Dark Fantasy Author Austin Case #Interview

Austin Case Interview

1.      Congratulations on the 2019 release of your book Wild, Dark Times! Can you tell us a little about the plot? 

Thanks so much, Nico! Sure thing. So, the story takes place in the summer of 2012 and follows Elizabeth Megalos, who’s a failed art school grad working as a bank teller. One night, a possessed coworker attacks her and she’s saved by a roguish wizard named Eddy who drags her and a skeptical occult scholar to Europe. The group goes to Europe and meet up with Eddy’s celebrity sorcerer pals to help stop a creature from Gnostic mythology from fulfilling the apocalypse set out in the Book of Revelation. They take drugs and do rituals to learn more about how to stop Armageddon, and try to stay clear of supernatural creatures after Elizabeth. 

 2.      When it comes to your writing process for Wild, Dark Times, what did you develop first – the plot or the characters?

 For WDTs in particular, I seem to recall developing the plot and the characters pretty much at the same time.  I drew on quite a few of my experiences during grad school in Europe studying esotericism and mysticism, as well as the friends I made during that time to develop the book. My initial outline incorporated early sketches of my characters.

 3.      Are you a pantser or a plotter?

For fiction, I’m definitely more of a plotter but for my poems I’m a definite pantser: I like to write stream-of-consciousness poems. I do also incorporate that style in my fiction from time to time. For WDTs the sections where they ritualistically take psychedelics were all written initially as stream-of-consciousness (with extensive editing later for cohesion, flow, etc.) But for WDTs as a whole, I definitely plotted out the principal points of the narrative.

 4.      While browsing your website, I noticed you have a Master’s Degree from the University of Amsterdam in Western Esotericism and Mysticism. That’s so cool! What is something you learned from that degree that you use with your writing?

 Thanks! It was a pretty cool time: it felt like Hogwarts but with sex and drugs (a big part of why I love Lev Grossman’s The Magicians series so much).  There were lots of little things sprinkled throughout that came from learning things at the UvA. References to the Golden Dawn, Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley, and John Dee come to mind. One class we had investigated the incidence of altered states of consciousness within the Western Esoteric tradition and that definitely was influential. The whole Eleusinian Mysteries possibly being ancient Greeks having ergot/LSD infused porridge and the group in the book building a ritual around that came straight from that class.

 5.      Where did you love for the dark fantasy genre come from?

 I loved reading fantasy as a child (C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, J. R. R. Tolkien). Those books were all foundational, but I became less interested in fiction as I got older until the end of grad school and I started working in a public library. I got back into fiction and dark fantasy in particular, since so much of that genre incorporates ideas about magic or the occult, and often in bleak or cynical ways. Studying magic from a scholarly perspective really takes a lot of the shimmer and mystery out of the world, but (at least in my case) the interest in the subject never dissipates. Urban fantasy, occult horror, and postmodern takes on the mystical all appeal to this sort of tense relationship that I have with the magic and esotericism.

 6.   Do you have a favorite author?

 Neil Gaiman. The first book I read when I got back into fiction after grad school was

American Gods, and it satisfied the malaise I discussed earlier so thoroughly that I tore through the rest of the works he’d written. It also showed me a path that ultimately led me to become an author: incorporating the academic knowledge of fanciful things into story. I never had a background in creative writing so I had to learn (and continue to learn) the tricks of the trade on my own. I owe my writing profession to American Gods, and for that I’ll be forever grateful to Gaiman.

 7.      What book(s) are you reading now?

 My partners bought me a copy of The Poetic Eddas for Christmas. I’ve been enjoying reading those, even though they’re saturated with so much misogyny (admittedly, par for the course for pretty much everything written more than half a century or so ago). It is kind of interesting to see an ethos and mythical framework that almost reads as though it were written by Ron Swanson and Tolkien.

 8.      What is next for you? Anything in the works?

 My current WIP is a postmodern adaptation of The Epic of Gilgamesh which will, undoubtedly, be the most hubris driven task of my career. Writing this has been daunting as fuck. WDTs came out pretty easily, but this one is like pulling teeth. I do think it’s a solid premise though – the deities are movie stars and celebrities and Gilgamesh is a former action star turned governor (playing off of the demi-god status of the original) and it rips into our countries fetishism with celebrity, Scientology, our corrupt political climate, etc. It may be the death of me…

 9.      Where can people find you online?

Here’s some links to my author’s website, my Twitter page, my Goodreads page, and my Facebook page.

10.   Thank you so much! This is your chance to say anything that wasn’t asked. Closing thoughts?

 Thank you! I really appreciate you interviewing me and was thrilled to let you know a little bit about me and my writing!

 BUY WILD, DARK TIMES ON AMAZON HERE