Monday, November 12, 2018

Sam Wiebe

Sam Wiebe is the author of Cut You Down, Invisible Dead and Last of the Independents, and the editor of the Vancouver Noir. Wiebe lives in Vancouver.

From his Q&A with Dana Gee for the Vancouver Sun:

Q: You are a crime writer by trade, so I was wondering looking back, are there books that terrified you?

A: Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates. Both make you identify with very unpleasant people.

Q: What must a story be to be classified noir? What are the key elements?


A: Dennis Lehane called noir “working-class tragedy,” and I think there’s some truth to that. It’s about bad things happening to people a lot like us.

Q: What are the clichés that should be avoided when writing these types of stories?

A: It’s only a cliché if you do it poorly. A femme fatale in 2018 with a predilection for shoulder pads and venetian blinds would be silly. But a character well-versed in sexual psychology? Endlessly fascinating.

Q: Vancouver is not typically considered a noir type place, but that assumption is very wrong, right?

A: Dead wrong. Noir is about...[read on]
Visit Sam Wiebe's website.

My Book, The Movie: Invisible Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Invisible Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Cut You Down.

--Marshal Zeringue