Please introduce yourself and tell us about your background as a writer.
My name is Robert Mammone and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been an avid genre reader since at least the early ‘80s, and due to my love of Doctor Who in the late ‘70s, my interests were on the more fantastical, horror end of the field. Going to high school I was exposed to dozens and dozens of what we now call classic fantasy works - Tolkien, of course, but also Brooks, Donaldson, Burrows, Eddings, Gemmell, Feist, Lovecraft, Howard. I remember reading every Conan pastiche I could get my hand on in my first years at high school. I was also keen on horror, having been seriously spooked by the Salem’s Lot mini-series when it was shown here. So I also started on King, Herbert, Huston, Ramsey Campbell and more.

If you read enough, you begin to think you can write as well. I remember starting on a short fantasy story in 1984 which I worked on on and off for five years until I submitted it to a local writing competition and to my surprise it won an encouragement award. A couple of years later my writing interest was almost totally crushed by a horrendous rejection letter I received for a submission to a horror zine in Western Australia. That turned me off writing for over a decade, until in 2009 I decided to get back into it. At first, I wrote short horror fiction, but then branched out into my first love, fantasy.

What are the most prominent influences on your writing? How do you incorporate those influences without being derivative?
There are several. I love sword and sorcery because of the fast-paced action and violence, with characters standing up against overwhelming odds, all against a background of sinister, dark forces. So Lovecraft, or at least, Lovecraftian elements of an ancient evil being summoned into the real world, or dark sorcery playing a role against the protagonist, is someone I admire as a writer and source of inspiration.

Another writer will be one familiar to your readers, and that is David Gemmell, particularly his first three books, Legend, Waylander and King Beyond the Gate, which were all enormously impactful when I read them as a teenager in the ‘80s. Again, we’ve got morally complex characters fighting against overwhelming forces, and doing the right thing (even though sometimes they’d rather be elsewhere than facing down the enemy). Gemmell’s writing was plain and mostly unadorned, but strong and purposeful all the same. He was fantastic at creating memorable lead characters, with someone like Jon Shannow being amongst the best creations in fantasy literature.

To avoid being derivative you just have to pick out what makes a writer compelling – generally in the case of Howard or Gemmell it’s the fast pace and incidental world-building – and not shamelessly steal wholesale their tropes or ideas. It’s a conscious effort to be original with your own writing, while building on what others have done before.

With self-publishing easier than ever, there are tons of books being released every day. What makes your work stand out from the crowd? What can readers get out of your work that they can’t from anyone else?
You must write what is true to you. Other than getting the best cover you can afford, you can have all the gimmicks in the world in terms of marketing via social media but if the writing feels fake or forced or unnatural, readers will recognise that from orbit. Writing is a form of catharsis for me - when I was writing in my twenties, I was pouring onto the page all my pent-up rage I’d soaked up in my teenage years. It’s the same now I’m in my fifties - all the frustrations of life find themselves exposed in the opening paragraphs of a story I had published last year - an old man chased from his home by the forces of darkness and forced to hold them off at bay while burning down the world around him. Now while certainly not literal, figuratively, putting those words down felt as cathartic as hell.

So what readers get from me is authenticity. That the world is shades of grey, not the black and whites so many on both extremes peddle to those inside their bubble. You’ll find characters who are exhausted at what life has done to them, yet keep putting one foot in front of the other because what else can you do? None of them roll over and meet their fates mewling like kittens - they brace themselves against whatever support they can find and fight and fight and fight until they’ve either overcome their opponents or gone down into the dark swinging to the very last.

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?
I’ve poured money into the bottomless pit of Amazon and Facebook ads and got absolutely no traction whatsoever. I’ve used Twitter and similarly, nada. It seems that the only things that get you noticed are a grim mixture of chance, whatever moves the herd at any given moment, some more chance and maybe, just maybe, talent. Fortunately, I have a full-time job so I have the luxury of publishing for the love of it, and definitely not to scramble to find cash to put food on the table.

How much do your audience’s expectations factor into what you write? Does this ever cause you to hold back from experimenting?
I barely have an audience, so there surely is no audience expectations. If there was...well, I’d still write what I want to write. Whether that is quiet horror a la Ramsey Campbell, or a pulp horror plotline I’m developing that owes a lot to Shaun Hutson, or a master thief trying to stop her sorcerer father from summoning an undead king to take over her city, I’m happy to write what gets the blood pumping.

Have you had any new stories published recently? Are you currently working on any?
I had a few stories published in 2023. “The Seaside” was published as part of an Australian anthology Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite. It utilises the one thing that Australia is famous for around the world - our horrifying and disturbing animal life. My story is told from several viewpoints as an abandoned trawler grounds itself on a tourist beach, disgorging a host of crabs with nothing but food on their tiny crustacean minds.

Another story I had published was via the Sword and Sorcery site called “Death Rides a North Wind.” This one had a long gestation, but I am really pleased with how it turned out and the reception it received. Essentially the tale of an old man with a past escaping a horde of monsters, he stumbles across a logging camp and forces the loggers to fight back against an overwhelming tide. There are some sorcerous wrinkles to the story which I had a blast incorporating.

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.)
I’m currently wrapping up a non-fiction book by the historian David Reynolds, called In Command of History, which examines in detail how Churchill wrote (I use that term very loosely) his magisterial six volume The Second World War. It’s a fascinating look into how it was done, and the compromises Churchill undertook in framing a series written during the early days of the Cold War. It underscores the adage that the victors write the history.

In line with a new writing project I’m working on, I’ve gone back and reread James Herbert’s The Rats, his first book published in 1974. It’s deliciously horrifying pulp fun, with Herbert managing a large group of characters and some wonderful set pieces as his creatures run amok through London. As a first novel, The Rats landed with an almighty explosion and while the critics may’ve been appalled by the visceral nature of it, the audience lapped it up and rightly so.

Any final words?
I am delighted beyond words to have my story “The Barrow of Bel Kadaz” published in Die by the Sword Volume II. The reception to the first book was fantastic, and I feel privileged to be a part of the follow up. Sword and sorcery is riding high on a healthy resurgence, and the chance to be involved is thrilling and exciting.