Neal Kristopher

Everything you see before you is a lie.

My name is not Neal Kristopher, though both of the words do appear in my legal name. I chose my nom de plume for a couple of reasons. Number one, and I'll just come right out and say this, I don't like my last name. Never have, never will. Growing up, I didn't have the best relationship with my father, from whence it comes - I didn't have one at all, for that matter - but that isn't why. It just never sounded that great to me in my head. It's not pretty or cool.

But I like the rest of my name pretty well, so with a few adjustments, Neal Kristopher came about.

The other reason I went with that name is simple. There are a lot of authors that write in the Horror/Mystery/Thriller fiction field that I like and respect that have last names starting with "K" & "L". That might be a brash or overtly commercial reason to do that, with the lofty ambition of being shelved next to someone, which presupposes that I'll be published in physical form in the first place, but there ya go. I can think of nothing cooler than walking into a book store and seeing one of my books next to Stephen King, Marshall Karp, William Lashner, Joe Lansdale, H.P. Lovecraft or J.A. Konrath. Even Dean Koontz, who I don't really read but he sells a lot of books. Well, maybe piles of my book on a table with a big blown up version of the cover, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm also not actually an "Author." Not a published one, anyway. I have written a couple of books, I'm in the process of finishing up a horror novel and I'm cranking away on a novel for National Novel Writing Month, but for all intents and purposes, I consider myself a writer, not an author.The only book I've submitted to agents was a children's ghost adventure. While it garnered some genuine interest, I decided to set it aside until I was in the right spot to make some re-writes.

But all of that's going to change soon. Thanks to modern technology and the tireless efforts of authors like J.A. Konrath, the idea of  being a self published author without the backing of an agent or publisher is very real. So in the next few months, I plan to finish the two books I'm working on now - Graves, a zombie horror novel and Mr. Pale Steps Out, a post apocalyptic crime novel set in the fifties. Then, because I feel like I still should if I ever want to hold a physical copy in my hand, I'll do some querying. But after that, the interesting part happens.

I plan to self publish the novels through Amazon and Barnes & Noble as e-books.

So everything may be a lie right now, but it's a fiction I plan to make fact, come Hell or high water. I hope you'll join me on my quest.


For those that are curious, I also have a blog HERE, which is more family oriented and candid but has a lot of writing updates too.