Ren is a writer of the strange, dark and bizarre, repped by Jennifer Udden of Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC. Her gonzo-cyberweird duology ESCAPOLOGY and VIROLOGY is out in the UK and the US with Titan Books, and a literary sci-fi novella THE LONELY DARK is out with BFS award-winning small press Fox Spirit Books. Her latest book, COIL, a weird as all hell scifi mystery thriller, comes out with Apex Publications on June 18th 2019.
Coil
- Paperback: 330 pages
- Publisher: Apex Book Company (6 Jun. 2019)
KR: Coffee?
KR: Could you tell me a little about yourself please?
I’m Ren Warom, pirate mum of three spawn and many cats, a little bit of a space oddity, and an undisputed lover of cake. I’m a PhD student at UoB (University of Birmingham), researching hyperreality, the Spectacle and countercultural resistance – basically a forensic examination of 21st-century digital culture and its multifarious problems through the manic medium of postmodernist theory from those brilliant French dudes (Baudrillard, Barthes, Foucault, Bachelard etc). Stressful, but loads of fun. I am, of course, also an author, primarily of sci-fi with a variety of Weird thrown in for good measure. I’ve had two cyberweird novels, ESCAPOLOGY and VIROLOGY, published by Titan, and THE LONELY DARK, a psychological scifi novella, published by FoxSpirit Books. My next release is COIL, a scifi mystery thriller, coming from Apex Publications in June, it’s my most beloved and strange book child, so I’m raring to see it unleashed!
KR: What do you like to do when not writing?
Mostly I’m PhDing or mumming, so I end up writing in my spare time, as and when I can. As for non-writing spare time (if I find any), I’m highly distractible but I love to watch all manner of movies and TV (anything strange, dark, twisty, weird, cool, or funny). I obviously love to read, and I read fairly widely, but I mainly enjoy that which requires me to figure things out by myself and throws me into peculiar places, or outright hilarious brain candy like Shelly Laurentson’s series. I also try and get out running at least three mornings a week, gotta keep healthy, and it helps me to quiet the brain, to zone out and breathe for a bit.
KR: What is your favourite childhood book?
Do I have to pick one? Impossible. I’m going to go for four. The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Shardik, by Richard Adams, and The Children of the New Forest by Captain Marryat.
KR: What is your favourite album, and does music play any role in your writing?
Again, I cannot pick one. I refuse to. At the moment it’s Insomnium’s entire discography and Crux by Moon Tooth. I tend to use imagery more than music to power my writing, but some music can have a powerful impact on what I’m writing; the OSTs to Beyond the Black Rainbow and Prince of Darkness really spark cool thoughts.
KR: Do you have a favourite horror movie/director?
Carpenter. No contest.
KR: What are you reading now?
Lots of theory. So much so, in fact, that reading fiction can be a bit of a struggle. You get burnt out on reading. I’m trying to read Rosewater by Tade Thompson because I enjoyed his Murders of Molly Southbourne, and Everything Under by Daisy Johnson.
KR: What was the last great book you read?
Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion. I mean, she’s an incredible writer anyway, but that one blew me away and gave me a load of inspiration for an idea I’d been struggling with. Fantastic book.
KR: E-Book, Paperback or Hardback?
Oh either. Any. I couldn’t live without books, even when I struggle to read or to find time to read, knowing that I have books is simply reassuring. Reading is my oxygen.
KR: Who were the authors that inspired you to write?
First? Anne McCaffrey. I wanted to write dragons. Then I discovered Samuel Delany’s Fall of the Towers and just wanted to write whatever weird things came into my head. I owe a lot to him and to writers such as William S. Burroughs, Kathe Koja, Georges Bataille, Tom Robbins, Leonora Carrington etc. The list is exhaustive…
KR: Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you?
I used to pants it, but now I sit it down and wrestle an outline into being. It’s so much easier to have some clue as to where things might go, especially when you have a deadline. I don’t treat outlines as absolutes though, I riff off them. I try to approach everything like David Lynch – have a place to go and things to do in it, but then be open to experimentation. To creativity.
KR: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I can do a lot of pre-reading, but I prefer to research on the fly, I find some of the most interesting ideas come that way.
KR: How would you describe your writing style?
Dirty realism with lashings of spit and vinegar and a huge social heart slamming away in the ribcage, and er… wordy. I love words. I love playing with words. I don’t pretend to be the best at it, I’m just out here having fun with language in my own way.
KR: Describe your usual writing day?
I have no usual writing day. I’m a full-time PhD student and single parent, I mean my spawn are all older (a uni student and two teens doing GCSEs) but my life is hectic and often stressful. I’m also inattentive ADD and bipolar, which makes for lots of brain noise and difficulty concentrating, so it can be interesting finding the means to nail my brain down and make it want to work and think. Routine is an enemy I am constantly attempting to befriend. I muddle along.
KR: Do you have a favourite story/short that you’ve written (published or not)?
COIL. Hands down. At the moment anyway. It’s been a long time gestating that one, and a long time writing, and an even longer road to publication. It is dark and dirty and flips itself on its head halfway through, and I’m more proud of it than is reasonable.
