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Highlights from the Clive Barker Facebook Q&A
This past Saturday, Clive Barker held a question and answer seson on his official Facebook page (
http://www.facebook.com/officialclivebarker). There were a whopping 40 questions answered, and Barker devoted as much time to answering his fans as he posbly could, so there was much to much to cover everything in one post.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2pphimu.jpg" class="photoborder" />
I was, however, present for the entire duration of the seson and wrote everything down, so here are the questions (pooled from numerous Facebook users) and Clive's answers that were the highlights of the seson, talking about the upcoming books The Scarlet Gospels, Black is the Devil's Rainbow and, of course, Abarat IV,
the posble movie adaptations of Tortured Souls, Abarat, Coldheart Canyon, all the way to the posbilities of Jericho 2 and a Harry D'Amour TV series. And more. Read on to see what I mean:
What is the status of "Black is the Devil's Rainbow"? Are all the stories written? What Halts the book?
Barker: Black is the Devil's Rainbow is not only comprised of short stories but also poems. Most of the material is written, the problem is the order in which my publishers want to release books. And they feel strongly that I should deliver every part of the Abarat quintet before we move on to another project.
Scarlet Gospels--what stage is it on?
Barker: ...The Scarlet Gospels is halfway done but contains a lot of very dark and controveral material which will take much more work before its ready for publication. I believe it will be quite an interesting subject for debate in the vatican when it is published.
Clive, have you ever condered making a Sacrament movie adaptation or maybe TV miniseries?
Barker: I would love to do a uncensored adaptation of Sacrament, and i think the notion of a televion veron makes a lot of sense. Because I would hate to cut large sections of the narrative to turn in to a short movie. The problem as I'm sure you're aware will be the censorship. Many of the key moments in the book are charged with a great deal of sexual and violent imagery, there's going to be a lot of battles fought over that kind of material if eventually we do get the book into a series. That is still my intention .
Are there any plans to bring Coldheart Canyon to the big screen?
Barker: I would love to do Coldheart Conyon as a movie. It would be so much fun to shoot a picture here in LA which shows an aspect of this city, which has so many supernatural elements in its history. But, hollywood is notoriously skidish about making movies critical of itself. SO it might be quite a while before any major studio steps up to the challenge of Coldheart Canyon.
Do you have a rough estimate of when Abarat IV will be finished?
Barker: Yes I have an estimation but I am superstitious about saying things like that for fear of calling down the wrath of the writing gods who punish the confident with a slap on the face and a dry pen.
Why not a Harry D'Amour series of his own?
Barker: Like many questions that I am asked many times, the idea that is being presented is a very exciting one to me. I would love to have a Harry series, that requires a studio that wants to do it and put it out on air. Those things are hard to come by. I can only afford to put my energies in a limited amount of areas. and if I were to take a year off from writing i could set up many things on televion on hair, but writing and painting are my life, an not doing those things are days when i feel very incomplete, and unhappy with. I'm only really alive when I am making art. everything else is the lence before the cry.
Will there be more to Galilee's story?
Barker: Yes, there is a second Galilee novel which will be the great battle between the families. As an ade, I have seldom talked about Galilee, mainly because people haven't asked about it. But it's a book I love very much, and is rooted in a lot of research in the Carolinas, at civil war tes and of course on the island of Kauai where the Geary women have their vacation love nest, in which only one man ever vits. That man of course is Galilee.
What piece of your own writing are you most proud of? What's your favorite piece of writing by somebody else?
Barker: I'm most proud of passages from Sacrament. And from The Thief of Always. I loved writing about WIll Rabjohns's journey into himself in order to reenter the world. Because it felt a journey I was taking. And thief allowed me to say some very mple things about what I love and value in the world. And communicated to the children who will be tomorrows law givers, and teachers, and artists, and parents. We as artists have a huge responbility to tell our own truth with the greatest honesty and fearlessness if we hide some part of ourselves because we are ashamed for some reason, then we censor our own lives, which seems to me a great tragedy. I want to be able to be myself in very unwashed way. That's why i put the photos of of myself naked,to just say here I am for better or worse.
Is there ever going to be an Everville graphic novel?
Barker: Nobody has proposed to me an Everville graphic novel although I would be very open to the idea.
I heard that a studio bought the rights to an Abarat movie. Is there any progress?
Barker: I am very optimistic that we will have news about an Abarat movie at some point in the future. But my Irish/Italian ancestry makes me a superstitious son of a bitch, and I don’t want to spoil our chances to make something come to fruition by getting too cocky or certain about future posbilities. Let me say this; if there is any project of mine which seems to holler “film me! Film me!” it would be the Abarat books. There are as you all probably know FIVE in total. The scale of the story expands exponentially as we move toward the cosmic climax of those five books. It’s going to be an incredible challenge for the filmmakers who take on the project to create the mystical vions and transfigurations that the whole journey of the Abarat books is taking us towards.
