Today’s interview features a writer skilled in many forms of the literary art, and all his writing will make you think. He’s written mysteries, thrillers, plays, young adult books, children’s books, science fiction, short stories, novels, and poetry. (I guess it would have been easier to list what he hasn’t written.) Here’s his bio:
Michael Baldwin is a native of Fort Worth, Texas. He holds a BA in Political Science and Master’s degrees in Information Science and Public Administration. Mike is now retired from a career as a library administrator and professor of American Government. He may be a descendant of the Lakota mystic warrior, Crazy Horse, and will be glad to elaborate over a couple of beers. In addition to writing in multiple genres, Mike provides seminars on creativity based on neuroscience.
Baldwin has published two adventure novels: Murder Music and Neanderthal Gita. His lifelong interest in science caused him to publish five volumes of science-based science-fiction, the Passing Strange series. Also because of his interest in science, Mike published a children’s science adventure book, Space Cat, which takes kids on a tour of the solar system. Baldwin is also known for his award-winning poetry. He has published five books of poetry, three of which have won awards.
Next, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Mike Baldwin: I was an avid reader of science fiction in high school. I wanted to try my hand at it and began writing sci-fi short stories at that time and discussing them with friends. I was in the science club at school and built my own Newtonian telescope to do amateur astronomy. Writing about science and exploring ideas thru science fiction just came naturally to me.
P.S.: It’s fascinating that you might be a descendant of Crazy Horse. How much are you willing to elaborate on that without plying you with a couple of beers?
M.B.: As a pre-teen, I found a book in my aunt’s garage titled A Biographical History of North and West Texas. It had an entry about my great grandparents, who migrated to west Texas from Missouri in the late 1800s. It noted that my great grandmother was a Native American woman of Lakota extraction. This was interesting but didn’t mean much to me at the time. As an adult, however, I became interested in my Native American heritage and happened to read Larry McMurtry’s biography of Crazy Horse. CH had a daughter who disappeared as a teenager after Crazy Horse was assassinated. It was rumored she had married a white man and moved south. That included the time period my great grandparents migrated to Texas. So, I claim her and Crazy Horse as my ancestors even tho it can’t be proven definitively. I like to think I received some of Crazy Horse’s mystic qualities of mind.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.B.: As I said, I read science and science-fiction extensively as a boy. I went by bus to the central library almost every Saturday and raided their sci-fi section. Asimov, Heinlein, A.E. Van Vogt, Clifford Simak, Andre Norton, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clark, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Jules Verne, were among my favorites, but I read them all voraciously. I couldn’t afford to buy the sci-fi magazines, so the library was my treasure place. Little wonder that I later became a librarian.
But I also read real science adventure books avidly. Beebe’s descents into the oceans, Frank Buck’s tales of the African jungles, and many more. As a teen I really liked the sci-fi of E.E. Smith because it was highly imaginative, far reaching in its scope, and had wonderful aliens as well as human heroes (the lensmen). But when I tried to read Smith’s books as an adult, I found them disappointing. The teen mind must be much more forgiving of style and literary quality.
A non-fiction science book I enjoyed as a teen was Worlds In Collision by Emmanuel Velikovsky, which theorized that the Earth and solar system might have been affected by a rogue planet invading the solar system in prehistoric times. It was full of footnotes, including citing Ibid frequently. I had never seen Ibid before and assumed it was a book rather than just designating the same work as previously cited. I asked the school librarian if she had a copy of the Ibid. She had a good laugh before explaining.
P.S.: Maybe the librarian laughed, but she must also have been impressed. You write a wide variety of things for different audiences. Among your adventure novels, plays, science fiction, children’s books, and poetry, do you have a favorite?
M.B.: I really don’t have a favorite except whichever one I am currently working on. I like them all and am proud of them all. I think they all turned out well. Although I enjoy writing in several genres, the common thread is ideas. All my books are based on ideas I get from my own extensive reading and from the universal subconscious, which is available to anyone. All my books explore one or several major ideas, but also bring in social, political, religious, scientific, and other topics as they fit into the plot (or in the case of poetry, the concept of the poem).
P.S.: Tell us about your Passing Strange series. Are there common threads among the five volumes? Can readers tackle them in any order? Do you plan to write more in this series?
M.B.: When I published the first volume, Passing Strange, I didn’t plan to write a series, but the ideas just kept coming, so the other volumes insisted on being written. There are no continuing or connected stories in the series except there are several stories scattered among them with the character, Zbub. The first story of Zbub has him as a sort of strange, creepy character who is not the real focus of the story. But Zbub wouldn’t let go of my neurons, so I kept writing stories with him as a character, usually just as a means of inciting the action. His character kept becoming more complex and interesting, so I kept writing more of his stories. I think readers will find him likeable and amusing as a trickster who really shakes things up.
After five volumes of Passing Strange stories, I’m taking a pause and am thinking of sequels to Murder Music and Neanderthal Gita which interact with each other. But I am constantly making notes of ideas for more sci-fi stories, so maybe there will be a 6th volume of Passing Strange and probably more Zbub.
P.S.: Your novel Murder Music contains many strange and delightful aspects, but at one level, it’s a mystery thriller featuring a young woman and her haunted violin. Tell us about Missy McKean—who she is, her personality, and whether someone in real life inspired this character.
M.B.: Yes, as a matter of fact, Missy was inspired by my daughter and her cousin as teens. They were both highly intelligent wild girls who were always getting into some sort of mischief. One was a fine musician and scholar, the other highly scientifically minded who became a doctor and psychiatrist. I had been thinking about writing a novel about musicians for some time because I had been an amateur musician and interested in classical and jazz all my life. But I decided it needed to be an adventure and preferably a mystery that departs from the usual, worn out tropes of the standard mystery. I also had many ideas about unusual mental capabilities I wanted to explore with the book. Then I thought I might as well throw in a metaphysical aspect with the haunted violin. By the way, much of the information about the Guarnerius violin and its owners is historically accurate. Also, the information about Dillon Moonbear being conceived in orbit around the moon and born to a bear was scientifically and historically feasible.
P.S.: It’s fascinating to imagine the implications of a tribe of Neanderthals still existing, hidden, today. Readers can enjoy your approach to that idea in Neanderthal Gita. What prompted you to write this novel?
M.B.: I’ve always been interested in prehistory. My dad studied historical geology in college and often took me out looking for fossils and talking about dinosaurs and early man. Like most people, I thought Neanderthals were more primitive than cro-magnon people (us) who succeeded them. But modern scientific techniques began to find that the Neanderthal were much more complex than we had thought. They had a larger brain capacity than us. They were much more muscular than us but weren’t knuckle draggers. So they may have been superior to us in both intelligence and physical capabilities. I found that there were few novels about Neanderthals, and none that made use of the latest information about them. So I researched Neanderthals extensively and wrote about them imaginatively. I invented a culture for them that was true to what we now know of them. The only liberties I took were to make a tribe of them survive into modern times and have mental telepathy (that extra brain capacity).
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
M.B.: Many writers complain of writer’s block, of fear of the blank page. I’ve never had that problem. In fact, I get more ideas than I’m able to deal with. If I forget to jot down an idea, it may disappear into my forgetter, which is stronger than my rememberer. My main problem is that every time I return to a story or poem I’ve written, even those I consider finished, I want to tinker with it and make changes. All writers do that to an extent, but they should realize that when they look at it again, they are a different person. Their brain has changed significantly, so they (and I) may have a completely different perspective on it. So I have to struggle with myself to let it go.
P.S.: You’ve written several books of poetry, and some have won awards. Congratulations on winning the Edward Eakin Poetry Book Award and the Morris Memorial Chapbook Award. What sort of poetry do you write? Are there common themes or other similarities that mark your poems?
M.B.: Ah, now you’ve hit on a sore subject for me. Most of my poetry is about ideas, as I also said about my fiction. Ideas are or were a major force in poetry, from Donne and Shakespeare to Whitman, Dickenson, Eliot, Pound, and Frost. But in the last ten to fifteen years, poetry has become more interior, more personal, more narcissistic. So I’ve had more trouble getting my poetry accepted for publication in journals, which are mostly managed by young poets of this new poetic trend. This change has been noticed and criticized by several major poetry critics in articles and books, so it’s not just my feeling of sour grapes.
P.S.: Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. Let’s move on. Your children’s book, Space Cat, is a fun and educational romp through the solar system. It’s such a departure from your other books—how did you come to write it?
M.B.: I became interested in doing a children’s book when my grandsons started to read. I greatly enjoyed reading to and with them. Also, that was about the time the Hubble Telescope began producing such gorgeous images of space. I had been an amateur astronomer and interested in science all my life, so a children’s space science book was what came naturally. I decided it needed to provide an exciting adventure as well as scientific information in order to hold kids’ attention and spark their imagination.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
M.B.: I just finished a novel (still tinkering with it of course) for which I’m seeking a publisher. It is a historical literary novel that also has aspects of romance and adventure. It involves four jazz musicians who are in and out of love with each other between 1985 and 2002. They have small adventures and emotional crises at home but also participate in larger events such as the 911 tragedy, the war in the Balkans, and the Afghanistan War. Music, poetry, and romance are the primary themes. Some of the characters from Murder Music and Neanderthal Gita also figure in the story, but not as major characters.
I’m also working on two books of poetry: one about climate change and one about politics and social problems.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Mike Baldwin: Forget about it unless you are a masochist! If you are not completely serious about writing and/or don’t read much, don’t bother to try to become a writer. Starting as a writer is very hard and a long, draining struggle. You should have many years of reading behind you as a basis for knowing what good writing consists of. You have to discipline yourself to sit and write almost every day. Most of what you write the first couple of years will be crap and must be rejected. But as you gain experience, your brain will become more efficient at writing and presenting ideas to you. Even if you become a proficient writer, however, you will find you can’t make a living at it. There is too much competition now because computer technology made it much easier for anyone to write. But the publishing industry has changed to become much more demanding and less supportive for the writer than it was in previous times. Self-publishing makes getting a book before the public easy, but you have to promote it massively and relentlessly to develop a readership and get paid for your stories. So don’t waste your time or torture yourself writing. You stand a better chance becoming a professional athlete than a best-selling author. Just buy my books, kick back, and enjoy a brilliant, enthralling, mind-bending story.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Mike. I agree with and endorse the idea of buying your books. Perhaps would-be writers should embrace the idea of writing for enjoyment rather than making a living from their words.
For the first author interview of this year, I invited Nancy Craig, a writer from one of the critique groups I’m in, and she accepted. Here’s her bio:
I was born in Kansas, the first of two daughters of an Army family. Children of military families are collectively known as ‘brats’. I have lived all my adult life in Texas with the exception of eight months in Stirling, Scotland. I am a graduate of Texas Western College, now known as UTEP (University of Texas at El Paso). I am a retired school teacher, have been married 57 years and have two daughters and five grandchildren. I love gardening, cooking, traveling and writing.