KR: Do you read your book reviews?
Of course! Great reviews delight me, bad reviews are fine, they’re par for the course. My books are marmite, which I’m quite happy with – it suits my somewhat punky temperament. Though, you know, having a huge commercial success that’s universally loved would also be great.
KR: How do you think you’ve developed as an author?
Oh, I’ve learned so much about restraint, in my language, in terms of description and flow, character and pacing. I also finally figured out how to spot when something isn’t working early on, which is huge tbh. I think I perhaps experiment less than I’d like to now, but I feel capable of going back to that without losing the ability to restrain myself, so I know I will experiment more in future. There’s lots left to learn, for sure. I’ll be learning for as long as I’m writing.
KR: What is the best piece of advice you’ve received regarding your writing?
Finish your shit. Best writing advice ever. You can’t fix or learn from, that which you do not finish.
KR: What scares you?
Ideas drying up. A blank page that stays blank.
KR: Can you tell me about your latest release please?
I’ve already mentioned COIL a fair bit, so I imagine this would be an excellent opportunity to offer a blurb rather than continue to opaquely wax lyrical:
Bone Adams is a legend, the best mortician in the Spires, and a man without modification in a world where body mods define humanity. When a new killer begins leaving bodies stripped of mods but twisted and bent into grotesque pieces of art, City Officer Stark tasks Bone to unravel the clues, few though they may be.
As more victims are discovered, Bone and Stark are drawn deeper into a world where pain and personal statement blend and blur, and finally end up hunting for a semi-mythical man-machine named Burneo deep within the labyrinth of the sewers.
But things aren’t what they seem, and while searching for Burneo, Bone and Stark discover a hidden lab full of evidence of horrific abuses of science and experimentation. Meanwhile, the killer is still on the loose, and, as Stark becomes more and more obsessed with the case, Bone is forced to a shattering realisation. Everything is connected, the killings, the gang activity, the labs, and his own past, and unless he can figure out how, he’s not going to survive.
KR: What are you working on now?
Chapter two of my thesis, a short story for an anthology (which is proving stubborn but will be long since done I suspect by the time this is up) and loads of ideas vying for whatever time I can find to write another book in summer. I have no idea which one will win. I’m planning on throwing them into an arena with weapons and letting them duke it out.
KR: You find yourself on a desert island, which three people would you wish to be deserted with you and why?
You can choose…
a) One fictional character from your writing.
b) One fictional character from any other book.
c) One real-life person that is not a family member or friend.
I hate rules, so I’m going to break them… My three are all real people, two of whom are dead:
Gaston Bachelard – who encountered art such a way that he abandoned a respected career writing philosophy of science for exploring the philosophy of art (wild right!?) and wrote some absolutely mind-blowing theory. He’d be the best conversationalist to chat theory with. What a dude.
Leonora Carrington – an amazing woman and creator. I’d want to talk to her about her whole life and her thoughts on the world, and literature and art, and just about everything. She had the most extraordinary mind, and I think it would be something else to learn from her, to simply be able to hear her talk about the things she loved in person.
David Lynch – I’m going for the cool conversationalists here, obviously. He’d make being stranded on an island an absolute blast, and he’d get us all into transcendental meditation, which would probably help us to avoid a Castaway situation. No one wants to be drawing faces on footballs… unless we can stretch them out to make canvases and have Leonora get us all painting. Absolute win.
KR: Thank you very much Ren.
Ren Warom
Ren is a writer of the strange, dark and bizarre, repped by Jennifer Udden of Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC. Her gonzo-cyberweird duology ESCAPOLOGY and VIROLOGY is out in the UK and the US with Titan Books, and a literary sci-fi novella THE LONELY DARK is out with BFS award-winning small press Fox Spirit Books. Her latest book, COIL, a weird as all hell scifi mystery thriller, comes out with Apex Publications on June 18th 2019.
You can find out more about Ren by visiting her Official Website www.renwaromsumwelt.wordpress.com
You can follow Ren on Twitter @RenWarom
Coil
A futuristic crime-noir that will shock you.
Ren Warom weaves a tale laced with gang crime, underground body mod shops, and shocking murders.
Bone Adams is a legend, the best mortician in the spires. When a new killer begins leaving bodies twisted and bent into grotesque pieces of art, City Officer Stark tasks Bone to unravel the clues. As more victims are discovered, Bone and Stark are drawn deeper into a world where pain and personal statement blend and blur, and finally end up hunting for a semi-mythical man-machine named Burneo deep within the sewers.
But things aren’t what they seem. While searching for Burneo, Bone and Stark discover a hidden lab full of evidence of horrific abuses of science and experimentation. Meanwhile, the killer is still on the loose, and, as Stark becomes more and more obsessed with the case, Bone is forced to a shattering realization. Everything is connected: the killings, the gang activity, the labs, and his own past. Unless he can figure out how, he won’t survive.
You can buy Coil from Amazon UK & Amazon US
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