Patrick Rogers Interview

"Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?"

Quite a bit. First off, the book was itself about my experiences exploring a remote part of the world. So, in a way, what’s in the book is what I learned from the project as a whole.  Every new village that I walked into had its own stories. The cultures of the region were incredibly diverse: One village would be mostly Presbyterian and everyone in it would speak English and listen to Taylor Swift, and then another village only a few kilometers away would be mostly nature worshippers, and would speak almost entirely in a unique, local, dialect of the Khasi language. Really, the entire project was about searching for new learning opportunities!

When it comes to the actual craft of writing, creating the book was a learning process in that I had to figure out how to condense several years’ worth of experiences into 40,000 words (which was the limit given by my publisher). That made writing the book a sort of crash course in editing: I often wrote more than I could afford to on a given subject, and so I had to learn how to cut as much as possible from certain passages without having them lose their impact. 

“What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?”

I have to admit, bringing the book to life was challenging across the board. As I mentioned above, simply writing the thing was a process of distillation: I had, if anything, too much material to fit into just one short book, so writing the book was just as much about what to leave out as what to include. 

But then there were other, small, unforeseen issues. For example, the book is being released by an Indian publisher, and is targeted in large part towards an Indian audience. So, my publishers’ editor had to go in and make the text adhere to Indian (usually meaning British) usage standards. This means that in the published book “Color” is “Colour,” the quotation marks are different than they would be in a U.S. book, etc.

Regarding research, the whole book grew out of a project I was doing on Northeast India’s living root bridges. This meant that the travel the book focuses on was basically the same thing as the research. However, walking from village to village across steep canyons, in the rainiest inhabited place in the world, never having a clear idea of what was coming next, was always challenging. Of course, overcoming those challenges is what (I hope!) will make the book an interesting read.   

"What are your current projects?"

I have several at the moment. I’m hoping to go back to India in 2018 and in 2019, in order to collect information for a follow-up book to The Green Unknown, and also to start work on a new project called Root Bridges Grown by Headhunters. The follow-up is going to be a day-by-day narrative of what I hope to be a six to eight week walk through a large part of Meghalaya that I’ve never been in before.  Whereas The Green Unknown is sort of an introduction to the area, this new project is going to give much more details about Meghalaya, and will also be constructed as one, single, long adventure. 

The other project, Root Bridges Built by Headhunters is going to be about travelling to a different Northeast Indian state called Nagaland, which is on the Indo-Myanmar border. In Nagaland, there is a tribe of people called the Konyak Nagas, some of whom were headhunters up until the 1960s. I’ve received some information that there are living root bridges in that part of India also, so I’m hoping to go and track some of them down, and write about the experience. I hope to use my notes on that expedition as the core of a new book.

"Do you have any advice for other writers?"

Yes. Don’t take advise from first time authors!

“What book are you reading now?”

Right now I’m reading David Copperfield. 

Tesserae: A Memoir of Two Summers by Mathias B. Freese

Tesserae: A Memoir of Two Summers

by Mathias B. Freese

Page Count: 236

Published: February 15, 2016

Publisher: Wheatmark

"The quiescence found in Tesserae: A Memoir of Two Summers has a staying effect upon the mind; this memoir lingers in the reader’s memory for some time."– Steven Berndt, Professor of American Literature, College of Southern Nevada

Excerpt: 

I sorely miss the sixties. I miss them because they are still within me; missing them is akin to loss. It was the time that I spent two indelible summers in Woodstock, at ages twenty-eight and twenty-nine. So powerful was the impact that deep into the seventies, with a wife and child, I would take off on an occasional Saturday and go up alone on the New York Thruway to Woodstock to spend the day. It was like visiting a cemetery, all the lost and lonely people. Woodstock was, and forever will be, a Proustian remembrance of things past for me, an addictive nostalgia and sentimentality, indeed, a sciatica of the spirit. When I practiced as a psychotherapist I had a client who was profoundly mourning her beloved husband. Each day she would go to his graveside and leave flowers and undoubtedly speak to his marker with all kinds of feelings. I think of her in that cemeteries are for the living and just depositories for the dead. Woodstock became a cemetery for me in the early to mid-seventies, a place I needed to come to in order to be reminded of the feelings, relationships, and human interactions I had experienced. It was a devotional feeling, like lighting a memorial candle for a dearly departed loved one. What is it to remember? To recall, retrieve, reflect, to go back for a moment, to feel a period of time long since gone. What is it to have memory in this organic memory box that we own? What purpose does the past serve in the present other than societal clichés about it? Why do we have associative feelings when we dredge up an early memory? What is memory’s purpose?

