Tell us about yourself.:
I am a recently retired high school ELA teacher. I write extreme horror and noir crime thrillers. I love reading, writing, working out, and driving my Jeep along dark and winding country roads looking for trouble and damsels in distress.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?:
I grew up in Kingston, NY. The main character in my noir crime thriller is named Kingston and many of my settings are in the Hudson Valley or reminiscent of it. It was a great place to be.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I hand write my first drafts. I don’t start typing until that first draft has been edited once. My pen and my brain work at the same speed.
What authors have influenced you?
I grew up in Kingston, NY. The main character in my noir crime thriller is named Kingston and many of my settings are in the Hudson Valley or reminiscent of it. It was a great place to be.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
WRITE!! READ!! Write what you want, how you want to write it. Read what you want, not what everyone else is telling you to read. There are too many opinions (informed and ignorant) floating around the internet. Be the writer you’re supposed to be, before taking advice, insight, and criticism from others.
What is the best advice you have ever been given?
Shut up! Stop talking and start doing. You control your environment, never let it control you.
What are you reading now?
Totally immersed in crime fiction, suspense, and mystery plots, old and new, while I write my Kingston series. Alex Berenson’s The Cold War and Robert Crais’s The Big Empty are my most recent as of July 2025.
What’s your biggest weakness?
Self-doubt. Still working on conquering that one.
What is your favorite book of all time?
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald, and the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker.
When you’re not writing, how do you like to spend your time?
Watching movies, reading, working out, driving my Jeep with the top down, hanging out with my kids, and playing with my dogs.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
The first novel I remember reading was in second grade The Secret of the Invisible Dog. It was a part of The Three Investigators series. I was hooked immediately.
What has inspired you and your writing style?
Horror writers like King, Koontz, Laymon, Ketchum, and Harris. They were bold and fearless in their works. Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Mickey Spillane, and Max Alan Collins, their use of voice, tone, diction and grammar inspire me still.
What are you working on now?
More noir crime thrillers from the No Place for Nice Guys series. As of 2025 No Place for Nice Guys and Kingston Toads the Hog are completed and available for purchase and download. I am finishing up Kingston Throws Down at The Monarch and hoping for a late 2025 release date. To follow will be a collection of short Kingston Kills stories.
I am also working on my next non-fiction release, a collection of articles and essays on literature, movies, noir, horror, and being a writer. It will be released in summer of 2025 and will be my second non-fiction release to date.
What is your favorite method for promoting your work?
I typically yell my new release titles out of my Jeep while driving around town and honking my horn. That’s been my most successful technique to date. I suck at marketing and promoting.
What’s next for you as a writer?
To keep writing and publishing. It what clams me and brings me happiness.
How well do you work under pressure?
I work great under pressure, but I typically don’t let it build to a debilitating extreme.
How do you decide what tone to use with a particular piece of writing?
My Kingston pieces are always first person past tense. It’s what works best for the style.
Some of my horror titles work better in third person present tense.
When I have a more intricate plot that requires multiple view points, third person-past tense-omniscient is my go to.
Everything I write is usually dark, gritty, sarcastic, and cynical.
If you could share one thing with your fans, what would that be?
I am terrible at promoting myself and marketing my writing, but I love when people read and enjoy my stories. I love talking about all things literary and movies. I come off initially as unapproachable and mean-looking, but I’m not that way at all if you’re a good and kind person.
Brian DuBois’s Author Websites and Profiles
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