Recently in Books: Interviews Category

Today I recorded a podcast for Redstate and thought I would share it with CM readers. My guests are Tara Ross and Joe Smith authors of Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.

In our conversation we discuss George Washington’s unique perspective on questions of church and state; why his views have not been more widely discussed or understood; how one phrase from one letter from Thomas Jefferson came to dominate American views on the subject; and how we might go about changing this dominance.

For my inaugural Blog Talk Radio show I thought I would go to a frequent participant in past podcasts Brock Clarke (see here for a podcast and here for a email Q&A).

Today at 2:30 PM EST I will be talking with Brock about his latest novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, and about his career; the state of fiction, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

You can listen live below, or here.

Last year a number of my favorite authors had books published.  I had big plans for a round of reviews and interviews with all of them to kick off their respective book's publication.  It didn't happen. Life intervened and I wasn't able to get things done.  I managed to review most of them at least.

Well, things have slowed down a little bit so I thought I would try to rectify this by catching up with some of these authors this year.  Some will be via email and some I hope to talk with on Blog Talk Radio.

Kevin Wignall kicks things off.  Besides having a great first name, Mr. Wignall is an author whose work I always find both entertaining and thought provoking.  His latest novel Who is Conrad Hirst? was published last November by Simon and Schuster.  For more on his work see my reviews of Among the Dead, For the Dogs, and People Die.

You can also catch Kevin blogging over at Contemporary Nomad.  My ten questions for Kevin are below.

1)  If you had to shelve your latest novel at the bookstore or library where would you put it?  Espionage thriller; mystery; literary, general fiction?

Can I say all of the above? I think most literary fiction is fraudulent so I'd rather go with general.

2)   I wrote that Conrad Hirst, as most of your books, was an exploration of identity, the nature of morality, and the dangers of self-deception.  Is that fair?  Accurate?

Yes to both. I'm interested in the fault lines between who we think we are and how others see us. And one of the inherent premises of all my work is that we live in a time of fluid morality, a time in which people are drawing their own boundaries, so I think it's interesting to explore how people deal with that process, particularly people on the edges of society.

3)  There seems a moral ambiguity or vacuum involved in your work.  Is this philosophical, aesthetic, or both?

It's certainly not aesthetic in intent, and I dislike the kind of fiction (in print or on screen) that is morally barren because it somehow seems cool or stylish.  Following on from my answer to the previous question, it's a response to the moral ambiguity of the times we live in.  For most of the Western world (the USA being a partial exception) secularism has become so entrenched that the moral absolutes of Christianity merely form a backdrop to our moral processes.  At the same time, the authority of the state has been undermined in favour of individualism.  If you had asked people fifty years ago what they should do if they found a bag full of diamonds, most would have answered automatically that they'd have handed it in to the authorities.  For various reasons, I don't think the response would be so unequivocal today, and at the very least, people would think long and hard before coming up with an answer.  It's that sense of forming morality on the hoof that I find interesting.

4)   How would you describe your career or reputation to this point?  Has this book changed your trajectory?  What were your expectations pre-publication?

I would say that, despite some very nice notices and the attention of quite a few people in the film world, I was flying under the radar until January of this year. You always hope your new book will be the breakout novel but frankly, this wasn't, to begin with. Then it got an Edgar nomination and a little blip appeared on people's radar screens, and that's been very gratifying.  Again, impossible to say how things will go from here on in but I'm quietly optimistic.

5)   Why are your books published here in the states but not where you actually live and write?

Two reasons. I was published in the UK to begin with but by the publishers' own admission, they messed up on the campaign to sell and promote me and the sales figures that resulted still hang over me. Interestingly though, British publishers also seem to struggle with my books because they fall between two stools - too short and philosophical for their crime lists, too pacy and violent to fit in the "literary" lists. Fortunately, the American mystery publishing environment is a much broader church.

6)   You don’t seem to be one of the “a book a year” types.  Why?

I wish I knew. I'm sure my publisher wished I knew, too! I find it hard to write to order. I usually wait until I'm absolutely certain of a story, until it's eating away at me, then I'll write it. For example, I started thinking about a book at the end of last summer, made some notes, but wasn't certain of it and put it to one side. I experimented with a few other plots before the first started creeping its way back into my mind, and I'm just starting work on it again.  If it goes well, I'll write it in 2-3 months, but there's no guarantee yet that it will be my next book.

