Please introduce yourself and tell us about your background as a writer.
I’m John Hocking. I grew up reading American pulp fiction of the 1920s and 30s. My first published work of any note was the pastiche novel, Conan and the Emerald Lotus. Since then I’ve written another, unpublished, novel and about thirty short stories.

What are the most prominent influences on your writing? How do you incorporate those influences without being derivative?
I’m influenced by more than a few authors and prose styles. Right up front would be the Weird Tales school with R.E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft at the fore. I admire the best of the classic ghost stories, where the supernatural filters into the narrative before it leaps up to grab the reader by the throat- M.R. James, H.R. Wakefield, W.F. Harvey. I’m also fascinated by some of the more modern authors of supernatural horror that followed, more or less, in that tradition, K.E. Wagner, Michael Shea, and T.E.D. Klein. But I think my most prominent influence, especially in terms of structure and pacing, has to be American hardboiled crime and mystery fiction, from the Black Mask stories of Hammett and Chandler and their followers all the way to the Gold Medal original novels of the 1950s. Once I sunk my teeth into that stuff I found many of the other things I was reading seemed dithering and vague.

Of course, I like to think that this oddball bundle of influences comes together in a fashion that doesn’t seem derivative to the reader. Aside from my pastiche work I’ve never tried to parallel the effects of any of my influences except in the most general fashion. I can only hope it works.

Many authors say marketing is one of their biggest challenges. What tactics have you found to be most effective for getting your name out there?
This is me trying not to laugh. I have no skill at marketing and have thus been almost completely ineffective at ‘getting my name out there’. Since the Conan pastiche I’ve been such a niche author I’m surprised I’ve drawn any notice at all.

How much do your audience’s expectations factor into what you write? Does this ever cause you to hold back from experimenting?
Most of what I’ve been working on over the past several years has been short stories in series. I admit I don’t have much of a sense of my readers’ expectations, but I do tend to see the stories as fitting a kind of serial fiction mode that doesn’t flirt much with any substantial experimentation. I recently sold a modern horror story in which I allowed things to get much more dark and profane than I usually do, which seemed necessary to the story, but I guess this might be seen by some as experimental. I’ll watch for reaction on that.

Have you had any new stories published recently? Are you currently working on any?
I’ve recently had a couple stories accepted by Weirdbook and one by Tales from the Magician’s Skull. The most recent to see publication was “Necropolis Gemstone”, in the DMR anthology edited by Douglas Draa, Terra Incognita.

I finished a sword and sorcery story I’ll be showing around before too long. I just retired and promised myself I would try to write a novel next. This would be the first thing I’ve tried to write at that length since 1997. Wish me luck.

Name one newer and one older book you have read and enjoyed recently. (“Newer” meaning from the past year or so, and “older” meaning written before 1980.)
As a backwards-looking reader who rarely reads anything that isn’t at least fifty years old I am delighted to tell you I just read Max Allan Collins’ 2022 novel, Quarry’s Blood. This is the 16th novel in a fine, ruthlessly hardboiled series that began in 1976, and it ends the series on a high note.

I also just polished off The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler. I think the book was first published in 1981, but the letters date from 1937 through 1959. The author was brilliant, cantankerous and often hilarious. A complex and interesting man whose influence on pop culture can hardly be overestimated.

Any final words?
Just a note of appreciation for those out there participating in what amounts to the most notable resurgence of sword and sorcery fiction since the 1970s. Whether you read it, write it, publish it or any combination of the three, thanks. And if you read something you like, please say something about it—a review, a post on Facebook or Reddit or Goodreads, a letter to an editor. Anything that might lift, even by the tiniest degree, this noble and underrated genre into a wider, more knowledgeable and appreciative audience.