Wheelin' and Dillon with Derrick Ferguson

It's official. Derrick Ferguson's amazing FOUR BULLETS FOR DILLON is the winner of the 2012 Pulp Ark Award for Best Collection/Anthology. (And very well deserved, I might add.) Taking a Doc Savage pastiche and imbuing new life into the old and often poorly used trope, Ferguson's Dillon is one of the stand-out new works in the New Pulp movement.

So you just know we had to talk with him about his work.

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE McCALL from Pro Se Press is the latest thing I’ve got out there now. It’s part of The Sovereign City Project initiated by Tommy Hancock an has been well represented so far with Barry Reese and his Lazarus Gray series. More information about Fortune McCall can be found at my Blood & Ink blog: http://dlferguson-bloodandink.blogspot.com/.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I wish somebody would tell me. I dunno, I never think that deeply about themes or subjects. I’m just trying to entertain myself and hopefully others with what I hope are solidly intriguing stories populated with cool characters.

What would be your dream project?

To write a Dillon/Doc Savage crossover. I know exactly what the story would be, who the villain is, everything. Dillon’s creation was inspired largely by Doc Savage and do write a story where Doc and Dillon got to meet and team up … well, that would be just heaven for me.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?
 
The first book in the Diamondback Trilogy: IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME. After I finished it and started writing the second book I realized that there was a lot of things I wanted to do in the second book that would contradict events and seriously violate characterizations in the first book. That’s why I’ve resolved to rewrite the first book. My current plan is to write the entire trilogy in 2013.

What inspires you to write?

Everything I read, watch or hear inspires me in various ways to write.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Lester Dent. Michael Moorcock. Charles Saunders. Robert E. Howard. Robert R. McCammon. George C. Chesbro. Chester Himes. Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

There’s stuff I’m working on now but they’re nowhere near ready to to be plugged. I would direct folks to the already mentioned ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE McCALL, FOUR BULLETS FOR DILLON and Part One of “A Man Called Called Mongrel” in Airship 27’s MYSTERY MEN & WOMEN anthology for their Derrick Ferguson fix.

Get your recommended daily allowance of Derrick online at http://dlferguson-bloodandink.blogspot.com/.