Derek Alger, editor, Pifmagazine.com (see links) and Mayra Calvini, author, at Blogcritics.org/ have put up two interviews with me. Alger worked me on the phone and we chatted for about an hour as he endeavored to get a sense of who I was as a person and as a writer, much the same thing. In fact. Calvani reviewed Down to a Sunless Sea for blogcritics and then requested an interview which I did through email; her questions were sharp and I had to keep it under 2,000 words, answering the minimum of eight questions. Later on she attached two questions which she was particularly interested in having me answer.
A significant amount in both reviews are personal feelings about childhood and interests as well as my self that you, reader, may find of interest given all the blogs that have come before this. i find it flattering, of course, to blather about one’s self, still having that residual left over from teaching which requires performance art, if not hambone. Given that my relatives on my father’s side were in vaudeville (grade D acts — get the hook!), it all comes easy for me. However, with the armamentarium of teacher, writer and therapist, I am loaded for bear, and at this juncture in my life, I have garnered sufficient knowledge, perhaps some wisdom, to share. One of the perks of getting older.
If you are a writer reading these blogs, you can detect that I go about marketing like mercury rolling across tile, beading up here and there. The interviews can now be used when I do mailings or I need to reference an editor to writerly interactions I have had. And the secondary gain (shrinkspeak) has occurred: two reviewers now are willing to read my earlier work, to wit, The i Tetralogy. And now I am planning to come out with a second edition of the Tetralogy with another cover. I will add two or three pages of quotations in the front of the book; I will delete a preface which has rarely if ever been commented upon, and correct two minor typos. The beauty of a print on demand book is that you can do all this relatively quickly and without signifcant costs. My son will do the new cover which will not have swastikas on it. I agree it is jarring — but that is its intent. Now I’ll have Bambi on the cover, exuding unconditional love for all. Thank god for the stag in that film or Bambi would have been venison.
I have met with my publisher, Wheatmark.com, to discuss how to take my literary efforts which have been reviewed terrifically well and make them more public. I will get back to the writers in blogspace to share what I have learned.
