My guest today is an old friend and a fabulous writer of gay fiction.
I remember posting about his very first book – seems like yesterday, Hans, and I’m delighted to say that his writing has gone from strength to strength.
Welcome Hans Hirschi!!
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Can you tell me a little about yourself? For instance, do you have to have a day job as well as being a writer?
Right now, and for the past five years, I’ve been lucky (?) enough to work as a writer full-time, interspersed with some consulting gigs for my own company, looking after our son when he’s sick and doing some parenting-light for my dad. Right now, I’m working on a side-business as tour guide here in Gothenburg, sort of custom made tours for visitors, to earn some money, because my writing isn’t anywhere near paying any invoices. Quite the contrary.
When you aren’t writing, is there any other creative activity you enjoy? Have you ever written about it?
Great question. I wish I could say that I do. I’m useless at painting/drawing, my voice cracks the tiles in my shower and just about the only thing I’m good at is listening to music. My husband and I are regulars at our local opera house, and that is something I’ve written about in, tada, The Opera House. More from a construction point of view though, as my dad has a past as architect. I guess I’m stuck with writing. 🙂
What are you reading? Can you recommend something that you wished you’d written yourself?
Oh, I love to read mostly contemporary fiction, great stories who deal with the difficulties of life and how to deal with them. Not as an offer of solutions (I don’t see the point of self-help stuff except to rip people off), but to provide perspective. I like happy or at least hopeful endings in the books I read, simply because there’s so much misery in real life. I try to write what I read. I’m probably (ashamed to say) my biggest critic and fan.
There are a great many books I could recommend, but oddly, I don’t think there’s one I wish I’d written, too. Question never even crossed my mind until you asked me, Elin. It’s just a bit of a foreign concept. But in terms of recommendations I’ve come to think of a couple of Indian stories that really resonated with me, “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel being one of them, “Chef” by Jaspreet Singh another, and finally “Cry, the beloved Country” by Alan Paton. Martel’s story is about the inner struggle, and I loved the twists it provides. Singh’s and Paton’s stories deal with real-life conflict, Kashmir and Apartheid, and ways to deal with such adversity. It’s been a while since I’ve read them, which means I have to get back to them, but they always linger. Great books are like that.
In that crucial inspiration stage of a new story which comes first? Plot, situation or character?
Never plot, at least not for me. It’s always a picture (still or moving, “situation” as you call it.) That’s what it was like for each and every one of my novels. I never know where I’ll end up, even though I sometimes might know the ending (Disease could only end in one way), or I’ve decided early on what the ending should be (e.g. Jonathan’s Promise.) In the new book Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm, it began with that first chapter, and Martin chatting to the nurse on duty. It’s that image I had in my mind, an old man living in a retirement home. I had no clue it would take me all the way to Korea (literally!)
Do your characters arrive fully fledged and ready to fly or do they develop as you work with them? Do you have a crisp mental picture of them or are they more a thought and a feeling than an image?
I think that depends greatly on the character and what role they play. But they usually develop, and as they tell me their stories, I get to know them better. I sometimes get questions about my characters, how they would react to this or that, what they’d feel about something, and my answer often is “I don’t know, they never told me.” As for their looks, I rarely know what they look like, with Willem from Willem of the Tafel being the one exception, but that’s due to the cover model, so that image developed long after I was done with the manuscript. But the model fit my image of Willem to the dot.
I remember when I first submitted my very first manuscript to some beta readers and one of them wrote back and complimented me for not fleshing out the characters in detail. He said that many characters were depicted as handsome or beautiful, that they were tall or muscled etc. In not doing that, I had made it easier for this fellow to picture the characters in his own image. He felt he wasn’t very handsome and that normally, books wouldn’t speak to him.
Ever since, I’ve tried to be as vague as possible when describing my characters. And therefore I have a fairly clouded picture of what they look like. I’d be of no help in creating a facial composite for the police for instance…
Is there any genre you would love to write, ditto one you would avoid like a rattlesnake?
