AW's Day of Listening - Interviews Thread

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Yeshanu

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Yeshanu interviews smsarber

First off, an apology to Steve. I knew I couldn't get away with four perfect posts, and I messed up big. Steve's user name is smsarber, not smbarber. Sorry for any problems that caused to Steve and others. Now on with the fun. :)

I met Steve in Uncle Jim's thread, and he struck me as a sensible guy with a lot to say about life. It always impresses me when someone can overcome adversity and turn their life around, and by this measure, Steve is one of the most impressive guys I've ever met.

Tell us about yourself. What would you like us to know about you?

I was born in St. Louis, April 6, 1976. I am the oldest of three boys, Nick, 24, and Josh, 19, are my brothers. My early home life was good, but I got into a rebellious streak at 15, about the same time I started drinking. Being so much older than my brothers was good for them. They saw me trying to throw my life away, and were able to learn from it. And they had a lot to learn from. When I was 19, I broke my neck and back in a car accident. Unable to work I started to sell drugs. I had traffic in and out of my parent's house constantly. I drank openly in front of my family, I played my guitar loud and fought with my dad. When I was 24 they finally threw me out.

In July of 2004, I suffered three blood-clots in my right lung. The clots caused an infarction, or tear, in the lung tissue. The tear became a large abscess. The abscess was drained, but the scar tissue remained.

Early May 2007 I began to have breathing problems. I didn't think it would be a big deal, I've had severe asthma my entire life, but the x-rays showed a significant portion of my right lung was non-functional. The scar tissue was growing, and choking out the good tissue. Surgery to remove the balloon of scar tissue would be the only solution.

Three years after the original embolisms, July 23, 2007, I went in to have a thoracotomy/bullectomy. The surgeon would spread my ribs, cut out only the dead tissue, then staple me back together. Major surgery, so it was estimated I would remain in the hospital for a week. And the surgery went fine. The first two days of recovery went fine.

I don't remember the third day. I threw another blood clot, my body filled with infection, and the doctors put me into a coma. When I opened my eyes again it was the middle of August. At first I couldn't even understand what my wife and my dad were telling me. I saw their lips move, I heard the words coming out their mouths, but I couldn't remember what the words meant. Of course, that first day I spent less than an hour awake.

Over the next four weeks I had three more surgeries, two of which were minor. Two of my four chest tubes came out. I got stronger. My appetite came back. Then it was decided that they would have to put a wound in my back to promote good tissue growth on the inside of my rear chest-wall. This wound would be twelve centimeters deep, at a downward angle, nine-to-ten long, and about nine wide. They took a couple-inch wide chunk out of three ribs, and they just happened to be the ribs adjacent to where my back was broke.

If I hadn't been sober when this happened, I would be dead now.

What are you doing now?

I am disabled. My wife Crystal and I have been married for seven and-a-half years, married May 5, 2001. We have a 7 year-old son named Randy, and a rabbit of indeterminate age and sex, named Yin-Yang-Yo, after the Woo-Foo rabbits in the Disney cartoon.

When did you first realize you had a talent for writing? When did you start to believe it could be a viable career option?

I always knew it was there, I just never had the patience to write when I drank. While I was in prison I started to write, it was horrid stuff, but I knew then that I could do it. And now that I am no longer able to work, it may be my only shot at a real career.

What do you write?

Short stories, novellas, novels

What is your favorite genre to write in? To read in?

Horror Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Horror Comedy

How do you generate story ideas?

Many times it starts as a line or two, an opening. Then the idea builds from there.

Give us an example of a typical writing day.

Frustrating! No, seriously. The only place in our apartment I can fit my desk is in the living room, so I have no peace to write. I really need to get a laptop!

I read Stephen King's On Writing, which isn't really a guide-book, or anything, but does contain some useful stuff. He says the most important thing is to have a door you can shut. In my case, it's not possible, but it sure would help. I used to write at night, after Crystal and Randy were in bed, but since I have to get up in the morning to take Randy to school that is not an option anymore. I do my best to write during the day, but it has been hard to retrain myself to do it that way. But I'm getting there.

What are your strong qualities as a writer?

I speak the truth, as best I can.

Your weaknesses?

Stubbornness when people offer criticism and advice. But I've improved drastically in that area. Before I started this interview I looked over my rep point list, and in the beginning there were a lot of comments that boiled down to “rude!,” but now they are supportive. I'm particularly proud of that. I'm growing, and it feels nice.

I'm still working on “show vs. tell,” I know what it is, and how to do it, but I seem incapable of recognizing it in my work.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?

Egypt. It's warm there; I don't do cold well. And the history and culture would be inspiring.

What inspires you to write and why?

Various things. Lately, stories on “Cold Case Files”. If you want real horror, just look at what humanity has already done.

What is your favorite book and why?

Hard question. Ask me one day and it will be The Stand by Stephen King, ask me another day, and it's Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz. Genetically altered monkeys... creepy!

What is your favorite genre and why?

Horror. As a kid I got scared easily, so one day I decided to read the stories in Stephen King's Four Past Midnight. And every weekend my friends and I had sleep-overs watching movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th. Pretty soon I was hooked.

List your three favorite authors (any genre) and why?

Stephen King (bet'cha guessed that one already),
Dean Koontz,
James Patterson,
they're just good storytellers.

What do you think makes a writer successful?

Semantics. Successful in business might not be successful as a writer. I want to be able to make a living writing, but not write to make a living, if that makes sense.

What are your goals as a writer?

Publication, independence, and respect.

How long did it take you to write your book?

I've been working on it for two years, but I've only been seriously writing about six months longer than that.

What have you learned about the publishing world?

Don't use Publish America!!

If you could meet anyone in history, who would it be and why?

Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was an awesome, ground-breaking blues guitarist who struggled to overcome drug and alcohol addiction. He did overcome, then tragically died in a helicopter crash.

What is your favorite food?

Probably hot-wings. Contrary to popular belief you can eat them without beer.

What is your favorite color?

Blue or Black, depending on my mood.

What is your favorite place?

Home with my family.

What is your favorite memory?

What memory?!

If you could have any talent in the world besides writing, what would it be?

I've played guitar for twenty years, and am a fair artist.

Is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself that might surprise people at AW?

Well, since I talk openly about my time in jail and prison, that probably won't surprise anyone. But it was an integral part of my life. I spent eight months in county jail, got released on probation, stayed sober one month, and spent the next year (June '04- Sept. '05) hiding my drinking as well as I could. All the while hatred was growing inside my wife.

September 29, 2005 I was arrested. After five DWI's it was time to go to prison. And it saved my life and my marriage. I didn't just dry out in the pen, I got help. The day after Christmas '05 Crystal told me she planned to divorce me. I couldn't believe it, but at the same time I understood it was time for a change. She agreed to wait until I was released and she would see how I did.

I've been sober ever since.

The professionals say you stop growing emotionally when you start drinking. If that is true, then I emerged from prison a fifteen year-old boy. And I know the way I have dealt with some things certainly have been immature. But I am growing. My writing is improving, and one of the coolest things I have is a son who loves me, not just because he's my son, but because I'm around, and he knows me. The old Daddy missed his second and fourth birthdays behind bars. Now he makes his own books. But even if he doesn't follow in my footsteps I will support him in whatever he wants to do, just like my family supports me in this dream to be a writer.
 
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aruna

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Aruna interviews Laurie Ashton.

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1 Where were you born/did you grow up?


Born in northern Manitoba, but grew up all over western Canada, mostly in the northern places. We moved a lot. By the time I left Canada, I’d live in well over 30 different houses/homes/abodes.
I’ve lived in small towns of 3000 to large cities of a couple million and everything in between. I’ve lived far enough north that -40C in the winter was no big deal. And we had colder temperatures than that on occasion. When you live places like that, you always carry around a first aid kit, jumper cables, a shovel, kitty litter, and extra blankets, gloves, scarves, and so on in the car. Well, if you drive junkers like I did. :D And I usually drove small enough cars that I could push it out of a snow drift on my own. Which I’ve done. More times than I care to admit. 
One place we lived, Fort McMurray, Alberta, is far enough north that, in the winter, the sun comes out around 10 am and goes down around 2pm. So, it’s dark when ya go to school and dark when you get out. You only see the sun from the classroom window or during recess. And the Northern Lights up there are so incredibly brilliant. I don’t care if you’ve seen the Northern Lights from a thousand or two miles further south – it ain’t the same. Not even close.
And, as a side note, I’ve been to the Arctic Circle. While visiting my sister, who lived in the North West Territories at the time. :D Whole other life up there, I tell ya.

2. I know a little about your going off to Sri Lanka to join Fahim, I think sight unseen, and I'd love to hear more about this! It's the main reason I chose you! How could you be so sure? Were you nervous? Did you leave a back door open, or did you "know" it was for life?


Left Canada because of Fahim, yes, but even before that, still moved around a bit. That’s an even longer story.
The Fahim thing I’ve written in more detail at http://laurieandfahim.laurieashton.com. How could I be so sure? Well, if you believe in God and prayer, it might make sense, but if you don’t, you’ll just think I’m nuts.  My airplane ticket was return – it had to be for me to even be able to enter the country – but by that point, I was about 99.99% sure. Probably more. :D
And honestly, I’ve always wanted to see the world by living elsewhere. Before the Fahim thing happened, I’d already started making plans to move to Belize, where I’ve got a ton of relatives who’d help me get settled. Of course, that didn’t happen – I went to Sri Lanka instead.
Was I nervous? Of course! I also spent most of my layover time in Hong Kong crying. Well, maybe not most, but a lot. I was leaving everyone/everything behind.

3. Can you name, describe one decisive moment in your youth, one that changed the course of your life, either in a physical, mental or a philosophical sense? Or, is there an experience you had as a youth which lives on in your memory, influencing your life now in either a positive or negative sense?

One day when I was fifteen or sixteen, after a nasty argument with my mother (they were all nasty, but that’s beside the point), she said to me, “If you don’t like how I raised you, change yourself!” Ignoring the part where she said it in absolute hostility and nastiness, the lightbulb went off in my head. Yeah, I don’t like how they raised me, I don’t like how I ended up, and yeah, I AM going to change. And that started Laurie v. 2 beta. And, by the way, it’s been a rousing success. I’m not the child my parents created at all. I think I’m probably closer to version 3.5 by now, honestly.

4. Describe the street you live in, the view from your bedroom/living room window, or the route you take to work each day!

From our upstairs sitting room, where Fahim and I sit all day as we work/play on our computers/write/watch television or movies, there is a window to my right and a balcony at my back.
From the window, I can see bits of the neighborhood, but mostly just the tops of trees. The closest tree is the one right in front of our house and has pink flowers which attract hummingbirds, brown birds, black and white birds, black and yellow birds, bright green parrots, and more. It also attracts the four neighborhood monkeys sometimes.
The balcony is where I grow plants – aloe veras, local spinach, mint, lemon grass, and a sort of edible ginger plant. It will expand. The empty lot beside our house has a couple of banana plants, palm trees, and various other bushes and trees along with the usual wild plants that quickly grow and carpet any unoccupied area in an immediate green. That’s also where my cat Oberon is buried.
I can see the entire neighborhood, really. I get a great view of the four neighborhood monkeys as they wander the power line highway as they search for food (flowers, bamboo, and so on). I can see the cows wander, or occasionally stampede, up and down the road. I can see all the pesky neighborhood cats and dogs, starving, emaciated, mangy, unhealthy. I can see the snake charmer as he tries to earn a living, and I can see the people wandering up and down the road, banging on everyone’s gates, as they try to sell products that no one wants or beg for donations for who knows what. And there are also the fish and vegetable peddlars, with fish or produce in the back of their bicycles.
Down the road about fifty paces are a couple of typical neighborhood shops. A person can buy short eats (buns, rolls, deep fried pastries, basically quick little transportable appetizer type dealies), produce, eggs, lentils, and so on. When we get eggs there (Rs.10 per egg as opposed to the grocery store’s Rs.160 per ten), Fahim brings them home in a plastic bag. Loose. No egg carton for you! Yes, they’re sold individually, so buy one, three, or thirteen.
There’s also a hardware shop with basic hardware supplies. Very basic.

6. Describe the room you are sitting in right now!

We’re at Fahim’s parent’s other house right now. Yesterday was Eid ul Adha, or Festival of Sacrifice, the second most important holiday to Muslims. Yesterday, everyone – the aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on – went to Fahim’s omama’s house (grandmother on his mother’s side) for the main event. Thirty or forty people sitting on mats on the floor around a communal rice platter which they all ate out of. I didn’t – problem joints, wouldn’t be able to stand or walk after if I tried that – so I got a plate to eat on a chair. But I still eat with my hand – it’s local custom, so why not? And cows were sacrificed for Eid. Fahim and I, his parents, and his brother’s family, get together to buy a cow which is then killed in ritual Islamic fashion. A portion of that cow MUST go to the poor. A portion can be had by the people doing the sacrifice, and a portion may go to relatives.
None of which is actually answering your question, but does explain why we’re here. :D
Fahim’s father is watching the news. Or was – he’s just switched over to a movie, sounds like a Tamil move (with Sinhala subtitles). Fahim’s sitting beside me, writing a script for a client. Fahim’s mother is grabbing a newspaper, but to do what with, I don’t know.
This room has a very high sloping ceiling – perhaps 25 feet at the height. The floor is covered in rosy pink tiles and white tiles in a box pattern. The door is open – it always is during the day to let a breeze run through. The walls are painted rosy pink and the space is very open. Two steps down on my right to get to the dining room with another set of full-length windows which were just shut. In the front yard, there’s a fairly big – to me – mango tree, but it’s not fully grown yet by any means. When the fruit’s on it, the fruit bangs on vehicles coming in the driveway.
Across the road from the house is an open field with palm trees, papaya trees, and so on. It’s very peaceful and relaxing here. 

7. Referring to questions 5 and 6: do you see yourself in this same place in two/five/ten years time?


Hard to say. It really depends a lot on the politicians and how badly they wreck this country.
At present, inflation’s been sitting at around 20-28% per month. But food prices have just recently dropped for some items. Eggs were at Rs.160 per ten, but now can be had for as low as Rs.100 per ten. They were Rs.40 per ten five years ago. Coconut oil was as high as Rs.1400 per 3 liters, but is now down to something like $980 per 3 liters, but five years ago was Rs.500 per 3 liters five years ago. But not everything has dropped, and not everything has dropped as dramatically.
As well, the civil war is killing the country. Literally. Bombs, grenade attacks, gunfights. Not pleasant. Security checks, men with guns everywhere. You never know if you’re going to be a statistic simply by going to the mall.
Then there’s the corruption. Absolutely nothing, in my opinion, about this country will move forward in any way until the corruption is eliminated, at least partially. Corruption is a way of life here, and everyone wants their dues. Can’t complain about the noisy neighbors with the extremely loud music that you can hear well over a block away because you know that, if the noisemakers give a big enough bribe, they’ll know it was you who complained and then they make your life difficult in ways that people who’ve never been out of the west can possibly imagine.
The corruption is rampant. Problematic. And it’s pulling this country even deeper into a pit.

8. What was your education? What do you do for a living? Do you enjoy your work? How does writing fit in?


I used to work as an accountant back in Canada. Self- employed for the last nine years. I didn’t play well with others in the sense that I didn’t exactly enjoy doing the work of three or four people, getting paid for one, and getting none of the credit but all of the blame. Yeah, not a team player. I’m the independent over-achieving perfectionist sort who was anal retentive enough to be an excellent accountant. C’mon, you know the type. Stick a lump of coal up an accountants butt and you get a diamond in two weeks. That type. :D
Being self-employed was totally better. Sure, I got the blame when I did something wrong, but that wasn’t very often. Better, I got all the credit and got paid much, much better. And companies which had messed up accounts hired me since I had a reputation for sorting out the worst possible messes and making sense of it. Yeah, I was good. And yeah, as sick as this might sound to some, I enjoyed it.
Plus, I could work from home, work the hours I wanted, take holidays or time off when I wanted, and basically live my life however I wanted. Which was a good thing for other reasons, too. As in, declining health caused by a genetic defect (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility type for the curious in the crowd). I can’t work full-time anymore, and haven’t been able to for more than a decade.
I don’t enjoy accounting anymore. That stopped in the last couple of years of working as an accountant. It was too much same-old, same-old, no challenge.
Plus, I’d changed. I was around version 2.8 by then and no longer the version 2.1 I was when I started out in accounting. I was more in touch with myself, my emotions, and all that other stuff that nauseates some.  It just didn’t work anymore. I wanted to become a writer. I wanted to write science fiction and fantasy. Well, I’d wanted to do that for years, but never really believed in myself or my ability to tell a good story or write decently enough.
Now, I write. Whenever I can, for whoever I want to, whenever I want to. It’s my choice. Which is good because of that chronic illness thing which hugely prevents me from actually being able to be as productive as other people. I do freelance writing and editing as well as writing fiction. But honestly, fiction is what I love doing more than the rest.

9. What is the quality or qualities you value most in a life partner? Is there such a person in your life right now?


Second question first. Yes, and his name is Fahim.  First question. Where do I start? Integrity, honesty, caring, concern, understanding, loving kindness, compassion. The only way I can really sum it up is to say that everything I need in a mate, he is. Even the stuff I didn’t know I needed. He’s the best man for me of everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some damn fine excellent best friends. I actually could go singing his praises for a very long time, and then I would start to cry because I’m just so grateful that I have him. He’s made my life far better than I could have imagined, and being a science fiction writer, I’ve got a pretty huge imagination!
Oh, yeah. AND he writes as well as reads science fiction. I mean, seriously, that was such a huge coincidence to us both when we met online that it was a huge part of the reason why we, well, continued getting to know each other and felt that it was meant to be. Silly? Yes. But so what?

10. Dogs, cats, both, neither, and why?


Not dogs, ever. I’m a cat person, but Fahim isn’t and various assorted family members are allergic, so when my fat cat Oberon died, I knew that would be it. Unfortunately. Cats have a much different life here – there are so many nasty, diseased strays that it makes it difficult for a domesticated cat. Oberon, even at five times their weight (he weighed around 15 pounds, while local cats tend to weight around 2 or 3), could never win in any fight, so he’d walk away looking like he lost the fight, which he did. He was a softie, completely, and cats like that just can’t survive here unless they’re completely indoors, and that’s just not realistic with the allergies and other difficulties here. No, as much as I’d love another cat, it’s just not realistic. Unfortunately.
 
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aruna

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Aruna's interview with Maestrowork
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1 Where were you born/did you grow up,/live as a child? What are your memories of this time?


I was born and raised in Hong Kong, on the Kowloon side of the city. In my memories, Hong Kong was hot, humid, miserable in the summer, dry and cold in the winter. And I looked forward to the typhoons so I didn't have to go to school. That said, I actually liked school. I didn't like the studying but at least I did pretty well. What I loved the most about school were my friends. I was a very gregarious child; I made friends very easily. I was also very loud and a bit obnoxious as a boy. I was the class clown as well. The comments in my report cards tended to say, "intelligent and studious, but needs to learn to keep his mouth shut." I was also kind of a bully, believe it or not, and got into quite a few trouble with teachers and principals. I remember getting into a few fights as a young boy, winning them by fighting dirty. But generally, I really enjoyed school because home was "boring" to me. I was very rambunctious and I needed the stimuli at school to keep me preoccupied. I would stay at school for as long as I could.
My favorite memories involve my summer holidays. I looked forward to that every day, even though we were often overloaded with tons of summer homework. I remember having to finish 1000 Math problems by the end of the two-month vacation. But what summer meant to me was a lot of fun. My brother and I would go to the public swimming pool almost every day. I'd have camps, swimming lessons. I'd ride my bicycles everywhere. And I loved going on fishing and swimming trips with my dad and his colleagues. Every summer they would rent a huge sailboat and take their families out to the ocean and remote islands from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. We'd do a lot of swimming and diving. The adults would go scuba diving and bring back tons of fresh fish, conches, scallops, clams, and the occasional octopuses and lobsters. By sunset we would start a feast that would last until we docked. I can still taste the salt and smell the fish now that I think back on that time.
I was very poor, but happy. I didn't have the things my peers had, and I wore my brother's hand-me-down every year. There were times I wish I had the money to get the kind of sneakers everyone was wearing, or the graphite tennis racket instead of the wood. At the same time, I understood my family's situation and I never demanded my parents to spend money on "frivolous things." What I really wanted, I saved my allowances until I could afford to buy them. And then I had to hide these frivolous things from my parents. I remember hiding my favorite robot from my parents for a whole year before they discovered it -- but they didn't say anything, so the whole thing about hiding from my parents was really stupid. My parents were very liberal and permissive when it came to me. I was roaming the streets when I was six or seven years old. I could stay up late with my friends as long as I told my parents where I would be. My parents often had to work double shifts, and so it was up to my brother and I to take care of ourselves -- we would cook, wash, and clean the house before bed when sometimes both our parents were at work, or one of them were still sleeping. So we trained ourselves to be very independent from a very young age. I remember feeling the freedom and also the responsibility, because I never wanted my parents to worry about me. One time my brother severely cut through his forefinger and instead of calling my parents, we rummaged through the medicine cabinet and I helped bandage and treat his finger -- I was only 6 years old.
I didn't have much, but we also had plenty. The worst memories I had were when my parents fought, which was almost every day, usually about very trivial things. I hated every minute of those fights. At the same time, I also felt immense love from them. Never would I doubt my parents would abandon us or that they didn't care about us. I appreciated the freedom they gave me, while making sure I knew I was loved and cared about. Being on my own was my sanctuary, to be able to explore and experience the world on my own terms, but I always knew I had a home to come back to, and my parents would always be there for me, that I could always feel safe.
I remember a lot of things about my childhood, but the ever-present feeling was that I could do all those things and experience my childhood in the embrace of real love. I felt secure even though I didn't have a lot. I felt free even though my parents would do anything to protect us. I knew what love felt like even before I knew what love really meant. And that's a gift that will stay with me for the rest of my life.


2. What circumstances moved you away?


I moved to the US at the age of 18. Years of being independent had trained me for the day I finally left home, to be on my own. And not just anywhere, but more than 10,000 miles away in a strange country, where people ate hamburgers and spoke English. I didn't really want to leave home, my family and all my friends, but I understood why I had to. There was no future for me if I didn't get a college degree, and it was almost impossible to get into the universities in Hong Kong. My parents sacrificed a lot for my education, because they truly believed in the value of it, an investment that is life-long. They literally spent their entire life's savings on my education, to send me to the US. As a foreign student, I (and my family) must prove that I had enough money to support myself through four years of college. What impressed and touched me the most wasn't that my parents did all that for me (of course they would). What touched me the most was that they didn't push me -- the decision for me to move to the US was a mutual, consensual one after a very mature discussion. I understood the stakes, and I understood the reasons behind the decision. I never felt that my parents were abandoning me, that I wasn't wanted. Instead, I was honored and touched that they trusted me and respected me. They trusted me enough to let an 18-year-old boy go to a faraway land all by himself (I ended up not going home for six years) because they understood the value of education and they trusted my independence. Sometimes they knew me more than I knew myself.
I ended up in Pittsburgh, not sunny California or cosmopolitan New York, but small town Pittsburgh. I went to Duquesne University, a private Catholic school for the first semester, then transfered to the University of Pittsburgh. I also worked part-time at a Chinese restaurant. In my spare time (when not studying or working), I traveled around the country. I felt that I was given an incredible opportunity and the best education I could get was out of the classroom. It was some of the best years of my life, even though I missed my family very much. Coming to America changed my life in more ways than I could imagine.


3. Beside your parents, who was/were the most influential person(s) of your childhood? What did you learn most from him/her/them? The most influential person you've known as an adult?


I can name three teachers who influenced me the most, who helped shape me to be the person I am now. The first was my elementary school headmaster; regrettably I don't remember her name now. When all the teacher treated me like a clown, or one of those forgettable boys who probably wouldn't amount to anything, she had faith in me. She was stern with me, but instead of punishment, she put her trust in me and asked me to work with her, to help her. Receiving that kind of responsibilities made me realize I could do better, and I wasn't a nobody after all.
The second teacher was my Form 1 (equivalent to 8th Grade in the US) teacher. She was graceful, elegant, and kind. I think I had a major crush on her. She also put me into a lot of extracurricular programs and she made me realize there were knowledge and experiences outside of the classroom. She made me question my abilities, talents and what I wanted to do, instead of what others wanted me to do. She was also a great example of a kind, wonderful, selfless human being.
The third teacher was my Chinese teacher in high school. She was incredible sharp, witty, and stern, but she also understood me. She knew I hated memorizing books or doing quizzes, so instead she gave me projects to do. She was the first person who roused my interest in creative writing. She encouraged me to write stories, plays, whatever that explored my creative side. She was critical but at the same time very interested in what I had to say. She was a great mentor, someone we should all be lucky enough to have in our lives.
I'm not sure who is the most influential person I've known as an adult. I tend to be free thinking and I tend to do my own thing. There were certainly people I listened to, admired, or studied, but to me, they were part of this whole universe of knowledge and wisdom that I'm, to this day, eager to learn and absorb. Everyone from Jesus to Martin Luther King to friends I've made throughout the years. I honestly can't say who the most influential person was.


4. Can you describe one decisive moment in your youth, one that changed the course of your life, either in a physical, mental or a philosophical sense? Or, is there an experience you had as a youth which lives on in your memory, influencing your life now in either a positive or negative sense?


There are many moments of my life that changed or shaped me to be the person I am today, but three earliest memories stood out for me. The first one was when I was 8. I was playing a game with my friends during recess when I fell on my head. My concussion was so severe that I was in a coma. I had no idea how long it had been, but the first thing I remembered was my mother by my side. I couldn't remember much except the comfort I felt when I heard her voice. It was the first time I understood the concept of dying, and that I could die. It was also the first time I really, really understood what love was, and what love meant. That understanding has guided me through most of my life since.
The second moment happened during a detention. May I say the teacher was a *bitch* and she was determined to keep us there for hours. I hated her so much. And I thought my parents would kill me when they found out I was in detention for two hours, thus missing my ride home and dinner. So I prayed to God that I would be left out soon. I spent my entire time there praying and asking for God to grant me that one wish: to be home in time for supper. I had never prayed so hard in my life. And what did I know? Lo and behold within an half-hour the teacher told us to go home -- she changed her mind and she would just let us go. It was the first time (as silly and wrong as it sounds now) I truly believe there was a God, or some higher being, and that God was listening.
The third moment happened when I was 10. I was at my worst behavior that year -- call it rebellion, acting out, or what have you. I'd threatened my parents, hit back, and tried to run away from home. I flunked out of a couple of classes, and I forged my dad's signature on a report card. My teacher (the one mentioned above) was not stupid, however, and she caught me. She called me into her office, and asked me if that signature was mine. I told another lie and said "yes." She then told me she was very disappointed that I lied again. But instead of calling my parents or telling the principal, she made me sit next to her, and told me why she was disappointed, saddened -- because she was sure that I could do better, and that she saw things in me that no other teachers did. That afternoon, she knocked some senses into me, and I promised her that I would change. And I did. My grades went up and my temper went down. And then one day during class, when we were trying to talk about the upcoming picnic, she told the class to quiet down and then she said something like this:
"There is one person in this class that has impressed me the most this year, and not because he has the best grades, or he is the best behaved, or he does everything I told him, too. It's because he has changed the most. He's made the most effort and he's made a 180 degree change. He's proven to me, all by himself, what he's capable of. And with that, I'd like to make him your new class president."
And then she said my name. That was the proudest moment of my life up to that point, and I will never forget how it changed my life.


5. Describe the street you live in, the view from your bedroom/living room window, or the route you take to work each day!


It's a major street but relatively quiet, lined with beautiful pear trees and maples. Spring is beautiful with white blossoms on the trees and new greens everywhere, expansive lawns and lovely stone houses. The street is on a downgrade and it curves, thus creating an impressive vista of the neighborhood where the abundance of trees and grass and flowers and hills paints an idyllic picture of a quintessential American life.
The living room has ceiling-to-floor windows serving as perfect picture frames for the outside vista. The expansive bedroom windows overlook the front garden, and the Japanese maple is at its most glorious during Fall, with its golden pine leaves.
Off the driveway there are two ways to go: turn left and I would drive past the state university onto a oak-lined thoroughfare that winds its way through a few neighborhoods before it ends in downtown. Turn right and I would go up a hill and reach the business district of my neighborhood with cafes, restaurants, a movie theater, shops, and a serene city park. A few blocks away is a major university campus.

6. Describe the room you are sitting in right now!

I'm in my kitchen, which, through the expansive windows, looks out to the backyard which is a vast hill-slope overgrown with ivy, shadowed by a canopy of 100-foot trees. The kitchen is spacious and rather messy at this point. The counters are littered with appliances such as a toaster, two coffee-makers, a juicer, a MagicBullet mixer, a blender, and boxes of vegetables. Piles of bills, papers, magazines take up most of space on the table. There are plants on the windowsills. On my right is a cart of alcohol (you name it, I have it), a wine rack, pots and pans, and an AeroGarden, in which the basil, lemon basil, chives, parsley, oregano, and thyme are growing in abundance at the moment. On the walls is a set of Japanese porcelain plates.


7. Do you see yourself in this same place in two/five/ten years time?


I'd like to. It's a quiet, peaceful, contemporary home. But you never know what life brings you. In ten years I would probably move out to California to be closer to my parents. Or start a family on my own -- this house is definitely a bit small for a family.


8. What was your education? What do you do for a living? Do you enjoy your work?


I have a Bachelor degree in Computer Science, and a Master's in Telecommunications. I also took classes in Creative Writing. I've been Software Engineers, IT specialists, architects, and consultants. I've also been business analyst, project manager, and technical writer. Right now, I just want to write, make music, and see where life is taking me. I also act from time to time (when my agent calls me). I try to do what I love and love what I do, and am in no hurry to sell my soul for money.


9. What is the quality or qualities you value most in a life partner? Is there such a person in your life right now?


I'm very picking when it comes to someone I'd like to spend the rest of my life with, and sometimes I don't even know if I NEED anyone; I think I'm perfectly content with myself. However, I do think that everybody needs somebody, and there is probably someone out there for me -- someone who completes me (even though I don't think I need to be "completed"). I've been in a few long-term relationships -- engaged to be married once -- and I never regretted them, even if they didn't last. I've learned a lot, and the connections I felt are forever. Speaking of which, I think a "connection" is what I value the most. Often when a relationship didn't work, it was because we'd lost that connection, or that connection was never there to begin with. We could all delude ourselves by thinking we're madly in love, or that we must sacrifice or do something to earn love, to change and bend ourselves so we deserve to be loved. I believe love should be a natural thing, and I anticipate that. It's all about that special connection. I don't look for certain particular qualities, although some things seem to repeat, thus they must be rather important to me: a sense of human, kindness, selflessness, independence (I hate clinginess and neediness), a sense of adventure and fun, lack of ego and jealousy, complete respect and trust for me. And friendship -- I can't fall in love with anyone who can't be my best friend. That undeniable connection is very important to me. Sex and looks may fade, but the connection is the real thing. I look for "real" -- and if you had read my novel, The Pacific Between, you would have a glimpse of my philosophy and views on love.
The biggest hurdle I have had with my past relationships, I believe, is that I'm not an easy person to understand, and I yearn for someone to really, truly understand and accept me. To let me be. More often than not I feel that I'm misunderstood, or that others can't understand what I'm about and who I am. Or that they have a specific expectations from me, and they want me to fit into whatever vision they have. They would start taking things apart, or accusing me for something I did not do, or what I wasn't. It was always heartbreaking to have to prove myself once again, or have to remind others what I've already explained a thousand times. It's not as if I were a complicated person, but most often than not, I just don't think people listen or pay attention. And they forget.


10. Tell me about your writing journey. When did you start The Pacific Between? Was it your first attempt at a novel? How long did it take, and how long did it take to find a publisher? How long do we have to wait for the next novel?


I've always loved to write, or do anything creative: music, art, etc. I was quite a storyteller when I was growing up and actually published a few things in high school. But all that stopped after I went to college -- life just intensified (what if my future being at stake); I just didn't have the time to write. Or read anything for fun.

I began to dabble in writing in the mid-90s when I was an editor for a community newsletter. First it was just news and articles, then it was short stories, etc. I guess I got the writing bug again when we held a writing contest -- and I won! That was when I really thought about writing fiction seriously. I took some classes and they helped me understand there was more to the craft of fiction writing than just putting words on the page. There were things I didn't know or understand: point of view, dialogue, plot development, etc. It was quite an eye-opener for me.

I first got the idea of a contemporary coming-of-age love story in 1998 after I took those classes. It just seemed to be the right thing for me to do, especially as my first novel. The original idea of the story was a bit different -- it was somewhat more cliched and cheesy and more of a romance than a "personal journey."

Then the final idea germinated from a love letter I discovered -- one I had never read until then. My parents had kept that letter from me for years. The initial shock and nostalgia (I didn't know what happened to that girl) prompted me to write the first chapter of The Pacific Between in November, 2001. The story became more of a journey than a romance. I showed the first chapter to a few colleagues of mine, who were avid readers of contemporary fiction, and they liked it. That was all the confidence I needed to continue.

It took me about 18 months to write the first half of the novel (about 50,000 words -- I had set the goal on about 100,000, eventually completed at 95,000), then another 4 months to finish it. I took another 3 months to polish it (cutting out the first 15,000 words and restructuring the opening chapters) and work on my queries. I had 12 versions of the query letter. It was definitely a steep learning curve. I started querying in February, 2004, and I sold it in November the same year.

When I first started working on the novel -- yes, it was my first novel -- I didn't think I could or would publish it. It was more like a test for myself, to see if I could actually finish a book-length novel. I had written and published short stories before, but never a novel. When I finished it, it was a personal triumph for me, especially because the story was near and dear to my heart. After a few beta readers told me the book was good enough for publication, I gained enough confidence to go through the submission process, so I really owe them my gratitudes. If not for these brave souls who encouraged me and egged me on, I would have given up a long time ago.

I'm still working on my second novel, while having all kinds of ideas for future projects. It's story that spans three wars (The Pacific War, Korean War, and the Gulf War) and contains magic realism. It tells the story of a Chinese-Malayan boy and a British girl. Probably the best pitch would be something like Doctor Zhivago meets Memoirs of a Geisha.

I'm trying to be patient. I don't want to have to force my creative process because I enjoy writing, and I don't want this to become a chore. I want to be moved by what I write, and I think I'm accomplishing that, even though the process has been going on longer than I'd anticipated. I'm currently at about 80,000 words and I think I may have another 40,000 to go. I'm really looking forward to reaching "THE END" once again. I think this is going to be a much better book than The Pacific Between, one that I can be proud of.



11. Dogs, cats, both, neither, and why?


Both. I like animals anyway. But I don't think I can handle a dog at this point of my life. Did I mention I hate clinginess and neediness? I think a dog is simply too clingy and needy for me. I prefer the aloofness of cats, actually. And their independence is something to love. Perhaps a cat would be the perfect life partner for me? Nah, now I sound like one of those crazy cat ladies.
 
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HeronW

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I love the av and had to get to know the lady behind it,
so here's IdiotsRUs aka Julia!

Tell us a bit about yourself. What would you like us to know about you?

Julia: Hmm well what can I say. I'm a Brit who kind of fell into this writing thing - but I've always had characters in my head. Until recently I didn't know what to do with them.

What are you doing now? (Career? Married? Single? Children? Pets?)
Julia: Married, two kids, work part time just to pay the bills

What is your favourite food?
Julia: Thai

What is your favourite colour?
Julia: Blue

What is your favourite sound?
Julia: Ooh it's a toss up. Either the sound of my kids NOT arguing or the secret silence of a moonlight night.

Who is your favourite person?
Julia: My kids, closely followed by my Old Man

What is your favourite place?
Julia: Lochailort, Scotland. A weeny little village (where they filmed the bar scenes for Local Hero btw) and I've never been quite so relaxed.

What is your favourite memory?
Julia: My honeymoon in Lochailort

What is your favourite article of clothing?
Julia: Jeans. Always the jeans. I have a fair collection of wrestling t-shirts too.

What is your favourite word?
Julia: Gout. It keeps cropping up in my writing and I have to go through and cull them all! Other than that, pendulous sounds so round.

What is your favourite writers' quote and why?
Julia: First get it written, then get it right. Because you have to write to get better - this is the perfect reminder that you can always fix it on the rewrite.

What is your most favourite quality about yourself?
Julia: I'm not sure if there's a word for it (there should be!) but I always tend to see the best in people.

