rhysling Award nomination from Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1986, for "One Thousand Painful Variations Performed Upon Divers Creatures Undergoing the Treatment of Dr. Moreau, Humanist"; World Fantasy Award nomination, 1990, for "The Last Feast of Harlequin," and 1992, for Grimscribe: His Lives and Works. World Fantasy Award Nomination, 1997, for The Nightmare Factory; Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement, novella, for "The Red Tower," 1997; Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement, story collection, for The Nightmare Factory, 1997; British Fantasy Award for best collection, The Nightmare Factory, 1997; International Horror Guild Award for Best Fiction, Long Form, for My Work Is Not Yet Done, 2002; Bram Stoker Award for Best Novella for My Work Is Not Yet Done, 2002. His story, "Purity," which appeared in the 80th anniversary issue of Weird Tales, will be reprinted in the next Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Teri Windling and Ellen Datlow.
1. How has the horror genre affected your life?
TL: When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories. I had read Arthur Machen before I read Lovecraft, and I didn’t have that reaction at all. It was what I sensed in Lovecraft’s works and what I learned about his myth as the “recluse of Providence” that made me think, “That’s for me!” I already had a grim view of existence, so there was no problem there. I was and am agoraphobic, so being reclusive was a snap. The only challenge was whether or not I could actually write horror stories. So I studied fiction writing and wrote every day for years and years until I started to get my stories accepted by small press magazines. I’m not comparing myself to Lovecraft as a person or as a writer, but the rough outline of his life gave me something to aspire to. I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t discovered Lovecraft.
2. Gene Wolfe wrote a book entitled THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS which contained three novellas that reflected different aspects of the same “world,” each one containing subtle hints relating to the others. It is one of my favorite books, and I thought it would be interesting if you attempted something like this. Does that idea appeal to you in any way?
TL: Not at all. It sounds like a lot of work. I’ve never had the excess of energy that it takes to pull off something like that. Furthermore, I don’t particularly admire that kind of prodigality of talent. I’ve always loved writers who were underachievers, those who produced few works or never “fully realized” their abilities. Prolific writers and writers who produce “big books” that are terribly ingenious bore me to death.
3. What do you do to pass time?
TL: I watch a lot a TV and sometimes rent videos. It wasn’t always like that, but it is now.
4. I think it’s time for another Ligotti collection. Anything in the works?
TL: I do have enough uncollected stories to put together a full collection. It should probably be published in the next couple years or so.
5. If someone wanted the clearest picture of how your mind worked, which of your stories would you point them toward and why?
TL: That’s an excellent question. The story that immediately comes to mind is My Work Is Not Yet Done. The main character, Frank Dominio, has been described by the few people who reviewed the book as a dweeb and a psycho. I didn’t exactly set out to do a self-portrait in this character, but he does reflect some major aspects of me, at least as I am in my own mind. Frank is kind of a parasite of a world that he doesn’t much care for. At work, he wants to fit in only to the extent that is necessary to keep at bay the powers that rule over him. At home, he escapes into his melancholy universe of photographing ruined places in the city where he lives. He’s someone that most people would view as sick, unstable, and unsound. Not a model citizen but harmless.
Then he gets screwed over by his colleagues at work, and his sickness, instability, and unsoundness become directed outward toward his enemies. He’s intelligent enough and humane enough to know that his plan to slaughter his co-workers needs considerable justification, although he never manages to work this out to his satisfaction. He’s overcome by his passion for revenge, which in a sense makes him more of a normal person than he’s ever been. Escapism was always Frank’s style, not taking action. That’s the style of the so-called real world. If Frank had been a writer, he would probably have written a story and that would have served as sufficient revenge. But that’s not an option for him. And neither is violence, really, although he prepares to do some real damage. Whether or not he would have gone through with it is unknown, because there’s a supernatural intervention by a power that screws him over even more than his co-workers and that represents them on a metaphysical plane. I’m not sure if this answers your question about how my mind works. Then again, I don’t think of one’s mind in isolation from one’s emotions. As some wise guy once said, “The mind is the whore of one’s passions.” I’d go along with that.
