An Interview with A.G. Flitcher

AG Flitcher is a ten-time award-winning author who also placed in finals twice for Fantasy Series and once for Fantasy Book for the OZMA Award given by Chanticleer. In addition, he has taught many the art of storytelling to novice writers and avid readers. His obsession with questioning the good and bad in life, the grey areas, and the scary parts of life, is what makes his work enthralling and colorful.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

My writing journey started a year after my mom passed away, but I wouldn’t say that her passing was why I started writing. At the time I published Unforgiven and All in the Family, I was finding a creative outlet to deal with the loss of my mother. A year after All in the Family was published, a friend of mine and I started working on a children’s picture book but I left the project when we came to creative disagreements. So I went back to school to complete my bachelor’s degree in creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. Thanks to this institution, I regained my love of reading and writing and haven’t stopped since. As for who influences me, it is JK Rowling and Stephen King. I thought that I’d stick to fantasy for my entire career, but as I read more Stephen King, John Saul, Brian Jacques, Cormac McCarthy, and various other authors of horror and supernatural, that became my main interest in writing.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I’ve done various day jobs. Meat department worker in a grocery store, line cook, dishwasher, prep cook, busboy, and server, all in the restaurant industry. I’ve also been a personal trainer at a couple gyms, glass factory worker, maintenance and trade worker at a zoo, and now I’m a hotel maintenance technician. The one job my readers wouldn’t know I did for a few months was production assistant for the TV show The Flash.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Black Rose Cocoon has two components to encapsulate what the story is about. “Black Rose” represents the relationship between life. love and death. It also represents the serial killer’s perspective on all three themes in which she believes love that is alive and moving is not love at all, but rather a frivolous yet painful tool that can hurt you by leaving you. True love to her is immobile, a statue you can pose to what you believe to be its true form. “Cocoon” is what she does to herself and whoever she decides to keep close to herself to feel loved and in control of everything.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

I was elated with the colors because the killer sees herself as this Victorian queen who holds power over everyone yet has no shame in her monstrous acts to exercise that power, no matter how she hurts others or herself. The violet decaying wall shows her aura that she is either oblivious to or narcissistically accepting of.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

“Isle of the Dead” by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and if there was a score it would be composed by Niccolo Paganini.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

In order for life to have value, it has to expire. Therefore creating the concept of urgency to create value and moments that can pass us by if the concept of time is ignored or neglected.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The fact that every reader valued it highly, saying the characters felt real and well intertwined.

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

I’m working on my fantasy trilogy, Khrazul. For details you can contact me on my social media: @agflitcher on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.