I should probably mention that I have a couple personal connections to Mort Castle. For one thing, his 2002 WHC workshop in Chicago served as one of the purest experiences in honing my craft and introduced me to many folks who would be come my peers and dearest friends in the business. As another, Mort recently accepted a story of mine for Doorways Magazine whose fiction he edits, thus proving the age old adage that the student shall one day ... well, remain a student. That's why I'm here with some questions:

Why horror?

Argh, I've never been quite sure, but I do think Paul Wilson has it right when he says you're either wired for horror--or not. (Which sometimes makes it rough for my wife Jane; she is definitely not!) Probably the same for comedy. Chaplin saw the world in his way; King sees it another... And of course, the older you get the greater the similarities between those two particular ways of seeing. And probably the same for religion. Some of us are indeed born with the proverbial God vacuum, others...

No question, though, from early, early, early on, the horrific and the weird attracted me. Blame it on the third and fourth grade teachers Mrs. Curlin and Mrs. Nanberg, who read to us and had us read "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Black Cat," and "The Tell Tale Heart." Blame it on permissive parents who said I could read comic books like Adventures into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds, and stay up late to watch King Kong on Channel 7's Shock Theater. Horror? Man, when Kong goes after the elevated train... We lived a half block from the El and I rode it regularly, usually watching for large, hairy fingers to bust through the window.

And then that early scene in Plan Nine when Tor Johnson comes out of the grave--scary stuff when you're eight years old--and then, you're 13 or 14, and you discover Famous Monsters and it tells you it's okay to love this weird scary stuff.

Why only two novels?

Actually, there have been about seven published novels--and no idea how many unpublished. Return with us now to those thrilling days of mid-list and publishers who paid small advances and put out mediocre paperback books with covers that could have been created by a high school student who'd flunked both Art I and Mechanical Drawing.

My first novel came out in 1966 or 67, but I sold it when I was 19. ESP Attack. Wrote for several publishers under a couple pseudonyms... Potboiler books the bunch, as far as I'm concerned, and glad that they were pseudonymous. Every so often someone finds one, tracks me down at a convention, and yes--reluctantly, I sign it. But those books taught me I could write workmanlike novels. 1976 was The Deadly Election, from Major Books. Not bad for what it was: a parody of all the hard action books out there: You know, The Executioner , The Smasholator, Crime Cruncher, etc. But dig this: The premise was this guy is running for the office of President of the United States in order to counter terrorist activities here in the "Homeland," activities which he himself has arranged in order to be...

The other two novels, those that you've alluded to, are The Strangers and Cursed Be the Child . I'm proud of those. Think they are anywhere from 60 to 80 percent successful. Now, it's a funny thing, maybe there's a novel that will be happening for me in the next few years, maybe no. I cannot say. And the reason is simple. I am not making a time/energy commitment to a lengthy work unless I know it can be nothing less than a wonderful book.

I've done the others: the okay or pretty good reads. And I know, some authors seek to make a career out of nothing but "the others," aiming at that "pretty good read"--and no more. But once you realize you love literature and want to honest-to-goodness make it, then you probably aren't going to write the "next sort of big deal vampire novel"-- This one is truly innovative because the vampires always drink wine, as long as it's not that cheap dreck...

You know, I read King and see how much he's grown and how he is continually seeking to make the masterwork. I read Philip Roth, read Ronald Hansen, James Ellroy, Michael Chabon... Every couple of years, I re-read Andre Schwarz-Bart The Last of the Just...

The other night, I couldn't sleep, so I pick up a paperback, think I'll do some "just plain fun" reading. Maybe 800 pages of genius serial killer stalking... Hell, stalking another cardboard character, all of the so-called "story people" nothing but a bag of quirks and tics. And this is NY Times bestseller list...

Contrivance and clich? all the way, with nothing even approaching credibility. That's not the kind of book I want to spend my time writing. Or reading. Not now. So, when and if a "novel concept" seizes me, says to me, "Castle, we are talking about uppercase A 'Art' now, then I'll hit it again. We'll see.

But the ticket is this, I find short stories have brought me my greatest artistic successes. I mean, out of the over 400 short works I've published, I've got maybe 20 that have a solid chance of being around a hundred years from now and maybe a hundred after that and maybe...

And short stories continue to seize me up regularly. Maybe that's just another case of "hard wiring." Mort's DNA says he gravitates toward short fiction while that poor putz Tolstoy is stuck with War and Peace at 565 thousand words or so... Because he must!

What was the story where you realized "I think I may be onto something"? The first story that worked for you? The one that made you think writing was what you were born to do?

