We had the good fortune of connecting with Cory Swanson and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Cory, why did you pursue a creative career?
My day job is teaching band and orchestra to middle schoolers. I’ve never been interested in anything but art, literature, and music. As a kid, I wanted to be a rock star. There was no ‘Plan B.’ About eight years ago, with two small kids in the house, I had a bit of a crisis. Call it midlife, call it too little sleep, but I wasn’t happy just keeping on with the status quo. What I did was desperate and extreme: I started writing. The first novel I wrote was garbage, but I went after it with a growth mindset. I went to writers’ groups and kept cranking out material. In 2018, I got my first short story published. In 2019, my novella, Geminus, was published by Castrum Press. In 2020, Exeter Publishing put out my novel, Venus the Monk.
Since then, I’ve had stories appear in various magazines and anthologies, the biggest one being Diabolical Plots in 2022, a professional level market that’s produced Hugo winners. I’m not getting rich, but I will say it’s very satisfying to see things in print and to have my work read.
Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’ve long been attracted to speculative fiction. George Saunders is probably my main influence, but Charlie Kaufman is a close second. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are works I aspire to. I like the twisted in a realistic environment. If the reader is taken from the believable to the surreal without noticing the journey, that’s where my work lives. The Geminus series is just that, twin sisters where one remembers normally but the other can only remember the future.
I believe I’ve applied my musical training to becoming a writer. There’s only one way to learn how to write and that is to write. Keep writing. Refine. Learn to edit. Look at your own work with a critical eye and get better the next time.
The biggest challenges have been balancing writing time with my career as a teacher. I get up at five every morning so I can have a quiet house to write in for an hour each morning. That sustained effort is critical. You only get better at playing guitar by playing guitar and the same is for all creative pursuits.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The best thing about Colorado is the mountains. I’m not a city kid by any stretch. Let’s go camping. My favorite spot is up by the Marvine lakes in the Flat Tops Wilderness. Its about five miles in to a paradise few people get to. It’s lush and gorgeous in July and the fishing is phenomenal. We would eat mountain trout and drink a little scotch we packed in. Other than that, hit the national parks. We did Dinosaur last summer and had a wonderful time camped on the Green River in Utah. The Grand Tetons hold a special place in my heart.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I definitely owe a lot to my wife, Jennifer. She’s supported every step of this journey and even managed my social media for a while, something I am incapable of.
The Denver Horror Collective has been huge in my development. They published one of my early stories on their website and have allowed me to be part of their organization ever since. They have writers groups with high-level editors and writers. Josh Schlossberg and Henry Snider have been huge for me and I wouldn’t be the writer I am without them.
Also, the various publishers who have put my work in print deserve recognition. Exeter and Castrum are the main two, both taking huge risks on my long fiction, but Parsec Ink has my heart as the first publisher to publish anything of mine in their Triangulation: Harmony and Dissonance anthology. They’ve since published two more of my stories in their Triangulation anthologies, and I am forever grateful.
Website: coryswansonauthor.wordpress.com
Instagram: @coryswansonauthor
Twitter: @author_cory
Facebook: @speculativemeculative
Image Credits
My wife or I took all these photos.