Exploring New Worlds

Join us on October 27 for a panel titled “Journey into Strangeness: An Exploration of Science Fiction/Fantasy Literature – Past, Present, and New Frontiers.” The panel will be one of many highlights at the day-long 2018 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference, which will be held on October 27 at Fair Oaks Farms just north of Rensselaer, Indiana.

The panel is moderated by Janine Harrison and features Michael Poore, Marilyn Kosmatka, and Carla Lee Suson. These sci-fi/fantasy writers will discuss the ever-evolving relationship of sci-fi/fantasy and mainstream literature, world building, content trends, character diversity, genre bending, game-changing online publication and promotion, working with publishers, and more.

Here are some interesting facts about each of the panelists.

·       Michael Poore is the author of Up Jumps the Devil and Reincarnation Blues. While his two novels could be classified as humorous fantasy, he has also been published in The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Poore is the keynote speaker for this year’s conference.

·       Marilyn Kosmatka’s novel Time Spike was written in collaboration with Eric Flint. It is a time travel story that makes use of Kosmatka’s experience as a prison nurse.    

·       Carla Suson’s first book, Independence Day Plague, also makes use of a non-writing background, but hers is in cellular biology. These days she teaches English composition at a local university and sculpts tales of ghosts, murder, and mayhem.

·       Moderator Janine Harrison is a creative writing instructor and a poet. She is a past president of the Indiana Writers’ Consortium and established the first Steel Pen conference in 2015.

This is a panel you won’t want to miss. Go to www.steelpenconference.org to learn more and to register for the conference.

Registration closes on October 15, so don’t miss out.

A Place to Buy Books

Most writers think of conferences as places to learn and to network, but some are also great places to buy books. Consider the 2018 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference, which will be held on October 27 at Fair Oaks Farms just north of Rensselaer, Indiana. The conference bookstore has a large variety of books written by faculty and other attendees.

This year the bookstore will be highlighting Keynote Speaker Michael Poore’s two novels, and he will be signing them during the cocktail hour at the end of the conference. Told with his own brand of humor, Poore’s debut novel, Up Jumps the Devil, portrays Satan as a protagonist with very human emotions. His second, Reincarnation Blues, tells the story of a man who has been reincarnated 9,995 times and has just five more chances to earn a place in the cosmic soul or face oblivion. Both books are very funny reads.

So what other types of books will be for sale this year?

For younger readers (and the young at heart), the bookstore will carry everything from picture books through YA. For adults, the offerings include mysteries, science fiction/fantasy, memoir, poetry, and books for writers.

Conference registration allows you to take advantage of the conference bookstore as buyer, seller, or both. If you have not yet signed up for the conference, you can do so at www.steelpenconference.org. And after you register, you can consign your books to the bookstore using the form found near the bottom of the same page. If you haven’t made up your mind yet, the website is also the place to find more information. But do it soon, because registration for both the conference and the bookstore closes on October 15.

Come to Steel Pen to improve your craft and for the networking, but take advantage of the bookstore as well.

We hope to see you on October 27.

__________

The picture shows the bookstore tables from last year’s conference.

An Interview with Michael Poore

1.     In the past six years, you’ve experienced considerable literary success. In brief, what has this journey entailed?

I think the main thing, when you go from doing your own thing to working with publishers, is that you become part of a team. I’ve had great experiences working with my agent and with editors, publicists, and even, in the case of audiobooks, actors. If someone tells me they like my work, I tell them I had a lot of help.

2.     Which literary moment has been your proudest, and why?

When an old girlfriend messaged to tell me that Reincarnation Blues made NPR’s list of great reads for 2017. The website had a wonderful scrolling display of all these fantastic, famous books, and ‘Ta-Da!’ …there was my book, among the biggest books of the year. And I thought, “Well, maybe I finally impressed her.”

3.     What about your most exciting?

Last summer at an event in New York, my publicist walked me into the Penguin Random House area and said, “We’re going to set you up over at autograph table four, as soon as John Grisham is finished.”

I wasn’t cool about it at all. My mouth literally just fell open and I yelled, “That’s John Grisham?”

Okay, so when it came time them to set me up, Grisham wasn’t quite done; he still had fans waiting to get books signed. But I had people waiting, too (which was a surprise). Anyway, they moved him! They moved John Grisham to another, smaller table so I could sign books.

