In the interview with Jonathan Weyer, below, Boston Writing Careers examiner learns about an unusual genre of fiction. Jonathan's new horror novel, The Faithful, has just been published.
What's your writing background?
I started telling stories as a kid. In college, I minored in English with the idea of becoming a writer. In the process, I ran into a creative writing teacher who almost killed my desire to write. Still, I wanted to tell stories, so I gradually got back into writing, with my wife's encouragement. I could tell a story, but I still needed to learn how to be a good writer. I'm still learning.
How did you come up with the idea for The Faithful?
In my shower, actually. I brought together several different threads that had been running through my head.
Every October, I get the urge to write a ghost story. That's one thread. I had also been working on a book meditating on the story of Doubting Thomas. That's the second thread. I got the idea of a pastor investigating the paranormal. The third thread. I wove all three threads together in about five minutes. I wish all my showers were that productive!
You're writing in an unusual genre: spiritual horror. What is that?
Horror can guide us to think about spiritual things, perhaps more than most literary genres. Maybe horror isn’t the right word, but a sense of the uncanny, or the unsettling. I hope my stories unsettle people from their accepted view of reality.
What authors influenced your writing?
My biggest influences in writing The Faithful were the author Charles Williams, a friend of CS Lewis, and JRR Tolkien. Williams wrote a lot of “spiritual” horror novels.
What do you do for a living?
I'm a Presbyterian minister who works with college students at The Ohio State University. Mostly, I work with atheists, agnostics, or people who are struggling with their faith. This fits in well with the themes of my novel. My students and the atheists have had many great conversations. The University recognized our dialogue by giving us a multicultural award. A lot of those conversations had a great influence on my rewrites of The Faithful.
Do you have any advice for those aspiring to write spiritual fiction?
Read Charles Williams. He'll teach them everything they need to know about how to tell a spiritual horror
tale.
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Read a review of The Faithful.
In keeping with the upcoming Halloween holiday, Jonathan Weyer will appear for a reading and book signing on October 23, 2010 at Athens County Public Library, in Columbus, Ohio. Scroll down the page for details.
Please note: The photo of Jonathan Weyer, above, should be credited to: Rabbi LeighAnn Koppan
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Comments
I found this author's story fascinating. It just shows how the thing that we are passionate about still lives in our hearts even when we have gone on to other things in our lives. Jonathan always loved to write and it was still deep within his heart even though he took another career path for a long time.
Very interesting....now I want to read his book - and I'm not typically interested in any type of "horror"....but "spiritual horror" has its own pull
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