How did you become a writer?

When I was four, comic books made me want to write them and draw them. I was a better writer than an artist. But they introduced me to storytelling. I wasn't, of course, at that age thinking of it as a career. I didn't know what a career was, but I knew I wanted to tell stories. This was compounded by TV shows, then stories and books. When I read Edgar Rice Burroughs at about the age of eleven, I knew I had to be a writer, and I had begun to understand what a career was. By the time I was eighteen I knew where I was going, but I thought it would be after a degree, perhaps a job as a professor. It didn't shake out that way. I went into writing much more quickly, and I'm glad I did. I loved it then, and love it now.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Too many to be thorough. But early on Edgar Rice Burroughs, comic writers like Bill Finger and Gardner Fox, though I didn't know Bill Finger was the writer for a lot of Bob Kane Batman stories at the time, but I loved his work. Kipling, Robert Louis Stephenson, Mark Twain, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Robert E. Howard, Keith Laumer, primarily because he led me to Raymond Chandler. James Cain, Dashiell Hammet, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, Harper Lee, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont,
William Goldman, Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner, Cyril Kornbluth...I mean, really, this list is long, so I'll stop there.

When and where do you write? 

I write in the  mornings shortly after I wake up. Toast and coffee, and then I write. I write about three hours a morning, three to five pages a day most days, and some days I get a lot more. I'm steady. I spend the rest of the time reading, watching movies, etc., and I still teach Martial Arts once a week. Most of the time I work seven days a week. Sometimes I'll write a little extra, but less lately. I have to, I can write traveling, and have a lot. Hotel rooms, planes, airports, you name it. The key for me is showing up.

What are you working on now? 

A screenplay.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Put your ass in a chair and write. My own advice is that, and write like everyone you know is dead. Write for yourself, and then hope others like it.

Joe R. Lansdale is the internationally-bestselling author of over fifty novels, including the popular, long-running Hap and Leonard series. Many of his cult classics have been adapted for television and film, most famously the films Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July, and the Hap and Leonard series on Sundance TV and Netflix. Lansdale has written numerous screenplays and teleplays, including the iconic Batman the Animated Series. He has won an Edgar Award for The Bottoms, ten Stoker Awards, and has been designated a World Horror Grandmaster. Lansdale, like many of his characters, lives in East Texas.