4.     As a fiction writer, you’ve been referred to as a “humorist,” a “sci-fi/fantasy writer,” and a “literary writer.” You’ve been compared to George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut, and Neil Gaiman. When you look at the evolution of your writing to date and then look ahead, considering these labels and comparisons, what do you think?

People can be very kind, sometimes.

I’ve never tried to be a particular kind of writer, but I have gotten a lot of mileage out of trying to copy off of great artists. When I discovered Kurt Vonnegut – an event in my life I equate, in importance and influence, with discovering sex and alcohol – I tried very hard to write like him. I’m sure those efforts were like a 2-dimensional shadow of a multidimensional thing, but it taught me the importance of creative freedom.

I’m flattered by these comparisons, because I think what those guys all have in common is wildness. They are completely unbound and untamed in their vision, craft, and choices. Their work led me to see the act of writing as something like hurling yourself out of an airplane.  

5.     You are serving as the IWC’s 2018 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference keynote speaker on October 27^th. What will be the title and focus of your address? In other words, what should conference participants look forward to from you?

I think I’ll talk about the whole ‘hurling yourself out of an airplane’ thing. And hopefully I won’t be the only one in costume.

__________

This interview was conducted by Janine Harrison.

Still LIfe With Cigarettes and Hat: The Importance of Where and When We Write

by

Michael Poore

Registration will be opening soon for the 2018 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference, and we wanted to give you a taste of the keynote speaker by reprinting this June 5, 2013 blog post he wrote for IWC. If his humor doesn’t entice you to register, nothing will.

__________

            I’m writing this article at the Grindhouse Café on Broad Street, in Griffith, Indiana.

That’s how I like to write. In a space with music. A friendly, social space, with people who are leaving me alone. That’s my ritual.

If you’re a writer, chances are you have a ritual, too.

Your ritual is your way of drawing a pagan circle, so the magic can happen. I used to make a little still life out of myself: me, my computer, cigarettes, a can of diet pop, hat-of-the-day either on my head or off to the side. In thirty-five years it hasn’t changed much.

I wonder how important the ritual really is. I mean, does it help me write better stories? Does it help me enjoy the process more? Is it nesting? (I’m not fond of monkeys. My family evolved from woodpeckers.)

Some people have a quiet writing space at home. Janine, for example, writes in her tiny, gloriously messy office, in the middle of the night. She’ll wake up at midnight, and write ten pages before going back to sleep. My friend Ted keeps a home office, and nothing but writing materials are ever allowed to touch his writing desk -- no bills, no misplaced happy meal toys or loose change. It’s like holy ground. Mark Twain had a whole mini-house built in his backyard. These are people who separate the muggle part of their lives from the art-making part of their lives. Hunter S. Thompson, on the other hand, wrote in his kitchen. He also ate there, paid bills there, made phone calls there, and shot himself there.

Other writers have a quiet space away from home. Maya Angelou keeps a tiny hotel room, containing a desk, a Bible, and some wine. Annie Dillard had Tinker Creek (I wish I had a creek. Don’t you?).

There are about ten million studies proving that timespace rituals like this are a big help in producing quality brainwork. It’s considered an important study skill for kids…set aside a ‘homework corner,’ and do your homework there at the same time every day. Grades go up, generally, when kids do this. So basically, if you sit down to write in the same place and time, every day, your brain will learn to flip the writing switch when you do this (“Oh, we’re at the handpainted desk with the cool, twisty lamp, and it’s six in the morning…better fire up the Magic Buddha neurons!”).

The problem here is that we live in a hypertopian age, and we don’t always have the luxury of choosing our writing timespace. Joyce Carol Oates recognizes this. I read an article once in which she said we basically have to be ready to take advantage of whatever chances come our way. Got 13 minutes between the laundry and Market Day pickup? Sit down and write. Don’t worry about the cigarettes and the lucky hat or whether there’s a happy meal toy on the desk. Just sit down and do it.

I have always struggled with finding some middle ground between these approaches.

I prefer to write in a café. I wrote a whole book at the café in Borders, in the Southlake Mall. But I don’t need that, necessarily. Last year, I wrote a whole chapter on a school bus going to a middle-school state championship basketball game, with kids screaming and throwing things all around me. A serious chapter, too, with people getting drunk in a hospital room where a child was dying of cancer.

