Interview with Kim Teilio, Author of The Godless Void

What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write The Godless Void?

During my MA degree, we had a whole module on censorship and cancellation culture, and it made me go back to writers like Robert E. Howard and Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming, even a little Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs. I knew I was going to start a fantasy piece, I wanted something of an antihero for the protagonist, and I definitely wanted the hardboiled element to play with. I was trying to prove a point of some kind, really. There’s a line of dialogue near the start, following a murder in a tavern, and my class professor was determined to have me remove it because he said it was misogynistic. I explained the character is misogynistic, which is why he says it. The professor said I should remove it, because every publisher would tell me to remove it, because any female reader would read that line and decide I was misogynistic and hate me for it. I pointed out it’s a character, not me. I pointed out when people read American Psycho, they never assumed Bret Easton Ellis had walked around his home with a severed head on his member. We had quite a long discussion on that particular line, and I explained the work was inspired by Chandler/Howard etc, and the professor said times had changed and you can’t use such language these days. I told him the reader should know the difference between a character’s views and the author’s, and that Chandler etc still sell. He didn’t stop telling me to remove it until I said it was sexist of him to think that women are such delicate, dainty creatures they will be troubled by such a line in a work of fiction. From what was only supposed to be a couple of chapters, it just kept a momentum of its own. A classmate had already had a fantasy novella published, and we kept discussing it so much that it made sense we work on it together.

If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of The Godless Void, what would they be?

The title of the book is taken from a band called …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. I’d read they were splitting, and I have followed them for a good twenty years, so I was a little sad and decided to use the title from what could be their final album. I suppose the main character should have “Into The Godless Void” for that alone. Maybe “You’re Gonna Come Around” by Matt Barton with Dave Owen and The Careers for his younger days.

What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

I don’t have any particular favourite. I have favourite writers, and they all have a strong focus on character and plot development in common. I think if a writer says, for example, “I’m going to write nothing but Horror”, they really aren’t going to do themselves any favours if they read nothing but Horror. You’re also going to risk writing yourself into a tight corner if you go along either of those lines.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith) has been in the pile longer than anything ever has been before, due to various distractions. The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov). The Atrocity Exhibition (JG Ballard). The Book of Koli (M.R. Carey). You Love Me (Caroline Kepnes). Devil’s Day (Andrew Michael Hurley). They’re the ones that come to mind, anyway.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

There are a couple of parts I particularly like because they lean heavily into the noir element, but any scene having Raen get out a predicament was fun to write.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

There’s a hat I like to wear, because it’s comfortable. I occasionally put a ring on my finger, so I have something to fiddle with when I’m looking over what I have written.

Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?

Fire Walk With Me.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

That they liked it and remembered to rate it. Or they disliked it and rated it. Either way, it would be appreciated- especially if they told people they know about it.

Kim Teilio is the author of the new book The Godless Void

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