Writing history: First book, The Liar’s Legacy (novella), four children’s books written under general title of Nanny Boo Adventures, The Final Decree. Three more books in line for publishing—Belonging, Achieving, and It Was Never a Dead End.
Awards: In 2020, It Was Never a Dead End received a first-place award in Narrative Nonfiction from the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. (OWFI). In 2023, Belonging received a first-place award from OWFI for in the Unpublished Mainstream Book category. Also in 2023, The Final Decree received a second-place award from OWFI for Unpublished Historical Fiction. I’m a member of the Fort Worth Writers critique group.
Now, on to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Nancy Craig: Several things prompted me to start writing. I had five young grandchildren and wanted to write a book for each. Idleness makes me crazy. I needed projects, something to do after I retired.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
N.C.: When teaching a gifted and talented class I gave them an assignment to write an Indian legend. FYI, legends are created to explain things in nature. Their creativity and imagination inspired me.
Favorite books—I tend toward historical fiction and contemporary drama. John Jakes, James Michener, and Diana Gabaldon for the historical fiction, and John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Terry Hayes for contemporary fiction.
N.C.: Nanny Boo is really me. I chose this character to portray events in my childhood. Also, they present social issues as seen today and a way for a child to handle them.
P.S.: Your first book, The Liar’s Legacy, seems to involve a spoiled woman forced to come to terms with her character flaw. Have I got that right? Please tell us about its main characters, Karen and Sarah.
N.C.: The Liar’s Legacy is about a young, vibrant media personality who is close to self-destruction because of her habitual lying. Karen Powers has alienated her parents, two husbands and her children. Her childhood friend, a lawyer who is defending her in a lawsuit, tells her to get professional help before she is all alone. A mental breakdown forces her children to institutionalize her in a private facility for a brief time. Alone, and now without any financial resources, she finds herself in a state mental hospital where she can no longer talk herself out of therapy. She connects with doctors, finally realizing how her lies have impacted others.
Her recovery comes, but with a price she never expected.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
N.C.: The easiest aspect of writing is imagining ideas to move a story along. The most difficult is staying on track with those ideas and not going down rabbit holes that gradually take me away from the main plot of the book. My mind seems to expand exponentially and I get off track very easily.
The greatest difficulty is maintaining a single point of view in a scene. I tend to wander into other people’s minds with extreme ease!!
P.S.: The description of your recently-published novel, The Final Decree, sounds like it might be alternate history. Is it? Let us know what it’s about, and why you wrote it.
N.C.: It’s mostly historical fiction, but I changed some things. The Final Decree makes use of several events and royalty to tell the story of a Decree written by King George III granting Scotland independence. History tells us that George had many mental shortcomings and was not an effective ruler. He sends his uncle the Duke of Cumberland to Scotland to proclaim the decree. The Duke becomes incapacitated and cannot complete his task. Fearing the worst, Cumberland goes to see a minister at Paisley Abbey to leave the decree in his safe hands. Copies are made of the decree and its hiding place in the abbey. The duke dies. Several days later a freak accident takes the life of the minister. The decree has been missing and forgotten for 250 years. It resurfaces before the voting on the 2014 referendum to give Scotland its independence. All of Britain learns of the decree’s existence. Questions arise as to its authenticity and legality, leaving both Scotland and Parliament wondering what will happen next.
As to why I wrote it? I hoped it might be an interesting read for Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander fans as we wait for her next book to be published and the TV series next production season.
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
N.C.: There is nothing specific that ties my fiction together. I’m willing to experiment with a variety of genre.
P.S.: I had the pleasure of reading an early draft of your upcoming novel, Belonging. Tell my readers about that story, and let us know when we might expect to see it published.
N.C.: Belonging!! I’m ready to take the big step to publish this story. I’m hoping for a date no later than March.
Belonging is the story of Serena Lewis, a widowed teacher with two adolescent children whose home is no longer safe. She petitions the Lincoln Institute for Social Studies and is accepted into their gated, segregated community. The town of Peace, Arkansas has been established to question the wisdom and inflexibility of the 1954 Supreme Court decision which declared separate but equal schools for Blacks are unconstitutional.
It is the institute’s desire to create and maintain a safe, healthy, active community that provides any tool necessary to help its residents become proud, successful, involved citizens.
The Lewis family thrives in the new environment, making friends, developing skills, learning how to be a productive member of the community.
Five years is the maximum stay in Peace. With her son and daughter graduated and gone, Serena moves to Harmony, a nearby community. She takes her skills as a teacher and a dynamic personality to create a new life for herself. All is not as she planned and a person from her past comes back into her life seeking revenge. Friends, both old and new help her to resolve the situation.
Lexie Lewis and her focused lifestyle have landed her a most prestigious position as a journalist. In a speech to the Capitol Press Club in Washington, DC, Lexie offers to share her means to success. “My Mama is my mentor. She’s always been there, beside me advising, behind me urging me forward and in front of me leading by example. In Peace, you learn the importance of community. When you engage you get something back. You belong. And when you belong you embark on a journey to becoming.”
P.S.: Let’s say you’ve traveled through time and met yourself at a point when you were first thinking of being a writer. What would you tell this younger version of you?
N.C.: I would tell a younger me to write down memories. Keep a journal. You’ve begun the steps to comfortable writing because you write what you know. There’s no research necessary. Someday, kids or grandkids will ask questions about events that happened years ago. With your journal in hand, you’ll have answers that your memory has lost.
P.S.: What can you tell us about your recently finished first draft of your next novel, Achieving? It’s a sequel to Belonging, right?
N.C.: Achieving is complete in its first draft. It continues the story of Lexie Lewis and her journalistic world in Washington, DC, as the managing editor of The King Report, a monthly publication for the Black community. It’s a bumpy ride for Lexie, who is sent back to Peace to write a story about what Federal officials say is domestic terrorism. There are factions who want Peace erased from the Arkansas landscape and will do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal. There are others who work industriously to make the lives of the Peace residents a happy productive experience.
It is also a time of a love interest in Lexie’s life, a person she has known for many years. Happy family times in Peace collide with fear, danger, and even the death of loved ones.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Nancy Craig: My advice to aspiring authors is to read, listen, remember. You were taught writing skills. If you’ve forgotten them, get a refresher course. Sentence structure, punctuation, subject/verb agreement, spelling, and proper use of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are essential to telling a story and having it understood.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Nancy. Best of luck with your upcoming novels.
Readers may keep up with Nancy Craig’s writing career by visiting her pages on Facebook and Amazon, and by reading updates about her on the Fort Worth Writers site.
For today’s interview we travel across the pond and talk with a British writer who shares my interests in science fiction, artificial intelligence, and classic SF literature. Christopher M. Geeson’s story “Tyranny Under the Sea” appears in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
Christopher M. Geeson has had several SF stories published, including AI-themed stories in the Flame Tree Press Robots and Artificial Intelligence anthology and The British Fantasy Society Journal—Autumn 2011. His most recent is a story for the collection, Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Christopher has also had tales published in Atomic Age Cthulhu, Steampunk Cthulhu, Spawn of War and Deathiness, The Great Escape and Anthology: A Circa Works Collection, all of which are available on Amazon. Christopher works as a tour guide in York, and as a workshop leader in schools, libraries and museums in North Yorkshire, delivering creative workshops for children.
Right then. Let’s get to the interview straightaway.
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing fiction?
Christopher M. Geeson: As a child, I made up stories for my toys to act out and my favorite lessons at school were when we were asked to write fiction. There was one lesson when the teacher was punishing people who couldn’t be quiet by making them write a ghost story – some punishment! Naturally, I got into trouble that day. I started writing stories in my spare time as a teenager. When I went to college and university to make films, I realized I was more interested in writing the scripts than in the technical aspects of film production. This led to me writing stories in prose again as an adult and joining various courses – when my writing reached the level where I could get it published.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
C.M.G.: I love the SF worlds created by Philip K Dick and—more recently—Chris Beckett. They both often take society’s ills to the next level, in a futuristic setting, seen through the eyes of a recognizable flawed human. I’m also a fan of a good fantasy adventure, whether it’s epic in scope like The Lord of the Rings (my favorite book), or on a smaller scale, such as Treasure Island, or The Dark is Rising.
P.S.: You’ve written stories involving AI for the Robots and Artificial Intelligence anthology and The British Fantasy Society Journal. Tell us the premise for these stories and whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic about AI.
C.M.G.: I wrote “Punchbag”—which was published in The British Fantasy Society Journal—after getting the inspiration on a car journey. I pulled into a supermarket car park and spent the next hour writing the first draft. It’s a very pessimistic story about how humans will use AI for violence and it’s told from the point of view of the AI, who is the victim. It is ultra-violent, but it reflects what I fear humans are basically like. It’s been out for over a decade but I still think of it as one of my favorite pieces of writing and it’s still very relevant. I’d love to see it reprinted and reaching a bigger audience.
The next AI story I wrote (“The Perfect Reflection,” for the Robots and Artificial Intelligence) anthology is also pessimistic, continuing the theme of violence, and also told from an AI point of view. This time, the AI is an observer of human violence. The big question in the story is whether the AI can intervene or not. I’ve been the victim of a couple of random acts of violence and that has clearly fed into my work. I guess I’m more pessimistic about the future of the human race than I am about AI, but I think it’s all wrapped up in one, as humans keep on inventing ways of being nasty to others.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I’m dismayed that AI is now being used to make music, art and literature. Although I’ve written stories from the point of view of AI, I have no desire to read a story written by one. I’m sure AI could improve our lives in some way – organization, medicine, information, dangerous physical work – but not by replacing creative people. I think this started a while ago though, when CGI started replacing stuntmen, costumes, model work, and special effects in movies. I doubt anyone can even find Pandora’s Box anymore, never mind put the lid back on it.
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
C.M.G.: I love thinking of ideas or playing about with “What ifs?”, so my writing is almost always SF or fantasy, as those are the types of stories I love reading, and the things which inspire me. I want to escape and be taken to other worlds by stories and do the same in my writing. A lot of my published work looks at the violent tendencies of humanity and ends up pretty dark. But I have a couple of unpublished children’s fantasy novels that are about adventure, friendship and unification between races. They’re a lot more optimistic and I’d love them to see the light of day sometime!
C.M.G.: I loved that sense of massive cosmic horror and how insignificant humanity was in Lovecraft’s stories. For the steampunk collection, I dived into the American Civil War era – a part of history that’s always fascinated me – and gave it a Mythos twist which shows how futile war is. For the Atomic-Age Cthulhu anthology, I wanted to tap into the paranoia of the McCarthy era, so I stuck a bunch of characters in a nuclear bunker with all their hidden secrets and violent instincts, and let events play out from there, against a Mythos background.
P.S.: If you could visit the fictional world of another author, where would you go and why?