What is happening with Jericho 2?
Barker: I regret to sound like a broken record, again like some of these projects I am willing to dance if someone will just invite me. No project is ever off the list of posbilities.
What are the chances/progress of a Tortured Souls movie?
Barker: Once again, I would love a Tortured Souls movie but I find that the kind of horror movies which tend to be PG-13 rather than R, I hate. If I’m going to see a horror movie I want to see the toughest, bloodiest rawest picture I can! And I’s hard to find studios that have any balls where horror movies are concerned. They don’t know how to market them very often, and they feel that they’re useful ways to make a quick buck.
How do you organize yourself in the process of writing a book?
Barker: I don’t. Each book organizes itself around the cluster of chaotic impulses that bring me to the narrative in the first place. I am a labyrinth in which I have lost myself. A book is a way of plotting my route out.
What was your inspiration behind the Hellraiser movies?
Barker: I knew that lying behind all of horror fiction was a barely concealed fascination with forbidden sex. In so many horror movies sex is the unspoken motive power, and I wanted to bring that subtext into the light. And see what power horror still had when its greatest force was exposed. That meant, in the case of Hellraiser, examining in images the dark beauty of sadomasochism, which had always held a profound fascination for me.
My daughter and I attended the humanities festival and workshop after the release of Days of Magic, Nights of War. Do you envion doing something like that again in the future?
Especially the hands on painting workshop?
Barker: Yes, I like, I want to be useful as a teacher. I want to be able to communicate and pass along the lessons that I learned in my years as a writer and a painter, a filmmaker, playwright, I feel blessed from emerging from my coma in February to have regained a new clarity. A new sense of usefulness. Unfortunately at present my body is taking longer to mend itself than my head. And it will be many months before I can resume any form of public life. But when I can, one of my first priorities is to teach.
nce most of your works have a strong erotic/sexual element have you ever thought of writing horror or fantasy erotica?
Barker:
I would like to write a purely sexual novel with room for characters to express their sexuality, whether gay, straight or transgendered. The dere blossoms in each of us a different way. It would be nice to feel that I might create a world on paper in which everybody was valued for their own particular nectar.
Barker also promised that these sesons will become frequent, and I hope so because I found it enlightening and had a blast, as I'm sure all of his fans did. You can vit his official Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/officialclivebarker
http://www.facebook.com/officialclivebarker). There were a whopping 40 questions answered, and Barker devoted as much time to answering his fans as he posbly could, so there was much to much to cover everything in one post.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2pphimu.jpg" class="photoborder" />
I was, however, present for the entire duration of the seson and wrote everything down, so here are the questions (pooled from numerous Facebook users) and Clive's answers that were the highlights of the seson, talking about the upcoming books The Scarlet Gospels, Black is the Devil's Rainbow and, of course, Abarat IV,
the posble movie adaptations of Tortured Souls, Abarat, Coldheart Canyon, all the way to the posbilities of Jericho 2 and a Harry D'Amour TV series. And more. Read on to see what I mean:
What is the status of "Black is the Devil's Rainbow"? Are all the stories written? What Halts the book?
Barker: Black is the Devil's Rainbow is not only comprised of short stories but also poems. Most of the material is written, the problem is the order in which my publishers want to release books. And they feel strongly that I should deliver every part of the Abarat quintet before we move on to another project.
Scarlet Gospels--what stage is it on?
Barker: ...The Scarlet Gospels is halfway done but contains a lot of very dark and controveral material which will take much more work before its ready for publication. I believe it will be quite an interesting subject for debate in the vatican when it is published.
Clive, have you ever condered making a Sacrament movie adaptation or maybe TV miniseries?
Barker: I would love to do a uncensored adaptation of Sacrament, and i think the notion of a televion veron makes a lot of sense. Because I would hate to cut large sections of the narrative to turn in to a short movie. The problem as I'm sure you're aware will be the censorship. Many of the key moments in the book are charged with a great deal of sexual and violent imagery, there's going to be a lot of battles fought over that kind of material if eventually we do get the book into a series. That is still my intention .
Are there any plans to bring Coldheart Canyon to the big screen?
Barker: I would love to do Coldheart Conyon as a movie. It would be so much fun to shoot a picture here in LA which shows an aspect of this city, which has so many supernatural elements in its history. But, hollywood is notoriously skidish about making movies critical of itself. SO it might be quite a while before any major studio steps up to the challenge of Coldheart Canyon.
Do you have a rough estimate of when Abarat IV will be finished?
Barker: Yes I have an estimation but I am superstitious about saying things like that for fear of calling down the wrath of the writing gods who punish the confident with a slap on the face and a dry pen.
