Why Do You Write... Pulp?

Just one question this week, folks. And it's for the pulpsters.

Why do you write pulp?

Bill Craig: I write Pulp because it is FUN!  I enjoy writing the kind of rip-roaring adventures that I loved reading as a kid.  Many of those books and series aren't around any more and I feel the younger generation is missing out, so I write to give them a chance to experience that same since of  wonder I did as a young reader!

Greg Glick: Because the pulp world is more exciting, wondrous and just plain cooler than the one we've got.

Nancy Hansen: I write pulp because I've always been kind of a maverick, and I like the gritty sound of the word—pulp. I tell people what I write with pride, because the way we do things here in the New Pulp world, without all the big budgets and fancy high rise offices, tends to amaze most of them. There's something sort of clandestinely idealistic and awe inspiring in that—it's like being part of an elite sleeper cell of underground commando wordsmiths. I find I really prefer the quicker pacing and high action and heroics of pulp stories, and yet I still get to tell the kinds of tales I've always loved to read. I've always tried to write stories that I feel good about, and I figured I'm not the only one that enjoys those sorts of yarns. In the New Pulp world, I can get my work into the hands of readers much faster than trying to jump through all the mainstream hoops. It just works well for me.

Lee Houston Jr.: In all honesty, the action, the adventure, the mystery, the intrigue. Good versus evil. Right triumphant over wrong. Pulp has it all, regardless of what genres or labels you care to use in any attempt to define it further. What more can one ask from great literature?

Van Allen Plexico: I write pulp because I already had my own style of writing science fiction, fantasy, and superhero prose adventure, which didn't seem to match up with the style favored by contemporary mainstream editors and publishers.  But I liked it and so did my readers, and I wasn't going to change.  One day I discovered that my style already existed and was called pulp. So I didn't choose pulp -- pulp chose me! 

Bobby Nash: I didn't set out to write pulp specifically. I write the type of stories that I like to read. Turns out that those types of stories with action, adventure, and snappy dialogue were called pulp. Pulp isn't a genre, it's an attitude. And I guess I have it.

Ron Fortier: There was never a purposeful intention.  I write what I like to read, action and adventure.  Guess those are synonymous with pulp.

Robert Kennedy: I have a lifelong love of action filled adventure stories. Sure I like some genre more that others, but a good story is a good story. I write what some call pulp, or New Pulp, because that's where the action and excitement are. For the writer. And hopefully the reader.

Jim Beard: It was my dad that really instilled in me my love for pulp -- he was a big fan of The Shadow, Green Hornet, Lone Ranger, the Phantom...though he seemed to not know about Doc Savage. I glommed onto Doc by way of Will Murray and the character swiftly rose to the top of my Pulp hierarchy of favorites. I thank goodness my dad sat me down to watch and to listen so much of what I love today. Without him I wouldn't be the pulp/comic book/television/films nutjob I am today.

Ed Erdelac: I was having pulp daydreams when I was six years old, flipping through comic books and imagining what the word balloons said. I would watch ads for movies on TV and make up the entire story at home with GI Joe figures, stoking the fire with George Pal sci fi movies, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, and Errol Flynn swashbucklers every Sunday. I came to pulp through movies and comics, specifically Conan The Barbarian and the 80's revival of The Shadow that Howard Chaykin did for DC. You write what you know, I guess. I LOVE that writing can become a learning experience as well. I read all about dhows and early Muslim world politics for my Sinbad story, and I can't even list the things I've learned researching my other work. Maybe I should amend that comment to say 'write what you know you love.'