From BOOKS REVIEWS & MORE BY KATHY
Friday Feature: Interview with Rodney Ross & Contest
(for more of Kathy's literary insights, reviews and blogging, go to:
http://www.bookreviewsandmorebykathy....
KATHY: Today I’m hosting Rodney Ross, author of the new Dreamspinner Press novel, ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP). Thanks for popping in, RR. It’s a long trip here from Key West, Florida, where you live. I have to first ask: why are you pantless?
RODNEY: I’m kinda whimsical that way. The UPS fellow didn’t seem to appreciate it last week, but later that day the supermarket checkout lady grinned, so I’m batting 50/50. I like arriving minus something you expect, like teeth. It cuts down on the sameness of the whole Q/A format. I like to keep interviewer on their toes. So sometimes I’ll reveal I have only 9.
KATHY: Before we begin, let me put down this towel for you. There! Tell me about this, your first novel. Exciting stuff! What was it like to receive that acceptance letter and contract?
RODNEY: I about shit my pants. Gurl, calm down. I said about. Your towel is fine. I truly didn’t think Dreamspinner Press would be amenable to my submission. While TCPohP is undeniably LGBT, it doesn’t fall within the confines of their published strictures. There’s very little romance and almost no sex, yet Elizabeth North, the Executive Director, unblinkingly extended an offer for me to join their catalog of works.
KATHY: From conversations with other authors, I know that road to “yes” was paved with a lot of “no”.
RODNEY: As are my most of my sexual propositions. You get used to no, or being slapped, or law enforcement being summoned. Rejection is part of publishing, or any of the arts in general. Writing letters of inquiry and sending novel samples – “send us your best chapter,” as though you can disconnect one from the other as a perfect stand-alone – gives me groin pain. But so does this chair. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?
I must say, my favorite rejection letter was an E-mail from a literary agent. It was 3 words in response to a succinct plot summary coupled with the first three chapters. The E-mail read: Not for me
No greeting, no signature, not even a period. She didn’t even have time to close the fucking sentence.
Then, of course, there are those friends who will blandly console you upon rejection letters: “Rodney, don’t take it so personally”. Unless I’m Sybil — which I could be, without meds — of course I am going to take it personally! The work is your newborn. Being told it’s ugly, informed it has a clubfoot or just isn’t adoptable can lead a soul to drink. Speaking of which: where’s your liquor cabinet?
KATHY: Your big olives make me want to have a martini, too.
RODNEY: Oops, spilled a little! Good thing I have this towel.
KATHY: Good thing it was stuck to your ass. Tell us a little about the plot of TCPohP, and how it came to be.
RODNEY: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. He plunges into this surreal widowerhood, full of bad casseroles and even worse advice, yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and he slowly rebuilds his world, with missteps and revelations along the way. It was almost important of me that it be funny, full of wicked observation. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically-incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
I wrote it because, being a gay male of a certain age, I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
KATHY: So how old are you?
RODNEY: 107. But I only feel 98.
KATHY: I like that your cover artwork isn’t typical M/M. It’s abstract…mysterious, a little sad, the empty bed, the pillow…you can tell someone’s gone missing.
RODNEY: Anne Cain, who does a lot of work for DSP, created it. I like the detachment of it, the impassive distance. Look at how the wrinkled sheets trail down and recede into marbleization. One friend, when seeing he proposed artwork, mistook this effect for ejaculatory stains, which says far more about his salacious nature him than Ms. Cain.
KATHY: And with publication come reviews. How do you handle criticism?
RODNEY: With implied or actual violence.
KATHY: I loved the book, then. (I really did love it!!)
RODNEY: Good answer. There was this one literary agent — do you sense a trend here with literary agents? — who noted that my writing was “too jazzy” for her palate. I protested, “But I hate jazz!” I still don’t know what that means, but I do my best now to avoid mentioning saxophones and Ann Hampton Callaway as I wordsmith. But the best praise I got was from a Key West, FL neighbor, once a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, telling me, upon reading the raw manuscript- – before I ever submitted it anywhere with its jazz stylings — that TCPohP gave her an asthma attack from laughter. That’s my new goal: always make someone reach for an inhaler.
