Keith DeCandido FCRH ‘90: Speculative Fiction Author

By Peter Krause

Keith DeCandido, FCRH class of 1990 is, among many things, an author, editor, blogger, and musician who has made a career out of writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other genre fiction.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Keith DeCandido

Peter Krause: Keith, thank you for being with us. You’ve been interviewed quite a bit over the years and there is extensive information about you and your work on your website (which includes your Patreon, blog, YouTube channel, Twitter, etc.), so I’ll do my best to avoid redundancy and ask you fresh questions.

Keith DeCandido: [Laughs] Great.

PK: Fordham English majors are, understandably, always curious to know what life looks like after graduation. I wonder if you might tell us a little bit about what those early years after majoring in English at Fordham were like for you.

KD: I was born and raised in the Bronx. I commuted to school. At the time, the Bx41 went literally straight from my house to campus. I still live only fifteen minutes away. I drive by the campus all the time when we go to the Bronx Zoo or the New York Botanical Garden.

My first job out of Fordham was as an assistant editor at Library Journal, which is one of three or so trade magazines for the library field. That was in Manhattan, which is where they are still based. That job came directly from Fordham for two different reasons: one was the degree in English, and one was because I worked for the paper. I wrote for the paper in my freshman year. Sophomore and junior year, I was the arts editor. Senior year, I was executive editor. That all gave me a good grounding in editorial experience. At the time, the paper was quite high quality. We even won a few awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism.

I always wanted to be a writer, but you cannot just graduate college and immediately make a living as a writer. Some people can write for years and never make a living as a writer. I needed a gig that would actually enable me to feed, clothe, and house myself, and the experience working for the paper helped immensely.

At first I took the bus to school, but eventually I got a car, which was especially useful on those weekends when we would put the issue of the paper together for publication and printing. Those were intense weekends in the print shop. Back in those days we did cut and paste layout! In fact, the paper got its first computer when I was there.

PK: In addition to the paper, were you engaged with any other groups or projects on campus?

KD: Not on campus, but I worked at the New York Public Library as a page and then as a technical assistant. It was an easy enough commute on the D train. Simply due to lack of time, I don’t think I did too much else on campus beyond classes and the paper. Though, for current students, let me say that becoming involved with anything having to do with words is fantastic preparation for life after college. Write for one of the many on-campus journals and newspapers, do something in the theatre, etc. There was really, really good theatre being put on at Fordham when I was there, including Waiting for Godot, Macbeth, Godspell, and Arsenic and Old Lace. Really good stuff.

PK: Do you recall any particular professors or classes that were especially influential?

KD: Oh, absolutely. Marc Macagnone taught a two-part romantic literature class that solidified in me a love of nineteenth century literature, particularly romantic poetry and realist fiction. A lot of the work that I did studying Byron, Shelley—both Mary and Percy—, Wordsworth, Coleridge, as well as, in other classes, Sara Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Theodore Dresier, had a huge influence on me as a writer. I’ve been influenced just as much by them as by J.R.R. Tolkien and [longtime comics writer] Chris Claremont.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading lots of comic books and there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading lots of William Blake. And there’s nothing wrong with doing both, like me! I wrote a Star Trek novel called The Art of the Impossible in which the section titles were inspired by Blake’s America: A Prophecy. I did another two projects in which all of the titles were taken from William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” and Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” speech.

At Fordham I also took a couple classes with Joanne Dobson, one on American literary realism and one on women writers. There was also a splendid class that was a collaboration between English and Art History. The topic was the pre-Raphaelites. It was taught by Constance Hassett. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the name of the professor from the Art History department. That class was wonderful. I have a huge appreciation of nineteenth century literature, which I absolutely owe to Fordham’s English department.

PK: Let’s fast-forward a little bit. You mentioned that your experience with the paper helped you get your first job at Library Journal. What was an average day like working for the journal?

KD: When you start in the lower rungs of editorial work you’re not actually doing a lot of editorial work, although I did do some. My primary function was one that has since become redundant. At the time, articles were still being submitted on paper and my job was to type them into the system. This was in 1990 or 1991. Writing was submitted in hard copy and by disk. The vast majority of what I did was type in the book reviews. I was also responsible for editing a few items, including the magazine review column and the Ready Reference Page. In hindsight, the Ready Reference Page was actually one of the most valuable projects that I worked on. It was basically just tips and timesavers for librarians. However, it was a three-column page and every entry had to start at the top of a column and end at the bottom of a column. Each column had to be exactly 44 lines long. It could not be 43 or 45. It had to be 44. So, all of this is to say: I got really good at editing for space.

Low level editors get to do all of the boring or mundane tasks that senior editors are too busy to do and don’t want to do. I made photocopies. I ran errands. I was there for two years.

