Meet Paul A. Green

Every Friday, we meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Want to be featured? Email us: online@britishfantasysociety.org

Name: 
Paul A. Green (he/him)

Which region are you based in? 
Grew up in London, lived in Canada, Devon, Herefordshire, Hastings. Currently in Hertfordshire but planning a move back to South Coast.

If you write, which genre: 
I’m wary about the whole notion of genre. It’s useful as an academic taxonomy and publishers love it as a tool for managing reader expectations, although it can also set useful boundaries for shaping a narrative. I guess I’m caught in a liminal area between the tropes of science fiction and the twilight zones of fantasy… Slip stream, maybe?

If you don’t write, what do you do?
When I haven’t been writing, I’ve been a radio freelancer, supply teacher, punk blues saxophonist, second-hand book serf and college lecturer. Currently retired but doing the odd lecture. 

Are you drawn to any specific SFFH sub-genres? 
Time travel, multiple/parallel universes, deep time, alternate history, apocalypses ancient and modern, utopia/dystopia, the immediate future, paranormal phenomena, magick, occultism and the supernatural, the origin and nature of consciousness.

Your influences

Tell us about the book/film/thing that got you into SFFH: What was it? How old were you? What impact did it have on you?

In childhood: the Dan Dare comic strip; ‘The Lost Planet’ (BBC Children’s Hour) and ‘Journey into Space’ (also BBC Radio); just hearing in the playground about The Quatermass Experiment even though we didn’t have TV. By the time I was 11, I’d read H.G Wells, G.K Chesterton, C.S Lewis’s SF novels, Conan Doyle, M.R James, progressing to Ray Bradbury, Heinlein and James Blish by 14 and then going into overdrive around 17, getting into Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, Colin Wilson’s ‘The Outsider’, Kafka’s short stories, Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, etc. At 18/19 I was reading William S. Burroughs and James Joyce. I’d also starting writing poetry influenced by the Beats and the Surrealists. I couldn’t yet integrate those avant-garde tendencies with my science fiction interests.

But the catalyst was my discovery in the late sixties of the ‘New Wave’ writers like J.G. Ballard, M. John Harrison, and Thomas M. Disch, championed by Michael Moorcock in New Worlds magazine, who were moving away from space-opera conventions and experimenting with form or language. When I had a short prose poem accepted there, I felt I’d found a direction. From poetry I moved to radio drama and eventually short fiction and the novel.

How does that early influence show up in your work now?

The influence of Ballard is obvious in some of the stories I wrote for Rick McGrath’s ‘Deep Ends’ anthologies. William Burroughs’ cut-ups inspired the montage sequences in my early radio drama ‘The Dream Laboratory’. Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius novels directed me towards the multiverse, a territory I exploited in my ‘Lucas Beardsley’ quartet – ‘The Qliphoth’, ‘Beneath the Pleasure Zones I &II’ and ‘Dream Clips of the Archons’. And at that interface between science and the ‘occult’, Professor Quatermass is always facing my demons…

Where do you draw your creative inspiration from?

Dreams and memories, random notes – sometimes years later. Reading philosophy, history, popular science, biography – such as the life of Jack Parsons, a pioneer rocket fuel scientist and practising occultist, which supplied the inspiration for my play Babalon.

Your work

Who do you look to as a genre hero? Why?

Ballard, because he turned the genre inside out. From outer space to inner space…

You’re stuck in an elevator for 60 seconds with that hero, and they want you to describe your work. Give us the pitch.

Lift, going down.

PG: Ah, Mr Ballard, I’m caught in a liminal area between the tropes of science fiction and the twilight zones of fantasy – 

JGB: I think you stay there, Mr Green. Until somebody rescues you…

Lift grinds to a halt and the lights go out.

What are you working on right now?

I’ve recently finished a radio adaptation of my novel ‘Dream Clips of the Archons’ – I read a snippet on a recent Book Journey. The process of making the narrative more linear for audio has suggested possibilities for revising the novel, so I’m considering that.

I co-write film and TV scripts with Adrian Lord, which we are trying to develop. One of them – ‘Adam Kadmon, Kabbalistic Detective’ – has definite potential for a series of ‘occult sleuth’ short stories.

I’m also trying to place a new novel ’Remote Sensing’ – and I’m looking for an agent.

Thinking about all the stories/work you’ve done, what sticks out most in your mind? Why?

I think ‘The Qliphoth’ is a genuine original, fusing magic, physics and a parallel universe trope in a coming-of-age story that is also a contemporary satire. And I get a buzz out of hearing/seeing my dramas performed, especially ‘Babalon’ to an enthusiastic audience, mostly in black wearing pentagrams.

Where and when do you create/are you at your most creative?

I have a small study, bookshelves, desk etc. A typical writing set – up. Mornings or late sessions at night seem to work best for me..

What’s the best advice you’ve received about creativity?

Years ago I sent a fan letter to Ballard. He replied, by return of post, ‘Stick as close to your obsessions as possible and the breakthrough will come.’

What’s your writing soundtrack?

Usually silence. But sometimes BBC Radio 3. Or electronica and ambient sounds like Brian Eno, or Teutonic doom-jazz – Bohren and the Club of Gore! Free jazz like Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler. Or even dub – King Tubby! But it can’t have verbal/vocal content.

The quickfire round

Sci-fi, fantasy or horror?
On sci-fi/fantasy spectrum. See above.

Quiet or loud?
Extreme dynamic range.

Dark or light?
Dark with a touch of satire

Strict lines or genre blend?
Monster mash

Awards or bestseller?
An obscure award would be nice.

Fiction or non-fiction?
I read both

Poetry or prose?
Both. And the prose poem, as a form.

Plotter or pantser?
I start with a concept, a metaphor or a character. But my pants catch fire quite quickly. I have used divination techniques like the Tarot or Eno’s Oblique Strategies to dowse the way forward

Reading or listening?
Mostly reading but I enjoy listening to sf/fantasy radio drama as well as writing it.

Notebook or computer?
First thoughts/first drafts in notebook, then endless re-drafts on Mac.

(Photo by Viva Luna Studios on Unsplash)

Favourite SFFH book of all time?
Short list: ‘The Drowned World’ (J.G Ballard); ‘Light (M.John Harrison); ‘Nova Express’ (William Burroughs); ‘Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon) – which is not strictly SF but involves V2 rockets, sex and synchronicity.

Last book you read?
‘Ice’ – Anna Kavan -a haunting and unsettling fantasy.

Any SFFH author on auto-buy?
M. John Harrison; Vladimir Sorokin, on the strength of his bizarre and terrifying future history ‘Telluria’

Favourite podcast?
Damien Walters on Youtube

The home stretch

What’s the best thing about being part of the SFFH community?

Learning what other people are doing/reading, being prompted to try new things oneself.

Time to plug your stuff! Where can we find you and your work? What have you got coming up? Consider this your advertising space.

The relevant pages of my website contains links to publishers and/or audio/video files on Youtube, Soundcloud, Reverbnation, Culturecourt: https://www.paulgreenwriter.co.uk

I have some poems appearing in the anthology ‘Poet Town’ (Mothlight Press, Hastings, forthcoming). A story ‘The Line’ appeared in the August 2024 edition of aphelionwebzine.com. 

My play Babalon has been scheduled for production by the Space 55 theatre group in Phoenix, Arizona, USA for January 2025, while a prose piece ‘Report from the White Hole ‘is appearing  on November 15 in Issue 93 of https://www.streetcakemagazine.com.