Christopher Swann
Never Back Down
Fans of Harlan Coben and Karin Slaughter, take note: Never Back Down is the book of the summer and one of the most exhilarating novels of the year. —Peter Farris, award-winning author of The Devil Himself
DOSSIER: Your writing career has taken off in a vertical trajectory ever since your hit debut novel SHADOW OF THE LIONS. What did the most to prepare you to publish a debut that put you on so many lists for book awards? Inspiration, education, personal connection, what?
SWANN: Stubbornness and encouragement. The only reason I’m published, aside from luck and whatever talent I might have, is that I didn’t quit writing. I spent ten-plus years on my first serious attempt at a novel—imagine if Tom Clancy and Pat Conroy tried to write a book together, and that’s what my first novel was like. I could paper a wall with the rejections that novel got. I could have so easily quit writing, and my life would have been fine, and the world would have continued to turn. But I just kept at it, and at my wife Kathy’s encouragement I finally started writing something new, which became SHADOW. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was thirteen. SHADOW was published when I was forty-seven. That’s a long game! And I always got just the amount of encouragement I needed when I needed it, whether from Kathy or my parents or an agent who said no to a submission but added a note telling me to keep at it.
I’ll be a teacher
DOSSIER: When it comes to education, which you have plenty of as an English department chair and a PhD holder in creative writing, how far can all that fancy book learnin’ take you when it comes down to writing a novel with heart that’s drawn from deep personal experience?
SWANN: My life has been dictated by the academic calendar since I was five. I like school. I mean, after I graduated from college, I went back to grad school, twice. And I teach high school English! It’s funny, because the reason I first thought about going into education was because when I was thirteen and decided I wanted to write books, I wondered what writers did for a living—even then I realized most writers probably had a day job. I found out lots of writers were teachers and thought, Okay, I’ll be a teacher. That is literally the extent of my vocational research. But teaching has been a great career to have as a writer. It provides a steady schedule with time off to write. I get to teach great works of literature as well as creative writing and some elective classes I’ve designed. Basically I get to marinate in storytelling all day, and then I can write my own stories at night. And my students keep me very grounded.
On book promotion
DOSSIER: After you’ve put in the work to produce a solid novel, what do you suggest when it comes to promotion? You’ve won the Georgia Author of the Year Award and other accolades, but what matters most for getting people to actually read what you’ve poured your heart and soul into?
SWANN: Luck is a big factor. Which might not be comforting, because it’s largely out of your hands whether or not your book gets a professional review at all, let alone a positive one. I got lucky when I found my first agent. I got lucky when my first publisher initially said no, but an editor there followed up with a phone call and went back to the publisher and argued that they should buy my book.
That said, you have to work for it, too. Go to conferences and get in front of people and have something intelligent or interesting to say. Offer to give readings or speeches at libraries and bookstores, especially indie bookstores. Post on social media and tell everyone you know about your book. If you can, pay for some swag like a decent bookmark and pass it out whenever you can.
It’s safe to say most of us find promoting our books to be the least enjoyable part of being a writer—not because we’re lazy or don’t like readers, but because we spend a lot of time alone inventing characters and scenarios in our heads and writing them down, and then suddenly we have to go out into the real world and talk to strangers and convince them they should buy our books. We aren’t all naturally good at selling ourselves or our books. But then you meet actual readers, and maybe you get invited to be a guest at a book club, and a bookseller at your local indie bookstore asks if you’d like to schedule a reading, and you join some other writers at a conference for a drink, and you realize it’s the personal connections that are important. Be grateful for readers and booksellers and librarians. Be proud of your work and humbled by it. Most importantly, write the best story you can and let the work speak for itself.
Series? What series?
DOSSIER: Your debut was a #1 Audible bestseller, then you shifted to a follow-up book for your Faulkner Family Thriller Series. What made you start a series after your debut?
SWANN: The funny thing is, I didn’t set out to make a series. My second novel, NEVER TURN BACK, was meant to be a standalone. But I struggled with it, with the pacing and the plot. You know the idea that your second novel or album or movie is harder than your first? Turns out that’s true, at least for me. I spent a lot of time rewriting that book, and by the end I knew the characters really well, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to let them go. Also, in NEVER TURN BACK the main character, Ethan Faulkner, has a 77younger sister, Susannah, and she is a hot glorious mess of a character, and a lot of fun to write. Suzie basically told me I wasn’t done with her, so I wrote two more books, NEVER GO HOME and NEVER BACK DOWN, from her point of view.
The living room couch
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Music, silence, a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains?)
SWANN: Right now I’m writing this lying on my living room couch, which is where I’ve done a lot of writing. I’ll write at my kitchen table, my dining room table, and sometimes even at the desk upstairs in the office I share with my wife. More rarely I’ll write at a local coffee shop. I used to listen to music all the time when I wrote, mostly soundtracks—The Last of the Mohicans was a favorite. Now I like it quiet, in the mornings when possible, although sometimes I’ll listen to ambient music on my AirPods. Mostly I snatch hours when I can, usually at night. But a cabin in the mountains sounds lovely.
Wise words from Eli Cranor
DOSSIER: Do you have any news or announcement you’d like to disclose in your Dossier?
SWANN: My current WIP scares me. I know Eli Cranor and other writers say every book they write scares them, and I know what they mean. But this one is especially scary to me. It’s a crime thriller and a revenge story, and it’s also a novel about where we are as a society at this particular moment in time. It’s ambitious and thorny and the most challenging thing I’ve written yet. But I think I can pull it off. I hope so, anyway. Guess that stubbornness of mine will come in handy.
Learn more about Chris at: Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon