GG: Hi Kevin. Thanks for joining us. Where are you writing from?
Kevin Cockle: Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
GG: What is the name of your story in Gaslight Arcanum? Can you give a spoiler-free synopsis?
Kevin Cockle: My story is "Sherlock Holmes and the Great Game". What if the stories of Holmes that we know, are actually a kind of age-of-enlightenment myth meant to disguise his true nature...or super-nature. It's Watson's job to translate their weird adventures into the rationalistic discourse of the times, for reasons known only to Holmes himself. It's a great game alright...between Holmes and Watson; Holmes and the problem in the story...and between the story and the reader.
GG: What do you like most about this collection?
Kevin Cockle: I love the premise - Sherlock vs the supernatural. It works on the level of image because it's vaguely steam-punky; it's got that tinge of Victorian mysticism always in the background; it's got a brand name character being re-imagined in unfamiliar settings...it's just a really evocative milieu in which to place the very symbol of rationality. And on a more personal note, I'm digging the illustrations (including the cover!)
GG: Since this is an anthology of Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes, we thought we would ask:
"What is the most Uncanny thing that has ever happened to you?"
Kevin Cockle: One summer, lying on my couch, looking up through the rectangular frame of my living room window, I thought I saw sparks drifting by. Fire! I stood up to look more directly, and realized they weren't sparks at all - way too far away for that. It was late afternoon in Calgary, and these things that appeared to be sparks were set against a typical afternoon storm cloud that had blown east of the city...and as I rejected all the possible notions of what these things could be, I was being drawn by a process of elimination towards the "UFO" conclusion. Small objects at a distance, in a loose cluster, flying and changing directions, definitely not airplanes...there was no other explanation. But just as I was about to call 911, I noticed extra detail, realized the objects were closer than I had thought, and suddenly it dawned on me that they were SEAGULLS, reflecting sunlight off their bodies against the dark-cloud backdrop, thereby making them incandescent. Seagulls. But for a good minute and a half, they were UFOs, and that's an uncanny feeling.
GG: What is the best piece of writing advice that you have received?
Kevin Cockle: Tony King, a local author, once told me that the main thing is to finish what you start, and send it off. Sounds simple, but most writers don't do it. Make submissions. You don't have to be Shakespeare, because that super-talented guy is probably lazy, and if his story never arrives, you've got a shot. That's it really: once you have the ability to finish a story, don't stop there - do the cover letter; get your SASE together; put that sucker in the mail. I got the advice a long time ago you see: email was still science fiction.
GG: That is great Kevin. Thank you! In a recent interview on Bitten by Books, we asked the authors to ask questions of the other authors. Can you share your two favorite answers?
Kevin Cockle: These are my two favorites.
How Hard Was It To Work on a Sherlock Holmes Story?
Hard. There were unusual obstacles on this one. First - the Gaslight series were "closed" submissions so far as I knew, and I had no invite to the dance. Second - I like the idea of Holmes, and I'm a fan, but I don't have detailed, particular knowledge of the original texts, or most of the subsequent products...and Holmes has arguably the most particular and precise fan-base in all of Christendom. But I solved the first problem when I obtained Charles' card at a book signing and eventually realized his email was on the back, and I solved the second problem with wikipedia. I constructed a post-modern premise that would undermine all previously-known information about Holmes so that my glaring ignorance of the topic could be construed a strength, and pushed the anthology's thematic concept about as far as I could, in hopes the extremity would give the editors a nice "change-up" story. Crashed the party; followed the age old advice to always send everything I finish; rest is history.
What Attracts You to Writing Holmes?
Prestige, honestly. It's like getting your hands on Bond, or Spiderman or something. Even people who don't read, know Sherlock Holmes, and for them, all you have to do is mention that you have a Sherlock Holmes story out there, and they figure you must be somebody. But aside from the ol' "what's in it for me' - I'd say the technical challenge was interesting. I wasn't overly confident I would sell to this anthology, so when the story was accepted, I was genuinely thrilled.
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KEVIN COCKLE lives in Calgary, Alberta and often incorporates Calgary-style boom-town themes in his work. A frequent contributor to On Spec magazine, Kevin has dabbled in screen writing, sports journalism and technical writing to fill out what would otherwise be a purely finance-centric resume.
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