I’m baaaaack.
Thanks to head honcho and good friend Ron Phillips for having me. It’s been too long. I’m even getting the itch to submit soon, if you can believe it…
But onto the topic at hand – looking back over the years of chatting with Ron on g-chat, hanging out at cons, etc. – one thing that we really connected on (besides crime fiction and Shotgun Honey, of course) was comics. Ron did some work in comics back in the day and it was a lot of fun to see him reminisce while I ground away on my dreams of grandeur.
Fast forward a bit and while working on some comic projects, I wrote KAYFABE, a crime novel about a retired pro-wrestler named Seymour “Savage” Jackson. I love the book, but it’s a bit too one-note for me when it comes to plot. After several drafts I re-outlined the book many times, yet still (to this day) haven’t tackled it. But the pro-wrestling aspect stuck with me.
I’ve been on a huge nostalgia kick over the last year. I could put the blame on having two young boys, but it’s likely just me being a big kid. Part of that has been reconnecting with pro-wrestling, another diving back into manga, especially the more ‘literary’ and ‘slice-of-life’ from creators like Taiyo Matsumoto and Inio Asano.
Out of this madness, WRESTLETOWN was born. An illustrated hardback novel (cover and interior artwork by Andrew MacLean) about two orphans coming of age in a city obsessed with pro-wrestling, with fans who believe the action is real. The genre is a lot more fuzzy than KAYFABE or my other previous work, but I can definitely tell where my crime writing shows through in my voice, which is a long way of saying that my time with Shotgun Honey, both reading and writing (especially reading) has stuck with me since.
WRESTLETOWN‘s a little different, a lot of fun, and my favorite project to date. The book is being published with Inkshares, a publisher that functions like Kickstarter, except by copy instead of dollar amount. I hope you guys will give it a look and consider supporting the pre-order campaign to bring this baby into existence in mid-2017.
Until next time…give ’em both barrels!
Irvin’s debut collection, SAFE INSIDE THE VIOLENCE, is a finalist for the 2016 Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is also the author of FEDERALES and BURN CARDS. He lives in Boston, MA with his wife and two sons.