What does that mean, that I can do some of my best work waaaaay outside of my ritual space?

I’m not the first writer to explore this, of course. Years ago, I read an interview with a successful young writer who said that she had tried writing in all sorts of places -- in cafes, at friends’ houses, in bus stations, in buses – and I was captivated by this quest of hers. What did it mean? Most writers go through this, trying to find their own particular way. Was she – are we – taking advantage of opportunity? Writing, more than almost any other task, can be done anywhere. But I also have to wonder if it isn’t something we use to accomplish that other task at which writers excel: putting off writing.

Sometimes, when I’m making a big deal out of my ritual, I realize that I’m focusing on the fun of being a writer, not so much on getting stories written. I realize that I have spent an hour or more getting coffee, getting a muffin, checking my messages, doing Facebook, getting coffee, doing Twitter. “Look at me!” I think to myself, forming little mental pictures of myself, in my café, doing writer stuff…except not writing.

Here’s what I’ve discovered about rituals and writing: rituals are nice and fun, and can be helpful. But real writing, the good stuff that happens when you are ‘in the zone,’ is its own ritual. I’m talking about the kind of writing that happens, for me, when I realize my coffee cup has been empty for an hour, when I forget to eat, when I have to be told that the place is closing. When I’m sitting at the table in my own home, surrounded by cats and dogs and happy meal toys, and don’t realize that the window is open and it’s raining in the dining room or that my stepdaughter is on fire.

Focus…writing itself…may be the only kind of ritual that really counts. Focus is, according to some article I read, the same thing as hypnosis. That’s all hypnosis is, apparently…an intense state of concentration. Kids do it when they play video games. Readers get that way when they read. Ulysses S. Grant was famous for this kind of thing; he’d be working on correspondence in his tent, get up to fetch something, perhaps an inkwell, and never straighten up, walking around his tent hunched over.

That’s ritual. That’s writing.   

It has its drawbacks, like any extreme. Like the time years ago, when I lived in a house with several other young writers, when I woke up with an idea, and raced straight for my keyboard and wrote and wrote. Eventually, I thought: “Man, I’ve missed breakfast! It’s almost lunchtime!” I got up long enough to rush downstairs to the fridge, saying ‘Hey’ to a couple of my housemates and their girlfriends, grabbing a slice of pizza and a cup of coffee, then climbing back to my upstairs loft, back to my computer. I was just getting started again, after one bite of pizza, when my buddy James climbed up and cleared his throat, and said, “Dude, you do realize you’re naked, right?”

* * * * *

Michael Poore is the author of the novels Reincarnation Blues (Del Rey, 2017) and Up Jumps the Devil (Ecco, 2012). His short work has appeared in Agni, Southern Review, Fiction, and Glimmer Train, and anthologies, including The Year’s Best Science Fiction and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012.

Save the Date

Saturday, October 27, 2018. Almost Halloween. What a spooky time for a writers’ conference. Or is it?

Save that date for the Fifth Steel Pen Creative Writer’s Conference. The conference will have a Halloween theme, but the sessions will cover all genre and the only horror will be your own when you discover how much you don’t know. Or, worse, when you realize you’ve missed the registration cutoff date.

Next year’s keynote speaker will be Michael Poore. He is the author of the novels Reincarnation Blues (Del Rey, 2017) and Up Jumps the Devil (Ecco, 2012). His short work has appeared in Agni, Southern Review, Fiction, and Glimmer Train, and in anthologies, including The Year’s Best Science Fiction and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012.

Mike has his own brand of humor, and his books fit well with a Halloween theme. If you want to find out how, you’ll have to come to the conference, read his novels for yourself, or both.

The 2018 venue is the same as it was this year, and it was rated highly by all who attended. So join us at the Fair Oaks Farms Conference Center just off I-65 near Rensselaer, Indiana.

The call for proposals will be sent out at the beginning of the year, and registration will open in late spring or early summer. So keep your eye out for those announcements.

We hope to see you on October 27, 2018.

