MARK, THANK YOU FOR THIS INTERVIEW. NOW, I KNOW YOU ARE A LIBRARIAN. TELL MY READERS MORE ABOUT YOURSELF, WITHOUT REVEALING YOUR TRUE NATURE. I was originally an octopus but they excommunicated me because I thought we should call ourselves octopodes. It was a huge rift in the octopus community. So now I am a librarian and write fiction. Before that I was a shepherd who focused on rhyming couplets. I've worn many hats. All of them small. I have three very tiny heads. Most of all I miss the abyssal depths. And krill. Delicious krill. WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE A WRITER? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST STORY ABOUT? When I was 10 or 11 I wrote a grisly story about a failed stuntman who nearly died after every stunt but was resuscitated by his handlers and nursed back to health just in time for the next catastrophe. I think he ended up being eaten by sharks, and his last words were, “Fuck youuuuuuuuu!” YOU ALSO WRITE AMAZING POETRY. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE POEM? I admire so many. But I think I am most awed by Stephen Dunn's "Loves" and Andrew Hudgins's "Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought." I AM ALWAYS IMPRESSED BY YOUR USE OF HUMOR AND WEIRD FICTION. WHAT INSPIRED THE LIBRARIAN AT THE END OF THE WORLD? It's non-fiction. YOU TAUGHT ME SOMETHING ABOUT A MACGUFFIN. WHAT IS THE MACGUFFIN IN THE STORY? DO YOU NORMALLY HAVE ONE IN YOUR NOVELS? The macguffin is the thing that motivates the action or keeps the plot going. It doesn't have to be entirely significant to the plot and doesn't even have to be revealed. But it is the thing that everyone is chasing. In Repo Man it was the thing in the trunk of the car. In Pulp Fiction it was the briefcase. In Librarian it is Carrie Fisher's washcloth. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE AUTHOR, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY? Would we be able to communicate if we spoke different languages and came from different times and cultures? I have lots of questions about this. Like, I would like to meet whoever put the Q source text together in the early Christian church, but I doubt we'd be able to span the language and culture gap. That would be really frustrating. How long do we get to suss shit out? Like is this a coffee date, or are we gonna be in a long-term relationship? Are we able to set aside time to get to know each other and establish the kind of rapport that would reveal something about ourselves? Do I still have to work, or could I take a sabbatical to talk to William Blake? Surely, I could get a sabbatical to tell William Blake that "eye" and "symmetry" don't rhyme. PLEASE, TELL US ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS. I have nothing on the horizon. I'm supposed to be working on a follow up novel to The Librarian at the End of the World that will be called The Two-Headed Lady at the End if the World (you may detect a theme) but I've been busy with real life. It's funny so far though, so I hope I can get back into it soon. ONE LAST FANTASY QUESTION: DO YOU THINK WRITING CAN TRANSFORM THE WORLD? IF SO HOW? I used to. Now I just think we need to make fun of everything. We are on a sinking ship and our last recourse is to mock the captain, the crew, the passengers, the iceberg, and the ocean. WHERE CAN READERS FIND YOU ONLINE OR ON SOCIAL MEDIA? Home: https://authormarkmiller.com/ Twitter: @AuthorMarkMill1 Facebook: @theabsurdmarkmiller MARK, IT’S BEEN A REAL PLEASURE! I HOPE TO HAVE YOU BACK SOON. Thanks. ---- The Librarian at the End of the World is available on Amazon.