C.M.G.: Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time imagining this sort of thing – and given it a lot more thought than it really justifies! When I was younger, these imaginary journeys were all about adventure and battles, but I’m really the sort of person who would just want a nice quiet visit somewhere, enjoying the sense of wonder. If I went to Middle Earth, I’d want to live in Rivendell or The Shire and spend my time telling stories and creating art and music, far removed from the dangerous world outside.
P.S.: The premise of the anthology Spawn of War and Deathiness sounds intriguing. Tell us about the poem you contributed to that book.
C.M.G.: The premise of my poem, “Motorway Maintenance,” is in its recurring line: “Death drives a black hearse on the motorway” and is about the grim reaper mopping up after road accidents, and meting out justice to those who cause them. I don’t do poetry very often, but I did enjoy playing about with the rules and forms of villanelles for that one.
P.S.: You run creative workshops for children in schools, libraries, and museums. What are these workshops like?
C.M.G.: My main job is as a tour guide in the beautiful historic city of York, and I meet lovely people everyday and tell them stories about York. I have a sideline in running creative activities for children and a big part of that is reusing junk for model-making and art. I love being creative and I want to share that and encourage young people to be creative too, in any way they can, at school or at home – or occasionally also in museums and other heritage sites, where I’ll probably be dressed as a Victorian or a Roman, something like that.
P.S.: Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne contains your story, “Tyranny Under the Sea.” It’s an adventure tale involving Captain Nemo, an underwater city, and a daring escape. How did you come up with the idea for this story?
C.M.G.: 20,000 LeaguesUnder the Sea is probably my favorite Verne story, so I knew early on that my submission would be linked to that somehow. I’m also intrigued by the start of Mysterious Island and its Civil War-era setting, because I’ve always been interested in that part of history. (My first published writing was three articles for the American Civil War Society about movies featuring the conflict). From that starting point, it was relatively easy to find clues to Captain Nemo’s views on the war and which side he would aid if he got entangled in it. Things really took off when I got the idea to include 1860s submarines and an underwater city inspired by Fort Sumter, but the key to it all was when I got the idea to tell the story from a slave’s point of view – because that added the emotional heart of the story, as well as the reason for the events which unfold.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
C.M.G.: I’m not a writer who can focus on just one idea at a time because I’m constantly getting ideas and inspiration for different stories and flitting between them. It can take me years from getting an idea, to writing it down, to doing rewrites, to submitting it somewhere and it seeing the light of day. I have a couple of children’s fantasy novels that I need to finish, as well as a couple of short stories that need redrafting. At the moment, I’m going back to one of those children’s fantasy novels and looking at fleshing it out a bit.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Christopher M. Geeson: Well, I think of myself as an aspiring writer, too—I certainly have many aspirations for writing which I haven’t fulfilled yet! But my advice would be to write what you want, not what you think will bring you success or money. Spending time being creative is a reward in itself.
I’ve had a few short stories published and the thing for me which made the difference was going through lots of drafts and listening to constructive feedback. I think my most useful advice would be to find or form a small circle of writers who are at a similar stage and level to you, regardless of genre or style—most of my writing groups have only had one or two of us doing fantasy and SF, but the feedback was still tremendously helpful. Share each other’s work; give and take honest constructive feedback. Keep it professional, rather than close friends or family. Joining a writing course—or several courses—worked for me. I don’t have a writer’s group at the moment but I had small writing circles, like those I’ve mentioned, in the years when I progressed to being a published writer and I found the feedback and contact invaluable.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Christopher. I love your suggestion for writers to join or form groups. That’s helped me, too.
Readers interested in Christopher M. Geeson’s work should explore his Amazon page.
Most authors I interview lead lives far different from mine. In today’s interview, it’s almost like I’m interviewing myself. Like me, Demetri Capetanopoulos received technical training and served as an officer aboard submarines before turning to writing. One of his stories appears in 20,000 Leagues Remembered and another is in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
Like many boys of a certain age, Demetri Capetanopoulos discovered Jules Verne and was captivated—not just by the tales of scientific adventure—but by the example of the power of imagination to shape what might be possible with the creative application of technology. Who can say with surety what influence it had, but he became qualified as a nuclear submarine engineer and deep submersible pilot.
With a career spent in technical realms, Demetri has found in his writing a delightful synthesis of his passion for science, history, and the creative arts, all while rediscovering a boyhood inspiration. Surely Verne would approve. He dedicates his literary labors of love to his son, Leo, and to all those for whom submarine dreams stir the child within.
Let’s dive into the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Demetri Capetanopoulos: I don’t recall a ‘start’ to my writing, it emerged from me at the earliest age. In elementary school it may have been an essay or report for extra credit. In middle school I sought to emulate the short stories that I was consuming—those by Arthur C. Clarke were favorites. By high school I wrote my chapter book—a WWII submarine story—inspired by the type of storytelling I found in Alistair Maclean’s novels, which I was passionate about at the time. As I became busy with a career that produced its own adventures, writing was a way to capture moments and preserve emotions for some later “great American novel.” I also discovered that the ability to write and speak in a way that could move people was intoxicating and the military offered many opportunities to speak in front of an audience. I’ve come to realize that one of the things I enjoy most in writing is tackling challenges—whether it’s the strict format of a screenplay, trying to emulate the style of a particular author, stirring an audience to emotion, or bringing a past reality authentically to life. It’s still the challenge that thrills today which is probably why I seldom write the same type of story or style twice and why constraints inspire me.
P.S.: You just met an interested reader in an elevator who asks, “What sort of stories do you write?” The doors will open soon, so what short answer do you give this reader?
D.C.: Hopefully sticky stories—meaning those that feature some element that sticks in your subconscious and influences your creative engine even when all other details about the story have slipped from memory.
P.S.: Your website, “Precise Imagination,” looks far different from most author’s sites. It seems intended to inspire people to design and build things. Tell us about the purpose and philosophy of the site.
D.C.: It’s not a site intended to explicitly promote my writing, rather it describes my philosophy that I try and bring to all my creative endeavors. I can’t claim to originate it, but it is my synthesis of the ancient Greek musings on excellence and achieving that elusive optimization of both beauty and function. Those elements are as relevant to writing as they are to any creative activity including the building of things.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
D.C.: I was fortunate to have a solid grounding in the classics—Stevenson, Kipling, Poe, Wells, Twain, Verne, Bradbury and the like. But there came a fateful day when I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing which recounted the true, yet scarcely believable tale of Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition, when I realized within the nooks and crannies of history, non-fiction tales could satisfy every thrill, wonder, and amusement provided by fiction. I have seldom picked up a work of fiction since and so, have come to appreciate the nuanced difference between authors who can competently relate a compelling history and those gifted few who possess “a way with words” that elevates the narrative to something poetic. Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann is a top-notch example of this non-fiction art in my mind.
P.S.: Your background as a submariner explains much of your fiction. But what led to the non-submarine works Hadley the Lunar Rover, and On Ice?
D.C.: A lifelong passion for space exploration motivated the story about a plucky lunar rover waiting for humans to return to the moon. The sentiment seemed timely and I wanted to challenge my limited drawing skills with a very different artistic style than I used in Ned the Nuclear Submarine (which was deliberately simplistic to make what could be an intimidating subject, more accessible to kids). After my experience living and working at McMurdo Station in Antarctica it seemed obvious to me that fascinating, yet wacky, place was perfect for a screenplay, which I called “On Ice.” Having never written one before, I was drawn to the challenging constraints imposed by both the screenplay format and my own desire for compelling plot drivers grounded in realism (i.e., no aliens/UFO’s, Atlantis under the ice, sea monsters, etc.). I can attest that screenwriting will teach a writer discipline, but for me, when I write any story it is always running in my head as a movie, and I just write down what I am seeing in my mind.
P.S.: The world of submarines and engineering (your background) seems one of logical equations, arcane technical details, and high-tech machinery, while the world of a fiction writer involves deep emotions, the infinite complexities of the human heart, and the often-irrational behavior of flawed characters. How did you manage the transition from one world to another?
D.C.: A truly insightful question. The truth is I have never made a transition—I have lived a life and made a career in highly disciplined, technical realms but always stood somewhat apart from my colleagues as person who saw things slightly differently, processed experiences with perhaps deeper personal reflection, and always injected a bit of dramatic flair and staging to the way I went about my duties. The emotional intelligence, communication skills, and empathy that often exemplify writers turn out to be pretty good leadership traits that can garner success even in a highly technical and structured organization. I suppose in my case it made up for whatever deficiencies I had academically compared to my rather brilliant colleagues.
P.S.: When most people read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, they skip over the chapters devoted to the design of the Nautilus. Not you. You wrote a detailed, technical manual about how Captain Nemo built it. Tell us about The Design and Construction of the Nautilus and why you wrote it.
D.C.: It was only after I became a nuclear submarine engineer and had occasion to read a modern translation (Naval Institute Press) of the novel that restored much of the previously edited technical discussions did I appreciate that Verne’s conception of the Nautilus was much more specific and realistic than the innumerable later incarnations have suggested. I had gotten professionally interested in early submarine development and wanted to write a book discussing the evolution of the relevant technology and design principles without running afoul of concerns about classified information that my background might prompt. The answer was to use a fictional submarine—Captain Nemo’s Nautilus—to explore the technology of the period that inspired Verne and see how close reasonable extrapolations could have gotten to a workable design. No one with a similar technical background had attempted this before. The closest effort was a piece written by a French nuclear submarine engineer, Jean Gagneux, but he focused on a technical critique of where Verne’s design would fall short. Though the analysis was interesting and completely legitimate, I wanted to take the opposite approach. If at times the book seems overly technical or saturated with detail, my only defense is that nuclear submariners are every bit as critically minded an audience as Verne aficionados and I was keen to avoid being dismissed or laughed at by either.
P.S.: Ned the Nuclear Submarine appears to be unlike any other book on the market—a children’s book, told in rhyme, about a submarine. What inspired it?
D.C.: I think every new parent imagines they will write a children’s book, but it took me until my son was nearly eight years old to complete it! I was determined to do my own illustrations and (against all publishing advice) to do the story in rhyme—because kids like rhyme. They also like to learn how things work and don’t mind when some words or ideas that are over their heads now can be appreciated later, which is why the text is designed to stretch their literacy and the illustrations to expand their minds. But most of all, kids like a good story with compelling characters. In my observation, there are a great many exquisitely crafted children’s books today whose focus is about delivering moral messages that resonate with adults and are pretty thin on character and story. In this case I knew exactly what my target to emulate was: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel—a classic from 1939 that is still in print today. It offers a very realistic mechanical character that evokes real emotion while facing and ultimately surmounting authentic problems and fears. Just like Ned. I made Ned a submarine because the first rule of writing (and drawing for that matter) is do what you know.
P.S.: For the anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne, you wrote “Rust and Smoke.” In it, you take readers to a setting of stark beauty in two different time periods. Tell us where the story takes place and why you chose that region.