What is the least favourite quality about yourself?
Julia: Insecurity. I hates it.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?
Julia: Lake Baikal in Russia. I've read / studied / seen so much about it. The geology, the ecology, the local culture. It fascinates me. I always wanted to be a Cossack as a child...Endlessly fascinated with Russia.

What inspires you to write and why?
Julia: The people in my head. Or I'd be in an institution.

What is your favourite book and why?
Julia: All time? Chronicles of Morgaine. I could feel every wound, every heartbeat of Vanye.

What is your favourite genre and why?
Julia: Fantasy. Because I was born in the wrong century. Ahh the days when men were men and sheep were nervous lol. I love the romance, as in the tales of Arthur etc rather than boy meets girl. The thought that men could rise up and better their nature. Needless to say I love a hero who can rise above his faults and be noble.

List your three favourite authors (any genre) and why?
Julia: Well today they are... C.J. Cherryh, because there is SFF and just the right amount of romance. Because she can always make me fall in love with her heroes. Jim Butcher, just for the joy of the story and the superb voice. Tery Pratchett - for the completely warped slant on life. That said I do have a Lord of the Rings tattoo.

What do you think makes a writer successful?
Julia: Perseverance.

What is it that makes you successful as a writer?
Julia: Um perseverance. And the fact that on a good day I am my character. I live in their heads, I know what they are most afraid of, even when they are telling everyone how they aren't scared.

What are your goals as a writer?
Julia: Short term. To have people who like my books. Long term? Become richer than JK Rowling (a joke I get constantly due to the fact my initials are...JK)

What is the best tip you can give to fellow writers?
Julia: Keep at it. remember there is always more to learn. Just keep at it.

What do you hope to provide your readers with through your writing?
Julia: Nothing fancy, no literary symbolism or anything. A story that tugs at their heartstrings.

List your three favourite online writer-resource sites and why (include URLS).
Julia: Absolutewrite.com of course!
Also read a lot of agent blogs, but only pop into other writers forums really.

If you have published a book/story, tell us about your publishing success (title, publishing date and company, where it is available to purchase).

Julia: My first book is coming out in e-book form January 29th 2009, with print scheduled for the autumn 2009. Published by Samhain Publishing, Ilfayne's Bane. (http://samhainpublishing.com/coming/ilfaynes-bane) A great company, and extremely friendly and author focused. Couldn't have had a better intro to the business. I'm currently writing a second in the series.

How long did it take you to write your book(s)?
Julia: Three years - however the first year was spent as a hobbyist being so gobsmackingly awful I shudder to think of it! Seriously, I started a year ago.

What would you do differently if you could repeat the same publishing experience?
Julia: Find Absolute Write earlier.

What have you learned about the publishing world?
Julia: It's a business like any other. Publishers WANT to please the fans, if only because that makes them money

This is your chance to 'Talk Back' to your readers. What would you like to say to them?
Julia: If you have bought / are planning to buy it, thanks! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

What's the one thing that you want them to know about your writing?
Julia: I sweated blood for this you know! LOL, ok not really. I wrote the kind of story I wanted to read. I hope you want to read it too.

Thank you Julia, for sharing I really appreciate the time and effort.
 

HeronW

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All about a delightful lady who's become a great friend: Reigningcatsndogs aka Mary!

Tell us a bit about yourself. What would you like us to know about you?

Mary: I am incredibly boring... if you manage to get through this, you’ll agree.

What are you doing now? (Career? Married? Single? Children? Pets?)

Mary: I live on an acreage with cows (there are not enough of them to consider them cattle), lots of fruit trees, grape vines, a large garden... and it is heaven for me. I home school my boys, the older one will be heading to university in the new year, the younger one is in Grade 12. In my spare time, I write, hang out on the internet, sew, cook, clean...

What is your favorite food?

Mary: Seafood. Any kind of seafood.

What is your favorite color?

Mary: And so it begins. I can’t just pick one of something. Yellow makes me smile. I love yellow, but I wouldn’t wear yellow because I would look like Big Bird with his legs cut off. I love red, but there is no way I would wear it because people always look at the person wearing red. I like pink when it's in a sunset, the new baby-green leaves when they pop in the spring... I’m either wishy-washy or preparing myself for a career in politics.

What is your favorite sound?

Mary: Quiet, for now, although I suspect that will change when the Grubs are gone from home. On a summer evening, just at twilight, there is a very brief moment of time where you can hear the frogs and crickets starting to sing, but also birds as they are getting ready to nest for the night, with the odd owl tossed in as it's getting ready to start another day. For me, sitting on the back deck, that’s heaven. The laugh of a baby, that uncontrolled belly laugh, is a close second.

Who is your favorite person?

Mary: Anyone who, in some way, might be related to a publisher or agent? People are something where favorites just don’t exist for me. It would be impossible to single out one person. It would be impossible for me to pick one least-favorite person as well... most days anyways.

What is your favorite place?

Mary: Home. Hands down. Home.

What is your favorite memory?

Mary: It’s not my wedding day. Not the days my boys (the grubs) were born, because I was knocked out for those days and don’t remember much at all. When I was four, my brother, who was 17 years older than I was, took me in his green Volkswagen beetle to A&W. That was when you pulled in and left on your lights so the girl would roller-skate over and take your order, and when they brought it they would hang the tray on the outside of the car window. I had a baby burger, fries, and orange pop. It was something that never happened in our house as a rule, and it was the only memory I have of my brother spending time with me.

What is your favorite article of clothing?

Mary: Fuzzy socks.

What is your favorite word?

Mary: There are a couple that seem to fly out of my mouth a bit too often these days, ones that I can’t print here. Right now, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Niblick.

What is your favorite writers' quote and why?

Mary: Rudyard Kipling – You’re a braver man than I, Gunga Din. I have met so many strong people... the sentiment by the poet is true.

What is your most favorite quality about yourself?

Mary: I suppose that I try to be open-minded, and I love to learn, especially about and from other people.

What is the least favorite quality about yourself?

Mary: I can only pick one thing? Physically – I’m overweight, but I am working on that with the help of a few friends. Character-wise, I am not nearly as strong as I would like to be, am very easily intimidated, and am shy. Oh, and I am a crier, and that gets worse the older I get.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?

Mary: Florence, Italy. Ireland. The east coast. I have family roots that extend to Ireland and the east coast of Canada and the US. I would love to go and see where I came from. Florence just because I want to see it.

What inspires you to write and why?

Mary: A comment at a dinner party a couple weeks ago got my wheels turning. A song lyric can do it as well, but mostly it must be the muse. When I feel myself lagging, though, either chatting with another writer, or music will get me back on track.

What is your favorite book and why?

Mary: The Dictionary is my friend. I talk to way too many people who are way smarter than I am.

What is your favorite genre and why?

Mary: To both read and write – literary and mystery/suspense. For the longest time though, I was totally addicted to reading biographies. I wouldn’t write one because I would become a basket case worrying about the accuracy of every word and all the ways each one could be misinterpreted, but I devoured them when I was growing up.

List your three favorite authors (any genre) and why?

Mary: I’ve always liked Kipling maybe because I was first exposed to him quite young and because what he said made so much sense to me. I could understand him. Lucy Maud Montgomery is another favorite. She was Canadian, so I was proud of that fact when I first started reading her, and now they are like warm stew on a very cold day for me. They warm me up.

What do you think makes a writer successful?

Mary: Having the courage to sit down and commit words to paper. I think it takes a special kind of brave to do that. Many people shred the papers they write on so people can’t see what they have written because it exposes them. Writers are exhibitionists. We lay it out for all to see, warts and all. Almost everyone talks about writing a book. A lot of people include it on their life’s ‘to do’ list. Anyone who takes that first step is both a writer and successful. Someone reading what you have written is the icing on the cake, and if even one other person is in any way influenced by something you wrote, in any way, that’s heaven.

What is it that makes you successful as a writer?

Mary: Grub 1 has started to write. If what I have done with writing has accomplished nothing else, it has instilled a love of words in my boy. That would define success for me.

What are your goals as a writer?

Mary: Something more than an audience of one would be nice. I never started writing with a ‘goal’ in mind. I had a story in my head that wouldn’t go away, so I thought putting it on paper might make it stop. It did... for that story, but once I was done the first, then the next one started, and the next. It’s just never stopped.

What is the best tip you can give to fellow writers?

Mary: Listen to the muse. Never ever argue with her, but always listen to her.
What do you hope to provide your readers with through your writing?
Mary: Escape, entertainment, an understanding that we are not alone in where we find joy or pain or hope or fear. Mostly I want to give them a story that they can understand, that they don’t have to work to read.

List your three favorite online writer-resource sites and why (include URLS).

Mary: The CIA website – they have the best information, most current, about anything you want to know about any country. CIA Web Site
The Writers Block – it feels like home... small, quaint, quiet... I do my best thinking there without being too distracted. Writers Block
Duotrope – I am always looking for new places to send Rejection Requests, and they have one heck of a list. Duotrope - Rejection Requests

If you have published a book/story, tell us about your publishing success (title, publishing date, and company, where it is available to purchase).

Mary: Oh, dirty secret time, heh? I had an aunt who was incredibly supportive of my writing. She wanted to see something in print before she died. Some ‘people’ put together the money, and I self-published eight novels. We did 200 copies of each, because that got us the best price from the printer. As a home schooling project, the grubs edited, designed the covers, did the layout for each book, took care of marketing, set up a website, kept track of all accounting and inventory, and pounded the pavement to place the books in book stores. They moved most of the books.

How long did it take you to write your book(s)?

Mary: Not counting the stuff I goofed around with in school, starting from Grade 6 when I wrote my first murder mystery, I began my first novel in 1999. I have completed 22 manuscripts of varying quality, rewritten several of those, and I have three on the go right now. How long it takes depends on the muse and what’s happening around me. My best time is three weeks for one (first rough draft completed). I have one that has been lingering for a couple years.

What would you do differently if you could repeat the same publishing experience?

Mary: Although I loved the lessons it provided for the boys, I would not do it again. My aunt got to see them and read them (she went blind and then passed away shortly after that) but no, no way I would do a repeat performance of that.

What have you learned about the publishing world?

Mary: That I much prefer to write and leave all the rest of that stuff to someone else... perhaps someday I’ll get to that point.

This is your chance to 'Talk Back' to your readers. What would you like to say to them?

Mary: I have readers?

What's the one thing that you want them to know about your writing?

Mary: That it is hopefully still improving.

Thanks Mary, I really appreciate the effort and time. I enjoyed learning more about you.
 

regdog

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regdog interviews Darzian

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Where do you live in Sri Lanka?

In the capital of the nation, Colombo. I live in a region that is predominantly tamil. (I am a Sri Lankan tamil).

What is it like in Sri Lanka?

It is my motherland, but I take no pride in saying so. Due to my ethnicity I am discriminated against by the very forces that are supposed to protect us. I see no pleasant future for myself in Sri Lanka and am expecting to leave in the coming months. The current political situation is -quite possibly- the worst ever. The country is very unstable and teetering on the edge of genocide. Due to its small size, there is little news coverage.

Does the war in your country influence your writing?

Currently no. I hope to write a novel one day involving a pacifist who achieves world peace. It is a very ambitious project so I wish to gain much more experience before attempting such a story.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

In the past year I've gone through numerous challenges that delayed my international college applications. Despite this, I hope to see myself as a medical practitioner in 10 years time and a part-time writer (whether published or not).

Is the market in Sri Lanka primarily local or foreign writers?

To tell the truth, I do not read Tamil literature. I am much more fluent in English. There are numerous shops that sell both Sinhalese and Tamil books. However, the market for foreign books is big, though not as big as I'd like. Several famous titles are not available. My views may be prejudices as I live in the city. Considering the country as a whole- locals writers are probably more popular (at least I assume so. Again, 85% of the nation is Sinhalese - a language I do not understand- so I cannot speak for them).

What would you like people to know about you?

This is difficult to answer! It would depend on who exactly is meant by 'people.' However, on the whole one of my greatest wishes is for the international community to understand the situation in Sri Lanka and bring peace to the nation.


What is your favorite place?

Egypt. I've never been there but ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians. I hope to visit the country one day, and also to base a novel on that.

What is your favorite memory?

When my Ordinary Level results (An important exam similar to the GCSE) arrived. I had achieved A s in all my subjects which is what my parents had been working for for 15 years. Despite the war, displacement and suffering they gave me a very good education knowing that "knowledge is power." And educated man can go a long way in even the most desperate circumstances. Their own education was disrupted by the war. My parents' reactions upon the arrival of the results sheet is something that I will never forget.

What job would you never want to have?

Piloting airplanes. I'm paranoid. The fear of crashes will render me useless.

What is you favorite scent?

Freshly baked bread. It-is-irresistible.

What are your goals as a person?

1) My parents sacrificed a lot for me and my sister. I wish to attain a strong financial position in life so that I can provide for them and grant them a long retirement.

2) I wish to become a doctor so that I can relieve the pains of others. I've seen a lot of suffering. Doctors restore hope, life and joy to numerous families. I wish to attain that status and create a little more happiness in the world.

3) Due to a somewhat distorted childhood, I'm somewhat shy. I wish to overcome that and be more open and friendly with people. I've yet to achieve that.

4) Many of my close relatives (all living abroad) turned their backs on us when we needed help. I was astonished to see my own parents' siblings behave this way. We have been looked down upon and considered as 'losers' for remaining in this country. I wish to change that and attain a social position that will prove to them that my parents made the right decisions. I am on my way towards this goal and these 'relatives' have already intervened to try to dissuade me from my chosen path. I know this sounds crazy but these people really are unbelievable.

If you could be one person alive, or from history for one week, who would it be, and why?

Thiruvalluvar. He is a very old sage in Tamil literature. He made numerous predictions, and his knowledge is legendary. Tamil calenders feature his advice on every page (the ones that you tear every day). There is a giant statue dedicated to him just off the South Indian coast that was fortunately undamaged by the tsunami. I would love to experience all that knowledge in my mind at once.

If you could be one fictional character for one week, who would it be and why?

I would like to be Seisi from the anime series 'Gundam 00." He is involved in an organization that fights to eradicate war from the world. The entire anime is set 400 years in the future. The fundamentals of that organization, and consequently those of the character, are acceptable and just. A world without war is the best thing I can imagine.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

In a nation that is free from war and terrorism. I want an average, peaceful life. I want to live in a place where I can leave my home with confidence that I'll return. I want to live in a country where the daily news doesn't involve killings and massacres. Last week, a friend of mine almost got arrested for absolutely no reason other than his ethnic origin. He was extremely fortunate to have been released. I rarely travel more than 3 km from my home because it isn't safe. Due to my ethnic origin and race and since emergency laws are in effect, I can be arrested for virtually no reason and there is little anyone can really do.

Has your life influenced your writing?

I am new to writing and have no allowed my experiences to affect it. As I mentioned, I hope to include my experiences in a future novel. Nevertheless, my life has shaped me and my writing is influenced to some extent nevertheless.

What draws you to the genre you write?

I write fantasy. In fantasy, the writer is God. The world functions the way he decides. I find the extreme freedom very comfortable and exciting. Fantasy tends to focus around medieval Europe. I hope to combine fantasy with Ancient Egypt one day. Should be interesting!

What are your goals as a writer?

Getting published.
Having an audience who want to read more of what I write.
Eventually I wish to be able to raise awareness of the war in Sri Lanka via writing. I can only hope that a resolution arrives before I reach that point.

What was the worst thing said to you as a writer?

From a friend: "I can't believe that you are so jobless."

What was the best thing said to you as a writer?

A friend insists on being my first beta reader. His frequent nudges asking me whether the story is complete have been very inspirational. He is really expectant and I'm truly grateful. On the down side, I'm paranoid that I won't be able to live up to his expectations. Needless to say, this delicate balance has made me edit the story several times. Without his dedicated inspiration, I'm not sure where I would be today.

Do you want to convey a message in your writing?

Presently no. I'm currently writing for the fun of writing. I love reading fantasy novels. They feeling I get after finishing a good story cannot be described. I hope to be able to deliver the same feeling.

Has joining AW changed or influenced your writing?

My writing began with AW. My foundation stone is this website and I shall never forget that. I went through that last 70 pages of threads in the fantasy forum before I started to write. The information gained is invaluable. The members of AW helped shape my writing style from the very beginning and I'm forever grateful for that.

What is the one thing, you would want your readers to know?

I do not think I am neither wise nor mature enough to answer this question just yet. As I said, I've been writing for just 5 months. Next year, Regdog, I hope to provide a solid answer to this.
 

regdog

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Where do you live?

Mid-70s longitude, USA.

What would you like people to know about you?

That I'm creative but not at all intelligent.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Locked up in a lunatic asylum, if I haven't managed to land a book deal by then.

What is your favorite place?

The woods, located a 1/2 mile away from me. No one ever goes in them so I pretty much have the joint to myself, in company of squirrels and chipmunks ^..^

What is your favorite memory?

Fishing with friends, back in my teen years. There was a boulder we used to cast our lines from that became submerged at high tide. We often got stranded on it and had to swim back to shore with our catch.

What job would you never want to have?

Store manager. They make good money but have to work an unbelievable number of hours and are accountable for everything that goes wrong.

What is you favorite scent?

Pine tree or apple orchid aroma.

What are your goals as a person?

To be kind and considerate towards others and put their welfare before my own. I was steered towards this goal by an especially kind member and role model on this site, who continues to remain dear to me :)

If you could be one person alive, or from history for one week, who would it be, and why?

Eric Dolphy. It would be awesome to be able to play a musical instrument like he did. The cat had character!
If you could be one fictional character for one week, who would it be and why?

Tom Bombadil. Living in a hut in the woods with a genial wife would be divine.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

Right where I am now. That expression about the grass looking greener on the other side really is true, as I've found.

Has your life influenced your writing?

A bit. I don't write realistic fiction so I draw more on my imagination to create stories.

What draws you to the genre you write?

I've always had a knack for humor. People never take what I say seriously, either, so I figure I might as well make the best of it.

What are your goals as a writer?

To write a non-fiction, non-funny book. I have the material for it but just can't seem to get it down on paper :-(

What was the worst thing said to you as a writer?

"You'll never make it as a writer. You lack the ability."
- college professor / creative writing class

What was the best thing said to you as a writer?

"I love this work," of yours.
- my lit agent

Do you want to convey a message in your writing?

Probably, but when I'm at work on a story I'm so wrapped up in the reality I'm weaving that I pay little attention to instilling messages and the like.

Has joining AW changed or influenced your writing?

