We recently connected with Ken MacGregor and have shared our conversation below.
Ken, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
I write mostly Horror. People often associate Horror with splatter movies: they think it’s all torture porn. That certainly is part of the genre, and I’ve even written some, but there’s so much more to it. In fact, Horror isn’t really a genre at all: it’s a mood, a feeling, an ambience. You can find horrific elements in nearly every other genre of writing. I think this is, in large part, because fear is such a universally shared experience. We are all afraid of something. Also, I’ve met a ton of other people who write Horror, and–nearly universally–they are the kindest, sweetest, most supportive human beings on the planet.
Ken, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I came to writing fiction through a fairly circuitous route. I have always been a storyteller though, since I could talk. I love to tell jokes, and anecdotes, to spin a yarn to delight listeners. For most of my youth, I wanted to be an actor. I did a lot of plays, some improv comedy, independent film, sketch comedy, and even some TV and radio when I had an agent for a couple years. It was while working on a film whose script I had written that I started to get the idea that I might try my hand at prose. Mostly because the director I was working with told me I had to stop sending him so many short film scripts because we couldn’t make them all. I started submitting to publishers, enjoyed some success, and now–twelve years in–I have nine books to my name. I’ve published a middle-grade novella, a co-authored novel (with a short companion piece), three story collections, and I’ve edited three anthologies (one of which was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson award). All of it falls under the umbrella of Speculative Fiction, meaning Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, mostly. I tend to write dark and funny more than anything else.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
My entire life, I’ve needed a creative outlet. I’ll give you an example: in St. Louis, in my 30s, I was acting in plays, writing and performing sketch comedy every week, and doing the occasional commercial through my agent. Still, at my day job, working the front desk of a classy hotel, I was the only one there at the end of the day when I had to make a money drop. The form called for my signature and a “witness” signature. Since no one was ever there to sign the witness portion, I would make it up. Some of my witnesses were Genghis Kahn, Abraham Lincoln, Ted Bundy, Bugs Bunny, etc. I did this to amuse myself, even though I had all this other creative stuff in my life. Writing stories satisfies that need better than anything else I’ve ever tried. It’s great! Incidentally, when I moved back to Michigan after a couple of years, the hotel threw me a going away party. The accounting manager took me aside and told me that those “witnesses” always made her smile. That she looked forward to seeing who it was every morning. That was pretty cool.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Early on, I gave away a lot of my fiction. I was just so excited to be published. Seeing my name in print was a huge high. So, I worked for nothing. Or for the promise of royalties. Let me tell you something: do not work for royalties only. It rarely pays out. I have a good relationship with one publisher who pays royalties, and I do well with them. But, I knew them first, and there was a trusted relationship. Only very rarely have any other markets paid out when they were royalty-based. Best to avoid it. Nowadays, I won’t sell for less than 5 cents a word, unless it’s for a charity, in which case I’ll go as low as 3 cents a word, or it’s a reprint, which I will whore out for any amount of money, since I’ve already been paid for it once. Seriously, though: the money should flow to the writer. Get paid. You work hard; you deserve compensation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kenmacgregor.com/
- Instagram: @macgregor2437
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ken.macgregor.3
- Other: @kenmacgregor.bsky.social
Image Credits
Photos of books taken by me. Photos of me taken by my partner Liz.