D.C.: In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the fate of the Nautilus is left unknown, but Jules Verne offers three possible things that could have survived the story and persist in our world today: Captain Nemo’s coral cemetery in the eastern Indian Ocean, the subterranean refueling depot inside one of the Canary Islands, and the unusual iron dinghy that Professor Aronnax, Conceil, and Ned Land use to escape the Nautilus. So, I wrote a very different style of story for each of those loose ends. “Rust and Smoke” takes place in the Lofoten Islands that comprise the northwestern coast of Norway, but the reader is only gradually given the clues to figure this out, in part, to draw out the connection to the famous Maelstrom, which is located in these waters and the serves as the climax for Verne’s novel. I wanted to write a story in modern times that could provide a realistic connection to the events of Verne’s novel, hence the two story lines, set in differing time periods, that work their way toward their mutual resolution of one of the novel’s loose ends (while introducing a beguiling fourth loose end).
P.S.: Your story “Homework Help from No One” appears in 20,000 Leagues Remembered. Tell us about the protagonist, his problem, and the setting.
D.C.: This was the second of my three “loose end” stories (yes, there is an as-yet unpublished third) and the style and tone is intentionally quite different. For this piece, I wanted to write a story of the sort that might once have appeared in Boy’s Life magazine—specifically something in the same vein as the Mad Scientists’ Club stories, which were a favorite of mine growing up. So naturally the protagonist is boy of about the same age, and with the same sort of concerns and impulsiveness that I imaged the target reader might be. Innocently enough, he gets himself in real trouble while simultaneously making an amazing discovery related to the presumably fictional tale of the Nautilus. In keeping with the genre, it requires all his wits and dose of real science to work out the solution, along with a dash of bravado to pull off the surprise ending.
P.S.: Your newest release is a graphic novel called Rage Runs Deep. Tell us about the book and who you think its target audience is.
D.C.: Rage Runs Deeps expands on the snippet of Captain Nemo’s backstory that Verne provides in his subsequent novel, The Mysterious Island, and weaves that tragic narrative into real history much like the movie Forrest Gump. All the people, places, and events that intersect with Prince Dakkar are 100% real and accurate, eventually compelling his construction of the Nautilus and justifying in his own mind, the righteousness of his revenge as Captain Nemo. While it can be enjoyed by readers of all ages as a prequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the story tackles sophisticated issues related to the blowback of imperialism and the extent to which acts of rebellion can be legally and morally justified—issues which continue to remain all-too-relevant today. The graphic novel was a natural format for a work that originated as a screenplay, but it also has the potential to expose a much broader audience to consider such substantive arguments.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
D.C.: I just finished a novel in which the protagonist is a descendant of a famed fictional sea captain, who must manage the new technology of a steam frigate, a skeptical crew, and a bureaucracy harboring its own agenda, when he is sent in a desperate bid to chase down an unknown submarine boat that seems bent on destroying British shipping. It is decidedly NOT a sci-fi story, but rather a hard-core historical maritime adventure much more in the vein of C.S. Forrester or Patrick O’Brian. I expect the editorial process to be long because fans of such historical nautical fiction are demanding—not to mention rightfully protective of the legends of that genre—and I do not intend to let them down. I’m also in early draft on a non-fiction book that tells the story of volunteers in Ohio who began rebuilding a WWII B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber from five partial wrecks and discovered that much of the aircraft would have to be made by them from scratch if it were going to be able to fly again. It struck me as inspirational, but also fascinating, technically, and I have become a volunteer on the project myself.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice do you have for aspiring fiction writers?
Demetri Capetanopoulos: Do exhaustive research to ensure you get the details right—that’s what puts you in the moment, just as inaccuracy can shatter a reader’s mental immersion. But when actually writing, focus on the emotion you are trying to evoke in the reader with any particular passage. “Be in the scene”—meaning in the mood of the setting and the emotive state of the characters, and the right words will flow.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Demetri. It’s been an honor to interview a fellow submariner.
Sometimes, for these interviews, the emails don’t travel far. I’ve known Darrell Bartell for a few years, and we belong to the same local writing critique group.
Darrell Bartell—actor, playwright, short story writer, author, former cab driver, security officer, stage magician, future radio broadcaster, and cancer survivor—completed his MA in drama at Texas Woman’s University. His script, “Bragging Rights,” a ten-minute one-man play based on the school shootings at the time, earned him a trip to Valdez, Alaska, in June 2000, where he met and learned from the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights, Edward Albee and Horton Foote, and actresses Betty Buckley and the late Marian Seldes.
Darrell earned his theater degree after battling cancer and later earned an MA degree in English with a minor in communications from Southern New Hampshire University. As a US Army veteran and former private investigator, while attending the American Broadcasting School in Arlington, Texas, Darrell based the format of his radio show on television’s “Americas Most Wanted” and featured unidentified victims, missing persons, and wanted fugitives while providing leads to law enforcement and medical examiners for those cases.
A member of the Fort Worth Writers, Darrell wrote the play, “When the Echoes Whisper My Name,” which is based on several unidentified victims’ cases he is working on and received second place in the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation Inc. (OWFI) 2011 playwriting contest. Darrell’s play, “The First One-Hundred Days,” about the first woman president of the United States, also took first place in OWFI’s 2013 playwriting contest. “The Specter Society,” one of ten short plays Darrell wrote during the pandemic, was produced by Dallas College and Palo Alto College on Zoom in April 2021 and is available on Youtube here, starting at time 43:26. Darrell’s book, The Corona Monologues, won the 28th annual, 2022 Communicator Award for distinction in writing. He tries to find and write about subjects that haven’t been brought to the stage.
Here’s the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How and when did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Darrell Bartell: This could take a while. I never started out to be a writer. I went to Tarrant County College and took an English II class. I was failing my exams and the instructor hated my papers. So, I dropped the course. About a year later, I decided to get serious about my college education. I signed up for English II again and sure enough, I had the same instructor, Tawny Kilbourne. This time I was prepared. I passed his exams and was getting good grades on my essays. Then came the final essay. I was to take a poem, a play or a short story and take an event from my life and write an essay. I used Margaret Atwood’s story “Rape Fantasies,” and surprisingly got an “A” on the paper entitled “Nightmares.” My instructor said the paper flowed well and wanted to see it published. The essay was published in TCC’s Under The Clock Tower literary magazine. The rest is history.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
D.B.: It isn’t so much as who but what are my influences. I draw from my personal life and current events. They’re the greatest resources I can have when writing. My favorite books are the ones that provide information (resources) for my writing. I try to get as much detail as possible for the reader.
P.S.: Your bio lists many occupations. Have your drawn writing inspiration from all of them? Also, are there some jobs that influenced your writing more than others?
D.B.: I haven’t drawn inspiration from all of them, but quite a few. US Army, security officer, Texas Hold ‘Em dealer, and cab driver have given me a lot of material to work with. I would have to say the military is the one job that continues to influence my manuscripts.
P.S.: Would you agree that much of your writing could be described as dark? If so, what attracts you to that type of fiction? If not, what term fits better?
D.B.: I don’t know about dark. I write about a wide range of subject matter. I don’t have a specific audience. I simply write whatever comes to mind and my sense of humor is probably as unique as it will ever be. I leave it up to the reader if my writing is dark or macabre, but I do try to leave an impression.
D.B.: Thank you. The book is an anthology of 23 short stories about different people from different backgrounds dealing with different situations. Each one has a twist at the end no one saw coming that I hope leaves an impression with the reader.
P.S.: Of short stories and plays, which is your primary medium (if you have one)? How do you decide whether a new idea will end up as a short story or as a play?
D.B.: I want to say playwrighting, but it’s been more and more novel writing. To be honest, I don’t decide if the manuscript will be a play or short story. I let the words and the characters decide that. What I try to do most is find material that hasn’t been brought to the page or to the stage before.
P.S.: You teach creative writing. In addition to helping students, has that experience helped you grow as a writer, too? If so, how?
D.B.: Absolutely. As an instructor I see the writing styles of beginning students with potential. Reading their essays helps me look at their creative and critical thinking process. Which changes every semester with every class of students. So I learn from my students all the time.
D.B.: Barry McElroy is a 17-year-old high school student who has a chance to get into college. He’s been raised by a single mom ever since his father, an Army Ranger veteran left home after an episode of PTSD. On the way home from school, he’s attacked by a group of thugs called the Rosedale Gang and is rescued by the beautiful vampire, Casey. The next day, while researching his paper about unidentified victims and missing persons he comes across Casey’s niece who is listed as a runaway. When he brings this to her attention, they set out to find her in the hopes she doesn’t end up like Casey and become a vampire. He overcomes several obstacles from staying alive to staying a step ahead of law enforcement during the quest.
P.S.: What non-writing hobby or interest do you have? Does it complement your writing or is it a relief from writing?
D.B.: My non-writing hobbies used to be Chess and Texas Hold ‘Em. Unfortunately, I had to step away from them because I wasn’t getting much writing done. Lately, I’ve been researching my short stories by watching everything from American Horror Story to Friday the 13th, The Series. Hhhmmm. Maybe my writing is dark after all. 😉
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
D.B.: Sometimes the easiest and the most difficult aspects of my writing is trying to find the through line. Making sure everything flows well and fits from start to finish. Also, making sure my characters are developed properly, It happens to the best of us writers, but sometimes we fall into the trap of our characters sounding the same.
P.S.: Your book The Corona Monologues contains many dozens of statements from people as if they were auditioning for a play. Through them, readers experience the spectrum of human reactions to the recent pandemic. Why did you choose to express your thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic in this form, as opposed to a short story, novel, or play?
D.B.: At the time of the pandemic, I didn’t plan on writing a book of auditioning monologues. I was going to work on book two of Barry and the Vampire. Like everyone else in the country, I was temporarily laid off from work, but like I said, current events are the best resources for writing. Every time I turned on the television or logged on to the internet, a monologue was begging to be written. For every monologue I wrote, I probably missed ten or fifteen others. There were too many characters coming at me, and it wasn’t possible to put them in a play or short story form. This is what happens when you have a theater background.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
D.B.: Of all things, I used to work as a security officer in a hospital. I got to know the doctors, the nurses, and the support staff. I kept trying to figure out how to write their stories and after I left, I suddenly got the idea to have a different take on the medical profession in ways that has never been done before from my perspective. I’m working on a third short story on my latest anthology that I hope to get published next year entitled: Haunted Tales from the Hospital. There will be something for everyone.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring fiction writers?
Darrell Bartell: Easy. Keep a journal. Writing in a journal is to the mind what exercising at the gym is to the body. It has to be done well and often for it to work. Write about your hopes, your dreams, and your fears. Write about your family history. Write about the friends you’ve made and the women you’ve loved. I’ve been keeping a journal for over 25 years, and I hope to turn them over to the Fort Worth Archives before I leave this earth. I should be on journal #60 by the end of the month. Also, find a writer’s group. You can’t go wrong finding a group of people who share the same passion as you and want to help you succeed. A group of fellow writers can help you by finding mistakes you over looked and making suggestions to improve your manuscripts.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Darrell, and congratulations on being a cancer survivor and on your many writing accomplishments.
