T-roy Talks – Conversations with a Cephalopod #1
This is the first in a series of interviews I’m doing to help out my fellow writers. I’m dominating the hashtag #writershelpingwriters on Twitter (you can go check for yourself to be sure, you sexy mothers). I figured I should start to pronounce this hashtaggery even further in the tubes of the blogosphere on the Internets. Therefore, the T-roy Talks (no, not the Ted Talks – this is far more arbitrary) will expand on the cool writers I’ve met on my odyssey of indie writing and let you get to know them on a weirder level. I apologize in advance that I’m not taking requests for further interviews. If I’m interested, I’ll contact you. In Hollywood-speak that's code for "my people will contact your people (which really means, I’ll contact you, but no one has to know about that. *wink*)".
Episode #1 - Mike Robinson
Intelligent, calculated and driven can sum up many writers, but Mike Robinson brings those qualities to the next level with his own brand of dedication to the craft. He is the editor of the magazine Literary Landscapes, an advisory board member of GLAWS (the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society), and his work has been in several other magazines and podcasts that have gone on to feature such literary heavyweights as Neil Gaiman. Recently, Mr. Robinson published his debut novel Skunk Ape Semester with Solstice Publishing. Mike may not be a cryptozoologist on paper, but he is one at heart and it shows with his love of all things Fortean. I had a little pow-wow with Mr. Robinson where he expanded further on his goals and interests.
-Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a native of Los Angeles (an Angeleno, I guess you’d say), but I haven’t been in front of one film camera nor do I have a screenplay, at least not yet. While having studied Illustration at Otis College of Art & Design, and while having worked in the videogame industry, my numero uno passion is writing fiction, and that’s something I’ve been doing since.... (drum roll)
-How long have you been writing?
...I was seven years old. Two totally divergent authors sparked my early storytelling interest: Bruce Coville (My Teacher is an Alien) and Matt Christopher (actually a woman, who wrote wonderful sports stories). So from my scribbling hand came such 9-page tomes as Aliens In My Backyard! and The Tournament of Golf (sounds so epic, doesn’t it?). Eventually I turned specifically to horror and fantasy yarns, and published my first story through a contest with the YA series Strange Matter, when I was 12. My first paid publication came when I was 19.
-What brought Skunk Ape Semester to life?
A voracious fascination with the paranormal, stemming back to when I was 13 and received a copy of cryptozoologist Karl Shuker’s The Unexplained. Thus began years of “research”, meaning recreational reading that I didn’t know would become research once the idea for Skunk Ape Semester plopped into my head. And I shouldn’t forget my Friday (then Sunday) night ritual of The X-Files.
At the time I actually thought of the novel, I’d been on a beatnik literary kick, sopping up Jack Kerouac, Tom Wolfe, and others. Then, one day, in one of those random neural events, an On the Road synapse met an X-Files synapse, and I wondered what it might be like to tour the country’s stranger places, places of Bigfoot, vortices, the Chupacabra, Lake Monsters, etc. Although I did do this in real life (to a certain extent), the notion soon became fictionalized in Skunk Ape Semester.
-What is coming up in the wide world of Mike?
Later this year Curiosity Quills Press will be publishing my supernatural thriller The Green-Eyed Monster, as well as my existential horror novel The Prince of Earth, which will debut early 2013.
-What’s on the horizon for you?
Currently I’m on the third attempt of an ambitious fantasy / science fiction project. The first attempt crashed and burned (mercifully), and the second attempt caught a bad case of doubt and slipped into an irreversible coma. So far the third has been trucking along, but I’m on high alert.
-What is one of your biggest goals in this writing life?
I’d say my primary goal is to marry successfully the good qualities of so-called “literary” and “genre” fiction. My favorite authors do this. As a reader, I find my tastes are in the minority. Formulaic genre fiction bores me, as does pretentious literary fiction. Both could use something from the other. I love genre fiction with vibrant characters, an original and colorful style, and an awareness of larger, existential concerns. I also love literary fiction that knows how to deliver a good story, and doesn’t get bogged down in masturbatory minutia.
Another “subgoal” of mine is to help launch a new way of approaching paranormal fiction (I know, sounds pretentious in its own right). But I think a lot of the recycled vampires and zombies have lost that cool creepy edge of the unknown. Let’s put the “para” back in “normal” and come up with something truly original and just plain out there.
-What line of prose are you the most proud of?
Given the amount of writing I’ve done, I have a number of passages that I’ve eventually refined into something I’m proud to say came from me, but from Skunk Ape Semester I’d say this is one of my favorites:
“It was all hyper-realistic, an embossed world, one that stood out in all its vivid laws and color, and, driving along, the Soulless Scientist in me – the one who tallied the ‘rational’ explanations for everything – fell into a grandiose sleep at the childish but very thrilling realization that nothing was rational, that life was paranormal in and of itself, that the universe’s existence was the strangest unexplained phenomenon ever known or that could ever be known. Our search to prove or debunk the validity of the ‘paranormal’ world would be rendered moot if we just realized that the ghosts and the alien conspiracies paled compared to the mystery of the person in the mirror.”
-What would you like to be remembered for?
Hmm, I suppose I’ll take the generic writerly answer and say I’d like to be remembered for being an author of consistent quality and honesty. Who knows if I’ll have one piece by which people will remember me. If I do, I doubt I’ve written it yet.
-Are you happy?