The Literary Equivalent of a High-Speed Alligator Ride: A Fiction Reading by Bryan Furuness and Michael Poore

by

Miranda Peterson

 

The 2015 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference is quickly approaching. Along with its speedy arrival is the anticipation of the conference’s Featured Reading from Noon–1:00, with Bryan Furuness and Michal Poore. Each author has an incredibly unique style, destined to have the audience buckling their seatbelts and holding on to their pens at the very start of the session.

 

Bryan Furuness, the 2015 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference’s keynote speaker, is an instructor at Butler University, a writer, and an editor. He is a northwest Indiana native, which is reflected in his novel The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson. Bryan Furuness with Michael Martone is co-editor of Winesburg, Indiana. His other creative writing works have been published in various literary magazines.

 

In regard to the Fiction Reading, Bryan Furuness is strengthening the anticipation of registered conference attendees by giving no word on what pieces he intends to read.  Though readers of Furuness’ work have an idea of his creative style, the reading itself will amplify the overall experience of his creative literary pieces. When it comes to Q&A following the reading, roles may be reversed. Furuness will need to buckle his seatbelt as audience attendees question everything from novel writing to publishing. When asked to reflect on past Q&A experiences, Furuness responded, “The minute I end a Q&A, I am filled with hot regret. I want to revise all my answers, but I've yet to meet the audience that will cooperate with this request.” The 2015 Steel Pen Reading and Q&A will hopefully give Furuness the opportunity to keep the audience intrigued, then to relax, loosen his seatbelt, and give his best response to every question.

 

Michael Poore, the co-speaker at the midday reading, has similar Midwestern roots, being born and raised in Ohio. After two years of undergraduate school at Ohio University, then numerous interesting jobs, Poore returned to OU and completed his Bachelor’s degree in Education. During his time at OU, Michael Poore published a cartoon strip in the OU Post.  Creative Writing courses at OU were what led him into more serious creative writing. Poore’s “massive upheaval” in life came when he “was working as a substitute teacher, and [he] moved from SE Ohio to Chicagoland.” From that point on, Poore has published numerous pieces in various literary publications. Poore’s more recent writing career includes writing and publishing Up Jumps the Devil, along with six months of radio interviews and book signings to promote the work. Poore revealed, “Now things are quiet again, and I’m working on a new novel.”

 

The fiction reading by Michael Poore is sure to excite the audience. Poore’s physical voice as an author will reveal the true creative element of his literary work. When asked to reflect on past Q&A experiences, Poore responded, “The thing that stays with me is always the people who came to listen and participate . . .  The audience turns the event from a plan and a schedule into a living thing.” In order to keep pace with the theme of the reading, Poore reiterates, “It’s a two way street, after all.” The author and audience connection and experience for this reading will be positively seat gripping. Poore’s concluding element of a reading is that “[He] feel[s] ten feet tall after a reading.  More importantly, [he] tend[s] to feel that the audience consists of giants, too.” 

 

The 2015 Steel Pen Writers’ Conference takes place October 10, 2015. For registration information visit http://www.indianawritersconsortium.org/IWC-creative-writing-conference.asp.



Still Life With Cigarettes and Hat: The Importance of Where and When We Write

by

Michael Poore

 

www.mikepoorehome.net

 

I'm writing this article at the Grindhouse Café on Broad Street, in Griffith, Indiana.

 

That's how I like to write. In a space with music. A friendly, social space, with people who are leaving me alone. That's my ritual.

 

If you're a writer, chances are you have a ritual, too.

 

Your ritual is your way of drawing a pagan circle, so the magic can happen. I used to make a little still life out of myself: me, my computer, cigarettes, a can of diet pop, hat-of-the-day either on my head or off to the side. In thirty-five years it hasn't changed much.

 

I wonder how important the ritual really is. I mean, does it help me write better stories? Does it help me enjoy the process more? Is it nesting? (I'm not fond of monkeys. My family evolved from woodpeckers.)

 

Some people have a quiet writing space at home. Janine, for example, writes in her tiny, gloriously messy office, in the middle of the night. She'll wake up at midnight, and write ten pages before going back to sleep. My friend Ted keeps a home office, and nothing but writing materials are ever allowed to touch his writing desk--no bills, no misplaced happy meal toys or loose change. It's like holy ground. Mark Twain had a whole mini-house built in his backyard. These are people who separate the muggle part of their lives from the art-making part of their lives. Hunter S. Thompson, on the other hand, wrote in his kitchen. He also ate there, paid bills there, made phone calls there, and shot himself there.

