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Search results for: Leon A. Walker

Here is my interview with Leon A. Walker

11 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Name: Leon A. Walker
Where are you from: I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio (USA).
A little about your self `ie your education Family life etc: I have appreciated books all of my life, both as a form of enjoyment and also as a collector. No doubt some of this was instilled by my father, who possessed a deep appreciation for literature and who -from my earliest memories- read and regularly quoted everything from Geoffrey Chaucer and Rudyard Kipling to Langston Hughes and James Baldwin to me and my siblings. I found myself reading and writing for entertainment purposes from a very young age. Later I began to dabble in poetry and I continued to write creatively on and off for years but I never shared any of those works. Many were not preserved and are now lost. I travelled extensively before the advent of wireless email and cellular phones, and it was my mother who frequently commented on the creative and unusually descriptive nature of my letters. Over a long and varied professional career, I was also compelled to write a great deal on a broad cross-section of topics. What very few actually knew was that I tremendously enjoyed writing. Nor did they know of the passion I felt when creating written works. It should be no surprise then that I had intended to write a book for many years. Work Wonders and Life Lines simply presented the first publishing opportunities because I had so much completed material on hand. I feel my third collection of works entitled Equinox may be my best work to date.

 
Fiona: Tell us your latest news?
My next project-the book he had initially planned-entitled Tarkington Road, will be more traditionally autobiographical. I expect to make it available in early in 2015. Unlike my first three books this will be a historical family focused autobiography.

 
Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?
I began writing as a child. I think I was in 4th grade when I first received recognition for a poem I wrote. One of the staff members at the school was retiring and they asked the students in my class to write farewell poems and the best among them would be placed in her retirement scrapbook. My poem was among the few chosen.

 
Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I suppose I considered myself a writer when I began to review the content for my first book which was entitled Work Wonders. I realized that the work was substantial and worthy of sharing. It was an interesting self-discovery.

 
Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?
Personal tragedy… I was in a very bad place at one point and eventually I worked my way into a more peaceful place in nature and spirituality. That transition and stories about struggles and triumphs was the basis for that first book

 

 

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style?
I like to think that I have a classic style where poetry is concerned. Although on rare occasions I do deviate from it that is my primary stylistic goal. I love classical literature. I don’t know that I can classify my other writings in a particular category.Here is an example

“The Gift of Love”

There will be no grand declaration.
Nor any emotional appeal for your consent.
No negotiation will be undertaken,
no compulsory vows anticipated or required…
I will just simply love you!
Perhaps from a distance;
or only within this dream.
I will watch you take life in flight-
and the true gift of love…
shall be mine.

 

 

 

Fiona: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
That’s difficult to say but I suppose if I longed to be mentored by a great writer it would have been Shakespeare (as outrageous as that may sound). He had a marvelous gift for the use of words and a profound emotional impact on me.

 
Fiona: What book are you reading now?
I’m actually re-reading The Shipping News by Anne Proulx. It is an absolutely amazing piece of writing.

 
Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
Junot Diaz immediately comes to mind. He is a brilliant writer with a marvelous gift for character development. His book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is phenomenal!

 

 

Fiona: What are your current projects?
Along with writing my next project (the autobiographical work that I mentioned earlier) I am focused on researching and trying new ways to promote my work. Writing is very satisfying for me but reaching your audience is very difficult and sometimes frustrating.

 

 

Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
I have been fortunate in that way. I spent many years in the military (traveling the world) and I had a good many experiences that compelled me to write and hone my skills. And yes it was also a tremendous support system. After those years I was in some very good professional organizations which supported and motivated me as well.

 

 

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?
I see it as a calling, so yes, I suppose that writing is bound to that calling in the form of a career. But for some reason I don’t think I can clearly state, I feel I am doing what I am supposed to be doing when I write. I feel I am compelled to do it and that on some level I am touching people and helping them.

 

 

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
No I don’t think I would change a thing. That’s my official line… However if you were to hand me the unpublished manuscript right now and tell me I could make a few changes, I would probably find 20 things to change. Editing drives me crazy! I never think I’ve gotten it just right.

 

 

Fiona: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
No. Still I knew from a very young age that I was a good writer. As I mentioned, a poem that I had written was recognized when I was very young (maybe 8 or 9 years old). Not long after that, I was required to do a book report but I had not done the required reading. Fortunately I did know the basics of the story. So (at the last minute) I wrote this long book report of several pages embellishing each of the few points I knew about the story, using flowery words and descriptions (Smiling). Recognizing that is not a very flattering story about me as a boy, it did make me further aware that I could write because the teacher loved it and I got a very high mark on it… That motivated me to make a more serious, ongoing effort in writing as a part of my studies. Much later, in my professional life, when presentations and such were needed I was repeatedly sought out to write them. So I suppose my interest in writing grew as people around me appreciated my writing… I hope that makes sense.

 
Fiona: Can you share a little of your current work with us?
I write or have written a good many things. This short story entitled “Amanda” is based on actual events and is among my favorites. You can find it at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/leon-a-walker/amanda/471435482917221

 

 

Fiona: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Writing for me generally flows pretty well. Choice of works is very important to me so that can be challenging at times. Finding the right words to paint the mental picture is crucial to me.

 

 

Fiona: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
It really is difficult to say I have an absolute favorite but Hemingway’s use of words (brevity) always fascinated me.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?
No not really… But I expect that to change in the future.

 

 

Fiona: Who designed the covers?
What an interesting question. It happens that a woman I met (nearly 7 years ago) took all of the cover photos and designed all three of my book covers. All of the cover photos were taken in churches or monasteries in Western Europe. Because of the places that the photos were taken and that there is a collection of three volumes I feel the books are special in some way (I am not a religious man). I do believe in the power of but I never originally intended to write three volumes. In any case my friend was a model, a photographer, a poet, and a graphic artist. Her name was Hanneke de Vos (aka Lilith) and she was from the Netherlands. She died in July of 2013 after a very long illness last year. It makes me sad to think that my dear and supremely talented friend is gone. I miss her so much.

 
Fiona: What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Getting it organized so that it flows properly.

 

 

Fiona: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
Well of course I had to research things as I went along. But I also discovered that it takes real courage to expose your emotions to the world in writing. But that is the way to tap into the emotions of others. That is absolutely vital in my view.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have any advice for other writers?
I don’t like to give advice. I do however offer encouragement.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
I can’t thank my readers enough for their ongoing support and the compliments I receive. It motivates me to continue my work. And when it is time to give a gift, I don’t care who the writer is: “Give Someone the Gift of a Book”.

 
Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?
Oh my gosh no… It was probably Dr. Seuss though (Smiling).

 
Fiona: Other than writing do you have any hobbies?
Oh yes! I am an avid tennis player (probably more of a fanatic) and I am a music lover. I also love watching movies and sporting events. Some might call me a political junkie also because I love talking about politics.

 
Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?
Each year I try to watch all of the movies that are nominated for Academy Awards each year. Most of them are phenomenal. But I watch a lot of foreign films as well. As for TV I generally only watch news and sports. But… I did get hooked on Game of Thrones somehow.

 
Fiona: Favorite foods / Colors/ Music:
I enjoy a lot of salads with fresh greens (kale and spinach) with lots of fruit and seafood included. My favorite color is blue and I love a broad cross section of music. You can find my movie and music favorites on Facebook at Leon A. Walker or on my fan page at Writer Leon A. Walker

 
Fiona: If you were not a writer what else would you like to have done?
Are you ready for this??? When I was young I wanted to be a professional athlete (smiling).

 
Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? If so what is it? My official website is at: http://www.leon-walker.com but I encourage writers and others interested in my work or my books to contact me on social media at other locations as well.

 

EquinoxCover  LLCoverFinalWorkWondersCover
http://www.redbubble.com/people/lawalker
http://twitter.com/leonwalker11

https://www.facebook.com/WalkerLiterature
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?trk…

 

 

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Leon A. Walker is a published writer of various forms of creative literature, social and political commentaries and book reviews. In 2012 and 2013 he participated a judge of the “Next Generation Indie Book Awards” and he has again been selected to be a judge in 2014.
His first collection of poetry and short stories, “Work Wonders” was published in September 2009, and a second, entitled “Life Lines” was published in November of 2010. His third collection entitled “Equinox” became available in July of 2013.
Mr. Walker is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida having earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Professional Aeronautics. He has worked as a public and private sector business professional and he is a retired United States Naval Officer. He lives in Biloxi, MS.
More information on Mr. Walker can be found on his web site at: http://www.leon-walker-com

Here is my interview with A M Raulerson

22 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie. 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

Author A M Raulerson, 42 years old.

Fiona: Where are you from? 

I was born and raised in Gainesville Florida, home of the University of Florida Gators, and yes I bleed Orange and Blue!

Fiona: A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.). 

I suppose you could say that I had a relatively normal childhood, if looking at it from the outside. I was raised Mormon, adopted when my parents were a little older. My father had an older daughter from a first marriage, mother had an older son from her first marriage, and then they had a biological daughter together, but they decided they wanted another child. My mother wanted a little princess girl to dress up and be proud of, but that didn’t work out well for her. I’ve always been “strange”, done things completely different and my own way. I didn’t “bond” with her the way she wanted, so she adopted another little girl who turned out to be just what she wanted. They kept me and raised me, but never understood or accepted me. They were too ashamed of their friends judgement if they’d tried to return me because I was defective. I was “different,” odd and not normal, but what the hell is normal? I spent a lot of time alone, became my own person because that is all I could do, and even though I wanted their acceptance… I knew I would never get it. I was extremely confused my whole life, about who and what I was, what was wrong with me. I thought for awhile that I was lesbian, thought that was why I felt so wrong, but I was just guessing because the truth would ba harder for others to accpet. When I came out they threw me out and I knew I was right that they would never love and accept me for who I am. I spent years on the streets, couch surfing when I could, but I didn’t always have a roof over my head. My life went even farther down than that, I use my experiences on the street in my books, wrapping what I went through in fiction, but I still hate myself for some of the things I had to do to survive. I thought I’d reached rock bottom and decided I would do everything I could to prove I was just like them. My “Family.” That if I was like them they would love and accept me. I ended up getting married, which was a huge mistake, and having kids… They still didn’t accept me. I got divorced and married again, both abusive relationships that put their own scars on my bruised and broken soul. This past year, with the help of some of the best women in the world, I got away from the last “husband.” I knew years ago that I’m a Transgender Gay Man, but I never thought that I would get a chance to be who I am on the inside, that I didn’t deserve to be me. My Chosen Family, these wonderful, beautiful, amazing and loving women gave me the chance to be who I am. I am Louis Delos Mason, 42 year old Trans Man and I’ve never been happier in my life.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news. 

I’m so excited to have re-released my book Out of the ashes. I’ve decided to change up the Trust series a little because I want things to be right. I needed to be able to add some detail and content, also to get professional editing because I make a lot of mistakes. LOL The four book series of Trust has been changed, making the first book Trust into a standalone and books 2,3 & 4 into Darkfall Series. Out of the Ashes just came out on December 5th with over 100 pages of extra content and I am SO excited. My next release is with my editor, but it will be the first book of my new series. Conner’s Fight, book #1 of Sanctuary Series. If you have read Forever Bound, then you’ll remember a snarky little scared rentboy, who gave Simon a whole lot of attitude. His story, along with the owner of Sanctuary Darien Black, will definitely be a book you want to read. I don’t have a release date yet, but it should be ready for ARC in the next two months. If anyone is interested in reading and reviewing just send me a message on Facebook.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing? 

I began writing for publication in 2015, but I’ve written stories and plays, movie scripts and scenes for as long as I can remember. I’d never finished one, always too afraid to take a chance and let someone read it. I made friends on Facebook with a fellow author and sent him a Long email about the trials I’d suffered while on a trip with my Sister in law and Aunt in law.  I ranted and vented because I was upset, then his send before rethinking it. He sent me back a message, laughing and telling me he’d thought I was sending him the premise for a book I wanted to write. He said I sucked him into the plot line, made him want to read it and said he could feel what I was writing. He told me that I Had to write a book, whether it was about the trip or whatever I wanted. I took a chance and started writing, using my life experiences, and a lot of fiction, and used it as a form of therapy. I’m no longer friends with this author, can’t stand the little bugger, but I have to give him credit for helping me and for introducing him to the women who saved my life, helped me to write and have the courage to hit publish.

I’ve always had a very vivid imagination, and being alone a lot let it grow exponentially. If you can believe it, I’m extremely introverted. I like being alone, because it’s safe, but there are exceptions. My Chosen Family, Louis Harem, has always had to listen to my crazy ideas, plots and plans for my characters, and they’ve listened to my crazy SO many times.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I think there is a difference between Author and Writer. To me a writer is anyone who takes pleasure in writing, making stories or whatever it is they like. An Author is completely different, more of a Word Artist, experienced and able to suck you into a story and feel the characters. Makes you forget where you are, who you are, and gives you the mental pictures and emotions to go with the words on the page. I’ve called myself and infant author, but even that is hard for me to say. I’m learning, just starting to dip my toes into publishing my stories. I have so many heros, Authors that have had me laughing along, crying and hurting with them whether it was physical or emotional pain, wanting desperately for that character to have their happily ever after/happily for now. I love to be sucked into a book and transported to another world, but I don’t think that I’m anywhere near their talent yet. I’m working hard, with every book, to be a better Author, even though I still feel like I’m just a writer inside.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

I’m not sure I can say exactly what started my first book, not sure I even know myself. LOL I just started writing, but like I said before, I took what I’ve suffered through in my life, wrapped it up in fiction and wrote it. My first book, I’ll admit I hate it. It took a lot out of me to write that book, and I know it needs a major overhaul like Out of the Ashes got, but I’m not ready to tackle that emotional timebomb yet. I don’t know if any other Author is like this, but reading my own books can be hard, reading Trust… near impossible. I’ll get to it one day, but not yet.

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

With my first book, Trust, I worried and worried about a title as I wrote, then one day the title just popped into my head. Trust is something that had to be earned, and it’s really easy to break. I don’t trust easily, but once you have my trust I’ll fight to the end with you. In BDSM trust is key, things can be very dangerous if you don’t trust the person your with. It’s the same in therapy, or when you’ve been damaged before. You have to have trust in your life, have someone you can truly depend upon, or life gets really hard. I’ve been there, done that. With Out of the Ashes, the characters have gone through personal hell and come out of the other side bigger and brighter and stronger than ever. Even if they don’t know it at first. Most of the other titles came to me the same way, as I write… I know it sounds trite, but they just come to me. My characters speak up and let me know what they want their story to be named.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging? 

LOL My only style is… I write what I’m told to. My characters live in my head; I eat sleep and breathe them. I tend to write when I’m “on a roll” writing until I can see anymore, but I’m not the one telling the stories. I tell their stories, the way they want them told, and sometimes I have to tell them to slow down because my fingers can only type so fast.

I write MM BDSM Dark Erotica. One thing I find challenging about my genre is that I want to make sure I have things right. I always want to make sure that people are careful, that they know about safety precautions and the correct way to do things. One of my biggest fears is that someone will try something that I write about and get hurt! It’s Fiction, but so is porn and people still try things they see there. LOL

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

My books are fiction, so I obviously wasn’t a child sex slave like  in Trust, but I had some bad experiences when I was a child and I used that to give Justin’s story emotion. Those emotions are mine, the pain and fear and self disgust. All of my books have some form of emotional pain or fear, trigger warning here. There is physical pain, both consensual through BDSM practices and traumatic events that are written as flashbacks. The events that happened in my books may not be exactly what I went through, but the traumatic emotions are mine. 

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process? 

In my mind I do. I don’t have to go anywhere else but into my mind to travel into theirs.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Sister in my Chosen Family, member of Louis Harem, Stephanie Downs… but the other members pipe up their opinions before it’s finally approved.

