David Niall Wilson

David Niall Wilson
author of the day

David Niall Wilson has had experiences in real life that can rival anything you would find in a novel. It is a good thing too, as the stories he collected while walking these strange and interesting paths has shaped him as a writer. David is not only the author of numerous novels and short stories, but also runs his own print, digital and audio publishing company. This makes him a busy man indeed, but we did manage to catch up with him to find out more about his novel, Nevermore, his fascination with history and some of his most unique travel experiences.

Please give us a short introduction to what Nevermore is about

In Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe, I've drawn on several of the things I've grown to love. The Great Dismal Swamp.  The Intercoastal Waterway that stretches from Florida to Virginia and that was – in part – surveyed by a young man named George Washington.  The Lake Drummond Hotel, an almost legendary place that rested on the border of two states for a short period of time and attracted outlaws, dignitaries, and travelers of all types – including a young author and poet named Edgar Allan Poe.

There are holes in that story.  It is known that Poe stayed at the hotel.  It is also known – or at least assumed – that his poem "The Lake" – was written about Lake Drummond, which lies not far into the Dismal Swamp, and not far from the waterway, or the site of The Lake Drummond Hotel.  Rumor has it that Poe wrote an early draft of his most famous poem, The Raven, while staying there.

The holes?  No one can prove that he wrote The Raven in North Carolina.  On the other hand, research shows me that no one can say for certain where he did write it. There is another hole, and this one is much more important.  This poem was written for a lost love – a woman named Lenore.  No one has ever adequately answered the question of her identity.  There are theories.  Many women in Poe's life, starting at a very young age – died.

Nevemore is my way of filling those holes.  My Edgar Allan Poe has a dark magic that bonds him with his companion, Grimm, a very old crow, and with the visions that bring his stories.  Lenore is an artist with a special gift of her own.  As the story unfolds, their fates become one – and they are drawn into a story much older and darker than either of them could have imagined.

As writers do, I have taken liberties with history.  I have taken liberties with Poe, and The Lake Drummond Hotel (of which very little information is known). I have added in other local legends, because the Dismal Swamp is full of them, and Edgar and I – as a collaborative team – have taken liberties with one of The Brothers Grimm's fairy tales.  A story titled The Raven.  By popular demand, Edgar and Lenore will return to play out another chapter of their story in the next book of The DeChance Chronicles (in progress) A Midnight Dreary.

What inspired you to write about Edgar Allan Poe?

I have always loved Edgar Allan Poe’s writing. I am also particularly drawn to corvids (crows, ravens, magpies) and the role they have played in fantasy, horror, and dark fantasy.  The main character of my most popular series of novels, Donovan DeChance, has two familiars.  One is a very old Egyptian Mau named Cleo, and a beat up old crow named Asmodeus. My research on stories and folklore surrounding The Great Dismal Swamp brought me to the references stating that Poe had stayed at the Lake Drummond Hotel, and that some believed he’d written The Raven while staying there. It was an opportunity to return to a character I love.  Previously, I had collaborated on a story with my now wife, Patricia Lee Macomber, titled “The Purloined Prose” where Edgar was the protagonist, so it was not my first time visiting Poe’s world.

What fascinates you about the 1800s and the perception of the occult and the paranormal at the time?

I am fascinated by just about every period in history. I have written historical pieces in the 1700s, the old West, and just about everywhere in between. The 1800s in particular, though, brought us Victorian castles and Jack the Ripper, Dracula and Poe… in the US we got the Civil War, and the periods directly before, and after that.  Huge industrial grown, inventions, a world as close to steampunk as the Earth is likely to see, unless we have that zombie apocalypse…  Magic just feels “right” in that setting.

Also, writing a period piece like that simplifies things.  No cell phones. Not many cameras.  Long periods of time for word to travel from one place to another… it was a disconnected time where everyone’s world was smaller… our modern world exists in a time when the entire globe is growing smaller… you can skype with a friend in Sweden as you both drink coffee in cafes thousands of miles apart.  You can collaborate with five people on five continents, or watch live music so distant that – were it the 1800s still – you wouldn’t even know it existed.


