Author A. B. Funkhauser
Young: Hello Ms. A. B. Funkhauser. Thank you for coming on In The Harem blog. Nice to have you here for a chat. Let me start by asking you; to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A. B. Funkhauser (A.B.F.): That’s always a bit tough for me. I was raised in another time where shouting out accomplishments was considered rude. But I’ll try. I’m a Pisces that celebrates the Year of the Snake, but unlike dear vain snake, work extremely hard not to be mendacious. (Laughs) I have a furtive imagination, love art in all its forms, and cannot live without music playing somewhere in the background. If forced to choose between comedy and drama, comedy wins…every time.
Young: I believe your day job is working at a funeral home. Is that correct?
A.B.F.: Yes, although I am on hiatus and that has paid off, as you see (big grin). I’m a funeral director, licensed to practice in Ontario, Canada. For me, it ranks as one of the best jobs I’ve ever had next to seeing to my family.
Young: I'm sure my readers is curious to know when did you first start writing and when did you finish your first book?
A.B.F.: I began writing in 2010 in response to the loss of a dear friend. In funeral service, the families we serve ask how to cope with the pain. One way to manage is to seek out others—groups, counselors—those who have walked in their shoes and really know how it feels. Another approach is to write a grief journal. My friend and I went through school together, and during that time we became sympats where comedy was concerned. We laughed at the same things. It didn’t take long for my journal to take a comedic turn before straying off into outright fiction. I finished Heuer five years later.
Young: How did you choose the genre you write in?
A.B.F.: The characters decided it for me. They are bossy, incorrigible and I completely adore them. They were impossible to ignore.
Young: Where do you get your ideas?
A.B.F.: I put a foot out the door and live day to day. You wouldn’t believe the kind of trouble you can get into at the grocery store.
Young: I'm sure. With your bubbly personality, you are bound to encounter lots of interesting situations. :) Tell us, do you work with an outline, or just write?
A.B.F.: I mull for about a year, and then churn out the first draft during NaNoWriMo in November. I don’t plot per se, but I do know where I’m going before I begin. This is also where some of those popcorn scenes find a home. After the first draft is complete, I return to the previous project in line to revise and refine. It’s a whole system that works for me. You see why I had to go on hiatus?
Young: Do you ever experience writer’s block?
A.B.F: Absolutely, but it’s more likely because another story or character is nagging at me. My first teacher called this popcorn writing, where you just push away from the current project and go on a tangent with a wild horse scene. It’s exciting and informs the other projects.
Young: Can you tell us about your challenges in getting your first book published?
A.B.F.: I worried a lot about having one book followed by writer’s block to shut me down for good. So I decided to get some manuscripts down—four to be precise—so that I’d have a body of work to play with when pitching to agents and publishers. The last four years were dedicated to pure creation without pressure to produce to a contract. It was sensational. During that time, I plugged into Twitter pitch parties on the recommendation of a writer friend, and that’s when things really started to happen. I queried, synopsized, wrote dozens of tag lines and met hundreds of amazing people who got me to Solstice Publishing. Now I have to learn about and engage in—boots first—marketing, which is very challenging because of the way I was raised (see question one). I’m enjoying Twitter parties and blogging. Frankly, I didn’t know I had it in me. A great surprise.
Young: If you had to go back and do it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you would change?
A.B.F.: Nope. It was all organic. I tripped, I fell, I studied, and I applied. I got better.
Young: How do you market your work? What avenues have you found to work best for your genre?
A.B.F.: It’s early in, so stats aren’t there, but I will direct a lot of applause to the writing groups I belong to—The Booklin 7, Writers Community of Durham Region, and amazing teachers at Writescape—for plugging me in with others dedicated to the same goals. Marketing is a learning curve and a steep one, so look to others engaged in the same activity; ask questions and try things on. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet. Blog, blog, blog, and follow your publisher and agent advice. Support other writers by reading their work, reviewing and attending their promotional events. If you want society to know about you, you must socialize.
Young: Have you written a book you love that you have not been able to get published?
A.B.F.: I love them all, but can only dedicate my energies to one at a time. The others? Their day will come.
Young: Can you tell us about your upcoming book?
A.B.F.: Heuer Lost and Found is adult, unapologetic and cognizant with a hint of dark humor. At 237 pages, it is a compact study that rocks ’n’ rolls with the help of an erudite Latin speaking rat and a wise-cracking floor lamp with ulterior motives. They’re off beat and badly needed to help my protagonists: a dead, unrepentant cooze hound lawyer, and his very much alive boozy lady undertaker who he used to know back in the Eighties.
Young: Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?
A.B.F.: I think all fiction is informed by real life experiences, but I have yet to meet sentient rats or floor lamps. (laughs) The funeral home in Heuer is actually a composite of four different establishments, none of which survives today. As to the characters, some guy buddies insist that they are Heuer, but they’re not. There’s actually a little of me in him, but I guess it’s to be expected if I’m the one behind the keyboard.
Young: What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?