KATHY: Have you always considered yourself a writer?
RODNEY: Always. I wrote little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. So I didn’t completely flip the hell out producing 30-second car dealer commercials, in my off-hours I wrote screenplays — two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. Talk about self-pity: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until now.
KATHY: I assume we can find TCPohP in the conventional ways?
RODNEY: Gurl, I have more links than a cheap bracelet for you…
Amazon.com * Barnes & Noble
Dreamspinner Press: Paperback and e-Book
KATHY: What other interests and perversions — I meant diversions, of course — do you have, beyond writing?
RODNEY: The inclination to make shit up runs deep. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. If I’m not thinking about writing, I’m drinking about writing. That said, I like to garden; I never miss the opportunity to don gloves. I’m a producer on the upcoming documentary ‘The Little Firemen,’ director Quincy Perkins’ film about the lives of young boys who put their lives at risk to save others in an active terrorist zone up in the Andes Mountains. I have three cats, and I fantasize that, one day, one of them will speak the English language and I will go on Piers Morgan. I also dabble in silently farting and blaming others; criticizing those not present; tending my body hair; rushing to judgment; and bicycling. In exactly that order.
KATHY: What are you working on right now?
RODNEY: My third martini.
KATHY: I meant creatively.
RODNEY: Hiding that this is actually my 4th.
KATHY: One more time: any upcoming projects you would like to let us know about?
RODNEY: I AM at work on a new novel, and all I will say it’s about bad luck, and good — the paths chosen when fortune smiles on us, the desperate measures taken when it doesn’t.
KATHY: Do you have a life’s motto, RR?
RODNEY: “Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts. And every woman has them.” It’s what that ol’ telekinetic Carrie White says to her batshit crazy Mama and, as a gay of a certain age with a neglected physique, truer words were never spoken.
KATHY: Thank you for dropping by, Rodney.
RODNEY: The Greyhound schedule worked out perfectly. Now, Kathy, may I leave you an excerpt?
KATHY: I think you did. On my towel.
(for more of Kathy's literary insights, reviews and blogging, go to:
http://www.bookreviewsandmorebykathy....
KATHY: Today I’m hosting Rodney Ross, author of the new Dreamspinner Press novel, ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP). Thanks for popping in, RR. It’s a long trip here from Key West, Florida, where you live. I have to first ask: why are you pantless?
RODNEY: I’m kinda whimsical that way. The UPS fellow didn’t seem to appreciate it last week, but later that day the supermarket checkout lady grinned, so I’m batting 50/50. I like arriving minus something you expect, like teeth. It cuts down on the sameness of the whole Q/A format. I like to keep interviewer on their toes. So sometimes I’ll reveal I have only 9.
KATHY: Before we begin, let me put down this towel for you. There! Tell me about this, your first novel. Exciting stuff! What was it like to receive that acceptance letter and contract?
RODNEY: I about shit my pants. Gurl, calm down. I said about. Your towel is fine. I truly didn’t think Dreamspinner Press would be amenable to my submission. While TCPohP is undeniably LGBT, it doesn’t fall within the confines of their published strictures. There’s very little romance and almost no sex, yet Elizabeth North, the Executive Director, unblinkingly extended an offer for me to join their catalog of works.
KATHY: From conversations with other authors, I know that road to “yes” was paved with a lot of “no”.
RODNEY: As are my most of my sexual propositions. You get used to no, or being slapped, or law enforcement being summoned. Rejection is part of publishing, or any of the arts in general. Writing letters of inquiry and sending novel samples – “send us your best chapter,” as though you can disconnect one from the other as a perfect stand-alone – gives me groin pain. But so does this chair. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?
I must say, my favorite rejection letter was an E-mail from a literary agent. It was 3 words in response to a succinct plot summary coupled with the first three chapters. The E-mail read: Not for me
No greeting, no signature, not even a period. She didn’t even have time to close the fucking sentence.