Janice Rider (she/her) has always loved the natural world and resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, close to the Rocky Mountains. She has a BSc in Zoology with a minor in English Literature and a BEd degree. Springs and summers following university course work were spent at the Calgary Zoo where she helped look after many different animals. A trip to Africa was a highlight for Janice; there, she was able to observe wild animals hunt and play. Janice directs The Chameleon Drama Club for children and youth. Three of her plays for youth were published through Eldridge Plays and Musicals. As well, a nonfiction piece of hers on snakes was published in Honeyguide Literary Magazine. Three of Janice’s short stories are published in anthologies – Beware the Bugs! by Word Balloon Books; the North American Jules Verne Society’s Extraordinary Visions; and Speculation Publications’ Beach Shorts. Currently, Janice is involved in a two-year international mindfulness meditation program for teachers. She sees mindfulness as a way of coming into harmony with the natural world.
Let’s get to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Janice Rider: I started writing when I was about fourteen years old. I loved to read and writing seemed a natural outlet for my love of words. As well, my dad liked to journal and wrote poetry and short stories for fun. He and my mom encouraged my interest in writing. When I was in grade eight, I received the gift of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for my creative writing, which was an added incentive to keep doing what I loved.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.R.: I have enjoyed so many different authors, but when I was in elementary school any books to do with horses interested me, books like Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and Glenn Balch’s Tiger Roan. As well, I appreciated the playfulness of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, as well as A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. In my teens I particularly loved the books written by Charles Dickens, Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Jane Austen’s novels and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
Currently, some of my favorite books are TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door, Thomas King’s short stories, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Neil Gaiman’s short stories, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. One book I found horrifying but utterly impossible to put down was Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I like novelty in short stories and novels and admire authors whose characters are unexpected. When reading I also look for the ability of an author to touch the heart and bring compassionate characters to life without slipping into sentimentality. Clever humor is always welcome.
P.S.: How do animals figure into the stories you write?
J.R.: My stories almost always relate to the natural world and animals in some way or other. My background is in zoology, conservation and education, so I have a strong desire to pass on my fascination with the living world around us. Animals may be central to a story’s outcome, as in a story I am working on about a young girl and her sister who learn that bulls can be dangerous. They may be part of a human character’s make-up, as in a short story I’m hoping to get published about Medusa. In some cases, the animals in my stories form close bonds with humans, even if they are creatures like hornets as is the case in another story I’m in the process of writing.
P.S.: What are the easiest and most difficult aspects of writing for you?
J.R.: That’s a tricky question. Sometimes, my stories seem to write themselves; at other times, I have to keep revisiting them while working on other things. I feel that the best way to progress is to make time for writing on a regular basis, which can be challenging for me as I am juggling a number of interests in my life. When stuck, I will turn to a few pages of a well-loved author just for inspiration. I also notice that, for me, it is easy to begin a story, and I have lots of ideas; however, unraveling the ideas into full stories is a process and often requires rewriting.
P.S.: Your short story, “Shark Out of Water,” appears in the anthology Beach Shorts. Tell us about that story.
“Shark Out of Water” was originally written for the drama club I direct for children and youth. The young people involved in the production had such a lot of fun with it! When Speculation Publications advertised for submissions on the theme of romance reading for the beach, it seemed like a great fit. The story is based on the Hawaiian myth, “The King of Sharks.” A young woman, Fabia, becomes smitten with a new face on the beach. This man is so very different from anyone she has ever known, but is he all he seems or will he take an unexpected bite out of her life? You’ll have to read the story to find out!
P.S.: I understand that you’ve been practicing Spring Forest Qigong for over a decade. What is that, and how has it helped you?
J.R.: Spring Forest Qigong, like Tai Chi, is one form of qigong. There are literally thousands of different forms of qigong practice. Qigong can be practiced as a martial art form, as an academic discipline, or as a way of maintaining or improving health. Spring Forest Qigong is aimed at bettering health. I find it meditative and calming. I have been leading this practice for a long time and feel that it helps me to be more focused and centered.
P.S.: The anthology Beware the Bugs!includes your story “Marvin’s Millipede.” What is the problem or conflict to be faced by the protagonist of this tale?
J.R.: Oh, I had such a lot of fun writing this story! It just flowed and gave me such pleasure! The story is about a boy, Marvin, who has a love of arthropods – the creatures with jointed legs, segmented bodies, and an exoskeleton. His favorite arthropod is the millipede, you know, the critter with the multitude of legs for walking on, the one you see cartoon pictures of with piles of shoes on its many feet. When he and his two friends, Lucy and Sophia, find an American giant millipede a little over three inches long, they decide to conduct an experiment to see if they can make the millipede, dubbed Maverick Miles Maddox or MMM, bigger. Does their experiment work? Yes, it does! MMM becomes very large indeed, gigantic in fact! Marvin and his friends must now decide what to do about MMM.
P.S.: You’ve written three plays that were published. Each appears to take inspiration from earlier works, but gives these works a twist. Please tell us a little about all three and tell us the twist in one of them.
J.R.: I’ve written far more plays than I’ve published, and it was satisfying to have a few published.
“Aladdin and His Sister,” is about a spoiled Aladdin who is fortunate enough to have a resourceful, courageous, and compassionate sister, Maliha, to help him manage his affairs. Two genies feature in the play.
“Cyrano and Roxanne” is based on Edmond Rostand’s play, “Cyrano de Bergerac.” In my take on the story, I provide Roxanne with three bosom friends, Chrystele, Danielle and Brigitte, who help to see that this time round there will be a happy ending for Cyrano and the woman he loves.
“When Science Bites Back” is really two plays that are part of one production. Both plays are science fiction, which is not an easy sell for the stage, and based on stories by H.G. Wells works with a touch of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Black Tulip, worked into the second story. In “Bacterial Broadside,” villains steal an experimental sample from the famous bacteriologist, Professor Parvulus. Will the world ever be the same again? In “Orchid Obsession,” rival botanists compete for first prize at the Exotic Blooms From Bulbs Competition. When one of the botanists receives a bulb under unusual circumstances, will the bulb bloom into something bloodthirsty?
P.S.: The Extraordinary Visions anthology includes “Want of Air,” a story of yours with no animals. What inspired you to write it?
J.R.: “Want of Air” does not have animals in it, but in the story, Jordan’s mother, Karen, is working to protect a marine offshore area, and his father was an oceanographer. Jordan is clearly fond of living creatures as his bedroom is hung with photographs and illustrations of numerous sea creatures.
The inspiration for the story was my oldest son, Nathan, who began reading a shortened version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in grade four. Like Jordan, he became so involved in the book that he was identifying with the characters and their distress. He became anxious about the amount of air in our home. It was a cold winter day, and Nathan wanted the window open. For the story, I imagined what might have happened had Nathan opened the window on that bitter day. Thankfully, Nathan still has his dad in his life as my husband is very much alive.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress?
J.R.: I am currently working on more than one story. One of them is a science fiction tale about an elderly patient who has a robotic lion to help him manage his senior years. The patient’s son has tampered with the inner workings of his robotic pet who begins to engage in decidedly realistic lion behavior. The story is inspired by my dad’s current struggles and my work at the Calgary Zoo with lions.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What is your advice for aspiring fiction writers?
Janice Rider: Enjoy the writing process, connect with other writers, and carve out time to write, preferably each day. If I am writing something, and it ceases to be enjoyable, I step into another story and come back to the one I am struggling with later. I have a friend, Heather MacIntosh, who has also published short stories. Talking together and sharing our thoughts and tales has really inspired me to keep writing. When I write regularly, I feel content at the end of the day. It seems to me that writing, like qigong, is therapeutic.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Janice. It’s good that you enjoy writing. I fear if I wrote about snakes, millipedes, and sharks, I’d be creeped out, not calm.
Readers can find out more about Janice on LinkedIn.
Some authors (like me) strike out at the plate for years before achieving their first sale. Others hit it out of the park on their first time at bat. Today you’ll meet one of the latter types, and a story by this author appears in the anthology The Science Fiction Tarot.
Marco Cultrera writes science fiction and is enjoying a fine start to his writing career. He sold his first story to The Arcanist magazine at pro rates, a rare accomplishment. He’s had other works published by Hybrid Fiction magazine, Polaris Borealis magazine, Total Quality Reading magazine, and The Science Fiction Tarot anthology. Another story is set to appear in the anthology Novus Monstrum. Since 2018, he’s served on the staff of Can*Con, the SFF convention in Ottawa.
Born and raised in Italy, he now lives in Ottawa where he’s found his theoretical physics degree to be more useful in his writing than in his day job.
Next up, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Marco Cultrera: I’ve always been a voracious reader, from a very early age. I always thought that one day I may write, but I wasn’t in a hurry to start. There were so many wonderful books to read, I didn’t have the time to write my own. Eventually, in high school, I got into RPG games and that medium gave me the impetus to start creating adventures for my friends to play. From there, the switch to speculative writing was only natural. In my mid-twenties, I began writing in Italian a bit, just to test the water. But then life got in the way, I got married, moved to Canada, began working in videogames, where I started writing exclusively in English, and then kids began to pop-up. It was then, in the early two thousands, during the long nights half-awake between one feeding and another, that the plot of my first book coalesced in my mind, inspired by… Oh wait, I was getting ahead of myself, on to the next question.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.C.: The author I almost mentioned above was Steven Erikson. I got sucked in into his Malazan Cycle, to this day the best fantasy I’ve ever read, and probably ever will, and it got my creativity going. I wanted to create something similar, but also give it my own personal stamp. And so my first novel was born, a 200K-word mammoth that will probably never be published, but helped me immensely in improving my craft. I also rediscovered Science Fiction in that period, after having read all the classics in my youth (Asimov and Clarke above all, but also Jack Vance and Philip Jose’ Farmer), and I was blown away by the way the genre had evolved. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie blew me away, also I love how Andy Weir is able to insert rigorous science in all his books while keeping them extremely entertaining. I found his Project Hail Mary unputdownable. So naturally, my second novel – the one I’m sending to agents now – is a near future sci-fi story with technological and environmental themes. In general, I try to read broadly, including Literary fiction (The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell remains one of my all-time favorite), crime novels (I love all Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo) and I also go back the classics (reread recently The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse, what a fantastic book).
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
M.C.: I would say no, I’ve written any kind of speculative fiction, from introspective reflections of the human condition and how it constantly changes confronted by technology, to action packed sword and sorcery. I really enjoy jumping from one genre to another, and the opportunity to explore the very different characters that creative freedom allows. At the end of the day, I live and die by the ideas I can come up. If one takes root in my brain, I just need to write it, no matter how wacky or out there it is.