0 Comments
Happy New Year! I hope your winter break was productive, and that you got a lot of writing done. My family and I spent most of this winter break recovering from being sick, and then I was laptop less for a week because my cat dumped a glass of water on it, which has forced me to (a) stop eating around where I work and (b) set up a real desk. I got a refurbished laptop last Friday, but I didn’t get my novelette Wolf Trek done. I hope to work on it this week after I get my regular work done. Outside of all these blocks, I am continuing with writing basics: writing, researching, and revising my work. I want to publish my debut novel The Harvested, this summer, but I don’t want to be hasty. In fact, I’ve been awfully slow in finishing that project, over 20 some years. Recently, I read two novels other writers published prematurely. The writing would have been outstanding. Rushing can also be the enemy for writers who are running the self-publishing rat race. Oh, then, another project “Nail Shop Warriors” also got rejected. The co-author, Hector Cruz, and I are revising it, especially the ending, and sending it to other anthologies. It was a lot of fun to work with him, but we need to spend more time smoothing out the story. It is a great piece, though. This year, I am not setting New Year’s writing goals. Well, maybe one writing goal. I have a mother of a time with the omniscient point of view. I write in the limited point of view, and then, slip up. The annoying part is that I don’t see the POV errors in my work, but I do in the work of others. Does that happen to you? Do you miss your writing sins and see them in others? Whatever your New Years goals are, I hope you exceed them. Keep writing! Keep reading. Keep on. CARMEN, IT’S A REAL HONOR TO HAVE YOU HERE. NOW, I KNOW YOU ARE A RETIRED SCHOOL TEACHER, AN AVID CAT RESCUER, AND THAT YOU LIVE IN NEW MEXICO. TELL MY READERS MORE ABOUT YOU. I’m a hermit, a homebody, a wife, mother, and grandmother. I’m an introvert and enjoy being interviewed on paper rather than in person. I enjoy performing community service and acting as secretary for my retired educators’ association. I am the last surviving Verónica of the rural community where I live and where I write about most often. WHAT IS A VERONICA? Las Verónicas were one of the women’s groups that assisted Los Hermanos, especially during Holy Week. I AM ALWAYS IMPRESSED BY YOUR USE OF CULTURE AND FOLKLORE IN YOU WORK. WHAT IS YOUR OWN FAVORITE STORY THAT SPEAKS TO YOUR TRADITIONS? My first book is my favorite since it took 25 years from the writing of it to the publication. That’s the book I wanted to publish because I knew it would be unique. The traditions of los Hermanos y las Verónicas played an important part of my life for so long. Los Hermanos were our spiritual leaders, our first community service society; the female society operated in concert with the brothers. I became a Verónica at age 5. The rituals I was privileged to participate in for Lent—las estaciones (the Stations of the Cross) and the processions like La Procesíon de la Cruz (the procession of the cross where a brother carried the cross on his back with the rest of us following in prayer and singing hymns) and Las Tinieblas (the Earthquake ceremonies on Good Friday which lasted till midnight in raucous cacophony of sound and despair because that was the night Christ went to hell)—those are the types of traditions so many of my culture have allowed to die. I seek to preserve them in my works. WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE A WRITER? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST STORY ABOUT? I wrote my first book in 1992 when I unlocked a wooden box which had held secrets throughout my formative years. The contents confirmed what I suspected about the practices of a private religious brotherhood of which my father was leader. So much has been published about the brotherhood that misinforms or sensationalizes their private rituals; I wanted to write about them from the perspective of someone who revered the brothers and what they stood for. After that book published, I honestly thought it was to be my “one hit wonder.” After a small book tour my first publisher arranged, I got that lightbulb moment of inspiration and immediately began my third book. That was when I knew I wanted to write until I no longer can. WHAT IS ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING WORKS YOU HAVE PUT TOGETHER? WHY? It would have to be El Hermano because I was careful to keep what they wanted secret a secret. I didn’t write that book to divulge what today’s brothers still keep from the public, so when I found the ledger with their rules dating back to 1850, I censored myself so as not to offend my forefathers or those brothers who would possibly hold that against me. I explain in my forward that I wrote that book as a tribute to my father and los Hermanos, not to disclose what is not ours to know about their brotherhood. I KNOW YOU HAVE LEARNED A LOT FROM STUDYING AND TEACHING LITERATURE ABOUT HOW TO CRAFT A GREAT STORY, BUT IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO BETTER? I wish I could change my writing voice. No matter how I strive to write in a different voice, I revert back to my style. I’d like to get better at flash fiction and attempt drabbles. I’m too verbose and have to work hard to condense. I also want to experiment with more genres and POVs. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE AUTHOR, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY? I’ve already met the two authors I admire most: Rudolfo Anaya and Jimmy Santiago Baca. I communicated through email with Sandra Cisneros and Esmeralda Santiago, so I’m content with having made those connections. These are authors whose works I taught in my classes, so I’ve admired their styles and identified with some of their stories for a long time. It blows me away that both Anaya and Baca’s endorsements are on the covers of El Hermano and that Santiago asked for a signed copy of my book. I LOVE IT WHEN WRITERS DO THAT, WHEN THEY GIVE AWAY SIGNED COPIES OF THEIR WORK. PLEASE, TELL US ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS. My fifth book is one I’m proud of because it developed from one plot to three intertwining plots as I wrote it. I didn’t even know what genre it was till I asked in writing groups. It’s a short story cycle. My sixth is another short story collection divided into sections—ghosts, saints, demons, and sinners. Two of my short stories have already been accepted for anthologies publishing in 2020, so I’m hoping I can get more of those published between books. ONE LAST FANTASY QUESTION: DO YOU THINK WRITING CAN TRANSFORM THE WORLD? IF SO HOW? Books in general can transform those who read them, and the readers can change the world depending on the contents, the themes, or the morals learned. In the case of my books, I hope to keep my culture’s traditions, customs, dialect, etc. alive for future readers to learn about a simpler time, a more rustic way of life, an era when respect and responsibility governed la gente’s actions. WHERE CAN READERS FIND YOU ONLINE OR ON SOCIAL MEDIA? http://plu.us/cbacacreations This one stop link takes you to my website, my page on my publisher’s website, my Amazon & FB pages, my YouTube channel, email, Flipboard, and Twitter accounts. CARMEN, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY FOR MY READERS! I HOPE TO HAVE YOU BACK SOON. Thank you, hermana, for supporting my endeavors and for inviting me to do this interview. ---- Carmen Baca's works are available on Amazon. This week, I got the most amazing gift from Author Adrian J. Walker! I had been expecting to get it a few weeks back, but I finally got The End of the World Survivors Club. Signed! I was so overwhelmed by his generosity, I shot the video above. I highly recommend his books and will review it. In fact, we will discuss his book in my asynchronous Facebook book club, which I invite you to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/427705934528728/ As you can see, my YouTube channel, Radical Books and Politics, is shaping nicely. My goal is to have one guest a month, two book reviews a month, and one show a week. Yesterday, I interviewed Author Daniel Brooks for the second time, since I launched the show. I am getting better at editing and keeping the cost minimal for my new hobby. I am shooting on my i-Phone and have a lapel microphone, which I can only use on an Android. I also bought a short bendable stand and splurged on the lighting. I splurged on the Filmic Pro app for my i-Phone, which shoots a cleaner, professional video. Now, I am looking for guests that are writers and activists, so if you want to come on the show, comment below or on my YouTube channel. I subscribe and comment back. Writing Updates: I’m almost done with Wolf Trek. Aditya, my editor, did a great job on the edits. I am just grappling with the ending, where there may be a good old-fashioned shootout or leave it as is. Both work, but I really have to think, as a reader, what would I love? Well, I got up too early this morning and am going to rest. I will be marathon grading through Wednesday and lining up my writing and marketing projects after that. I hope you are all having a great writing and/or reading day! Oh, oh, here’s my new outro: “Do what you love. Read as many books as you can. And, write on!” #barrioblues I launch the official debut episode in December with my launch of Wolf Trek, a second edition. All the profits of that novelette are going to Poet Jay Mehta who suffered a stroke in September of this year. He is an amazing poet and merits every bit of support. (I love you to the max Jay and family!) Stay tuned for more amazing news. Oh, I almost forgot. Every 100 subscribers to my YouTube channel, "Jesú's Radical Books and Profits," I will be giving away free copies of Mona’s Return to all readers, national and international. You just need a valid email. I hope to see you subscribe soon! Well friends and fans, after working out some kinks with learning the platform and integrating software and equipment, I think my channel, Jesú’s Radical Books & Politics, is ready for you! I launch the official debut episode in a little over a week with my launch of Wolf Trek, a second edition. All the profits of that novelette are going to Poet Jay Mehta who suffered a stroke in September of this year. He is an amazing poet and merits every bit of support. (I love you to the max Jay and family!) Stay tuned for more amazing news. Oh, I almost forgot. Every 100 subscribers to my YouTube channel, I will be giving away free copies of Mona’s Return to all readers, national and international. You just need a valid email. I hope to see you subscribe soon! Amazing! Not Your Abuelita's Folktales Has Been Chosen for a Local Book Club! #barrioblues #grateful30/11/2019 Wonderful News! Next month, a local Chicago book club has chosen my first collection of Young Adult stories, Not Your Abuelita’s Folktales! It is currently ranking #1 for Hispanic American Literature on Amazon.
