Who are you? Where are you from? What are you working on these days?

I’m originally from the Phoenix area, but I’ve lived in Santa Clarita (north of LA) for the last 5 years. I’m working on more “Tales from the Lodge” stories all the time when I’m not editing CAVEMAN, a new venture that’s inspired by old men’s magazines, but with an irreverently intellectual bent.

What do you hope to accomplish as a writer?

I’m trying to tell stories that exist in their own consistent continuity and that give me the opportunity to work at multiple levels. The best of my stories feature real world people dealing with real issues – while dealing with monsters, sorcery, and ancient evils. These stories take place at a time when we like to think that America was “great”, and while our culture was at its height, let’s just say it’s more believable and honest to depict a version of the last midcentury with magic and monsters than one with racial and gender equality.

Who are some of your influences? How have they influenced your work?

My stories are based on the pulps, the exploitation and horror b-movies I discovered and loved as a teenager, and the bold wackiness of classic TV. I’m mining all of this material to create a fictional world were magic is real and a kooky men’s club is the only thing standing between life as we know it and cosmic darkness. I tell people it’s like the American Harry Potter, which of course means it’s nothing like Hogwarts because America is nothing like Britain.

What are some writing tips you’ve received over the years you feel have helped you improve your writing?

Good advice I got is to be able to sum your story up in a sentence. If you can’t, you’ll probably end up writing yourself in circles years! Bad advice is anything that changes your voice or the story you want to tell – and when you follow that kind of advice your critics are inevitably still unhappy and you are too!

What are you currently reading? How’s it going—recommend, or no?

I’m working my way through Lovecraft again. People are currently fixating a lot on his flaws as a person, but the guy was an incredible writer who not only explored unplumbed horrors but loved language. I’ve also been reading Gordon Young’s Don Everhard stories. Some people consider this character – a professional gambler with an heiress wife – as the ancestor of the hard-boiled detective and they’re worth a read if you can get used to the formal style (and casual racism and misogyny) of characters created over 100 years ago.

If you had the chance to see one musician/group live in concert, living or dead, who would it be and at what point in their career would it be?

I feel like this question changes a lot based on when it’s asked… Asking me right now, I’d say that I’d love to see the birth of rockabilly. Wanda Jackson would have been an especial hoot to see in those days.

What should we look for from you in the near future?

I have several things lined up for publication and release new stories myself every quarter in CAVEMAN. Right now, I’m working on a cycle of stories based on a literal interpretation of 70s stoner/biker art and my stories featuring Rock Brennan, the hep, swinging Paranormal Detective will continue to appear sporadically in Bachelor Pad magazine. I’ve also started publishing the CAVEMAN ADVENTURE LIBRARY, a line of deluxe paperbacks which will feature both old and new pulp stories and which I’ll use at some point to release a collection of my work. And of course, I hope to contribute to Pulp Modern again when I have something suitably gritty! Keep an eye on DocClancy.com or my Instagram @docclancy to see more as it develops.

“Doc” Clancy’s work is firmly rooted in a version of America’s mid-century which existed only in its own imagination, being influenced by b-movies, classic TV, and the pulps. His work has appeared in Bachelor Pad Magazine, Gnarly Magazine, Night Owl Magazine, Downbeat Drag, Worlds of Strangeness, and the biker fiction anthology Smut Butt Magazine Presents Freaky Fiction Vol 2. An Arizonan by birth, he currently lives in California’s Santa Clarita Valley.