I can thankfully say I am. I’m incredibly appreciative for this life. As Cormac McCarthy says, “Life is pretty damn good, even when it looks bad. We should be grateful, even if we’re not sure who to be grateful to.”
Find Mike here:
http://www.skunkapesemester.com/index...
http://twitter.com/MikeSkunkApe
Hard copy: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Ape-Semes...
Ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Ape-Semes...
Episode #1 - Mike Robinson
Intelligent, calculated and driven can sum up many writers, but Mike Robinson brings those qualities to the next level with his own brand of dedication to the craft. He is the editor of the magazine Literary Landscapes, an advisory board member of GLAWS (the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society), and his work has been in several other magazines and podcasts that have gone on to feature such literary heavyweights as Neil Gaiman. Recently, Mr. Robinson published his debut novel Skunk Ape Semester with Solstice Publishing. Mike may not be a cryptozoologist on paper, but he is one at heart and it shows with his love of all things Fortean. I had a little pow-wow with Mr. Robinson where he expanded further on his goals and interests.
-Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a native of Los Angeles (an Angeleno, I guess you’d say), but I haven’t been in front of one film camera nor do I have a screenplay, at least not yet. While having studied Illustration at Otis College of Art & Design, and while having worked in the videogame industry, my numero uno passion is writing fiction, and that’s something I’ve been doing since.... (drum roll)
-How long have you been writing?
...I was seven years old. Two totally divergent authors sparked my early storytelling interest: Bruce Coville (My Teacher is an Alien) and Matt Christopher (actually a woman, who wrote wonderful sports stories). So from my scribbling hand came such 9-page tomes as Aliens In My Backyard! and The Tournament of Golf (sounds so epic, doesn’t it?). Eventually I turned specifically to horror and fantasy yarns, and published my first story through a contest with the YA series Strange Matter, when I was 12. My first paid publication came when I was 19.
-What brought Skunk Ape Semester to life?
A voracious fascination with the paranormal, stemming back to when I was 13 and received a copy of cryptozoologist Karl Shuker’s The Unexplained. Thus began years of “research”, meaning recreational reading that I didn’t know would become research once the idea for Skunk Ape Semester plopped into my head. And I shouldn’t forget my Friday (then Sunday) night ritual of The X-Files.
At the time I actually thought of the novel, I’d been on a beatnik literary kick, sopping up Jack Kerouac, Tom Wolfe, and others. Then, one day, in one of those random neural events, an On the Road synapse met an X-Files synapse, and I wondered what it might be like to tour the country’s stranger places, places of Bigfoot, vortices, the Chupacabra, Lake Monsters, etc. Although I did do this in real life (to a certain extent), the notion soon became fictionalized in Skunk Ape Semester.
-What is coming up in the wide world of Mike?
Later this year Curiosity Quills Press will be publishing my supernatural thriller The Green-Eyed Monster, as well as my existential horror novel The Prince of Earth, which will debut early 2013.
-What’s on the horizon for you?
Currently I’m on the third attempt of an ambitious fantasy / science fiction project. The first attempt crashed and burned (mercifully), and the second attempt caught a bad case of doubt and slipped into an irreversible coma. So far the third has been trucking along, but I’m on high alert.
-What is one of your biggest goals in this writing life?
I’d say my primary goal is to marry successfully the good qualities of so-called “literary” and “genre” fiction. My favorite authors do this. As a reader, I find my tastes are in the minority. Formulaic genre fiction bores me, as does pretentious literary fiction. Both could use something from the other. I love genre fiction with vibrant characters, an original and colorful style, and an awareness of larger, existential concerns. I also love literary fiction that knows how to deliver a good story, and doesn’t get bogged down in masturbatory minutia.
Another “subgoal” of mine is to help launch a new way of approaching paranormal fiction (I know, sounds pretentious in its own right). But I think a lot of the recycled vampires and zombies have lost that cool creepy edge of the unknown. Let’s put the “para” back in “normal” and come up with something truly original and just plain out there.
-What line of prose are you the most proud of?
Given the amount of writing I’ve done, I have a number of passages that I’ve eventually refined into something I’m proud to say came from me, but from Skunk Ape Semester I’d say this is one of my favorites:
“It was all hyper-realistic, an embossed world, one that stood out in all its vivid laws and color, and, driving along, the Soulless Scientist in me – the one who tallied the ‘rational’ explanations for everything – fell into a grandiose sleep at the childish but very thrilling realization that nothing was rational, that life was paranormal in and of itself, that the universe’s existence was the strangest unexplained phenomenon ever known or that could ever be known. Our search to prove or debunk the validity of the ‘paranormal’ world would be rendered moot if we just realized that the ghosts and the alien conspiracies paled compared to the mystery of the person in the mirror.”
-What would you like to be remembered for?
Hmm, I suppose I’ll take the generic writerly answer and say I’d like to be remembered for being an author of consistent quality and honesty. Who knows if I’ll have one piece by which people will remember me. If I do, I doubt I’ve written it yet.
-Are you happy?
I can thankfully say I am. I’m incredibly appreciative for this life. As Cormac McCarthy says, “Life is pretty damn good, even when it looks bad. We should be grateful, even if we’re not sure who to be grateful to.”
Find Mike here:
http://www.skunkapesemester.com/index...
http://twitter.com/MikeSkunkApe
Hard copy: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Ape-Semes...
Ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Ape-Semes...
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