It's made me much more aware of the business end of writing. It's also given me an appreciation of modern-era authors. There are some really fine ones on this site. One day I hope to be as good.

Does your family understand about your writing?
It's been awhile, but I believe they thought I'd flipped my lid when I brought it up, back when.

What is the one thing, you would want your readers to know?

The horror of existence, which is rather ironic as I write humor and basically strive to draw guffaws.

Would you ever stop writing?

No. But if I could start my life afresh I might choose an easier career, like the one those guys in the movie Wages Of Fear had, delivering nitroglycerin in a jeep.
 

regdog

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Where do you live?
Spring Hill, Florida

What would you like people to know about you?

That I've been writing since I was ten-year-old.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Probably in an assisted living home, but hopefully still writing and getting published.

What is your favorite place?


Being on AW and with Mr. Susie.

What is your favorite memory?

The day I married Mr. Susie.

What job would you never want to have?

A surgeon.

What is you favorite scent?

Chocolate, what else.

What are your goals as a person?

Having more of my greetings accepted and other writing.

If you could be one person alive, or from history for one week, who would it be, and why?

Jackie Kennedy. She had a great life.

If you could be one fictional character for one week, who would it be and why?

Cinderella, after she met the prince.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

Hawaii, laying in the sun with Mr. Susie and sipping a Margarita.

Has your life influenced your writing?

Definitely. I wrote about my back problem right away.

What draws you to the genre you write?

I just love love. That's why most of the things I write are romantic.

What are your goals as a writer?

To have more acceptances.

What was the worst thing said to you as a writer?

I never had anything bad said to me as a writer. Either my work got rejected or accepted, but no real negative comments.

What was the best thing said to you as a writer?

That I had talent.

Do you want to convey a message in your writing?

That love is possible for everyone.

What do you like best about writing Greeting Cards?

That others will be reading my words and hopefully enjoying them.

What is the one thing people don’t understand about writing Greeting cards?

While it looks simple to write, it's very difficult because the greeting has to be sendable to a large number of people.

What is the one thing, you would want your readers to know?

I thoroughly enjoy writing and hoping that my readers get good feelings out of my writing.

Would you ever stop writing?

No,can't do that. It's something inside me that has to come out. Even at night when I'm sleeping, things come to me and I have to wake up and write them down.
 
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Eskimo1990

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Eskimo1990 interviews melaniehoo

What was it like moving to Mexico?

Hectic. We found out we were moving three days before we got on a plane. My husband's mother was dying and he hadn't seen her in twelve years so we knew we had to go. We also knew that by going, he wouldn't be able to return because he was there illegally. We flew to Mexico on New Years Eve and I stayed with him for one week, then returned to Chicago to shut down our lives. I quit my job, subleased our apartment, sold a car, battled passport problems, plus many many other things.

My mother-in-law died the week after I left Mexico and it was frustrating not being there for my husband. We'd only been married for four months at that point and spent two very long months apart. In March my dad and I drove my car (stuffed with as many belongings that would fit) from Michigan to Mexico and he stayed for a couple weeks while I got settled.

We lived with his family for three months in a house with no running water and many other people. We shared a twin bed in a room without a door, in a town where no one - including my family - spoke English. That was very hard. The town we're in now is more touristy so while my Spanish has improved, there are people who speak English. It's been a challenge for sure, but I've grown immensely because of it.


Do you know enough Spanish to get by?

I was fluent in high school then minored in Spanish in college, so the language is there in my head, I just have trouble getting it to come out sometimes. I understand better than I speak, but most people say I speak well enough.


Will you and your husband ever be able to move back to America?

We are currently waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to approve or deny his visa application. We were supposed to find out this winter, but now it's been pushed back to this spring (March-May). Depending on the verdict, we will return to Chicago or apply for visas to Canada. We don't want to stay here in Mexico.

If you could, would you want to move back to America or stay in Mexico?

lol, see above. Mexico is a wonderful country and I'm glad we've had this experience, but I'm ready to go back to the "real" world, as I call it. If we can't return to the US we'll try Canada.


What is your favorite kind of writing?

I tend to read mostly mainstream/literary books or mystery/suspense, but I like the occasional chick lit or historical fiction. I do like memoirs and read a lot of health-type magazines. And I'm addicted to pop culture. I recently bought my first vampire book (Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles) and I picked up Twilight, but I've yet to read either.

What is your biggest accomplishment?

I'd say making it on my own as an adult. My parents helped me a lot through college and I'm grateful for that, but being able to get a job and an apartment in a city where no one knew me was quite an achievement. I worked as an graphic designer/art director for over ten years before quitting to move to Mexico.

As a child, what did you dream about becoming?

An artist.


Love or money?

Well, seeing how I quit my job to follow my husband to Mexico where we now have very little money, I think that's obvious.


Is it tough living in a different country?

Yes. There are a multitude of things that are different from my old life, but that doesn't mean they are all bad. Mexico certainly has backwards ways of doing things, but there are also systems in place that I think would be useful in the US (the way they sell gas, water, and handle trash pickup, for instance).

The hardest thing for me has been being away from my friends and family back home. We haven't made many friends here and because I'm a very social person, it's hard sometimes. I'm very grateful for all my online friends - they really help me get through day-to-day life.


If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

First choice, Chicago. Beyond that, Spain or Italy.


What is one piece of advice that you could offer to my generation?

When you get out of school you'll be starting over with a clean slate, don't get too wrapped up in the little things now. They will have little to do with who you are as an adult.

What is the hardest part about writing for you?

Sitting down to do it. Once I get going it usually flows for me. (I'm supposed to be writing right now.)


What is your absolute writing goal?

Being published, hopefully many times.

What is your absolute favorite move, and why?

There are so many. Probably Moulin Rouge. I love the story, the directing, the singing, the actors...


What is your absolute favorite book, and why?

Again, too many. I've been saying Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Her memoir spoke to me at a time when I was floundering and helped me see the the good things in life.

If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be and why?

Abolish racism/bigotry and all the behaviors that go along with it.

What is one material thing you could not live without?

Lately, my computer.

What is one thing you would take with you on a deserted island and why?

A fully loaded Kindle.

What did you major in when you went to college?

Mass Communications with a concentration in Visual Communications.

When you lived in Michigan, what was your favorite part about living there?

Nature. I love outdoor sports and everything you can door outside in the different seasons.
 

Eskimo1990

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Eskimo1990 interviews jannawrites

What is your favorite thing to write?

Personal anecdotes and humorous essays are awesome, but I really dig fiction.

Love or money?

In the end, love holds much more value.


If you could live anywhere, where would you live and why?

We love where we live (on a lake in the Midwest); in many ways, it's ideal. But if I wasn't scared to uproot and move from the only state I've ever lived in, I'd relocate to the Colorado Rockies. My husband, an avid skier, has always dreamed of living there, and I'm drawn to the beauty and peace.

What is your greatest accomplishment?

Choosing to follow my dream.

What is one of the hardest things you've had to go through in life?

Determining how much of my happiness depended on another person, and deciding what to do about it.


What is one piece of advice you would offer to my generation?

There is life - so much more than you ever expect - after high school. It's not all wrapped up in the present, the way it feels to be. Don't get so caught up in the now that you can't see the bigger picture. You have to move ahead from disappointments and heartache with your head held high. Amazing life waits.

What is one thing you would bring with you on a desert island?

My family.

What is your writing goal?

I aim to be a published novelist. I don't need fame and bestsellers, but a following of supportive readers who will give me reason to write book after book.

As a child, what did you dream about becoming?

Loved. Accepted. Happy. Don't get me wrong... I was all of those things as a child. But it's what I saw for my future, too.

What is your absolute favorite book and why?

I know it sounds trite, but I'll say the Scriptures. Every emotion, every kind of story, every answer: It's all inside.

What was growing up like for you?

My parents worked hard to give us (my sister and me) what we needed and, as often as possible, what we wanted (as long as it was reasonable). But they also taught us how to be good and happy people.

Some of my favorite memories are holidays and visits with my extended family - the biggest group of fun and loving hickabillies you've ever met. I have the most amazing family.


Where is your favorite place to visit and why?

Dillon/Silverthorne in Colorado. The mountains, the hiking, the scenery and air, the outlet shopping. It's all great!


What is your absolute favorite movie and why?

I've always said Forrest Gump, because it struck so much inside me. And it's still a favorite, but there are too many movies I love to narrow it down to an absolute.

What are you most proud of in your life?

The kind of person I am.


What is one thing you've always wanted to do but never have?

Visit Maine and stay in a beach house.

How did you and your husband meet?

Blind date set up by a mutual friend.


What is the greatest joy in your life?

Being a mom.

Who is your role model?

I admire my dad. He has struggled with disease and varying health issues for twenty years, but he's never complained or asked 'why,' and he continues to be a funny and sweet man who would do anything (ANYTHING) for anybody.


What is one thing you wish you could change about the world and why?

I wish more people would try to see things from others' perspectives. If we understood where others came from, we could get along better.

What was your favorite age and why?

I hope to have a lot of age left ahead of me, but I have to answer in a generic sort of way and say my adulthood has been best. I've learned who I am, and who I want to be, and that's huge.
 
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Eskimo1990

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Eskimo1990 interviews Serenity

1. If money wasn't a problem, where would you travel to and why?

Ireland, England, Scotland for a summer, even longer. Most of my family is from these countries and I love learning about and exploring my heritage. I'd backpack through the countries and just take the time to explore and soak it all in. I get goosebumps just from looking at pictures, in person would be an incredible experience.

2. Same concept, but where would you want to live?

Charleston, South Carolina. While there are tons of cities that have such a great depth and history to them, I've always had a fond spot for Charleston. It's a beautiful city with access to both the ocean and the mountains with in a reasonable drive/distance. I'm closer now than I've ever been, living near Ocean City, MD. But I also love living here too. As long as I'm near the ocean, I'm all set. It's my favorite place to be.

3. What is your dream job?

I'm actually working in my dream job: teaching. I love working with kids and helping them explore the world around them. The moment where they finally 'get' a concept or something they've been struggling to learn, that 'a ha!' moment is what I live for. It's such a great feeling for them and for me. Even now, substituting, I've had kids ask if I was going to be there for more than one day because they liked having me there. To have that kind of an impact-- even short term-- is an incredible feeling.

4. What was growing up like for you?

There were times when I thought I had it hard, but working with at-risk children now I know that I haven't suffered 1% as much as they have. My dad was a coal miner (I'll pause for the Coal-Miner's-Daughter jokes now) and my mom worked part time at a doctor's office. We weren't well-off by any stretch of the imagination, but we did just fine. It was a true test when my dad was laid off from his job my senior year in high school, but even then, my family showed its strength. He went back to school (we even went to the same college for three years!) and earned a degree while all of use worked either one or two jobs to make ends meet. My dad actually worked two jobs and went to school full time. It was probably one of the bravest things I've ever seen anyone do. I was always taken care of, fed, clothed, and loved. Growing up wasn't as hard as I thought it was at the time!


5. What is one piece of advice you would offer to my generation?

Don't let attitude and being 'cool' rule your life. There's so much more than that. I've seen so many kids (and some adults) make stupid mistakes because they want to be a part of the 'in' or cool crowd.

6. Love or money?

Love. Definitely love. Money doesn't mean a thing if you don't have someone you love to share your life with.

7. What is the one thing you've always wanted to do, but haven't had the chance to?

Travel to Scotland, England, and Ireland. I had a chance to go there a while back, but decided to go back to school for teaching instead. I don't regret the decision, but lord, do I want to go over there!

8. What is your greatest accomplishment?

Finishing my Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education. I wasn't sure I could get through it, but I did!

9. Who is your absolute favorite author and why?

This is a hard one. Because I love different authors for different things. And since I've really started writing, people that I used to enjoy reading don't hold as much appeal for me now that I know more about it. Anyhow, currently? I do love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. They always make me laugh!

10. What is your absolute favorite movie?

All time: Lawrence of Arabia, hands down. The music, the story, the acting. It is a movie I will sit and watch any time.

11. Where is your favorite place to visit and why?

The beach. And now I live so close, it's absolutely fantastic. I don't go in the water all that much, but I love to lay in the sun, or sit in my chair under an umbrella and just listen to the sounds around me: the surf, the birds, children playing. It's such a relaxing place for me.


12. When you went to college, what did you major in?

Which time? Heh. My first college was Indiana University of Pennsylvania and my major was Spanish for International Trade. Then I went to Wilson College and got my Elementary Education degree. Recently I just completed my Masters in Early Childhood Education through the University of Phoenix on-line.

13. What is your favorite childhood memory?

Going to my Aunt Patty and Uncle Sam's house for weeks at a time during the summer. I adored both of them and their family (seven kids altogether!) and it has always been a great memory for me.

14. What is one material thing you cannot live without?

My computer. It's my connection to so many things both personal and professional. I would go insane without it.


15. What is one thing you would bring with you on a deserted island?

Someone I love. (I know you said 'thing', but that's my answer anyhow. LOL)


16. What is your favorite computer game and why?

Oh there are so many! Although, I like the simpler games like Cubis and Jewel Quest. Those two are my favorites right now. I love puzzles and games that make you think, but for me it helps to do those more difficult ones on paper where I can write down my thoughts and 'see' what I'm thinking. For my computer games, I like them a little more mindless, so to speak. Something I can play and just go with the flow. I also like those two games because, while there is some skill involved, it's also a lot of chance. No two boards, or even the same board played multiple times, are ever the same and there are countless ways to play and complete them. I love to challenge myself to beat previous scores and times.


17. Who is your favorite band and why?

All time? Crosby, Stills & Nash, hands down. They take songs and harmonies that are so unique, they are beautiful even without musical scores. I've seen them three times in concert, and every time I'm struck by the multiple generations in the audience. Their music started out geared towards a specific generation and then they transcended that. Plus, Southern Cross? (One of their songs) just rocks!

Currently 3 Doors Down is giving CSN a run for their money as my all time favorite. The music and lyrics are beautiful and they can go from soft ballad to all-out rock in 60 seconds or less!


18. Who is your favorite actor and why?

Jamie Bamber. I've been a fan of his since A&E filmed the Horatio Hornblower movies. His stint on the new Battlestar Gallactica just solidified his position for me. His American accent is spot on and his British accent is adorable. I had the chance to meet him two years ago and he is so genuine. One of the nicest people I've met. That, and when we had our picture taken I was kind of... well, I turned into a bumbling idiot, and he still called me adorable. Yeah, he's my favorite!

19. Who is your favorite actress and why?

Michelle Yeoh. The woman can do anything she wants to. She's beautiful, exotic, can be funny and dramatic. Plus, she could kick your ass six ways from Sunday without breaking a sweat if she wanted to! I love to see strong women in strong roles, but still keep that allure and vulnerability there as well. Just an all-around fantastic actress.

20. Who is your role model and why?

Hmmm.... my dad. He was laid off from his job my senior year in high school. He could have just chucked it and gotten a no-brainer job that got us through, but he didn't. He went back to school and earned a degree in Management Information Systems. Not bad for someone who hadn't been in school in nearly 20 years. He had gone to college for one semester and didn't want to be there at that time and left with a 1.8 GPA. But, he did have two classes where he at least passed, but in order to keep those credits and be able to transfer out of that major, he had to pull a 4.0 for two straight semesters. And he did it while also working 2 part time jobs. We went to school together for 3 years, even taking one class together. It was probably the bravest thing I'd ever seen anyone do. I'm a Daddy's girl, and my dad and I have always had a special bond, but he showed me there that anything is possible too.
 

Mr Flibble

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And here is an interview with Nakhlasmoke, AKA Cat. I picked her because, er she wanted to lol, and because when it comes to the writing process we're twins. I'm the evil one natch.


( And I completely pilfered the questions from Heron hehe)

Tell us a bit about yourself. What would you like us to know about you?

Erk. I'm mostly harmless.

What are you doing now?

Writing, mostly. And hopefully doing a bit more pro belly dancing in the upcoming year. A man's gotta eat.

What is your favourite food?

Vegetarian pizza with extra pineapples and chilli.

What is your favourite colour?

Rust

What is your favourite sound?

The Muslim call to prayer at dawn

Who is your favourite person?

My Slave and my kids (yeah, I'm cheating)

What is your favourite place?

Cape Town

What is your favourite memory?

OMG I have a shocking memory. next.

What is your favourite article of clothing?

My sparkly MC Hammer Harem Pants of Doom, but I don't get to wear those in normal public situations, alas

What is your favourite word?

Skerry. Or fuck. I use one of these more often than the other.

What is your favourite writers' quote and why?

Everything Can Be Fixed In Revisions - sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me at it when I'm in the writing doldrums.

What is your most favourite quality about yourself?

The ability to empathise with people I disagree with.

What is the least favourite quality about yourself?

I lose my temper fast, and with violent results

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?

The Atlantic ocean, so I can stand on the edge of the world and let cold water swirl about my ankles as I sink into the sand.

What inspires you to write and why?

Ha. Other writers' words. Good writing makes me happy to be alive.

What is your favourite book and why?

Tender is the Night- Fitzgerald. It's the combo of characters and language. I love that book like whoah

What is your favourite genre and why?

Fantasy, although I'll pretty much devour anything. I just love the fantastical and strange

List your three favourite authors (any genre) and why?

Margaret Atwood - she's the Tori Amos of lit. Or something.

Jasper Fforde - because he does metafiction so fantastically

Ballard - because Crash basically changed my life. Between that and Diana Wynne Jones's Dogsbody, I knew I wanted to write.



What do you think makes a writer successful?

Talent, work ethic, an ego that can be deflated or inflated as the occasion demands.

What is it that makes you successful as a writer?

Uh....I learn more with each book I write.

What are your goals as a writer?

To write something worth reading. To have those books stay in print. To win a Hugo (snerk)

What is the best tip you can give to fellow writers?

Your first book is shite. Probably. Throw it away and start a new one. Oh, and I'm also often wrong so don't listen to me.


What do you hope to provide your readers with through your writing?


A new world to immerse themselves in and characters they fall in love with.

List your three favourite online writer-resource sites and why (include URLS).

well...uh AW. Do you really need the URL?

http://dictionary.reference.com/

http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Worksho...-revision.html

If you have published a book/story, tell us about your publishing success (title, publishing date and company, where it is available to purchase).

Oh wait, I do have a published short out there. It's this Reflection Of Me, in Jabberwocky 3, and since it's the teaser for the antho, you can read it online free of charge. Wheee!

http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=359

How long did it take you to write your book(s)?