A.B.F.: SPOILER: The very end, because it’s where the Kleenex box comes out. When that happened, I knew I’d got it right.
Young: How did you come up with the title?
A.B.F.: From the short story. Heuer actually made it into three separate shorts before becoming a full-fledged novel character.
A DEBUT NOVEL
FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING
HEUER LOST AND FOUND
COMING TO AMAZON AND SOLSTICE PUBLISHING APRIL 23, 2015
“Ever closer, ever farther, I will see you again one day, in the good place.”
Unrepentant cooze hound lawyer Jürgen Heuer dies suddenly and unexpectedly in his litter-strewn home. Undiscovered, he rages against god, Nazis, deep fryers and analogous women who disappoint him.
At last found, he is delivered to Weibigand Brothers Funeral Home, a ramshackle establishment peopled with above average eccentrics, including boozy Enid, a former girl friend with serious denial issues. With her help and the help of a wise cracking spirit guide, Heuer will try to move on to the next plane. But before he can do this, he must endure an inept embalming, feral whispers, and Enid’s flawed recollections of their murky past. Is it really worth it?
Stop by: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004110336663
Website: www.abfunkhauser.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamfunkhauser
Or, be a sport and “like”: https://www.facebook.com/heuerlostandfound?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
Young: What project are you working on now?
A,B.F.: Poor Undertaker is next in the series, which tracks the ups and downs of the Weibigand Brothers funeral establishment. Its every bit as much a joy as the first, second and so on, because I see this remarkable building go through all its incantations. At one point, it’s actually bought up and is not a funeral parlor any more.
Young: Will you have a new book coming out soon?
A.B.F.: We’re at least a year away, I think. Scooter Nation is next, but I’d like to give it another go over before setting it free.
Young: Are there certain characters you would like to go back to, or is there a theme or idea you’d love to work with?
A.B.F.: Absolutely. My series is non sequential, so the character that dies in one is born again in the next. They’re never far away. There are a number of themes I return to, but some of my favorites include: the negative impacts of nostalgia; the problem with prying; insular people coming out into the light; finding kindness in peculiar places; and letting go of that thing you need so that you can keep it forever.
Young: What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
A.B.F.: I’m an upbeat person, so if I’m criticized, I turn it into a plus by learning something from it. The best compliment I ever had came from a teacher who said my voice was “strong and unusual”. That really made my day.
Young: Do you have any advice to give to aspiring writers?
A.B.F.: Get it all down before trying to make sense of it. It’s a journey and often a very long one. Enjoy every leg of it knowing that there’s more just ahead.
Young: Is there anything that you would like to say to your readers and fans?
A.B.F.: Observe, listen, and do not ignore the excellence to be found on HBO, Netflix, Showcase, etc. This is your university.
Young: Thank you author A. B. Funkhauser for taking time to be with us.
The Odyssey of Heuer
From genesis to manuscript; from contract to print, Heuer calls the shots. Born out of funeral service folklore underpinned by the universal dread every funeral director shares that he or she might one day have to take care of someone they know, this character demands attention. But Heuer is more than a body waiting for the ministrations of the embalmer; he is pure, unmitigated spirit. Whether real or imagined by the people he leaves behind, his not being there anymore impacts them profoundly, evoking false memories, guilt, contrition and, finally, release. If there is life beyond the mortal coil, leave it to faith. Heuer certainly wrestles with this. Dodging human associations in life, he begs to be discovered and remembered in death. Then and only then, can he be truly free.
“Heuer? What kind of a name is that?”
Aside from a word rhyming with “lawyer,” Heuer is a man. German born, a U.S. citizen, he is layered, complicated, bitter and possessed of a really weird sense of humor. Dying alone and seemingly unlamented, he wakes as a preternatural residue, forced to live with his decomposing body over a one week period until he is finally found by a neighbor he despises. “If there’s a hell, it’s right here, and I’m standing in the middle of it.” Following his body to the funeral home, he is relieved to find Enid Krause, funeral director and former lover. Charged with the task of preparing his body for burial, she is less than gracious, declaring his dramatic return after a twenty year absence, unwelcomed and unappreciated. Crestfallen, Heuer doesn’t know what’s worse: dropping dead and not being found, or being found and being insulted.
Who is A.B. Funkhauser
A.B. Funkhauser is a funeral director, fiction writer and wildlife enthusiast living in Ontario, Canada. Like most funeral directors, she is governed by a strong sense of altruism fueled by the belief that life chooses us and we not it.
“Were it not for the calling, I would have just as likely remained an office assistant shuffling files around, and would have been happy doing so.”
Life had another plan. After a long day at the funeral home in the waning months of winter 2010, she looked down the long hall joining the director’s office to the back door leading three steps up and out. At that moment a thought occurred: What if a slightly life-challenged mortician tripped over her man shoes and landed squarely on her posterior, only to learn that someone she once knew and cared about had died, and that she was next on the staff roster to care for his remains?
Like funeral directing, the writing called, and four years and several drafts later, Heuer Lost and Found was born.
