Hec Lampert-Bates
Hec Lampert-Bates is a writer from Guelph, Ontario, now living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is interested in surrealist and bizarro fiction. He is also very interested in film making and enjoys watching odd films. Hec plays the violin and reads in his free time, particularly short fiction and poetry. He is a Go player.
Hec has been writing for about two years. He is putting together a collection of nine short stories and one novelette, which he hopes to publish soon. His stories can be found in Alternate Route Journal, CafeLit, and one to be published in Fleas on the Dog, and he won the 2022 Bill Avner Creative Writing Award for his work on two stories.
Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why?
A: I would like to meet Jorge Borges. For a long time, his writing has shaped my ideas of the world and influenced my writing. I especially enjoy stories like ‘The Circular Ruins’ and ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.’ I would like to talk to him about how his ideas form and how they fracture into the details he writes.
Q: Do you have a favourite quote? (From a book, film, song, speech…)
A: A lot of my inspiration comes from random bits of media. In fact, my story ‘Revolving Crab in the Road’ came about when I was listening to one my favourite songs ‘Suburbia Overture,’ by Will Wood. He has a lyric ‘It takes a village to fake a whole culture,’ which I found was very interesting and wanted to explore in that story.
Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to, and if so, how many times have you read it?
A: I have always loved House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. That book is wild and I love seeing how I can read each section differently every time I pick it up. I’ve never understood it fully, I don’t think anyone could. I’m not sure that I have actually read it. I love it.
Q: If you could teleport yourself anywhere, real or fictional, where would it be and why?
A: I would go into the movie The Lighthouse because I want to yell at Robert Pattinson for not liking my lobster.
