Today we’d like to introduce you to Ken Macgregor.
Hi Ken, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
For the longest time, I wanted to be a professional actor. I’ve done a lot of both community and professional theater, sketch and improv comedy, some TV and Radio, and a fair bit of film. While working with a small production company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the other directors (and co-founder of the company) said he wanted to make “the scariest short Horror film ever.” So, I started writing scripts. I love Horror! We made one of my movies: it’s a Horror/Comedy/Post-apocalyptic Zombie movie. There’s even a bit of romance in it. I wrote, co-directed, co-produced, and acted in it. It’s called “The Quirk and the Dead,” and you can watch it on YouTube. It toured some festivals and did pretty well in them. Anyway, I kept sending this guy scripts after that, and he told me to knock it off.
He suggested I turn my ideas into short stories and gave me the name of a local Horror writers’ group: the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers (GLAHW). I’ve been with them since 2014. They helped me get published; now I have ten books to my name and over 200 short stories in print. Seems like I’ve taken to the whole ‘writer’ thing pretty well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Every writer has to cope with rejection. I’ve had to cope with it 671 times. Yes, I’m keeping track. I’m going to throw a party when I hit 1,000. However, coming from an acting background, I was pretty much inured to rejections. It happens to actors a lot. Especially when you go audition for something and there are 17 other guys who look pretty much like you except better-looking. So I came into this with a pretty thick skin.
I’ve been selling stories for 15 years now, and getting paid a lot more now than at the beginning (sometimes, I didn’t get anything at all, and I had to buy my own copy of the book–I don’t work with those sorts of publishers now). I’ve gone from just some guy in Michigan who likes to tell spooky stories to someone who is recognized as an author who’s pretty well established in the Horror genre. I rub elbows with famous writers and have edited some of the biggest names in the field. The best part? Those people are incredibly cool. Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had have been at conventions and book festivals. Writers know how to hold your interest, and the good ones are usually hilarious too.
So, yes, some struggles for sure. But some pretty amazing leaps ahead too.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I write creepy, often supernatural fiction that is often liberally laced with humor. I did sketch comedy (both writing and performing, and eventually directing) for five years, so I find the funny in all kinds of things. This includes truly awful situations. I also do this thing I call “Killed by Ken” where I write real people into fictional stories, based on biographical information they’ve given me, and do terrible, horrible things to them that are usually fatal. I started this about five years ago, and I have an entire book of them. It’s called … SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KILLED.
Right now, I’m shopping for an agent for my newest project: a nonfiction graphic novel about the process of coping with grief (my wife died in 2018).
I’m most proud of the fact that I have actual, real live fans. So weird.
What sets me apart, really, is that I defy genre. I write whatever I want to write and try to find someone to pay me for it. So, Horror, yes, but also Fantasy, Slipstream, Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy, Children’s Stories, and anything else I want.
How do you think about happiness?
What makes me happy?
Making people laugh. Or gasp. Or ask me, “What the fuck, Ken?!?” One of the reasons I loved acting so much is that immediate, visceral connection with the audience: making others *feel* something. I still get that from writing, but there’s a delay. Someone will reach out after reading something I wrote and say, “Wow, man. That was awesome!” And it’s the same high I get from being onstage, hearing the audience crying or belly-laughing. To have that sort of impact on other humans is just incredible.
Also, my kids. My partner and her kids. Cats. Dogs. Really good food. A workout where you end up all sweaty and knowing you’re going to hurt a little the next day. All those too.
Pricing:
- $9 Devil’s Bane
- $12 Burnt Fur
- $15 Sex, Gore & Millipedes
- $20 Some People I Have Killed
- $25 Headcase + Headcase Origins
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kenmacgregor.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/macgregor2437
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/ken.macgregor.3
