Tag Archives: Beat to a Pulp

South Korean cinema influences

Today, I’m very happy to welcome Chris Irvin to Pulp Curry.

Chris is a short story writer, one of the editors of the great short fiction site, Shotgun Honey, and the author of the recently released novella, Federales. Federales is  about a Mexican federal agent, drugs, and politics. It’s on my to-read list and I’m pretty certain it should be on yours, too.

Chris wanted to write about how South Korean crime cinema has influenced his own crime writing. Welcome Chris.

And by the way, if you are interested in winning a copy of the Federales e-book, just leave a comment on this post. I’ll pick a winner from among them a little later in the week.

fullsizephoto254644Perhaps like many fans of South Korean (Korean) Cinema, I was first introduced through Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy (2003), a brutal revenge tale adapted from a Japanese manga.

Revenge is central to many Korean thrillers Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002), I Saw the Devil (2010), Bittersweet Life (2005), etc.

But take a step back and look at the common themes that set Korean films apart from their American cousins, and what I find inspiring and influential to my writing.

I find many themes and layers of Korean cinema to be fascinating, especially those informed/influenced by Korean history/society, but for the sake of brevity I’ll focus on three:

The Dysfunctional Family – The dysfunctional family bands together to defeat the foreign menace and overcome its own natural flaws.… Read more

One Ashore in Singapore kicks off Beat to a Pulp’s 2013 schedule

t9045A quick heads up that my short story, ‘One Ashore in Singapore’ is kicking off Beat to a Pulp’s 2013 fiction schedule.

For readers, particularly in Australia, who are not familiar with Beat to a Pulp, it’s one of several sites in the US that regularly feature high quality short fiction.Other’s include Plots with GunsShotgun Honey and Noir Nation, just to name a few.

These sites are a great way for up and comers to cut their fiction teeth and establishing writers to feature their short fiction.

I’ve been wanting to crack a story in Beat to a Pulp for a while now, and I’m thrilled to have finally made it.

As the name suggests, ‘One Ashore in Singapore’ is set on Singapore and features my ex-Australian army now professional criminal, Gary Chance. It’s a down and dirty tale of false identities, double dealings and the challenges of finding late night accommodation.

You can read the story in full here.

Enjoy.… Read more

Noir Con or bust guest post #2: Patti Abbott

For the second of my ‘Noir Con or bust’ guest posts I’m very happy to welcome Detroit based writer, Patti Abbott. 

Not only does Patti host a terrific blog of her own, she is a major contributor to the on-line and print crime short fiction that thrives in the US. Seriously, it’s hard to over emphasise just how prolific Patti is. What’s more, her short crime fiction is always of high quality. If you’re not convinced check out her first anthology of short stories, Monkey Justice, here

Welcome to Pulp Curry, Patti.

Thanks to Andrew for hosting me. His suggestion to me was to talk about the online crime fiction market, and I will do so if a bit circuitously.

It took me a long time to 1) find my way to writing 2) find my way to writing fiction (I started out with poetry) 3) find my way to writing crime fiction.

I began writing poetry (as an older student) in a college class in the mid 1990s. The class was ideal for me since I harboured such ambitions. I was  lucky to have a supportive instructor and I managed to publish a couple dozen poems in small literary journals. But editors would often send a note saying that my story was overly narrative and had I ever tried my hand at short story writing?… Read more