1. Introduce yourself!
My name is Conrad Altmann. I’ve been an author of speculative fiction—mostly science based—for the last six years, and I’ve been a graphic designer for the past twenty years.
2. What was your inspiration to pursue design, and did that lead into your desire to write as well?
I was in high school when the first Matrix movie came out. The special effects blew my mind. Then The Fellowship of the Ring came out a couple years later, and I was hooked. I was convinced that I wanted to become a digital effects master, so I signed up for a small trade college in Silicon Valley to pursue that dream, which would obviously culminate in me moving to New Zealand to join Weta Digital. Well, the school hadn’t spun up all of the courses that would get me there, but they convinced me to begin with graphic design courses since they were part of that prerequisite package. A few quarters in, the school never added the courses I had wanted, but I was hooked on graphic design.
3. Are you self-taught or did you study design or writing?
I moved to San Francisco to complete my graphic design education, though through various paths and a growing sense of wanderlust, I ended my education a few classes short of a bachelor’s degree. I traveled to Eastern Europe to pursue a newfound passion for coffee roasting, which turned out to be the best decision I ever made. My path to writing was not as traditional. I always enjoyed reading science fiction as a boy and teenager, and that fed my imagination through to adulthood. My father is who really pushed me to try my hand at writing though. He’s an author as well, and when I eventually moved to a different hemisphere, he urged me to write alongside him as a way to reconnect.
4. Are there any distinct styles of art or design that have inspired your current work?
I don’t think so. I try to approach each project with an open mind. Book covers need to emulate the genre and feeling of the story that they advertise, so my personal style shifts from book to book. The interior of a book is similar. Typography is an under-appreciated art and many readers don’t realize the amount of attention paid to the size of the font, the space between lines, the gutter, margin, header and footer size. The style of chapter headers and page numbers, not to mention any illustrations, diagrams, appendices, maps etc. that go into the graphic library of the world that is built by the author. Much of my non-writing design work focuses on building graphic languages for brands that will dictate the consistency of their look across multiple medias. In a way, it’s world-building for brands. I love the nitty-gritty that comes with that. It can be tedious, but failing to address an inconsistency in the design of a book is like failing to address a plot hole in the story.
5. How about writers. Who do you remember reading at an early age that inspired your imagination and desire to write?
The first author that comes to mind has to be James Gurney. He conceived, wrote and painted every aspect of the world that he created in Dinotopia. I spent hours as a kid drawing maps and inventing worlds that would never see a story set in them, but he inspired a childhood collection of maps and an adult obsession with world-building.
Second would have to be Larry Niven. His Ringworld novels and Known Space universe were so vast that I still think about his characters even thirty years later.
6. How many books have you published at this point in your career? Which are you most proud of?
I have published three books, two novels and a novella (my first). I’m proud of each for different reasons. Envoy, my first novella, in hindsight was hastily published, an incomplete storyline and likely not read by more than a dozen people. But I put it out there. So I’m proud of myself for doing that. Envoy may be the sludge that comes out of a rusty pump before the clear water can flow. Perhaps someday I’ll revisit it. Exolegacy was my first novel, and I’m proud of it for other reasons. I exhaustively researched different aspects of it, poured a bit of myself into each of the three main characters, and finished it with a satisfying ending. Even though I intended to have it as a stand-alone novel and then revisited it in the prequel, Metanoeia, I’m proud of it for that. Metanoeia, was proof that I could revisit characters and expand the universe of the Aggregate with a compelling story.
7. Did you apply your design knowledge to finishing any of your books, and did you find that you needed to learn any new skills to do so?
When the writing, editing, proofing, editing, etc. were complete (though there’s always room for improvement, in my opinion) I certainly was thankful for the skillset that I had in design. I laid out and designed every aspect of my books, not least of all the covers, but the interiors, diagrams, timelines and maps. I love that part of the process.
8. What do you enjoy about applying your design and art to writing?
I think my attention to detail, and frankly the satisfaction I glean from a tight design language, applies neatly into world-building. It can be tempting to include too much of the world into a story though. That’s a challenge; building so much, and then forcing myself to leave out irrelevant details for the sake of the story.
9. Let’s talk about what you’re writing. Do you have anything in progress and can you tell us anything about it?
I do, and I can! I’m currently in the doldrums of writing a pseudo-fantasy portal story that is inspired by a dream I had a couple of years ago. It has flavors of The Wizard of Oz, Groundhog Day, American Western tall tales, and modern cultural and ethnic tensions, though by the time it’s finished, my hope is that the story will have a completely unique taste from any of those.