7)  How involved are you in the publicity end of your work?  Do you find this aspect frustrating?  Do you think publishers do enough for non-bestselling type authors?

Not very, but that's partly because I don't live in the US. Honestly speaking, I accept that publishing is a business and they have their priorities. That also applies across the board. For example, people are quick to lambast newspapers for cutting review coverage, but if you ask the same people how they read those papers they'll often tell you it's online, for nothing - we're all part of the current business environment, so it's hard to complain about businesses doing what they need to do to succeed within it.

8)  You have been blogging for a while now, what do you find satisfying about it?  What frustrates you?  Is it good for your writing?

I owe all of that to Olen Steinhauer who set up Contemporary Nomad in the first place and asked me to be part of it. I like that it gives us an outlet to talk about whatever takes our fancy. People respond most readily to posts about writing, but the stats suggest our political or wider cultural posts are all widely read. If there's a frustration, it's in finding time to post as often as I'd like - doubly so for Olen at the moment because his wife's just had their first baby.

9)  You have had your work optioned for film. What is that process like?  Do you think we will eventually see a film based on your work?

Glacial!  It can move really quickly sometimes, but the whole system seems geared to slow things down.  People I've come to know in the film industry have so much patience, it's hard to believe. Having said all that, I think we could see movement on a couple of projects this year and I'm certain it's a matter of "when" rather than "if" a film will appear.

10)  What is your next project?  When can we expect the next Wignall book?

Well, if it's the book I mentioned above, it will be called "The People You Know", it deals with a lot of the themes you've mentioned, doesn't feature a hitman, and will deal in a tangential way with the 9/11 attacks.  I'm hoping it will be published next year, as long as I don't encounter any roadblocks.

Interesting segment from Ed's interview with Richard Russo:

Russo: You know, it's funny. That particular metaphor of doors, of walking through doors closed behind you, and then having fewer doors to walk through and choose between, was the metaphor that I used to use when I was teaching to describe how plot worked.

Correspondent: Interesting.

Russo: When I was teaching my undergraduate and especially my graduate students. Plot is a very difficult -- they say, how do you come up with a story? How do you know what happens first? What happens next? All of that. And I was trying to explain to them that the best stories, the best plots, are the ones that end up kind of paradoxically, you want to be surprised. But after the surprise, you want a sense of inevitability. Like that's the only place the story could have gone. Those two things, that's why a lot of books are disappointing. Because that's a very hard effect to achieve. How can you surprise somebody even as, after they register the surprise, they say, "Oh, of course. This is the only way it can go. This is the only way it could have gone." Those two things are antithetical. And yet the best books always have that. That coming together. So I was always looking for a metaphor to explain that to people. To my students. And I'd say, all right. Think of it this way. You've got a thousand doors. You choose one. You walk through it. Now you've got five hundred doors. You walk through that. You've got two hundred and fifty doors. Every time I started explaining that to students, that there were fewer and fewer doors, that was going to provide the inevitability. But there was still the surprise. You didn't know. Every time a character makes a decision, it seems that there are so many other possibilities. So it's a series of surprises that ends up with a sense of inevitability. But as I explained that to my students, and as I was writing this book, it occurred to me that's also a description of life and destiny.

Let me just state up front that I am not the smoothest sound technician around.  The problem with trying to do these podcasts is that I haven't done them with enough regularity to get the hang of it.  I had just about figured things out when I took half a year off before trying another.  End result = awkward learning curve and much consternation.

But put that aside for now.  As I state in the audio, I recorded an interview with Richard Lewis earlier this year but never posted it.  There were technical, personal, and substantive reasons for not posting it.  But I finally decided that it was a waste not to post it.  So again, apologies for the delay and I hope the content overcomes any technical issues.

Richard Lewis is an author of two young adult novels, The Flame Tree and The Killing Sea, both highly recommended.  The son of American missionaries he lives in Indonesia where he is a full time writer.  He blogs at Novelist in Paradise.  I hope you enjoy our conversation.  Click the icon below to listen.