P.S.: Tell us about “Malapropic Rhapsody.” Is it true you sold your first story at pro rates, and the editor accepted as is, with no revisions?
M.C.: Yes, it was quite shocking, to be honest, and it may have set some unrealistic expectation of the rate of publication of my short stories after that. I wrote that story on a whim, as part of a monthly competition in a private forum I was part of. Surprisingly, it won. Riding that enthusiasm, I looked up what were the best Flash Fiction magazines on the net, and I found The Arcanist. I submitted it, and I was delighted to hear a few weeks later that they loved it and wanted to publish it, with no editorial changes whatsoever. Payment was $50, which divided for the number of words, it came to about 8¢ a word, that at the time was considered pro payment. So I started writing more stories and submitting them everywhere, and naturally, shortly after, an endless train of rejections began to appear in my inbox…
M.C.: I have always been fascinated by how human consciousness may have arisen, and what evolutionary advantages have brought the Homo sapiens sapiens to become the dominant species on Earth. One day I was driving home, and passed by a church while ruminating on that, and I thought, “What if we knew that there was an afterlife? How would that have affected our evolution?” I decided that it would have hindered it, as surviving at all costs wouldn’t be as imperative if our ancestors knew that there was a new life after death. The next thing I knew, I had written 10K words about an evil corporation trying to find out if there was any truth about that.
P.S.: You’re a big part of the Ottawa-based SF&F writing convention Can*Con. Tell us about Can*Con, your role in that annual event, and how you started doing that.
M.C.: I discovered Can*Con in 2017, when I found out that my favorite fantasy author, the Steven Erikson mentioned above, was going to be the Writer Guest of Honor. I bought a full ticket and was blown away. In just a few days, I had met and talked with Steven and a ton of more established authors. I also got to pitch my novel to the editor of Daw and talked to a New York based agent! I learned more in that weekend at the con, than in the previous ten years trying to figure out the industry by myself. It was clear in my mind that I needed to be part of Can*Con moving forward, so I approached Derek Kunsken, one of the two co-chairs, and told him straight out that I wanted to help. He referred me to the other co-chair, the excellent Marie Bilodeau, and it turned out they needed someone to take over their website. I had all the knowledge necessary from my day job, so I accepted. Since then, I’ve made a ton of writer friends and become part of Ottawa’s writing community, that include some legends in the field, like Julie Czerneda, and Kate Heartfield, who is rapidly raising to a well-deserved stardom (her latest novel, The Embroidered Book, is just phenomenal. But don’t take my word for it. Come to Ottawa on the third weekend of October, you won’t regret it.
P.S.: Your story in The Science Fiction Tarot, “Support Group: Apocalypse,” earned a tarot card labeled ‘Apocalypse.” What is the premise of this story?
M.C.: Parallel Earths have become all the rage recently, but I swear I wrote this story before a certain entertainment corporation had to come up with something else after having dispatched a certain blue titan. What if victims of different apocalypses in parallel but equally doomed Earths could come together every week to a support group run by a licensed therapist? Would they be there for each other? Argue about who has it worst? Go read the story to find out…
P.S.: What are the hardest and easiest aspects of writing for you?
M.C.: Hardest one is finding the time to do it. I have a full-time job that keeps me quite occupied and a very busy household, with three daughters and four cats, so stealing time to write is a challenge. The easiest thing is coming up with ideas. I have always more concepts in my head than I will ever be able to actually write, so whenever I sit, I have no problem putting words on the page.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors?
M.C.: I guess what I really like to do is come up with new ideas, or at least a new take on old ones so out there that they are hardly recognizable. Yes, characters are very important, and I work hard to make mine likeable or whatever shade of humanity they are meant to be, but my stories are invariably plot driven. Don’t get me wrong, I read a lot of character-centric fiction, and enjoy it a lot, but when it comes to my own writing I always start from an idea (or a set of ideas) that I have not seen anywhere before, and build a cast of characters around it to support it.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
M.C.: I always have at least a short story and a longer project in various states of completion. The story right now is about how something like ChatGPT can be turned on its head in the right dystopian society. The novel is about an asteroid about to hit Earth. Wait a minute? I can hear you thinking. What happened to an original idea? I can’t think of a more used trope in the history of Science Fiction. Yes, but what if the impact is 18 years away, and the first ever woman to have become Secretary General of the United Nations is determined to save every single human and not just a small colony? And what if the progress of the salvation effort is monitored through a webspace in the holoweb, created and updated in real time by a group of people scattered all over the world that share visions of Earth’s last moments? Not enough? What if the first trillionaire private citizen is building a lunar base to become the only savior of humanity? Not enough? Well, then I can’t do anything for you. Just go back to watch Armageddon or Deep Impact again, patting yourself on the back that you were right all along…
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Marco Cultrera: This question made me chuckle a bit, as I still consider myself an aspiring writer. I would say my advice is to find like-minded individuals. Writing seems like a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Join a writing group, online or in person, look for writing events in your city, go to book launches and talk to the authors. In my experience, the writing community is wonderfully inclusive, and everybody is always ready to cheer you on in your journey. Since I joined the Can*Con team, I made a ton of friends, and my enjoyment in the slow process of becoming an established writer has multiplied tenfold.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Marco. My readers and I will watch your career with interest. Your early success seems well deserved.
Readers interested in following Marco Cultrera will have to do occasional internet searches for now. He’s spending his sparse free time writing fiction, not posting on social media or updating an author website.
For today’s author interview, I flew to Australia and sat down with… No, actually, I did this one all by email. Mike Adamson has separate stories in both 20,000 Leagues Remembered and in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
Mike Adamson holds a Doctoral degree from Flinders University of South Australia. After early aspirations in art and writing, Mike secured qualifications in both marine biology and archaeology. Mike was a university educator from 2006 to 2018, has worked in the replication of convincing ancient fossils, is a passionate photographer, master-level hobbyist, and journalist for international magazines. Short fiction sales include to Metastellar, Strand Magazine, Little Blue Marble, Abyss and Apex, Daily Science Fiction, Compelling Science Fiction and Nature Futures. Mike has placed stories on well over two hundred occasions to date, totaling some 1.1 million words. Mike has completed his first Sherlock Holmes novel with Belanger Books, and has appeared in translation in European magazines. You can catch up with his journey at his blog ‘The View From the Keyboard.’
Here’s the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Mike Adamson: I think I must have been a latent storyteller from a very young age. I would cite exposure to classic Star Trek and of course the many worlds of British TV producer Gerry Anderson as strong inspirations, as was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, my favorite story at age 5. It was also the classic Space Race era, those of my age grew up with the fact that space had become accessible, and this spurred many a reverie for inquiring minds. I remember being in school around age 5 or 6 and being given the exercise of drawing a picture and writing a caption, and what I produced was two pages of writing with a small drawing at the bottom of each—about a voyage to the Moon as I recall. I remember my teachers being in deep discussion over it! Then, not many years later, I would look at a blank writing pad and experience an almost indescribable urge to fill those lines with text, to create something wonderful, to tell a great story but also invent something, a world, a time that doesn’t exist, in the process. I must have been born for speculative writing!
As a kid I worked on a series of adventures about space travelers who fell through a time warp into an age of cavemen and dinosaurs, then tried a couple of more ambitious projects about space exploration and the colonization of the Moon. Around age twelve I learned to type and hammered away at an epic, if somewhat naive, science fiction novel, without actually completing it. I finished my first original science fiction novel at age sixteen: having digested the works of E E Smith and reveled in the early Star Wars and Galactica era, there was no surprise in it being space opera on a grand scale. In my teens I wrote rafts of fan fiction, which was a good exercise in learning to produce feature-length texts.
P.S.: Very exciting that your novel, Sherlock Holmes: A Tradition of Evil, will be coming out later this year. The video trailer is captivating. Tell us about the novel.
M.A.: I’ve been writing Sherlock Holmes short stories since 2019 and have had excellent success in placing them, so for my debut novel I wanted to do something on a big scale—real stakes for the characters and for society in general. I also wanted to explore Holmes earlier in his career than we usually encounter him, allowing the story to be foundational to the awe in which he is held in later years. I set the piece in the December of 1885, early enough for many Police to still regard him as a meddling amateur, which provides for some interesting frictions.
The story concerns government and law enforcement itself, and I needed the character of Mycroft to make the logic work. The story introducing Mycroft, “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” is one of those which contains no date reference, but, luckily, some scholars place the story as early as 1885, and I chose to run with this. I have the full line-up of supporting characters—Inspectors Lestrade, Gregson and Bradtsreet, Mrs Hudson, Wiggins and the Irregulars, plus genuine historic figures, such as the Home Secretary, and the Commissioners of the City and Metropolitan Police Forces.
I wanted to draw the reader into the case at a very visceral level, so after gathering the threads together in the traditional way, I opted for a blow-by-blow account of the closing drama, a night of tension and action as Holmes and Watson pursue their man across the city. I’m hoping readers appreciate this approach and find the finale to be real edge-of-the-seat stuff.
Recently I was invited to work up a second novel, and am perusing my notes for the best storyline for a further outing.
P.S.: Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, that novel’s not your only story involving the iconic sleuth. What others have you had published, and how does your Holmes deviate, if at all, from Doyle’s original characterization?
M.A.: As I mentioned above, I’ve been writing Sherlock Holmes for the last four years, and currently have some twenty-two stories complete, around 220,000 words worth (with notes for a great many more). I began with a cross-over between Holmes and my own Victorian detective character, Inspector George Trevelyan (created in collaboration with my sister, Jen Downes, a very fine writer who has twice appeared in Analog, and with whom I’ll be sharing a table of contents next year in Sunshine Superhighway: Solar Sailings, from Jay Henge Publishing).
The Trevelyan stories are classic mystery with a supernatural edge, which contrasts with the Holmesian canon in which the supernatural is more or less “handled with tongs.” Having already completed a couple of Trevelyan adventures, I eased into Holmes by presenting him with a case that would not resolve without acknowledging a supernatural element, which he of course cannot do. He consults with Trevelyan to get to the bottom of it.
This piece, “The Misadventure of the Perspicacious Waif,” was accepted for Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine by the late Marvin Nathan Kaye in 2019, then switched to Weird Tales, from the same publishing stable, as he felt the readers of SHMM would not appreciate a piece which deviated from canon in recognizing a supernatural reality. That was fine with me, as it got me a berth in that grand old magazine of the strange! Unfortunately, after Marvin passed away, I’ve not been able to establish contact with the new editor, and the piece is in limbo—recorded by me as a pro-level placement but out there in some realm between the worlds. The stated theme for the next issue of Weird Tales is occult detectives, so I should have a fair shot, given that the story both fits the theme and has already been tacitly picked up. All I can do is watch like a hawk for the magazine reopening to submissions (which, on their random schedule, could be anytime) and re-pitch the piece to the new editor. Fingers crossed…
Since then I’ve written new adventures for the great detective across the period 1881 to (so far) 1916, with only a handful of unpublished pieces in hand at any one time. They’ve appeared in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine (two acceptances, neither of which has appeared in print yet), Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (Sherlock Holmes tribute issue Jan/Feb 2021), Strand Magazine (two placements, both now published, the second of which was actually solicited) and a total to date of eleven anthologies from Belanger Books. I’m enjoying being a Holmesian very much, am continuing to write and to expand my publishing venues.