Review:

To say that this is Mathias B. Freese’s best work yet is a complete understatement. This may sound odd, because this work is a memoir in every sense of the word, but something about Freese’s stylistic choice made this book stick with me as a reader more than his previous work. I agree with Steven Berndt that this memoir “lingers in the reader’s memory for some time.” It is stories like that in which we gravitate to as readers and quietly wish would never end. As I cheered for Freese in one chapter, I found myself booing him in others. He is painstakingly honest and unapologetic at times, which makes his story hard to swallow. A highlight for me is the pop cultural references, especially in the chapter entitled “The Shape of Things to Come.” Overall, this is a beautiful, poetic tribute to the life that Freese lived for two summers. I highly recommend this memoir to anyone who has ever wondered if it is all worth it. I can tell that Freese truly has no regrets. 

Interview with Mathias B. Freese:

What made you decide to write the beginning and end (almost)

chapters as interviews? Did you ever consider writing the entire

book in this format?

I thought it was a writerly device to have an intake about who I was

in 1968 and 1969 and who I am in 2015. Trained to do intakes as a

psychotherapist, it was a writer’s challenge for me to return to the

past and after all these decades try to assess who I was at the time.

And at the end of the book the process notes between therapist and

client revealed newer aspects of who I am, the mature man after

all his struggle. Pardon my grandiosity, but I thought that was

revealing way to get at my own character.  I don’t think an entire

memoir with this kind of Socratic questioning would hold reader

interest, might become tiresome, I should think. I am a writer so I

try to use the arrows in my quiver. A writer should take risks and to

quote myself, fearlessness leads to authenticity in writing.

Memoir is such a delicate craft—a balance between the

personal and the universal. What do you consider to be the

most essential elements of a well-written memoir?

I have no idea what are the essential elements of a 

well-written memoir. I am an autodidact. I don’t follow rules, I

break rules and I am often ignorant of the rules. I just sat down and

composed reflections about my life in what I think are hand-crafted

essays. Serendipitously, I see that I did manage to have a balance

between the personal and the universal. I have a philosophical bent

of mind and that is revealed in the memoir. Having practiced as a

psychotherapist, I think, always, of choices, stay grounded in 

the present, work on feelings and always seek clarity in all things.

How did you become interested in memoir specifically, as

opposed to fiction?

This is my first effort at memoir, but in the last few years I have

focused on essays (see This Mobius Strip of Ifs, 2012). My writer’s

blog has focused on dense and tersely expressed little essays about

my life experiences. I looked at these essays and realized I had a

story to say about my personal travail. Thus, a memoir emerged.

Do you make any promises to yourself before you sit down to

write? Any deals?

Of course not. I am only interested in telling the truth of things to

the best I can. If you lie to yourself you are finished as a writer. I

try to be fearless in my writing and it has its cost. What that cost is

for me to cogitate about and not to share.

What were your 1-2 biggest learning experience(s) or

surprise(s) throughout the publishing process?

The writer is the last to know what the worth of his book is. A

therapist friend said it is remarkable in the sense how candid or

how in your face it is. I can’t write in any other way. I choose not

to. Readers' responses are a wondrous experience to have. 

How would you compare this book to the others you have

written in the past?