6. What are your activities during an average day?
TL: For the past few years I’ve worked at home as a freelance copyeditor. (Previously, I worked at an office job for 23 years.) People send me editorial projects either by mail or email. I wake up in the morning and within five minutes I’m sitting in front of my computer with a cup of coffee. It’s intense work and I can’t do it for more than five six hours at a stretch. By then, I’m pretty burned out. I often take a long nap in the afternoon to recover. When I wake up there are usually emails to answer. That takes an hour or so. My mother and brother live within walking distance, and I usually have dinner with them and spend the rest of the evening watching TV with them. Then I go home and answer more emails. About once a week, my brother and I go to the local racetrack. We live in Florida, where they have jai-alai, so we bet on simulcast games from Miami or Dania. It’s a shame that this sport never caught on in this country. If you have a high-speed Internet connection, you can watch games most nights and some afternoons at http://www.dania-jai-alai.com. It’s far more interesting if you’re able to bet on the games. That’s not how jai-alai was intended to be played, but that’s how it came to be adapted outside of Spain. You bet on it just like horse racing.
7. Have you read any good books lately?
TL: I don’t read that much anymore. At the moment, I’m slowly making my way through a book called Landscapes of Fear by Yi-Fu Tuan, who is or was a professor of geography. It’s pretty much a basic history of fear in human life. I ordered it along with another book by the same author called Escapism, the premise of which is that everything that human beings do is based on our inability to face reality as it is. I can’t argue with that, although I’m sure most other people in this stupid world would contest it vigorously.
8. Can you tell us your opinion on the future of horror literature?
TL: Horror literature has always moved along two tracks. Writers like Ann Radcliffe wrote popular Gothic thrillers and made a good living, while writers like Edgar Poe wrote unpopular short stories and starved. That’s very much the way horror literature progressed and probably will continue. There haven’t been too many writers of either type at any given time. Everyone else is somewhere in the middle.
9. What is your favorite piece of music?
TL: “In the Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson. I’m also a big fan of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
10. It’s a high honor to interview you. Any last comments you’d like to share with our readers?
TL: In the spirit of Frank Dominio, I’d prefer not to do anything that I’m not forced or paid to do.
10 Questions for Thomas Ligotti
- as posed by David Wilbanks
- as posed by David Wilbanks
1. How has the horror genre affected your life?
TL: When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories. I had read Arthur Machen before I read Lovecraft, and I didn’t have that reaction at all. It was what I sensed in Lovecraft’s works and what I learned about his myth as the “recluse of Providence” that made me think, “That’s for me!” I already had a grim view of existence, so there was no problem there. I was and am agoraphobic, so being reclusive was a snap. The only challenge was whether or not I could actually write horror stories. So I studied fiction writing and wrote every day for years and years until I started to get my stories accepted by small press magazines. I’m not comparing myself to Lovecraft as a person or as a writer, but the rough outline of his life gave me something to aspire to. I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t discovered Lovecraft.
2. Gene Wolfe wrote a book entitled THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS which contained three novellas that reflected different aspects of the same “world,” each one containing subtle hints relating to the others. It is one of my favorite books, and I thought it would be interesting if you attempted something like this. Does that idea appeal to you in any way?
TL: Not at all. It sounds like a lot of work. I’ve never had the excess of energy that it takes to pull off something like that. Furthermore, I don’t particularly admire that kind of prodigality of talent. I’ve always loved writers who were underachievers, those who produced few works or never “fully realized” their abilities. Prolific writers and writers who produce “big books” that are terribly ingenious bore me to death.
3. What do you do to pass time?
TL: I watch a lot a TV and sometimes rent videos. It wasn’t always like that, but it is now.