Lots of stories worked--because I sent them off and CAVALIER or MR. or NUGGET sent a contract... But the one that made me realize, yeah, I can do serious work, was "Altenmoor, Where the Dogs Dance." That wasn't when it got picked up by Twilight Zone magazine, but when I read it for several hundred people, students and their parents, at a grade school writing conference. I had people weeping, one of 'em my wife, who had not previously heard/read the story. There have been editors who've said, "Make me laugh or cry" and you've got a sale..."& I realized that, ah, Updike's poem "Dog's Death" and Stryk's poem "Elegy for a Long Haired Student," and that book I've mentioned THE LAST OF THE JUST, and THE GRAPES OF WRATH and FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.... Those works had yanked tears out of me--and brother, it suddenly dawns on this guy, "I can make Art."

Been working at it ever since. Oh, sure, I lighten up frequently, but my calling was that story and my calling is the creation of that which just might speak to people--as long as there are people who read.

You've had some stuff turned into short films - how did that experience go, are you happy with it, and why those stories?

Let's see: "Altenmoor, Where the Dogs Dance" was made into a film at the University of Southern California, adapted and directed by Michael Schroeder. To date, that's the only film. But "Party Time" became a reader's theater production at Elgin Community High School.

And a couple of prose stories were adapted for comics. In fact, "If You Take My Hand, My Son," has appeared as a prose story, an audio production ( The Grist Mill -- AMFM Theater) and a comics story ( J. N. Williamson's Masques: An Anthology of Elegant Evil ). For me, I love seeing my stuff in media other than that in which I work. It shows me all over again that there are all sorts of way to treat an idea, an image, a story. Not right or wrong ways, per se... different ways.

Of course, The Strangers screenplay has been optioned and is in development with Whitewater Films, with Rick Rosenthal planning to direct. And if that movie winds up starring Lassie, Adam Sandler, and Claymation versions of Mr. Happytooth and the Hamburglar, that's fine with me--because the paycheck for yours truly will be... Hey, the eyesight is not as good as it once was so I probably really need to buy a 187" plasma TV, right?

When did you feel you were ready to teach?

Honestly, there are times, right after a class or workshop when I'll take a deep breath and think, "Yeah, you did all right this time out." But feeling ready to teach? Really confident about what all I can share and the means to sharing it? Never.

Maybe that will change when I get more experience. I've only been doing this for 40 years or so.

What brought you to that realization that you wanted to teach?

Every time I say, "Yeah, that was fun." There are times I flat-out don't believe that Columbia College is so generous as to pay me for spending time with these smart and talented people with whom I have this "writing thing" in common.

What do you get out of teaching the workshops at WHC?

First, the altruistic thing that grows directly out of my having had some great teachers. Jerry Williamson. Lucien Stryk. G.E. Smith (not the bandleader, nor the poet, although he was a poet and essayist as well as the guy who supervised my student teaching). Josh White. Bill Wantling. There is this sense of "got to pass it on."

Second, let's face it, people like to do what they know they do well. Then, hey, I am the classic stymied showbizzer. We had a fine folk singing act, really had it all together--just about the time the Beatles hit. "It's not going to happen for you," was what we heard from the manager of The Chad Mitchell Trio. Go see A Mighty Wind ; I was in the original of every one of those groups the film parodies.

The workshops give me a chance to meet people who want to do this writing thing. And when I see 'em later, see that they are doing it, maybe with my having shortened their time in the learning craft stage... Feels plenty good. Plus I get a chance to shmooz. Who doesn't want to hang with others who dig what he digs?

Whose novels would you recommend for all writers to read and study?

You're not a writer if you haven't read--and learned from--Hemingway, in particular the short stories but definitely Old Man and the Sea and Sun Also Rises. And you're not an American if you haven't read Steinbeck. And then, just as Papa had it, it's time for The Russians! Tolstoy and Chekhov and Gogol and my favorite, Mikhail Sholokhov's "Don" epic.

If I had my way, every school from junior high through grad would include King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. It's not just great nuts 'n' bolts stuff; it's as honestly confessional as St. Augustine.

What books/stories of yours would you recommend that people read to get a good feel for your work? What would be the essential Mort Castle primer?

You know, anything that I've had appear since 1984 is a book I'm proud of. But the best book I've ever done, and the worst selling, is Moon on the Water . That's a selection of stories written from 1972 to 1999. Not a one in there I'm not proud of. And I like what Lucien Stryk, my friend and in so many ways my teacher, had to say in his introduction, when he wrote that one of the book's strongest points was "... compassion and understanding for the lost and unfortunate." That book is for "every hung up person in the whole wide universe" and everyone who's "gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing." It's for "Mort's target audience": People who think and feel.

