Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Kirk.
Brian, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Reading and writing have been the two things I’ve enjoyed above all else for as long as I can remember. And I realized I had somewhat of a talent for telling stories early on, as students started looking forward to hearing my stories read aloud in class. My English teachers all encouraged my writing, and I won a poetry contest in 5th grade from a homework assignment that my teacher submitted on my behalf.
But I always considered fiction writing to be frivolous fun and knew that one day I’d have to get serious and find a line of work that I could turn into a career. So I studied marketing and took a job at an ad agency. But the urge to write stories never left. In fact, it grew stronger the farther away from it that I strayed. I returned to it a few years after starting my “big career,” writing short stories in the evenings and on the weekends, and then I began submitting them for publication. After accruing a massive stack of rejections for a couple of years, I finally sold one. Then another. After a while, I decided to quit my full-time job at the ad agency to work freelance and write a novel, which wound up being my debut release.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Whether or not the road is smooth is often a matter of perspective, and is subject to one’s expectations. Writing a novel is difficult. Finding a publisher willing to pay you for your novel is even harder. Repeating the process is harder still. Rejection is constant, and something even the most established writers face.
But I didn’t get into writing because I thought it would be easy. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. The challenge is what makes the experience so rewarding. So I’ve started viewing perceived struggles as valuable lessons that help bring me closer to my personal goals.
My story got rejected? Good, now I can make the story even better and send it out again.
That agent relationship didn’t work out? Good, now I have a better idea of what kind of agent I want to work with.
No one can master the sea while sailing only in smooth waters. Let the struggle make you stronger.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I primarily write psychological suspense novels. I prefer the term “horror” to “suspense,” but horror is often considered to be a dirty word because people associate it with blood, gore, and gratuitous violence, which is not at all what the entire genre is about. Equating horror to gore would be like categorizing all comedy as “slapstick.”
Horror is a mechanism for creating empathy. The reason our ancestors told scary stories around the campfire is because it helped bond the community together. The world can be a dark place; we all have our fears. Horror fiction allows us to face our fears, and exorcize our demons, in a safe and controlled environment where we can find the strength to overcome them, or at least better understand them. Within almost all good horror, you’ll find a ray of hope.
My horror strives to shine a compassionate light into the dark corners of our world to show that the monsters we fear most are often created by our imaginations.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, nothing. And that’s not because I’ve done everything perfectly, or that everything has gone according to plan. But some of my greatest failures have led to some of my favorite successes, so it would be impossible to know which decision would be the one to change.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://briankirkblog.com
- Email: brian@kirkcopy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briankirk13/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.kirk13
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brian_Kirk
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