Jonathan Edward Durham was born near Philadelphia in one of many satellite rust-belt communities where he read voraciously throughout his youth. After attending William & Mary, where he received a degree in neuroscience, Jonathan waded into the professional world before deciding he was better suited for more artistic pursuits.
He now lives with his partner in California where he writes to bring a unique voice to the space between the timeless wonder of his favorite childhood stories and the pop sensibilities of his adolescent literary indulgences. His debut novel, Winterset Hollow, an elevated contemporary fantasy with a dark twist, is mined from that same vein and is currently available everywhere.
Well, I generally hate small talk, even on a first date…so let's just get it all out of the way, what do you say? Dog person. Work out every day. Very routine-oriented. Movie nerd. Love garbage reality TV. Sports fan. Lifelong gamer. Super introvert. Generalized anxiety wunderkind. Prefer the mountains over the beach. From Philadelphia originally. Morning person. Colorblind as a bat. And you?
Who influenced you most as a writer?
If I had to pick one author, I'd have to say Michael Crichton. That answer always seems to surprise people, as my stuff usually comes across as a bit more elevated stylistically than his, but I've always had an infatuation with writers who tackle big, scary, high-concept ideas in engaging ways. That's what I love about his books. Are they high art in terms of prose and flow and voice? No, probably not. Are they undeniably original and built around intriguing ideas that start your gears turning the moment you see them begin to unfold? Yep, they sure are. To me, story genius is far more uncommon than syntax genius, and so in a way I guess that's always been more impressive to me.
What are your favourite books and why?
I love A Moveable Feast for the sheer beauty of its uncompromised rhythm and flow, Slaughterhouse 5 for its elevated but earnest pop sensibilities, The Grapes of Wrath for its 'put you right in the moment' immersion, and just about anything by Roald Dahl because of his effortless ability to make you feel like you have a place in a world that doesn't really exist. Hell, I'm still waiting for that golden ticket.
When did you realise you wanted to be a writer?
There wasn't really one moment in particular, now that I think about it. I've always been a writer in one way or another, so it was more a matter of finding the right medium for me, and that took years and years for me to figure out. I was a songwriter, I was a screenwriter, I was a humor writer for a while…basically I did everything that I could to avoid writing books until I just couldn't avoid it any longer and here we are. It just seems like the correct medium for the stories I like to tell…the right fit for the things I need to say. So , to answer your question—I've always been a writer, I've just spent a lifetime writing the wrong things.
Do you have any interesting writing quirks?
I have to write with the TV on. Weird, I know…but I just cannot for the life of me work in silence. I absolutely hate it. If makes me feel like I'm taking an exam or something and sends my anxiety into orbit, so I've learned that I work much better and I'm far more relaxed if there's some white noise in the background. So I write on my couch with my laptop on my coffee table…and the TV blaring some manner of insipid programming that's juuuuust dumb enough for me to want to ignore it most of the time but also juuuuuust interesting enough for me to feel welcome to glance up at it for ten seconds when my brain needs a breather.
How did you become interested in the genre you write?
That's a complicated question in many ways, actually. I suppose the trickiest thing about it is that it's really hard to define what genre I write, because my stories typically pull elements from fantasy, mystery, thrillers, science fiction, magical realism, and even literary fiction. I don't ever set out to write a genre piece…I set out to write a story that I think is compelling, and even though that story usually ends up twisting on one genre convention or another, it's always balanced by input from other genres as well. I'm not a big believer in putting myself in a box, and while a lot of people in the industry would say that's an easy way to unnecessarily complicate things…I like to think of it as a difficult way to necessarily complicate things.
Tell me a bit about Winterset Hollow.
Winterset Hollow is about a group of friends who make a pilgrimage to the place that inspired their favorite book, which is an old, turn of the century epic poem about a tribe of animals preparing for their yearly feast (think Winnie the Pooh but a bit more adult). Anyway, when they get to the place that famously sparked the idea for this story, they find that all of these things that they thought were pure fiction…might actually be real…and that all of the familiar happenings withing the pages of their beloved book might actually be pointing to some dark and dangerous history surrounding the author. And that history, whether they like it or not, is about to catch up to them in the most terrifying way.
What was the inspiration behind Winterset Hollow?
I remember having a germ of a thought along the lines of 'Man, wouldn't it be mind blowing if you went to the Hundred Acre Wood and found out that the animals in Winnie the Pooh were actually real?' And then I probably had another thought that went something like 'But what if they weren't at all like you expected them to be?' And then I probably had another thought that went something like 'And what if they hated that book? And if that were true, then why would they hate that book?' And from there, my mind probably just went to all sorts of dark and twisted places and that's probably exactly how that all happened lol.
Do you have another writing project in mind or in the making? If so, can you tell us a little about it?
Yeah, I'm almost done outlining the next book, which is about a struggling artist that finds an impossible muse in a long-forgotten corner of the movie studio where he works as an archivist. Basically, he finds somebody who should be long dead, and the breadth of the narrative is about who she really is and how she's still alive and what she can offer him and what the price for her help truly is. It's a really interesting story with a couple of really crazy twists and I can't wait for everyone to read it.
Any advice for aspiring authors?
Everybody works differently, but my best advice is to take your time. Outline. Storyboard. Slowly, slowly build from the ground up. Figure out how your story is going to end before you start it. Flesh out your characters before you write word one. Make sure all of your arcs are complete before you even fire up your computer. Mistakes and shortcomings are sooooo much easier to correct early on in the process, and they're way easier to swallow when you don't have to throw away hundreds of hours of work to correct them. The better you know your story before you start actually writing it, the more realized it will be in the end.
You can find Jonathan at the following:
https://www.jonathanedwarddurham.com
https://www.facebook.com/jonathanedwarddurham
https://www.twitter.com/thisone0verhere
https://www.instagram.com/thisone0verhere
https://reedsy.com/discovery/user/jonathandurham
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