I can write a book in three months. it's the rewriting and revising that takes forever.

What would you do differently if you could repeat the same publishing experience?

Be more proactive with promotion.

What have you learned about the publishing world?


sloooooooooooooooooooooooow

This is your chance to 'Talk Back' to your readers. What would you like to say to them?

Hi mom!! *waves*

What's the one thing that you want them to know about your writing?

Sorry, mom, I doubt I'll be giving up genre for "real" writing anytime soon, but thanks for asking.
 

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On A Journey - My Interview With Godfather



Michael O’Mahony, known as Godfather, was born in London but grew up in Limerick, Ireland. He is a young man out to see the world, and through his poetry, to allow his audience to see it with him. The school system never made a big impression on him, he says. His teachers were unremarkable, as was almost everyone else. “I actually wear my graduation ring around my neck to remind me to be cynical.” While attending, history and English were his two favorite subjects. Those two interests, history and love of language, are what drive his writing.


Godfather believes that the pursuit of intelligence and greatness is a very noble thing, and is something he respects very much; but, it’s when he takes the time to step back and just look at things, at humanity, the raw sincerity of it, that he experiences an unspeakable joy; this is what interests him most.

His desire for his poetry, is “to go to greatness”. “I think that’s a necessary direction in which to improve.” Recently, Godfather returned to London to study art. Coming from a small community, he knew he wanted to go somewhere bigger.


A continuous thread of pursuing the bigger ideal of love, land and literature permeates Godfather’s poetry. As you travel with him through a succession of lived loves and love of life, you will find yourself on a marvelous journey experiencing Godfather’s passionate expression through his poetry.

Following, I present my interview with Godfather. He allows us a glimpse into his postcard life and the memorabilia he carries in his bag of souvenirs that is always packed to seek new destinations:

(I originally sent Godfather the questions for the interview, as I composed them on line. I had thought that he would reply with his answers accompanying the original questions. As he deleted after answering them, there was no other copy. That said, I have attempted to reconstruct, to the best of my recollection, the questions that I presented to Godfather. Hopefully, my reconstructed questions will give a clear enough basis for the particular answers that he submitted to me. I apologize for any lack of clarity and take full responsibility.)

1. Q: In the Best Love Poems Thread, you quoted Yeats, “I have spread my dreams under your feet, tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” Were you relating your quote to a particular feeling or person?

A: I was with a girl a few months ago, and it was the beginning of our relationship. Man, but she was beautiful. She was writing an essay on Yeats at the time, and so I pulled my own Yeats book off the shelf, and found this poem. I read it and reread it. It was a beautiful poem which heralded the beginning of a mad love affair with a beautiful girl.

I was smitten at the time, we were fresh and pretty, you know? The reasons for being drawn to this poem at the beginning are obvious. But it turned out to be the most telling, beautiful, and misplaced relationship I've had, and that poem followed me through it. I could see my failings, and hers, through the poem. It was grounding, something to compare myself, and us, to.


That relationship and that poem showed me that I can't be the perfect boyfriend. I can't be the quintessential-Jude-Law-esque character, I can only be myself. I wish I could offer perfection, but I can only offer myself, my infidelities, revelations, doldrums and joy. Like in Dylan's 'It Ain't Me, Babe', I can only be myself. If I could give heaven, I would, but all I have to give is the world.

2. Q: Are the women that end up in your poems different women or often referencing the same woman, or the ideal woman you carry with you?


A: Different women? Yes, of course. Some are made up, some represent singular characteristics, some represent ideals, and some are real. For example, 'a last song for the goddess, a first song for the woman' was written with a specific girl in mind (the same girl as above), but it was about something more than just her, so I didn't include a subtitle. Sometimes though, a poem is purely about one person, and is exclusive to them, in which case I will include a subtitle ('My Severed Tongue', 'In Prague').

I've always been romantic, enthralled by that better gender. For most of my life, I had no access to the world of women, except through dreams and stories told by my friends. In my anti-hygiene and self-pity, I was not to be fallen in love with. I was, due to my foolishness and childishness, outside of that world, and more frustrated day by day at being outside. And so, day by day, girls became more unreachable and the pedestal grew taller and taller. Once I mustered some self-respect, I had my first kiss. It was comparatively late. And so I moved into a different world, now of sex, smiling and fighting. And this world didn't disappoint, the pedestal has thus far been justified.


I moved through the months, the love affairs, and the kisses. Man, I tell you films never did do kisses justice with their storming violins. I never did see the tender touch and frantic closeness on a cinema screen. Kisses were better than I had imagined, and that's really saying something. There was so much to it, sometimes I still employ objectivity during a kiss and just imagine how things have changed - this pretty woman wants me and I want her. It is still bizarre for me, and brilliant.

I guess I am always looking for my perfect woman, who isn't? But I'm 18. I know that we listen to too many pretty songs and expect too much at our age. There is nothing I want more than to fall terribly in love, but I don't expect it to happen at this age. Now, I can fall in love for 15 minutes in the highest reaches of London apartments, and the quietest living room in Limerick. I suppose I am waiting for her, but what better waiting room than youth? Now, I'm discovering what Dylan meant when he sang, and what Picasso meant when he drew. What poems could I write, what paintings could I paint without this necessary subject? Politics are lame without love, I could paint myself, but I'm nowhere without women.

3. Q: In the Best Love Poems Thread you reference your appreciation for the beauty of nature, “I was at a friend’s who lives in the country - one of the clearest night skies I've ever seen - just beautiful. If I can admire beauty in a sky, I can sure as hell admire it in a girl.” Would you elaborate a little more on your concept of beauty?


A: Beauty? Well, if I can respect natural intelligence, or an innate musical talent, why shouldn't I respect natural beauty? It's pure, and can sometimes escape

pseudo-intelligence. Unfortunately, people confuse beauty and sex appeal, and beauty can be lost in this artificial sex appeal, eating disorders and bizarre, trendy haircuts. But I'm biased - poetry is an infidelity - art is my faithful lover. There's something raw and real about a great painting - a Francis Bacon painting can knock me down. Form and color is so natural and base, beauty is so unaffected.

4. Q: In a critique by AM Crenshaw of your poem Russia and me and our electric innocence in London, he asks the question, “Do you pay this much attention to the choices of your words?” When you reconsider your word choices to find the best way to express what you want to express, do you find that you have favorite words that seem to find their way into your poems?


A: Favorite words? Ha, ha, I guess "woman" would have to be one of them, wouldn't it? Actually, I was at girl's apartment a few weeks ago and she asked me to choose ten words, and then whisper them to her. Mountain, piano, yellow, hips, blue, ass, poppy, lips, I guess they're all weighted in meaning, instead of syllables.

5. Q: In the ensuing dialogue between you and AMCrenshaw, you responded, “I find that dictionary definitions are less important than the understood meanings of words. What I mean is (and, be warned, i can be dreadfully inarticulate) that the sensuous associations of words, appealing to the senses rather than the intellect, is essential; or, something like that.” “Furthermore, people understand words through association. For example, I made up a word once, for a poem. The word was 'yugoslaveeing', and though there is no definition for it, nor could I supply one, I know that people understand it, using their instinct. For the sake of this interview, could you give me your best attempt at defining “Yugoslaveeing”? Does the word somehow relate to Yugoslavia?


A: Yugoslaveeing |ˌyoōgōˈslävēə;ˌyoōgə-|
verb
1. The process of disintegration, evanescence, crumbling, breaking up, losing coherence and cohesiveness.
2. The destruction of something significant (and mountainous).


Of course, there are the connotations of what a place may represent in a particular context. For example, I've never been to Yugoslavia. However, when I put the poem in the context of a place, it means something more than just mentioning it. In 'In Prague', the first line is 'I long for you in cities that are steep and cobblestoned', which is an inherent characteristic of Prague (and other European cities, like Bratislava) old town. Normally I don't base a poem in a place I haven't been, because I can't know if it’s a suitable context.

I do love traveling. This summer, my brother and I traveled around Europe. Maybe I have restless feet. I once told a friend I wanted to lay the world, I don't want to miss a thing, I want to go everywhere and see everything. Next on my list is South America. That would be something else.


6. Q: Chronologically, by many, you would be considered a young man at eighteen. Often, in your poems, the voice of the poet is a man of many experiences, women and travels. Is this voice that of your fantasies or real expression of who you are in some sense?


A: Generally, the protagonist in my poems is me, or certain aspects of myself. Everything in my poems reflects an aspect of my life, because I don't know anything else. That being said, his character can vary between poems (the vengeful, determined romantic in 'the great pretender', and the hopeless, destroyed romantic in 'My Severed Tongue').

7. Q: In a thread, you said, regarding the word “freight”, “It has a fantastic folk music and beat stigma.” “It has one of the most romantic images I know.” Have you ever hopped a freight?


A: No, I've never hopped a freight, but man, I'd like to. Wouldn't that be something? Rumbling and sailing in a big empty boxcar with a whole country rattling past you, instead of through the double-glazed window of an air-conditioned dining car. But of course, it’s not what it was before. People don't hop freights anymore. I want to do it for the sheer hell of it, but I know it won't be what I think it should be. In the first chapter of his autobiography, Woody Guthrie describes a freight train going to California in the Depression. He's there with his guitar,(or his "meal ticket") and everybody there is poor and looking for a job, and they all wind up breaking into song and shortly after, a brawl. Those days are gone. Those were the real bona-fide camaraderie of moneyless and desperate fellows headin’ out to Califor-N-I-A. At least freight trains will never disappoint, because I have no expectations.

8. Q: In response to a critique of The Wrench Musician, you said, “It stands as a testament as to how my work was two years ago.” How different do you see yourself as a poet now, as compared to then?


A: I'm a very different person as to who I was two years ago. I change constantly. Then, I was floundering; I didn't know what a poem was, how to write one, why I wanted to write one and what was the whole damned point anyway? I don't claim to be any good at it now, but I understand poetry a hell of a lot more than I did then. I read poetry now, and can relate poems to my life. Poetry is important to me now. I guess I was testing the water then. Now I know exactly where I want to go, and why.

9. Q: In response to your poem entitled craw, lawd kree, you mention the phrase “char chroi which translates “heartbreak” in Irish. Are you Irish?


A: Yeah, I'm Irish. Having recently moved to London, my Irishness bears increasingly more weight. Naturally, when I'm back home, being Irish is largely irrelevant, but in another country, it lends a degree of identity. The significance of one's nationality becomes apparent once you separate yourself from it. Particularly in England, the people are so different for being so close. Being Irish is important to me, I have a strong interest in Irish history and literature (hell we have James Joyce and W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde).

It was very significant for my 'Irishness' to reconcile itself with the side of me that sings the blues, wonders about freight trains, and dreams of gypsy princesses in red white polka dot dresses and Cadillacs. (Actually, I documented the reconciliation in 'the death of bo diddley'). It is the combination of these two elements that makes me who I am.


Regrettably, I don't speak much Irish. It is, frankly, a dead language, and the Irish educational system is to blame. Its bizarrely childish approach to teaching the Irish language has crippled it. Teachers are lame. It is compulsory for 14 years, though you can get a passing grade with the most basic knowledge in your final exams. It's a damned shame, and I'm only sorry I didn't develop an interest in the language sooner. I'm sure I would have if I learned about Irish literature, history or music a little sooner than at 17 years old. What nonsense.

As regards other languages, I have a passing knowledge of German. In Russian, I can say 'wine', 'good morning' and 'elephant'. In French, I can say 'Don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?', and in Turkish I can say 'I'm a steady rollin' man'. I do enjoy languages though, and plan to learn French. (Actually, I'm going to start that after Christmas.) My mother is a translator, my aunt is French, it’s a pretty language and French girls are beeeautiful. I can't think of any reason not to learn French.

10. Q: In response to a critique of your poem The Wooden Groove, you make the comment regarding math, “nothing going on – all mathematics.” Did you fare well in math while in the school system or was that a subject you shied away from academically? Do you ever see a place for mathematics in poetry?


A: “Nothing interesting going on?” Well, that was silly of me. I guess I don't agree with that anymore. Math has never interested me because there was a right way of doing things, and I never saw the point - it bored me. I'm fairly good at math, but I abandoned it. However, I do acknowledge the importance of math, and respect it. Without it there's no rhythm or structure, and so math is necessary in poetry, music and painting. I haven't thought directly about math in my poetry.

A friend of mine is exploring the whole notion of geometry in paintings, and I'm finding it more and more interesting. Though I don't believe it will ever be a subject, it will most likely find its way into my poems. In fact, its quite ironic because 'The Wooden Groove' is quite a structured, and thus mathematical, poem. How silly of me, indeed.

11. Q: Your poems tend to portray the poet as a well traveled, experienced ladies’ man. Do you believe this is an accurate portrayal of yourself?

A: I don't feel I present myself as those things. It’s probably a fair derivative, but its not my intention to put these things forward. I don't try to present myself as anything, I just try to present moments and feelings. I mean, I've seen quite a few countries, but I wouldn't call myself cultured or anything. I guess I'm fascinated by these things, rather than understanding of them. As regards women, I'm no Black Jack Davey, but I've kissed a few girls.


Elaine Parny - kdnxdr
 
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Susie

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Interview with RegDog

avatar21877_53.gif



I really enjoyed inerviewing Reg and her answers are very interesting.

l. What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

I believe and hope in love, so I write romance. I wanted to tell my niece, who lives in another state bedtime stories, so I write children’s books.


2. What don't we know about you?

I’m very gentle hearted and nice. And I have always had a deep sense of right and wrong, and I have to do the right thing, even if it is the unpopular thing. And I can knit and make balloon animals.

3. Do you own any pets, what kind?

1 pug, 1 cocker mix and 6 cats. Yes 6, don't ask why, it wasn't the plan.

4. Where would you like to be in five years with your writing?

Published and earning enough money to support myself from my writing.

5. How often do you write?

Several days a week, but I am trying to be more disciplined and write everyday.

6. Do you have any trouble finishing what you write?

Yes, I have several unfinished works.

7. Did you have a dream that came true for you?

Not yet

8. How did you find AW?

Google

9. What television shows do you like to watch?

Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, Price is Right, Avatar The Last Airbender, and yes my guilty pleasure, Dog the Bounty Hunter

10. Who is your favorite actor?

Honestly don't have one.

11. What movie do you love the most?

Lord of the Rings Trilogy
L&H[/quote]

Susie

You can delete the last PM I sent with the old questions. You came up with a good list. I'm glad we did this
 
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Susie

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Interview with Kitrianna (Kit)

Kit's answers are such a nice read and I really liked interviewing Kit.

l. What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

Science Fiction/Fantasy. I suppose it's because I watched alot of scifi with my Dad as a kid and I read a lot of fantasy...well that and every Nancy Drew novel my mom owned.

2. What don't we know about you?

Unless you've read my profile, most people wouldn't know that I half wrote a novel when I was 16. It wasn't very good, looking back on it now, but it's what got me seriously into writing.


3. Do you own any pets, what kind?

I have two kittens, Zeus and CJ (Coonbear Jr.). I put their pics everywhere!

4. Where would you like to be in five years with your writing?

I'd like to have at least one book published, if not a couple from the fantasy series I'm writing.

5. How often do you write?

When inspiration strikes. It's a cruel mistress, but when she hits, she hits hard!

6. Do you have any trouble finishing what you write?

Eventually everything gets finished. It's a matter of how long eventually takes.

7. Did you have a dream that came true for you?

Yes. I met a man (Kthrok) who not only loved me for all my flaws, but encourages me to write. He's my biggest inspiration and supporter. I'm so glad I was smart enough to marry him!

8. How did you find AW?

By sheer luck when I did a google search one day at the library.

9. What television shows do you like to watch?

I don't watch much TV these days, but when I do it's usually not shows, it's hockey games. I love my hockey.

10. What is your favorite actor?

Sean Connery. I love the accent!

11. What movie do you love the most?

I have to pick one??! Ok, I'd have to say Scrooged. It's a modern take on a classic story. That and it's a tradition my Dad started with me to watch it every Christmas Eve.
 

Ol' Fashioned Girl

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OFG's Interview with OFB's Grandmother

AW Day of Listening, December 14, 2008



(I went about it a little differently... I mixed the original purpose of the Day of Listening with AW's version, and stirred in a bit of research from my current WIP. And if you listen closely - you'll learn a lot about America's history and a little about me.)


Life has never been easy, and for the women of the mid- to late 1800s, the argument could be made for their lot being one of the worst of all. It was a time of Westward Expansion in the United States, and more often than not, the women found themselves uprooted with little warning and sent from a place that was at least familiar into the complete unknown. Forced to abandon homes they knew and people they loved, they endured loneliness, depravation, fear, uncertainty, sickness, death and the birth of the generations to come.

Two of those women were integral to my family. They were two of the grandmothers responsible for the existence of this Ol’ Fashioned Girl and her Ol’ Fashioned Boy. And these are the interviews they might have given, if I’d ever had the honor and the joy of sitting down with them for a chat.



Interview with Clara Dahl


1875-1962


Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to introduce my grandmother-in-law, Clara Maria Swanson Dahl, who joins us today from another time in another place, with a life story few of us can imagine.

ClaraSwansonDahl.jpg

Clara… thank you so much for agreeing to come today. I’m going to try to keep my awe in check and just ask the questions. Please feel free to tell us as much – or as little – as you wish.

OFG: When and where were you born?

Clara: I was born in Fiskebäckskil, Sweden, September 22, 1875. I have brought some pictures… this is the view from dockside. It’s a little fishing village, hasn’t changed much from when we lived there… my brother used to fish in this little cove.

Fisk.jpg

OFG: Who were your parents? What did they do?

Clara: My papa was Johannes Swanson and my mama was Christina Maria Pettersdotter. The Swedes, they do the naming different. My name is really Clara Maria Johannesdotter, but your way… it is easier. Papa was a cobbler, and the rich people came from far away to buy his shoes. There was no time for him to make the shoes for the poor people of the village. Mama did the sewing. She made the fancy shirts, with rows and rows of little tucks in them, for the same rich people who bought papa’s shoes.


JohanSwanson.jpg
ChristinaMariaPettersonSwanson.jpg


OFG: Were there a lot of rich people in Sweden?

Clara: Not enough. Though some people liked to act like the rich people, it brought them nothing but sorrow. It is better to be what you are.

OFG: I can’t argue that. Tell me more about life in Fiskebäckskil. Why did your family leave?

