BRYAN W. ALASPA

I could just tell you about how Ron Gavalik is a poet, but that would not come anywhere close to being the actual truth. As a writer, I respect other writers and always sort of respected poets. In general, though, I always kept poets at arm's length. Until I met Ron. Ron's poetry hits me in the gut the way other poets don't. I envision whiskey/bourbon-soaked bars in the mean streets of Pittsburgh when I read his work. I envision a steel town with large men in hard hats, drink

I love when I get to meet and chat with a new writer. I had the great fortune of being told about this new novel The Reign of the Kingfisher by a gentleman named T.J. Martinson. It sounded so interesting, I had to get it. I did get it for my Kindle and when I realized it was set in Chicago and Mr. Martinson was from the Chicago area, I had to reach out. Turns out T.J. Martinson is an awesome guy in general. He was willing to stop by this little blog and I sent him some questi

It’s interesting to realize you have developed a certain style of writing. I never really thought it would happen for me. I wondered, for years, if I would ever find my own voice or find my own way to write a story. Then, suddenly, years later, here we are and I think you can probably tell a Bryan Alaspa story from another story. I can mimic others, of course, it’s part of my day job, but mostly you can tell when it’s me. One of the things I like to do is flesh out characters

I've talked about this before, but it comes up time and again. People always want to know where the stories I write come from. What's interesting is the people you meet who try to tell you they have a great idea for a story. Hey, you should write about - XYZ. That would be a great book! I always appreciate that. My own father was a consistent source. In fact, from time to time, those suggestions are good enough to get stored away in my brain somewhere or a notebook. But for t

Scott Norman is the kind of a guy you often see called a "bear of a man." Hes tall. He's big. Everything about him is bigger than life. He has a loud laugh, loud way of speaking, and is a kind of force of nature when you meet him. When I first met him, it was my freshman year in college at Webster University in St. Louis. One of the first people I met and he and I became fast friends. Scott had ambitions to direct movies and I got to star in at least two of them. One of the f

Hey, so, it's Valentine's Day and I have a couple of little gifts for you. First - I dropped a new short story for you Kindle folks and those who don't like to pay more than 99 cents for things. It's a nasty little horror shocker called The Orchid Man. You can find it at Amazon by clicking on the text link or the image below: You can also find some things for FREE in my Amazon store. For example, the Kindle edition of my horror short story collection When the Night Comes Out

It is with great sadness that I read about the death of Stan Lee. It is impossible for me to explain just how much of an influence on me he was right from the start. I loved superheroes from the time I was maybe three or four and I have devoured superhero TV shows and cartoons since the 1970s. I was obsessed with Spider-Man as a youngster. I first saw him in the kid's show Electric Company, which ran on PBS here. The show came on after Sesame Street and while that show was gr

Writing about dark subjects is something a lot of people ask me about. I have had conversations with other people who are just baffled at how dark some of my work is. How did you come up with that? What made you even think about something like that? Why do you write about such dark things? Why do you write about scary things? Can't you write about puppies, bunnies and flowers for once? Of course, I have had an interest in dark things since I was a kid. I tell people the movie

Yeah, so, with the three-day holiday weekend, I figured I'd host an Ask Me Anything event at AMAFeed.com. You can follow the LINK HERE and check out the details and even start leaving questions or just drop by at 11:15 am, Eastern time this Sunday! Stop by. It'll be fun. I'll bring coffee. #askmeanything #event #interview #AMA #writing #writer #writingquestions #writingadvice

I am very proud to say that a new audiobook of one of my favorite books I have written is now out. My thriller book After the Snowfall is now available as an audiobook and read by the amazing Scott Servheen who has been just the most amazing voice talent to work with. I am so excited to bring this one to you. This is a book that has a truly special place in my heart. I wrote this book as my book for the one and only time I participated in NaNoWriMo. I wrote this book within 2

Hello everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for coming with me on the journey. The release of SPIDAR has been a major milestone for me. My first published work of fiction by a larger-sized publisher than I have ever worked with before. I am now on an author page on their website alongside true heroes of mine like Clive Barker and Brian Keene. A publisher who put out, all at once, a paperback, ebook and audiobook edition and who has a significant audiobook

This is the story of The Wraith. What the heck is The Wraith? The Wraith is a supernatural suspense/horror novel I wrote about a year or two ago. It's right here on my computer, in my drive, fully written in first draft form. It is, however, a novel that I have no intention of releasing anytime soon. You see, this is the thing I think young authors should understand. Sometimes, you have to be your own harshest critic and if you are going to be a self-published author, you nee

I have been self-publishing for a while. Of course, there is part of me that wishes I could be everywhere, but I was messing with self-publishing before there were ebooks. I was doing Print on Demand publishing back in the late 90s and jumped on the idea of e-publishing even before there was a Kindle. For me, I always felt that ebooks were the future of reading and publishing, but there is still the thrill of holding a physical print copy of your book in your hands. There are

One of the things I have written about before is that I am a 'working' writer. This doesn't mean I make a living just writing my books. It means I write for a living and, in my case, this means writing blogs, website content and marketing materials. You may have thought I spent my days coming up with the demented stories I put out, but instead I spend my days writing blog articles to generate leads and writing high-SEO content for websites for a large international corporatio

So, the big news, I guess I should lead with, is that I have officially started writing the third novel in the Elementals YA series. This is probably the single biggest request I get these days (right behind asking when the next Deklan Falls book is coming out) and I have been meaning to get around to it for some time. I was nervous about writing novel number three. I have to admit that. I have done a third novel in a series before (aforementioned Deklan series) and it gets v

My final stop for the Storyland blog tour is an interview over at the TriSarahTops blog. Check it out and make sure to pick up your copy of Storyland at Amazon today! Read the interview at TriSarahTops HERE. #thriller #blogtour #horror #writing #interview #Storyland #psychologicalhorror #psychologicalsuspense

Stop number 4 on the Storyland blog tour is up and ready for you to read. SunShineSarahXO was kind enough to let me do a guest post and blather on about why I wrote Storyland and why I am so demented I tend to like writing about horror and psychological horror. READ IT HERE! #blogtour #Storyalnd #guestpost #thriller #horror #writing #suspense #psychologicalthriller #psychologicalhorror #writer

Over the weekend I saw a 60 Minutes piece where they interviewed the legendary spy author John le Carre. I have not read any of his stuff, but I have seen some of the movies made from them. He writes the very smart, realistic, spy novels that try to put spies in the real world. Intense stuff requiring a lot of research and the exact opposite of the cartoonish (but fun) stuff that James Bond does. I love seeing how other writers do their thing, regardless of if their stuff is

As an independent writer, you probably know that one of the things you need to do is market your books yourself. I bet you, like me, have seen all kinds of videos and classes that claim to have the magic tool that will net you hundreds of readers that will buy hundreds of copies of your new book and send you down the path to selling millions of copies and earning you a six-figure income. I bet you, like me, have seen that email newsletters are the way to go. Oh! Just give awa

The main theme of my new novel Storyland is discussing where stories come from. Of course, as a writer, I wonder where the "stories" come from. However, I think this is a question that can be extended into other creative pursuits. Where do paintings come from? Where do songs come from? Where do [fill in the blank] come from? We creative types have brains that I feel work differently from others and I love watching the creative process in someone composing a song, poem, or pai