My Holmes is essentially canonical, though some might say they find him less caustic than the original. However, I group my material in ways that agree or disagree with Doyle’s approach—for instance, I probably have an anthology coming along in the next year or two, which will consist of purely canonical tales, but a later volume might collect those with supernatural or otherwise strange themes, under the title “The Dark Holmes.”
All my stories follow a chronology which compliments the original canon, filling in the spaces between the classic stories (an approach I’m sure many have followed previously), so, regardless of the nature or classification of the tales, they can be read in order from the earliest to the last, with the novel(s) forming part of that collective arc.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.A.: It’s difficult to say! My early influences included Clarke, Asimov, E E Smith and Heinlein, and in the fantasy vein Robert E Howard was the fascination of my youth, plus of course Burroughs. Later on I discovered Clarke Ashton Smith’s classic tales of cosmic horror, and finally devoured H P Lovecraft’s complete works. I read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon several years ago, of course, and have long enjoyed Jules Verne and H G Wells. Being a classics fan is an obvious benefit for writing in the public domain franchises, but leaves one rather out of touch with where the fields are at this point. (This also goes for writing “voice,” as there are times I find myself automatically composing in 19th Century expression, and have to wrench narratives back into contemporary “sound!”)
Among moderns, I would say Greg Bear has been a distinct influence—Eon in particular, whose imagery and concepts remain vivid to me. I would also cite the great Australian science fiction author Terry Dowling, whose saga of future Australia, the massive “Rhynosseros” arc, made a huge and lasting impression on me when I read the stories in paperback many years ago. His world-building still leaves me breathless, and the range and depth of his stories is epic. The late Jack Vance, a personal friend of Terry Dowling, is another whose world-building is legendary, and (as with Clarke Ashton Smith’s writing) lets one submerge in a cocoon of sensory stimulus that, I feel, modern stripped-to-the-bone writing hands away in the name of pace. Frankly, to me this is an unfortunate bargain in the name of attention-spans truncated by the speed of modern information access. No wonder I’m often accused of being heavy on the exposition…
From an early age I also considered myself an artist, so it’s natural that artistic influences should have impressed themselves strongly. Some artists shaped my view of both science fiction and fantasy from a young age: Chris Foss, the “Dean of Science Fiction Illustration” as he has been called, whose signature airbrush art remains the gold standard, tops the list for me, plus others from the British industry from the ’70s onward—the late Peter Elson, Angus McKie, Tim White and more. The great Bruce Pennington, whose distinctive non-airbrush style was like a signature for the New English Library range of the ’70s—I find his work strongly evocative and suggestive of story elements to this day. In the fantasy field, the late, great Frank Frazetta is the leading influence, along with Boris & Bell. Also past comics greats have played their part in shaping the color, texture and scope of my visualizations—Mike Noble, John Buscema, Don Lawrence, and so many others.
M.A.: Deakin Valley is a railway ghost story set in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. Railways have an undying appeal all their own, but in the country where they were invented they also have the longest history. Britain’s rail map has changed often, with many old lines disappearing. Much of Britain’s railway engineering and architecture, its bridges and stations, is of Victorian vintage and it can be rather creepy when you encounter infrastructure long out of use. On the domestic rail network in my home town of Adelaide, South Australia, there are such features—disused stations, boarded-up tunnels, dismantled bridges—and observing those from passing trains got me thinking. A torn-up spur-line might once have led somewhere important, perhaps with a secret, something dark… And the story flowed from there.
I matched up a commercial photojournalist with a disaster a hundred years ago and gave him a mystery to chase, then threw in magic and a deep sense of existential dread that might reasonably dwell in a land so ancient, redolent with the fury and suffering of battles long gone by. I focused it all in a fatal attraction to solve the mystery—learn the truth, but die in the attempt? It was a lot of fun to write, and I have a second outing for the same characters in notes.
P.S.: Is it true you’ve made over 3000 story submissions in 88 months? On average, that’s more than a submission each day. Tell us about the importance of such persistence in the journey to publication, and about how you manage to write and submit so much.
M.A.: Persistence is everything! Well, not everything of course, it assumes you’ve mastered your craft and are submitting good ideas, well-written and edited. But when it comes to marketing, persistence, and a sense of self worth, are paramount. In the early days I took feedback from editors as an important guideline, but it occurred to me that it would be impossible to accommodate every opinion received in terms of reworking. When the same story was rejected by two different markets for precisely opposite reasons it became clear that editorial opinion is entirely flexible and random, and that rewriting to accommodate any one opinion may in fact be installing the very reason for the next rejection. This is not an easy situation, and now I look for commonality of reaction. If I get the same reaction from more than one market then it carries weight and is worth a rewrite. Otherwise, I simply persist in submission in the belief that sooner or later any particular story will cross the desks of first readers and editors who see my point and appreciate my telling, and this seems to hold true quite often. An early story one market considered unpublishable was later picked up by an another and printed with bare-minimum edits, which rather makes my case.
Yes, I recently passed three thousand submissions since I began to keep records at the beginning of 2016. I had four placements in the previous few years which convinced me that I could do this, and a few test submissions late in 2015 to get the hang of online engines like Moksha, but they don’t feature in my official list. My record for submissions is ten in one day, and for rejections, six. It’s a high-volume situation and is essentially a seven-day-a-week job, in which I check emails four times a day, and do most of my redirection of rejections each morning. Writing falls usually in the afternoon, though if I have the bit in my teeth on a new project I may do some composition at any available time.
Ideas flow at different rates, and my total number of new stories per year has been falling. In 2017 I churned out 62 pieces, a figure I have never approached since. I tend to write to prompts now, and could as easily be working on a flash as a novelette. I have sometimes written two flash pieces in one day. I have files of story ideas going back years and when I’m at a loss for an inspiration I look back over notes to see if anything grabs me. It’s a little mechanistic in that sense, but one must treat writing as a job, and producing new material is very important, given the generally low pay rates for reprints. That said, I have had a reprint or two which actually earned more than the original placement, so go figure!
P.S.: You’ve written a number of stories in a series you call Tales of the Middle Stars. What ties that series together? Which stories are published, and what are your plans for the series?
M.A.: Tales of the Middle Stars is an arc against a common background of the exploration and settlement of the stellar neighborhood in the centuries ahead. It describes a period of human colonial expansion and peaceful coexistence with several alien races. The basic idea postulates that current work on FTL flight by spacial warping pays off and that by the early 23rd Century our first vessels of exploration are examining the nearby stars. The discovery of planets requiring only minimal terraforming spurs a wave of colonization that extends into the 26th Century and beyond. The “Near Heavens” was the navigator’s name for the region closest to Earth, settled first, and the “Middle Stars” is the next region, beyond which of course lies the “Deep Sky.” I got the nomenclature from a starmap used as an on-set prop for the original Alien movie in the late Seventies, which was titled “The Middle Heavens.” That always stuck in my mind, and adapted easily.
The first story I placed, back in 2016, “Lo, These Many Gods,” in SQ Mag #28, was a Middle Stars piece, and since then I have completed fifty-five more, with thirty-nine published to date. My chapbook The Salamandrion, in the “Short Reads” series from Black Hare Press, is also a Middle Stars outing—actually the third story I wrote. Others have appeared in venues as varied as Andromeda Spaceways (twice), Stupefying Stories (forthcoming), Spring Into SciFi, Shelter of Daylight, Etherea, Phantaxis, and a host of anthologies.
The series begins early in the 23rd Century, when, in my timeline, Earth has turned the corner from absolute climate catastrophe and has been resettled from a chain of space cities. Most of the 22nd Century was occupied with global terraforming measures to turn back from that nadir, but during this time the FTL project matured on drawing boards out at the cities. The era of stellar exploration ushered in a whole new identity for humankind as not simply spacefarers, but members of a community of races, and all that that implies.
I have, or will have, stories ranging from those early voyages over a period of some three hundred years, with the densest accumulation to date ranging between AD 2480 or so to 2510. Between 2496 and 2501 humanity is embroiled in its first alien war, whose effects are felt over the following generations. And in the decade after that, a new and terrifying presence begins to be sensed among the worlds of the Middle Stars…
I would estimate there are a couple of dozen stories to go to fill in the chronology, sometimes revisiting characters, often moving among familiar worlds, and there will always be the opportunity for new outings in future. My hope is to collect the stories into anthologies with a publisher at some point, but what form that would take is as yet an open question. There are likely enough stories for four or five volumes, and the intention is to move into novels in due course, beginning with an epic answering the question of that “terrifying presence.” It’s a matter of finding the right publisher to take on such a project, and do it justice—this might be a project to undertake in cooperation with an agent. Until then, I’ll continue to produce the material for the short story market.
P.S.: A few of your stories involve climate change and take place in a post-habitable Earth. Tell us about these stories, and do you plan to write more in that vein?
M.A.: The climate crisis has been at the back of the scientific mind since I was a child—acid rain had already signaled that industry could affect nature, for instance. I remember a story in Science Fiction Monthly, in 1974, “Dancing in the Hour of Not-Quite-Rain,” in which people sheltered from acid rain in bunkers, and, finding they were over the maximum safe occupancy, threw out an old man, to burn, because it was his generation that allowed industry to break the world… Fifty years later, the problems are more fundamental, and industrial bloody-mindedness and a lack of political will smacking of universal corruption continue to drive us toward catastrophe.
This came to shape my thinking about the next centuries, and what unfolded was a narrative line which always featured the climate crisis in the background, regardless of the foreground characters or events. The remainder of the 21st Century, in this timeline, features worsening climate effects until, about 80 years from now, the planet becomes untenable for higher life forms. I pray this will never happen—but it makes for a good story! The “Post-Habitable Earth” tales occupy the 22nd Century and follow a number of scientists in their efforts to address the crisis, working from a chain of space cities at the L5 position, built in the later part of the current century by industrialists seeking a lifeboat from their own mess.
A number of stories look at what life has become for those left behind in underground redoubts and habitat cities (for instance “Rats,” which appeared in Andromeda Spaceways #76, October, 2019), how some genetically engineered themselves to live in the new environment, while other pieces look at the great project to restore the old climate, to cool the planet and reseed life, rebuilding the ecosystem from the ground up. “Flight of the Storm God” looks at that reseeding enterprise, and appeared in the Flame Tree collection Endless Apocalypse (March, 2018), then subsequently on the Little Blue Marble website, and was featured in their 2021 annual print collection.