Then, of course, there are those friends who will blandly console you upon rejection letters: “Rodney, don’t take it so personally”. Unless I’m Sybil — which I could be, without meds — of course I am going to take it personally! The work is your newborn. Being told it’s ugly, informed it has a clubfoot or just isn’t adoptable can lead a soul to drink. Speaking of which: where’s your liquor cabinet?
KATHY: Your big olives make me want to have a martini, too.
RODNEY: Oops, spilled a little! Good thing I have this towel.
KATHY: Good thing it was stuck to your ass. Tell us a little about the plot of TCPohP, and how it came to be.
RODNEY: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. He plunges into this surreal widowerhood, full of bad casseroles and even worse advice, yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and he slowly rebuilds his world, with missteps and revelations along the way. It was almost important of me that it be funny, full of wicked observation. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically-incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
I wrote it because, being a gay male of a certain age, I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
KATHY: So how old are you?
RODNEY: 107. But I only feel 98.
KATHY: I like that your cover artwork isn’t typical M/M. It’s abstract…mysterious, a little sad, the empty bed, the pillow…you can tell someone’s gone missing.
RODNEY: Anne Cain, who does a lot of work for DSP, created it. I like the detachment of it, the impassive distance. Look at how the wrinkled sheets trail down and recede into marbleization. One friend, when seeing he proposed artwork, mistook this effect for ejaculatory stains, which says far more about his salacious nature him than Ms. Cain.
KATHY: And with publication come reviews. How do you handle criticism?
RODNEY: With implied or actual violence.
KATHY: I loved the book, then. (I really did love it!!)
RODNEY: Good answer. There was this one literary agent — do you sense a trend here with literary agents? — who noted that my writing was “too jazzy” for her palate. I protested, “But I hate jazz!” I still don’t know what that means, but I do my best now to avoid mentioning saxophones and Ann Hampton Callaway as I wordsmith. But the best praise I got was from a Key West, FL neighbor, once a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, telling me, upon reading the raw manuscript- – before I ever submitted it anywhere with its jazz stylings — that TCPohP gave her an asthma attack from laughter. That’s my new goal: always make someone reach for an inhaler.
KATHY: Have you always considered yourself a writer?
RODNEY: Always. I wrote little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. So I didn’t completely flip the hell out producing 30-second car dealer commercials, in my off-hours I wrote screenplays — two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. Talk about self-pity: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until now.
KATHY: I assume we can find TCPohP in the conventional ways?
RODNEY: Gurl, I have more links than a cheap bracelet for you…
Amazon.com * Barnes & Noble
Dreamspinner Press: Paperback and e-Book
KATHY: What other interests and perversions — I meant diversions, of course — do you have, beyond writing?
RODNEY: The inclination to make shit up runs deep. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. If I’m not thinking about writing, I’m drinking about writing. That said, I like to garden; I never miss the opportunity to don gloves. I’m a producer on the upcoming documentary ‘The Little Firemen,’ director Quincy Perkins’ film about the lives of young boys who put their lives at risk to save others in an active terrorist zone up in the Andes Mountains. I have three cats, and I fantasize that, one day, one of them will speak the English language and I will go on Piers Morgan. I also dabble in silently farting and blaming others; criticizing those not present; tending my body hair; rushing to judgment; and bicycling. In exactly that order.
KATHY: What are you working on right now?
RODNEY: My third martini.
KATHY: I meant creatively.
RODNEY: Hiding that this is actually my 4th.
KATHY: One more time: any upcoming projects you would like to let us know about?
RODNEY: I AM at work on a new novel, and all I will say it’s about bad luck, and good — the paths chosen when fortune smiles on us, the desperate measures taken when it doesn’t.
KATHY: Do you have a life’s motto, RR?
RODNEY: “Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts. And every woman has them.” It’s what that ol’ telekinetic Carrie White says to her batshit crazy Mama and, as a gay of a certain age with a neglected physique, truer words were never spoken.
KATHY: Thank you for dropping by, Rodney.
RODNEY: The Greyhound schedule worked out perfectly. Now, Kathy, may I leave you an excerpt?
KATHY: I think you did. On my towel.
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