2026 Reading Challenge

Ask the Author: Douglas Smith

“Hi! Thanks for dropping by. Please feel free to ask me questions about my writing.” Douglas Smith

Answered Questions (9)

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If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?
Douglas Smith To Roger Zelazny's Kingdom of Amber, for sure. Feast with Amber's royal family, especially Corwin, and hopefully get a look at the Pattern.
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I stumbled on The Wolf at the end of the world because Charles de Lint, whose worked I've cherished for 30 years already, introduced it. That was two weeks ago... and now I am busy downloading one Story an evening, even so I always said I do not like short stories - they are too short! But I have fallen in love with your writing, thank you! No questions, not as Long as there's always another Story to read...?
Douglas Smith Petra, thank you so much for your kind comments and for taking the time to write. I always love hearing from readers. I am so happy that you enjoyed The Wolf. Yes, Charles has been great at recommending the book to his own readers. He's a great guy. He kindly wrote the introduction to a collection of my fantasy stories that was published in France, and he became a fan of my Heroka stories. He was an early reader of The Wolf and also wrote its intro.

Thanks for the interest in my other work. FYI, the most cost effective way to read my short fiction is to buy my two collections, IMPOSSIBILIA and CHIMERASCOPE. Between them, they include 19 short stories and novelettes. IMPOSSIBILIA also includes "Spirit Dance," which is the story on which THE WOLF is based.

Thanks again for your note.

Doug
www.smithwriter.com
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I recently discovered your work through the compilation Best New Werewolf Tales. Your story, Out of the Light, was excellent. I'm interested in reading more of your work. Do you have any recommendations on what I should jump into next?
Douglas Smith Ken, thanks for reaching out. And thanks for your kind comments on "Out of the Light" and your interest in my work. Glad you enjoyed the story.

If you like short fiction, then your best bet would be to try either (or both ) of my collections, IMPOSSIBILIA or CHIMERASCOPE.

IMPOSSIBILIA was published in 2008 by the fine UK press, PS Publishing. It's a mini-collection, containing three novelettes. It includes the Aurora Award winning "Spirit Dance," which is the first in my series about my shapeshifter species, the Heroka. The collection was an Aurora finalist itself.

CHIMERASCOPE is my first full collection, containing 16 stories, including another Aurora Award winner, a Best New Horror selection, and eight Aurora Award finalists. It was published in 2010 by the fine Canadian small press, ChiZine. It was a finalist for the Aurora, the juried Sunburst Award, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp's Bookies Award. Note that it includes "Out of the Light" (which qualified as an Aurora Finalist but I chose to drop it from the list as I would have had two stories on the ballot that year and didn't want to split my votes).

Finally, my first novel, THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2013), is another Heroka shapeshifter tale, taking place five years after the events in "Spirit Dance" and featuring most of the same characters.

All of these are available in trade paperback and ebook editions from all major retailers, and also via my website store at www.smithwriter.com/store. More info on all of these is available also on my website at www.smithwriter.com. My website also has a complete list of all of my stories.

Hope this helps! Thanks again for the interest. It's always wonderful to hear from a fan. You can contact me directly via the contact page on my website or via doug smithwriter.com. You can also subscribe to my irregular email newsletter via a link on my website.

Happy reading!
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What are you currently working on?
Douglas Smith I'm currently writing a young adult urban fantasy, set in current day Toronto, and featuring a very unique hero and heroine, superhero comics, dream walking, astral projection, rune magic, and more. Plus the creepiest villains I've ever created. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and hope to finish it this year. It's the first in a planned trilogy.

I also plan to return to the world of the Heroka (THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD) and write a near-future SF novel based on the characters in my story "Memories of the Dead Man."
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What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Douglas Smith Being able to create something out of nothing--a world, characters, events, an entire history. Adding something to the world that never would have existed if you hadn't sat down and brought it into being. I think creativity is an important part of being human, and that all of us have the ability to be creative in some way. We're born with it, and we all loved being creative as children, but then society beats it out of us if we let it. Anyone can be creative and recover that sense of wonder about the world we had as children.
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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
Douglas Smith My most recent completed book is the urban fantasy, THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD. It was based on my very first story "Spirit Dance," which won the Aurora Award in 2001. THE WOLF features the main characters from that story and picks up events in their lives five years later. THE WOLF features Gwyn Blaidd, one of the Heroka, a race of human-looking shapeshifters, whose vitality is tied to that of their animal totems. I'd always planned to revisit the world of "Spirit Dance" and THE WOLF gave me the chance to do that in a full-length novel. It gave me a chance to write a story that incorporates issues and concerns that are important to me, including the impact of our society on animal habitat and the historical and continued mistreatment of our First Nations people in Canada.
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How do you get inspired to write?
Douglas Smith The problem isn't getting inspired. The problem is finding the time. I have more ideas for stories than I can handle. If the question is "where do you get your ideas?" I deal with that in this post on my web site: http://www.smithwriter.com/readers_wr.... If the question is "How do you get motivated to write?" then my answer is the same advice I give to all beginning writers: you can't wait for inspiration. Sit down and write. Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, cursor moving to the right. Writers write. So just do it. A story is discovered in its writing.
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How do you deal with writer’s block?
Douglas Smith I really have never experienced it. I have encountered being stuck in writing a story or a novel, but that has always been due to a plot problem or complication that has arisen, and has forced me to rethink the resolution in order to still get to the ending I want. I nearly always have the ending of a story already figured out before I start writing, or at least the resolution of what happens to a character (since I'm a character writer, primarily -- I think in character arcs). My problem isn't not having ideas, but rather having too many of them. If I do get stuck in the middle of a story, I generally set it aside for a while and then come back to it.
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Would you write another story with the characters from "Scream Angel"? Or further explore the implications of their future, especially what such military drugs do to people and societies?
Douglas Smith Hi Kalin. Thanks for the question. I have a novel planned that will be set in the Merged Corporate Entity universe, on Earth in the near future. It will focus on the main character in my story "Memories of the Dead Man," but it will have a link to the "Scream Angel" story and will include Trelayne. Check out the Dead Man story and see if you can figure out the connection to Scream Angel.

In case you don't know, I have one other story set in the "Scream" universe, and dealing with RIP Force soldiers on Scream: "Enlightenment."
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