PHOTO: International bestselling author A.J. Hartley blends Shakespearean scholarship with genre-defying storytelling in fantasy, thriller, and science fiction.
Shakespearean Depth Meets Imaginative Adventure Across Genres
A.J. Hartley discusses his multifaceted writing career, the influence of Shakespeare, creative freedom beyond genre limits, and the joys and challenges of crafting stories across fantasy, thriller, sci-fi and more.
A.J. Hartley is a writer of astonishing range and daring, a storyteller unafraid to leap across genres with the curiosity of an academic and the soul of a novelist. With twenty-seven books to his name—including Hideki Smith, Demon Queller, Burning Shakespeare, Cold Bath Street, and the Steeplejack trilogy—he weaves tales that are by turns thrilling, introspective, fantastical and socially resonant. There is no signature formula here, no clinging to the safe or expected. His stories shift shape and voice, yet carry with them a consistent intellectual richness and imaginative vitality.
A scholar of Shakespeare by profession and a rock music enthusiast by passion, Hartley moves seamlessly between the high towers of academia and the pop-cultural immediacy of modern storytelling. His career as a professor of performance and dramaturgy has clearly infused his fiction, not just in content—Burning Shakespeare being a striking example—but in the careful orchestration of language and rhythm. Even the most genre-bound of his books carry the unmistakable cadence of a writer who reveres language.
What makes Hartley’s work stand out is not only his command of craft but the courage with which he defies branding. In a literary market obsessed with niches and algorithms, he resists being pinned down. This refusal to be boxed in—while a marketing challenge—is also the source of his creative liberation. Whether writing alone or in collaboration with minds as disparate as novelist David Hewson or Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge, Hartley is committed to the work itself, to story as discovery, and to the joy of asking difficult questions through fiction.
With such a wide range of genres in your work, how do you decide which story to pursue next?
If it’s a book in a series there might be deadline to meet, but mostly I write what I’m most interested in at the time. This does not please my agent.
How has your background as a Shakespeare professor influenced your fiction writing?
Well, I have some books that draw directly on Shakespeare (retellings of Hamlet and Macbeth with David Hewson) and a time travel fantasy about someone trying to wipe The Bard from history (Burning Shakespeare), but he’s all over my work. Sometimes it’s just a word or phrase, sometimes it’s an image or a character note, a theme, larger issue or idea. Above all, he makes me want to reach for the blend of big, bold stories with a sensitivity to language and other features we tend to associate with “literary” rather than genre fiction. Shakespeare proved you can do both at once. That, for me, is the gold standard.
The Steeplejack series tackles themes of class and race — what inspired you to explore those issues in a fantasy setting?
I was writing the first book during the build up to the 2016 US election. I wanted to write a fantasy adventure set in another place and time but which also spoke to currents and events in the world I actually live in.
You’ve collaborated with others on projects like the Shakespeare adaptations and novels with Tom DeLonge. What’s your approach to co-writing, and how does it differ from working alone?
Depends on the collaborator. David Hewson is an accomplished novelist, so we divided up the story we were going to tell and wrote our own bits in isolation, then shared them, edited each other’s work, and then spent time blending them together as seamlessly as we could so you can’t tell who wrote which bit. With Tom it’s quite different. He’s a big picture and idea guy, so we spend a lot of time brainstorming and he feeds me story prompts, points of research and so on, then I write an outline. He responds to that, and when we feel we’re on the same page I start writing. When I have a first draft he reads it and sends me editorial suggestions and other notes. I do another pass or two till we have it where we want it.
How do you balance academic writing or responsibilities with your creative fiction projects?
Well, I’m retired from academia now, and though I have some scholarly work which is still in process, I’m mostly free to focus on my fiction. When I was still working as a professor, I had to schedule very carefully, focusing on one or two things at a time (classroom teaching, theatrical rehearsal, academic writing, fiction writing), with one getting the front burner. It was pretty taxing and demanded a lot of discipline. Life’s a little easier now.
Burning Shakespeare brings together time travel and literature — what inspired this blend of history and fantasy?
It was a book that I’d been writing and rewriting since I was a graduate student 30 years ago, trying different approaches and story lines but always centered on the same core premise and the attendant question: is the modern world better off with or without Shakespeare in it and why? The answer seems obvious, but it’s complicated, and taking the question seriously allowed me to wrestle with what I feel (after 30+ years as a professor) which makes Shakespeare valuable, special, even unique, and why people might not understand (or care) why. The implications for where we are as a culture are quite profound, I think.
Do you find it difficult to market your work given its diversity, and how do you engage with readers across your different series?
Ha! Yes. It’s difficult because even when a reader enjoys one of my books, the next one might be too different to appeal to them. The truth is that I have always worked this way, hopping from genre to genre, because I could, not because I have some special talent, but because I had a day job which paid my mortgage and put food on the table. The best way to make money as a writer is to keep producing the same kinds of books, building a recognizable brand which helps develop a fan base. I don’t do that. Business wise, it’s not a good way to go, but it’s quite liberating. I write what I want, use different creative muscles,and can never get bored by my own work. I try not to worry about my sales numbers. Not always successfully.
What advice would you give to other authors who feel pressured to stick to a single genre or brand but want to explore a variety of stories?
Well, as I say, it kind of depends what you want. If you find success in a particular genre, the smart money says to stay there, and only change if you find that success is fading and you need to reinvent yourself (and maybe use a pen name). But it also depends on how you measure success. It needn’t be about sales/profits. I consider myself lucky that I’ve been able to write lots of different kinds of books in my career. I’m certainly not going to change that now.