Why not a Harry D'Amour series of his own?
Barker: Like many questions that I am asked many times, the idea that is being presented is a very exciting one to me. I would love to have a Harry series, that requires a studio that wants to do it and put it out on air. Those things are hard to come by. I can only afford to put my energies in a limited amount of areas. and if I were to take a year off from writing i could set up many things on televion on hair, but writing and painting are my life, an not doing those things are days when i feel very incomplete, and unhappy with. I'm only really alive when I am making art. everything else is the lence before the cry.
Will there be more to Galilee's story?
Barker: Yes, there is a second Galilee novel which will be the great battle between the families. As an ade, I have seldom talked about Galilee, mainly because people haven't asked about it. But it's a book I love very much, and is rooted in a lot of research in the Carolinas, at civil war tes and of course on the island of Kauai where the Geary women have their vacation love nest, in which only one man ever vits. That man of course is Galilee.
What piece of your own writing are you most proud of? What's your favorite piece of writing by somebody else?
Barker: I'm most proud of passages from Sacrament. And from The Thief of Always. I loved writing about WIll Rabjohns's journey into himself in order to reenter the world. Because it felt a journey I was taking. And thief allowed me to say some very mple things about what I love and value in the world. And communicated to the children who will be tomorrows law givers, and teachers, and artists, and parents. We as artists have a huge responbility to tell our own truth with the greatest honesty and fearlessness if we hide some part of ourselves because we are ashamed for some reason, then we censor our own lives, which seems to me a great tragedy. I want to be able to be myself in very unwashed way. That's why i put the photos of of myself naked,to just say here I am for better or worse.
Is there ever going to be an Everville graphic novel?
Barker: Nobody has proposed to me an Everville graphic novel although I would be very open to the idea.
I heard that a studio bought the rights to an Abarat movie. Is there any progress?
Barker: I am very optimistic that we will have news about an Abarat movie at some point in the future. But my Irish/Italian ancestry makes me a superstitious son of a bitch, and I don’t want to spoil our chances to make something come to fruition by getting too cocky or certain about future posbilities. Let me say this; if there is any project of mine which seems to holler “film me! Film me!” it would be the Abarat books. There are as you all probably know FIVE in total. The scale of the story expands exponentially as we move toward the cosmic climax of those five books. It’s going to be an incredible challenge for the filmmakers who take on the project to create the mystical vions and transfigurations that the whole journey of the Abarat books is taking us towards.
What is happening with Jericho 2?
Barker: I regret to sound like a broken record, again like some of these projects I am willing to dance if someone will just invite me. No project is ever off the list of posbilities.
What are the chances/progress of a Tortured Souls movie?
Barker: Once again, I would love a Tortured Souls movie but I find that the kind of horror movies which tend to be PG-13 rather than R, I hate. If I’m going to see a horror movie I want to see the toughest, bloodiest rawest picture I can! And I’s hard to find studios that have any balls where horror movies are concerned. They don’t know how to market them very often, and they feel that they’re useful ways to make a quick buck.
How do you organize yourself in the process of writing a book?
Barker: I don’t. Each book organizes itself around the cluster of chaotic impulses that bring me to the narrative in the first place. I am a labyrinth in which I have lost myself. A book is a way of plotting my route out.
What was your inspiration behind the Hellraiser movies?
Barker: I knew that lying behind all of horror fiction was a barely concealed fascination with forbidden sex. In so many horror movies sex is the unspoken motive power, and I wanted to bring that subtext into the light. And see what power horror still had when its greatest force was exposed. That meant, in the case of Hellraiser, examining in images the dark beauty of sadomasochism, which had always held a profound fascination for me.
My daughter and I attended the humanities festival and workshop after the release of Days of Magic, Nights of War. Do you envion doing something like that again in the future?
Especially the hands on painting workshop?
Barker: Yes, I like, I want to be useful as a teacher. I want to be able to communicate and pass along the lessons that I learned in my years as a writer and a painter, a filmmaker, playwright, I feel blessed from emerging from my coma in February to have regained a new clarity. A new sense of usefulness. Unfortunately at present my body is taking longer to mend itself than my head. And it will be many months before I can resume any form of public life. But when I can, one of my first priorities is to teach.
nce most of your works have a strong erotic/sexual element have you ever thought of writing horror or fantasy erotica?
Barker:
I would like to write a purely sexual novel with room for characters to express their sexuality, whether gay, straight or transgendered. The dere blossoms in each of us a different way. It would be nice to feel that I might create a world on paper in which everybody was valued for their own particular nectar.
Barker also promised that these sesons will become frequent, and I hope so because I found it enlightening and had a blast, as I'm sure all of his fans did. You can vit his official Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/officialclivebarker
NatBrehmer
Monday 12/17/2012 at 08:30 PM | 99254