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

That it’s possible to heal, even from extremely traumatic events. Again been there, doing that. That it’s okay to be who you are, to like what you like or getting what you need to feel whole. That there is no shame in being comforted or getting pleasure from something that isn’t “normal,” and that there are more kinky minded people out there than you think. Bottom line: Who you are and what you need are perfectly acceptable, no matter what anyone else says about it. F**k  them, it’s none of their business anyway.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

For a new Author I would have to name a couple, and some will just be new to me. A Little writes MM ADBL and does it wonderfully. I’m sitting, not so patiently, waiting for a new book! Also in MM ADBL is Author Izaia Winter, who is new and already an amazing story teller. Not new, but new to me, is Author Varian Krylov who writes and emotional roller coaster that is hard to put into a genre, at least for me it is. It’s dark and scary, but tugs at every emotion you can think of. 

For a favorite Author? Oh, this is a really difficult question for me because there are just so many! There are so many different genres that I read, so many people who have supported me too. Even if it was just a kind word when I was having a bad day, there are just… too many to name. If I leave anyone out, I’m sorry, but I’ll try and keep it short.

C W Gray writes amazing Mpreg Scifi, and so does Hannah Walker. I gobbled up both of their books like a starving man on a cheese sandwich. D J Heart writes some very dark and kinky MM erotica, and I am shocked and excited every time. Nicholas Bella… I absolutely adore the erotic darkness, the dirtyness in the midst of love and conquest. Kiki Burrelli writes many different things, but I’ve re-reader her series’, waiting and searching for the rest. Annabella Michaels books tell stories of love and survival, her MM books always so good you can’t put it down. I should stop now but there are so may others. Leona Windwalker Patricia Logan Nj Lysk Suzi Hawke Piper Scott Sean Kerr… So So SO many other amazing authors out there that I love to read!

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author. 

I hate to give the little diva the credit, but Noah Harris was the author that first helped me to write, and encouraged me to publish. Even if he is crappy person, he did help to get me started and introduced me to the most important people in my life.

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

I’m not sure I would call it a career. More like a passion, a desperate need… Sometimes I go for a time where I don’t write, where I can’t. Then all of a sudden the words and emotions have to come out, and the safest way for that to happen is to sink into my mind and let it go.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

I just change a bunch in the last book I have published, Out of the Ashes. I needed it to be better than it was, to tell the story cleaner, more fluid, so I decided to fix it. I still can’t go back to my first book, but I will get there eventually.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book? 

I think I learn a little bit from every book I write, but it’s more like… I’m giving myself permission to feel what I feel, and like what I like, be who I am just the same as I want my readers to feel. It’s a lesson I have to relearn constantly, but my characters help me each time.

Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead? 

Since Out of the Ashes was the last published I’ll go with that book. For Detective Alexi Walker I think Colton Haynes. For Detective Lucas Bachelier: Alexander Skarsgard. I’ll tell you now, that took a lot longer to pick than I thought. Lots of yummy men to look at, but hard to pick.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

I’m not sure I’m in a place to give advice, so I’ll just tell you what one of my idol Authors said. Take it easy, everyone makes mistakes and you learn from them. Write what’s in your heart, but realize that it’s okay that not everyone likes it. Do you, don’t try to be like anyone else. Take constructive criticism as a way to make you a better writer, and forget the mean people because they’re just miserable and trying to make you miserable too.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers? 

I’m trying to perfect my old books, but don’t worry I have new stuff coming soon. I Always love to hear from my readers, so don’t be afraid to message or email me!

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

Dangerously Happy by Krylov Varian  AND Fazil (The Kif Warriors Book 4) by Kiki Burrelli  AND rereading A Thin Line Between Love & Hate by A M Snead

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

Unfortunately I have problems remembering anything and everything! But I do know that I absolutely LOVED anything from Tolkien. I read The Hobbit so so sooo many times. I think that the movies did a pretty good job too. Gasp!

Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

Books. I know that’s weird, but honestly I live through books. It’s easier for me to feel okay with my emotions when I’m reading. I always feel like I laugh at the wrong things or get upset incorrectly when I’m dealing with the real world. I’ve always known I don’t respond the way people normally would. Sometimes I do, but then sometimes I don’t, so whenI read I know I’m responding correctly because the book tells me so.

Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why? 

Oh that’s hard to say. I’m not sure how to answer that because there isn’t one person in particular for me. 

Fiona: Do you have any hobbies? 

Reading, writing, and playing with my eight pound service dog Halfpint. I used to be involved with theatre and I miss it a little bit, but I miss my art and especially my photography badly. It’s like I can sometimes still feel my Nikon in my hand, like phantom limb syndrome.

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

The Incredible Dr Pol, Secret Lives of the Zoo, Live PD, Blue Bloods!

Fiona: Favorite foods, colors,  music? 

Pizza! Blue and Purple and… I love showtunes like Rent and Les Miserables, Pentatonix, Sam Smith and Todrick Hall’s Straight outta Oz!

Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

I’d be heavily medicated, with my own comfy white jacket that hugs.

Fiona: You only have 24 hours to live how would you spend that time?

 Writing and talking to my girlz, to my Chosen Family.

Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone? 

There is no normal, so I had to be me!

Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers? 

I’m mostly on Facebook and instagram, but I do have an ARC list in the making for my next book and I will be starting a newsletter too. If interested please email me or message me. My email is ljamandamarie@gmail.com and you can find me at Author AM Raulerson on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012577532932

Amazon Authors Page USA https://www.amazon.com/A-M-Raulerson/e/B01N967OSL/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/A-M-Raulerson/e/B01N967OSL?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2&qid=1577050184&sr=1-2

 Message or email me anytime, I love to hear from people! XOXOXO

 

Here is my interview with Mike MacDee

08 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

I’m Mike MacDee, and I’m as young as I feel!

 Fiona: Where are you from?

Born and raised in Arizona.

 Fiona: A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.).

I grew up in the Glendale area in AZ and used to vacation in Denver, Colorado and Bandon, Oregon a lot. I’ve been a writer, artist, game designer, and generally awkward individual since childhood. My current day job is working with dogs and cats at a pet resort — pretty much a dream job for any animal lover, barring all the hours of endless cleaning. Love dogs and usually find an excuse to fit one into my work somewhere.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

I’m hosting a two-day book signing event at Drawn 2 Comics in Glendale, AZ. People can come say hello, buy stuff, get free stuff, and/or nerd out with me if they like. The events take place on June 27 from 5 to 7 pm, and June 30 from 2 to 8 pm.

My dystopian thriller Kingdom of Famine recently got a 5-star review at Reader’s Favorite, and I’ll be selling autographed copies at both events for $5.

Finally, I co-wrote a radio play with David King for his Midnight Marinara channel on youtube. The radio play is a two-parter called “Shadow Out of Crime”, and it’s based on my Bishop & Holiday urban fantasy comedy books. We’re planning to do more B&H radio plays in the future. There’s a link to the playlist on the Bishop & Holiday page at MikesToyBox.net.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

I got into it when I was a kid, partly from a combination of over-productive brain and inability to socialize. I’ve had a love of cinema from a young age, and being able to create cinematic sequences myself is always a thrill. Except when a scene or chapter isn’t coming together. Then it’s just a pain in the ass.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I first started putting pen to paper on a regular basis I guess.  That’s all it takes, really: habitual writing makes you a writer, especially if you can’t help it.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

The mistaken belief that I could make a living on it. Ha.

I don’t really remember my first complete “book” project, so I guess I’ll go with my first novel that got an accolade, which is Kingdom of Famine. All my works are odd genre mixes. Basically any time I come up with a story, it’s the result of my wondering what will happen if I mix pizza and ice cream, then giving it a shot to see if it’s any good. Sometimes it’s pretty awesome, others it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Kingdom of Famine was my second Winter Agent Juno book, a series that mixes dystopian fiction, men’s adventure books of the 70s and 80s, a little bit of the American western, and satire of internet politics. The series started as a joke about what sort of world tumblr feminists would want to live in, but I ended up making a really fun setting as a result: a little bit of a genderswap Mad Max if it were set during nuclear winter. Kingdom is about the protagonist, Juno, going back to her home town to bury her estranged mom, and finding out that Mom was murdered by her friends. Along the way she reconnects with her sisters and a bunch of other dubious people from her past. Oh, and she kills a lot of bad folks, too.

 I submitted it to Reader’s Favorite for their contest that I believe posts results in early September, and one of the perks of entering was a free review and mini-critique, so I gave it a shot. I submitted a couple of my works, including Kingdom of Famine, which came away with a glowing 5-star review and a neat sticker I posted on the cover. I about fell out of my chair when I found out.

 Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

In Juno’s world, food can only be produced in the biodomes thanks to the nuclear winter thing. So if you control the food, you control the populace. The plots often somehow revolve around someone abusing the food ration estates, or trying to gain control of them. “Kingdom of Famine” seemed like a nice way to summarize that. The mob boss controlling Juno’s home town is even referred to as the Famine Queen by the populace because she starves her enemies until they do what she wants.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

I guess people recognize my writing by the snappy dialogue and engaging characters. I make sure even my minor characters have a dash of humanity to make them seem a little more real.

My current chosen genre is adventure fiction, so the hardest part is action sequences. It’s easy to make them boring or confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m told my action is easy to follow and very visual, but whether it’s any good, I dunno.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Little tidbits here and there are stuff from real life. Juno uses a couple quotes I really love: one from King Lear, another from Buddhism. Sometimes one-liners, anecdotes, or names are taken from real life if they seem appropriate. The biggest one is Juno’s mom, Opis, being based somewhat on feminist author Alice Walker, in that she’s a self-indulgent narcissist and a poor parent.

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

I would love to do that, but I can’t afford it. So I use image searches, absorb tons of articles, and sometimes abuse Google Maps Street View if necessary.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

I did. I’ve studied artistic composition and done comics for years, and I’d rather have an imperfect but striking cover than a professionally-made cover that looks exactly like everything else on the market. I have yet to see a cover designer portfolio that impressed me with standout designs, and maybe that’s partly the fault of the authors who commissioned them.

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I don’t consciously put messages in my work and hope people just read for fun. But I guess there are a couple you could take away from Kingdom of Famine. One is that the world isn’t black and white: good people do terrible things, and even the vilest people are capable of kindness. Comedian Russel Brand is a huge prick and a womanizer, but he buys food for homeless people and treats them like human beings.

I suppose another is that gender roles can make people assholes whether they fight or support them. The men in Juno’s world are kept in glorified kennels because masculinity is considered a threat to society; yet they also aren’t allowed to have long hair that makes them look un-masculine, so whether they act like men or not, they’re looked down upon. Opis’s mother is a self-indulgent hedonist who neglects her four children because she won’t degrade her sex by being tied down to a family, despite those children depending on her for guidance and emotional support.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

I’ve been reading a work-in-progress novel by David King of the Midnight Marinara youtube channel that’s really engaging and has a lot of fun characters in a pirate setting. Just have to get around to finishing it.

It’s hard to pick one favorite writer. I love Dashiell Hammett for his economical narrative; Raymond Chandler for his amazingly hardboiled dialogue; Lovecraft for his nightmarish ideas and visuals; Richard Stark for his gritty crime stories; Elmore Leonard for his westerns; whoever wrote those ridiculous Super Mario Bros comics published by Valiant when I was a kid; the list goes on.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

Randy Schadel, my Japanese history and culture consultant. He was a huge fan of my Mata the Fox stories and helped me ensure that each story was at least as accurate as the average chanbara flick (aka Japanese period drama with emphasis on swordplay). He was the polar opposite of how I felt about my work: I thought it was too niche for any market, he thought it was amazing samurai fiction and would undoubtedly get picked up by someone (it eventually did by Pro Se Press in a freak accident).

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

If you asked my younger self, he would say “Absolutely” with stars in his eyes. Now as a realist, I would say no. I work with dogs and cats for bank, and write on the side and hope somebody notices.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

My latest book was The Amityville Nuisance, a supernatural romantic comedy. I don’t know that I would change anything about it, honestly. It’s short and sweet and makes people laugh, and none of the scenes go on long enough to get boring. And it’s probably got the best cover I ever drew. I’m pretty proud of it overall.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I learned that monster girls make any romance novel ten times more interesting. How does a medusa style her snakes in the modern world, anyway?

 Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

If Kingdom of Famine were a film, I could see Emily Blunt as Juno, and Dave Bautista as Freeman. Would be great to have Yancy Butler in there somewhere, since she inspired the main villain Karla.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

Don’t quit your day job.

Okay, okay. There are two ingredients for a good story: engaging plot, engaging characters. You only need one of the two to succeed: if one is weak, the other will carry it through.

Star Wars = Paper-thin characters, but the story is an amazing adventure.

Blade Runner = Train wreck of a plot, but the characters are so complex and fascinating you can talk about them for hours.

Cobra = No plot, no character. Baaaad.

Robocop = Larger-than-life characters that really come to life and stay with you; great story that mixes satire, sci-fi, horror, action, crime, comedy, schlock, and even biblical allegories. Pretty much the greatest film ever made.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

Don’t be afraid to say hello if you bump into me. I’m not as abrasive as my writing.

Also, I will never charge to sign your book if you bring it up to me, because I think it’s gross when authors do that. I’ll charge to sell you a copy, I’ll charge for admittance to a reading, but I will freely sign for anyone who wants me to.

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

I’m supposed to be finishing an SOBs novel, and I have a ton of Mack Bolans, Destroyers, and John Carters to get to at some point.

 Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

I think it was The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar.

 Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

Lots of lowbrow stuff makes me laugh, like Deadpool and the Three Stooges. Any scene involving a kid and their dad makes me weep like an infant.

 Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

I’d love to meet Jennifer Lawrence because she would be awesome to party with.

 Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?

Outside of the writing, drawing, and game design thing, I’m a nut for vintage toys, mostly from the 70s through the 90s, and it doesn’t matter if they’re for girls or boys as long as I love the design. I collect Mighty Max, Polly Pocket, and their respective knockoffs; I’ve got a treasure trove of Sailor Moon junk somewhere; I got a box full of Pinky Street dolls I sometimes play with (I’m bringing one of Juno to my signings from now on); and like most toy collectors I’m a sucker for Mego superhero dolls, which I sometimes restore to their former glory. I loathe Funko Pop toys and would love nothing more than to burn down every Pop display I come across at conventions.

I’m a tabletop gaming nerd, too. Escape from Atlantis, Heroquest, Arkham Horror, Bang!, Pathfinder, Stars Without Number, Zombicide, Cards Against Humanity, Uno, Above and Below, anything that isn’t a stupid expensive war game or an insipid party game.

 Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

I’m a huge nerd for Mission: Impossible and several cool Japanese shows from the 70s, like Shokin Kasegi (Bounty Hunter) and Oedo Sosamo: The Untouchables. For modern TV, I haven’t cared about television since Justified went off the air.

 Fiona: Favorite foods, colors, music?

I’m always down for Vietnamese or authentic Mexican (not Tex-Mex). Add some Jazz to the mix and I’m golden. I listen to a lot of film, TV, and video game soundtracks, too, especially when I’m editing: I even compile faux soundtracks to whatever project I’m currently obsessed with. When I write Winter Agent Juno, for example, it’s a lot of moody 80s synth and New Retro Wave.

 Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

Sail the seven seas to fight monsters and bed Arab babes like Sinbad.

 Fiona: You only have 24 hours to live how would you spend that time?

Giving all my money to a couple of tall, curvy brunettes for a 24-hour sex party.

 Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?

“Never gave up, against his better judgement.”

 Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?

Anything I’m up to is posted at MikesToyBox.net, so go follow me there!

Website: https://mikestoybox.net/

Winter Agent Juno:

https://mikestoybox.net/winter-agent-juno/

Mata the Fox:

https://mikestoybox.net/mata-the-fox/

Bishop & Holiday:

https://mikestoybox.net/bishop-holiday/

Daddy’s Girl:

http://www.indyplanet.us/comics/155771/

 https://www.amazon.com/Mike-MacDee/e/B01HECPZAG/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1528448497&sr=1-2-ent

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mike-MacDee/e/B01HECPZAG/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1528448545&sr=1-2-ent

Here is my interview with Humphrey Hawksley

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

Humphrey Hawksley, 63

Fiona: Where are you from?

Suffolk, UK

Fiona:A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.).