 

Other writers have a quiet space away from home. Maya Angelou keeps a tiny hotel room, containing a desk, a Bible, and some wine. Annie Dillard had Tinker Creek (I wish I had a creek. Don't you?).

 

There are about ten million studies proving that timespace rituals like this are a big help in producing quality brainwork. It's considered an important study skill for kids...set aside a 'homework corner,' and do your homework there at the same time every day. Grades go up, generally, when kids do this. So basically, if you sit down to write in the same place and time, every day, your brain will learn to flip the writing switch when you do this ("Oh, we're at the handpainted desk with the cool, twisty lamp, and it's six in the morning...better fire up the Magic Buddha neurons!").

 

The problem here is that we live in a hypertopian age, and we don't always have the luxury of choosing our writing timespace. Joyce Carol Oates recognizes this. I read an article once in which she said we basically have to be ready to take advantage of whatever chances come our way. Got 13 minutes between the laundry and Market Day pickup? Sit down and write. Don't worry about the cigarettes and the lucky hat or whether there's a happy meal toy on the desk. Just sit down and do it.

 

I have always struggled with finding some middle ground between these approaches.

 

I prefer to write in a café. I wrote a whole book in the café at Borders, in Southlake Mall. But I don't need that, necessarily. Last year, I wrote a whole chapter on a school bus going to a middle-school state championship basketball game, with kids screaming and throwing things all around me. A serious chapter, too, with people getting drunk in a hospital room where a child was dying of cancer.

 

What does that mean, that I can do some of my best work waaaaay outside of my ritual space?

 

I'm not the first writer to explore this, of course. Years ago, I read an interview with a successful young writer who said that she had tried writing in all sorts of places--in cafés, at friends' houses, in bus stations, in buses--and I was captivated by this quest of hers. What did it mean? Most writers go through this, trying to find their own particular way. Was she--are we--taking advantage of opportunity? Writing, more than almost any other task, can be done anywhere. But I also have to wonder if it isn't something we use to accomplish that other task at which writers excel: putting off writing.

 

Sometimes, when I'm making a big deal out of my ritual, I realize that I'm focusing on the fun of being a writer, not so much on getting stories written. I realize that I have spent an hour or more getting coffee, getting a muffin, checking my messages, doing Facebook, getting coffee, doing Twitter. "Look at me!" I think to myself, forming little mental pictures of myself, in my café, doing writer stuff...except not writing.

 

Here's what I've discovered about rituals and writing: rituals are nice and fun, and can be helpful. But real writing, the good stuff that happens when you are 'in the zone,' is its own ritual. I'm talking about the kind of writing that happens, for me, when I realize my coffee cup has been empty for an hour, when I forget to eat, when I have to be told that the place is closing. When I'm sitting at the table in my own home, surrounded by cats and dogs and happy meal toys, and don't realize that the window is open and it's raining in the dining room or that my stepdaughter is on fire.

 

Focus...writing itself...may be the only kind of ritual that really counts. Focus is, according to some article I read, the same thing as hypnosis. That's all hypnosis is, apparently...an intense state of concentration. Kids do it when they play video games. Readers get that way when they read. Ulysses S. Grant was famous for this kind of thing; he'd be working on correspondence in his tent, get up to fetch something, perhaps an inkwell, and never straighten up, walking around his tent hunched over.

 

That's ritual. That's writing.

 

It has its drawbacks, like any extreme. Like the time years ago, when I lived in a house with several other young writers, when I woke up with an idea, and raced straight for my keyboard and wrote and wrote. Eventually, I thought: "Man, I've missed breakfast! It's almost lunchtime!" I got up long enough to rush downstairs to the fridge, saying 'Hey' to a couple of my housemates and their girlfriends, grabbing a slice of pizza and a cup of coffee, then climbing back to my upstairs loft, back to my computer. I was just getting started again, after one bite of pizza, when my buddy James climbed up and cleared his throat, and said, "Dude, you do realize you're naked, right?"

 

* * * * *

 

Michael Poore is the author of Up Jumps the Devil (Ecco Press, 2012). To learn more about Mike, visit www.mikepoorehome.net.



