What's the most improbable but true thing about you? 
Right now, that I’m answering these questions at all. I’m really uncomfortable talking about myself, even moreso when writing about myself. I think it’s one of the things I enjoy most about writing fiction: I get to talk as someone else for a while, mentally be someone else for a while. As someone who’s always been uncomfortable in their own skin, it’s a kind of magic when I get to don someone else’s, even if only in my imagination.

Why did you choose to submit to Horror Over the Handlebars?
I was there in the kids on bikes era people are so nostalgic for today, and I like writing about kids. However we’ve all grown up, we all started out as kids, and most of us have had the same events growing up. Whatever our gender or upbringing or background, we’ve all had some version of our first kiss, first experience with bullying, first day at school, first relationship, first breakup, first time being let down by an adult, first realization that we had some form of best friend, first job—hell I could go on and on. And while everyone’s experiences growing up are as varying and different as they themselves are—and  humanity encompasses an infinite variety—there’s at least a little similarity in the way those things made us feel. Just the very fact that we’ve had those experiences—as different as yours may have been from mine—brings us closer as people, gives we individuals a little more empathy for other individuals, people we may think we have nothing in common with, and I think that’s part of the magic of fiction as well.

Tell us a little about your story, “Nathan’s Night at Norwich” and its genesis.
I started out writing a totally different story, one about skate kids in the 80s, but it didn’t feel right. I started over, and rather than focusing on the kids aspect of it, I went looking for a way to tie it in to Connecticut. I was looking for an urban legend from the area to use as an anchor, and read a bit about the Melon Heads, whom I’d heard of before but never really knew a lot about. Legends of their genesis led me to look at asylums and I found the Norwitch, which was both a setting in Connecticut and closed in the 90s, so it gave me a kind of lock on the time and place. After that, the kids and other characters essentially created themselves. Most of them wasn’t really planned, so I kind of got to be the first reader for the story (one of the perks of being a pantser, I think); I loved finding out out about Nathan’s Book, and the relationship—both existing and developing—between Nathan and Jane, Nathan’s theories as a burgeoning cryptid hunter, and then what happens after all that . . . well, I just hope you enjoy reading Nathan and Jane’s story as much as I did.

Tell us about “Fluke” in Horror Over the Handlebars and what you liked about it.
Great story. Captured the feel of being there at the beginning of E-communication so well it felt like I was there again. The power of the anonymity while still being tied to a place, like having to find a phone to make a call. The roots of social media, back before it had the pervasiveness it enjoys today. All that while exploring the Slendermanesque creation of a monster, creepily happening over time in such a real-feeling and compelling way . . . It’s a fantastic story. I wish I’d written it myself.

If you could time travel, where would you go, what would you do, and why would you do that?
The easy answer is the one everyone gives: I’d go kill baby Hitler, because how could I not. But the selfish answer, the one that actually popped into my head first, is far simpler: I’d go back to sometime in the late seventies or early eighties and try my damndest to convince a much younger me that writing was something I should try, that I had a smidgin of talent for it, and that it was more than worth it—and would be so much fun—to try and develop that smidgin, to coax that little spark into a flame. I learned to read when I was three, and have been doing and enjoying it (I might even call it a major part of my life) for fifty-two years, but I didn’t start writing until I was forty. I’ve gotten better at it over time, and enjoyed the process, and though I have a hard time saying it out loud, I think I’m pretty good at it. I just wish I’d started twenty or even thirty years earlier; I might be so much better at it than I am now.

Who would you bring back from the dead for one hour and what would you do with them?
Oh, no. I’ve seen and read way too many “This is how the zombie apocalypse started” stories to fall for that one. Noooo thank you!

What's your favorite piece of art? Could be music, writing, sculpture, painting…
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. If you haven’t read it, it’s the story of a life—an extraordinary one—that seems to be nothing but a series of almost unconnected scenes from the life of an admittedly unusual individual, all of them entertaining and engaging in and of themselves; it’s only at the end, when Irving draws all the threads tight, that the whole thing pulls together into a mosaic you suddenly see was pushing Owen toward his final scene. It’s only at the end, looking back at it all, that you see how everything fits together like a unique puzzle to form this one individual. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving wrote not just a story, but a life, both a beautiful one and beautifully done.

What are you most proud of creating?
My son, even though, admittedly, he did most of the work. It’s been almost twenty-two years, but I vividly remember being afraid to be a parent, afraid I was going to fuck up, and in doing so, fuck up the one thing I was most responsible for in the world. I did fuck up—a lot—but I think with me letting him see the better parts of me while talking about (and letting him know it was okay to talk about) the worse parts of me—and holding myself up as an example of what not to do on occasion—he was able to choose a path through all the bullshit that’s turned him into a young man I do feel proud of. I know I wasn’t the only one involved: I can see his mother’s influence in there, some of his friends’, other family members, people I don’t even know, etc. They say it takes a village, and I think this is an example of that saying in action. I guess the question I’m actually answering is, What are you most proud of co-creating, but just that I had the tiniest part in the process—and that I get to be aware of it—that’s what I’m most proud of.
And boy, it’s a good thing he never reads my stuff, because this would embarrass the hell out of him.

What's next on your literary horizon?
I recently signed a contract with Three Ravens Press for a horror novella called Monkey Bones, and I’m currently working on another novella (untitled so far, I suck at titles), the second in a fast-read, reluctant paranormal investigator series, Carl Spaberg: Ace Reporter, the first of which is already out there under the title Spearfinger. Carl will be chasing a new story, in a new place, and being chased by a new monster, hopefully sometime this fall.

Where can readers connect with you online?
You can find me and my stuff at my website, RobSmales.com, or you can actually say hi on Facebook. I’ve got Reddit, Twitter (X?), and Instagram accounts, but the day job doesn’t give me too much time for social media these days. Even so, you can always get hold of me in Zuckmetaland.