My family life involves special needs and I try to keep it private. I left school at seventeen after ‘A’ levels and worked my passage to Australia on a cargo freighter. Once there I learned to surf, build boats, lay cable, and drive a car. I travelled through Australia, New Zealand and Asia for three years before going back to Britain to become a journalist. It didn’t pay. To get to the story and file in time, I accumulated so many parking tickets that to settle them would have bankrupted me. I hitched a ride on a 747 Jumbo Jet carrying race horses to Australia where I got hired in Melbourne for four times my London salary. From there, I sent the parking people a bank transfer and for the next  five years I worked in Australia and Hong Kong, then went back to London, where I joined the BBC Radio newsroom beginning a thirty year plus career, mostly as a foreign correspondent.  I got my first posting to cover the civil war in Sri Lanka in 1986 and that type of work took me all over the world.

I was expelled from Sri Lanka after six months, and did postings in Delhi, Manila, Hong Kong and Beijing, where I opened the BBC’s first television bureau, moving back to London again in 1997. From there, I covered most stories including the Balkan wars and Iraqand the Middle East and I initiated a global campaign against enslaved children in the chocolate industry and then expanded it to include workers abused in general in other industries such as cotton, sugar and brick-making.

My television documentaries include The Curse of Gold and Bitter Sweet  examining human rights abuse in global trade; Aid Under Scrutiny on the failures of international development; Old Man Atom that investigates the global nuclear industry; and Danger: Democracy at Work on the risks of bringing Western-style democracy too quickly to some societies.

I have written an acclaimed ‘Future History’ series Dragon Strike, Dragon Fire and The Third World War  that explores global conflict, and published five international thrillers, Ceremony of Innocence, Absolute Measures, Red Spirit, Security Breach and Man on Ice, together with the non-fiction Democracy Kills: What’s so good about the Vote – a tie-in to my TV documentary on the pitfalls of the  modern-day path to democracy from dictatorship.

My journalism has been published in the The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, New York Times, Yale Global, Nikkei Asian Review and other publications.  My university lectures include Columbia, Cambridge, University College London and the London Business School and I am a regular speaker and panelist.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

My new thriller Man on Ice was published in the UK at the end of January winning the Mail on Sunday’s Thriller of the Week and it is due out in the US on May 1st  Booklist describes it: “Knuckle-whitening suspense, bloody violence, dirty tricks, and plenty of surprising twists make this a gripping, can’t-put-it-down read.”  Very few people are aware of how close the US and Russia are. I went to take a look and the Man on Icestory moves between hard-driving action with Russia on the little-known Alaskan island of Little Diomede and tense politics in Washington with the US, Britain and Russia. The strong characters are led by Little Diomede native, Rake Ozenna, a soldier with the Alaskan Eskimo Scouts.  I am now working a sequel set in northern Europe with several of the same characters.

In June 2018, I also have a non-fiction book out in the US, the UK and Asia.  Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the South China Sea and the Strategy for Chinese Expansion has received advance praise from figures in all those territories with Gideon Rachman, Financial Times Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator calling it:“A vivid and highly readable guide to one of the great flash-points of the 21st century”  In Asian Waters,I try to explain for a mass-market readership, China’s rise, how it will impact on us all and the possible flashpoints for war.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

I guess when I filed my first unreadable story as a young, inexperienced journalist. This was the first time I was paid for it. That hasn’t really stopped. It is what I can do and how I can earn money.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

This is a great question because I am not sure I do. Writing is one of those things you can never get absolutely right. I’ll pick up George Orwell or Lee Child, read a passage and think: Why on Earth can’t I ever write it as well as that.  I had my first book launch in 1997 with Dragon Strike: The Millennium War, a factional account of war with China.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

When I was BBC Bureau Chief in Beijing, I thought it was time to write a book. I sent some really dreary ideas to my agent David Grossman about China’s future, economic growth and really yawn-prompting stuff. David patiently read it, didn’t reject it and, instead, took me to see the legendary and late, great publisher William Armstrong whose company Sidgwick and Jackson had just been taken over by Macmillan. William looked over my dull outline, leaned forward on his desk and asked: “Could you write me a book about America going to war with China?” And with Simon Holberton a colleague from the Financial Times, that’s what I did. It’s still selling today.

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

Dragon Strike was a natural. I can’t remember if it was mine or William’s, probably his because William had a flare for a good title. Dragon epitomised China and Strike gave us the threat.  The working title for Man on Ice was actually Man on the Ice because the stakes rested on a lone figure crossing the frozen see between Russian and American territory. Martin Fletcher, a former Headline editor, who worked on an early draft with me suggested dropping the the, and he was so right. It changed the whole concept putting a  shadow of threat over the whole of the human race, which is what the prospect of nuclear war super powers actually does.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

I prefer clarity, short sentences and often go through stripping out adjectives and shortening words.  The biggest challenge is writing not enough as an author and too much as a journalist when your piece is going to be wrapped in a thousand words or so. The contrast is indefinable, but pace, sentence structure, narrative arc are all different in a book, whether fiction or non-fiction.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

The setting and political backdrop is as real as I could make it. Man on Ice is set on the US-Russian border in the Bering Straight where two islands, one Russian, one American sit only two miles apart. The Russian island has a small military base. The American island of Little Diomede is home to about 80 Eskimos and I spent a week with them researching Man on Ice and reporting for the BBC. I had also spent many years covering Washington D.C., so am familiar with the often tense relationships between the White House, the Pentagon and other departments. The story is realistic in that it could happen, although whenever writing a plot like this, there will be those who call it far-fetched. But Russia did take Crimea in 2014 and is blamed for using chemical weapons to poison its former spies in Britain.  No character is based on one person, but each may be a slice of people I know or have met.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Publishers Severn House did stunning work on the cover that has received high praise.

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Yes and no. Man on Ice is an action adventure story and that is how I would like it to be read. I did, however, dedicate it to ‘families and nations divided by politics’.  When the US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, the Eskimo families of the Bering Strait were suddenly citizens of different countries. Then, from the Cold War onwards they have been forcibly separated because of the closed border. In my career, this division of people through politics whether in Ireland or on the Korean Peninsula is repeated time and time again, causing great distress and very often war.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

Adam Brookes (Night Heron, Spy Games), is emerging as highly acclaimed spy writer taking the thriller in the new direction of China. David Young has brilliantly broken new ground with Stazi Child, followed by Stazi Wolf and Darker State.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

The BBC supported and allowed me the latitude to use my experience as a reporter in my books.

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

As with most decisions, it depends if the money works. There is also a danger, if writing is a sole career, of becoming too isolated. Good writers need the cut, thrust, success, failure, acclaim and humiliation of the real rough-and-tumble world. Writing all day would not give me enough of that. Besides, no-one is interested in what a writer is doing until it is done and published.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

With Man on Ice, too soon to tell. At a literary festival with Tom Stoppard in January it was refreshing to hear how he always looked back at his work and identified things he could have cut. With a previous thriller, Security Breach, I would have ramped up Kat Polinski, the heroine, to make her more extreme like Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I learned a lot about the very cold and the native people of the Arctic and near-Arctic, and how to make a story more linear.

Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

Rudi Youngblood would make a good Rake Ozenna with Carey Mulligan as Carrie Walker.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

If writing a plot-led novel, set out detailed outline first and understand how your subplots will work and remain subordinate to the main story. Identify how you will use backstory without slowing the pace and how you will keep the mystery and the contest running in parallel until as close to the last page as you can get.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

Thank you and please give feedback. My direct e-mail is on my site. No agents.  No middle-persons. No forms to fill in.

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

Alan FurstA Hero in France.  Chris Parry Super Highway: Sea Power in the 21st Century

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

After Enid Blighton’sNoddy, it must have been The Secret Seven

Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

A great Hollywood ending does both.

Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

Adolph Hitler, the ultimate antagonist

Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?

Cycling, swimming and travelling. There is nothing like the unfamiliar chatter and smells of a new place to lift the human spirit.

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

We have a feast right now. Homeland, Designated Survivor, Walking Dead for series, generally a Paul Greengrass-style action drama or a Woody Allen-style clever comedy.

Fiona: Favorite foods, colors,  music?

Asian fusion and Sichuan; Yellow and Blue; Chopin, Wagner, Puccini, Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen and Regina Spektor

Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

I would walk the Pacific Crest Trail and do the North Sea Cycle Route. May I blogand tell stories about it?After that I might throw myself into whatever politics takes us away from the current polarisation we’ve got in Britain. But, I would probably be very bad at it.

Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?

Have to think about that one

Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?

My website is www.humphreyhawksley.com   with a blog and events page, currently being updated for the launch events of Man on Ice and Asian Waters. My Twitter is @hwhawksley with another account @hhbooks. I am on Face Book, Linked In and Instagram.

UK:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Ice-Humphrey-Hawksley/dp/0727887734/

US:- https://www.amazon.com/Man-Ice-Russia-USA-Alaska/dp/0727887734/

And Asian Waters

UK:-  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asian-Waters-Struggle-Strategy-Expansion/dp/1468314785/

US:- https://www.amazon.com/Asian-Waters-Struggle-Strategy-Expansion/dp/1468314785

Here is my interview with DP Lyle

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

Doug Lyle. I write as DP Lyle and I’m old, very old.

Fiona: Where are you from?

 Huntsville, Alabama

Fiona: A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.).

 I grew up in Huntsville with two sisters and a great mom and dad. Mom made it 89 and dad to 97. I completed my Chemistry degree as well as Medicla School and Internship at the University of Alabama followed by a residency in internal medicine at the University of Texas in Houston and a fellowship in cardiology at the Texas Heart Institute, also in Houston. For the last 40 years I have practiced cardiology in Orange County, California.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

A-LIST, the second in my Jake Longly comedic thriller series, just came out. It follows DEEP SIX, which was nominated for the Shamus, INDIES Book of the Year, USA Today’s Best Book, and was named one of the Best of 2016  by Suspense Magazine.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

I grew up in the South where everyone can tell a story. In fact, it’s almost necessary or people won’t trust you. They probably won’t even feed you. Storytelling is a deep tradition down there. I could always spin a yarn, but I wasn’t sure I could write one. I always said that when I retired from my medical practice I would write the stories that I wanted to tell. But, about 25 years ago, I decided if not now, when? I took several classes at the University of California, Irvine extension center in their writing program and joined a couple of writing groups and began writing.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

 Somewhere between finishing my first novel, which took 2 1/2 years, and getting my first book published which took about 10 years.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

 I had a story that I’d been thinking about for years so when I decided it was time to take a run at fiction writing, that story was naturally the one I first attacked. It was a convoluted process. As I said it took 2 1/2 years to write. I sent it to my agent, Kimberley Cameron, and she responded, “there’s a story in here somewhere, I just can’t find it.” My response was,” that’s exactly what I needed to hear.” And so I went to work. We published other things along the way but this story wouldn’t go away. So after 10 years, four changes of location, four changes of title, one change of protagonist, and 27 rewrites, it was published. The only thing that remained the same was the bad guy and the basic story. It became STRESS FRACTURE, my first Dub Walker thriller.

 Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

 Mostly, trial and error. Titles are tricky and have a tendency to change along the way. And of course, in the end, the publisher has the final say so.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

 Actually, I have several styles, depending upon what I’m working on. I write fiction, nonfiction, and short stories. Each of these requires a different approach and often a different voice. My nonfiction books revolve around police procedures and forensic science and therefore must be written more straightforward. In the fiction world, I write many different types of fiction, from darker more psychological things to my current series, which is more comedic. So, the style and voice changes among the various types of writing.

 Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

 The answer to this would be very little. Though I obviously take things from my experiences, reading, and people that I know, there is nothing that is directly lifted from any of those sources. The fun of fiction writing is to make it all up.

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

 Not necessarily. I have gone to various places where my stories are set such as the Gulf coast of Alabama, New Orleans, the California high desert, and the mountains of Colorado. But for the most part you can do much of this research with web searches. Google Earth is a wonderful resource and also the websites of many small towns and larger cities where the story might be set. Another good resource is the real estate section of the city in question. You can learn a great deal about the neighborhoods, home values, and the types of homes and businesses in that area. All of this can add credibility to your story. For example, I did this type of research for the two books I wrote for the Royal Pains TV series. It is amazing how many people have come up to me saying that I must know the Hamptons well because I made them come alive. I’ve never been there in my life.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Nan, my better half, did a couple of them but mostly it’s the publisher.

 Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

 I’ve been asked this many times and I have even sat on panels at writing conferences where the topic was dealing with themes and things like that. The honest answer is that if any of my stories have a theme it’s purely by accident. I do not set out to comment on the world and the good, the bad, and the ugly, but rather to tell a good story. If someone gets more than that out of it, fine, but that’s never my intention.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

I like many authors but two really stand out: James Lee Burke and Elmore Leonard. Burke writes gritty crime fiction in a very literary and poetic fashion while Leonard spins his yarns in a down and dirty way, laced with humor and a host of amazing characters. Leonard is known as the guru of dialogue and so any writer wanting to improve their chops in that arena absolutely must read Elmore Leonard.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

 There have been many. I’ve worked with a fairly large number of publishers and each has been a tremendous help in many different ways. A shining example would be Bob and Pat Gussin who own Oceanview Publishing, the publisher of three of my books. Also other writers that I’ve met through writing conferences and other endeavors have offered tremendous support, encouragement, and knowledge. But by far my greatest supporter would be my wonderful agent, Kimberley Cameron. We have been together for decades and she’s the only agent I’ve ever had. She has great instincts, aggressive negotiating skills, and her suggestions for my stories are always spot on. Thanks, KC.

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

Yes, and no. I treat it seriously and run my career as a business, but at the same time I consider it playtime. It’s fun. I have a day job with my medical practice so writing for me as an escape from that.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

Too late. I never go back and read any of my work after it’s published. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, and there’s nothing you can do about it so why drive yourself crazy with finding typos, plot points that you would change, or even sentences and paragraphs that you feel you could’ve written much better?It’s too late, so don’t torture yourself.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

 Not really. Since this is my 17th book there are few surprises with the possible exception that it never gets easy.

 Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

 Timothy Olyphant.He would make a great Jake Longly.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

 There are so many tidbits of advice I can offer but I think the best is that writers should read, read, read and write, write, write. It’s really that simple. The former gives you the knowledge of what other people are doing and gives you insights on how to tell your story in such a way that it’s publishable. Writing hones your skills and gives you the confidence to move forward with telling the story your way in your own voice.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

 Only that I hope they like my books and stories and that each will add a little fun to their lives.

 Fiona: What book are you reading now?

 LOOK FOR ME by Lisa Gardner.

 Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

 I remember the first REAL book that I read, not counting all the sports related stories that today would be called YA. The first major book that I read was Jules Verne’s JOURNEY TO THE EARTH CENTER OF THE EARTH. I was 14, and it blew me away.

 Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

 My cat.

 Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

 No-brainer here. Leonardo da Vinci. An amazing artist and scientist and an incredibly creative thinker. I can’t even imagine how wonderful it would be to spend a few hours with him.

 Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?

 Guitar and golf.

 Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

 There are many that I have enjoyed and look forward to future shows. These would include JUSTIFIED, TRUE DETECTIVE, FARGO, OZARK, BERLIN STATION, THE AMERICANS, HOMELAND, RAY DONOVAN, THE NIGHT MANAGER. and many more.

 Fiona: Favorite foods, colors,  music?

 Barbecued ribs and my mom’s pecan pie, blue, and the blues and classic rock.

 Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

 Probably decompose, since I would be dead. That’s the beauty of writing, you can do it until your final days.

 Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?

 Probably my life’s motto: WHATEVER IS, IS. You can believe what you want but at the end of the day whatever the truth is, is whatever it is, and it really doesn’t matter what you or anyone else thinks.

 Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?

