The Black List recently announced the seven winners of its inaugural Unpublished Novel Award, introducing the world to seven writers across various genres from children’s and young adult fiction to adult crime, horror, and literary fiction.
Debutiful recently chatted with all seven winners and is excited to introduce the world to each writer, discover why and how they write, and learn more about the book that won them the award.
Meet Simon Nagel, winner of the Science Fiction & Fantasy award for his manuscript, Gates To Nowhere. Nagel is a writer of many talents. He has written film and television scripts, published short stories, become a passable poet, written two books, performed a one-man play, and created the world’s first choose-your-own-adventure martial arts saga.
We asked Nagel to give readers a brief insight into his writing life and his Unpublished Novel Award-winning manuscript, Gates To Nowhere.
Can you introduce readers to who you are as a writer and what interests and informs your writing?
I write speculative fiction. I’ve also written thrillers, horror, and even some comedy. I love playing with genre to work through whatever emotion I want to explore, whether it’s trying to understand why I feel a certain way, or why certain intangible moments in life happen to all of us but we never really know how to describe them.
I’m always searching for emotional truths that are difficult to grasp for more than a moment. Whatever it is, it’s usually found somewhere just beneath the story’s surface or hidden between words. It exists on a different plane, and tapping into it can helps us understand a deeper connection to the world around us. I never used to think about consciousness very much, but I’m starting to understand that, ironically, I’m writing about it all the time.
I also like to take whatever interested me as a kid and find a way to make it feel real while still keeping the magic alive: monsters, old movies, the type of wonder I had while looking through old science or travel books, and technology that has long since become obsolete but was a marvel in the 80s and 90s. I don’t care for nostalgia, but I do like to take something that made my eyes widen when I was a kid and play around with it as an adult. There’s always room for an extra skeleton in a story somewhere. Why else would someone write?
The announcement over at Lit Hub gave a quick preview of what your book is, but I always like to ask the writer what their book is really about. So, what’s your book?
Gates to Nowhere is about the feelings of extinction. It’s not exactly an emotion any of us would recognize. How could we? We’ve all experienced grief, but extinction feels like something beyond the curtain of our understanding.
With grief, we say: “We’ll get through this. There’s something on the other side.” That’s not the case with extinction. We grapple with loss. But there’s no mulligan with extinction. It’s oblivion. It’s looking down the barrel at nothingness. This sounds bleak, but the book is ultimately about connection, friendship, and the weird ways people keep living anyway. What does it mean to prepare yourself for that? And what does life look like in the meantime? How do we choose to live?
It’s such an overwhelming concept that it felt like the only way to understand it was to look at it from a distance. So I thought… how would you explain death to an alien that knows nothing about it? You’re explaining the concept of the end of life, but then something else starts happening. You explain more about what that life encompasses and what it inhabits. And then you’re talking about a world that’s ending.
At a certain point, the story went beyond grief and turned into a question about what to celebrate about being alive. It’s a precious commodity.
How did this story come to be? What were the highs and lows (so far) of writing it?
I began Gates to Nowhere while I was living in Edinburgh, Scotland. My partner was pursuing her MFA at the time, and I joined her without much of a plan at all (I hadn’t set foot in Scotland until our plane touched down). I spent a lot of time walking through the city with our dog, trying to figure out what to do with myself.
Edinburgh is an incredible city, especially for writers. Its streets drip with history and intrigue. But I couldn’t appreciate it at the time. I felt like I was on the edge of doom. The world was already well on the chaotic path that it had set for itself over the past decade. I was haunted by images of fires that had scorched Australia, which reminded me of the Thomas Fire back at my old home in Ventura, CA. At the same time, the Extinction Rebellion protests were picking up steam across the UK.
All of the ideas for the book stemmed from this time and these particular feelings. In a way, I was escaping gray, rainy Edinburgh to take solace in hot, dry New Mexico. But that only goes so far.
Extinction is an isolating thing to ponder. Seriously, who wants to talk about it? But I wanted someone to understand how I felt, and maybe the story would help someone else feel less alone. Maybe it could be a way to process the overwhelming psychic grief that I thought many other people were experiencing but couldn’t quite place what it was or why they felt that way.
I think that’s why the friendships in the story stand out. There’s genuine warmth and connection between everyone involved, even if they don’t know every single thing that’s happening from one moment to the next.
What has this Award opened for you? Where are you in your journey now?
In this case, the award literally took me on a journey. It was the centerpiece of my application for an artist visa for France, so I’m currently writing these answers from somewhere along the Mediterranean. I’m 39 years old. If I can’t go live as an artist in France now, when could I?
I’m grateful to have the chance to live in such an inspirational place and continue writing. As for Gates to Nowhere, I had originally planned to self-publish it, but the award made me re-evaluate. I’m currently querying! Let’s get this on the shelves at Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, and of course Bart’s Books in Ojai.
What does your writing routine and space look like?
I would describe my current space as liminal. It’s a tight corner in our Airbnb at the moment. I’ll share some of my handy tools of the trade, like my Paper Republic Voyager journal and select Blackwing pencils, including the limited edition Jerry Garcia model. My latest acquisition is the Staedtler Mars Lumograph 4B from Rougier & Plé.
I decided a long time ago to go back to paper and pencil. It just felt right. I’m also including my Bumblebee Jasper stone for creativity, because apparently I’ve become a crystal person.
What can we expect from you in the future?
I have so many ideas that it’s seriously driving me nuts.
Right now I’m focused on a few key projects. My thriller screenplay Desert Flower, which I wrote years ago, is in early pre-production with Jason Bateman’s Aggregate Films. There’s some amazing talent involved, including director Carey Williams and Jay Ellis set for a leading role. I had given up on screenwriting for a while and the thrill of collaborating and moving the script forward made me want to dive back in again.
I’m also co-writing a self-contained thriller with my partner Manda Comisari, who is so good at character psychology that it’s almost frightening. The script has a lot to say about how women are treated both in real life and in the stories we tell, and I think it has a subversive power in the best way. I can’t wait to share more about that one in the future.
On the fiction side, I’m working on a serialized story through my upcoming newsletter at www.simonnagelwrites.com. It’s called Life At The Bottom Of The Sea, and it does indeed take place at the bottom of the sea. It’s about the sheer delight of living in peak capitalism.
Besides querying Gates to Nowhere, I’m also querying my middle-grade horror Pool Shark, which has been some of my favorite writing. I look forward to writing more kids stuff in the future.
Speaking of Gates to Nowhere, I’m kicking around an idea for a sequel. One of the key supporting characters deserves a follow-up, and he’s going to get one. Expect an emotionally earnest tale involving a chupacabra.