PRESENTING AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER, TIM KULP

 Today I'm thrilled to share an interview with someone very special to me who decided to take steps to make his dream come true.  It takes courage to put our writing out into the world.  Building a writing career is so difficult, and starting a publishing company is huge. 

Tim's goal is to make a difference, not only his life and the lives of his children, but also to help make the dreams of other writers come true. In order to do that, he'll need lots of support.  When it comes to supporting one another, there's no better group than the folks of Poetry Friday.   I hope you enjoy learning more about him, his new book, and publishing company.

Congrats on your debut book, Tim!  Although BLOTS is written for adults, many of the stories told in verse first appeared on your blog.  Tell us a little about who and what inspired BLOTS.

Thanks for inviting me here today.  The Poetry Friday group has been a major influence on my writing. The support from this community really encouraged me to think “maybe I can do this writing thing”. That encouragement was what I needed to go for it.

BLOTS is a collection of short stories and novellas that explores different types of ghosts & monsters. A few of the stories in BLOTS, like BREADCRUMBS and CAMP CRATER FALLS, first appeared on my blog.  These stories were rewritten for BLOTS to explore the world and characters more deeply.  Inspiration for these stories came from many places.

In BLOTS, each story has an “Author’s Notes” section where I discuss the inspiration for the story and talk about what it means to me. I love the behind the scenes work of authors.  In talking to readers, I found a lot of other people like that too. For instance, in the Author’s Notes of THE WISP, I talk about the little town outside of Dublin, Ireland that inspired the main character’s journey. The story behind the story is always fun and helps the me connect with the reader even more.

Why did you decide to become a publisher? What is your vision for the future of your company, Making Adventure. Does your plan include working to publish other authors?

Great question! I considered traditional publishing but turned to my own company because I don’t want to just publish books. I see Making Adventure as a “storytelling company”. Our company mission is: To connect the world through the power of stories. Written stories are powerful and books can transform the world. 

With the rise of other storytelling mediums such as dramatic podcasts, metaverse worlds and interactive fiction – I believe that books are part of a broad and growing palette of storytelling. Some stories are best told verbally, some stories cannot be told by one person (like Dungeons & Dragons), some cannot be told any way other than a book and some stories can be lived in virtual reality. Stories can transform us and the different mediums can create amazing new experiences as well as reach new audiences. I don’t want to be bound just to books. I want to tell the stories in the medium that best communicates the story. That’s why I’ve been exploring Artificial Intelligence voice actors/actresses and metaverse release parties. I talk about these things on my blog and the lessons I’m learning about them.

On the topic of publishing and working with other storytellers, absolutely this is part of the vision. At this time, I’m focusing on adult/YA horror, but I’m also planning a separate imprint for picture books and middle grade.  I look forward to sharing some exciting news in this area next year.

What are some ways we help support BLOTS and Making Adventure?

I’m a big believer in engaging the crowd and building a community. Right now, I’m new and still working on building a crowd for my stories. The best way to support BLOTS is to share my website timkulp.com and my Facebook page facebook.com/tkulpwriter with people who like horror (adult and YA).

The reader who would enjoy BLOTS is someone who loves Edgar Allan Poe style stories. The gore is mild, the tone is creepy, the settings are ordinary every day places. Using the verse format, these stories are spacious reads with a quick tempo. I pictured someone reading these stories to a group around a camp fire as I was writing them. If you know this person, or a group of these people, please share my website and Facebook page.

 What projects are you working on now?

I’m currently working on two novels.  I began writing one of them in 2019 and have shared a good deal about it with the Poetry Friday community. It is a YA horror novel-in-verse called [dis]CONNECTION. I’m really excited about this one because it is the first in a series with some amazing characters that I think readers will fall in love with…or be terrified of in some cases. The other novel-in-verse is a book that started as a short story in 1998 but has grown in my mind. This one is adult, but most of the themes are YA friendly. Both of these books are teased at the end of BLOTS.

Finally, I recognize that one of the things readers want is the answer to “and then…”. To that end, I’m working on a serial that will continue one of the stories in BLOTS. This is still an early project, but I am experimenting with a diary style story that will be available in parts for the readers.

What is one thing people might not know about you?

I’m a struggling reader that has a very hard time going through dense texts. I could plough through a 1000-page technical manual on how to write software code but couldn’t push through a 300-page novel. What I didn’t realize is that technical manuals, especially software coding books, have a lot of white space and monospace text. This makes it way easier to read. I love books written in the novel-in-verse format because they would have been the perfect books to build my confidence as a reader. BLOTS is mostly in verse format because I love to write in that style and haven’t found enough horror stories in verse for adults.

Thank you for your time, Tim.  I'm looking forward to BLOTS and all the amazing plans you have for your publishing company.  

BLOTS is available for pre-order on Kindle, paperback and hard cover will be available starting Oct. 22.

 

Tim is a storyteller, technophile and author of the new horror collection BLOTS. From B movies to blockbusters, Tim has a passion for horror and exploring the things that give us the shivers. Stories from authors like Poe, Lovecraft, Tolkien and King have shaped Tim’s writing style with a focus on world building and monster making. When not writing fiction, Tim is a regular contributor to technology publications on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. He’s a Dungeons & Dragons fanboy and enjoys life just outside of Baltimore, MD with his wife, kids, dog, and cat. Keep up with Tim on his blog https://www.timkulp.com

A special thank you to Bridget for hosting today!  She is celebrating the publication of her anthology. Congratulations, to Bridget and all the poets included in her 10-10 Poetry Anthology. I'm honored to be among them!