Hmm, that’s a difficult one. I’ve considered fantasy, but the whole world building seems like such a strenuous task, and I’d have to remember so many things. Not sure I could do it. I forget easily. As for avoiding? Probably romance. Not that there’s anything wrong with rattlesnakes, but the genre just doesn’t interest me. Oh, and crime. I tried the latter and failed miserably. LOL
I think it’s safe to say that the gay heroes we most usually see tend to be buff twenty-somethings. What inspired you to write about an octogenarian?
Oh my. I had been asked to write a short story about a fifty plus year old person in the LGBTIAA++ spectrum for an anthology my publisher wanted to put out, and I quickly wrote a story about a fifty year old woman who’s asexual and a-romantic. But the way the story was structured made it a bad fit for the anthology, so I wrote a story about a gender-fluid elderly woman, Clara, which became a critics’ favorite. After that, I simply wanted to continue to explore the lives of the elderly and I had this image of this ‘really’ old (older than Clara) African-American man in a retirement home in upstate New York. Somehow, Martin didn’t shut up, and the short story grew into a novel.
Put together your ideal team of men/women – drawing from all and any walks of life, fictional or non-fictional – who you would want to come to your rescue if menaced by muggers/alligators/fundamentalists?
What an awful thing to compare alligators (and muggers) to fundamentalists… ROFL And a difficult question. I think I’d let Lucifer Morningstar, his favorite demon Mazakeen, and Lucifer’s mother from the TV show Lucifer deal with the fundamentalists. And I’d want front row tickets to that show. As for the alligator? What about Peter Pan? He seems to be into charming that sort of beast and feeding them appropriately. 😉 The mugger? My friend Debbie McGowan has a character in her Hiding behind the Couch universe who’d be able to take care of him, DCI Gray Fisher. I really suck at crime… I never read that genre, except under duress.
Villains are incredibly important in fiction since they challenge the main protagonists and give them something to contend with beyond the tension of a developing relationship. The cruel sea. The serial killer. The society itself. Your hero’s inner demons. What sort of villains do you prize?
The human ones. I think my books include some pretty awesome villains. Self-praise, I know. But look at Jonathan’s dad, or the pedophile Charles in The Fallen Angels of Karnataka, or even Eugene’s (one of the characters in the new book) sister. I try to stay clear of painting them as pure evil, because it’s not realistic. Sometimes I even go as far as to provide them with redemption. But yes, I also see society, or a government as the villain. Certainly the case in the new book, or a disease such as Alzheimer’s, in Disease. Very rarely have I let a villain be ‘pure’ evil, or not flesh them out enough. Those are usually tertiary characters who don’t really matter other than to act as catalysts in the story for a moment before they disappear into the background. Casper’s mother in Last Winter’s Snow is a good example for that. She’s modeled after my husband’s aunt… There just wasn’t anything to redeem her with. LOL I killed her off. So readers, don’t you piss us off…
Inner demons also work wonders. I think Haakon, Charles’s assistant, is the best example. But even in the new book, Martin, the main character has quite a few of them, even though it’s a fairly easy-going story. I gather from early reviews and comments that there is a lot of growth in him, despite the fact that he’s eighty-five.
What are you working on at the moment? Can you discuss it or do you prefer to keep it a secret until it’s finished.
I’m working on a children’s story. I just don’t think there are enough books about LGBT characters out there, and I want to provide our son with a bit more meat on the bone. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried. Three pages of text, but I’ve already edited it countless times and I’m still not happy! I may never finish it.
Could we please have an excerpt of something?
Here you go:
When Martin got to his room on the seventeenth floor, he was exhausted. He stepped up to the window and looked out over the city. The sun had set, and the city lights brightened the sky in the twilight hour before complete darkness fell over Seoul. He could barely believe he was back. He hadn’t said anything to the others, but the ride had been nerve-wracking, to say the least.
It wasn’t until they’d reached the inner city that he had recognized anything, and even then, it was only when he saw Mount Namsan that he felt they’d actually arrived in the right place. Even that hill looked different, with the tall television and communications tower on top of it and all the skyscrapers at its base. Yes, he’d recognized an ancient gate and a statue here and there as they’d approached the hotel, but it felt as if he were in a dream somehow, or was it a nightmare?
