DF Lewis' contribution to the genre is legendary. With a highly distinctive writing style, he has published over 1500 stories - mainly in small press magazines during the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties – along with several novellas. He has had stories in three volumes of BEST NEW HORROR and five consecutive volumes of THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES, as well as in other anthologies. In 1998, he received the British Fantasy Society's Karl Edward Wagner Award.

Currently, he edits and publishes the much acclaimed NEMONYMOUS series of anthologies. The latest, CONE ZERO, is due to be published shortly.

So, how does such creativity function? To try to find out, I embark on an incredible journey through the imagination of DF Lewis. Now, Des, where are we and what year is it?

The bus station pub in a Lancashire seaside town and the date: 1967. Full of locals and students in an unlikely but positive mix. Nearby is a ‘psychodelic’ room with a juke-box playing ‘Hey Joe’ by Jimi Hendrix, and its special lighting effects give all white clothes a shiny ghostly glow in the near-darkness. It also shows that the girl I’m dancing with has a bad tooth that the normal light outside hadn’t revealed. I thank her for the dance and return to the Public Bar where you want to ask me about my creative writing later in the century as if it has already been written and published. I sip a pint of mild and cider mixed together. My friends Pete, Laurie and Jim Lamba are at a nearby table where I was sitting earlier, and they’re thinking perhaps that I’m trying to chat someone up again, so they pretend not to know me so as to give a no-hoper like me the best chance possible. Little do they know that I am talking about ‘DF Lewis’ with someone who’s more interested in his future writing career than being chatted up. And I remember the interview well... it went like this...

As a writer, you've published an amazing number of stories. Your work defies categorisation and it's been suggested (by Graham Joyce) that you write 'in a genre of one'. How would you describe your writing?

I think there are many influences over the years upon the way I write. Being in a ‘genre of one’, if that is true, by the way, is a problem rather than a blessing. Influences, such as Music, Poetry, textured fiction like Dickens, Poe, Elizabeth Bowen, Lawrence Durrell, AS Byatt, Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman, plus the influence of my own ‘default’ in a thickening word-style while my brain 'trip-switches' at the very point of putting pen to paper, plus a love of Art movements like Dada, plus writing-for-myself.... Yes, a difficult question. I think I’ll get back to the juke-box. (Laughs). I know ... my fiction is trying to create a new reality that does not come from the more traditional devices of ‘suspension of disbelief’ (a skill of which I am incapable and of which, for example, Stephen King is a master) but comes more from a time-travel channel for dreams. Before I get too pretentious or bogged down in actually giving you what’s turning out to be a fiction as an answer to your sensible straightforward question, how would you describe my fiction, as I know you’ve told me you’ve read some?

Yes, I certainly have. I sometimes re-read your stories, and regularly find something new in them each time I do! I wonder, do you enjoy what is, in a way, playing games with your readers – making them ponder on the various meanings of your stories?

Before I get too carried away, a lot of my fictions are up front and unmysterious – like A PIE WITH THICK GRAVY in THE BLACK BOOK OF HORROR (2007) – but, even there, I see things in it myself that I didn’t see before when I read it again! So what I’m saying, yes, I do enjoy not only playing games with potential readers but also with myself. What lies behind this, I often wonder? I believe in ‘The Intentional Fallacy’: a theory over the years (a theory held by many) that the author’s intentions are unknowable and, even if knowable, irrelevant to interpreting or evaluating a creative text. I think this is also true of one’s own work, one’s own hazy intentions... I think I like to horrify not only by describing horrific things but also by laying traps in the text ... but who knows? I may horrify myself if I try to delve into my own mindset too deeply here!

You've received some harsh criticism of your writing on the one hand, and some tremendous accolades on the other. Have you ever been tempted to make your writing more accessible, more 'commercial' and 'marketable'?

Yes, I have been tempted to change all manner of courses in my writing life, but I know in my heart of hearts that I cannot change the DF Lewis style, tone, texture, call it what you like. When I do try to be more straightforward or linear, I soon slip back into what the demon inside of me wants me to write. This has happened many times. One change of course I did implement was in 2000 when I ceased submitting stories, mainly caused by the influence of the Internet. I then decided that I would publish all my previous published stories (and new ones) on that damned beast called the Internet under the overall title of ‘The Weirdmonger Wheel’. This was all part and parcel of the considerations implied in your question. The main purpose for me is to write and be read, not make a financial living from this activity. And I think I do get more readers these days for my stuff that would otherwise moulder inside old magazines; magazines that in turn moulder inside my cupboard. At this point, I also started publishing other writers’ work, but in print. What was all this about? Let me think. Please ask me a question not relevant to this issue before we return to it. Or shall we have a quick jig next to the juke-box before continuing? No, on second thoughts, it sounds as if they are playing Cliff Richard’s ‘Congratulations’ at the moment!

OK, let's go in a totally different direction then. I know you enjoy classical music. Personally, I feel that your writing is to literature as Stravinsky's music is to classical music. Would you say that was a fair description of your work?

Yes, although I know nothing about music technically, I often immerse myself in non-vocal abrasive stuff like contemporary classical music, and older more poetic chamber music (Schubert, Brahms...). Although he is not one of my very top favourites, it is interesting that you should pick on Stravinsky, because in the early nineties there was going to be another published book of my stuff entitled STRAVINSKY AND THE DARK FEAST but, at the last moment, and for a reason I forget, it didn’t come out. (By the way, I’ve got into Goldfrapp in recent years and a group with the same name appears in my novella entitled WEIRDTONGUE). And, you’re right, also, I feel, to compare my stuff to music. I think my fiction goal (if I’m ever successful in reaching it) is concerned with a dream-combination of (a) the meaning of the words and (b) look/sound/syntax of the words irrespective of their meaning. Mad, maybe, but I can only tell you how it is.

