Matt Henderson Ellis: Strange as Angels

Hi Matt, could you describe yourself in five words?

"No retreat, baby, no surrender."

What can you tell us about "Strange as Angels"?

It occurred to me that Prozac had as big an influence on my generation, and its music, as LSD had on the generation who came of age in the 1960s. I am not a scientist or sociologist, so I sought to examine this idea via my own personal experiences with depression and self-medication. The result was Strange as Angels, a memoir which chronicles my use of music, particularly 80s punk and new wave, to alleviate the psychic burden of teenage depression. The narrative is basically the story of first love, the ramifications of being on overly sensitive soul, and what happens when you are not true to your own nature. Along the way, I give short exegeses of bands like the Smiths, the Cure, the Violent Femmes, and the Replacements and their place in music before Prozac and Nirvana broke depression and, simultaneously, underground rock into the public consciousness.

Who's your favourite author? 

The only living writer I buy in hardcover is Haruki Murakami. The dead ones: John Kennedy Toole, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O'Conner, Mikhail Bulgakov, Georges Perec, and George Orwell.

Do you have tips for budding writers?

There is so much bad advice out there on the Internet, written by people who are mostly rehashing other people's bad advice. Learn things by doing them (I'm mostly talking about the publishing process here). Creatively, if you are indeed a writer, you don't need advice; you will write anyway. Just do it without shame and stay 100 percent committed to following your own path to expression: forget what everyone else is doing. That said, community is sustaining, emotionally, I mean. You should always have a few trustworthy people around with whom to share your writing. Not much gets done in a void. Oh, and read John Gardener's On Becoming a Novelist – it is invaluable.

What are you working on now? 

Right now my energies are taken up by editing a novel for one client and a memoir for another. I have a novel of my own in the fermentation stage, but it is only a few unrefined ideas at this point. Also, I am trying to learn how to market e-books. Like most writers, I am not very comfortable with this facet of publication.

Where can we find you online?

http://www.wordpillediting.com/wordpillblog/