 Website: http://www.dplylemd.com

Blog: https://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com

A-LIST Info/Order: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/a-list.html

Deep Six Info/order: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/deep-six/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0045AXSFU

Author Bio

D.P. Lyle is the Macavity and Benjamin Franklin Silver Award winning and Edgar(2), Agatha, Anthony, Shamus, Scribe, Silver Falchion, and USA Today Best Book(2) Award nominated author of 17 books, both non-fiction and fiction, including the Samantha Cody, Dub Walker, and Jake Longly thriller series and the Royal Pains media tie-in novels. His essay on Jules Verne’s THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND appears in THRILLERS: 100 MUST READS and his short story “Even Steven” in ITW’s anthology THRILLER 3: LOVE IS MURDER. He served as editor for and contributed the short story “Splash” to SCWA’s anthology IT’S ALL IN THE STORY

He is International Thriller Writer’s VP for Education, and runs CraftFest, Master CraftFest, and ITW’s online Thriller School. Along with Jan Burke, he was co-host of Crime and Science Radio. He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, Women’s Murder Club, 1-800-Missing, The Glades, and Pretty Little Liars.

Website: http://www.dplylemd.com

Blog: http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com

Crime & Science Radio: http://www.dplylemd.com/crime–science-radio.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DPLyleMD

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/dplylemd

 

Here is my interview with Michael J. Schneider

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name.

Michael J. Schneider

Fiona: Where are you from?

I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. I currently live in Arlington, Texas.

Fiona: A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.).

I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. At the age of 18, I was eligible to be drafted as the Vietnam War was at its peak. I chose instead to enlist in the U.S. Marines. I spent 14 and 1/2 months in Vietnam with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Most of that time my duties were that of a clerk-typist; but I had a short period where I participated in long-range reconnaissance patrols.

In 1971 I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and received a degree in Civil Engineering in May 1976. I worked for the Federal Government as an engineer from June 1976 until January 2008.

I got interested in writing and took two courses in writing for children and teenagers. My instructor assisted me in preparing Swift, Silent and Deadly: Recon Marines in Vietnam. This book is nonfiction targeted at the young adult audience.

My first book was The Secret of Sangre de Cristo, followed by Brendan of Kilrush. Both of these books were fictional stories intended for the young adult market. Both were self-published. I also published The Secret of Sangre de Cristo as an eBook on Amazon Kindle and at Smashwords. My book Brendan of Kilrush was published by atraditional publisher. The publisher is Ink Smith Publishing,

After taking a short course entitled: Writing the Romance Novel at the University of Iowa, I decided to try writing a historical romance. The result was Rebecca and the Renegade. This book is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle.

I followed that with The Mystery of Skunk Hollow. This is a romance/mystery intended for an adult audience. It is also available as an eBook or paperback on Amazon Kindle.

My most recent book is From Omaha to Da Nang. This is a nonfiction memoir of my two years in the U.S. Marine Corps. It is also available as an eBook or paperback on Amazon Kindle. I wrote it with the idea that high school seniors might like to know what to expect if they enlist in the Marine Corps.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

I’ve started working on a novel about the Seven Years War.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

My wife thought I might be good at writing children’s books. I responded to an advertisement from the Institute of Children’s Literature. I took two courses in writing for children and teenagers from them. My instructor assisted me in preparing Swift, Silent and Deadly: Recon Marines in Vietnam. This book is nonfiction targeted at the young adult audience.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

After the sales of Swift, Silent and Deadly: Recon Marines in Vietnam passed the 200 copy mark.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

My first book was The Secret of Sangre de Cristo. I was inspired to write this young adult novel by a story that appeared in the newspaper in Alamosa, Colorado about some spelunkers discovering an old Spanish treasure in a mountain cave in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

I don’t think I have a specific writing style. I’ not sure into what genre my fiction falls. I’ve developed a disdain for non-fiction because of all the citing of references and the obtaining of permissions involved.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

The nonfiction works are completely factual. The Secret of Sangre de Cristo and Mystery of Skunk Hollow are strongly influenced by my personal experiences or me fantasizing about outcomes I would like to see.Brendan of Kilrush and Rebecca and the Renegade are made-up tales, although I did my best to research the settings for both books.

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

I would have liked to travel prior to writing Brendan of Kilrush and Rebecca and the Renegade, since I’ve never been to Ireland or Pennsylvania. I did spend time in Colorado and North Dakota before writing The Secret of Sangre de Cristo and Mystery of Skunk Hollow.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

The cover forBrendan of Kilrush was the result of a compromise between the publisher and myself. The others I designed myself.

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I’m not big on messages. I think readers should enjoy the stories. I do, however believe in good conquering evil or the underdog triumphing.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

Much of what I’ve read recently I’ve done as research on my current project. My favourite writer is Ian Fleming as I love the James Bond novels.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

Ink Smith Publishing

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

I’m a retired civil engineer, but I like to think or writing as a second career.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

No

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I learned that my niece, who proof readFrom Omaha to Da Nang, did exceptionally well at that task.

Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

That’s a tough question because I’m not real familiar with current actors and actresses. Perhaps if I name an actor or actress of older acclaim you could suggest a suitable substitute. I do a table for my main fiction characters.

Book Main Character Actor/Actress
Mystery of Skunk Hollow Ralph Morgan Jack Nicholson
Rebecca and the Renegade Rebecca Walker Marcia Cross
The Secret of Sangre de Cristo Clifford Barnes Macaulay Culkin

 

Brendan of Kilrush Brendan Leonardo DiCaprio

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

For your story to be interesting to readers it has to be interesting to you.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

I think you’ll enjoy my books.

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

Madame de Pompadour, Mistress of France by Christine PeavittAlgrant

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

Fun with Dick & Jane?

Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

Bob Hope & Rodney Dangerfield

Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

Actually there are a lot, but since I’m restricted to one it would be Deborah Shaver, whom I went to high school with and who was the inspiration for the character of Darlene in The Secret of Sangre de Cristo.

Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?

Writing is my hobby.

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

I like NCIS, reruns of the West Wing and Law and Order. I like the old James Bond movies. The ones prior to the version of Casino Royale with James Craig. In the newer films so much attention is given to stunts that I lose track of the plot.

Fiona: Favourite foods, colors,  music?

My favourite foods are T-bone steak, baked potato, asparagus and pumpkin pie. My favourite color is green. I like most all kinds of music except rap which I can’t stand, but my favorite is classic rock.

Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

I’m assuming I would be blind, so I have to tell stories verbally.

 Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?

Just my name, date of birth and date of death. If I’m dead I really wouldn’t care.

Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?

Not at this time.

My Amazon author’s page is: www.amazon.com/Michael-Schneider/e/B0052G1BJ6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

http://ink-smith.com/product/brendan-of-kilrush/

www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=The+Secret+of+Sangre+de+Cristo

www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Mystery+of+Skunk+Hollow

www.amazon.com/Rebecca-Renegade-Michael-J-Schneider/dp/1521074062/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1511965534&sr=8-3&keywords=Rebecca+and+the+Renegade

www.amazon.com/Swift-Silent-Deadly-Marines-Vietnam/dp/1520610750/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511965632&sr=1-1&keywords=Swift%2C+Silent+and+Deadly

www.amazon.com/OMAHA-NANG-Reflections-2-Yr-Marine/dp/1521129835/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ZWSY22YH0DFK678EJCGQ

Here is my interview with Dr. Ernest R. Rugenstein

25 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

Hi, Fiona. My name is Dr. Ernest R. Rugenstein, however, outside of my students most call me Ernie or Rich (from my middle name). As for age, I was born in 1956.

 

Fiona: Where are you from?

I grew up in Chili (CHY-ly), New York, a bedroom community of Rochester. There was a city bus stop at the corner of the street. Currently I live in Troy, NY.

 

Fiona: A little about your-self (i.e. your education, family life, etc.).

Well Let’s see, where to begin. I’m married to Keli Rugenstein who is a psychotherapist with a Ph.D.in Social Work. We live in Troy, NY and have two adult children. Don, who owns his own business in the mental health field and Ernest Kristoph, who has a degree in Mechatronics and works in industry. Both of them are married to wonderful women who are accomplished in their own right.

As for myself, I received my Ph.D. in Cultural History from Union Institute &University. I also have an M.A. in European History from the University of Albany, an M.A. in Religion/Ministry from Indiana Wesleyan University and a B.A. in History from Potsdam College. Currently I teach honor courses at Hudson Valley Community College and am actively investigating an archaeological site in the Adirondacks. You can see more about me here https://www.linkedin.com/in/errugenstein/ )

My academic specialties include Historical Research, Native American History, World History, History of the Twentieth Century, Archaeology, and of course Cultural History. I’ve created a number of college level courses, and was previously published.Further, I have presented at various conferences and reviewed a number of text-books
Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

Outside of my first book coming out, hmmmm, I suppose professionally, creating two new upper level courses at my college, and helping to adapt a course I created to a “college in the classroom” course for a local high school. I suppose another situation would be working at a dig in the Adirondacks. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digging-russia-town-roberts-road-site-part-1-ernest-richard/)

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

I’ve never really considered myself a writer in the typical way. In fact, I often thought of myself as a terrible writer, but I always wanted to tell a story. I suppose that’s why I think teaching is a natural fit.

However, back to the question, I suppose as I look back to the 1980’s I was a writer of sorts when I wrote technical manuals as a project engineer. It was all straight forward technical stuff, no plot, sometimes not even a complete sentence. They were facts and figures and strictly a narrative.

Other than that, I am published in a New York State Museum publication and I did have a blog at one point, however, I now publish articles on LinkedIn. I guess I like telling stories from history.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

As I said, I don’t know if I would consider myself a writer. Does writing one book make you a writer? Certainly, writing a book would make you an author, but it seems the term writer has a different connotation. I have a friend who has been an adjunct at numerous schools in the area where he lives, but he writes and publishes books. He writes every day, so many words a day. I don’t do that, not yet, but I am working on other things so maybe I’ve caught the bug, I don’t know.

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

Well, this is my first book and it based on my doctoral dissertation.The thrust of the book is one close to my heart. It comes from a combination of being a Cultural Historian, the fact that my wife and her extended family are Mohawk with many still living at Akwesasne, and finally my affinity for those cultures being oppressed by more powerful cultures such as we find on Akwesasne. A location, where powerful federal governments, and less powerful state/provincial governments, were forcing their will on the Natives.

 

 

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

The original title of my dissertation the book is based on was Clash of Cultures: Uprising at Akwesasne with the basic premise that the imposed border exacerbated the troubles. The idea of separation of the various cultures, even different languages in some cases, led to the present title. It’s a play on words. In a physical sense, the Reservation is divided by the St. Lawrence River, politically, it is divided by the US-Canadian border. There is also a cultural division between those who follow traditional practices/government and those who would be consider modernist/Christian who adhere to the officially recognized federally imposed governments.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

I don’t think I have a particular writing style. If I do I don’t know what it is. I feel there is a challenge in history that is always there. Trying to include everything and not being able to.Paraphrasing Rosenstone, no matter how much research we do, primary sources we look at, or interviews we do, history will never come to us in a “single version of the truth.”

In other words, write your book on the research obtained and no matter how you present the narrative there will be those who disagree, complain you left out important information, or shaded the facts in a certain way.

A good example of this is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Lincoln, Team of Rivals. A fine book and acclaimed by all, but when she is writing about the Winter of 1862 she doesn’t mention Lincoln ordering the largest mass hanging of Native Americans in history. Didn’t she know, did she have an anti-Native agenda? No, she was writing about a specific aspect of Lincoln’s history. Yet. there have been criticisms of it not being mentioned.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

The book is a secondary history of the events that occurred at Akwesasne between 1989 and 1991. It contains primary sources mixed with firsthand knowledge and limited comments from other sources.

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

In the case of this work I had traveled through the area extensively and actually was living in the North Countryof New York State along the St. Lawrence River when it was occurring. It certainly helped in writing since I could visualize the area. Further, I had interacted with the culture when doing research, I knew the locations of events.

This is also true of most of the articles I write. All of them involve interaction with the subject or location. One of the articles I wrote was about Honanki people of the Sedona, AZ area. Naturally, I had visited the location and investigated the archaeological aspects of the site before writing the piece. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/honanki-heritage-site-visit-700-year-old-sinaguan-ernest-richard/)

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Actually. I designed the front and back cover with some expert help fromStephen R. Walker Designs on the spine and getting it all sized and ready to go for the printer. The photograph on the cover is my wife’s Grandmother. She’s in her Christening gown and secured to a traditional Mohawk cradleboard. This also shows the divide the Natives deal with between traditional and modern ways.

 

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Yes, that no race, creed. or color has been more oppressed, had genocide committed against them as the Native Americans. From the 15th century to the 18th century 95% of the Native population was gone. Scholarly estimates of Native American population loss are as high as 100 million. Where did they go? They didn’t move, they were killed by disease (at times intentionally spread), enslaved and worked to death by the European invaders, or just killed as one would kill a bothersome coy-dog. The Natives that were left were coerced into leaving their land. This was typically accomplished through promises in treaties, none of which were eventually kept. In the case of Akwesasne treaties imposed a border that wasn’t there.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?  Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

One of my best friends isn’t really a new author, but I read anything he publishes and he is unique in his narratives. He writes non-fiction investigative and historical books, short stories and great fiction. His name is Thom Metzger, his latest is book is Undercover Mormon: A Spy in the House of the Gods.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

Well, that’s easy, Norm Wilson, owner of Melange Publishing. Don’t get me wrong there are others outside of my family who were supportive. Thom Metzger a friend and writer was encouraging and certainly my Department Chair Peter Sawyer, Ph.D., who encouraged me to create a Native American course and supportive of my book being used as a textbook. But, it was Norm who encouraged me to take the step of turning my dissertation into a book and then when I was indecisive on some aspects he encouraged and supported me to move forward. Additionally, he put me in contact with people who could help me in technical aspects of publishing, such as Stephen R. Walker

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

I don’t see making writing a career however, I didn’t really think I would write a book let alone get published. So, I guess I will have to say, I don’t know.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

I would have done more interviews.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

Yes, I learned a great deal putting this book together. It all started with my dissertation and many of hours of research and investigation.This not only included written material but of course visiting the Reservation and talking to people. Up to now doing research tended to be for term papers and shorter essays, but the dissertation and later the writing of the book helped me to refine the way I did research

The other thing I learned was some of the rudimentary aspects of publishing. I found it enlightening and can understand why not everyone can be published. I feel very fortunate that I connected to Norm Wilson and followed his great advice.

 

Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

Interestingly I think it would be a great movie. A Native American woman harassed by the government for walking over an imaginary line with the process ending in a supreme court decision. As for the lead, I don’t know, but I would hope that90% of the all actors are Native American actors.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

I don’t really have any real advice. A friend of mine who is published, and an avid writer always answers the question with a question – what are you reading? So, I’ll use his answer – read.

Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

Just, I hope you enjoy the read and it moves you do more research into Native American Studies.

 

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

I’m reading two at the moment. Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Future and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows.

 

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

Little Black Sambo, and I loved that story. Most people see this as a racist children’s book and a put down of Blacks or African -Americans. In actuality, the book is about a little boy who lives in India and as far as a put down, I always thought Sambo was a genius. He was smart enough to get out of dangerous situations and turn the table on his adversaries. He was even rewarded for his troubles with a great meal.

 

Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

What makes me laugh depends on the circumstances? Sometimes it’s something that happens or someone says something while the family is sitting around the fire in the back-yard and it tickles me. Other times it’s a well-timed joke.

As for what makes me cry, that too is circumstantial? In general, it’s the injustice and maltreatment people suffer in their day to day lives. Especially children and I guess I would add animals to that too. They are for the most part innocent and for them to be mistreated moves me first to anger then to tears.

 

Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

This is one of those tricky questions because there a so many and of course I would need a universal translator. I guess it would be Karl Theodor Rugenstein, my great-great grandfather. He’s the one who migrated here to America from Germany. I’d like to know why he left Germany? What was life like there when he left? How was he treated when he got to the US? The reason comes down for historical research, to learn more of what was happening at the time.

 

Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?

Hiking/back packing and kayaking. Although, if it’s just me and I have some time I like working at my archaeological dig site.

 

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

TV Shows: Dr. Who, Game of Thrones, Midsomer Murders, Mr. Robot, the original Star Trek, Are You Being Served?

Movies: The Fifth Element, Shawshank Redemption, Napoleon Dynamite

 

Fiona: Favorite foods, colors, music?

Food: Ham, Fried Chicken, almost anything with garlic.

Color: Sky Blue

Music: Very eclectic (from classical to Marilyn Manson to German Folk music)

 

Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

I would do what I do now, teach in Higher Education. I love getting up every day and going to class’ opening student’s minds to a dynamic look at history.