I could not be more thrilled. What an honor! Thank you Cristina Carrillo, from the bottom of my heart for choosing my collection of magical realism stories. Dear Book Lovers,
I am running a book lover appreciation for you! FREE FREE FREE Kindle books for three days and far better than Black Friday . . . 11/29 THROUGH SUNDAY 12/1 La Bruja in the Orchard: Five-year-old Mona knows something is very wrong, when her older brother Pancho doesn’t come home one night. Her evil sister, Christi, is to blame because Pancho is always defending her. Mona only knows he is in trouble with the police. Now that Pancho is gone, Christi is brutal, constantly terrorizing Mona. One afternoon, her parents go on an overnight trip and leave her older sister in charge. Things take a turn for the worse as her sister’s carelessness makes Mona sick to her stomach. La Bruja who lives in the orchard and has been haunting Mona for some time takes advantage of her weakness. With Pancho and her parents gone, the witch is at the window trying to convince Mona to go with her and away from her sister’s cruelty. Will Mona be able to overcome her sister’s abuse and the relentless Bruja, before her parents come home, or will the temptations of La Bruja make her leave her home forever? https://www.amazon.com/Bruja-Orchard-del-Barrio-Loco-ebook/dp/B07DVRHNYY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=la+bruja+in+the+orchard&qid=1574930363&sr=8-1 & Not Your Abuelita's Folktales: Four gripping, no-holds-barred, supernatural tales for young adults. https://www.amazon.com/Your-Abuelitas-Folktales-Maria-Estrada-ebook/dp/B07T1HPB1J/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8ZAJ5H17N4XK&keywords=not+your+abuelita%27s+folktales&qid=1574930389&sprefix=not+your+abueli%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1 Gobble, gobble, gobble these books up. Finally, stay tuned for my Barrio Blues YouTube channel, where I will give writing advice, interview guests, and read short works. I hope you watch and subscribe. P.C. it is so great to have you back! The pleasure is mine, as always! I am really excited about your novel The Priest of Orpagus! Tell us about this work. It’s a story of an American man who moves to Turkey to teach English. He falls in love with his beautiful colleague—and unwittingly drags her into the claws of a demon. The demon messes up with their minds, and they must fight for their lives, souls, and sanity. I’m not telling you whether they make it, though. 😉 Oh, I should probably add that I wrote the first draft five years ago . . . while working as an English teacher in Turkey. Was the writing process different than Deception of the Damned? It was pretty similar. Last year, I rewrote the old, nearly forgotten draft and sent it to my editor, who sent me back her comments. I did my revisions and asked a few friends to read it for me. Then I polished it up accordingly to their recommendations. I’m writing my new project from scratch, which is much more exciting. Where can readers purchase this book? The Priest of Orpagus is available on Amazon, both in Kindle and paperback. Where can they find you on social media? All the important links are bundled up here. Thank you for telling my readers about this amazing work. I look forward to having you again soon! Thank you so much for your continuous support. I live to promote great work. Also, many thanks for being one of the aforementioned friends who read the second draft. I hope to be back with some news early next year. It was my absolute pleasure! Only for you P.C., only for you. I can't wait to get more good news. ADAM AND SAM, IT’S GREAT TO HAVE YOU!
Adam: Thanks for having us. Hi. Sam: I am also here. NOW, I KNOW YOU ARE BOTH WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND SAM, YOU ALSO WRITE POETRY. TELL MY READERS MORE ABOUT YOU. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? Sam: Australia. Adam: Yeah, we’re both from Australia, from Northern New South Wales. Uhhh. . . In a-- Sam: I live in a tree. Adam: Sam lives in a tree. I live. . . near the tree Sam lives in. . . Sam: He brings me food. Adam: Yeah that’s the less convenient part. WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE A WRITER? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST STORY ABOUT? Adam: My first story was. . . It’s hard to say. My first published story was also the first thing I’d written in quite a while, but I’d written a lot in high school and university, so I’ve probably known I was a writer since I was a teenager. Sam: My first story I ever wrote appeared in my school newspaper when I was ten and I recently typed it up and realized there were some serious tense issues, but I just sent it to an anthology. We’ll see if it gets in. I’m rooting for ten-year-old Sam! I’ve been writing poetry since Year 6. I realized I wanted to be a writer because I read 1984 plus Warhammer 40000 novels as a teenager and basically I was like ‘Oh I’m going to write a 1984 cross Warhammer 40k novel in the school holidays.’ That was years before I had the chance to do short stories. I AM ALWAYS IMPRESSED BY THE JOINT WORK YOU DO BOTH IN YOUR COLLABORATIVE WRITING AND IN ZOMBIE PIRATE PUBLISHING. WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE WORK YOU HAVE COLLABORATED ON? Adam: Nothing. We’ve never collaborated. Sam: Yeah, we don’t collaborate-- Adam: I wrote the start of a short story— the start of a novel once—wrote the first chapter and handed it to Sam, and he went “That’s the best thing you’ve ever written. I’m excited to write the next chapter,” and then never did it. Sam: I don’t remember that. Adam: So I then went on the internet and said, “Oi, how about you people do I,” and that was also terrible. Collaboration is. . . . Yeah we don’t really collaborate. We do-- Sam: We work together as publishers and editors and collaborate on themes which is generally like one of us will have an idea, and we’ll brainstorm how to make it work and split the workload whether it’s editing, marketing, making the graphics; we’ll just sort of split it down the middle. I think that getting along as collaborators comes down to getting along as old friends, but I don’t think that artistically, on a story. . . . We have vastly different processes, styles, ideas, approaches . . . and while our work appears alongside each other and complements each other, I don’t know how we would write a story together. We could give it a shot-- Adam: We could give it a shot. I don’t know that I would ever want to however. Umm . . . I see people’s collaborative writing, and it’s interesting to read, but I don’t know that it’s for me. Sam: I don’t even know how they. . . Adam: —functionally do it? Sam: Yeah. . . Like does one do the left hand and one do the right hand? Adam: I don’t write with my left hand at all, so I’ll be the left hand, you do the right hand, and then put my name on the story. Sam: You type one handed? Adam: Oh. I thought we were writing it out with pencil and paper. . . TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHING HOUSE. WHERE DOES THE NAME COME FROM? Adam: This is a good story actually. Sam: It comes from two angles which are both kind of together. We play a card game called Smash Up, where you smash together two factions to make a unique team. And there’s pirates and zombies as well as aliens and robots and all sorts of things. So you could play zombie pirates in the game. I also saw a comic strip about someone creating something new and interesting and no one was interested in it. So the person got an existing idea and a second existing idea and sort of nonchalantly mashed them together, and everyone went nuts for it. And that sort of reminded me that people like familiar tropes and archetypes. Everything we do is putting old ideas together in new quirky combinations. So our name is supposed to be a mix of approachability and familiarity, mixed with quirky and weird. Adam: Yeah. When we first came up with the idea of making a publishing house, and throwing our hats in the ring and doing it ourselves, my suggestion for the name was The Collapsar Directive, which you might know ended up being the name of our first anthology. WHAT IS ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING PROJECTS YOU HAVE PUT TOGETHER IN ZOMBIE PIRATE PUBLISHING? Adam: Well I don’t know what Sam’s answer is, but I think that And Man Grew Proud was particularly challenging. Sam: Most challenging? Probably Flash Fiction Addiction. But my honest answer is: They all felt the same. Adam: I suppose with the frequency we do them at. . . But at the time, you’re right, Flash Fiction Addiction, wrangling one hundred different authors. . . It was a challenge. NOW, AS YOU KNOW, I GAVE A FIVE-STAR REVIEW TO YOUR AMAZING SCIENCE FICTION DOUBLE FEATURE: PHOSPHORUS & INTO THE EYE. DID YOU DO A LOT OF RESEARCH FOR YOUR RESPECTIVE WORKS? Sam: [raucous laughter] Adam: Uh. No. Not at all. Very little. I did a bunch of math to work out how long my space elevators needed to be, which doesn’t actually appear in the story, I don’t think. . . the actual length of it appears in the story. Maybe it does. Once. I did do a lot of world building. Sam: Is that research? Adam: Umm, no. I guess not. Sam: My story doesn’t have any. . . beyond general knowledge. . . like lasers exist. . . I don’t do any research. . . I prefer writing science fiction because I don’t want to do any research. Adam: Yeah, Sam doesn’t write science fiction, he writes science fantasy. Sam: I make up my story as I go. My novella was actually a short story that was a bit truncated, and I was like ‘oh I’ll come back to it one day’. When I came back to it the characters went on an adventure, and then, I just kept on adding to story. The characters just tell me what would be the most dramatic thing to happen. They just screw each other over basically. Adam: Yeah it’s interesting. Science fiction is just a setting really. There’s no real science in either of our books. I mean. . . there is and there isn’t. I mean, spaceships are science. Sam: There’s no real quantum mechanics of how The Eye works or how the Varsez Pearls work. Adam: That’s the thing that makes the difference between science fiction and science fantasy, I read once. Somebody said that science fiction is a story where the deus ex machina. . . where the person gets saved at the end by the fact that the boiling point of water is different in a vacuum than it is inside an atmosphere. . . Somehow. . . That saves them. Sam: Yeah, I would