Clara: I was the oldest of four. I had two brothers, Sven Joel, and Karl, the youngest, and a sister, Jenney… Jenney died in childbirth, took the babe with her. But Karl and Joel grew up in America and married good Swedish girls from the community and had big families.




JoelSwanson.jpg
JenneySwanson.jpg
KarlSwanson.jpg



We went to school and studied our lessons and, when we weren’t needed in our garden patch or to help with the meals and the house, we got to roam the shores and go into town to buy fish when Brother couldn’t catch any and what we couldn’t make for ourselves from the other villagers. When I was about twelve or so, Papa’s brother wrote again from America – he was writing all the time – trying to convince Papa to come, move from our village and come to someplace called‘Nebraska’. Nebraska Territory. He said there were many opportunities there and life was easy, easier than in Sweden. And there was much in Europe happening that worried Papa. Great unrest. The Communists. The famines in Ireland and China. He was finally convinced it was time to leave his homeland and join his brother in America. So many were going to America! I wondered many times if there were any left in the world when we all got to America.

OFG: Why Nebraska? Why did Uncle John choose Nebraska?

Clara: Land. Almost for nothing. And many Swedes had gone there to settle. Papa was going to be a farmer.

OFG: How did that work out? For a cobbler to become a farmer?

(Note: Clara laughed at the question, and I must record that her laugh was deep, full-bodied, and infectious.)

Clara: Not well. When we first come to America, we must live with Uncle John, Papa’s brother, and his wife and family. My aunt… she was not so happy to have the six of us move in with them. She made Papa and Mama send me and Joel out to work.

OFG: ‘Out to work’?

Clara: Ya. Joel went to live with a family who had no sons to help with the farming. And I went to a family who had no daughters. All our wages went to Uncle John’s wife to help with the support of my family.

OFG: How did you feel about that? Didn’t you miss your family?

Clara: Oh, yes! I was very young… I wanted Mama and my sister and even though I was promised trips home to visit every Christmas, I never got to go. I never got to go to the school, either, like I was promised – only two and a half months of school in all the years I was gone. Something was always about to happen to keep me there with the people who’d taken me in. Babies, mostly… that woman was always having the babies! One time, twins. The next time… oh, it was bad. The baby comes out backwards… Missus didn’t have any after that, but still it was five or six years ‘til Papa had land of his own and Brother and I were brought home for good to help build the sod house we would live in until we could afford a proper wood house.

OFG: What do you remember most about your first years in America?

Clara: The flies! I hate the flies! We did not have the big flies in Sweden like we had in Nebraska. And the language. As long as we stayed in the Swedish community, there was no problem. But if we went outside, the language was hard. And there are so many American words for things! And missing Mama and Papa and my brothers and sister… and being run over by the wagon.

OFG: Run over by a wagon!?

Clara: On the way to church. Something frightened the horses and I was thrown out. The wheel rolled over my back. They got me back in the wagon and we went on to church, but when we came home, I went right to bed and stayed for many days.

OFG: What did the doctor say?

Clara: Doctor? There was no doctor… Here’s a picture of the Swedish sod church and most of the Swedish community.



SodChurch.jpg


I suppose I should have died… but we were so ignorant. It is terrible to be ignorant. It is so very terrible to be ignorant… we did not know to go for a doctor, and he might not have come if we had. Ignorant… I taught myself to read. And I made sure all my sons, all four of them, had good educations so they would not be ignorant.

OFG: So… when did you meet Rudolf? When did you marry?

Clara: He was a bachelor farmer. He was from Sweden, too, and part of the Swedish community. I was twenty-six when we married in 1901.



ClaraandRudolfWedding.jpg


We moved into a sod house he had built to prove up his own homestead. Here’s a picture of us and the four boys – Carl Waldemar, our first born; Lawrence Walfrid; Einar Segfried, the baby; and Clarence Rudolf.

Me and my boys…

RudolfDahl1907ComstockNESoddywFamil.jpg


Later, much later, we had a proper house… but all my boys were born here.

OFG: So you lived in a soddy all those years? ‘Til you got your farmhouse in the ‘20s?

Clara: Oh, no. Rudolf got homesick for Sweden and sold everything! I did not want to go, no matter how hard it was in Nebraska… but Rudolf was like that. What he would say, would be the law. So we moved back to Sweden in 1912, into a tenement house in Vanersborg, the town where he was born.

I only thought I had missed my family when I was away working for the other Swedish families in America. Now there was an ocean and a sea between us… and everywhere the talk of war. We moved out to the country, to a twenty-acre farm, but poor Rudolf! He was no better at farming in his homeland than he was in America… he was such a city boy!

Things were very hard… and the war talk went on and on. Whenever Rudolf would go into town for supplies, it was all he talked of for hours when he came home. So… once again… he sells everything and we bring our boys back home to America. That was in May… no, April, 1915. We come home on the Lusitania.

OFG: The… Lusitania? The Lusitania that was sunk by the Germans? (You can see a picture of the dress Clara wore on her voyage at the end of the interview.)

Clara: On the way back to England. Ya. Such a terrible thing. So many people killed. I think often of those poor people. Their children. We were so lucky.

OFG: So it was back to Nebraska then?

Clara: So it was back to Nebraska, ya. But it was not the same for me there. My sister was dead… Papa was dead and Mama was living with my brother, Joel. We stayed with them, too, all six of us, until we could find eighty acres to buy in Dry Valley. We worked very hard and raised our boys there, added acres a few at a time until we had 240. We had a very good farm… mostly because of the boys. They all went to school, to college, and they were good farmers. I would not let my boys be ignorant.

But they could not stay with us forever… and then it was 1929 and everything was very bad everywhere in America. We tried to hold on, but we had to sell the farm in 1932. They came and auctioned everything we owned… my house. My chickens. My furniture. Everything. Monday, December 12, 1932.

OFG: Where did you go then?

Clara: We moved to a little house in Loomis, Nebraska, with the help of the boys. It was the best house I ever had… I didn’t let anyone change a thing. I wouldn’t even have any of that indoor plumbing. We stayed there until I couldn’t take care of Rudolf any longer, then we moved into the Christian Home in Holdrege. I didn’t much like it there, but what to do?

Rudolf died in 1956… and I followed him six years later. It was a hard life, but it was a good life. I believe I did well.

OFG: What do you see as your greatest accomplishment?

Clara: After raising my boys and making sure they got an education… why, child, it’s got to be coming back here… to talk to you.



ClaraSwansonDahlLusitaniaDress.jpg
 

Ol' Fashioned Girl

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OFG's Interview with Her Grandmother

Interview with Jenny Dee
1876 – 1906
SarahJaneDee.jpg

Jenny Dee, my grandmother and from whom I get my name, died in 1906 – when my father was three. It would be forty-seven years before I came along, another forty-seven years before I saw a picture of her; and, since Dad was so young when she passed, there are precious few stories that could come directly from him. My uncles, fortunately, were old enough to remember their mother and it was from them the sparse facts of Jenny’s life came to me… until today.

OFG: Jenny? Jenny Dee Robbins?

Jenny Dee: Yes, that would be me. Well, Sarah Jane Dee Robbins… but they called me Jenny Dee.

OFG: You’re my… grandmother.

Jenny Dee: That I am. Your father, Sidney, was my last child. Well… there was Roy, but he died the year after he was born, and the one I was carrying when I died… but she didn’t count.

OFG: She? How’d you know it was a she? It was – what? – 1905? 1906? Over a hundred years ago.

Jenny Dee: 1906. And I knew.

OFG: When and where were born… er… Grandmother? Gramma? Jenny? What would you like me to call you?

Jenny Dee: Mmmm… Grandma. I never got to be called ‘grandma’. Or anything but ‘Jenny’ and ‘Mama’, for that matter. Call me ‘Grandma’.

OFG: Grandma, it is. So… when and where were you born, Grandma?

Jenny Dee: I was born March 29, 1876, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I was the second of twelve children, the first girl, and the first child to survive infancy. For some reason, we were on our way to Texas, where my sister, Cora, was born in 1877, but the following year we were back in Missouri. Stayed there ‘til ’87, when we moved back to Texas again for the birth of the last three of my brothers and sisters.

OFG: Any idea why your parents moved so much?

Jenny Dee: Daddy. He was flighty. Artist type. Poet. You get your writing ability from him, I bet.

OFG: I’m no poet! Best I can do along that line is a limerick.

Jenny Dee: Ah, but poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, Granddaughter. Between Daddy and Sidney, who wove some pretty fish stories in his day, the prose won out.

OFG: So you were in Texas when you met Charlie?

Jenny Dee: I was. We married in Bonham, Texas, in 1892. Nine months and thirty minutes later, your Uncle Clarence was born.

OFG: You were one of twelve… and you had – how many?

Jenny Dee: I was pregnant 10 times from the day I married ‘til the day I died. After Clarence, there were Gertrude and Jerome, the twins. Then came Mable and Claude and Charles, Jr., William, Emmer, Sidney, and finally, Roy. Mable died when she was six… Emmer, Emmer was just eleven months. He died the year your daddy was born.

OFG: Catholic?

Jenny Dee: Catholic. Very much Catholic.

OFG: Were you living in Oklahoma by then?

Jenny Dee: Well, no, not exactly. It was still Indian Territory. Didn’t become Oklahoma ‘til the next year after I died. Your grandfather was leasing Indian land, working it for lumber and food when he wasn’t down in the mines around Coalgate, digging for coal.

OFG: Hard life.

Jenny Dee: Very hard. Cold. Windy. Hot. Stormy. But we did alright. Kept the kids fed. Kept body and soul together.

OFG: Until you died and the family had to be split up?

Jenny Dee: Hard for a man with seven living children, all under the age of twelve… especially with a two year old and a three year old. And it wasn’t like there were women lined up to marry a man with a ready-made family that size.

OFG: So what happened to you? How’d you die? What went wrong?

Jenny Dee: Gangrene, Granddaughter. Cantankerous milk cow and a clumsy woman big with child. She jerked her head around to swat me off and her horn caught me right here, beneath my ribs.

OFG: When did that happen?

Jenny Dee: February, 1906. I kept thinking it’d get better… but it didn’t. Once the gangrene took hold, I was all but gone in less than two weeks.

OFG: Hard way to go.

Jenny Dee: Harder for your granddad. Passin’ on was the easy part for me… then Roy died the following October and my mama stepped in from DeQueen and took your daddy and the next two youngest. The older boys stayed with Charlie and tried to make a go of the place ‘til Charlie finally found him a woman willing to take him and his kids on.

They had one of their own before Charlie died of typhoid in ’12… but that boy died, too, soon after. By then, Clarence and Jerome took off on their own, thinking they were old enough to make it, and the rest went to Charlie’s brother. I guess they all turned out alright, didn’t they?

OFG: They all turned out alright, Grandma.

Jenny Dee: You lose track after awhile, Granddaughter. You follow along for a time… but then you wake up one morning and you’ve lost your place. You can’t find it and you begin to forget… and people down here, they begin to forget, too, until there’s no one left who remembers who you were. No one left who remembers your name.

By the way, Granddaughter… what’s your name?

OFG: It’s Jenny, Grandma. Jenny Dee. That’s the only thing Dad remembered, so he named me after you.
 

aruna

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Where were you born/did you grow up?

I was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, then lived in Hawaii until I was 5-years-old (I remember next to nothing of the island, unfortunately) but I “grew up” in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.


Are you still living there, if not, what circumstances moved you away?


Now I’m back in Texas. San Antonio. My folks were in the Air Force so we moved relatively often. I’m one of the military brats who managed to never leave the states, though. My dad was sent overseas often, while my mom was stationed in the states, so I spent most of my childhood with her. The Air Force finally linked my mom & pops together again when we got to San Antonio, around my sophomore year of high school.

Beside your parents, who was/were the most influential person(s) of your childhood? What did you learn most from him/her/them? The most influential person you’ve known as an adult?

Great question. Thinking… thinking. From my childhood it’s very hard to say. I don’t know if any specific person really influenced me when I was that young. It was just a combination of family, immediate and extended. I always felt like I was sort of on the outside looking in to an extent when I was a kid, and kept a lot of it to myself. Not that anyone really made me feel that way, I was a just a quirky, slightly awkward little dude who couldn’t quite figure out why I was such a square. I’m still not sure why I’m such a square, but I’ve got a much better handle on it now.
Honorable mention to my 5th grade teacher Sister Gayle and my 11th & 12th grade English teacher Mr. Comer for encouraging me and helping me with my writing.
As far as my adolescence / adulthood, my biggest influences are probably my oldest brother and my grandfather. During my teenage years I unconsciously started behaving a bit like my oldest brother, adopting some his mannerisms in a desperate bid to find my cool before I figured out that everybody has their own cool, you can’t steal somebody else’s--to do so in fact is anti-cool.

Nonetheless, I got to see him raise his kids and grow with his wife and find is spirituality right before my eyes. He never preaches or anything, he just sets the example, and the circumstances surrounding his childhood with my other two brothers (also older than me) forced him to step into a leadership role and gave him perspective on things he never lost. I’m still trying to be like him in a lot of ways.
I definitely get my corny sense of humor from him. My grandfather, likewise, helped mold me. I lived with my grandparents one year --freshman year of high school--while both of my parents were stationed elsewhere. The man literally built his own business. Raised four great, successful kids, putting three through college (the fourth elected a different route, but she’s doing good for herself nonetheless).
He helped me get through my awkwardness a lot that year and was way more understanding than I imagined he could be. You know, he’s an old school guy, hard worker, hard disciplinarian, but there were some major screw ups I had when I lived with him and he never lost his cool. I know I must’ve frustrated the hell out of him some times, and there were some absolutely idiotic things I did that fully warranted getting the whole damn bookshelf thrown at me, but he just took the opportunity to teach me about life and accountability. He’s a great man. I also learned how to tell a story and hold a conversation by listening to him. When he’s “on” he can entertain anybody.

Can you name, describe one decisive moment in your youth, one that changed the course of your life, either in a physical, mental or a philosophical sense? Or, is there an experience you had as a youth which lives on in your memory, influencing your life now in either a positive or negative sense?

I’m going to go with two, and both seem fairly trivial and / or superficial and / or after-school-special-ish, but they still sort of follow me around. When I was in kindergarten I went to a daycare that some older grade school kids would also come to afterschool until their parents got off work to pick them up. One day some of the older girls got the kindergarteners together to basically have an impromptu spelling / English lesson. The girls would write the word on the chalkboard and we’d have to say it out loud. They made it a sort of contest, going around the room with each kid guessing the word on the board until they got it right. And I blew everyone else out of the water. Wasn’t even close. Soon I was basically competing with myself, no one else even wanted to try to answer anymore, and these older girls are up there by the blackboard making a big deal in front of everyone about how smart I am, and gradually I begin to realize that this is just going to keep on and on until I miss one of these words. I also began to notice that the kids my age were giving me looks like I was some sort of alien. The word I missed was “maroon.” I remember knowing how it was supposed to be pronounced and then intentionally mispronouncing it (as “marine”) so I could be free of the dirty looks. That marked the first time I ever really felt smart, and the first time I ever felt like being the smartest cat in the room wasn’t really a good thing, and I still occasionally have trouble with that. The second moment was orientation day at my new high school in ninth grade. I’d spent 8 years in Mississippi basically being king of the nerds, with 7th and 8th grade being especially nerd-tastic. So then I moved to the pretty small town of Belton, Texas to live with my grandparents. Freshman Orientation day came and I went to school with the plan to make myself as invisible as possible and just try to get through the day without revealing myself as a mega-geek to be ostracized by even the normal geeks. What I failed to realize was that I was the new guy in a place where new guys were pretty rare, and since I didn’t dress like a stereotypical nerd I was not immediately identified as such. In fact, wonder of wonders, a few girls actually took the initiative to introduce themselves to me. Seemed interested in me. We went to a water park after orientation and there were girls talking to me and asking me about where I was from and if I thought they were cute and what I was going to be doing later, maybe I wanted to hang out. It blew my mind. I assure you I am not engaging in arbitrary self-deprecation here. At that point in my life I had basically resigned myself to being shunned (and occassionally punched) by most of my male peers and found unattractive by my female peers. Of course, being a nerd at heart, I managed to undo my brief popularity at the school within a couple of months, but that was the first time in my life I ever felt anything close to confidence in myself. Since then I’ve developed a borderline-arrogant persona as a sort of backlash against my insecurity, and somehow the two identities converge to create someone who I hope is a pretty decent guy.

Describe the street you live in, the view from your bedroom/living room window, or the route you take to work each day!
I wish I had something interesting to say about any of the above. My street isn’t too busy or too quiet. It gets its share of traffic, has its share of stores and restaurants flanking it, and has inconvenient, seemingly unnecessary construction that’s made almost no progress for months at one end of it, adding another 10 minutes to my morning commute. Standard stuff in my city, unfortunately.
From my bedroom or living room window I can see the apartment complex next door to my own, and a Time Warner Cable billboard asking “Why is AT&T Afraid of Our Rates?”
My route to work each day usually consists of me taking a side street in a hopeless attempt to dodge traffic, eventually making it to the highway, then sailing on in to work. If I get up early enough it’s not so bad. On the way I almost always stop at the gas station near my apartment to buy an energy drink to kick-start my day. Horrible habit, that stuff is terrible for you, but if I don’t do that I’m sluggish clean through lunch…


Describe the room you are sitting in right now!


Quick side note: I initially read the above statement as having an urgency I’m sure wasn’t intended. “Right now! The clock is ticking! Cut the blue wire!” My living room is pretty basic. I wish it was bit jazzier, but alas it’s ordinary. White walls, off-white carpet. No pictures or paintings on the walls… I need to rectify that. A chair, a futon, a television sitting on a white stand with my DVD player and Xbox underneath it. Wall unit in the corner that acts as a bookshelf and also has two compartments where I keep my DVD’s (kept in alphabetical order, divided by genre, and woe betide anyone who disturbs that order). Computer sitting at my desk with paperwork embarrassingly disorganized at the present. 7. Referring to questions 5 and 6: do you see yourself in this same place in two/five/ten years time? Lord, I hope not. I’d like to be out of the city within two years. San Antonio’s not bad at all, I hate to give the impression that I’m denigrating the city. I just want to be someplace a little more exciting, a little more fun, a little less sweltering. Still not quite sure where I see myself just yet, but I’ve got a few cities that I’m looking into visiting pretty soon to try out.