 

Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?

“If You Only Knew”

 

Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?

I have an author’s page on Face Book and on Amazon.com.  Also, I utilize LinkedIn to post articles I’ve written. At one time, I had a blog of about fifty followers, but with Linked I have almost1900 contacts that are notified.  The links are below:

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/errugenstein/

Face Book:https://www.facebook.com/ErnestRRugenstein/

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/author/rugenstein

 

 

Here is my interview with Leif and Jason Grundstrom-Whitney

14 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

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Name  Leif and Jason Grundstrom-Whitney

Age

Thirty/Fifty-Five

Where are you from

From the beauteous state of Maine we both hail where at least one of us was raised (to skimp on detail).

 

 

A little about your self `ie your education Family life etc  

Leif is a full-time writer and former student of the University of Maine at Augusta. Jason, the father of this father-son writing duo, has worked for twenty-three years as a middle and high school social worker in the state of Maine whereas Leif has not and both Jason and Leif have been published in poetry journals.

Leif Grundstrom-Whitney is the proud co-author of the epical satire The Hidden Chalice of the Cloud People; the wicked and witty character known as Facinorous contained therein is a product of his multifarious mind. He has been published in several obscure poetry journals (hold your applause). To say that he is an edacious reader would be an understatement worthy of Hemingway. If he had a spirit animal, it would probably be a raven who knows how to play a Hammond B-3 organ.

Jason Grundstrom-Whitney has been a Social Worker and Substance Abuse Counselor in the State of Maine for many years. In this time, he has introduced meditation (tai-chi, qigong, yoga, and meditation) groups to teens when told he would fail. This was one of the most successful and long lasting groups. He developed a Civil Rights/Peer Helper course that won state and national awards (for High School) and has worked as a civil rights activist. He has also worked as a long term care social worker and now works as a Hospice Medical Social Worker. Jason is a poet, writer, and musician playing bass, harmonica and various wind instruments. Lover of all styles of music he has played classical, jazz, rock, funk, country, blues, and rap. He is very excited to play bass with his brother’s band and his son’s. He is very proud to have co-authored The Hidden Chalice of the Cloud People with his son Leif.

 

 

 

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?

Our novel The Hidden Chalice of the Cloud People has been published on the Kindle section of Amazon.com. Huzzah!

 

 
Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

Leif: Eons ago and because my Muse commanded it should be so!

Jason: I have been writing my entire life, it seems to be part of me.

I have to write daily, like breathing and brushing my teeth. It is a need.

 

 

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Sometime during the writing of this lengthy first manuscript, long before its completion, we crossed the threshold into officially considering ourselves “writers”.

 

 
Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

 

A desire to satirize a genre that seems to be running out of original and innovative ideas (whilst progressively growing bleaker) is what inspired our mammoth creation.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style?

Our writing style is an effete throwback to the earlier writing forms and styles of the authors of the 1800’s such as Lewis Carroll, Washington Irving, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

 
Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

 

An auspex was consulted, for a small fee, to divine which title would ameliorate the book’s profitability. No, but seriously, the title flows naturally from the plot of the manuscript. It is also an allusion to the massy tale’s satirical contents as the magical item or artifact hinted at is not as hidden as one might suspect. Things are not exactly what they seem.

 

 

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Even blind Tiresias at the mystical height of his prophetic sight might not have been able to decipher a message in it that could withstand rationality’s scalding light. We leave our diligent readers to glean the message(s) for themselves and to interpret the meaning hidden within the tower of text. It is a possibly poignant puzzle to be solved by those with ample determination and powerful resolve.

 

 
Fiona: How much of the book is realistic?

The supernal landlords of the cosmos forbid there should be anything realistic to the story! To be honest (and quite possibly serious), there are societal elements and cultural components and certain characters in the beginning that are grounded in a realism familiar to modernity.

 

 
Fiona: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Not that we know of.

 

 

Fiona: What books have most influenced your life most?

Leif: A difficult question! I have been heavily influenced by a rich assortment of phenomenally sublime classic literature. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Dante’s Divine Comedy, The King James Bible, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Iliad by Homer, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and The Prelude by William Wordsworth stand among the greatest.

Jason: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Rumi, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman,

The Bible, the Tao Te Ching, and The Complete Works of Shakespeare have all had a great influence in my life.

 

 

Fiona: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Leif: The Bard

Jason: Walt Whitman

 

 
Fiona: What book are you reading now?

Leif: Rereading The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Jason: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

 

 
Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

Our favorite modern author is this little known, relatively new writer (a real maverick of the contemporary literary scene) by the name of Cormac McCarthy. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

 

 
Fiona: What are your current projects?

Writing the next novel in the tetralogy we have planned. It is the sequel to The Hidden Chalice of the Cloud People. The title has yet to be determined.

 

 
Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

 

We could not possibly narrow it down to just one person. We have been blessed by a sizable support group of friends, the majority of which curiously work in the educational system. This cadre of encouragement-peddling comrades includes a circle of poets and writers. They have our gratitude.

 

 

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

Emphatically yes! The arts are astounding in the nuances permitted both emotively and experientially. When we say this, we mean of course the subtleties of the human experience in relationship to the emotional sense and also individual experiences that help to add to “the compost bin”, so to speak, to cull from. In the above analogy, we know that a rose can come from a compost bin through the nutrients and the constitutive components forming the messy cradle it is planted in that allows it to flourish and that also sustains it. The arts are very much like this. As writers, we allow ourselves the freedom to create from collective and individualistic strains that nourish the creative process and add to the furtherance of the art in a unique and individualistic way. We pluck boldly, with the inscrutable force of afflatus as our cicerone, from the murky vault of humanity’s glorious subconscious detritus.

 

 
Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

We wouldn’t change a thing.

 

 
Fiona: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

 

If it was not innate at birth, the interest in writing stemmed from the love of reading at an early age.

 

 

Fiona: Can you share a little of your current work with us?

Excerpt from Chapter Five of The Hidden Chalice of the Cloud People:

The sky through the closeness of the lurid lightning bolts was astoundingly low. The boat steered towards a place in the sea where continual bolts of mute lightning struck the surface of the water. Tommy was frightened. It was as if they were going directly into the belly of the storm. The rolling oceanic expanse became violent; the waves crested twenty feet in height. The boat dipped over and over again in fjord-sized troughs of sea before it rose to the top of a massive wave. As they crested this alpha wave of apocalypse-inducing stature, a tremendous bolt of lightning struck the boat rending it in twain. An explosion of fragmented wood and torn netting sprinted out across the white-capped waves. The sundered vessel rolled over to face the depths and sank. Again Tommy was chucked and hurtled into the air before hitting the sea. He plunged downward through the brine. The tempest ceased abruptly, suffocating Lethia in a cloak of utter darkness. The constant downfall of jagged bolts sickly in coloration whimpered to a sudden close. The instant sea was now pitch-black. Tommy plummeted further down the fathoms unable at first to halt his momentum because he was dazed by the jarring manner of the inauspicious capsizing. He soon regained some semblance of bearing and composure. He found that the bronze enchantment that Facinorous had assumedly placed upon his clothes was no longer in effect. His clothes were of their regular composition. He tried desperately to swim to the surface but only found more water and blackness. After a tremendous struggle, he realized that any remaining air or sky had been swallowed up by the rising sea. There was no surface left to reach. The instant sea was somehow inescapable now. He panicked as he tried to think of something he could conjure up with his strained imagination that could save him from drowning. In the process he began to lose consciousness. His awareness flickered like a moribund flame. Moments before the loss of his creative identity, his mind limped to the acquisition of an element of a story that he needed. The whimsical element was the air bubble spell cast by an industrious mermaid on the human she fell in love with that allowed him to breathe underwater. The story was a tad saccharine and quaint but it served its purpose. A self-sustaining oxygen bubble manifested over Tommy’s head. Its translucent sheen encircled his facial features snugly. A breathable environment invisible as the silver speck of a coin in the crumbling cosmic refuse of a supernova’s insensate tide lurked within the narrow confines. He gasped in the precious air it afforded. The supply was endless, and he soon regained his breath. Crisis averted, he looked about the dark depths that surrounded him through the terrible agony blistering his thoughts. His tunnel of vision was smothered by absolute blackness. He couldn’t even see beyond his own ocular lenses. It felt as if he had been sepulchered long before the expiration of his last breath. After his recent encounter with the Tylosaurus, he realized that now not being able to see anything in the oceanic murk made him a sitting duck for whatever lurked beneath. He shuddered involuntarily. He turned warily around in slow circles with cautious strokes. The fear of the unknown drained and whittled his reservoir of courage down to an infinitesimal scintilla over-shrouded by an oppressive fog of affright. He just wished that whatever happened, it would be merciful in its swiftness. He could imagine that there were skyscraper-sized sharks and monstrosities with many mucilaginous tentacles gliding sinisterly about down here. There had to be by the law of shambolic disorder and the malevolence of Facinorous’s misrule of Lethia. He knew that at any moment the monsters could strike. There would be no warning. There could be no adequate defense. He would be just a tiny morsel to those vast shapes of horror. He gritted his teeth against the inevitably oncoming extinction.

 

 

Fiona: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

What is most challenging is the constant struggle against the urge to complexify (the plot, dialogue, descriptions, narrative, etc.) and how this affects the pacing of the writing process.

 

 
Fiona: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Leif: William Shakespeare. What hasn’t been said about the Bard? What praise and laudation hasn’t been heaped on his unmatchable genius throughout the centuries? I join a very long and distinguished line in my recognition of his greatness. Nothing leaves me stranded in the enraptured glory of awe quite like the profound sagacity, astonishing aesthetic resplendence, bold imaginative otherness and mystifying cognitive puissance of his work.    

Jason: Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. His mystical poetry goes to the heart and core of human experience and our relationship with the divine. More succinctly, his writings touch upon the longing we have to be re-connected with the divine. He offers the solution which is Love, which burns through our attachments so that we may “go back to the reed bed” as he may have put it.

 

 
Fiona: Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?

Not as of yet.

 

 
Fiona: Who designed the covers?

The cover was designed by a talented and gifted artist named Andrei Bat from 99designs.com.

 

 

 

Fiona: What was the hardest part of writing your book?

The redaction process, involving a considerable amount of revision, was the most challenging part of writing the book.

 

 

 

Fiona: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

 

The most important thing we learned was that we function really well as a literary tag team. We draw out each other’s strengths and limit the weaknesses and somehow manage to temper the eccentricities of our respective styles.

 

 
Fiona: Do you have any advice for other writers?

 

Take your art seriously; refine your abilities, hone your skills and develop a habit of writing on a quotidian basis. Not necessarily something that inspires the pneuma and rattles the firmament but something that is at least adequate or decent. Practicing your craft plays a crucial role in maintaining the well-being and the liveliness of your mental character as well as improving your writing abilities. Let the sensitive fabric of your psyche become pachydermatous and persevere through all the vicissitudes that adversity can muster.

 

 

 

Fiona: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

This is rather a general statement but allow yourself the freedom to get lost in creative works no matter the genre or its expression (dance, poetry, music, etc…). Having said that, this particular book is interesting in that it presents a sequence of events that does not follow the traditional linear narrative structure; it also presents a vast elaborate fable and anachronistic writing style that are demanding but satisfying in that the action propels the plot not only in a dizzying fashion but also adds elements of world culture, idiosyncratic satire, diverse humor, and adventuresome fantasy.

 

 

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

Leif: Lewis Carroll’s inimitable classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the first book I remember thumbing through.

 

Jason: My mom had a series of anthropology and nature books I used to like to look through before I could read.

 

 

 

Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?

Sophisticated satire and witty humor that is not terribly demeaning or at the expense of others (unless of course they deserve it) make us laugh. Great sadness comes with the sense of separation we feel from others (metaphysical triteness to the rescue!). We are raised to believe that we must put people and things into boxes for our own edification. When we do this, we close off the full reality of the object we are classifying. If we can truly see someone or something beyond the confines of our constructs, we give them dignity and allow ourselves the fullness of an encounter with another fully realized, nuanced and complicated being.

 

 

 

Fiona: Is there one person pass or present you would meet and why?

We subscribe to the adage that you should not meet your heroes; preferring to honor and appreciate them from afar.

 

 

Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone and why?

Leif: “Here lies someone who knew a bit more about the art of writing than your average twit.”

Jason: “Here lies someone who cared for all beings.”

 

 

Fiona: Other than writing do you have any hobbies?

Besides writing, our hobbies include reading (especially devouring with our eyes the splendiferous lines of powerful classic verse and poetry; they raise the consciousness, elevate the mind and enrich the soul), watching television shows and sports and movies, listening to music, learning about and researching new things concerning many different subjects such as science and dinosaurs which were a childhood fascination, appreciating art, exploring new places, hiking, bowling, weightlifting, running on the treadmill, occasionally surfing the great gray sea of the interweb, enjoying a huge variety of outdoor and water-based activities including tubing and disc golf and jogging and swimming and walking along the beach and shooting hoops, gaming (not just video games but also charades and card games like Uno and poker and board games like Clue and Stratego), indulging in spare moments of spiritual bliss, spending time with and caring for pets, observing wildlife, causing mirth and mischief and mayhem with family and friends, and playing music.

 

 

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Kung Fu, and Fawlty Towers rank among our favorites. As for films, there are too many to list here. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an inexhaustible source of laughter and merriment.

 

 

Fiona: Favorite foods / Colors/ Music

Leif:  Favorite color: Cerulean and forest green (a shade of color far from obscene)

Favorite food: Daiya cheesecake and Beyond Meat Beast Burgers

Favorite Music: I lavish with boundless appreciation and adoration virtually all genres of music except polka and death metal (rare exceptions!). O so broad my palate! There are many musical artists that I love; everyone from John Coltrane and Miles Davis to Beethoven and Mozart to The Beatles and Radiohead to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash to Ray Charles and Fats Domino to B.B. King and T Bone Walker and so on and so forth.

Jason: Indian and Mexican/ green/ all music

 

 

Fiona: If you were not a writer what else would you like to have done?

Leif: I most likely would have been either a proletarian hero or a paleontologist.

Jason: I might have been a conductor/composer for symphony orchestras.

 

 

 

Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? If so what is it?

Our website: http://www.leifandjasonenterprises.com/

Our Facebook address: https://www.facebook.com/Leif-and-Jason-Grundstrom-Whitney-735598526557573/

 

Our Twitter account: https://twitter.com/leifandjason

 

Our Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Chalice-Cloud-People-ebook/dp/B00RPTXQDC

Here is my interview with John Cook

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

 

Name: John Cook

 

Age:  Sixty seven.

 

Fiona: Where are you from? 

 

I was born in 1948 at the Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles. I lived most of my life in Claremont, California. Before that I lived in the high desert. I still remember Dwight Eisenhower as our President, “I like Ike,” and the breaking of the Sound Barrier, a project my Grandfather and Father worked on when they had jobs with the military at Edwards Air Force Base. We lived on a farm in Lancaster.

I remember standing in the alfalfa field out in front of our house and hearing that sharp cracking sound the jets made when they broke the Barrier. I would turn toward the little sound waves as they raced across the desert towards where I stood, coming through the alfalfa and rustling the leaves on the stalks as the waves came rippling through.

 

Fiona: Tell us a little about yourself:

 

I have an undergraduate degree in history. I hated history at the time. I should have switched to literature or journalism. But I was too strung out on mind bending substances to see that. So I stayed with History. I did very poorly. At the end of my studies, the Chairman of the History Department, Dr. Marti, made me promise never to teach it. Promise me, he said, or you won’t graduate. No problem, I said. I told Dr. Marti I would rather get a job picking up dog turds with my teeth for the rest of my life than teach history. It was the truth. He heard the sincerity in my voice. This satisfied him. I was allowed to graduate.

