Author Interview with Sean Patrick Hazlett

On the blog today, I am featuring Sean Patrick Hazlett. Sean is a prolific author and editor and he is here today talking about his most recent book releases, his expansive career in publishing, and the cross-over between science fiction and horror.

Sean Patrick Hazlett is a technologist, finance professional, and science fiction, fantasy, horror, and non-fiction author and editor working in Silicon Valley. He has published over a hundred research reports on clean energy, semiconductors, and enterprise software including Wall Street’s first comprehensive market analysis of opportunities in the smart grid, which was cited twice in The Economist (See “Making Every Drop Count” and “Smart Grids: Wiser Wires”). He is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest and his fiction has appeared in publications such as Terraform, Vastarien, Writers of the Future, Grimdark Magazine, Galaxy’s Edge, Abyss & Apex, Fictionvale Magazine, Plasma Frequency Magazine, Kasma SF, The Colored Lens, NewMyths.com, and Mad Scientist Journal, among others.

Sean Patrick Hazlett’s Biography from his Amazon Author Page

Eliza: First and foremost, thank you for joining me on my blog today! I’m excited to get to know more about you and your books.

Sean: Thanks, Eliza, for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Eliza: You have quite the backlist of short stories and books that you have worked on and I noticed most of it is very recent! How did you get your start in the publishing industry?

Sean: Through sheer stubborn persistence and thousands of rejections. Seriously. Publishing is a tough gig. You have to be willing to slog through years and years and years of rejection. But over time, you become a much better writer. One thing that really helped me get through this struggle was a contest called the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest. It is completely anonymous, and writers can submit one short story every three months. The contest provided a quarterly goal for me to write a story and submit a new one each quarter. Every three months, three new winners are announced. Then once a year, all twelve winners travel to Hollywood for an impressive awards ceremony, get cash prizes, and have their stories appear in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future anthology. It is a fantastic springboard for new authors to attract notice from the industry. Speaking of persistence, it took me 17 submissions to win.

Eliza: You are listed as the editor for World War IV, the new science fiction anthology. What exactly is your role in an anthology like this? Do you select each story from submissions? Are you solely responsible for grammar checks?

Sean: My role as editor is threefold: First, I recruit authors who are willing to write for a specific themed anthology. Second, I pitch an anthology proposal with a suggested theme and potential authors to a publisher. Third, if the publisher makes an offer for the anthology, I start producing it. This includes setting deadlines, editing individual stories, arranging the stories in the anthology, and writing an essay at the beginning of the book that encapsulates key themes that appear often in many of the stories.

I generally invite authors I enjoy reading and who could provide a unique perspective on the theme. For my weird war anthologies, I always like to have a healthy mix of military and intelligence veterans. In this volume, veterans include Deborah A. Wolf, Brad Torgersen, Michael Z. Williamson, Stephen Lawson, Weston Ochse, Freddy Costello (pseudonym), and T. C. McCarthy (former CIA). I also like to invite contributors who are well-known for writing weird fiction and horror, but some of whom might not yet be familiar with Baen’s audience like John Langan, Laird Barron, Nick Mamatas, Maurice Broaddus, Weston Ochse, and Erika Satifka. Of course, I also make sure I include a healthy mix of Baen stalwarts like Brad Torgersen, Martin Shoemaker, D. J. Butler, Michael Z. Williamson, and Eric James Stone. It also never hurts to have headliners like Jonathan Maberry and Steven Barnes.

Eliza: Since you switch between the roles of being an editor and writer, which is most challenging for you? Do you prefer one over the other?

Sean: Editing is far easier than writing. As an editor, you only have to come up with a good idea, which is extremely easy to do. But the writers have to execute on this idea in an imaginative, interesting, and engaging way, which is much more difficult. Additionally, editing is much more operational. You must produce a product in a limited time frame, so you have to ensure that you have enough space to get everything done. Also, it’s much easier to evaluate the work of others than to evaluate your own, which is yet another reason writing is much more difficult.

In terms of preference, it all depends on what I’m measuring. If it’s productivity, I could certainly produce far more anthologies in a given year than I could books, simply because I am a more efficient editor than I am a writer. That said, there’s a certain satisfaction to seeing something you wrote in print that you don’t get from editing.

Eliza: How does your background in the military influence your writing? I’m sure you find writing about the technical aspects of war a bit easier, but do you also find that it influences the way that you write (such as with a regimented schedule?)

Sean: Having military experience has been extremely helpful. It gives you a better sense of what’s possible. It also provides you with a deeper perspective of how things feel when you are in a military environment from the long periods of intense boredom to the heightened sensory experiences of constant and unyielding movement and terror. How your feet swell and blister and your shoulders grow raw after long road marches; how it is to hallucinate from lack of sleep; and how you sorely miss home and the underappreciated creature comforts of civilization.

And it certainly helps influence how you handle a writing career. In particular, my military experiences have provided me with the grit and resilience that are absolutely essential to handle all the setbacks and rejections endemic in the publishing industry. For each victory, you have to steel yourself for 36 defeats. In fact, the one thing that all writers have in common is they didn’t quit. And that’s what the Army taught me: never quit, because others’ lives depend on you.

Eliza: On your blog and on your show on Youtube, you have talked about Ukraine and the conflicts that are currently going on there. Your recent anthology, Building a Better Future, even plans to donate all of the proceeds to Ukraine. I think that is incredibly inspiring! I noticed that you first wrote the short story that is featured in Building a Better Future back in 2019 before the Ukraine war began. So, you’ve been writing about this area for a few years. Do you have a personal connection with Ukraine?

Sean: I have several personal connections with Ukraine. Two personal friends immigrated from there to the United States when it was still part of the Soviet Union, and another friend and former Army colleague, is Ukrainian by blood and lived for a decade there.

Additionally, I spent five years at the US Army’s National Training Center preparing military units for war in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there, I became an expert on Soviet doctrine and tactics, so I am able to see the current conflict from multiple perspectives.

Lastly, I also wrote another story for Terraform, Vice Media’s Science Fiction arm, called “SWARM” in 2017, which also involves war against Russians in Ukraine.

Eliza: As a writer of both science fiction and horror, how do you feel those two genres overlap? At one point does a story about an alien become a horror or a terrifying tale become science fiction?

Sean: The two genres often overlap. The science fiction part of a story is about that story’s content, whereas the horror aspect is about that story’s mood. Both can absolutely be present in a story, and the point at which a story about an alien becomes horror is when the behavior of that alien (or humans) evokes a sense of terror or dread. The point at which a terrifying tale becomes science fiction is when that story contains science fictional elements such as a novel technology, fringe science, or advanced civilizations, among other things. Weird World War III and Weird World War IV certainly offer plenty of examples!

Eliza: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions. Please share links where readers can find you and your numerous works!

Sean: Thanks for inviting me, Eliza! You can find my links below:

Social Media

Website: https://seanpatrickhazlett.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sphazlett

Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanphazlett

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanpatrickhazlett/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThroughAGlassDarklyWithSean

Reddit: u/seanpatrickhazlett

Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1467894

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ThroughAGlassDarkly

MeWe: https://mewe.com/i/seanhazlett

Gab: https://gab.com/shazlett

Books

Weird World War III

Weird World War IV

Hell’s Well

Alien Abattoir and Other Stories

Alien Abattoir and Other Stories (Audio)

The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to the Mojave Desert

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 33