Ever Wonder if Your Words are Lawful?

by



Janine Harrison

 

"A big part of writing is learning how to cause trouble without getting into trouble," states Michael Poore, fiction writer, "and Writers in Wonderland is an easy course in accomplishing that." On May 1st, Attorney at Law Kathryn Page Camp's book, Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal, was released. Camp shared some information about the new title with the IWC.

 

Q: What is your new book, Writers in Wonderland, about, and what made you decide to write it?

 

A: Writers in Wonderland uses everyday language and shares cases with interesting facts to explain the basic legal principles of interest to writers. The issues include copyrights, defamation, book contracts, taxes, and business matters.

 

As a lawyer who is also a writer, I have long been interested in these issues. Through the years other writers have asked me legal questions that I was happy to answer or, in many cases, to research and then answer. Encouragement from my fellow writers became the primary motivation for writing the book.

 

Q: What expertise do you have in this area of specialization?

 

A: I practiced as a regulatory attorney in the futures industry, where I learned a lot about the business world. I'm a member of the Chicago Bar Association's Intellectual Property Committee and keep up with developments in copyright law. I'm also trained in legal research and believe in doing a thorough job. That means I've read a lot of cases involving writers.

 

Q: What makes WiW different from other books like it that are already on the market?

 

A: I'd be the first to admit that there are a number of other legal-themed books for writers, and I used many of them as a starting point for my own research. But they aren't always easy for non-lawyers to understand, and those that manage to limit the legalese tend to be boring. I'd like to think that this book is unique among the competition because it entertains while teaching.

 

Q: Why should writers be concerned about keeping our words legal? What can happen if we don't?

 

A: Defamation lawsuits, copyright litigation, IRS proceedings, and more. Many of the high-profile copyright cases were filed by individuals claiming that famous writers stole their ideas. But ideas can't be copyrighted, and all that the plaintiffs got were public scorn and bills for legal fees.

 

Litigation is expensive, and the parties rarely recover their attorneys' fees even when they win. So it is usually better to avoid a lawsuit in the first place. Victory isn't sweet if your lawyer is the only one who benefits.

 

Obviously, some writers choose to take a calculated risk. Authors risk defamation lawsuits when they write unauthorized biographies of living people, yet those biographies are easy to find on bookstore shelves. But you can't take a calculated risk unless you know the factors that go into the calculation.

 

Q: What was the most interesting part of the research and writing process of WiW for you, and why?

 

A: I love doing research, and I particularly enjoy human interest stories. My favorite cases are the ones that personalize the people involved. The IRS proceeding against Ralph Vitale is a good example. Vitale wrote novels about legal prostitution in Nevada, and he tried to write off his payments to prostitutes as research expenses. The tax court judge found that writing was Vitale's business and allowed him to deduct some of his costs. But the judge also said that certain expenditures are so inherently personal that they can never be business expenses for tax purposes, and he put Vitale's "interview" payments in that category.

 

The best part of the actual writing is looking for ways to be creative. That's why I chose a Lewis Carroll theme for Writers in Wonderland. I had the most fun rewriting the March Hare's conversation with Alice at the beginning of Chapter 2.

 

Q: Is there anything else that you would like to share about your experience writing Writers in Wonderland or about the book, itself?

 

A: There is nothing like having a good critique group, and it's even better when the group is composed of people from your intended audience. I'd like to thank the members of the Highland Writers' Group for their valuable input.

 

 

According to Poore, Camp is "...a lawyer who can be helpful without making us want to scream." As a writer, I know what else would make me want to scream--a lawsuit! Writers in Wonderland is available on Amazon.com and is coming soon to other retailers.



A Midwestern Irish Comedian Explains Humor, Time, and Space: An Interview with Michael Poore

 by

Janine Harrison

 

When you descend the staircase into his "man cave," you'll likely note the collage of cartoons hanging on the wall before his desk first. Cartoons of John Scratch from his debut novel, Up Jumps the Devil. Cartoons of his wife, his step-daughter, his pistol-sporting grandmama sitting upright in bed. Once a cartoonist for the Ohio University Post, Michael Poore has drawn these images himself. On the adjacent wall, you will see unlikely characters who've been demonized--literally, eyes whitened, horns added--figures ranging from Albert Einstein to the Brady family's faithful maid, Alice. His past Twitter profile pictures. On a bookcase shelf on yet a third wall, you'll observe a stack of overdue videos (much to his wife's chagrin and, oh, by the way, I am she) on topics as diverse as the history of the U.S. space program to noodling. You have now entered his writing world.