Your writing often has a dreamlike (or, rather, nightmarish) quality to it. Where do you get your ideas for stories? Do any of them come from your dreams/nightmares? Do you ever re-read your stories and think 'What was that doing inside my head'?

Yes, I’m fascinated by reality and unreality and a hybrid which is neither. Fascinated by non-being and the question of identity, all of which seems to bear upon dreams and vice versa. I have written straight after dreaming about the dream, but rarely. More often, I tend to seek a ‘tone’ that is dream-like, with control from the conscious mind coupled with a relaxation of that control (automatic writing?) – a difficult balance to strike of control and non-control. It’s a frame of mind that I feel myself entering (I described it as ‘trip-switching’ earlier in our conversation, or perhaps you didn’t hear because of the noise of the juke-box!)... and is it relevant to your question about me being surprised (shocked?) at what must have been inside my head when writing one of my fictions? Yes, indeed! That shock is why I’ve used a passworded website for a small part of ‘The Weirdmonger Wheel’, probably!

Although you haven't submitted any of your stories for publication since 2000, you're still writing of course. When you write, how do ideas come to you? Do you tend to get a fully formed story in your head or do you just start writing and see where it goes?

I normally start writing and see where it goes, I think. I say ‘I think’ there, advisedly. Because it is a bit of a conundrum. Many may believe that the ‘start-writing-and-see-where-it-goes’ school of writing is a bit of a cop-out or a bit pretentious and, indeed, it is both those things! I have no excuses. These days I’ve been writing what I call ‘DFL thingies’ that tend to derive from exercises for the Writer’s Group I attend on the Tendring Peninsular Coast. These exercises are geared to random titles picked out of a hat. Some are written over the period between meetings and others as speed-writing exercises during the meeting itself.

Since 2001, you've been concentrating on publishing other people's work in the NEMONYMOUS series – famous for it's 'late labelling', with authors' names only being revealed in the following issue . Can you tell us how the concept for that came about? And why are you now preferring to publish other people's work rather than your own?

I was worried that this type of question would be asked. I’ve never satisfactorily answered it. Have a look at the ‘Baser Pulps’ on the wonderful ‘Vault of Evil’ website: these are the old Small Press covers being visually streamed like internet music. These are where my 1500+ stories were published in the eighties and nineties. These images are now presented as a Dada Happening. And NEMONYMOUS was/is a Happening in a similar manner. NEMONYMOUS was the world’s first ever anonymous anthology in 2001 and has developed like a crazy but subtle monster ever since. NEMONYMOUS as a word had no Google entries at all in 2001. Now try to Google it! Google WEIRDMONGER, too (the name of the trade paperback book of my selected stories)... and I’m proud of my brainstorming approach to Horror. But this approach is not to everyone’s taste. I cannot now fathom NEMONYMOUS’ genesis (or parthenogenesis). On a simpler, saner note, I just enjoy publishing fiction work by other writers (work that appeals to me) and paying money to them for it. It is also for a selfish reason of self-satisfaction, a reason that is a paradox! And I love paradoxes. I have no illusions about my own need for self-glorification in posterity, but there are easier ways I could have gone about it!

And, why the name change – first ZENCORE! and now the CONE ZERO themed anthology?

‘I don’t know’ is the simple answer. ZENCORE! was a title suggested by someone who was taking part in an on-line contest to name NEMONYMOUS SEVEN: with a promise of a free copy if the title was used. Whoever suggested it has so far not claimed the prize. I found out subsequently that 'Zencore' is a trade name for a form of herbal Viagra! CONE ZERO (the title of the forthcoming NEMONYMOUS EIGHT) is a near anagram of ZENCORE! and I am to blame for that! I have had hundreds and hundreds of distinct stories about CONE ZERO sent to me, and a whole new genre of fiction has thus potentially been born!

As an editor, then, what are you looking for in a story? What kinds of work do you like to see from other writers?

A story for me should be a new experience, nothing that has been done before. Something that sticks in the craw. Words that choke you as well as have meaning as normal words. I’m nothing, if not pretentious.

So, what are your future plans, both in terms of writing and also editing/publishing?

Well, I want to publish CONE ZERO and then get it into as many reading hands as possible. Additionally, in 2010, I intend to start submitting my own stories to publishers again in the traditional manner. By then, I would not have submitted any stories off my own bat during a period of 10 years. You see, I am not afraid to admit failure in the process of 'The Weirdmonger Wheel’ as an internet-portfolio submission process; a general process that was originally intended by me for all of us to do away with sluggish slush-piles.

Finally (and I've always wanted to ask an interviewee this), if you were interviewing yourself instead of me doing it, what one question would you have asked yourself (you can give us the answer too if you like)?

What do you think of death? What about that full stop that comes after the natural process towards self-extinction? But I suppose the answer is unknown but, if known, it is an answer as filtered by the DFL fiction ‘thingies’ that were produced by accident, if not by intention, to avoid that natural process.

On that note, I fear we'll have to draw our mutual journey to a close, Des. Thanks for an interesting interview. It's been a pleasure having this imaginary drink with you!

And now it’s time for our jig together by the juke-box, Caroline. They’ve put Jimi’s 'Purple Haze' on just for us. These are interesting times. And Time, for me, is a friend, not a foe.

You can find out more about DF Lewis and his work, and access The Weirdmonger Wheel, at www.weirdmonger.com

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