 

 

One of the perks of being a book blogger is the free books. The drawback is the guilt one sometimes feels at not being able to read and review all the books that find their way to you. There is often, for me at least, a sneaking suspicion that some gems are in that stack of books, but you only have so much time. The joy comes from the surprises; the books you are sent that allow you to find a book or author that you really enjoy but wouldn't likely have found without the publicist.

I had this experience recently. The good folks at St. Martin's sent me Keith Dixon's soon to be released The Art of Losing. I will post a review here soon, but the jacket copy certainly piqued my interest:

Michael Jacobs, a talented but obscure New York City filmmaker, has just watched his third film flop at the box office. With few options available, Jacobs is tempted by the prospect of easy cash when Sebby Laslo, his producer, makes a one-time offer. With the help of a corrupt jockey, Laslo plans to fix a horse race, but his gambling debts have left him untouchable and he needs someone he can trust to be the public face of the operation. Though Laslo is known for taking risks, Jacobs, hoping to repay an old favor to his friend, agrees to help.

Jacobs soon meets two Atlantic City bookmakers: Nikos Popolosikc, a quietly menacing restaurateur known for breaking hands; and Lad Keegan, a soft-spoken bar owner whose superstitions are bad for his clients’ health. When Laslo’s plan fails, Jacobs, heavily in debt, is ensnared by a violent underworld he neither knows nor understands. In the inevitable reckoning, Jacobs and Laslo become hunted men—and only one of them will escape.

Keith Dixon’s second novel is a morality tale of stunning resonance and breathtaking symmetry. Hard-boiled yet deeply contemplative, allegorical yet starkly realistic, The Art of Losing divines the corrosive nature of greed, the terrible power of recklessness, and the consequences that erupt when those forces meet.

"Hard-boiled yet deeply contemplative, allegorical yet starkly realistic" sounded like my kind of book so I moved it up the TBR pile and read it. It turned out to be one of those gems I noted above, an enjoyable and entertaining read that also makes you think; an author that leaves you wanting to read more.

Seemed like an excellent candidate for a Collected Miscellany Q&A. Luckily, Keith was gracious enough to agree to answer a few questions. The interview that follows was conducted via email.

One side note: the book jacket describes the author thus:

Keith Dixon is an editor for The New York Times. His first novel, Ghostfires, was named one of the five best first novels of 2004 by Poets & Writers magazine. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jessica.

As you will see below, I was under the impression that "editor at the New York Times" meant editing text. That turns out not to be the case. I could have edited the questions and answers to avoid looking slightly silly, but I don't think it unduly marred the proceedings so I left it in. After all blogs are supposed to be more immediate and honest, right?

The questions and answers are below.

Sometime ago I saw this article and thought: hey, that sounds like fun! So I slowly went about getting the equipment and software necessary. Soon I had all the tools to attempt my own podcast. But I was a little nervous about entering the territory of Bat Segundo and other masters of the form. Much time passed.

Eventually I summoned up the courage to try it. Inspired by an Brock Clarke's essay in the Virginia Quarterly, The Novel is Dead, Long Live the Novel, I decided to venture into this uncharted territory. So I sent Brock an email.

He graciously agreed to be my guinea pig and we went about setting a date. Murphy's Law intervened and as the date approached for our conversation I started having problems with my broadband connection at home. Rather than risk my connection futzing out in the middle of the interview I decided to add another layer of complexity to the whole thing. I actually conducted the interview at a local coffee house. So here I was talking on the phone and recording my first ever podcast using a free Wi-Fi connection on my laptop.

As I mention in the introduction, I would ask for your patience and charity as I attempt to get the hang of this new format. I have no real expertize or experience in this kind of thing so there is bound to be technical and aesthetic issues. My hope is that these will not overshadow the conversation with Brock. As always, feel free to send suggestions and comments my way.

By way of introduction, let me say that the conversation largely centers on Brock's essay noted above which is in itself partly a reaction to Rachel Donadio's NYTBR essay from last year entitled Truth Is Stronger Than Fiction. We also discuss a book that plays a prominent role in the essay Heidi Julavits’s 2003 book, The Effect of Living Backwards.

