Interview with the Author

QUESTIONER: What makes you keep coming back for more?

AUTHOR: I have a penchant for punishment. I’m not really here for any reason other than to sort of make my voice heard. Even if the only entities that hear it are binary receptors on some server’s brain. The fact that it’s written down is enough for me. Aside from my notebook, that is. This is more formal, and that’s appealing to me.

Q: Are you ever going to go into politics?

A: Probably not. I think if I were in politics, like most of the normal people I know, my candidacy would last about a day and a half. Just long enough to pull my history, have me make a quick futile attempt at salvaging the disaster through a news conference at whatever South Beach hotel I was drinking it up in at the time, and then just bag the whole thing as an ill-conceived vanity play.

Q: But I assume you have ideas.

A: Of course.

Q: Do you want to expand on that?

A: Not really.

Q: OK. Describe, if you will, your relationship with the writer J.

A: She’s a much better writer than I am. Any good sentence you read of mine is probably hers, just something I stole along the way. She’s taught me a lot about how to write well and stop beating around the bush. I have stupid ideas, I think, and I’m afraid of putting them down on paper. She’s helped me overcome that fear, even though I still think most of what I write is misguided. We have a great relationship overall. Before I met her, I never thought that I could find someone with whom I had more in common than a half dozen favorite records. And we have pretty much everything in common. Sometimes this makes life crazy. But that’s ok. Life is crazy unless you’re hiding.

Q: Do you find you have anything in common with literary characters? You must have read a lot of books.

A: I’ve read some books. Not as many as I’d like. That’s a pretty stupid question, though. I’m not sure how to answer it. I think I’ve found more in common with writers, not so much their characters. I’m sort of like Charlie Brown. I’m bald and kind of round, and when I get angry my mouth gets all squiggly. And my dog is constantly tricking me into giving her food that I didn’t intend for her to have. And I hang around with lesbians, or I wish I did anyway.

Q: You lost me there.

A: I figured.

Q: How are sales of your first novel?

A: That’s pretty funny. I think this interview is pretty much over.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:23 AM