Guest interview with Scott Bradfield

Insights from the professor of literature, author and screenwriter

I’m delighted to share an interview I did with

Scott Bradfield

, The Master Bather himself, on Tuesday evening.

For those of you at the back who haven’t been paying attention, Scott is the host of an excellent YouTube book review show. But, prior to that, he was a professor of literature at the University of Connecticut, and also taught at Kingston University in the UK.

Scott is the author of several novels, collections of short stories, essays and also screen plays (you can see and buy them here).

Four signed copies of Scott’s books that I’m happy to have on my shelves.

In this interview, we talk about:

• Scott’s route through traditional publishing and his book contracts.

• what’s changed in publishing over the last 30 years.

• common writing mistakes and his advice to new writers.

• Scott’s current writing process.

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Before we get started, let me emphasise the importance of reviews to writers. If you are sitting reading this, being paid by your employer on the last Friday of every month, then you will have little idea of how reviews influence sales.

Two people told me they loved The Poster, but that they ‘don’t do reviews!’ Aaaaggh! (Both are employed in the public sector).

Another told me he hadn’t reviewed ‘Stone and Water,’ because he didn’t think it was important.

Books do not sell themselves (unless you are a celebrity), so authors need to sell them. There’s little point sitting in a dusty village hall at the local literary festival for a day trying to sell to strangers. The sales come through word of mouth.

Please review my books on Amazon, Goodreads and/or StoryGraph. Better yet, tell a friend or colleague and start a discussion!

Thank you to John R. for leaving this review:

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And now on to the interview:

Books/authors we mention included:

• Thomas Pynchon.

• Vladimir Nabokov.

• Jack Vance (Dying Earth).

• Ted Chiang (Arrival).

• Tobias Wolff (The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories).

• Sanora Babb.

• John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath).

• Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye).

Herman Melville (Moby Dick).

Thanks again to Scott for giving up his time and sharing his experience with us. This was the first time I’d spoken to Scott, but it felt like we’d known each other for years. What you didn’t see at the beginning was him peering over my shoulder to see what books I had on my shelves: I thought I was the only one who did that!

We talked about some literary biographies on my shelves:

• Richard Yates by Blake Bailey.

• John Steinbeck by Jackson Benson.

• Chester Himes by James Sallis

and ‘Astounding’, the story of the SF magazine written by Alec Nevala Lee.

I hope this has given you some inspiration to read and write.