the Frequently Asked Questions
Jones: PEN OR PENCIL?
SGJ: I can’t really handle how loud pencils are.
Jones: HOW FAST CAN YOU TYPE?
SGJ: Can’t quite hit the 220wpm Philip K Dick was supposed to. But I plan on living longer, too.
Jones: WHY IS THIS SITE ‘OFFICIAL?’
SGJ: Because these guys contacted me, asked if they could do it.
Jones: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE X-FILES EPISODE?
SGJ: “Jose Chung’s Little Green Men.”
Jones: WHY WRITE?
SGJ: Because I can’t help it.
Jones: THREE MOST IMPORTANT NOVELS OF THE 20th CENTURY?
SGJ: Catch-22, Deliverance, and White Hotel.
Jones: YOU’RE INDIAN, RIGHT?
SGJ: Blackfeet, yes.
Jones: THAT’S WHY THE LONG HAIR?
SGJ: No. Long hair because I used to want to look like George Lynch, back when he was part of Dokken. Indians, actually, can have any-length hair. It’s a crazy world.
Jones: BEST TRUCK EVER?
SGJ: 1979 Bronco XLT, metalflake blue on Ford White. Preferably with the 351C and a 4-speed.
Jones: READ COMICS?
SGJ: Religiously.
Jones: WHAT ARE YOU WORST DAYS?
SGJ: Anytime I find myself somewhere without a pen.
Jones: YOU TEACH FICTION AT TEXAS TECH?
SGJ: Yep.
Jones: YOU WRITE SCREENPLAYS TOO?
SGJ: Wait for Demon Theory. But yeah, my ex-publisher sent me to most of those Robert McKee seminars, and I’ve taken some other classes besides. It’s a fun medium.
Jones: ZOMBIES OR VAMPIRES?
SGJ: Werewolves.
Jones: ADVICE FOR JUST STARTING-OUT WRITERS?
SGJ: Inhale fiction, night and day. Soon enough it’ll come bleeding back out. And, this whole thing about ‘other people’ is overrated: all that exists is you and the page. Too, if you have to choose between the bar or a couple hours writing, then go ahead and hit the bar, I say. Because you’re not doing fiction any good.
Jones: YOUR AGENT?
SGJ: Kate Garrick, of Brian Defiore and Co.
Jones: HAVE A GREAT UNDISCOVERED WRITER FOR US?
SGJ: He’s not really ‘undiscovered,’ but not enough people have read Charles McCarry’s Paul Christopher series. The guy writes with a precision and grace you don’t see very often at all. Stanislaw Lem, too: the guy was simply brilliant.
Jones: IN YOUR BIOMATTER, YOU SAY YOU GOT YOUR TONGUE CUT OFF?
SGJ: My teeth cut it off, but it was because of a bat to the face. It’s sewed back on now though, my tongue. I grew up worshipping Gene Simmons. When I wear make-up, however, it’s usually Paul Stanley style. I can’t explain this.
Jones: MAKE-UP? IS THIS FOR HALLOWEEN?
SGJ: For Halloween I’m always either a pirate or Jason Voorhees.
Jones: YOU GOT A PhD IN WRITING FROM FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY?
SGJ: Yep.
Jones: CLAIM TO FAME?
SGJ: I own the single coolest shirt in the world. But it’s too small for me.
Jones: THERE ANY WRITERS WHO SHUT YOU UP?
SGJ: When I read them, you mean? Yeah: Philip K Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Elmore Leonard’s not very helpful either. They all intimidate me silent.
Jones: WHO DO YOU LISTEN TO, MUSIC-WISE?
SGJ: Waylon and Bob Seger and Springsteen and Steely Dan. Frank Zappa, unhealthy amounts of Meatloaf. Lot of Mulehead, I suppose. Despise the radio, except when it plays Bonnie Tyler.
Jones: SCARIEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN?
SGJ: Don’t want to talk about it, really, thanks.
Jones: DO YOU WRITE NON-FICTION?
SGJ: So far, I’ve accidentally written two stories in which I forgot to lie. Not sure if that counts. “Bestiary” and “The Wages: an Argument.”
Jones: POETRY?
SGJ: Nope.
Jones: WEREWOLVES?
SGJ: Yes.
Jones: WORKING ON SOMETHING NOW?
SGJ: Over the summer wrote a novel so sick it infected me. Disturbing stuff; everytime I sat down at the keyboard, my stomach would just turn. I love it though. Calling it either Born With Teeth or The Dog Mother (part of the title of a chapter from Greg Bear’s Vitals). Then in November I wrote a hard-boiled detective piece, Tar, Baby. Last thing I wrote—few days ago—was a story about a rabbit. It was twelve pages, I guess. Before that, an eighty-page story, “Sterling City.” It’s science fiction. Right now I’m writing a zombie western, though I seem to have alt-tabbed over, started another thing just last night (Down_Time) that really wants to be a novel. Not sure if I’m going to let it, yet. Not sure I have that much of a choice either. As for what I have in the drawer now: Seven Spanish Angels, Bloodlines, No Rest for the Wicked, and a novel I wrote for that 3-day contest, The Hedonist Chronicles.
Jones: IN CLOSING?
SGJ: I will not will not with a goat.