10. What stumbling blocks have you encountered in the process of writing your current WIP?
I wrote fairly consistently up until the point of an encounter one of my characters was to have to address a group of people who had been living for generations in a culture of ethnic distrust. She needs to convince them to overcome forgotten, but clung-to slights, for the sake of their own future. Unfortunately, this coincided with the all-to-real of the current war in Palestine. My brain couldn’t cope for a while, and it’s been hard to pick up the thread since. I still think about it every day, and that’s part of the writing process.
11. Do you find any one genre more difficult than others?
Of the two that I have written, definitely fantasy. I like the ‘unreal’ elements of my stories to have at least a passing resemblance or inspiration to real-world technology. I have a hard time letting go of that and drifting off into the unexplainable whimsy of a fantasy world. Of course there are fantasy stories that strictly regiment their magic systems, and maybe I’ll attempt one someday, but I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet. Maybe I just need to read more Sanderson…
12. Are you a planner, pantser or plantser?
I always start out as a planner. I create mini-biographies for characters, build up the world around them (to an extent) and even try to outline where the story will go. Eventually though, I have to throw out much of those outlines as the characters begin to dictate where their stories go themselves. Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting in the passenger side of the car telling the characters to steer this way or that, but they have different ideas of how to get to the party most efficiently. At some point I just need to let go (while still typing of course). So I guess that makes me a plantser.
13. In your past writing, is there any one character who you have a special relationship to?
In Exolegacy I introduced three grown siblings who had drifted apart only to be forced back together by events preceding and following the death of their father. I am one of three siblings, and used a bit from each of my sisters and myself in each of the three characters, but found that I had put more of myself into the character I hadn’t intended to. Ehrenfeld, the eldest, really displayed a lot of the insecurities that I found that I had in the process of writing him. There were many cathartic scenes to write, and despite the fact that he’s probably not going to be a protagonist in future stories, I found myself connecting with him the most.
14. There are many independent authors who struggle with various aspects of their cover designs. What have you found is the biggest hurdle that an author can find regarding their cover art?
I feel like there is an obvious hurdle and a less obvious one. The first being the art, more specifically the use of ai in art. Indie authors rarely have the funds to hire a human artist for cover art. It’s unfortunate, but many are tempted to utilize generative ai to produce a catchy image that looks good. I won’t even say that the images that ai can create (these days) is bad. It’s a compelling technology, but ultimately misused. The infringement on human artists is too big of a moral issue to ignore. So, tempting as it may be, I always counsel to avoid that. Yes, even artists and designers who may only use part of a generative image or overpaint it.
The less obvious hurdle is typography. I can have a whole conversation about typography in the interior of a book, but the cover typography is really paramount to a cover’s success. Even if the art is fantastically illustrated and fits your story to a T, if your title style, author name and/or subtitle is illegible, unreadable, misaligned with the style of the story, or even the wrong color, your book will be overlooked and dismissed by most readers.
15. Do you have any advice for them?
Learn how to ask and receive feedback. Not just from other authors, but ask designers and readers who don’t know anything about design. Hell, ask people who don’t even read; they may not have anything useful to contribute, but who knows. It’s hard internalizing feedback, and harder to separate subjective from objective feedback, but as writers who want to tell our stories the best way, and to represent them as well by their covers, we need to learn how to improve by asking others who have.
16. If you could meet any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?
Salvador Dali. I imagine a weekend with him would be enlightening.
17. Same question, but an author?
Jeff VanderMeer. His stories flavor my dreams. I imagine hiking with him and geeking about about nature too.
18. What literary universe would you live in if you could?
Larry Niven’s Known Space. Not as hard sci-fi as The Expanse where you might die from anything, and not as fantastical as Star Wars. I love the cultural world-building and the way alien technology was incorporated into human space.
19. Do you listen to music or podcasts as you work? Which inspires you the most?
Music sometimes. I like the kind of ambient inspiration that comes with a score from a film or show that is similar in feeling to what I’m writing in the moment. Podcasts, like audiobooks I have to listen to without doing anything else, or I can’t focus on either task.
20. Do you work with other authors for the design of their books?
As often as I can, yes. I’ll always offer advice if asked, though I can be blunt, and so am not asked as often as I might once have been. I try to help any author who needs it regardless of their budget. I’m a firm believer that if what I can provide is appreciated, then the value the client assigned to it monetarily reflects that appreciation.
21. How can we best connect with you?
I have my two novels and some examples of past design work on my website at conradaltmann.com and have them as well as various short stories and flash fiction on my kofi page at ko-fi.com/conradaltmann. You can also reach out on bluesky @conradaltmann.com
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