Rob D. Smith is a common man attempting to write uncommon fiction in Louisville, KY. His Anthony Award-nominated pulp thriller GOOD-LOOKING UGLY is available from Shotgun Honey. An editor at Rock and a Hard Place Press, his work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Pyre Magazine, The Arcanist, Thriller Magazine, Dark Yonder, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Tough, and several other crime, horror, and speculative magazines, anthologies, and online publications.
FR: First off, I really enjoyed your novel, GOOD-LOOKING UGLY. Tell us a bit about Daniel Brown. Did you know a Daniel or take parts of him from people you know?
RS: Daniel Brown is a stand-in for a lot of outsiders I have seen. Ones that don’t fit into normal society with just their appearance alone. That don’t “look” right. That get singled out for being or looking different. The constant judging from little kids to senior citizens. And this person is weary. How can they not be? I take all that pent-up rage and give Daniel a pressure relief. His anger is unleashed in a kinetic ballet that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoon would be envious. Cathartic, but Daniel has to live with the ramifications of his actions. Legal and mental.
FR: The book itself is a ton of fun, but what I enjoyed about the book are the deep character studies, whether it is Daniel or Jayla. The story is fun and keeps moving forward, but there’s also a deep and rich empathy, which I think a lot of writers seem to avoid. Talk about how you worked the character studies into such an entertaining and fast-moving book?
RS: I try to reveal character and backstory while the action is taking place. My characters tend to have an easy banter that allows them to say anything and everything to each other. This can bring great humor, or it can skin the nerves raw. In this space, I hope to show the humanity of a character. And not just the main characters, but any that come upon the stage to interact. The waitress, the Uber driver, the teacher. They all have lives that extend outside the purview of the reader, and while it might not be germane to the story at hand, I want them to feel as real as my main characters. I want the reader to feel their investment in my fiction is worth their time, so I never give them boring characters.
FR: Congrats on having a story in the new BAMS edited by Don Winslow. How has that been treating you? I imagine it must be a Mount Rushmore writing feeling for you? Tell the readers about the story that’s in there.
RS: Having my story “A Box Full of Soul” from Dark Yonder Magazine make it into the Best American Mystery & Suspense 2025 edition is indescribable. I’ve been reading and studying stories from this series since 1997. And to make it amongst the pages edited by Steph Cha and Don Winslow is the culmination of all my writing dreams. My story is about a neighborhood in Louisville, KY, where a wave of gentrification is changing all the eclectic authenticity. An aging punk sees a way to save her scrap of a record store, so she enlists the aid of her young protégé to get the money by any means necessary.
FR: Here’s a question I ask everyone. Give us three dead writers who you love. Three living writers who you always go back to, and one writer people wouldn’t think you’d read.
RS: Dead but never forgotten: Tom Piccirilli, Octavia E. Butler, Maggie Estep.
The Living: Sara Gran, Charlie Huston, Walter Mosley
The Unicorn: Rachel Joyce, who wrote MISS BENSON’S BEETLE.
FR: Back to the novel. It’s been a while since I read something with cockfighting in it, maybe the last thing I read is COCKFIGHTER by Charles Willeford. Do you know a thing or two about cockfighting? Maybe grew up around it? Or is there some needed research that goes into it?
RS: I have never witnessed a cockfight in person. I heard some men in my family talk about it when I was growing up, but I was a kid from the suburbs. Cockfighting seemed taboo which only drew my interest. I was just browsing through some articles about crime in Kentucky, gathering ideas for stories a few years ago, when I ran across this cockfighting championship that took place in Eastern Kentucky. They had a 3,000-seat arena with concessions and a betting booth. The local law enforcement provided security for the club. Participants came from foreign countries to compete in the backroads of Kentucky. Amazing. I thought I had to use this for the backdrop of a novel. I took some liberties with the location and such. A year after the book came out, I was talking to my cousin Jim, who worked in law enforcement before he retired at a family wake. He said he was one of the agents who raided that cockfighting club. I wish I had known before I wrote my novel because I would have grilled him for details to put in my book.
FR: I like that you portray the humanity of addicts, outcasts, and people from broken homes with heart. That’s a huge part of what I personally dive into when I write stories about criminals, outcasts, addicts, is diving into their humanity, the empathy, etc. Often, those types of characters are portrayed in a dark light. And most definitely they often live in a dark world, but “criminals,” most are human too, and want for their families, their own lives, and they love too, tell us about diving into those worlds, and how important was it for you to writer the characters the way you did?