After graduation I put my diploma in a box and forgot about it. It had nothing to do with me anymore. I worked the next ten years in construction, drinking heavily the whole time. At the end of that period I got my contractor’s license. I started my own landscaping business. After that I could no longer be fired for drinking on the job. So I drank. Continuously. After several years of this unrestrained alcoholism I was almost dead. Luckily for me I had a keen desire to keep living. I was finally able to get sober. I continued working as a landscaping contractor for another ten years, on up into my forties. And then, one day, during a quiet moment on the job, I raised my head and read the writing on the walls. I was getting older. I didn’t have medical coverage. I didn’t have dental insurance. I didn’t have any kind of retirement. I was going from job to job, getting nowhere fast. In twenty more years I was going to be old, out of gas, scared to death, in all likelihood abandoned by my wife, and poor. I decided not to let that happen.

I made a change. It was a major one. I dug my diploma out of the box I had put it in twenty years before. I went back to school. The goal was to get my teaching credentials. It took me seven years. Since then I have completed approximately two hundred and fifty post-graduate credits. This is enough to equal eight Master’s Degrees. But I never got a Master’s Degree. Instead I did graduate work in Counseling and Education. I also studied a number of other subjects which interested me. I earned A’s in every class save two. One was a D. That was in statistics. The other was a B +, in practicum.

I acquired two Teaching Credentials. One was a General Secondary credential, the other credential was in Special Education. I was hired by the State of California. I taught Special Education in Behavior Programs in hospitals and, later, in prisons, with the incorrigibly violent. These were jobs I loved very much. I also completed UCLA’s graduate program in Creative Writing. I earned straight A’s and was nominated for the Kirkwood Prize. I have published one book, “Sally.”

I’ve been married to the same woman for forty years. We have four children and nine grandchildren.

 

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

 

I’m currently revising an eight hundred page novel. I’ve been working on it for the past six years. I intend to break the novel into four installments. The contemporary reader has such a limited attention span. Beyond that I continue to write short stories, vignettes, and some free verse poetry. I am appalled at how much energy is required to write so little.

I recently started my landscaping business again. Because of the California drought, there is a new market for Desert Landscaping. This gives me lots of new design possibilities to work from, designs that were passed over in previous years. The results have been gratifying and we are learning a great deal. Landscaping, like writing, is an art. For myself, I think the practice of one of them strengthens my abilities in the other. After all, an artist is an artist, no matter what field of endeavor he may currently be involved in. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, to create is to create is to create.

 

 

Fiona:  When and why did you begin writing?

 

I’ve always read voraciously. I have a good understanding of words and how best to use them. But I never would have thought of entering UCLA’s graduate program if it were not for the principal at the prison where I worked. It was he who brought the program to my attention. I was sitting across from him at his desk passing the time of day when he told me he was thinking about enrolling. He asked me if I thought I might also be interested.

“Maybe,” I said.

He handed the folded up newspaper to me over the top of his desk. It was a schedule of classes.

“Look into it,” he told me.

It was a bit like throwing down the gauntlet. The upshot was that I enrolled and he didn’t. I began writing with the first class I took. I have never stopped.

 

 

 

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

 

I knew I had the potential to become a writer from early on in life. I saw things in stories most other students didn’t see. I became especially convinced of my native skill after my first orientation at UCLA. I understood everything they spoke about. It all fit together, especially when they talked about a sense for the rhythms in sentences, something that can’t be taught. You were born with the ability to feel it or you didn’t have it.

Well, I had it. I’d always had it. I enrolled in my first class. I began to study the art of writing with discipline and focus. My mentor was Ernest Hemingway. Although he was dead, I never thought of him that way. When I thought of him he was alive. I referred to him in all things. The book I used as a text through the entire UCLA program was Ernest Hemingway’s collection of quotes, “Hemingway On Writing.” I never referred to any other text. They confused me. Hemingway gave me everything I needed. It was clear, clean, simple, concise, profound, and unmatched.

I began considering myself to be a real writer from my first class. The conviction increased with each class I took. One overwhelming reason was the fact that I always earned A’s. I wouldn’t be receiving A’s at UCLA unless my writing was good. It was that simple. I was a writer primarily because I wrote. The stories earned high marks and my teachers validated me.

 

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

 

The idea to write a book composed of short stories was my idea. But the idea of writing a full sized novel was suggested to me by my teachers. I remembered how Hemingway started with short stories as a way of training up to the full fight condition of a first novel. Since I am a trained, black belt Muay Thai kick boxer, the physical analogy of training up to a ten round fight made sense to me. You start by fighting three rounds, move up to five, then seven, eight, and finally ten, a full fight. The short stories are analogous to the fights with lesser rounds.

Hemingway’s first three books were collections of short stories. A masterful strategy, it paid off handsomely when it put him in the public eye. And then he wrote “The Sun Also Rises,” finishing the rough draft in a matter of several months. Once it was finished his celebrity was complete.

I wish I had been able to write my first novel in such a short time. But the damn thing just kept going and going. It was a bit like being on an old sailing ship out at sea looking for land and finding none. But then, finally, one day I climbed up into the crow’s nest and saw the object of my search, landfall. After six years the rough draft was completed, thank God.

The story is a good one. But the book is too long and it doesn’t sound right. I can solve the problem of length by converting it into a series. I am working at making it sound right by revising it while I continue to write and revise additional short stories. At this point in my development my first three books will be, like Hemingway, compilations of short stories. I’ve already published the first book, “Sally.” By the time the other two are written I’ll be ready to bring out the novel, I hope.  This strategy follows the same pattern that Hemingway followed, except for the ridiculous amount of time I have invested in writing my excessively long novel.

 

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style?

 

Yes. It’s hard to explain. But I’ll try. In an effort to arrive at a writing style that will make whatever I write unmistakably mine as distinguished from a host of generic others, I write most of my sentences in short, compact, terse cadences. From time to time I contrast them with lyrical sentences that are longer. The reason for doing this usually has something to do with rhythms, or with verses opening up into a chorus. Words can do the same thing as do notes. Readers do not experience them as such. But they are, nonetheless, experienced that way subliminally.

I also avoid using the words “and” or “but” as an interconnecting link. For example, look at the two sentences leading into this paragraph. “It’s hard to explain. But I’ll try.” I wrote it that way instead of, “It’s hard to explain but I’ll try.”

My reasoning for this is as follows; if a sentence has the word “and” or “but” in it, or some other word that connects both halves of the sentence, I take it out and convert the single, original sentence into two sentences. There’s more punch to it that way. My theory is that run-on sentences are unconsciously skimmed over by the reader. The sentence becomes something like an assignment. Life is made up of assignments. We all try to finish them in a timely manner. The whole world has been conditioned to behave like that. But the run-on sentence creates a reader who does not receive the full impact of the sentence’s message. If the words “and” or “but” are taken out, the run on sentence is converted into two separate parts. The reader reads them separately and considers their content, however briefly, one sentence at a time. The sentence does not become a glossed over or a hurried thing. I believe this kind of sentence structure has a far greater impact on the reader than does the more conventional, lyrical, run-on sentence. Most of the time the effect is subliminal. But still it is there. One effect attaches itself to all the others.

Also, like Hemingway, I revise, revise, revise; hunting down, isolating, and eliminating all unnecessary words. This tightens the prose. I guess you could call my style Hemingway minimalist, although my brother, a recently retired University Professor of Literature says, after reading my book, that I do not sound like Hemingway at all. This has wounded me most grievously. I console myself by thinking that perhaps he doesn’t know what to look for. Instead of sounding like Hemingway, he says I sound like Charles Bukowski, an author who, while alive, was always drunk, wrote prolifically, and put together books I love to read. And while it is true that he never sold many books, he did, in fact, change the face of the Modern American novel. Not bad for an unapologetic, unrepentant, whiskey swilling renegade, eh?

 

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

 

I took the title, “Sally,” from the story I liked best out of all six stories in my little collection. Sally was a woman who helped me through a very bad patch in my life; something I literally would have not survived without her help. I often wonder what happened to her. I remember how she used to have these terrible migraines. I wanted to help her with them but of course I had no such skill. Wherever she is, I hope she is alive, healthy, happy, and living a different life than the one she was living when I knew her.

 

 

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

 

Yes. I want to broaden their horizons. Hemingway began his writing when he and Hadley moved up into that little room above the saw mill in Paris. He decided that he would write one short story about everything he knew something about. His criterion for knowing something was that he had to have experienced it.

I have done precisely the same thing. Almost all of my stories are written from material I gained during my alcoholic past. The things I learned were acquired at great personal cost. They are interesting, entertaining, and instructive.

And, they were paid for in blood, my blood. So now they belong to me. I want to share them. People should know what it was like to live like that. Most people know nothing about it.

I also want them to know that alcoholics, while often barbarous and cruel when under the lash of their disease, are also thinking and feeling people, in both their active, drinking alcoholism, and later, if God is willing, in their sobriety. That is the message I want my readers to grasp.

 

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic?

 

All of it is realistic, except for one supernatural touch that came at the end of the story, “Dark Laughter.” Other than that one, perhaps lamentable, perhaps not, digression, everything is the literal truth.

All except for the last story in the book, a story I made up. Its name is Granville Henry. Part of the story came from my uncle’s dairy farm in Oklahoma, part of it was drawn from the stories the returning Vietnam War veterans I worked with at Arrowhead Water told me, and part of it was taken from my experiences as a forest fire fighter in the foothills of La Canada, where at least on one very near occasion I was almost burnt to a crisp along with the rest of my platoon.

The story is named after a real person, Granville Henry. He is an old man from Georgia. He gives the readings at the eleven o’clock mass on Sundays, his voice pealing out clearly across the congregation in cadences of true Southern classical oratory. When I sat down to write that story Granville Henry’s voice came on in my head like someone had switched on a radio in there. He told me the whole thing and I wrote it down as fast as I could, listening to the voice that was unmistakably his the whole time. When he stopped speaking I stopped writing. The story was done. That was the story they used when I was nominated for the Kirkwood Prize.

 

Fiona: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

 

The experiences are based on past events in my own life. They involve people I knew back then. Some of them are nuts. Some of them are dead. Some of them are people I hope are dead. Some of them are people I would like to kill but have allowed to live. There are many who feel much the same about me.

 

 

 

Fiona: What books have influenced your life the most?

 

Ernest Hemingway:  The Complete Short Stories, The Dangerous Summer, The Enduring Hemingway, The Nick Adams Stories, Islands in the Stream, The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, Three Novels, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, The Hemingway Reader, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, To Have and Have Not, Green Hills of Africa, Winner Take Nothing, Death in the Afternoon, In Our Time, A Farewell to Arms, Men Without Women, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway On Writing.

 

Paul Hendrickson: Hemingway’s Boat.

 

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Wayward Bus, Travels With Charley, The Long Valley, Sweet Thursday.

 

Jerzy Kosinski: The Painted Bird.

 

Charles Bukowski: Love is a Dog From Hell, Post Office, Factotum, Women, Ham on Rye, Hot Water Music, Pulp, The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, Run With the Hunted, Tales of Ordinary Madness, Notes of a Dirty Old Man.

 

Robert Ruark: The Old Man and the Boy, Something of Value, Mau Mau.

 

Edward Bunker: Education of a Felon, Dog Eat Dog, Little Boy Blue.

 

John Fante: Ask the Dust, 1933 Was A Bad Year, The Big Hunger.

 

Rick Bragg: Ava’s Man, All Over but the Shoutin’, The Most They Ever Had, The Prince of Frogtown.

 

James Carlos Blake: The Friends of Pancho Villa, The Pistoleer, Red Grass River, Wildwood Boys, In the Rogue Blood, A World of Thieves, Under The Skin, Handsome Harry, Borderlands, The Killings of Stanley Ketchel.

 

Cormac McCarthy: Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Suttree, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country For Old Men, Blood Meridian.

 

James Lee Burke: Heaven’s Prisoners, Half of Paradise, To The Bright and Shining Sun, Lay Down My Sword and Shield, Two for Texas, The Convict, Burning Angel, The Neon Rain, Black Cherry Blues, A Morning For Flamingoes, A Stained White Radiance, Dixie City Jam, Cadillac Jukebox.

 

Elmore Leonard: Up in Honey’s Room, Road Dogs, The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, When the Women Come Out to Dance, Tishomingo Blues, Pagan Babies, Be Cool, The Tonto Woman, Cuba Libre, Out of Sight, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Rum Punch, Maximum Bob, Get Shorty, Killshot, Freaky Deaky, Touch, Bandits, Glitz, La Brava, Stick, Cat Chaser, Split Images, City Primeval, Gold Coast, Gunsights, The Switch, The Hunted, Unknown Man No. 89, Swag, Fifty-two Pickup, Mr. Majestyk, Forty Lashes Less One, Valdez Is Coming, The Moonshine War, The Big Bounce, Hombre, Last Stand at Sabre River, Escape From Five Shadows, The Law at Randado, The Bounty Hunters.

 

Mark Twain:  Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huck Finn.

 

Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

Michael Herr: Dispatches.

 

Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke, Nobody Move, Jesus’ Son.

 

Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead, Sacred Clowns, Coyote Waits, Talking God, A Thief of Time, Skinwalkers, The Ghostway, The Dark Wind, People of Darkness, Listening Woman, The Great Taos Bank Robbery.

 

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky, The Delicate Prey, The Stories of Paul Bowles.

 

Albert Camus: The Stranger, The Plague.

 

Raymond Carver: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Where I’m Calling From, Collected Stories.

 

*There are lots more. But that’s enough for now. I should add that Hemingway’s books had more influence on me than did all the rest of them. The same would hold true no matter how many additional books were put on the list. No amount of books, however many there are or how much they influenced me, could possibly have more influence on me than Hemingway’s books. For many years, including the years when I was young, I lived within their pages. As a result the stories not only happened to the characters, they happened to me.

 

Fiona: If you had to choose, what writer would you consider a mentor?

 

Hemingway, hands down. Everything I read gets filtered through the Hemingway lens. It’s like when Bukowski, the writer my brother says I remind him of, discovered John Fante. He  was wandering the halls of the Los Angeles Library, drunk and hung over as usual, when, out of blind luck, he pulled a book down from the bookshelves. He glanced at the author’s name. It was John Fante. He had never heard of him before. He opened the book. He began to read. The whole world opened up to him. John Fante, he says, made him into a writer. He called him “his little bulldog.”

 

 

 

 

 

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

 

Tobias Wolff’s, “Pharaoh’s Army”, and Willa Cather’s “Song of the Lark.” Willa Cather is a very good writer, surprising and bold in ways I never expected her to be. Following that I intend to read John O’Hara’s story, “Appointment in Samarra,” and “The Brotherhood of the Grape,” by John Fante.

 

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

 

Yes. Denis Johnson is one. Kem Nunn is another. However, I usually gravitate towards those from an earlier era, like Hemingway. They were more disciplined. You have to have the discipline they had if you want to write well. Without that discipline, and the sense of aesthetics which is its natural offspring, you will not write literature. You might write some stories. But you will not write literature.

 

Fiona: What are your current projects?

 

My current projects are to re-start my landscaping business, work on my little two acre farm, promote my book, lose weight, swim long distance three times a week, and to work on short stories for additional books, holding them in reserve until the little sampler “Sally” has been read by the number of readers I need to cultivate a readership.

Daily revision is another project. It is current and never ending. Revision is something I do on everything I write, going through each piece of work a total of seven times. It’s fine for short stories. But the length of the novel is just a few pages shy of eight hundred. I have revised it once. I discovered numerous, obvious errors. It shook me to discover that many mistakes in my work. But, I think, by the time I go through it six more times, I should have the finished product.

Everything’s ready to go. But I’m no good on the computer. That is what I hired my publicist for. He knows what he’s doing. I wish I could help him. It is very frustrating, this sitting here with my hands tied.

 

 

 

Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

 

Sure. In 1984 I had a break. It had a profound impact on me. I had no idea of how to help myself. I made an appointment at a mental health facility. They assigned me to an intern. His name was Eugene Tabor. He was an unusual, exceptional man. Besides his keen perception in the area of diagnostics, he had an astounding capacity for hard work.  He was the director of a far reaching missionary organization, situated primarily in the Philippines, ran a house restoration business with his son, and was working on his MFCC in his spare time. He turned out to be the perfect combination; a dedicated Christian, and a highly skilled psychotherapist.

