Rob D. Smith
Good-Looking Ugly
Daniel Brown was born with the face only a mother could love and his mother couldn’t much stand to look at him either.
The Writer’s Dossier 12/9/2024 – The Rob D. Smith interview
DOSSIER: You have a famous Instagram post where you, Scott Von Doviak, Holly West, Lina Chern and a few others are outstanding outside of a Waffle House. The post appears to have been shared by Stephen King. This is a two-part question. Did King actually share Scott’s that post, and what does Von Doviak order at a Waffle House?
SMITH: I pinched myself when I saw that post so I’m pretty sure it really came from Mr. King. Scott carb-loaded with a pecan waffle and hash browns smothered and covered.
Cockfighting
DOSSIER: One of the big parts of your book, GOOD-LOOKING UGLY, is your protagonist having to break up a cockfighting ring that’s run by the Kentucky Fried Mafia. As a resident of Kentucky, how deep did that research go for you?
SMITH: If you are asking, did I attend a cockfighting match? I have not. My research was mainly news articles and videos from animal rights groups. I would have liked to explored the pit and seen some gamecocks and interviewed some participants but I didn’t get the opportunity. As of 2023, cockfighting was illegal in all fifty states. A federal crime but getting it enforced by local law is still in flux.
Caskets of Kentucky?
DOSSIER: When and where do you like to write? Morning, night, a cozy office, or a KFC parking lot?
SMITH: I prefer to write in the solitude of my office as early as 5 a.m. on a perfect day. No music. Just a review of the Post-it note that I wrote on the morning before telling me where I want the story to go next. And I haven’t written in a KFC parking lot but I do write long hand before work sometimes in a Caskets of Kentucky parking lot.
Wearing down the publisher
DOSSIER: When you’re in edit mode, how did you approach writing GOOD-LOOKING UGLY in terms of knowing someone else at Shotgun Honey was going to critique your work with an editor’s eye? I mean, what does fellow-Dossier member Ron Earl Phillips know, am I right? Did you feel a need to defend why you wrote certain things the way you did?
SMITH: It wasn’t like defending a college dissertation but I did have to pursue publication a couple of times with Shotgun Honey. I finally wore Ron down with my finely honed passive aggressive nature. We came to the realization that we are on same wavelength when it comes to pulpy crime literature.
New Story
DOSSIER: Do you have any breaking news or special announcement you’d like to disclose in your Dossier?
SMITH: I recently had my short story “A Box Full of Soul” published in Dark Yonder Issue 7. Eryk Pruitt and Katy Munger have put together a special magazine for dark fiction.
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