He remembered being told that, traditionally, no house in Seoul was to be taller than the king’s or, later, the emperor’s palace buildings. Those were hardly higher than a three-story house. Lots of them, lots and lots of them, but they were not very tall. To see modern Seoul with all the concrete, steel, and glass skyscrapers was a shock, and Martin was acutely aware of the physical impact it had on him.
He felt as if he had aged a decade, and he desperately clutched his cane for support. The long trip, as comfortable as it was in their big business-class seats with all the wine and food served by attentive flight attendants, it was still tiring, not to mention walking through the huge Incheon International Airport. Yet it was the cab ride to the hotel that had taken the biggest toll on him. The endless images, the countless visual impressions crushing down on him in wave after wave had exhausted him.
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Blurb:
Martin is eighty-four years old, a Korean War veteran, living quietly in a retirement home in upstate New York. His days are ruled by the routine of the staff, but in his thoughts and dreams, Martin often returns to the Seoul of his youth, and the lost true love of his life. Two close friends urge him to travel back to search for his love. What awaits Martin in Korea, more than six decades after he left the country on a troop transport back to the U.S.?
Returning to the Land of the Morning Calm is a story of friendship, love and family, in all its many shapes, across time, generations and cultures.
Available from the publisher, from various Amazons, from Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iBooks.
You can follow Hans on his website, on Facebook, on Youtube, on Instagram and on Twitter.
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Elin: Can you name any author/authors, past or present, who have been a great influence on your work? 
Once I’d finished that, it prompted me to go for a massive Kaje re-read, so I have also read her Life-Lessons duology (closeted cop, teacher) and am now reading Nor Iron Bars a Cage, which is set in a fantasy world with a mage as the hero. They all happen to have gay MCs, but I read all sorts of books with queer protaganists – Ada Harper, C. L. Polk and Allie Therin are all hard recommends. Also Melissa Olsen’s books – the relationships are straight, but it’s so plot-driven that they sucked me right in.
You may! Here is an excerpt from Inheritance of Shadows. This is my new release – it’s a 35k stand-alone novella set in the Lost in Time universe, although readers who have come across other books will recognize little things that carry across from different books. The first 7.5k words is a tidied up version of The Gate, which is the first thing I wrote set in the universe and which is available free. I then wanted to find out what happened to Matty and Rob after the end of the story- and this is the result.
Scent of Lilies grew from my first ever published short story Ninufar’s Kiss which was all about Tekla. I’d been listening to Bulgarian folk songs (the amazing voices of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares which still gives me goosebumps) and the characters just turned up (as they do). I’ve never been to Istanbul (Crete is the closest I’ve come) but a visit some years ago to the Chapelle des Moines in Burgundy with its wonderful 11th-12th century Byzantine frescoes by an unknown team of artists inspired me to do research as to how the artists worked. The main protagonist of my fantasy trilogy The Tears of Artamon, Gavril, is a portraitist (his mother Elysia is also a painter) so I seem to be fascinated by artists and the magic they wield.
It was late afternoon and the sun was already dipping westwards, flooding the isthmus with a dazzle of golden light. Damian turned to gaze upwards at Saint Thekla: a large tiled dome, the intricate masonry beneath sun-gilded from grey to rich ochre.
This is quite hard to establish. Children’s toys need to be small, portable and, usually, organic – soft and cuddly with no sharp edges. Sadly organic things tend not to survive for very long so we are left with more robust materials, ie harder to work, more valuable, more highly prized. Such valuable items in metal, stone or wood have usually been attributed either to use or ritual. If one digs up a human figurine painstakingly carved from stone or bone can one say for certain that it’s a votive offering to the gods – or a dolly?
Sometimes we’re lucky and not only find objects, but also find illustrative material. It seems that grooved clay discs that were initially assumed to be parts of a loom are actually yoyos.
Author bio:
Elin Gregory 