So without further ado, here is the first ever Collected Miscellany Podcast: Click on the graphic below to listen to a conversation with Brock Clarke.

This interview originally appeared in my free monthly writing newsletter WRITING UP A STORM last year after I met Harley Jane Kozak at the Malice Domestic conference in Arlington, Virginia. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Gayle

Gayle Trent
http://www.graceabraham.com
Guest Blogger for Kevin (8-12 - 8-19)

Frances Hardinge is the author of Fly By Night, a novel I described as "an imaginative and creative adventure story with an interesting philosophical/historical question weaved in." The bio on her official web page is a little vague:

Frances Hardinge is a writer who wears a black hat. Notoriously unphotographable, she is rumoured to be made entirely out of velvet. Sources close to Frances who prefer not to be named suggest that she has an Evil Twin who wears white and is hatless. This cannot be confirmed.

The folks at Harper Collins help fill in the blanks a bit:

Frances Hardinge spent her childhood rambling around in a huge, isolated old house in Kent that "wuthered" when the wind blew and that inspired her to write strange, magical stories from an early age. She studied English at Oxford University, where she was a founding member of a writer's workshop and won a magazine short-story competition. She recently returned from a yearlong round-the-world odyssey. Fly by Night is her first novel.

Fascinated by the blending of ideas and story in a young adult book, I thought it would be interesting to ask Hardinge a few questions. Via the magic of email I was able to do just that and she graciously answered them. They are reproduced below with my questions in bold.

1. This is your first novel. How did Fly By Night (FBN) come about? Did you get an agent, make a proposal, and sign a contract, etc. or something different?

The way in which I acquired a contract was a bit more eccentric than that, and certainly came as a surprise to me. One of my best friends is the children's author Rhiannon Lassiter. When I had written the first five chapters of Fly by Night, she told me that they were good enough to show to an editor.

I, however, was convinced that they were better suited to burial in an unmarked grave. Rhiannon became understandably tired of my spinelessness and took matters into her own hands. She kidnapped my chapters, refused to give them back, and marched off with them to her own editor. A week later, to my astonishment, I had a book contract offer.

2. Have you always seen yourself as a writer/author? Was writing a novel always something you thought you would do?

I can't remember a time when I didn't want intend to become an author. I still occasionally stumble across my first literary efforts, many of which tend decidedly towards the grotesque.

Jeremy Lott is a writer, editor, and blogger and author of the recently released In Defense of Hypocrisy. With the release of his first book and its controversial - or perhaps counter intuitive - nature, I thought it might be fun to send a few questions his way. He was nice enough to answer them, so they follow below. As usual, my questions are in bold.

1) This is your first book. How did it come about? Did you get an
agent, write a proposal, shop it, etc.? Or did someone approach you?

I'd done some work for Nelson Current and associate publisher Joel Miller
asked if I had any book ideas. I thought about it and gave him a list of
possible proposals. Of those, he thought a book defending hypocrisy was
the most promising, so I wrote that proposal. Both the editing and
publishing boards then had to approve it. To my mild shock, they said yes.

2) How would you describe the process once you had a contract
(writing, editing, cover art, publication, publicity, etc.): smooth,
painful, educational, all of the above?

Good writing is always hard and I think that's especially true of your
first book. It helped that I was able to go back to my hometown of Lynden,
Washington for three months. The air is better there and there are fewer
distractions and the bartenders at the Nut House -- bless them -- never
objected when I brought my laptop into the bar and typed for hours.

I was constantly rewriting as I went, mostly in response to my test
audience. I sent sections out to maybe a dozen readers who helped to
"prescreen" the manuscript. They told me when they didn't understand
something, or when I had overdone it, and they corrected errors. Because
of them, the editing went pretty smoothly once I got it into Nelson
Current.

The cover art was the publisher's doing but I had something like veto
power. I was skeptical but when Joel sent the cover they wanted to use, I
was blown away. I was also a little bit upset, because I knew that I'd
have to write a better book to earn it. It's just beautiful. In Defense of
Hypocrisy is one of the most attractive books I've ever held in my hands.

The publicity end of things has been interesting and a little bit
frustrating. But I'm learning a lot that will come in handy for the second
book and beyond.