In terms of fluidity and in expression I think it is my best work so

far. I think it is my best effort, although in 2015 I Truly Lament:

Working through the Holocaust had potent and powerful content to

bring forth through imagination and craft. The memoir is more

reflective, perhaps more aware, while Lament was incisive and

insightful. 

What's next?  

The unconscious, my agent, will allow it to emerge; it is my ally,

my friend and mentor. One day I sit down, one day something else

will come my way. My entire life as an author has been so

constituted.

The book can be ordered from Wheatmark.com or the author at mthsfreese@hotmail.com. 

Southern Fiction Writer Stephanie Powell Watts

2012 Ernest J. Gaines Award Winner Stephanie Powell Watts knows what it's like to be an African American Jehovah's Witness in the South. She talks about how this experience informs her characters and reads from her book WE ARE TAKING ONLY WHAT WE NEED. 

Godforsaken Idaho

Shawn Vestal Talks About "Godforsaken Idaho"

Katherine Rowland interviews Claire Messud

Interview with Prudence MacGregor

What inspired you to write this book?

My deep interest in the unknown and what is possible spurred me to write this book. Also, I love the television show, The Twilight Zone, and that definitely was an influence.

How did you come up with the title?

I figured that keeping the title simple was key, not to give too much away. Since there are three stories, I came up with Trilogy: A Collection.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I would say that each of the stories has its own message but I leave it up to the readers to formulate their own opinions of what messages to take away. However, that said, I think one of the messages running throughout the last two could be "be careful what you wish for." But that's just my take on it!

How much of the book is realistic?

I would say that most of what is in the stories is realistic; the characters, settings, things like that. However, the situations they find themselves in certainly aren't. As I had said, I leave it up to the readers to decide what to take away from the stories, though.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Some of the experiences I detail in the book are kind of a mélange of what I have experienced in my own life, yes. Some of the characters are amalgams, if you will, of people I have known or have observed, and others are just made up. A mix of everything is in the book I guess would be accurate.

What books have most influenced your life most?

So many books have influenced my life. Everything from things I read when I was younger, such as A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger  to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dancing Girls and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood. I know that these books cover a disparate range of subject matter but they all had an affect on everything from the way I think to my writing.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

There are so many writers who could be wonderful mentors. I couldn't pick one, really. It would have to be all the writers I mentioned in the last question.

What book are you reading now?

Right now, I am not reading anything as I am focusing on promoting Trilogy. However, I do have a few books on my shelf that I need to finish, such as Long Drive Home by Will Allison and Carole King's autobiography. 

Interview with Robyn Wyrick

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Hmmm. Message. There are lots of messages in Eviction Notice. For instance, remember the buddy system: Alice and Johnny, Clayton and Tyler, Barnaby and Gary, Sarah and Jenny, etc.; when the world is going to end, find your buddy.

Also, remember, the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. I could give you a list, but basically, almost everything in Eviction Notice that's supposed to happen, doesn't.

Then there are other messages, about free will, nature, the universe, and the value of a good lawyer. So, yes, there are messages I want the reader to grasp, but I don't want to take away the fun of discovering them.

Is there any special method to your writing?

Eviction Notice began as a screenplay, and I had completed a finished first draft before I tried to write it as a book. Because of that I had a strong base of dialog and action, and then I just wrote and rewrote.

I'm slow and I have poor punctuation. I put everything in lists, and I don't trust commas. My first draft of Eviction Notice has 275 semicolons that I had to remove during edits.

Fortunately, (IMHO) Eviction Notice is a great story, and I had a great editor. (Anne Dubuisson.)

               

How many hours a day do you spend reading /writing?

I never have time to read other novels. I go through about one or two a year. It didn't used to be that way. But now I'm married, a dad, and run my own business, so gone are the days of spending a whole weekend wrapped up in a book.

I do drive a lot, and so I do audio books, which are excellent, but not the same as reading.

Also, almost all the reading I do these days is on science and technology. On that, I read mostly journal articles on the web, and usually about 30 minutes to an hour a day.

I write any chance I can get that I'm not exhausted at the end of the day. But that works out to a few hours a week.

