Meet Ken MacGregor

We recently connected with Ken MacGregor and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ken, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.

This is a great question! I suffered from imposter syndrome up until very recently, actually. I have to give you some backstory: in 2021, I edited an anthology of underrepresented voices (women, People of Color, LGBTQ+, etc.), with the proceeds going to support the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson award, and I went to Boston for the ceremony. The man presenting the awards was Paul Tremblay (I’m a fan and own several of his books). He introduced himself (though we had met at StokerCon in 2019, he didn’t remember me). Then, this past spring, at StokerCon in Pittsburgh (my second time attending), I was walking past Paul in the hotel lobby. He addressed me by name and shook my hand. And, just like that, I felt like I’d arrived. I was no longer part of the faceless masses in Horror. It was deeply gratifying.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve been making stuff up for as long as I can remember, and getting paid for it for about 12 years now. I’ve been a Horror fan since I was a kid, so naturally I tend to write stuff that goes pretty morbid. I also have been a diehard comedy fan for about as long, even performing improv comedy, and writing and performing sketch comedy professionally for a while. This means you’re going to find quite a few laughs mixed in with the scares. Makes it more fun, I think.
Somewhere around 130 of my short stories have been published (many of them in my three collections), along with a middle-grade novella, a co-written novel, and three anthologies as editor. I have three book projects currently in the works, as well as writing short stories for people on commission.
I don’t know that I have a brand, per se. I think I have a pretty clear voice, which people tell me is recognizable, which is certainly cool. I write everything from children’s stories to dark, disturbing, erotic horror, all under my own name, so maybe my brand is that I am unapologetically me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Patience, Persistence, and Politeness. The three Ps. This are the things I always encourage new writers to cultivate.
Be patient because this business is slow. You send out a story and you wait to hear back. Usually, this ends in rejection. If you do get accepted, you will have to wait for edits. Then for publication. And payment. Then for reviews and sales. Everything takes forever.
Be persistent because (again) you will get rejected far more times than accepted. I’ve sold a lot of stories. I’ve also been rejected more than 600 times (617 as of today). The better you get, the more detailed your rejections become. You get feedback. Use it. Make the story better. Learn everything you can. Read good books and bad. Keep going, no matter what. It’s a long game and you have to keep playing it.
Be polite because editors talk. They will blacklist you if you’re an asshole. On the flip side of this, if you are polite and send a story that’s similar to one sent by someone who’s impolite, editors will choose you because they know the other person is hard to work with. Join the Church of Don’t Be a Dick. Editors may not remember you for being polite, but they sure will remember you if you’re not.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Honestly, there have been many. I’ll talk about some of them.
When I was a kid, I read Fantasy obsessively. I loved Ursula K. LeGuin, Piers Anthony, Roger Zelazny, and, for a while, Robert Jordan. I played D&D for hours on end, sometimes for a couple days straight. I couldn’t get enough. LeGuin’s Earthsea trilogy blew my mind. I so desperately wanted to be Sparrowhawk the wizard. I wanted to live in Xanth and travel Shadow with Corwin and his siblings. Moments from these books have stuck with me, more than 40 years later. The description of madness manifesting physically in a being of godlike power. The self-loathing anguish of the leper who finds himself a reluctant hero in a fantasy world. When Piers Anthology delved into Erotica and Horror, it opened my mind to possibilities I’d never considered, and this may well be why I write whatever I want instead of quietly sitting in the box of other people’s expectations.
Stephen King’s The Stand pulled the rug out from under me. It remains one of my all-time favorite books and sets the bar for how to bring multiple stories together as one. Randall Flagg remains one of my top villains of all time.
These are just a few examples of the thousands of books I have read and loved. I continue to find inspiration in books, and I read voraciously. I think every writer is a reader first, and we write because we want to read the stories that haven’t been written yet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kenmacgregor.com
• Instagram: macgregor2437
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ken.macgregor.3/

Image Credits

Photo of me taken by Kallista Walker