What sort of career/professional behavior mistakes do you see young writers making? does this impact how you see them as a writer?

Well, Monsieur Maurice, you know I'm editing DOORWAYS and the other day I get a submission with a cover letter with the salutation, "Dear Sir or Madam." Yeah, that convinces me that the submitter is ever so familiar with our publication. I also see people thinking to impress me with "I've published 139 books with Allis Vanity House."

Then of course there are those writers who think because they are offered a forum on the Internut and its message boards and blogs and bogs and sloughs of dimwittedness--they have to share their opinions on... everything--but mostly about writing and writers. And that's often in the contemplative, soft-spoken fashion which has become acceptable in our Era of Civility: "Koontz's books? They suck, they suck ass, they suck dead turtle's ass, they suck suckity suck. And so do all the sucking suckers who like those sucking sucks, the suck."

Sure, you're entitled to an opinion. But where is it written that you have to express it? And where is it written that you have to express it in the kind of language (and gestures) that your granny should have slapped you for? Of course, most of the "in your face with my foot--because you suck!" writers are not going anywhere because they have made a bigger mistake: They have not learned how to write. Look, I might excuse your acting like a total rectilinear if you are stone unique, an absolute one of a kind with so much literary genius that it's almost superfluous for you even to have a personality.

But... Hey, here's something I recently had occasion to write on a message board (well, at Shocklines, to be specific): I've encountered, over these years, very few writer jerks--and among 'em, I've not found any one whose writing brilliance so overwhelmed me that I had to allow for his poor manners/lack of social skills/jerkiness in order that I might bring his works of genius to the public. I mean, maybe I'd say "By god, he's a miserable fascist but that Ezra Pound is some kinda poet so I've got to publish him!"--but--my bad luck--I've not discovered any jerk-writers who had goods equal to Mr. Pound.

Yeah, I've met people I did and do consider literary geniuses: Jerry Williamson was one of 'em. Rex Miller, another. And why David Morrell isn't lauded in the same literary bailiwicks as Robert Stone, I don't know. But ain't it funny, every one of those guys was/is an absolute pleasure to know. All of 'em: we're talking about people who can eat with silverware, have been known to say 12 sentences in a row without using the "F" word, and don't consider themselves restricted by Political Correctness because they were not permitted to fart the William Tell Overture during an Easter service.

What does a typical writing day in the life of Mort Castle look like?

Much easier than it used to be. At one time, the 12 hour workday, yeah, used to do it all the time. Now, I pretty much work when I choose to. Of course, there are deadlines for my editing, for my teaching, but because I am now being most careful about picking and choosing what I want to write, well ... you know:

-instead of writing, I'm playing guitar tonight.
-instead of writing, I'm listening to old radio shows tonight.
-instead of writing, Jane and I are going to catch a play in the city.
-instead of writing, I am not writing.

First ten to 15 years as a scribe, I worked five days out of every seven. I had one finished piece submitted every week, not always a story, but always a something: a batch of poems, an article, whatever. But I slowed down when I decided to be a really good writer--because for me, good writing takes time. And I slowed down still more in the past ten years, when I realized I've found success: I've got worthwhile stuff written and people who read it and appreciate it.

What's one piece of advice you'd like to leave up-and-coming writers with?

Redundant, I know, but it's "learn to write." And perhaps that needs to be said more often. It's so easy these days for up-and-coming "writers" to delude themselves with website "publications" and "self-published" print on (no great) demand options, etc.

See, I'm publicated! I'm a writer!

To paraphrase the Catskills shpritz: By you, you're a writer, and by your mother, you're a writer, but by a writer, you ain't no writer! If you are a carpenter, you'd better know which is the hitting end of the hammer and if you're a doctor you know where the stethoscope goes--and doesn't go. And if you're a writer, then you've learned the basics of the craft of writing, including the difference between "lie" and "lay," and you've learned how and where to submit your work. And if you conduct yourself as though you are a true child of civilization, then you are going to succeed.

You'll have words in print and people who want to read 'em.

** Maurice Broaddus is a writer, scientist, and lay leader at The Dwelling Place Church. He's been published in dozens of markets, including the Dark Dreams II and III, Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, Horror Literature Quarterly, and Weird Tales. His sole goal is to be a big enough name to be able to snub people at conventions. In preparation for this, he often practices speaking of himself in the third person. You can visit his site so he can bore you with all of the details about being the Sinister Minister at www.mauricebroaddus.com (where you can read his blog. He likes that. A lot.).