just prefer dramatic stuff happens. I write a lot of stories which are relatively interchangeable with another setting. I just throw a laser in there. . . Adam: Yeah it’s like George R. R. Martin said, ‘The best stories are about the human heart in conflict with itself. Sam: One of the reasons I enjoy writing science fiction is, so I can make up my world, so I can focus on the characters, so I don’t get bogged down with, “Did they use that pistol in that time period.” CLEARLY, YOU BOTH HAVE AMAZING SKILLS. BUT IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO BETTER? Adam: Yeah I’d like to be more consistent at getting the writing done, day to day. I’m very happy with where my writing. . . where my skills are at. Obviously it’s the same as anything. . . It is a skill set. I have worked on it. I will continue to work on it. My skills will continue to improve as I do so. But one of the things I need for my writing—functionally at least—is the time and motivation to do it more frequently. Sam: I put a lot of subconscious—sometimes very conscious—but a lot of subconscious effort into improving myself and my life and my skills and whatever I’m passionate about. I love writing. I love playing poker. I’m a drummer. I study these passions in a very oblique way sometimes where I sort of try to ramble towards my goal simultaneously always believing I’m on the right path. I think that sometimes when I speak to people and I say, “Oh I don’t have anything to learn,” or “I’ve found my voice,” or “I’m happy with where I’m at,: they sometimes think that means I’m not trying to improve, or I’m complacent, or I’m up myself. I think the reality of it is, I have always been a self-taught person. I will get better at whatever I’m interested in. I’ve always thought you will improve at whatever skill you have the interest in because you will want to spend time with the skill. Adam: Yeah, exactly right. If you want to learn to play piano, if you want to juggle, if you want to learn to. . . tightrope walk. . . you don’t get better at it by people giving you pointers, you get better by going out and doing it. You listen to people who know what they’re talking about, sure, but you still have to go put the time in to build the muscle memory, and writing is a muscle. You have to hone that muscle. Sam: Another key thing people don’t realize about any skill is to have as much fun doing it as possible. If you’re not having fun and you’re not enjoying it-- Adam: Yeah, if you hate tightrope walking, it’s not going to work out for you as a career. Sam: Yeah, go and do it. Please have as much fun as possible. WHAT ARE SOME MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WHEN SUBMITTING WORK? LIKE WHAT GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN? Sam: That’s a good question. Adam: Yeah it is. Sam: I don’t know what the answer is. Adam: I dunno. . . Read our call for submissions guidelines on our website. All the stuff that annoys us is right there in black and white. Sam: I think we make it pretty clear what we want. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE AUTHOR, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY? Sam: Oh. . . George Orwell. Why not. Adam: Hunter S. Thompson. PLEASE, TELL US ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING WRITING PROJECTS AND CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS. Adam: Well, out current call for submissions is for Raygun Retro. We’re after stories written in the style and manner of classic sci-fi written by the masters of the genre. Stories written in the lens of yesteryear. You can find all the details on our website. ONE LAST FANTASY QUESTION: DO YOU THINK WRITING CAN TRANSFORM THE WORLD? IF SO HOW? Sam: Uhhh. . . Adam: [laughs] Sam doesn’t, but I do. . . Sam: I think the world will be what the world will be. I believe in destiny. I think you can transform the world, but you were always going to. I think the world is a magical place, and you should always try to make an impact. I think writing is very powerful for that. You should always. . . pretend like. . . even if you feel like you’re not making a difference, you should get up every day and tell yourself you’re an important person who’s impacting a lot of people. Adam: I’ve said since I had my first short story published, oh. . . six years ago. . . wow that’s getting on. . . I’ve said ever since then, I don’t really care if I make a bunch of money, I don’t care if I never get famous, as long as five hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, could be fifty years from now, someone picks up one of my books and reads a short story or a novel or something I’ve written, and it changes their outlook on life. If that happens one time, even years after I’m dead, and even if I never know it happens, then my whole career has been worth it. WHERE CAN READERS FIND YOU ONLINE OR ON SOCIAL MEDIA? Adam: Best place is zombiepiratepublishing.com or facebook.com/zombiepiratepublishing. SAM AND ADAM, I KNOW YOU ARE INCREDIBLY BUSY; I’M SURPRISED YOU DO ALL OF THIS WORK WITHOUT CLONES. THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT FOR MY READERS. I HOPE WE DO THIS AGAIN SOON. Sam: Thanks for having us. We had a good time. Adam: Cheers. |
Jesú Estrada
|