PK: Recently, I was interviewing someone and they found themself explaining to me what a tape recorder is. [Laughs] I don’t think they could tell that I’m 30. So, let me say in jest: thank you for not explaining what a photocopy is.

KD: [Laughs] Of, course. In addition to working for Library Journal, after graduating from Fordham some friends and I put together a science fiction talk show on public access TV. It aired from 1990 to 1994. It was called The Chronic Rift. We actually revived it as a podcast in 2008 for a while. The point was to do roundtable discussions about science fiction, fantasy, horror—anything in the genre. We got to meet a lot of people who worked in the genre, which was great.

Keith DeCandido (far right) with friends John and Andrea who were involved in The Chronic Rift project.

PK: What came next after Library Journal?

KD: I freelanced for two years, which meant I was unemployed for two years. I had some writing and editing gigs here and there, including for Neal-Schuman Editions, which publishes books for librarians. In 1993 I started working for Byron Preiss Visual Publications [which has since gone out of business]. That was the job that really helped get my career going in a lot of ways. Byron was a book packager, which meant he would put together all of the art direction work. He would then sell that “package” to a publisher, who would distribute it. I worked there from 1993 to 1998 as a staffer and from 1998 to 1999 as a freelancer. While I was responsible for a bunch of different projects, I was mostly doing science fiction and fantasy.

I started out as the assistant to John Betancourt, who was the senior editor for science fiction and fantasy. After a year he left and I was promoted to editor. Of all the projects I took on the one that I spent the most time on, and the one I’m most proud of, was creating prose novels and short story anthologies based on Marvel superheroes. From 1994 to 2000 Byron did a huge run of about fifty four books that featured all of these great characters: Spider Man, Captain America, the Avengers, the X-Men, Iron Man, etc. It was a hugely successful line of books. That was a great experience. I got to work with a whole bunch of wonderful writers and artists. I’m really proud of the work that we did putting those books out.

What’s neat is that these were not simply stand-alone novels. There was actually an internal continuity to them. Stuff that happened in one Spider Man story would affect what happened in a later Spider Man story. Many supporting characters were consistent across multiple books. We really made an effort to keep things coherent. I joke that prior to 2008 it was the most extensive collection of superhero stories not in comic book form from Marvel. Then, of course, [Marvel President] Kevin Feige went and stole my thunder! Like I said, I was really proud of that project.

By 1998 I had gone freelance. I had written a Spider Man novel. Byron gave me the novel contract one year in lieu of a raise. I had already done some writing for Spider Man, Silver Surfer, Hulk, and X-Men anthologies. I also worked on Dr. Who and Magic: The Gathering anthologies. I also did a movie novelization for Gargantua. At that point I thought, “Okay, I can make a go of this.” It helped that at the time I was married to someone making a six-figure salary. With her blessing and with enough writing experience under my belt, I went for it, though I did still work for Bryon two days a week.

In 1999 I walked away from Byron for good. I was pretty well established. I did a couple Young Hercules novels and a couple Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels. That was the year I got a contract to write my first Star Trek novel and my first Star Trek comic book. I was making more money as a writer than I had as a staffer at Byron. Though, I should note: you do not go into the writing and editing field to make a lot of money. But I was writing regularly, and I think writing much better than I had previously.

PK: I’m contradicting myself here by asking what I’m sure is a question you’re asked often, but what advice would you give to students who are interested in pursuing a career as a writer?

KD: It is incredibly difficult to do this for a living. If it was easy everyone would do it. You have to treat it like a job, even if you’re not getting paid for it. Submission is just like a job interview. The process of writing becomes something you do for a living. You have to commit. You have to put your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard and put one word in front of another until you’re done.

Finish what you start. I cannot emphasize that enough. The ratio of novels that have been started to novels that have been completed is about eight billion to zero point five. It’s really easy to start and it’s incredibly difficult to finish. You cannot sell a fragment.

When I was working for Byron Preiss one of the projects I was involved with was bringing the works of Alfred Bester, author of The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination, back into print. Those are two of the most influential works of science fiction from the 1950s. We also put together a short story collection. As part of this project, we were given permission to go through his unpublished work. One of the items that we found was a fragment. In the end, we published it as a fragment because it contained some wonderful ideas. But, you could tell he had absolutely no idea where he was going with it. I got to the bottom of the final type-written page and there, in all caps, was written: “IT IS MUCH EASIER TO START A THING THAN END IT.” [Laughs] There were great ideas there, but they were just not coming together. That’s the risk. If you cannot complete a story, you’re not a writer yet.