How much research did it require for you to make this story so believable? What was the most fascinating aspect of your research?

For the most part, the research was limited to the Hotel, the area around the waterway, and a small period in the life of Edgar Allan Poe.  I had to know what books he might be carrying to read, which led me to the Brothers Grimm and their own story (also The Raven).  I needed to know the circumstances of Poe’s relationship with his wife.  The most fascinating part of historical research, for me, is that the pieces are so diverse. I found a journal written by a man who traveled in the Great Dismal Swamp and a legend about a tree in the shape of a woman.  I found maps. I found reports on the Lake Drummond Hotel, and one painting of it, but the details were sparse… In other words, the contrast between the overkill of information we possess today, and the scarcity of verifiable reports from that time is amazing.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

Well, I am one of the world’s “okayest” guitarists and vocalists. I run (a lot) over 1500 miles last year alone.  And I bake pies.  In fact, I combined the pies and the writing in a sort of memoir / cookbook titled American Pies: Baking With Dave the Pie Guy.

You initially wanted to make Nevermore a prologue to The DeChance Chronicles. What made you change your mind?

There comes a time when you are writing a prologue when you realize you have crossed a line.  I was something like ten thousand words into my prologue and not even in sight of the ending of the story that Donovan DeChance was reciting.  Originally I intended to write the story told in Nevermore in a much shorter version, and then move directly into the events of A Midnight Dreary but found that there was far too much life in the characters, and far too much interesting material to let it go so easily.  By the time I hit 20,000 I had removed it from the original manuscript and given it a name.  From then on it was its own project.  It’s not a long novel, but it would have been a ridiculously long prologue, and one that only included the main character of that longer novel once.

You have traveled a lot in your life. How have your travels across the world influenced your writing?

I spent twenty years of my life in the US Navy. For the first part of that time, I told people I was a writer, but all I wrote were song lyrics and poems. That may be for the best, because writing really eats into your life once you become truly addicted.  During that time, I traveled strange roads, went shopping on an elephant in Pakistan, woke up once in a gutter with a friend, face to face with rats, in Singapore, and another time (with a different friend) under a Toyota Tank in Hawaii… I hung out at a tattoo shop in San Diego, and saw things I won’t repeat, rode with a bike club in Rota Spain (Tiburon MC – still lifelong brothers and sisters) – owned motorcycles and guitars, had a long existential talk with a dog on a Spanish beach, was roommates with a magician who was obsessed with Alistair Crowley… in other words, I collected stories.

Without the characters I met along the way, and the experience that I can bring to my work when I need authenticity, I would be a very different man – and writer – today.  There are things I regret, but I do not regret that those things brought me to where I am now… not famous, but reasonably successful – a happy family with four teenagers successfully launched and a newly minted 13 year old teenage genius at home.  A woman who loves me, animals all over the place, my own publishing company… and the writing. Traveling the world brought me to this moment, and every step along the way influences my writing.

A lot of people in your household write - your wife and two daughters are also published authors. Is writing contagious in your case?

Trish and I were both writers before we met. We actually met while collaborating on line on a screenplay – a Disney like comedy titled Pickadilly – sort of a cross between Home Alone and the Aristocats.  That never got produced, though we still have the screenplay.  Stephanie started writing when she was very young.  She was fascinated with history (like I am) and wrote a book of short stories about a girl, Mary Lou, who had visions of the past while living in a haunted hotel in Maryland (though it’s based on the Southern Hotel in downtown Elizabeth City, two blocks from where I’m sitting – we considered at one point buying and restoring that hotel). I don’t think Steph has quite the same writing bug that I do, because she hasn’t written anything that I know of since… Katie has written three books, and has notes for more, but has moved on into a variety of arts and crafts.  I believe she will do more writing, but again, she doesn’t (yet) have that bug.  She reads more than anyone in the family though…

You managed to make Nevermore dark, mysterious and haunting. How did you pull it off?