What was your education? What do you do for a living? Do you enjoy your work? I went to college for a year, screwed around and wasted my opportunity. I keep telling myself I’ll go back “next year,” then next year comes and I’m conspicuously absent from any classes.
Right now I work as a Business Analyst for a web development company. Do I enjoy my work? Eh. Somewhere within me there’s some-damn-goofy-thing that can’t fully abide taking orders from any grown man who isn’t my father or grandfather, and I’m also constantly uncomfortable with the idea of my means of income and therefore my present and future not being entirely within my own control.
That said, I’m definitely grateful for the gig. Times are getting hard out there and I’ve got a pretty good job, so I can’t complain. I’ve learned a lot about web design on this job and I’m working toward building sites for people on the side and seeing where that takes me.

What is the quality or qualities you value most in a life partner? Is there such a person in your life right now?

So… recently I actually put together a list of qualities I’m looking for in a life partner, at the behest of sister-in-law, who is also my unofficial psychotherapist. Here are the barest essentials:
Intelligent
Kind / Considerate
Ambitious
Attractive
Appropriately Into Me
That last one, the way I see it, it’s always better to be wanted than needed. If someone gets too into you and feels like they “can’t live without you,” it strikes me as an affection that is almost fear-driven, instead of fully volunteered. I want someone to enjoy my company, not fret over losing me, you know?
Right now, I’m still single & dating. I haven’t had a serious, exclusive girlfriend in two years now, and even that was something I rushed into. Ah well. I like to believe that my dream girl isn’t in San Antonio, and that’s yet another reason why I need to move away, but who knows. I might bump into her today, she might reveal herself as one of the young ladies I’m seeing now, we might spend our whole lives almost crossing paths but never actually meeting each other. For now, at least, just the idea of all the different possibilities is part of the fun of being single.

How and when did you know that you wanted to write fiction?

Good question. Hard to say when I "knew." I always liked telling stories. I used to write these incomparably lousy short horror stories when I was in grade school. My friends would read them and since we were all a bunch of goofy kids who didn't know any better, we all thought it was sort of cool.

Throughout high school I'd pen (equally dreadful) stories whenever I could for a writing assignment. In college I decided to write a screenplay and remained oblivious to the profound lack of improvement in my writing. Finally, when I wrote a story as an assignment for one of my professors, he gave me my first actual critique. My writing was too wordy, my tenses were time-traveling, my dialogue was an insult to language... but the plot was okay.

I came away from that thinking, all right, so I have decent ideas, I just don't know what the hell I'm doing. That's about when I realize that I really wanted to pursue this, and also realized that I needed to take it more seriously then, and start learning how and how not to write.

Is there any one book which inspired you, where you felt: that's what I want to do! or, I can do better?

I've always been a bookworm, but I can't think of one book that stands out as inspiration. When I was young I was the nerd who looked forward to Book Fairs like they were extra Christmases. And I was always a sucker for horror stories even though they kept me sleepless. I'm guessing that something I read back then put the idea in my head that I could write my own stories, and it just gradually evolved from there.

What stage are you at with your novel writing?

Is "Should've Been Done Already" an official stage? If not, it needs to be...

What is your genre? Which writers inspire you?

I primarily write horror, though I've been exploring the world of crime-thrillers lately, and some part of me is a hopeless sucker for a good, mainstream story about love and relationships, so I've dabbled just a bit into that as well.

The writers that inspire me: Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Robert McCammon, Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard. I've also been recently introduced to novels of Richard Price and immediately became a huge fan of his writing style.

What is yor writing process? ie do you outliine, do you have regular hours of writing, are you disciplined? How much do you write each day?

My process is to sit down and (ideally) write what comes. I have an outline in my mind, and started working with putting outlines on paper to give myself benchmarks, help monitor my progress, but that hasn't been as successful as I had hoped it would be.

I'm disciplined about trying to write everyday. I'm terribly susceptible to overthinking, though, and some days I'm stuck staring at the screen, ideas bouncing in my brain, never making it to the page.

I don't know really how much I write each day. I set a goal for two-thousand words that I haven't come close to reaching in months.

What kind of success do you seek, fame, fortune, literary prizes?

Would it be terrible of me to say all of the above?

I always imagined that, if I'm fortunate enough to be blessed with the type of success I seek, one day some interview will inevitably ask the question, "Did you ever in your wildest dreams think you could accomplish all of this?"

And I'll answer,"Well, yes, but in my wildest dreams I also had telekinetic powers. And drove the Batmobile." The interviewer will likely think I'm kidding, and I'll just go on letting him or her believe that...

What woud you prefer to write, a flash-in-the-pan best-seller that vanishes after the first year but makes you a lot of money, or a slow but steady growth of readership, literary obscurity but posthumous fame?

This is actually a really tough question. I can't lie, I'm rather fond of money. I realize that money can't buy happiness, but it can buy great food, a nice house and snazzy clothes, all things that I'm positive I would enjoy.

That said, a very significant part of me cares about leaving a legacy. About being known, read, discussed and remembered well after I'm gone. Ego is a hell of a thing.

Weighing each option, from a practical standpoint, I'd have to go with the money. What fades into obscurity but makes tons of money now vs. what stands the test of time but is largely overlooked when initially published, I don't write with one or the other in mind. I'm just writing the stories that pop into my head as well as I can. So the fate of my work is determined by the readers, and if it is money vs. a legacy, I'll choose the money and keep writing just because I love it--even if it turns out I'm not all that great at it--and search elsewhere for my legacy.

What do you consider your writing strengths, writing weaknesses?

Strengths, I'd go with dialogue (which used to be my biggest weakness) and ideas. I'll never have a problem with running out of ideas.

My biggest weakness is patience and just getting the damn words written down. The latter affects the former. I spend so much time dissecting every little sentence and plot point, wondering what to do next, that I eventually get fed up and start rushing through a project, which leads to be less-than-stellar efforts.

Your own character strengths, character weaknesses?


Hmm... not really sure about strengths. Weaknesses, hell, more than I care to list. I can stand to improve (or in some cases, just find) my patience, focus, consideration, determination, humility... so many things.

Strengths... I dunno. Lord knows I've got an ego and I'm not trying to be coy, but I think that if I list something as a strength it implies that it doesn't need to be worked on. Things I would have considered strengths two or three years ago are some of the things I'm working hardest on now, and even as far as weaknesses go, some of the steps I've taken to improve some of those things proved to be horrible decisions.

All in all, you know, I'm still trying to get better at just being myself.
Dogs, cats, both, neither, and why?

Ah yes, the really, really big question. Not much of a cat or dog person, actually. I’m not against either one, but I just don’t see myself as much of a pet person. Although…
I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a shark. A big one, like a sand-tiger. I don’t think I’d engage in much frivolous spending if I had CEO money, but I’d definitely splurge on a giant shark tank. Build it below my personal office, give the office a glass floor, invite my competitors over for “friendly negotiations” while Mr. Teeth McGillicutty swims underneath.
That’s the dream, anyway…
Thanks for interviewing me. I’m all sorts of flattered…
 
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Sophia

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Interview with Shelly, a.k.a. Shwebb

When and where were you born?

I was born in 1968 in a West Virginia hospital. My mother's first words on seeing me for the first time were, "Oh, she's homely, but she's cute!"


Tell us about your life when you were growing up.

My home life until I was about seven was rather typical, probably. It was the early '70s; both parents worked and shared household duties and child care. My father was an exceptionally good Dad back then. He and my mother did not get along very well, and I think he poured all his love and energy into enjoying and teaching my brother and me, and he gave us great times. I remember spending nights in the backyard with him as he taught me constellations. And there were bike rides and matinee movies and trips to the library. He taught me how to play chess, too.

After my parents divorced and my father left, his "new" family occupied his time, and my brother and I did not fit in well, there. My father legally adopted my stepbrother and stepsister, and he and my stepmother had two sons together.

My stepmother is a rather jealous woman and didn't care to have my brother and me around as reminders that my father had loved someone besides herself or her own children. Whenever we lived with them, my brother and I were often singled out as being "problems," no matter how hard we tried to get along with everyone else.

The benefits of living with them were that we had regular meals and adequate clothing, and adults we could depend on to meet our basic needs.

Whenever we lived with my mother, life was a great deal more chaotic. After the divorce, both my parents remarried almost immediately -- but my mother's subsequent marriage was very spontaneous. And it lasted only three weeks! She didn't even know, for instance, that her new husband wore dentures until after they were married.

She didn't know he could be domineering and abusive, either. So before the first month was over, my Mom, brother, and I waited until Mom's soon-to-be-ex-husband and his kids left for church one Sunday morning -- and we loaded Mom's little blue Ford Pinto with as much as we could stuff into it (which wasn't much!) and drove away, my Mom's hands trembling as the road to freedom passed directly by my stepfather's church.

People behaved much more freely during this period, my Mom included. She used the magazine "Cosmopolitan" as her bible and wanted to live carefreely. The problem was that my brother and I were a bit too young to be left to our own care. But she didn't seem capable of taking care of herself, let alone two children. We were left alone a lot, and often without sufficient food. There were also times that I wore my mother's clothes to school because I didn't have enough of my own clothes that fit, or that were clean.

My mother would often go straight to "happy hour" at the bar after work, and wouldn't call to let us know where she was; I was certain sometimes that something had happened to her. I'd run screaming and sobbing through the house. The sound of any siren when my mother wasn't around could provoke that sort of reaction. It's ironic that as an adult, I became an EMT and was responsible for driving the ambulance with "lights and siren"!

There were also times that my Mom would just take my brother and me to the bars with her in the evenings -- but never late at night. My mother was attractive -- and despite having two kids with her, she did not seem to lack attention.

The one bar we frequented looked seedy, but wow -- it had such interesting people! The bartender answered to "Bad Eye" because he'd lost the sight in it a while back. And it did look like a Bad Eye. It looked like an evil eye -- always red and angry-looking and staring at nothing while his other eye actually did match the friendliness the rest of his face showed. He always poured me root beers in the pre-frosted beer glasses.

There was one man who was there often; he and my mother dated off and on for a good while. He was tall and heavy, shaped like just the opposite of an hourglass. He loved my mother and he treated me and my brother as though we were just as important to him as she was. Whenever he was there, he and I would dance some sort of silly step he called "the Sylvester," named after the cat that was always sneaking up on Tweetie bird -- we'd start out face-to-face in the typical dance position, but we'd start low and act like we were creeping across the dance floor as though we were going to spring up and attack something on the other end of the room. He was the only guy my Mom ever dated that we called "Mister." He was also probably one of the only ones my Mom dated who deserved that respect, as well.

I did find some solace in my relationship with God, even as a very young child. We weren't really taught much about God; my father considered himself an agnostic at the time. We did attend church on occasion before my parents divorced -- probably four or five times each year and during special occasions. However, I always found myself drawn toward stories from the Bible and felt comforted by the idea that God loved me.

During the time we were with my Mom, I did attend a Baptist church by myself. The church had a bus that drove through my neighborhood every Sunday. Although the church did not seem to know how to minister to kids very well -- fire-and-brimstone preaching seemed a bit much! But there was something in me that felt comforted when I attended.

By the time my brother and I ended up living with my father and stepmother for the first time, they had become very devout and rather unconventional Christians. They were very enthusiastic about God -- they praised and worshipped loudly and did whatever "the Spirit moved them to do" which was sometimes raising hands, clapping, shouting, jumping up and down, and speaking in tongues.

We continued to live with my father and stepmother off and on during our childhood. They became increasingly fanatically religious, but I was okay with that. I tried my best to do whatever was required of me and what God might require, as well. So I dressed differently than other kids, wearing skirts and headscarves sometimes. And ultimately their religious beliefs took them -- and by virtue of being one of their children, me -- to living on a number of different communes when I was a teenager.


What was school like for you?

I loved school, but teachers often did not know what to do with me. When I started first grade, the school ended up putting me in a second-grade classroom for most of each day because I already knew so much of what they taught in their first grade. I was already reading at an advanced level and well -- I don't know what they were thinking, really. They didn't double-promote me; they ended up putting me back in the first grade classroom and giving me advanced work. So I started school with the sense of being singled out.

After my parents divorced, I bounced back and forth a lot between them. And they all seemed to move frequently -- so I ended up attending thirteen schools in twelve years. At the time I was in the public school system, I often dressed differently and was very religious, and was regarded as just "odd." However, I was also very friendly and did well in my classes; I was considered mostly harmless.

When I lived on the communes, I was still considered odd, I think. Because unlike most of the other kids there, I had not grown up in that environment and seemed more "worldly" to them. Also, at fifteen I left my family to live alone on one commune in British Columbia. I was also struggling with a serious depression and with the realization that as much as I wanted to fit in somewhere, I was still the oddball.

Ultimately I had a teacher who recognized that I needed help and support and love -- and she was able to reach out to me in the way I needed. With her support I was able to find my way through that crushing sense of futility and find hope for myself. To the point that I realized I liked living communally and at the least, away from my family and its chaos. I still keep in contact with her and see her every couple of years; I treasure her even more now, I think.


What was your first job? How did you feel when you began it?

I got my first job at sixteen; it was after my father and stepmother left communal life because of a bad experience on the farm where they were living. I was determined to go back to where I'd been living in time for the next school term, so I found a job living in with three elderly people -- a farmer and his wife and his oldest sister -- and I assisted with daily care for the sister and cooked and cleaned and kept them company.

When I first took the job, I cried for a good day -- here was yet another big change in my life! And I'm living with complete strangers and what was I thinking, that I could even do this? But even as I was pressing my face into my pillow so they wouldn't be able to hear me crying, I knew that it would just be a matter of adjusting yet again. The job was by design, only four weeks long, anyway. I settled in quickly and was grateful that commune life with all the chores and requirements they required had well-prepared me for this job.

The weeks did go by quickly, and when it came time for me to leave, both the farmer and I had tears in our eyes when my father arrived to pick me up.


What are your strongest recollections of your working life?

Whenever I think of any job I've ever had, it's the people I was around that I remember most strongly.

In my final year of high school at a commune in Canton, Ohio, I took a job as a nursing assistant in a local nursing home. In that type of job, given the low pay and enormous workload they put on their employees, it can be easy to slide into seeing the patients as chore-generators. I could never do that -- I always wanted to know about the people in my care, and I was in awe of how much each one of those people must have seen or what they went through. I wanted to know their stories.


Do you belong to any clubs or groups? (Other than AW! :) ) Tell us about them, and what you do.

Right now I attend a local church and have been involved with teaching the kids. My goal has been to get them to view the world as a place where they can be a positive influence in some way, with a heart toward serving others in whatever way might be required.

These days, there are so many ways people can help their neighbors -- and it doesn't have to be through a church to do it. There are many organizations that take volunteers. It's just the idea that we need to be open to opportunities around us and be ready for God to use us wherever we're needed in some way. (That is a statement of what I feel Christians are required to do, and isn't a comment on what other people may or may not do based on their own religion or lack of it.) ;)


What has been the most rewarding thing about raising your children?

When I see my children try something, even though they aren't certain they'll succeed. Or when I see them behave well in difficult situations, like when someone is mistreating them and they respond with grace and dignity. There are those days when I feel like I'm Best Mom Ever! But admittedly there are days that I would be happy with Merely Adequate Mom.

My children have also made me realize, through helping them to find and follow their dreams, that I need to do the same for myself. And that's actually how I found AW.


What do you feel are some of the best times you have had as a family?

Our best family times have been when we do things together. Yesterday we drove for two hours in a blinding snowstorm to get to a park that has an elaborate Christmas light display. Santa Claus was there and my kids each enjoyed telling him what they hoped he'd bring them. They also have a laser light show -- and sitting there with one of my children leaning against me as she ooh!ed at the laser pictures was a moment I'll treasure. My kids love hearing stories from when their father and I were younger, as well. Vacations are also places where we make treasured memories.

And the best time of every day is when I'm tucking each of them into bed at night -- getting a chance to give them one by one my undivided attention and getting to tell them how special each of them are. Saying to them that "I'm so glad you're my kid, and that I'm your Mom!" That routine of sameness that's as comforting and warming to their minds as the blankets are to their bodies. And the quiet peace after they're asleep and the feeling that they're all safe, all is right with the world.


Other than your family, who are the people who play the biggest role in your life?

My best friend and I spend a good bit of time together -- we've known each other for more than twenty years; she was at one time my sister-in-law. The marriage to her brother was a BIG mistake. But what I gained from my friend has made that mistake one I can't entirely regret.

My online friends are priceless, as well. Shweta and I became very good friends through the chat room on AW, and I'm very grateful to count her as a friend. Unique is another valuable AW friend; we've spent time "in real life," as well. There are a great many others from AW that I could name!


What makes you laugh?

Personal tragedy, really bad jokes, really good jokes, other people laughing, my kids doing something silly, random people doing odd things in public that one catches them doing when they aren't aware someone is watching, sex... well, pretty much everything can make me laugh in the right situation.


Give us the details of one of your favorite jokes you've played on someone. :)

I have to choose a favorite? Okay -- this one, because it's a Christmas-themed one:

I once worked as receptionist/sales secretary for a manufacturing company, and one of my jobs was to prepare form letters for the sales manager to sign -- letters to people inquiring about the product that referred them to a distributor.

One day I realized that the boss never looked at what was on the letters; he merely assumed they were all basically the same. And that it would be really easy to put something in there just a little bit different. So...

I wrote a different letter. One that had the basic letter parts in the same places. I stuck it in the middle of the stack of the other letters I'd prepared for him and I put the whole thing on his desk.

I got them all back about an hour later, which was good. Because I was leaving early that day, and I didn't want to be around when my joke was discovered.

Years have eroded the exact wording from my mind, but here's the gist of it:


Dear Santa,

I am 55 years old, and I have been a very good boy this year. For Christmas I'd like membership to all the local golf and country clubs so I can go golfing whenever I feel like it. I love golf! And I also want my very own golf cart. I want to take it to work so I can run down the other sales staff when they're in the halls. Vroom! Vroom!

Please don't send me a lump of coal like you did last year. I promise I've been trying very hard!​


I posted the letter (on company letterhead, of course) on the bulletin board in the staff break room, right where everyone stands to pour their cups of coffee. And I left.

The next day I came into work, as usual. Boss came around the corner as soon as he heard me enter. "You're fired," he told me.

I just laughed at him and started the day. It never occurred to me until years later that he might have been serious!


Do you have a favourite book or author? Do you have certain books that you turn to when you want comfort?

