Prior to The Apes of Wrath, award-wining editor Richard “Rick” Klaw co-founded the pioneering Mojo Press, one of the first publishers to produce both graphic novels and prose books. Since leaving Mojo, he became the initial fiction editor for RevolutionSF, where he still serves as an editor-at-large, and emerged as “the smartest mouth on the Internet” (Michael Moorcock) with his popular columns on pop culture for SF Site and his acclaimed blog The Geek Curmudgeon. Over the past decade, Klaw has written about fictional simians for a variety of publications including Moving Pictures Magazine, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, King Kong Is Back!, and Kong Is King. His essays and observations were collected in Geek Confidential: Echoes from the 21st Century (Monkeybrain), adorned with a magnificent gumshoe gorilla cover. Klaw lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, a large cat, an even bigger dog, and enormous collection of books. His shrine of assorted ape knickknacks is the stuff of legend.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro: In the introduction to “The Apes of Wrath” you acknowledge the role that SF Signal’s John DeNardo played in the genesis of this project, when he invited you to contribute to a Mind Meld on the perfect SF anthology. I think it’s important to establish the following facts upfront: Have you had John over for bagels? Has he had you over?

Rick Klaw: Actually John and I have only met face-to-face maybe 2-3 times and always at Armadillocon. I like John and would gladly break bread with him.

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Maurice Broaddus has written hundreds of short stories, essays, novellas, and articles. His dark fiction has been published in numerous magazines, anthologies, and web sites, including Cemetery Dance, Apex Magazine, Black Static, and Weird Tales magazine. He is the co-editor of the Dark Faith anthology series (Apex Books) and the author of the urban fantasy trilogy, Knights of Breton Court (Angry Robot Books). He has been a teaching artist for over five years, teaching creative writing to elementary, middle, and high school students, as well as adults. Visit his site at www.MauriceBroaddus.com.

Maurice Broaddus: Everyone should have a Jerry Gordon in their lives. Not only does he keep me organized and on task (and often bars me from the most egregious submissions from the slush pile), but he brings a bottle of Riesling to every editorial meeting. Which caused me to demand weekly, sometimes twice weekly meetings.
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Jeffrey Ford’s stunning new collection of short fiction, Crackpot Palace, was published in August 2012, to great critical acclaim. It features twenty excursions into the weird and fantastic, including one never-before published story, The Wish Head. Ford is an American Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery writer. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of Binghamton University, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.  He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

As a long-time Jeffrey Ford reader (and probably the only one to make a t-shirt based on one of his short stories, the eponymous entry in the The Drowned Life) Alvaro Zinos-Amaro had nine questions for Jeff upon finishing Crackpot Palace. Admittedly, these are slightly offbeat questions, in some cases only tangentially related to the stories; crackpot questions, one might say.  SF Signal is happy to present these questions, as well as Jeffrey Ford’s answers, for our readers today.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro: What inspired “The Wish Head” (other than the publication of Crackpot Palace and the opportunity to add a brand new story to it)?

Jeffrey Ford: I read this book a while ago titled A Brief History of the Smile by Angus Trumble, and in that book Trumble tells the story of L’Inconnue de la Seine (the unknown woman of the Seine). In addition to that historical tale, I added my vision of upstate New York in the autumn, and a time when the old factories built along the Susquehanna were caught in the grip of the great Depression.

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