Within two weeks he had correctly diagnosed my problem. He explained its workings to me. I understood what he said. It all fit. Now I could begin. I began to climb out of the pit. Sometimes I slipped. But I always came back. The overall pattern was upwards.

It took six years to finish the work. This man, Eugene Tabor, was with me the whole way. He saw me once a week. Sessions usually lasted four hours. He never charged me a dime. At the end of six years I experienced a quantum leap forward. Everything came together. A year later I enrolled in graduate school, working on two teaching credentials. That was thirty four years ago. Gene Tabor saved my life.

 

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

 

Yes. Why not? I am a writer.

 

Fiuona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

 

Of course. Any writer would. Find someone who says differently. I’ll show you a liar.

 

Fiona: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

 

Yes. As a voracious reader the art of writing has always attracted me. But nothing came of it until my principal handed me that class schedule newspaper from UCLA. That’s where it gelled. My chance had arrived. I enrolled, applied myself, and discovered, through continued success, that I actually could write. I haven’t looked back.

 

Can you share a little of your work with us?

 

Yes, I can. Here is an excerpt from a short story, “Adam’s Apples,” as yet unpublished.

 

My wife and I moved from our place at the beach to another place at the beach.  Something horrible had happened at the old place. I could no longer stand to be there. I was in great pain, out of it, going berserk. I tore an automobile apart with my bare hands one night and ripped a locked and bolted garage door off its hinges the next day. I started carrying a gun to work, a small caliber pistol I kept tucked in the waistband of my shorts. I was expecting company, the kind of company that spells trouble.

I made certain arrangements in the event of my demise. Then I made a phone call. I extended conditions. The conditions were accepted. I would let somebody live, unless, of course, the party in question happened to cross my path. If he did that I would kill him. There would be no way to stop myself. All he had to do was stay away. It was the best I could do.

I stopped carrying the gun around. I didn’t need it anymore. But it was too ugly to stay where I had been living. So we moved.

 

*The story, like all of mine except for a few, is true.

 

Fiona: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

 

Yes. The goal I hold in front of me at all times is challenging. I am always attempting to combine a brevity of words with a maximum of aesthetics. Hemingway’s book, “Hemingway on Writing,” gives me all the guidance I need to articulate this goal. Everything is there; technique, philosophy, aesthetics, vision; experience, and wisdom; all present in spite of his tragic addiction to alcohol and his underlying propensity for madness. His little book was the only text I ever used. Other texts were recommended. But I refused to use them. They cluttered my understanding. I didn’t want clutter. I wanted clarity. I compare Hemingway’s book to the Bible’s story, “The Pearl of Great Price.” Sell all that you have, obtain the Pearl, and cling to the one true thing (paraphrased).

 

 

Fiona: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

 

I can’t say this often enough. My favorite author is Ernest Hemingway. For me, he is the greatest writer who ever lived. Naturally other people see things differently. They are not wrong to believe as they do. Writers have to find what works for them and stick to it.

It is hard to identify those things about Hemingway’s work that affect me most. I suppose the sum totality of his work would be the best answer. But that’s not really an answer, is it? So, here goes.

Hemingway seems to always be able to find exactly the right word to say whatever he wants to say whenever he wants to say it. He credited Ezra Pound with teaching him that there is only one, true, absolutely best word to use in any given situation. There are many that are good ones. But there is only one that is the best.

Hemingway’s attention to detail taught me a lot. He compares the writer to a camera. He gets it all in. But he uses the fewest possible words to impart this exactitude of detail. He believes in revision as the tool through which the story is refined down to its true essence. This essence includes the detail that sharpens the vision of the reader.

I use his tool of stopping whatever I am writing when it I am still going good, provided I have an acceptable word count. I stop writing and sleep on it, letting the well of my imagination fill overnight from the springs which feed it, another technique taken word for word from Hemingway. It works very well for me. The words he uses to describe it are the words I would use if I were smart enough to think of them.

I also very much believe in his practice of counting words. I try for a daily average of seven hundred words when I am writing something new.  This keeps me from kidding myself into believing I am working hard when, in fact, I am doing no such thing.

As I said earlier, I revise everything I write seven times. I didn’t get the idea of revising my work seven times from Hemingway. I got that number from myself. It takes me seven times to get it right.

Hemingway called this, “tightening the story.” When asked why he wrote the last page of “A Farewell to Arms” thirty nine times, he said it was because he was trying to get the words right. It sounds vague. But it isn’t. I understand completely. When he arranges the words correctly it will sound right and it will feel that way, too. There are so many intangibles in writing. Judging them requires an inner sense of divination. Hemingway had this sense. I like to believe that I have it, too.

I believe in his theory of knowledge being those things you know something about through direct experience. I began writing down memories that came to me from which I could write stories. I have written more than thirty stories taken from these ideas, and there are still a couple of hundred story ideas written down in my notebooks, all ready and waiting to be written.

Hemingway had a sense of rhythm and cadence and timing that was very much like music. When he wrote his words on the page it was as though he transposed them onto a score. Like the notes on any piece of music, they must harmonize if they go beyond the one, lone, single note. The words, like the notes, have to complement each other.

I very much appreciate his disdain for symbolism, a thing overworked by many authors which he believed is either hackneyed or imaginary. I also share his disdain for critics, whom he referred to as “failed writers.” He trashed them thoroughly in his short story, “Birth of a New School.” Everyone should read this story. It is very funny, ha, ha.

He stated in the strongest words possible the necessity for the writer to create real people rather than characters, rounded, not flat like photographs. He referred to characters as caricatures acting out a role, not as people in a story. There is no place for caricatures in literature. You have to make the characters real people doing real things that you, too, as a reader, might also do if you were in the story.

He had a theory, the “Iceberg Theory,” which explained that ninety percent of the iceberg is underwater and therefore unavailable for direct examination. He believed the same held true for stories. This underwater part is in the story. But it is not visible. The writer has to get this in without referring to it directly. He can intimate. Or he can omit. But he must get it in or an important piece of the writing will be lost.

His emphasis on the truth of a story is elemental, making a story so true that after the writer has read it he will have incorporated the experience into his memory so profoundly that it becomes a part of his own experience. In his words, “after you are finished reading one you will feel that all (of) that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.”

I believe in his idea that “good writing contains a mystery that does not dissect out. No matter how many times you read it, the story becomes something new.” It is something that you, as a reader, will not know, in any complete sense of the word, how it is done. In his words again, “It continues and it is always valid. Each time you re-read you see or learn something new.” Taking the musical analogy again, our understanding is usually confined to one instrument at a time. Only rarely will we be able to have an understanding that encompasses the breadth and depth of the complete orchestra. It does happen. But it only happens after long and exhaustive examination, or sometimes, if we are lucky enough, we may experience this understanding in a burst of total, experiential comprehension. This is so rare as to be almost non-existent.

I am sixty seven years old. So it was with particular poignancy that I read the words, “The hardest thing, because time is so short, is for him (the writer) to survive and get his work done.” He goes on to say that, “There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring…They are the very simplest things… (and) it takes a man’s life to know them…” But, he also said, “You figure what age the novelist had that wrote the really great novels.”

He also said the best early training for a writer was “an unhappy childhood.” I know this from experience.

The main reason I write has very little to do with money, although I would like to make some, for the novelty of it if for nothing else. The main reason I write is the deep, absolutely undeniable drive I have to be an artist.  Beyond that my reason for writing is to put something good into the world, something that adds to the total sum of virtue. Not only do I want to add to the sum total of good present and active in the world, I also want to do it as a writer of actual literature, an artist. Hemingway is my model for this.

I like his ideas on war; “We know war is bad. Yet sometimes it is necessary to fight. But still war is bad and any man who says it is not is a liar.”

On writer’s block; “…sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence…So finally I would write one true sentence and then go on from there…If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

I don’t squeeze little orange peels into any fire. But I do know what he is talking about. Write the first sentence and then, after that is done, simply follow it by taking the next logical step.

One thing Hemingway repeatedly inveighed against is thinking about what you are going to write before you actually sit down to write it. I agree with him, although lately I sometimes find myself thinking about what I am going to write ahead of time. When I catch myself doing that, I stop. I find that if I decide what I am going to write ahead of time, I miss the experience of actually going to where the story itself is going to take me. I don’t want to miss out on that. So I do not truncate the experience by deciding the story’s content ahead of time. The story will tell me that. All I need to do is write the first sentence, follow it, and the story unfolds. Another thing, I also quit while I still have enough juice to continue the following day.

As Hemingway wrote in “A Moveable Feast,” “It was in that room too that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything, I hoped; learning, I hoped; and I would read so that I would not think about my work and make myself impotent to do it. Going down the stairs when I had worked well… was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris.”

And here is something that helped me to complete the rough draft of my almost eight hundred page novel; “There is only one thing to do with a novel and that is to go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” So that is what I’m doing.

Also there is, “That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not.” Hemingway calls it “The Artist’s Reward…” Since my book refuses to sell, I also have this  “Artist’s Reward.” But if Hemingway had it, I’m on safe ground. After all, I know my book is a good one. I just have to find several thousand people to agree with me. Not knowing how to manipulate the social media is a serious handicap. I can’t help my publicist. I have to hire a tutor. I think I have found one. Perhaps between the three of us we can make something happen.

Here’s something else. This illustrates the writer’s susceptibility to environmental influences. “I was writing about up in Michigan and since it was a wild, cold, blowing day it was that sort of day in the story.” This is wonderful.

I remember the first sentence in “A Moveable Feast,” “And then there was the bad weather.” He went on to describe the rain and the wet, wind driven leaves blowing across the street in a mad scatter, the leaves piling up against the autobus and just like that I saw it all in my mind and it was happening there in the town I was living in at a location I had passed hundreds of times, many times when I was walking home from elementary school. I saw that corner in my mind as I read the book and I saw the rain and the wind and the leaves blowing up against the curb and I was pulled immediately into the story in a way that has never happened before or since. Elmore Leonard advised writers to never begin any story with a reference to the weather. But Elmore Leonard was wrong.

Here is a quote which helped me keep my perspective when responding to other students while in the UCLA graduate program.

“Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then. Otherwise they become like writers in New York. All angleworms in a bottle, trying to derive knowledge and nourishment from their own contact and from the bottle. Sometimes the bottle is shaped art, sometimes economics, sometimes economic-religion. But once they are in the bottle they stay there. They are lonesome outside of the bottle. They do not want to be lonesome. They are afraid to be alone in their beliefs…Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates…”

Here is something else; “Invention is the finest thing but you cannot invent anything that would not actually happen. That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best-make it all up-but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”

On knowing what to leave out; “It was a very simple story. It was called “Out of Season” and I omitted the real end of it which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you know that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood… If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them…It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, or physics…there are many mysteries; but incompetence is not one of them.”

The terseness of his writing was learned, in part, by his experience as an International Correspondent, where, in the messages he sent to the Toronto Star, the paper was charged heavily for each communique he sent. He said you had to make each transmission very interesting or you would soon be looking for another job.

I’m going to finish this question with this quote. “I think you should learn about writing from everybody who has ever written that has anything to teach you.”

I agree. But it is Hemingway who has taught me the most and continues to teach me. A great deal of it has been  through the internalization of intangibles gained through reading and re-reading and re-reading again, each time seeing and feeling something new until finally enough comes together and the intangible becomes tangible, something concrete and definite; something you can apply, something you can put into words on paper, the flesh going onto the bones. It is hard to describe. But it is there.

 

Fiona: Do you have to travel much concerning your books?

 

No. All of my traveling has been done. Everything is in my head. I don’t have to go any farther than that. Besides, I hate to be away from home, unless it’s to go surfing. Then I can be gone for a while. The ocean is my home, too. But, in the end, it is always a pleasure to return to the place where I have made my dwelling.

 

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

 

Genius Book Services designed the covers.

 

Fiona: What was the hardest part of writing your book?

 

All of it was hard. There was the problem of finding the time to write in. There was the daily word count. Picking a topic was hard. I had to wait for the story ideas to come and then I had to write them down immediately or I would lose them. Sometimes this happened while I was driving on the freeway. Often, by the time I got pulled over the story was gone. So I tried to write them down while I was driving. This is dangerous. It also produces an illegible scrawl. And then there was the discipline to do these things in the order necessity demanded. But the hardest part of the writing was putting together a body of aesthetics that guided the process of putting sentences down onto paper. Hemingway, who called this “keeping the old pecker pointed north,” directed my footsteps in everything. I was lucky to understand his philosophy and technique. I didn’t have to look any further than his books. There was a lifetime of material right there. Once I understood it I had to internalize it until, after a sufficiency of time had elapsed, it became something instinctual and automatic and I could apply it.

The practice of revision was difficult. It is necessary. It is very time consuming. It is also quite pleasurable, this buffing the story down until it shines. Hemingway referred to this as “trying to get his work done” while he still had the time to do it in. At sixty seven years of age, I am experiencing this same truth. Perhaps, if I live another fifty years… Hey. Don’t laugh. I think I can do it.

Getting the book “Sally” done was simply a matter of taking the work I had done at UCLA, adding some other work I finished after graduating, and going through it, over and over again, making the changes I thought needed to be made. After a while the words began to run together and I couldn’t make sense of it any more. I submitted the stories, vignettes, and free verse poetry to my publisher and let it ride. After it was published I found some things I would have changed, one glaringly obvious thing in particular, I don’t know how I missed it. But by then it was too late.

I remember reading about Hemingway having the same thing happen to him. You put your best foot forward and find out later that it wasn’t your best foot after all. What can I say? It was your best foot at the time.

 

Fiona: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

 

Well, first of all, I learned how to write a good book. I think this is important, this recognition on my own part that the book is good and the work I did was good. Secondly, I learned how to write in the more general sense of the word. The more I write the better my writing becomes. I think this is true of all serious writers. Discipline, practice, persistence, a stubborn will to endure; these are the virtues that refine talent into something worthwhile. Hard work, of course, outweighs everything, even, perhaps, talent itself, since a talented writer who is lazy will produce nothing worth reading, while a hard working writer who is less talented will maximize whatever talent he does have and will, to everyone’s surprise, produce a novel. It probably will not be a masterpiece. But it may be something very good. And, the less talented writer can build upon this first novel, producing something even better the next time. The lazy writer who is talented but undisciplined will sit around with others like himself, trade compliments, make excuses, commiserate with one another, bemoan the world’s woes, and do nothing beyond showing up for coffee the next day.

 

Fiona: Do you have any advice for other writers?

 

Yes. Find out what works for you. Do this by reading the authors that appeal to you most. Once you have clarified the matter, do not ask for the opinion of other writers. Trust your instincts. Many times other writers are jealous and competitive. If given the chance, they will sabotage your chances for success rather than work hard to maximize their own. Other times, writers will give you sincere advice that is well-meaning but is poisonously bad. One is as lethal as the other.

Beyond identifying the writers that appeal most to you, try to isolate and articulate in  comprehensible terms the aesthetics that carry their work. If you like the writers, the aesthetics will work for you.

Discipline yourself, write every day, establish a minimum word count, and engage religiously in revision. This will refine your work into something of value. And, going back over your work time and time again is highly instructive, always finding something that you missed before. When you stop finding these mistakes, you can probably say that the work of revision is done; probably, but not definitely. Look one more time.

And remember Hemingway’s definition of the artist. The artist is a lone wolf. As artists we work alone.

 

Fiona: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

 

Yes. Read my book. Get your friends to do the same. Tell others about it. The stories are good. They are made from experiences that almost killed me. I wouldn’t advise anyone to do the things I did. But it won’t do any harm to anyone to read about them. They’re interesting and they’re real. They will take you to places you will not otherwise encounter.

 

 

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

 

No, I do not remember the first book I ever read. That was over sixty years ago. I was in the first grade. How the hell would I remember that? But I do remember the circumstances. The teacher in my little high desert elementary school decided to stage a competition. Whoever read the most books in a given amount of time won the contest. I gathered an armload of simple little stories and read over sixty of them, aloud, to my mother. She was my witness. When I finished a story she wrote her signature on the back of the last page, signifying that I had read the book. When I tried to claim the victory the teacher disallowed me. The books, she said, were too short and too simple. My mother was outraged.

