Q: So. Graeme Smith. Oh - right! You're the guy who...
A: Nope.
Q: No? Oh. Er... hey, I get it! You're...
A: Nope.
Q: Oh. So you're...
A: Nope - not him either. Hmmm - let me see if I can help :-). I never worked for the Canadian Globe and Mail as a war correspondent. And I most definitely can't play cricket - (people throwing rocks at me aren't my thing (blush). And, unfortunately, the history of Scottish Theatres is a total mystery to me. No. I'm the other Graeme Smith - Fantasy author, published by Canadian publisher Books We Love. Comic fantasy if you laugh when you read it (I don't think you can write comedy - only read it. More on that later :-) ).
Q: OK. So why 'Graeme Smith? If there's, like, so many of them? Er, of you? You could be... well, no. Or... or maybe...
A: See? Coming up with an amazing, unique pen-name? Not so easy, right? Chris Fox? John Gwynne? Great names - but can buy their books on Amazon right now. And even if there's only one Stephen King on Amazon, take a look at how many there are on Facebook. Yes, I thought about trying to come up with something cool. But I decided to take the easy way out - Graeme Smith. It's my real name. Or maybe it isn't - maybe it's my keyboard's name, and I'm just an artificial intelligence, buzzing round a massive (or in my case, very tiny (blush)) computer's microchips :-). And, believe it or not - there aren't many of us - er me - on Amazon. So there it is, and here I am. Me - Graeme Smith - Fantasy author. Time was, I worked on a psychiatric ward. Now I write about people who believe in magic and dragons, and who live where the folk who don't are the ones who need help :-).
Q: So you write Fantasies...
A: Yup. (Yes, Jones Minor. I can see you sniggering at the back. See me after class.).
Q: Comic Fantasy.
A: Er - no. Or yes. One of those - sometimes both. That's for...
Q: What? But you said you did! It's right there! Up in the third question!
A: I said I'd get back to it :-). And I guess we should. First, the whole 'Comic Fantasy' thing can be confusing. Because I don't write, for or in, comics. Len_Wein? Bill_Finger? They're not me. For one thing, they wrote incredible work. For another - well, let's stick with the first one (blush). For another thing - I don't think you can. Write comedy, I mean. Because I believe that, for a reader, something only becomes funny when they read it. When they read it, and it triggers something in them, when it reminds them of that thing Billy Stevens did in class that day - and they laugh. Not when it's written. So you can read humour - but only hope to write it. At least, that's what I think. Of course - I'm an Idiot. Or maybe an idiot - the jury's still out on that one (blush).
Q: OK. So you're Graeme Smith. You write Fantasy...
A: Yup. Dragons and Baen-Sidhe and Weres, oh my :-). Well, and a temporally flexible assassin. And a truck driver...
Q: Truck driver? Truck drivers aren't fantasy!
A: Charlie doesn't think he is either. But then, fantasy or reality - it's all Greek to him. And maybe saxaphones...
Q: Saxaphones?
A: Possibly. Or probably. Or not - one of those. And back-street angels and sea dragons who can't swim, but are great on the uilleann. But maybe not - I don't know. I haven't finished writing those yet. Or even started writing them - maybe. One of those :-).
Q: ... and you definitely don't write comedy, but you hope people laugh when they read what you do write. Er... right?
A: Well, yes. And no. I mean, I hope they laugh sometimes. All the time, like, every word? That might be a bit disturbing. To their neighbours, at least. Or their family. Or their cat. Or... well. Or.
Q: I see. Or maybe I don't - one of those. To be honest...
A: Oh, please don't. Be honest, I mean. Well, I suppose you can be. Not me. I mean, the whole 'honesty' thing. To quote Segorian, it's a bad habit I'm trying to break.
Q: What? I mean - WHAT? But honesty's the best poli... I mean WHAT?
A: Well, you have to understand. I'm a liar.
Q: WHAT?
A: Yes. You already said that. Or asked it, I guess. But I am! A liar, that is. I tell people - readers, I mean - that things that never really happened actually did happen, and that they happened to people who don't really exist. And, if I do it right, for a while, even if just for a moment (or a page, a chapter, a book) - they believe me. Readers, I mean. They believe. Heck, if I'm lucky, if they bought one of my books, I get paid to lie to them! Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who got to be famous, at least in part, by not even finishing a lie) called it the 'suspension of disbelief'. He thought it was a Good Thing(tm). Tolkien - dragons and hobbits and elves, oh my - thought it wasn't. He believed in 'secondary belief' and thought suspension of belief was for wusses. But really, that's what authors - fiction authors - are. Professional liars. Well, the ones who manage the 'getting paid' thing :-).
So there we are. Or, possibly, here we are. This is me - Graeme Smith, Fantasy author. Welcome to my worlds! Sit down, pull up a chair - and I'll lie to you some :-).