I’m not certain how one could properly write about The Great Dismal Swamp, Edgar Allan Poe, and lost love without it being mysterious and haunting… but for this story, I wanted to try and mirror the longing Poe put into his poetry. He wrote of a lost love, Lenore. I wanted to give that woman a face, and a voice, to insert her into his life.  My Dismal Swamp always has magic associated with it… I can’t seem to write a story about it that doesn’t bring out a lost folk tale, or a new mystery… combing the story from the Grimm Brother’s book, and The Raven and my own ever-growing fictional universe drove the mood.  I have found that over time, nearly all my novels have become – in some way – connected.  The DeChance Chronicles blend with my novels Deep Blue and Ancient Eyes, and with the O.C.L.T. series, and with the Cletus J. Diggs mysteries… and with Nevermore.

Is there an underlying message you wish to relay about basic human nature through your characters?

In Nevermore there are a number of very strong, remarkable characters who begin the novel without much faith in themselves, or in life.  Through their interaction, and standing up to the challenges they face, they all grow.  I am an optimistic writer, for all the darkness. I believe that fiction should take you away to other worlds, but should not leave you stranded, heartbroken on a desolate cliff.  Not everything is happy in this story, but everything – and everyone – has hope.  I am very much a good mostly triumphs over evil kind of author.  It’s the world I prefer.

Name a book or a story you wish you'd written.

That sounded like an easy thing to do until I realized that the first five or six things that came to mind I wish I’d written, but know I would have written differently. For instance, I could say The Stand but I hate the ending and I know how I would change it.  I could say Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell but I would have done that slightly differently as well. I’m going to go with The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman because I absolutely love it, and would not change a word.

Talk to us about your writing routine; what’s a typical writing day for you?

No such creature. I write between the cracks.  I have a day job that is fairly demanding as IT and Security manager for a very successful company.  I have a publishing company with 1600 plus titles and 170 or so authors.  I have a family, pets, the running… I write when I can.  I usually leave a project open at all times and then, when I can, I flip it open and work.  Thankfully the years writing on ships in the US Navy gave me the ability to compartmentalize the world.  I can write almost anywhere, with most types of distractions flashing about my head.  These days, I try to do an hour in the morning and an hour to an hour and a half at the end of the evening.

What are you working on right now?

A lot of things, but three in particular.  I’m finishing up a historical dark fantasy (go figure) that I have literally been working on for years titled Gideon’s Curse.  The novel faltered the first time I worked on it because it involves several generations of two families, and I realized at about the 2/3 point that they were not working out – that the years were skewed. It sat dormant for a long time, and one novella “The Preacher’s Marsh,” was published separately that is part of it in the years between.  This fall I started revising it from the start and fixed the timeline glitches.  I am probably a week and two chapters from completing it. And… the plantation house where it takes place? The ruins of that place are the setting of the first chapter of A Midnight Dreary.  You see what I mean about the books meshing.

I’m also working on a very fun and different project with Trish (Patricia Lee Macomber) titled Remember Bowling Green: The Adventures of Frederick Douglass – Time Traveler”.   It’s a satirical adventure about a fictional character, Ronald Krump, trying to take over the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky.  We are about 40,000 words into it – cover art is being done by Lissanne Lake (Who did a lot of work for Dragon Magazine, and did the cover of my first stand-alone novel, This is My Blood)  This book will be up for pre-order soon – 80% of the profits are going to go to the ACLU.

The last book I’m working on is the many-times-mentioned A Midnight Dreary which will tie up threads from the previous Donovan DeChance novel, Kali’s Tale, as well as continuing and finalizing the events of Nevermore and possibly launching Edgar as a new series character. This book also ties directly into our original series (At Crossroad Press) Novels of the O.C.L.T. – which includes my own novel The Parting, my novella The Temple of Camazotz and my tie-in Cletus J. Diggs adventure Crockatiel. (I write a lot)

Where can our readers discover more of your work or interact with you?

I am most active on Facebook, where I have a personal and an author’s page:

http://www.facebook.com/david.niall.wilson

http://www.facebook.com/DNiallWilson

and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/david_n_wilson

My website is http://www.davidniallwilson.com

All of my books can be found on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Apple and anywhere there are eBooks.

This deal has ended but you can read more about the book here.