4. I think it’s time for another Ligotti collection. Anything in the works?
TL: I do have enough uncollected stories to put together a full collection. It should probably be published in the next couple years or so.
5. If someone wanted the clearest picture of how your mind worked, which of your stories would you point them toward and why?
TL: That’s an excellent question. The story that immediately comes to mind is My Work Is Not Yet Done. The main character, Frank Dominio, has been described by the few people who reviewed the book as a dweeb and a psycho. I didn’t exactly set out to do a self-portrait in this character, but he does reflect some major aspects of me, at least as I am in my own mind. Frank is kind of a parasite of a world that he doesn’t much care for. At work, he wants to fit in only to the extent that is necessary to keep at bay the powers that rule over him. At home, he escapes into his melancholy universe of photographing ruined places in the city where he lives. He’s someone that most people would view as sick, unstable, and unsound. Not a model citizen but harmless.
Then he gets screwed over by his colleagues at work, and his sickness, instability, and unsoundness become directed outward toward his enemies. He’s intelligent enough and humane enough to know that his plan to slaughter his co-workers needs considerable justification, although he never manages to work this out to his satisfaction. He’s overcome by his passion for revenge, which in a sense makes him more of a normal person than he’s ever been. Escapism was always Frank’s style, not taking action. That’s the style of the so-called real world. If Frank had been a writer, he would probably have written a story and that would have served as sufficient revenge. But that’s not an option for him. And neither is violence, really, although he prepares to do some real damage. Whether or not he would have gone through with it is unknown, because there’s a supernatural intervention by a power that screws him over even more than his co-workers and that represents them on a metaphysical plane. I’m not sure if this answers your question about how my mind works. Then again, I don’t think of one’s mind in isolation from one’s emotions. As some wise guy once said, “The mind is the whore of one’s passions.” I’d go along with that.
6. What are your activities during an average day?
TL: For the past few years I’ve worked at home as a freelance copyeditor. (Previously, I worked at an office job for 23 years.) People send me editorial projects either by mail or email. I wake up in the morning and within five minutes I’m sitting in front of my computer with a cup of coffee. It’s intense work and I can’t do it for more than five six hours at a stretch. By then, I’m pretty burned out. I often take a long nap in the afternoon to recover. When I wake up there are usually emails to answer. That takes an hour or so. My mother and brother live within walking distance, and I usually have dinner with them and spend the rest of the evening watching TV with them. Then I go home and answer more emails. About once a week, my brother and I go to the local racetrack. We live in Florida, where they have jai-alai, so we bet on simulcast games from Miami or Dania. It’s a shame that this sport never caught on in this country. If you have a high-speed Internet connection, you can watch games most nights and some afternoons at http://www.dania-jai-alai.com. It’s far more interesting if you’re able to bet on the games. That’s not how jai-alai was intended to be played, but that’s how it came to be adapted outside of Spain. You bet on it just like horse racing.
7. Have you read any good books lately?
TL: I don’t read that much anymore. At the moment, I’m slowly making my way through a book called Landscapes of Fear by Yi-Fu Tuan, who is or was a professor of geography. It’s pretty much a basic history of fear in human life. I ordered it along with another book by the same author called Escapism, the premise of which is that everything that human beings do is based on our inability to face reality as it is. I can’t argue with that, although I’m sure most other people in this stupid world would contest it vigorously.
8. Can you tell us your opinion on the future of horror literature?
TL: Horror literature has always moved along two tracks. Writers like Ann Radcliffe wrote popular Gothic thrillers and made a good living, while writers like Edgar Poe wrote unpopular short stories and starved. That’s very much the way horror literature progressed and probably will continue. There haven’t been too many writers of either type at any given time. Everyone else is somewhere in the middle.
9. What is your favorite piece of music?
TL: “In the Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson. I’m also a big fan of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
10. It’s a high honor to interview you. Any last comments you’d like to share with our readers?
TL: In the spirit of Frank Dominio, I’d prefer not to do anything that I’m not forced or paid to do.
