Author Interview: Matthew Pungitore!
A little about a little-known author of weird fiction
Good day to you, dear readers. I have a special treat for you all today; over the naxt few months, I’ll be releasing interviews with various indie authors that I’ve become acquainted with through the Twitterverse.
I believe it’s vitally important to promote indie authors in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile to free thinkers.
So with that in mind, here’s my interview with Weird Horror fiction author, Matthew Pungitore.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you live now? What did you want to be when you grew up?
Matthew Pungitore: I was brought up in Hingham, Massachusetts. I currently reside there.
I think, for a long time, I’d wanted to be an artist of some kind, and yet I’ve long felt like I wasn’t living in the right time and/or place.
What made you want to start writing? What motivates you to keep writing?
Matthew Pungitore: I live to write, to create beauty, to create worlds of intense feeling and symbols. Escapism. Why do I create art? To create? Why do I write? For art.
What is your latest book about?
Matthew Pungitore: The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories is an anthology, a collection, a miscellany, a coven of weird-Gothic horror stories all written by me myself. I try not to give too much away about the more esoteric, secret, and/or symbolic meaning of my works. I try not to explain too much about what I write.
When did you start writing (originally, not this specific book)?
Matthew Pungitore: I can’t remember exactly when it all really began. It’s been years.
What is time? And then there’s writing, and then there’s writing. I began to take writing seriously, yearning to really be known as a writer, with my Midnight’s Eternal Prisoner: Waiting For The Summer.
How did you come up with the idea for this book specifically?
Matthew Pungitore: I adore beauty, I venerate the macabre, I love the weird; I wanted to create a piece that could speak to those who feel the spirits and the gods of those artful concepts. I wrote it for people who want to escape into a nightmare, a labyrinth of untold horror, repugnance, imagination, and madness. Part meditation. Part dream. All fantasy.
All illusion.
How was this book different than any of your others?
Matthew Pungitore: How was The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories different? Topics, storylines, and craft all different; other than that, that is for the readers to discover.
How did you go about publishing your book? Would you do it that way again? Why or why not?
Matthew Pungitore: Through BookBaby, I self-published Midnight’s Eternal Prisoner: Waiting For The Summer, Fiendilkfjeld Castle, and The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories.
Are you planning on writing more? If so what are you working on now? / When is your next book going to be coming out?
Matthew Pungitore: I’m always writing and do plan on writing much more. That’s all I will say.
Can you tell us about your other books?
Matthew Pungitore: If you love the genres of dark fantasy, Gothic horror, Transgressive fiction, and weird fiction, then my other works might just be perfect for you.
What helps you to write? Music, pets, reading, specific pen, etc.?
Matthew Pungitore: The night and its music.
What has writing taught you?
Matthew Pungitore: Writing has shown me beauty; attempting to sell and publicize my writing has shown me horror.
What authors inspire you?
Matthew Pungitore: Oscar Wilde, Arthur Machen, Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, Italo Calvino, Giacomo Leopardi, Pierre Louÿs, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Clark Ashton Smith . . . So many! Yet when you’re an artist, anything is inspiration, n’est-ce pas?
Do you go back and reread your writing after it’s been completed?
Matthew Pungitore: Yes, I do.
What is your advice for writers?
Matthew Pungitore: Advice depends on what one writes. To write, one should read, often. Relearn how to read. Acquire taste, sensitivity, sophistication, scrutiny, and cultivation.
That’s what I do and what I’m always training myself for. I need a lot of improvement. I’m always trying to get better, stronger, wiser, more beautiful, more sensitive, more awake, more alive.
Is there anything else you want to add?
Matthew Pungitore: Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share myself. Thank you for your time. To anyone reading this, watching, or whatever, please read my works, I hope you will, I would very much appreciate that, and please review my work and share your thoughts about it. I would love to hear from readers. Reviewing and sharing your opinions with others helps artists grow. If you didn’t like something, share it, review it, get your thoughts out. If you like a writer’s work, and you’re interested in seeing them evolve, seeing what they might do next, leave a review online, talk about it with people, spread your ideas and your opinions about that artist to others. Art cannot survive without your voice, without you reviewing and letting other people know what you’ve been reading and what the works have made you feel. Talk with readers. Talk with writers. Talk with painters and musicians and any kind of artist. Create unity. Create communities. Create niche and alternatives. Create. Discuss. Hear diverse opinions. Art is not about reflecting the world. Art is the offensive, it is the sacred, it is nothing, it is this: art.
You can buy The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories on Amazon by clicking the button below. I hope you will, and I hope you’ll consider supporting other indie authors.