#3 – Twisted Tongue.

Proper interviews for a proper magazine.

Back in the old days of UKAuthors I had a very small number of people who became more than peers who read and commented on my work. One of those members was known simply as Claire. We used to chat and email each other often and shared a love of horror stories especially Stephen King. I really enjoyed her writing immensely and her sense of humour and back then we became good friends. In 2005 she decided to launch a brand-new writers magazine called Twisted Tongue magazine and she was kind enough to ask me if I would like to take part. I jumped at the chance and became the magazines resident interviewer.

Of course my offerings would have to be better than my previous interviews on my website as asking the same 10 generic questions would hardly cut it in a printed, available worldwide publication with much higher standards than I, and so I had to do some proper work and research potential guests, get them to take part and then target my interview at them specifically and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this role and was pleasantly surprised by the people who agreed to take part.

For the first interview I decided I needed someone with some fame and literary prowess. I also managed to indulge myself in the process. Since the age of 10 I have been a massive fan of the TV series Red Dwarf and I’ve followed the careers of the cast of that show all of my life. I decided that I would take a chance and get one of them to be interviewed. So, I contacted Robert Llewellyn who plays the mechanoid Kryten in the series as I knew he had written several books. I wasn’t expecting him to agree but he did. In fact, he was a complete gentleman, and his interview was terrific. As a fan boy I was over the moon that I had managed to correspond with a man who had entertained me for so many years and I am still grateful that he took part to this day.

The first issue came out February 2006 and was a huge success and is still one of the proudest publishing moments of my life. I also managed to pull off another coup for the issue 3 interview when I got to interview the author, Mark Billingham who I’m sure many of you will have also heard of and an interview which also turned out really well. Many of the other interviews I did were not with such high-profile people but many of them were up and coming authors who went on to various successes of their own.

The magazine is still available on Lulu.com. You can actually still download the pdf copies of the magazine from their for free, all you need is a Lulu.com account which is free and easy to set up. You can click HERE to go and have a look.