“They are books, are they not?” she said to the teacher.

“Yes,” the teacher admitted. “They are books.”

“Well then,” my mother said. “He has read them. You have my signature attesting to the fact. He wins.”

“He does not win,” the teacher said. “The books are too simple. They don’t count.”

My mother turned purple. But nothing she said could change the teacher’s mind.

I still feel cheated.

 

Fiona: What makes you laugh? What makes you cry?

 

Ernest Hemingway once said that a man really had to suffer a lot to write a really funny book. Charles Bukowski is the clearest example I know of this, especially in his book, “Women.”  Apart from Bukowski, humor, when done cleverly and without profanity, is most amusing to me. I don’t much care for crude humor. Anybody can say “f__k”.

Sad things make me cry. But so do things that are ineffably beautiful, like music, or love, or tenderness, small children caught up in moments of great poignancy, moments when the memory of those moments flood unexpectedly into my mind, or picturing my parents, both dead now, as little children or as a young married couple, also caught up in moments of great poignancy.

Sometimes tears come over me. Laughter does too. But I am more prone to tears. This does not indicate depression. Au contraire, it is a reaction to beauty.

The love of God also moves me to tears. For example the Bible verse, “Yea though He slay me will I trust Him,” sometimes moves me to tears, especially if I don’t see it coming. I cried like a baby when I saw Robert De Niro play the slave trader in the film, “The Mission.” I started to cry when I was writing about it in this interview.

Here is a thumbnail sketch. Robert De Niro plays the character Rodrigo. Rodrigo killed his brother over a woman who, in my estimation, was worthless, coming between two brothers the way she did, getting one of them killed. If you read the book you will find that Fate was not kind to her.

Rodrigo’s remorse is killing him. He is waiting to die in a sanctuary operated by the church, sitting on a pile of dirty hay in a cell with the door left open.

A priest comes to see him. He dares him to try penance. Rodrigo scorns the priest. No penance is too hard for him. The priest dares him again. Do you dare to try it, he says. Do you dare to see it fail, says Rodrigo. Nevertheless he tries it. His penance is to drag all the tools of his trade in a net behind him attached to a stout rope he carried over his shoulder; helmets, swords, spears, breastplates, rifles, and all other manner of metal equipage in the net. The load is terrifically heavy. He is part of a group of priests who have to climb a steep and treacherous cliff to the waterfalls above them. This was where the Indians he had taken prisoner were living. Dragging that weight behind him, slipping and sliding in the mud, the net dragging and catching on roots and tree limbs; the rigor of the ordeal almost kills him.

That’s all you get. I won’t go into any further detail. If you haven’t seen the movie I don’t want to spoil it for you. But what happened at the top of the falls was one of the most visceral things I have ever seen. There were other people in the room with me when I saw this for the first time. I didn’t care. I sat in my seat and cried like hell.

 

Fiona: Is there one person past or present you would meet and why?

 

I would give a great deal to see Ernest Hemingway. The reasons are too many to enumerate. But I will give some examples. I would love to see the man who constructed the body of aesthetics from whom I took my lead. I would love to talk to him, to experience the totality of his person. I would love to go through his manual, “Hemingway On Writing” with him, to compare the insights I took from reading his quotes to the things he would say about them. I would love to talk to him about his books and his short stories, to analyze the criterion that he used to evaluate them with. I would love to just simply be in his presence, to soak him up, as a towel does water, to get his essence inside of me, something to allow me to see the world through his eyes. I would also love to box with him, provided, since I am a Muay Thai kick boxer, I could use my feet.

I would also tell him to get honest about his drinking, admit to his alcoholism, and to start attending A.A. meetings. I would pester him about this. I would tell him not to leave Cuba, ever, that only madness awaited him on the Mainland. I would tell him to stay with Hadley forever and to stop all of his shameless philandering that, along with his alcoholism, brought about his downfall. And, although he was a nominal Catholic, I would try to convert him to Christianity. He knew that life existed after death. In “A Farewell to Arms,” he wrote about being in a trench when a shell exploded close by and covered him and the men next to him with dirt. He laid there and felt his soul leave him, go out a ways and then come back, return to his body, and go inside of him. He said he just breathed and then he was back. After that he knew it was a mistake to think that you just died. You didn’t just die. There was more.

Someone once asked Johnny Cash if he was a Christian musician. He said no. He was a musician who was a Christian. Ernest Hemingway could have said the same thing; he was a writer who was a Christian. If he’d done that he wouldn’t have ended up with that shotgun under his chin.

 

Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone and why?

 

I haven’t given it much thought. Some fool keeps sending me letters urging me to have my body cremated after I die. But I’ll tell you, no flames will be touching this body after I’m dead.

As for my tombstone, I would prefer that it contain something about love of family, fidelity, and my relationship with Christ.

 

Fiona: Other than writing do you have any hobbies?

I run a small landscaping business. I swim long distance. I also surf. Writing is not a hobby. It is a profession.

 

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

 

The only thing I watch on T.V. is Fox news or CNN, except for sports, such as baseball and basketball, which I pay a marginal amount of attention to, and football. When it comes to football I watch everything.

The films I enjoy watching are war films, espionage films, crime dramas, and anything else that is bloody, violent, well-acted, and believable.

 

Fiona: What are your favorite foods, colors, and music?

 

My favorite foods are steaks, ocean fish, trout, sweet corn on the cob, baked potatoes, asparagus, and artichokes. I also love chocolate ice cream. My favorite colors are red for fire, green for vegetation, yellow for the sun, and dark blue for the ocean and the sky. As for music, I love slow classical music, jazz, especially Cal Tjader, vintage rock and roll, and popular music from the fifties, especially Brenda Lee, whose voice made the sap run in my tree. I also love old hymns.

 

 

Fiona: If you were not a writer, what else would you like to have done?

 

I was a trained singer for many years. But I lost my voice to alcoholism. One night after a performance I vomited so hard that I ruptured my vocal chords. In the morning when I woke up my voice was gone. I have missed it every day for the last forty six years. I would have loved for that not to have happened. I wanted to be a professional singer, living at the beach, surfing all day, and singing in clubs at night as a serious musician who was part of a group of serious performers.

I could have written stories. I would have had all day to write them. But I don’t think I would have written any. I would have been in the water, surfing. But I would have read a lot. I have always read a lot.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? If so what is it?

 

The website is www.johncookauthor.com.

 

Buying link http://www.amazon.com/Sally-John-Cook/dp/1500641723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431623535&sr=8-1&keywords=john+cook+sally+and+other+stories

Here is my interview with P.Mattern

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by fionamcvie1964 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

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Name  P.Mattern

Age 54

Where are you from Alexanria, Virginia USA

A little about your self `ie your education Family life etc  

I have degrees in Mental Health Counseling and Sociology. Originally from the East Coast I now reside in the Midwest(the part of America with no amazing geographical features above ground lol). I miss the ocean, My 3 children are grown–I cowrite books with two of them , M. Mattern and J.C.Estall, and my disabled adult son was the inspiration for Charley Rabbit in the Full Moon Series and also Luke Walker in Strident House.

 

 

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?

I was recently offered a contract from publisher Booktrope .Shock of Night our #1 Amazon Bestseller will be rereleased through Booktrope’s Forsaken Imprint as well as Strident House. Strident House is being considered for a television mini-series.I received a membership in National Thriller Writers, Inc. and several of our other books have been featured in the Amazon Top 100 this year! I was also voted the number One Horror Author, The #1 YA Author , and our Full Moon Series voted the #1 Vampire Series in the Three Bookateers 2014 Book Awards.

 

 
Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

Like many other writers, I started by writing stories for peers when I was a kid. I was in third grade writing fantasy romance about being married to the Beatles.

 

 
Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer? 

I guess I felt ‘official” the first time I put a book on Amazon, a little more official when we got a couple of them out in paperback and into local bookstores and when we got a publishing contract with Booktrope, mentioned in Forbes Magazine as one of the up and coming Hybrid Publishers we felt even MORE official! Getting our first #1 Amazon Bestseller helped too!

 

 

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?

Frankly I was laid off and finally had time to write all the books and characters down that had been rattling around in my head.I am so grateful to have found so many readers in about an 18 month period of time!

 

 
Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style?

I think I have a ‘full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes style of writing that keeps the story moving forward with no draggy parts. Our readers expect no less and they LOVE the twists and turns.

 

 
Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

All the titles just appear. Sometimes the title shows up before the characters, sometimes the characters show up first. They are always insistent that their story be told with clarity and passion!

 

 
Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

We write a lot about univerally conscious and subconscious themes: passion, sex, love, devotion, uncertainty and fear are common themes in every one of the books, regardless of genre. We write vampire urban fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, gypsy and standard paranormal with historical backgrounds.

 

 
Fiona: How much of the book is realistic?

Strident House was partly based on my own experiences in a real historical and haunted building for 7 years in my work as a Mental Health Professional. I also did field research investigating haunted houses from the early 1800s with the Indiana Network of Paranormal Studies(INOPS), the premier paranormal outfit in Indiana.Almost every book has some personal element. I am a widow and love to write about widows. My oldest son is handicapped and we have disabled persons in a few of the books.I have a Mental Health background and write about mental illness and institutions in a few of them also.

 

 

Fiona: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Strident House was definitely based on a haunted place where I worked! My best friend is a psychic and she, and other interesting folks I’ve met have inspired characters in various books.I have an adult handicapped son who inspired two characters.

 

 
Fiona: What books have most influenced your life most?

 Anne Rice is a big influence because her characters are vivid and very quotable. When I was a kid ‘The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster blew my mind! Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as well.

 

 

Fiona: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

 I think Anne Rice because she took the darkness of a very personal tragedy and used it to create a series.

 

 

Fiona: What book are you reading now?

“The Poetic Edda” by Jackson Crawford. It’s stories of Norse Gods and Goddesses.

 

 

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

 I love indie author Dona Fox,”Tales from the Den”–it is exquisitely written and I hope she continues writing. Also Dale Reierson is a very clever wordsmith and can weave a fantastic tale.

 

 

Fiona: What are your current projects?

Currently I am working on Book Five of the Full Moon Series,’Roue of the Dragon’. I just finished,”Forest of Bleeding Trees” yesterday! I am also working on a new horror short story,”Sandbox” and Book Two of Andy of the Damned with M. Mattern.

 

 

Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

Booktrope, our publisher for Shock of Night and Strident House is a major support, especially with getting Strident House from page to film.Our readers are our North Stars–they sustain and encourage me.

 

 

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

Hah–actually I never did–I always had a profession– but now it IS my career. I feel very blessed to be able to write full time.

 

 

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

It’s funny you should ask because I still mourn a character that didn’t make it in ‘Forest of Bleeding Trees’! I also wrote the tragic end of a major character in Full Moon Series and I still get messages from readers telling me they ugly cried over the scene and asking how could I do that?

 

 

Fiona: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

 I think most writers start very young. We get fascinated with the idea that a story can be shared and revisited if it is put down in writing.

 

 

Fiona: Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Sure! This is from Forest of Bleeding Trees by P.Mattern& M. Mattern:

Johnny yanked on the chains that were crisscrossing the door. They wouldn’t give, but examining them closely he noticed they were so old that they were rusted halfway through in places. He thought that  a few hard hits with something metallic might cause them to crumble apart.

He was fairly sure he’d seen a hammer on the back of the wagon.

“Be RIGHT BACK,” he yelled at whoever was on the other side of the door. He didn’t wait for a response, just bolted back down the hallway, across the foyer and out to the wagon.

He saw it immediately. It was a big hammer, and he also grabbed a small saw that was lying back there. By the time he got back to the door he was breathless.

“I’m going to try to get you out,” he told the person inside, ”Get back from the door I’m fixin’ to do some pounding!”

The response from the other side of the thick door was unintelligible, but  Johnny found a link that looked weak from rust and wear and, holding it over one of the iron bands on the door, began to hit it repeatedly with the stout hammer.

His instincts had been right—it broke on the third strike.

Hurriedly he pulled the broken chain through the eye bolts holding it in place and reassessed the situation. Now there were padlocks., three of them. They weren’t as rusted as the chain had been, but he thought he might have some luck cutting them apart with the hacksaw.

He was about to reach for it when he felt himself jerked violently to his feet and thrown backwards against the opposite wall. Before he could catch his breath she was on him again ,digging her nails into his skin as she pulled him up against her by yanking a fistful of  the front of his teeshirt and pulling him back toward her.

“What the FUCK are you doing Treadwell?” she hissed at him,”Didn’t I specifically tell you NOT to go inside the house? Didn’t I? ANSWER ME!”

Johnny found that he couldn’t look away from her eyes, which were liquid and golden and seemed to be shooting sparks.

“There’s someone IN there Lili,” he managed to get out. His shoulder was already starting to hurt from where it had hit the wall, ”We have to help them! They might be dying!”

Lili let  go of the front of his shirt while still keeping her glaring eyes on him.

“I heard cries for help, Lili! “ he continued, starting to get angry,”I thought a trespasser might have gotten into the house and fallen through the floors. But the floors look to be in great shape—imagine my surprise! And now I guess you’re going to explain to me  why you and your family lock  folks up—are you cannibals or something? What is your DEAL?” he finished, panting slightly because he was out of breath.

“That THING,” Lili replied  with emphasis and scorn,”That THING in there is NOT human. And it won’t EVER die—because it  cannot. The best we can do is contain it! AND YOU WERE TRYING TO LET IT OUT! Do you have ANY idea the devastation you would have loosed on this town if you had succeeded?

DO YOU?”

 

 
Fiona: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

 It is a constant challenge to keep the reader–and our readers are voracious and highly intelligent–guessing through the twists and turns of the plotline. Every book should refresh and surprise in some way.

 

 


Fiona: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

 I have so many.I am a sucker for anything written in a clear and unique voice.Stephen King is a master.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)

?This year, 2015, will be a breakout year for travel. We are going to New York and a few other places for promotional purposes. The International Thriller Witers Convention in July will be first!

 

 
Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Ginger Crum of Shaded Gems and Designs  does many of our covers, but some will be replaced by Booktrope as they release them.

 

 
Fiona: What was the hardest part of writing your book?

If I can make myself sit DOWN I will write furiously…but life is full of interruptions! I could spend an entire day just jumping up and down. The internet is a rabbit hole and so is my smart phone! I have to shut things off!

 

 
Fiona: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

I learned that it is VERY crucial to strive for progress rather than perfection. Just do it. Let the characters tell the story through you. You are only the willing scribe!

 

 
Fiona: Do you have any advice for other writers?

Yes–write every single day even if its only a few lines. Once you get in the habit your own personal “muses” will speak to you ever more clearly. I believe everyone has a story that deserves telling, fiction and non fiction. I also believe that the most exquisite stories may never come to light…and that is tragic!

 

 
Fiona: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? 

Yes–I feel that readers are the coursing lifeblood of our books! The bring the characters to life and just as much as they need the connection to our story and the escape and entertainment, I need their readership, input and encouragement ! It is a very symbiotic relationship and I am grateful that so many lovely readers will invest their time…which is a precious bit of their life, really…to read our books!

 

 

Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?

“Somebody Else’s Nut Tree” and I can’t find it anywhere!

 

 

Fiona: Other than writing do you have any hobbies ?

I paint and play bass guitar….badly!

 

 

Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

I love the paranormal and thriller genres. Also anything humorous or quirky.

 

 

Fiona: Favorite foods / Colors/ Music

I love to cook and make big pots of veggies and pasta and barbeque. I love sushi. I love pink and my musical tastes run the gamut from classical to folk to heavy metal. I love Kings of Leon and the Kongos and Vampire Weekend and Solidium  and Agnes Obel and the X Ambassadors.

 

 

Fiona: If you were not a writer what else would you like to have done?

I really want to be a philanthropist. I do that already even though I can’t do it on the scale I would like. We also encourage and sponsor and promote other authors to get their work known.

 

 

Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? If so what is it?

We have a big facebook page with a 50K reach during events, Fulll Moon Series page on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/FullMoonSeries

http://fullmoonseriespm.weebly.com/

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http://www.amazon.com/P.-Mattern/e/B00MYKZCXY/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1

 

 

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