We recently had the chance to connect with Harker Jones and have shared our conversation below.
Harker, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What are you chasing, and what would happen if you stopped?
I don’t know that I’m chasing so much as aiming. Aiming for goals. Though it does feel like “chasing” sometimes, especially as I get older. You feel the sense of time running out in a different way, so moving forward does have an urgency it didn’t before. I think mostly I’m looking to change the world, which sounds wildly dramatic, but I just mean I’d like to make people think a little differently, see the world through a different lens, whether that’s through my romantic comedies, my children’s book or my adult novels. If I stopped, I think that would just manifest in a different way, where I might not be consciously creating, but I’d still be trying to make people see from a different perspective. I don’t think I can stop. I don’t think creatives ever retire. Does inspiration ever stop? I think creatives are creatives until their final moments in this world.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Harker Jones and I’m an author, editor and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. I grew up outside a very small town in Michigan but have been in LA for many years now. My screenplays are split between comedy and horror. Horror is my favorite genre, but comedy comes quite easily to me. I would say six out of my completed scripts are in really good shape. I’m working with a producer on my mind-bending psychological thriller, “The Alexandrite Ring,” before he starts looking to attach a director. My short thrillers, “Cole & Colette” and “One-Hit Wonder,” have been accepted into more than 60 film festivals combined, garnering several awards. My fiction ranges from a dark love story called “Until September” to a young-adult slasher-whodunit called “Never Have I Ever” to a children’s book about a fearful bird called “The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly.” I was managing editor of “Out” magazine for seven years and am currently a theater critic for Broadway World, and a member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, the Dramatists Guild of America, the Horror Writers Association and Mensa.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I was painfully, painfully shy as a child, so I didn’t feel brave enough to take part, to speak up. So I lived quite the interior life, which, of course, included lots of reading, where I lost myself in imaginary worlds for hours and also led to me being a writer. It was a slow transformation, but I eventually found my self-confidence that was always there, I just needed to take baby steps, testing it out and making sure the ice wouldn’t break beneath me. I’m mixing metaphors, I think!
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I was asked to write an essay on this exact topic for an anthology called “Reflections” from Gold Dust Publishing! I think the kindest thing I’d say to myself would be a warning: Your heart will be broken — repeatedly and relentlessly — by people you will not ever suspect. The plot twists will leave you breathless. The wounds will heal, but the scars, knotted and gnarled, will remain. Stay true to yourself — but also understand when you’ve mucked up and own it — and you will have peace of mind. And that is success unto itself.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
Good question! And the answer is both yes and no. I often joke to my friends that because “Until September” is so dark and literary that I imagine people going to my IG and I’m at a party or an event being crazy when they expect me to be a Very Serious Author. Which I am, too, of course! It’s just that I post only successes on my social media. I’m never stretching the truth or trying to warp my image, but it ends up seeming that way (for everyone, not just me) because we generally don’t post when Life is Lifing. When I suffer setbacks, I don’t trumpet that to the world. Almost no one does. So we think everyone else is living a golden life, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sometimes tarnished.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What do you think people will most misunderstand about your legacy?
My guess is most people will never understand how personal every story I write is. I mean, every author’s works are personal, of course, and it’s not like I’ve survived a slasher killer disguised as a scarecrow, but no matter how outlandish or intimate any of my stories are, they are all personal in ways no one else could really understand. Things that I’ve simply never talked about, things that are still raw, and by weaving them into the tapestry of a story I can try to exorcise those demons. I guess they’re Easter eggs only I will spot!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://HarkerJonesLA.com
- Instagram: @harker_j
- Twitter: @HarkerJones
