Michael Critzer Brings a Bit of Burlesque and Adventure to the Middle of Eternity
This week, we bring you Michael Critzer, author of "Evelyn" and "Thorn" in our upcoming anthology, and teacher of Writing and Rhetoric at James Madison University.
To be released in August, Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity will contain 13 fantastic tales of science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal written by eight incredibly talented authors and edited by yours truly. Each story will be accompanied by a black and white illustration provided by phenomenal artist Mike Riehl, who also created our gorgeous cover.
Seven of the eight writers will be present to launch the book at the Shore Leave SF convention, August 1-3 2014, during the Friday evening Meet the Pros party. It will then be available in paperback and eBook from Amazon, B&N.com, Smashwords, and just about every online bookseller.
Most writers have at least one established author who inspired them. Would you share with us some of the authors who influenced you?
No matter how I try to educate and condition myself by reading certain types of writers today, I find that my own writing always leans toward the fascination aspect of the stories that captured me as a child. As a literature professor, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I hated to read as a child, and when I did start, I was on a strict diet of Batman and Archie comic books. But the stories I watched on episodes of Masters of the Universe and reruns of the Twilight Zone always held me captivated. Even though the plots were often contrived, they had a charm which is glaringly absent from so much “literary” fiction. At some point in life, it was fun to realize that the authors I had sought out in other mediums, such as J. Michael Straczynski, Paul Dini, and Charles Beaumont, had also worked on those early TV shows.
While pursuing your MFA, you currently teach Writing and Rhetoric at James Madison University with an eye toward teaching creative writing. What attracted you to the MFA program?
Unfortunately, small pieces of paper with university seals on them are a necessity for job security in the academic field. Once I completed my Masters in English, I decided I’d had enough of soul sucking literary theory (a systematic stripping away of all the pleasure and delight that literature has to offer), so a PhD was off the table, and I wanted to get serious about my creative writing, so an MFA was the logical route. I was then extremely lucky to stumble onto Spalding University’s low residency MFA program, which enabled me to keep my day job but study with some of the finest working authors currently teaching. Sena Naslund (of Ahab’s Wife and Adam and Eve fame) is the program director, and I’ve so far had the privilege of working with such award winning authors as Pete Duval, John Pipkin, and Mary Clyde. My writing has grown enormously, and I highly recommend the program to any writer now, regardless of their professional aspirations.
Tell us about your story “Sirena” in the anthology, Quixotic: Not Everyday Love Stories . How did you become involved in the anthology?
I received the invite to submit from one of the editor’s, my friend and talented horror author Lindsey Beth Goddard. I had written “Sirena” after studying Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and various Poe tales, hence the insane narrator and the twisted “creation” aspect of the tale. I’m a little obsessed with the theme of creating the people, places, and situations around us by the projections of what we want or need them to be. That’s the nature of fiction writing anyway, right? It gets my characters into all kinds of trouble, which I hope makes for fun stories.
For Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity, you penned two unique stories. “Thorn” is an urban fantasy while “Evelyn” is a story of obsession and tragedy. What inspired these very different tales?
I’ve always wanted to write about superheroes, but it took me a while to find a story to tell. Then the debate resurfaced on my facebook newsfeed about the representation of women in comic books. I decided that instead of ranting about my viewpoint on facebook for days, I would spend the energy justifying the appearance of superheroines in a short story with character development instead of entrenching debate.
“Evelyn” was my first foray into steampunk. The genre never appealed to me until I became a fan of the band Valentine Wolfe out of South Carolina. They describe themselves as steampunk, but wrote something on their site about being the Victorian, gas-lit alley side of the genre rather than the mad scientists in flying Zeppelins. The gothic version appealed to me, and the story of an ill-fated, opium brothel patron began to take shape.
What can readers expect next from you?
I have two projects in the works now, and it’s anyone’s guess which one will be finished first. I’m revising a sword and sorcery novel, and I’m also writing and revising more of those relationship/projection stories for a collection entitled Lovers and Strangers. Some of those stories will be appearing on online journals and other places this coming year. I post updates on facebook at AuthorMichaelCritzer and on Twitter @MichaelCritzer.
