I’m happy to have friend and fellow author James Robert Smith on the website today for a quick interview. James has published numerous novels (THE FLOCK being the most well-known), as well as over sixty short stories. His comic scripts have been published by Marvel and Spiderbabies Grafix.

I first became aware of James when I was accepted for the Dead Bait 2 Anthology, which was packed with some of the best writers in the game.

Author James Robert Smith in Colorado’s rugged Weminuche Wilderness.

What was your influence for THE FLOCK?

I had always been fascinated by the so-called Terror birds. No one had ever found the wing bones of the North American species, Titanis walleri. But when one was located it was theorized that the wing had evolved back into an arm so that the animals pretty much resembled theropod predators that had been extinct for 65 million years. With that image in my mind, my imagination ran away with the idea. Within a day or so after that I had concocted the premise of a remnant population still existing in a part of their native range and of how such a situation could exist.

James, animals are frequently a topic in your books, such as the Phorusrhacids in THE FLOCK. Did you grow up spending time in the outdoors, and if so, how did spending time in the woods and waters impact your writing?

I have always been into the outdoors. Always. I was following my dad around the scrublands of the low country of Georgia hunting for Indian relics as young as four years old. So I was at home in the woods from a very early age. By the time I was in my early teens I was hiking and backpacking the southern Appalachians. I was hooked and the desire to be in the forests and mountains has been with me ever since.

Will THE CLAN be a direct sequel to the FLOCK, or will it stand on its own? also, can you tell us anything about THE CLAN without getting into too much trouble?

THE CLAN is a sequel to THE FLOCK and includes many of the human characters who survived the initial book. The Terror birds, however, make only a token appearance in the novel. There is a new creature afoot in THE CLAN and we explore their situation and their particular culture the way I unwound that of The Flock.

Your latest book is WITHERING, which you wrote under your pen name, Robert Mathis Kurtz. I’m a big fan of creature fiction. What can we expect in WITHERING along those lines?

WITHERING is an old-fashioned pulp adventure novel with a heavy dose of horror and a big supernatural element. The book has proven to be more popular than I had expected. Set in the deep South (as THE FLOCK was), I got a kick out of describing the people and terrain and lay of the land. My agent is currently shopping the film rights around to various studios.

Your novel THE FLOCK was optioned by Warner Brothers for a feature film. Having read THE FLOCK, I’m not surprised. The ending was the most fun I’ve had with a book in quite some time. Can you tell us a bit about the process of having your film rights optioned?

I sold the rights to Warner Brothers via Don Murphy and John Wells. Don Murphy has a huge number of hits under his belt, including THE TRANSFORMERS franchise. The story of how he became aware of THE FLOCK is, by now, a bit of an Internet legend. Basically, he got mad at me for something I said about one of his films (FROM HELL with Johnny Depp) and he bought a copy of THE FLOCK so that he could tear me a new asshole. Instead of hating the book, he loved it and teamed up with John Wells (West Wing and ER fame) and bought the option for the film rights.

I have enjoyed the experience of selling the movie option. But it’s kind of like watching a glacier, waiting for the film production to begin. It might happen or it may never make it to the screen. All I can do is watch and wait.

You’re an avid hiker and camper, and you chronicle your adventures in great detail on your blog, “Til the Last Hemlock Dies“. First, what got you into hiking and your love for the outdoors? Second, what are your favorite areas to hike and camp in the U.S.? Any forthcoming trip you are excited about?

I have always hiked. As I said, I would tag along with my dad who was an avid lover of American history, specifically American Indian history. He knew where and how to search for Indian relics (pottery, arrowheads, etc.) and spent a lot of time in forests and rural areas of the South searching for them. He would take me along with him as far back as I can recall. It was all done on foot and in the forests, so I developed an early love of the outdoors because of this. Later, when we moved to the mountains of north Georgia when I was 15 years old, I found out about backpacking. My love of the forests was doubled when that happened.

I have hiked and camped all over the continent. There are things about all of the areas that I love. The San Juan Mountains of Colorado has to be the most spectacular place I’ve ever hiked. Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons were stunning. The White Mountains of New Hampshire impressed me, as did the high peaks in Baxter State Park in Maine. But I have a special love for the high country of my native South. And of those places, I have to say that the Black Mountains of North Carolina are my favorite hiking and backpacking destination.

My next camping trip is to southwestern Virginia. It’s one of my wife’s favorite camping areas, and mine, also. I hope to bag some peaks that have been on my to-hike list for a long time. Most of the peaks I plan to summit are around the Mount Rogers area which more resembles Montana than Virginia. You have to see the place to truly appreciate it.

Thanks for stopping by, James. And who knows, with all your wilderness hiking, maybe you’ll run into a lost species for real.

WITHERING – Amazon                                                                THE FLOCK – Amazon