RS: I have a friend who worked as the first female warden in Kentucky. You would think that after working with criminals all her life that she would be jaded. Nope. She told me that most people in prison just made bad choices in their lives without much support or education. That a high percentage of them would return to prison after getting out because they still lacked support and education. They weren’t bad people at heart, just couldn’t keep their heads above water, and turned to desperation. Not every prisoner, but most. She did say some were predators that needed to be incarcerated. I like my friend’s perspective, so I applied it to my down-and-out characters and used empathy on what I would do in their position. What would I be capable of doing if my back was up against the wall? And I like to present a broad range of emotions as well. The human spirit is resilient and finds laughter in the damnedest places.
FR: GOOD LOOKING UGLY was released by Shotgun Honey Books, tell us how it was working with Shotgun Honey. Also, great cover art. I’m a big fan of cover art. Tell us about your publishing experience and the work that went into it?
RS: Ron Earl Phillips runs Shotgun Honey and is the designer of their fantastic book covers. I let him know what aesthetic I wanted. I like the yellow covers and blocky font of books like Claire DeWitt and the CITY OF THE DEAD by Sara Gran and MONGRELS by Stephen Graham Jones. And that I wanted a fighting gamecock on the cover. Then Ron went to town and produced a kick-ass cover. What’s that fine dining saying that goes “first on eats with their eyes”? I think the same thing goes for book covers.
FR: I like some of the names of the characters in the book. Being from Kentucky yourself, it’s like a small Thomas Pynchon vibe that goes into some of the names, like Johnny Mudd. Tell the readers a bit about Johnny Mudd and The Kentucky Fried Mafia. Did you grow up around similar people, or maybe had to research the crime syndicates of Kentucky through the years?
RS: Writers are thieves at heart. I’m constantly taking hairstyles and names and dialogue from people in my life to bestow upon characters in my fiction. Names were swiped from the central Kentucky region I visited as a child. I also stole my concepts from the biggest marijuana syndicate in Kentucky, called the Cornbread Mafia. It was run by Johnny Boone. I never met the man, but he lived in Springfield, where my dad’s family grew up. Some of my extended family may or may not have been associated with the Cornbread Mafia. At the same funeral wake, my cousin told me he raided the cockfighting club, another family member from my mom’s side told me she dated Johnny Boone for a while, and that he was a gentleman. Her cousin told me he knew Johnny too, and that he came to his driveway at midnight one time and shot off an Uzi because he owed him some money for a motorcycle. So, mileage varied on the gentleness of one Johnny Boone, who also owned a tiger on his farm.
FR: Are you working on anything new, another novel? Back into the short stories? Maybe taking a break after a successful year with BAMS and coming off a novel?
RS: I have some short fiction coming out at the beginning of the year, but I am working on an occult thriller featuring an arson investigator and an exiled exorcist. I’m trying to channel the voice of Charles Portis if he wrote True Detective.
FR: You’ve worked as an editor for Rock and a Hard Place for quite some time, tell us about the magazine for those who might not know it, and what goes into the work and publications.
RS: Rock and a Hard Place Press is putting out some of the best crime fiction today. Between the magazine, online Stone’s Throw flash fiction, and themed anthologies, we are also putting out short story collections and novels. Desperate people in desperate situations are what our fiction shines a light on. The Haves versus the Have-Nots. You’ll find your next favorite writer at RHP, whether it be C.W. Blackwell, Mary Thorson, Nathan Pettigrew, Curtis Ippolito, Meagan Lucas, or many others.
BONUS:
FR: You pick up Daniel Brown at the Louisville Bus Station in the year 2026. The man is hungry, thirsty for booze and a good time, but he doesn’t recognize the world you live in. Where are you taking him to eat? What bar are you taking him to? What do you buy him to drink? And what new music and books do you give him to help him better understand the new Kentucky?
RS: I’ll take Daniel to Frank’s Meats on Preston Highway to get a fried bologna sandwich with a soup of the day. Hopefully, it’s Thursday, and we can get some red beans and rice. We’ll pick up James DF Hannah and head to Spring Street Bar & Grill for an Old Fashioned or two or three. Listen to Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “London May” and have him read “Lost River” by J. Todd Scott.