It’s also much easier to fix something after it’s done. Your first draft is allowed to suck. Just finish it. Your mother was right: if you keep picking at it, it will never heal. Get as many words on the page as you can. They don’t have to be good words -- most of them are going to be “the” anyway. Plow forward.

You also have to have thick skin and you have to have both patience and stubbornness. It could take years. I was lucky. I sold my first short story when I was 25. There are many people whose writing careers do not start until they are in their fifties. There are people who sell their first novel at 20 and don’t sell anything else for a decade. There is no single path to a writing career. If you ask any twelve writers about the path to success you will get fifteen different answers. Write stuff. Submit stuff. Keep doing those two things until someone sends you a check! (or PayPal, or whatever).

It’s interesting to note the many changes that have happened in the publishing world. When I first started, self-publishing was considered ridiculous and not something a self-respecting person would do. Now it’s a perfectly viable way of proceeding. But the basic dynamics of being a writer have not changed. Write and submit.

In 2004 I turned 35. Due to various health reasons, mostly due to the fact that the only thing I exercised was my futility, I took up martial arts. Martial arts has scheduled classes. I need that scheduling. All of my self-discipline is tied up in my writing. If I joined a gym, I would never go.

Find the mode of writing that works for you. Some writers are regimented. They get up at 9 a.m. and they write until noon. Then they have lunch and they write until 5 p.m. They reconstruct the schedule of professional office life, which works for them. Some writers cannot work at home. They have to go to the local cafe (god knows what they’ve been doing during the pandemic!). Some write on a laptop. Some write first drafts by hand. There is no right way to do it, but there is a right way for you to do it. You have to find that. Find what Virginia Woolf referred to as “a room of one’s own.” That may be the dining room table, the library, your bed, or the park. You need somewhere that will provide the least amount of distractions.

PK: Thanks so much for sharing all of these insights, Keith. By way of closing, plug something, or multiple things. What have you been working on recently?

KD: I’ve just had a few collaborative novels come out, which is a new experience for me. One is entitled To Hell and Regroup, which is a military science fiction novel. The author of the first two books in the trilogy, David Sherman, was unable to finish book three due to health issues. I edited the first two books, so he trusted me to finish the manuscript with his guidance. The book is part of a series called The 18th Race. I’ve worked on soft military science fiction before, but this was hard, aggressive military science fiction, so that was a really interesting experience.

I also wrote my first thriller with medical doctor Munish K. Batra. We’re actually doing a bunch of projects together. The thriller is called Animal. It is about a serial killer who targets people who harm animals.

I also have two ongoing novel series. One is a fantasy police procedural. Think Law and Order meets Lord of the Rings. One reviewer called it “Dungeons and Dragnet.” It started with Dragon Precinct. The most recent book is Mermaid Precinct. I’m currently working on Phoenix Precinct. (There’s also Unicorn Precinct, Goblin Precinct, and Gryphon Precinct and a short story collection called Tales From Dragon Precinct). That’s my most extensive original universe. Those books have been tremendous fun to write.

In 2019 I launched an urban fantasy series about a guy from the Bronx who hunts monsters. As I mentioned, I’ve lived in The Bronx for forty of my fifty odd years. I worked for the U.S. Census Bureau from 2009 to 2010. I walked around and counted people in parts of the Bronx even I had never seen. That made me interested in writing a story set in the Bronx because when most people write fiction set in New York City it’s set in Manhattan below 125th Street. The outer boroughs and upper Manhattan are often ignored, so I’m trying to counteract that. (Okay, they’ll do Brooklyn sometimes, especially now that Captain America is from there, even though he should be from the Lower East Side!).

The Brom Gold books--he’s the protagonist--take place in The Bronx. The first book is called A Furnace Sealed. There’s some Bronx history in there. I’m currently working on the second book which is called Feat of Clay. The first book is about immortals being killed, as well as wrangling unicorns and werewolves and such. The second book involves a golem that has been revived, as well as a dragon that has shown up in someone’s backyard. The books are fun to write because of all the Bronx history and because of the sheer variety of people who live here. It is, of course, an incredibly diverse borough with many, many neighborhoods that are distinct.

I’ve also got a bunch of short stories out recently. One was in a charity anthology called Turning the Tied. This book was put together by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW). Over the years I’ve written in about thirty five different universes (Star Trek, Marvel, World of Warcraft, etc.), which is to say that I tie-in stories. Tie-in writers have their own writer’s organization: the IAMTW. This year, the organization put out a charity anthology to benefit the World Literacy Organization.

Finally, a short story of mine is coming out soon in an anthology called Devilish and Divine, which is about angels and demons. Specifically, my story, “Unguarded,” is about Muslim angels.

PK: You’ve been busy! We have lots to read. Keith, thanks so much speaking with us today.

KD: My pleasure.