Oooh -- that's a hard question. Depends on what I'm in the mood for. Some books are the equivalent of junk food. Entertaining and a good diversion, but not memorable or filling. Murder/mystery/suspense have become like that, for me, just because I've read so many of them. My Mom raised me on Agatha Christie books.

I'm more of a SFF reader than I realized, even though I don't really follow the genre much. Shweta has pointed me toward some really great books, as has my husband. I like the occasional Stephen King novel and still admire the way he can turn a phrase.

About the only books I long ago gave up on are romance novels. Although I'll admit that if someone were to suggest a good one to me, I'd go looking for it. I know there are some well-written ones out there.

I love David Sedaris books, especially the essays. He's been able to make me laugh and cry myself to tears within the same essay.

Oh -- and I love memoir and biographies. I've always hungered for other people's stories.

Speaking of non-fiction, I get my kicks reading about one subject or another and learning as much as I possibly can about something within a given amount of time. Like the time I latched onto bike-packing and bike maintenance and thought it would be really cool to take a long trip somewhere and back. I never did take that trip except in my imagination.


Do you have a favorite movie? What is one of your favorite movie moments?

One of my favorite movies is a James Stewart/Margaret Sullivan gem called The Shop Around the Corner. They've remade it a few times. Most recently, it was done inferiorly as "You've Got Mail." But the original is sweet and wonderful and funny and romantic. My favorite part is at the end and it would spoil the ending should I describe it, but here's an exchange between Stewart and Sullivan that's cute:


(Stewart): There might be a lot we don't know about each other. You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

(Sullivan): Well I really wouldn't care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I'd find. Instead of a heart, a hand-bag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter... which doesn't work.​


But any movie that moves me in one way or another -- gets me to laugh, or cry, or think twice about something, or even that gets me to forget about something for a while! Those are winners.


You're an artist. What do you like to portray in your artwork?

Whenever I've attempted to express something visually, I have long tended to draw characters in somewhat ambiguous situations. My people are androgynous and/or with no distinct facial features -- which was always done purposely in order for people to possibly identify themselves with the person in the picture. I have always wanted to create a powerful emotional reaction to my images, too. I want the viewer to identify with whatever they think the figure is feeling -- as if the figure is telling the viewer's story too, somehow.


What would you like to achieve in your life-story writing? Do you write about moments that change a life, or perhaps those that define a new direction for a person? Tell us about what is driving you in your work.


With regard to life-story writing, my goal is to tell my own story in such a way that even though my experience might be foreign to the reader, they can understand that what has happened to me could easily happen to them, too. I would like to show that we don't perhaps know ourselves as well as we think we do, nor know each other as well as we might assume -- that we are complex, beautiful, compartmentalized creatures.

In my own memoir, for example, I'm working on showing that I was desperate to tell myself a terrible secret, yet just as determined that I'd almost rather kill than know what that secret was.

I think I tend to write about moments that change a life. At least my essays seem to deal with such moments of revelation.

The odd thing is that it's often very difficult for me to talk about the issues I am addressing in my memoir, which deals partly with a crushing depression, or even to think that my story is one worth telling. And yet at the same time, I'm so willing to tell my story. When I think of the hellish roads I've traveled inside my own mind -- knowing that the treatment I received at the hands of so-called "professionals" was sometimes anything but helpful or professional -- I believe that other people need to know what can happen to a relatively "normal" person: how miserably inadequate our treatment of people suffering from depression, and how unkind the social stigma that accompanies admitting one suffers mentally, especially within religious circles, can be.

But "what can happen" can also be positive. An important focus of my story is one particular person, and the lengths they went to, to save me from myself. That person was my first therapist, who died recently and suddenly from an accident while he was on vacation. I know, from his example, that there are people out there willing to believe that one life is worth anything to save -- and I hope that sharing that will make for an uplifting and interesting read.
 

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artist and writer--a view askew--interview with Lostgirl


Please tell me about yourself.

--I was born on a balmy afternoon in the adult diaper aisle in Wal-Mart, which when you think about it, explains a lot about me. Unfortunately for me that backstabbing, idea stealing Billie Letts stole my life’s story and turned it into a best selling novel and a movie before I had a chance to. Well, okay so I never had any intentions of writing an autobiography. I mean really, who wants to read about a baby born in Wal-Mart? Apparently Oprah, which means EVERYBODY!! I’m still kicking myself in the butt for that one.


I always knew I was gifted and meant for great things. When I was in Kindergarten, I wrote a play entitled “Major Mouthwash and the Great Cavity Caper” and then starred in every role. West Side Story has nothing on me. When you’re a molar, you’re a molar all the way. From birth until dentures. You resist plaque and tooth decay.


I had to go into hiding for many years, due to the paparazzi and my huge fan base, but I couldn’t hide my talent. So, I spent those years as the mime, Mildred the Magnificent, doing street performances and birthdays. But alas when I became world renowned for my trapped-in-an-invisible-box impression, I had to wipe off the black and white face paint and rejoin the dregs of society to escape the mime cult following. I so did not want to drink the purple kool-aid.


Now I spend my spare time (when I’m not thwarting the elaborate ruse to steal my great American novel) as the Geriatric Avenger, beating old people silly with newspapers. But don’t let it get around to Billie Letts she might just steal my next story, “Where the Plot Is”. --


Well unless of course you meant a real bio LOL. The made up ones are so much more interesting though.


At the moment I live in Novato, California with my husband and three year old son. I work from home as an artist, freelance writer, web designer, as well as a steady gig being a recipe columnist for an online magazine. Art wise I design custom tattoos, graphics, avatars, paintings, illustrations, as well as a lot of graphic design. In my spare time I experiment with food, try to write on my own novels, as well as write and illustrate my own children's books. If I'm not writing, I'm drawing, and if I'm doing neither of those I can be found horsing around with my three-year-old.

What are your drives for combining art work and writing?

My drive is necessity. I'm not happy nor complete without some sort of creative output in my life. Both writing and art feed different parts of my soul and I'm incapable of doing just one or the other. When I write I see the worlds in my head, and my fingers as they dance along the keys itch to grab a pencil and start sketching. It's a compulsion I guess.


Do you have any work published ? If so Please list.


While working as an adult literacy tutor at the San Francisco library I had the opportunity to illustrate a financial workbook of a company that worked closely with the program I was affiliated with.


I've sold numerous freelance articles to various places.. mostly online.


I've designed and sold custom tattoos for clients


I've designed and sold custom artwork and paintings


I am actively designing the website http://www.ginikoch.com as well as all the custom graphics for the site.


I have sold numerous business card and letterhead designs


I've won a few contests with humorous shorts.


I was also approached by an editor of a small publishing house to write six children's short stories with complete illustrations that will be available for purchase when I finish the project.


I've been a paid blogger.


What some of the challenges you have encountered trying to balance art and writing?

It takes me twice as long to get anything done. LOL Since I do both and with my ADD it's hard for me to sit and work on a project from start to finish. So I find that I really need to schedule my time with each aspect of what I do so I have enough time in the day to get it all in. Between being virtually a single parent (long story), and my paid work, I try to balance that with my pet projects. So it always feels like I have a ton to do.. but I like being busy so it works out.


What kind of music do you listen to when you work if any? Do you ever use music to inspire or fuel work?

Music is like breathing for me. I have something playing at all times. I listen to all kinds of music but when I'm working I like music I can sing and dance to. So I listen to a lot of punk and alternative. I detest scream metal.. love the 80's.. and Tchaikovsky is my FAVORITE composer.. then Mozart, then Beethoven.



First writing or art memory?

When I grew up I was never going to be a writer or an artist... It was something I just did like eating and breathing. I was going to be a Marine Biologist or something science related. So I don't have a specific memory because it seems like I was always concocting stories and writing them down as well as drawing pictures and decorating my room with them.


I didn't have a storybook childhood unless we're talking the original Brother's Grimm before they were Disneyfied. So art and writing was my escape as a small child to a better place and then an outlet for my angst as a teenager. I know I wouldn't be alive today without it. Funny, seems like you should be able to remember your first when it's such an integral part of your life -- but I always did and always could.


Tell me phobias or fears that relate to what your work? Inspirations too?

My one flaw is I really don't have a modest bone in my body when it comes to my creations. If I didn't love them and think they were awesome then why would I show them to anyone. Coupled with that is I take criticism extremely well because nothing is perfect and everything can benefit from another set of eyes and a second opinion. My biggest fear about my work is losing my hands so I can't create anymore. I'm 32 years old and have had arthritis in my hands since I was 15. I battle the pain everyday to do what I want to do.. and it terrifies me that my hands will become claws and I wont' have the dexterity for the things I love.


My inspirations are the world around me and as clichéd as it is my son. I'm a better person for having him in my life and your insides reflect out.. my work that much better because of having him. I look at a person, a place, the shape of a pile of laundry and I see inspiration for an art piece.. I look at the curve of my son's cheek as he sleeps and see the possibilities.. the way a word sounds or looks and I can create an entire world.


I don't believe you have to have a horrible life to tap into your creative side.. but I think you see deeper and feel more and it reflects stronger in your work when you come from nothing and make something of yourself. There will be those who disagree.. those who's lives where the stuff that my dreams were made of.. and I don't begrudge them their opinions or their talents...



What is your ultimate writing goal or dream?

I'm rather pathetic.. I gave up dreams for myself long ago.. how sad right? All I want is to be able to support my son doing something I love.. and if I had to give it all up tomorrow to make sure he had a roof over his head and mac-n-cheese for his belly. I'd put it all down and turn my back on it. Well.. LOL except for my personal pet projects that'd I'd squeeze in at the end of the day.. because really it'd be like trying to stop breathing to stop creating anything.


Do you wear boxers or briefs?

Neither.. I sport granny panties all the way, baby!!!!!!
 

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horror hound trilogy--an interview with Pike

Please tell me about yourself.

I was published in Darkfire (and writing buddy of mine has the feature story of this month) http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/horror/darkfire/home.html
My first published piece in print was in the premiere issue of the Willows. http://thewillowsmagazine.com/index.htm
Iv'e even been published internationally (damn that almost sounds prestigious) in Murky Depths http://www.murkydepths.com/
I placed in a novel excerpt contest for the gaming website EnWorld. http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/189391-another-big-competition-vote-pick-your-favourite-author.html
I run a shadow Urban Fantasy blog (taking bits and pieces from other, better blogs) http://spikeo.bravejournal.com/
I have a Facebook profile with links to favorite writers (most of which aren't more then a hour's drive south from my house!) http://www.facebook.com/editpicture.php?success=1#/profile.php?id=1296772174&ref=name
I was in a nowhere band called the Trouble with Charlie. I played bass and rhythm guitar. Then I played drums for my youth group band, Flame and the Sparks. We toured a handful of the Four Square churches in the area. Ya, can you just picture a trash mouthed, Marlboro smoking, beer chugging Pike ministering to the youth? Spooky. I worked community theater, behind the scenes for several plays like A Thousand Clowns and Same Time, Next Year. The ladder gave me a fondness for Nat King Cole.


What are your drives for writing horror?

I was always a fan of the old black and white monster flocks. My favorite was the Wolfman. From there I grew up on an unhealthy dose of the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits. I'd have to say it was movies and television that turned me onto horror. Later, it was all about pinning someone into a corner so vile, so hairy that no rational person could think there why out of and seeing where my thoughts and writing carried me. Now I’ve been delving into Urban Fantasies, enjoying the amalgam of my favorite fantasy elements and tainting them with a seething pile of Horror.



What makes you lean towards horror?

Honestly, I didn't have the best childhood so I find it hard to write about goodness and happy people. It's not envy or bitterness I just don't often connect with that. I can connect with the darker elements of life.



What kind of music do you listen to when you write if any? Do you ever use music to inspire or fuel scenes?

I listen to instrumental pieces, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Dougan - anything that produces a dark, background noise to drown out my internal editor and the thoughts of the day banging round in my head.



First writing memory?

I dabbled with stories for years but never very serious with it. The real writing began about ten years ago when a buddy and I started working on a graphic novel. He's a much better artist then I so I hammered out the story details. It didn't get very far but I enjoyed the story crafting.


Tell me phobias or fears that relate to what you write?
Fear of abandonment, being utterly alone, forced to make horrible sacrifices, heights, among others.


Inspirations too?

There are too many to tell. Underdogs coming out on top, horrible news stories, political intrigue and abuse, breakthroughs in science, wild action movies.


What scares you?


What ultimately scares me is having an extreme responsibility placed on my shoulders and I totally botch it up.


What is your ultimate writing goal or dream?


To find my novel on a shelf at a huge book chain and catch someone checking it out. That would be a rush!
 

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horror hound trilogy--an interview with Callalily61

Please tell me about yourself.

Mother of 2 teenagers, one of those craft-y types: I make homemade candy and hand lotion, have been told I’m a good cook, and knit and crochet clothing and jewelry. Oh, yes, I also write. Horror, paranormals, mysteries, and speculative fiction. BA in English Lit from The Catholic University of America, which was pretty useless, since I landed my first job out of college pretty much because the manager never looked above my neck during the interview. Meh, but it paid my student loans.

I was Founder and Chair of the Greater Bflo Christian Writers (2005-2008). I write for BuddyHollywood.com, and have written for other websites as well. My fantasy, “Light,” was pubbed in the Help antho that benefitted Preditors and Editors.
And since it’s what gives me cocktail party conversation for the rest of my life, I was also a Franciscan nun. Right out of HS, completely wet behind the ears. They don’t come much more naïve. Wore the (modern) habit—no Flying Nun outfit, sorry. Got out from under the brainwashing 4 years later and jumped the wall.


What are your drives for writing horror?

I love a good scare, even though it takes a lot to make me jump now. Always have liked horror—dad and I used to watch the Friday night horror movies when I was as young as 5. Plus, Catholicism is loaded with horror fodder. I’m reaping the benefits of all that religion getting stuffed down my throat from the cradle (practically).


Do you have any horror work published ? If so Please list.

Alas, not yet. I subbed to the Dybbuk Press Biblical Terror antho. Here’s hoping!



What kind of music do you listen to when you write if any? Do you ever use music to inspire or fuel scenes?

Anything that isn’t in English, otherwise I get distracted. I play medieval music, opera, Irish, and plain instrumental. When I’m writing crucifixion scenes for my spec fic, I do put on the CBS Jesus movie or The Passion of the Christ soundtracks.


First writing memory?

A back-to-school poem at age 9.



Tell me phobias or fears that relate to what you write? Inspirations too?

I skeeve spiders, but have no problem writing about them. I’m afraid of being trapped in either a small space or captured and tied up, unable to move. My poor vampire and his GF both got subjected to that in the latest WIP. I take inspiration from everything I learned about the Crucifixion, and it’s a lot. A boatload. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.



What scares you?


Anyone messing with my mind: hypnotism, the creepy stuff in The Ipcress File, things like that.


What is your ultimate writing goal or dream?

To be sitting in a public place and see the total stranger next to me reading my book. And liking it too, of course! OR being scared out of their mind by it. I’m flexible.
 

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horror hound trilogy--an interview with slcboston

Please tell me about yourself.


Let's see.... I've been writing for as long as I can remember, really. Little stories, then shorts, then some (very bad) poems which thankfully was a phase I passed through quickly and unscarred. I won a number of awards throughout school for my writing, including a national award or two - but only honorable mentions. I published my first poem in... 98? I think? to a small mag - but hey, it got a good review. That was it for ten years on the fiction side when I published another short about a year or so ago.


In the meantime, I've written a number of nonfiction articles and columns. I worked as a columnist -freelance not staff - for the Shanghai daily when I lived abroad, and I've published articles in magazines and books. Most of that has been overseas, but I have three essays due out in a local book being published here. I taught while overseas, too, and I've lived in China and briefly in Europe. (Sweden rocked - honestly I think I'd rather live there than here.)


Aside from that, I've done work freelance editing and worked - albeit briefly- for an educational publisher. I've got more degrees than I know what to do with, including a stint in law school and grad school, neither one of which worked out but left me with more debt than I can shake a stick at, and other than that... I can't think of anything.

What are your drives for writing horror?

I don't know, really. This stuff just kind of fascinates me. I could get all Freudian and say I'm exploring my inner id or some such, but honestly, it's just fun. I will say a lot of my stuff tends not to be straight up horror, but more of a blend, and I prefer the suspenseful and atmospheric to shock value.


Do you have any horror work published ? If so Please list.


Only two pieces of fiction I've published so far were both horror. The first was a poem that borrowed heavily from TS Eliot - if he'd been having really bad nightmares. The second was a short story set in the afterlife, complete with demons.


What makes you lean towards horror?


I suck at romance novels.


What kind of music do you listen to when you write if any? Do you ever use music to inspire or fuel scenes?


I have it on almost constantly. It depends on what my mood is mostly, but I've seen certain scenes in what I write set to music. (I have a series of short stories - led off by the one I published - where the background music plays an important part in setting the scene.) My tastes are very eclectic, so i have scenes that I saw set to Nine Inch Nails and others that I saw set to Muddy Waters or Thelonious Monk, or even some of the more esoteric stuff like Mike Oldfield.


First writing memory?


Folding a piece of paper in four squares to draw little four page stories. I did the illustrations, too, though it was clear early on that was not were the bulk of my talent lay.

Tell me phobias or fears that relate to what you write? Inspirations too?


Hands. Or feet. I have not read, nor seen, nor will ever, Stephen King's "Misery." And yes, it's because of *that* scene. Makes me shiver. Blood drooling vampires, headless ghouls, I take those in stride. Put a pencil through the protagonist's hand? Ick. Also, I have a real-life phobia of wasps and their kin. Not the fuzzy bees, which are vegetarian, but their nasty and ill-bred carnivorous relatives. Inspiration is trickier. I think every writer, on some level, has that "what if" part of their brain switched on "high." Where you look at something and go, "what if?" Some people see sunsets and happy ending. I see sharp objects and bloodletting. Yes, I'm aware there's something wrong with me.


What scares you?


Failing my daughter. Really, that's it. Everything else I can handle.

What is your ultimate writing goal or dream?


I'm not aiming for Stephen King levels of fame or fortune, but I'd settle for seeing my name in hardbound at a book store as the featured buy. You know, the one where you walk into the store and it;s the first thing you see with a table to itself? Shallow, perhaps, but I've already been positively critted - for the poem I wrote - and I've won awards. So that kind of leaves the money aspect. I guess I'll know I've made it when something I've done becomes the Sci-fi Channel movie event of the week. One of the good weeks, not like that snake movie with the Hoff.
 
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