 

My husband's fiction is reputed for its humor. I decided to ask him not only about its use but about other modes that dominate his literary landscape.

 

Q: You have been referred to as a "humorist." Please discuss your use of humor in writing.

 

The Midwestern Irish are a peevish and intemperate lot. We're born smartasses.

 

Then consider our subject matter: Earth in the 21st century. I mean, if you peek out your front door and cast a clear eye on your own neighbors and buses and text messages and cats with Facebook pages and those huge machines that suck up leaves and the way people wear pants and work puzzles, doesn't it make you want to slam the door, pull down the shades, and sit in the corner giggling to yourself, "My God...it's all just a big sick joke."

 

This has been the Irish perspective--an outside-in perspective--for centuries. The world gives us absurdities, and we take that as a challenge. The world gave us priests, we responded with faeries. The world gave us Germans, we answered with Joyce. Computers came along; we exported the wolfhound, a greate and fantastickal beest.

 

I'm serious. A straight approach to anything requires consistency...and I can't seem to find that pulse. I'm a big fan of Pinterest because of the elaborate and inconsistent portrait it paints, re: its many creators. It's a kraken of braids and threads of commercial interest. Baking, books, LOTS of wine and sexual imagery, church stuff, witchcraft, hats, caves and woods and dark stars and cow embryos...if this is what our psychology looks like, what response is more appropriate or searching than comedy? In Tagalog, in fact, the word for "comic" and the word for "underworld" are the same (I made that up, but it's still sort of true).

 

Q: Please discuss your dual fascination with time and space. How do you feel that these elements interact within literary and genre texts?

 

I am most interested in what I'm writing when I'm dealing with time. What fascinates me most is the way time gets away from us in tiny doses...an hour, a day, then ten years. How our lives divide into chapters, and how we become different people, and step into and out of roles and ages.

 

I'm especially drawn to the idea that parts of our past become distant enough that they are like foreign countries, populated by people and situations that have unraveled. I think that's the history teacher in me...I see our lives as histories, with battles and art forms, inventions and treaties, dark ages, a Renaissance if we're lucky, or a long and delicious decay. Our childhood becomes our personal mythology, our memories become a cosmology that collapses on itself.

 

My favorite stories span years and years, and my favorite device, the truest device, I think, is the story-within-a-story. That draws on the literary side of my palette, I suppose. It's character-driven. On the other hand, you can't very well write a fifty-year span of time without having a lot of things happen (a story, to semi-quote Michael Martone, is a bunch of stuff that happens), and that lends itself to plot. Which people like to classify as "genre."

 

The trouble is, with so much time, in that kind of story, you wind up with a lot of...ordinary plot. And that can be tedious. Which is where that Irish comic fascination with the absurd and the grotesque come in. Like the character in Shadow of the Vampire who plays an actor playing Dracula: the character has invited Jonathan Harker to come to Transylvania and sell him property in London so he can move there and drink English blood, and he is distraught over how to provide for his guest. He speaks with sadness and uncertainty about how to go to market and select cheeses or when to have the bedding changed...mundanities which become gripping and exquisitely human because they are being fearfully discussed by a man who hasn't been human for four hundred years. Here's this dark creature, terrified by the prospect of, you know, shopping. And at the end of this speech, you're thinking, "Damn, man...having guests is dangerous!"

 

I think this kind of lens attracts readers, even literary readers, in this day and age. Rather than reading from a "normal" perspective looking out at the grotesque, we identify more personally with monsters. Looking, as monsters must, from the outside in. And I would argue that our racing media culture has made us a world of outsiders. Our screen names and avatars inhabit a dreamworld on the other side of a looking-glass where we can never actually go. That's an absurd and grotesque reality, and it favors grotesque fictions.

 

That's why my characters tend to be people like the Devil, or a man who is always getting struck by lightning, or ghosts or taxi drivers faking their deaths. These are comic situations, and their heroes are outsiders. Horror and eternity are easier to come to grips with than the ordinary absurdity of our real, daily 21st century lives. So that's where we begin as a writer. Start with some kind of Frankenstein...and have him slouch toward Walgreens with his secret hungers and his debit card.