Marc Aplin and Paul Wiseall Interviews

WARNING: This is a post reflecting on Fantasy-Faction and how the three editors have been brought together to run this site. The interviews will follow my rambling – please feel free to skip it…

You know, I never thought I’d be a person worth interviewing and, I’ll be both harsh and honest here and say I never thought that guy I knew from school, Paul Wiseall, would be either (although I will add – if anyone in King Alfred’s School had to put money on it – he’d fair considerably better than me!).

Let me explain: Paul and I (two of the three editors behind Fantasy-Faction) attended the same school for around 5 years and said maybe 10 words to each other during that time. It wasn’t that we didn’t get along – it was just that we were in different classes, had different friends and I presumed, at the time, we had different interests.

Paul and I didn’t meet properly until years after school, through the rather tragic circumstances of the death of my sister’s boyfriend and Paul’s best friend, Jimmy. It was during this time that I heard of Paul – my sister was telling me how the only person who really understood what she was going through was Paul Wiseall – because he’d also been very close to Jimmy. I, of course, remembered the name from school and was pleased to meet him at a gathering a few months down the line and thank him for the support he’d offered my sister.

We got talking from there, and by coincidence, Paul had just started a blog (literally weeks after I had). His blog was more a blog reflecting on life and current affairs, but he was very interested to hear more about Fantasy-Faction. He revealed to me that he’d been a huge fantasy and comic-book fan for years and years and that whether it was reviews or articles he was up for getting involved.

Then Paul went and emigrated to Italy! I hadn’t chased him away – it was just his way of dealing with the death of his best friend. He decided to take some time out and think about what he wanted to do with his life. Despite living in a different country, as the months went by, Paul began contributing more and more to my site and when Fantasy-Faction really took off – he seemed the logical choice to invite into the ranks of editor.

Now, as editors, me and Paul were spending more and more time chatting online. I appreciated having someone to bounce ideas off over the days, weeks and months – something I’d never had before – and the site was immeasurably better because of it. The way I see things: Paul tends to be the creative and more excitable one, whilst I’m more calculated and reserved. I think that is a big part of why Fantasy-Faction is so successful: we have that balance perfect.

The one problem it does cause is that as much as we agree – we disagree. That’s the problem with things that balance: they don’t move! It was, therefore, a huge relief when we welcomed Jennie Ivins into the fold (our third editor!) and she provided the deciding voice and some femininity to the team. Another benefit of the lovely Mrs Ivins is that she’s based in America, which is a huge plus for Fantasy-Faction because so much of our readership is based there.

We’ve been working together now for about a year or so and I like to think the three of us have achieved amazing things with the help of our hugely talented staff. We’ve built a huge forum community, gathered almost 10,000 Twitter followers, reviewed hundreds of books, studied the genre and written hundreds of articles on it, we’ve interviewed world renowned authors and we’ve even offered writing advice. But, you know, the thing is, we’ve done it all because we love the genre and we want to give something back to this community that is so welcoming and full of wonderful people (both the authors and professionals within the publishing industry we’ve met). We never really did it for recognition – it was a way to channel our desire to publish our thoughts and opinions, to publicise the books we love. So, every time we get some kind of recognition: fans, authors, or publishers giving us a nod by retweeting us, linking to our posts, or coming up to us at events and telling us they’ve enjoyed our writing, it warms us and surprises us at the same time.

The pinnacle of this has come over the last few weeks when both Paul and I were approached by Tor and Jo Fletcher Books (Quercus). They asked if we, mere bloggers, would be willing to subject to an interview about blogging and offering advice to other bloggers. We of course agreed and pretty much haven’t stopped grinning since.

And there you have it! My rambling ceases and you now know how the editing team met!

Now, on with the Interviews!

Marc Aplin interviewed by Jo Fletcher Books here.

Paul Wiseall interviewed by TOR Books here.

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