Ten Questions with… Anthony Caplan
This Monday’s Ten Questions installment features Anthony Caplan, who is graciously hosting my guest blog about living and writing in New England at his site today. Welcome, Anthony! Readers, enjoy!
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Author Bio: Anthony Caplan is an independent writer, teacher and homesteader in northern New England. He has worked at various times as a shrimp fisherman, environmental activist, journalist, taxi-driver, builder, window-washer, and telemarketer, (the last for only a month, but one week he did win a four tape set of the greatest hits of George Jones for selling the most copies of Time-Life’s The Loggers.) Currently, Caplan is working on restoring a 150 year old farmstead where he and his family tend sheep and chickens, grow most of their own vegetables, and have started a small apple orchard from scratch.
Author Website: http://www.anthonycaplanwrites.com & http://thenewremembrance.blogspot.com
You can find his books at Amazon – Birdman, French Pond Road & Latitudes!
About the Writer
1. What five words describe you?
Persistent, Essential, Symbolic, Seeking, Multidimensional
2. What was the first story you ever wrote? I mean the really bad one we all have that you’re trying to hide in the back of closet now that you’re published?
My really bad ones I burnt. Several have been lost along the way. Some are on my blog, http://thenewremembrance.blogspot.com The first story I ever wrote was when I was five or six. I had a toy typewriter and I wrote a story about some of my toys that were in a fight and beat each other. I think I was obsessed with violence.
3. What inspires you?
Live music, movies, good books, children, horses, and mountaintops.
4. What distracts you?
Work, children, farm chores (I live on a farm), and social media.
5. What’s your favorite story? This can be specific, as in a particular book or even story-driven movie, or general, like “I’m a sucker for a hero looking for redemption story.”
My favorite all-time classic story is The Odyssey by Homer. Every good story I know is a variation on the hero trying to get home. Every underdog is a variation on Ulysses. I also love father-son adventure stories. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the best version I know of that one.
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About the Writing
1. Tell us about your currently available titles.
I have two novels, the first two books in the Billy Kagan series, tracing the life of a foot-loose man striving for sanity. In Birdman, Billy is attempting a reunification with his estranged wife and son. He travels to Ireland to find his wife’s mother with whom he has a strange relationship and falls into the clutches of eco-terrorists trying to prevent the construction of a radar mast. What Billy really needs is some love, and in the end he finds some. In the second book of the series, French Pond Road, Billy is back in New Hampshire working as a roofer and his son Mickey, who is now a teenager and in trouble with the law, finds him.
2. What’s your favorite part about writing these stories?
The way what the characters need only becomes apparent after several drafts. I always write blind, it seems.
3. What would your characters say about you? Be honest!
They would wonder what they had done to deserve such confusion on the part of their creator.
4. Who would play your favorite character if they made a movie of their story?
I honestly don’t know. I think Brad Pitt has matured into an actor worthy of playing Billy Kagan, but that Leonardo DiCaprio has got some chops also.
5. Do you have any projects currently in the works you want to talk about?
My latest book, Latitudes – A Story of Coming Home, published this week, June 30. It’s about a boy outrunning his torn childhood and realizing he is capable of having a life free of pain with the help of friends and sports.
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Thank you for being with us today, Anthony, and good luck with your books!