What’s a Heuer? Beyond a word rhyming with “lawyer,” Heuer the lawyer is a man conflicted. Complex, layered, and very dead, he counts on the ministrations of the funeral director to set him free.
A labor of love and a quintessential muse, Heuer has gone on to inspire four other full length works and over a dozen short stories.*
“To my husband John and my children Adam and Melina, I owe thanks for the encouragement, the support, and the belief that what I was doing was as important as anything I’ve tackled before at work or in art.”
Funkhauser is currently working on a new manuscript begun in November during NaNoWriMo 2014.
*The novels: Scooter Nation, The Heuer Effect, Poor Undertaker, Dirty Dale. The Shorts: The Essential Heuer, Jack Bunny and the Rocket Man, Turd Meets Rock, Cassarine, Terra Nova, Ursa Major, Hey! Birdy, Birdy, The Hagfish Conundrum, Mutual of Omaha, Cheetahs in Flight, Lady Predator, and more…
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By A.B. Funkhauser
More than one futurist has said that there will be jobs abundant in fifty years that have yet to be defined in the here and now. That makes a lot of sense. The guy driving the horse cart never thought about the helicopter, even if Leonardo did. It’s the same with people: many of us don’t know what we really are until life cues us.
At various times, I’ve worked as a shoe clerk, bank teller, lobby receptionist, legislative assistant in an august house of parliament, executive assistant to an auto lobbyist and, finally, funeral director in a family run establishment operating, at the time, for close to seventy years. This last position, my vocation, my calling, was to be my last—I thought. Little did I know that two people—sadly no longer with us—would inspire a few words in pencil (remember cursive?) in a loose leaf notebook. These words sounded nice, and shyly, I shared them with a writer friend who declared them “fiction” and something to “run with.”
I like to think that a cool HBO show running from 2000 to 2005 inspired the funeral director in me. In fact, it awakened a long dormant fascination that began with my first trip to a funeral parlor in 1976 when I was eleven. My grandmother had passed away after years of illness, and my parents, both of Eastern European descent, thought nothing of taking the kids. My brother at five years old was even younger. What kind of kid admires furniture and fixtures and cross questions the guys in morning suits about their jobs and how they got them? Me. But I had to wait. Life intervened as it always does, and set me on a very different path. HBO brought me back. And with the generous support of my dear spouse John, I began a new career at forty-one. John made the funeral director; my late friends made the writer.
Working with death and bereaved persons on a daily basis was bound to inform the written word. But losing people I know brought it home. I so wish I could name them, for inspiring me, for driving this compulsion to write down what I was thinking; but they’re not here to ask, so I will only say that a day hasn’t gone by these last five years that I haven’t thought of them, and in the language of our forebears I want to say: Du lässt mir nichts außer der Hoffnung, dass ich dich eines Tages an diesem guten Ort wiedersehen werde.
Enter the B7 and the Writer People
I blame my sister Cryssa Bazos for pulling me out of my comfortable existence. The year before all of this started, she began her own journey into the 17th Century, culminating in a fabulous manuscript THAT SOMEONE NEEDS TO BUY. Through her, I joined the Writer’s Community of Durham Region (WCDR) which opened the door to mentors, teachers, muses, and open mic reading, which I really enjoy. Of that group, I single out Ruth Walker and Gwynn Scheltema, for calling my voice “strong and unusual.” I also thank the good people who put on those short story contests for providing amazing feedback like “superb imagery.” It was a major clue that I should keep going.
Then there is the Brooklin 7, the writer’s group to which I belong. Once described by yours truly as an eclectic group of guerilla writers that know no boundaries, I wish to add that they are indispensible to me and more than friends, they’re family. In alphabetical order, they are: Marissa Campbell, Susan Croft, Connie Di Pietro-Sparacino, Ann Dulhanty, Yvonne Hess, and Rachael Stapleton. They made the writer too.
The Beta’s and the Cheerleaders
Every artist needs a cheering section. Why else make art? To the crew at Metro and the Wine Rack: Rosa E. Gauthier, Kate Korgemagi, Jan Weitmann, Elena Novakovic, Gina Clements, and Craig Belanger; the car guys at Canadian Poncho, especially Carl C2 Hicks; the Florida Crew: Suzanne DeCesare, Pat Head; the undertakers: Scott C. Hughes, M. Wayne Hamilton, Thomas Joseph Pearce, and Fatima Newbigging; and, my oldest, most endearing stalwart friends: Gilda Heinrich Rousseau and Suzanne Stacey, THANK YOU.
My Publisher, Summer Solstice
Summer Solstice is a mid-size Missouri-based publisher that has been growing steadily since its founding back in 2008. From Editor In Chief K.C. Sprayberry, C.E.O. Melissa Miller, and editor Judi Mobley, I got the validation every first time writer seeks. Their “yes” will keep me going for years.
And Finally
My family: John, Adam, Melina; and the mom’s: Eleanor and Despina—I did it!
A. B. Funkhauser
Pickering, Ontario
December 2014