What does Michael Critzer do when he isn’t writing?
Mostly I just feel guilty about not writing, but reading and video games do take the edge off.
To be released in August, Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity will contain 13 fantastic tales of science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal written by eight incredibly talented authors and edited by yours truly. Each story will be accompanied by a black and white illustration provided by phenomenal artist Mike Riehl, who also created our gorgeous cover.
Seven of the eight writers will be present to launch the book at the Shore Leave SF convention, August 1-3 2014, during the Friday evening Meet the Pros party. It will then be available in paperback and eBook from Amazon, B&N.com, Smashwords, and just about every online bookseller.
Most writers have at least one established author who inspired them. Would you share with us some of the authors who influenced you?
No matter how I try to educate and condition myself by reading certain types of writers today, I find that my own writing always leans toward the fascination aspect of the stories that captured me as a child. As a literature professor, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I hated to read as a child, and when I did start, I was on a strict diet of Batman and Archie comic books. But the stories I watched on episodes of Masters of the Universe and reruns of the Twilight Zone always held me captivated. Even though the plots were often contrived, they had a charm which is glaringly absent from so much “literary” fiction. At some point in life, it was fun to realize that the authors I had sought out in other mediums, such as J. Michael Straczynski, Paul Dini, and Charles Beaumont, had also worked on those early TV shows.
While pursuing your MFA, you currently teach Writing and Rhetoric at James Madison University with an eye toward teaching creative writing. What attracted you to the MFA program?
Unfortunately, small pieces of paper with university seals on them are a necessity for job security in the academic field. Once I completed my Masters in English, I decided I’d had enough of soul sucking literary theory (a systematic stripping away of all the pleasure and delight that literature has to offer), so a PhD was off the table, and I wanted to get serious about my creative writing, so an MFA was the logical route. I was then extremely lucky to stumble onto Spalding University’s low residency MFA program, which enabled me to keep my day job but study with some of the finest working authors currently teaching. Sena Naslund (of Ahab’s Wife and Adam and Eve fame) is the program director, and I’ve so far had the privilege of working with such award winning authors as Pete Duval, John Pipkin, and Mary Clyde. My writing has grown enormously, and I highly recommend the program to any writer now, regardless of their professional aspirations.
Tell us about your story “Sirena” in the anthology, Quixotic: Not Everyday Love Stories . How did you become involved in the anthology?
I received the invite to submit from one of the editor’s, my friend and talented horror author Lindsey Beth Goddard. I had written “Sirena” after studying Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and various Poe tales, hence the insane narrator and the twisted “creation” aspect of the tale. I’m a little obsessed with the theme of creating the people, places, and situations around us by the projections of what we want or need them to be. That’s the nature of fiction writing anyway, right? It gets my characters into all kinds of trouble, which I hope makes for fun stories.
For Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity, you penned two unique stories. “Thorn” is an urban fantasy while “Evelyn” is a story of obsession and tragedy. What inspired these very different tales?
I’ve always wanted to write about superheroes, but it took me a while to find a story to tell. Then the debate resurfaced on my facebook newsfeed about the representation of women in comic books. I decided that instead of ranting about my viewpoint on facebook for days, I would spend the energy justifying the appearance of superheroines in a short story with character development instead of entrenching debate.
“Evelyn” was my first foray into steampunk. The genre never appealed to me until I became a fan of the band Valentine Wolfe out of South Carolina. They describe themselves as steampunk, but wrote something on their site about being the Victorian, gas-lit alley side of the genre rather than the mad scientists in flying Zeppelins. The gothic version appealed to me, and the story of an ill-fated, opium brothel patron began to take shape.
What can readers expect next from you?
I have two projects in the works now, and it’s anyone’s guess which one will be finished first. I’m revising a sword and sorcery novel, and I’m also writing and revising more of those relationship/projection stories for a collection entitled Lovers and Strangers. Some of those stories will be appearing on online journals and other places this coming year. I post updates on facebook at AuthorMichaelCritzer and on Twitter @MichaelCritzer.
What does Michael Critzer do when he isn’t writing?
Mostly I just feel guilty about not writing, but reading and video games do take the edge off.
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