What books have most influenced your life?

Influenced my life? The list is small: the Tao Te Ching, The Essene Gospel of Peace, the autobiography of Mohandas Gandhi, and Mark Twain's Letters From The Earth.

I'm not very well read as far as classic western literature goes. I have three main reading modes: philosophy, science, and escapism. Eviction Notice is a little bit of each, but mostly it's escapism.

If you could be the author of any novel, which would it be and why?

The Harry Potter series, without a doubt. It's brilliant, fun, moving, and an incredible accomplishment that any author would be thrilled to have completed. And it's loved by tens of millions of readers, and massively profitable. J.K. Rowling has done a wildly valuable service to the world by writing a book (the Sorcerers Stone) that young people simply devoured, and then made each successive book thicker and better. A whole generation grew up learning that reading can be awesome. Harry Potter changed reading across the world.

What are your current projects?

I'm writing the second book in the Eviction Notice series. That's taking up most of my writing time.

Interview with Duncan Whitehead

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? 

I think the message is that our actions and events from the past can always come back to haunt us when we least expect them to and while we think they may be finished and forgotten....it doesn't necessarily mean that they are.

Is there any special method to your writing? 

This book, as it has so many different characters and plots that had to intertwine and interconnect and because I did not want any plot holes or insult the reader, I wrote initially as three separate short stories. I then developed each one and arranged them so they would fit into the wider plot. Usually I write a very quick 10 or 20 page outline of how I want it to pan out and I revisit that outline and improve (I hope) and expand on it.

How many hours a day do you spend reading /writing? 

At least 5 hours.

What books have most influenced your life?   

The biography of John Kennedy Toole, Ignatius Rising.  He wrote A Confederacy of Dunces which is a picaresque novel that appeared in 1980, eleven years after Toole's suicide. He wrote a hilariously funny book and could not, during his lifetime, get it published nor was it appreciated.  Reading about his struggle and his despair and his ultimate death, due in some part because of his perceived failure as a writer inspired me to never give up, and to continue writing comedy and quirky stories and that one day they will be read and maybe liked.  It is a great read.

If you could be the author of any novel, which would it be and why? 

It would be a Confederacy of Dunces - it was written with a style and humor that I like.  I believe it is one of the best comedic novels ever written and to be able to develop a character like Ignatius J Reilly would have been so much fun.  I would love to one day write a follow up to that as there was so much that Toole could have done with a great comic character such as Reilly.

What are your current projects?

 I am currently drafting two sequels to The Gordonston Ladies Dog walking Club and my next book, a comedy set in Manhattan, The Reluctant Jesus is at the editing stage.  I am also writing spoof and comedy news articles for various websites. 

Interview with Richard Meibers

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
No, not really a message, but it would please me if readers felt they could enter andfeel part of the specialized nautical subculture of the "boat bum."

How many hours a day do you spend reading/writing?
Two hours writing. Even if those hours are not always productive, I
make myself sit there in front of that screen every morning. Reading time
is so variable; some days only at bedtime, other days, an entire afternoon,
and anything in between.

How would you describe your process of fiction different from non-fiction writing? 
With fiction, when it is going well, you enter into something like
an alpha state--the process moves smoothly without much conscious
direction. Nonfiction, on the other hand, is a much more cerebral process.
It requires structure, a particular type of discipline, and the ability to
write length, on deadline.

What are your current projects?
Eight chapters into a new novel, plus editing two different
nonfiction books for other authors.

If you could have been the author of any novel, which title would it be
and why? 
I'd probably say ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, Garcia Marquez's
novel set in his native Colombia...It allows the reader to become immersed
in his exotic landscape, meet outrageous yet believable characters, and
somehow feel at home there.

What advice would you give anyone who wants to become a published author?
Develop a thick skin.

And do you have a list of favorite books/authors?
There are so many it's hard to choose. I would have to say, among
others, William Faulkner, Lawrence Durrell. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, James
Joyce, Marcel Proust, Umberto Eco. Great storytellers all.