The initiative turns the clock back to a planet cool enough and with enough oxygen to support higher life by the last decades of the 22nd Century—maybe too compressed a timeline, I admit, but I didn’t want to be unpalatably pessimistic in how long I extended the planet’s agony. And, with resettlement and recreation of the world from its own ashes, as it were, the stage is set for the Middle Stars stories to follow on.
Stories in this arc have appeared in Ecotastrophe II, Little Blue Marble, Compelling Science Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways and others; one was a finalist in the 2021 Gravity Awards. I have several more to write, bringing the “Post-Habitable Earth” arc up to book length, which obviously invites a collection under one cover at some point.
In this way, viewed at a global level, a great many of my science fiction stories form a contiguous series from the present day to some five centuries in the future. Many years ago I had a vision of an artbook chronicling the history of the next thousand years, and while that project never developed, thematic material of the sort it might have contained certainly has evolved in literary form.
P.S.: Your story, “The Silent Agenda,” appears in the 20,000 Leagues Remembered anthology. To most people, a contract discussion about translating novels wouldn’t seem interesting enough to write about, yet you turned that into a dramatic story. What prompted that story?
M.A.: Back in the 1980s I came cross Walter James Miller’s 1976 fresh translation of 20,000 Leagues, but the volume was packed away and forgotten until comparatively recently. I studied with interest his extensive introductory essay, both on Verne’s life and his treatment at the hands of translators. In the jacket blurb he described Lewis Page Mercier’s 1871 translation as a “literary hatchet job.” The revelation that as much as 23% of the original French novel had been excised I found both outrageous (for obvious reasons) and intriguing, as it meant there was actually much more to be enjoyed than I’d ever read before!
Mercier removed maritime and scientific material, references to French scientists, and indeed scrambled some of Verne’s technical material, so that Verne was dismissed by later English-speaking critics as not in fact knowing his own subject, when the errors were entirely in translation. In 1874 the American translator Edward Roth made the same observations (while unfortunately also perpetuating the problem by taking the extreme liberty of adding scenes in his own versions of some works!) This is blatant enough, but given Mercier’s other cuts I found myself wondering, as Roth had, if Mercier was not deliberately undermining Verne’s credibility. Indeed, it’s contrary to the translator’s role as the invisible intermediary (Mercier is not usually even given a credit in standard English editions), and of a scope which to me suggests a specific policy direction which could only have come from the publisher.
The political motivations behind these cuts run rather deep—specific mention of Nemo’s revolutionary inclinations, for instance. We knew he supported anti-establishmental activities, even the Ward Lock 1964 illustrated children’s edition features Nemo delivering gold to fund such groups. I found it highly significant that Verne’s intentions were interfered with. The cuts largely muzzled his political statement, shifting emphasis firmly onto adventure at the expense of anything critical of the establishments of his day. This enabled the English-speaking world to assign Verne the status of a children’s writer, and thus more easily dismiss him, while in the Francophone world Verne was a respected literary giant taken seriously by all ages. This smacks of a very British kind of sour grapes, and that deserved to be explored in detail.
Drama proceeded from the very outrage of the notion that a best-seller could be eviscerated, turned into something quite different as it crossed the language barrier, to serve the political and social interests of another part of the world, while cashing in royally on its established success. Before reading Miller’s work I had no idea there was such a story behind the novel but when 20,000 Leagues Remembered came along it presented itself to me four-square and clamored to be written.
M.A.: “The Highest Loyalty” was a most interesting exercise as it explored a diversion from Nemo’s scientific cruising for reasons very much to do with the outside world. Verne tells us he supported those who fought to make a difference against corrupt establishments, and it struck me that a submarine would have made the perfect “underground railroad” for snatching souls from jeopardy during the American Civil War.
Given the chronology of events—that Nemo, Prince Dakkar of Bundelkund, was set upon his life’s course by the events of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and that he escaped with his followers to build the Nautilus in the years after, it follows that Nemo was free and at liberty beneath the sea during the war. Given his conflict with the Western colonial powers, and his commitment to taking no sides, it seems clear he would be a wholehearted supporter of the Abolitionist cause. If this was the case, the Nautilus probably carried many a party of escapees from the South to safety in Union territory, and I revisit this situation at a later date as Nemo comes to the rescue of an Abolitionist agent in jeopardy from the spate of reprisals following the conflict.
Nemo is a fabulously complex character, a man of admirable qualities yet who stands apart from civilization as we know it and will wage war if need be. This makes him eternally attractive to explore, and pastiches provide the opportunity to do so, remaining within Verne’s own timeline (troubled is it is with the Mysterious Island contradictions). Here I had the opportunity to demonstrate the strength of his convictions, that he would place his life on the line to serve a fellow freedom fighter. I have always believed that Nemo was more hero than villain, and exploring this in new prose is a delight.
I have other tales of Nemo and the Nautilus on paper and many more I would like to pursue, so am watching with keen interest for appropriate future calls for submission as might eventuate!
P.S.: What are your current works in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about them?
M.A.: I have a number of projects in hand at this point, each with an eye on a wider marketplace. Hiraeth Books have commissioned two, possibly three anthologies from me. One is a collection of my vampire short stories, the saga of changeling Lucinda Crane, a vampire whose allegiances still lie with the humans among whom she was born and on whose behalf she battles all manner of supernatural foes. I’ve written eight stories to date, the first of which appeared in an anthology from Spectral Visions Press (University of Sunderland) way back in 2014, one of those pioneering pieces that got me started on this course. Hiraeth have picked up others, as did Bards & Sages, for various volumes, and are collecting them all under one cover. This calls for a fresh polish of the whole saga.
Also forthcoming from Hiraeth will be one or possibly two fantasy volumes. “A Triptych of Swords” is my working title, being novella-length pieces in the historical fantasy vein, though with a venture into a full fantasy world as well. I have one piece left to finish for this one, and we’ll see how the project shakes down in the next year or so.
Also on the table is an urban fantasy novel, Venatrix, which mixes a climate-ravaged near future with an enclave of witches who fight catastrophe with chaos magic. Set in Venice and many other Italian beauty spots such as Tuscany, Genoa and Verona, it combines hard-hitting action with modern neopaganism in a blend which I’m hoping will be fresh and engaging. I have a few chapters to go, then will be looking for a small press to take it on.
Also on the horizon for this year will be to assemble that Sherlock Holmes anthology from my previously published material, which will be a most vicarious pleasure!
And lastly, I’m working on the textual material for a dedicated author website, which will feature essays, chronologies and purchase links for all my areas of creative work, with Sherlock Holmes and “Tales of the Middle Stars” in a fairly advanced state of writing.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Mike Adamson: The best advice I can offer to a writer hoping to break into the modern short story market, let alone novels, besides the persistence discussed above, is patience. Understandably, every writer hopes that things will gel in a year or two and he or she will start making some useful income from pro market: that a dozen placements, or two dozen, at the low end will bring you to the attention of the top. This might be the case if the writer is well-connected, schmoozes the book fairs, left university with a first class arts degree in writing, is a graduate of Clarion West or another recognized academy, but for most of us the reality will be a long, slow burn.
Assuming that the writer has wrestled down the particulars of the craft—can use the language effectively, distinguish between forms and styles and know which is appropriate for what market, has the services of a good beta reader or editor to provide a mirror to the writer’s own point of view—then patience is the best tool in the kit, along with self-confidence. Rejection is part of the landscape and learning to not take it personally is a major hurdle. Comparatively few rejections are a measure of the worth of the material: many are based on length or how closely your piece matches a theme, or even—and this is a bitter pill—how well a story a magazine is happy to take “fits” with all the other stories they would like to include in a particular issue. Or they might have accepted something similar recently, or it’s on a theme they’ve visited frequently before…
Taking all figures collectively, since the beginning of 2016 I’ve received over 2700 rejections, most of them of the form type. At all costs, one cannot afford to take it as rejection of oneself. The golden truth is that the very next editor might think differently, so rejection becomes acceptance. That’s the vindication of your work in every sense, and it does happen. Yes, the wider marketplace really is this subjective! Editors are human and they are independent of each other, running their own enterprises, each with his own her own literary agenda, which makes for the wide variety of styles and tastes of magazine out there. This also ties in with learning which markets are a match for the kind of thing you produce, and which never will be. Magazines have target audiences who expect a particular kind of material, and many markets may be plugged into particular niches, not genres per se, but orientations and outlooks, specific even to kinds of narratives or levels of surreality, and you need to be well clued-in to join those clubs. That comes under research your markets, of course, which is imperative.
Then there’s read till your cup runneth over. One should not write in a vacuum, one should know what one’s peers are writing, as well as have a good knowledge of the history of one’s field. And I’ve found, the more you pour in, the more likely it is to run out again, through a keyboard as fresh work—your own. This is not thieving ideas or narrative lines: I liken it more to putting fuel in your literary tank to run the engine of inspiration.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Mike. I think your answers revved up my engine of inspiration, and those of others as well.
Readers seeking more information about Mike Adamson can visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads. He’s been interviewed before, and you can read those here and here.
The anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne brought together authors of varied backgrounds and interests. Today I present an interview with Joel Allegretti, but—as you’ll find out—he writes in many formats beyond the short story form.
Joel Allegretti is the author of, most recently, Platypus (NYQ Books, 2017), a collection of poems, prose, and performance texts, and Our Dolphin (Thrice Publishing, 2016), a novella. His second book of poems, Father Silicon (The Poet’s Press, 2006), was selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006.
He is the editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). The Boston Globe called Rabbit Ears “cleverly edited” and “a smart exploration of the many, many meanings of TV.” Rain Taxi said, “With its diversity of content and poetic form, Rabbit Ears feels more rich and eclectic than any other poetry anthology on the market.”
Allegretti has published his poems in The New York Quarterly, Barrow Street, Smartish Pace, PANK, and many other national journals, as well as in journals published in Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and India.
His short stories have appeared in The MacGuffin, The Adroit Journal, and Pennsylvania Literary Journal, among others. His musical compositions have appeared in Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art and in anthologies from great weather for MEDIA and Thrice Publishing. His performance texts and theater pieces have been staged at La MaMa, Medicine Show Theatre, the Cornelia Street Café, and the Sidewalk Café, all in New York.
Allegretti is represented in more than thirty anthologies. He supplied the texts for three song cycles by the late Frank Ezra Levy, whose recorded work is available in the Naxos American Classics series.
Allegretti is a member of the Academy of American Poets and ASCAP.
Let’s get to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Joel Allegretti: When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I said to my father one day, “I want to write a book.” He thought it was a good idea.
I was a fan of Greek and Roman mythology in my younger years. I wrote a little story called “The Flaming Sword.” I think it took place in Roman times. It was about a soldier who had a sword encased in fire, but that’s all I remember. I cut up pieces of paper, stapled them into a booklet, and wrote and illustrated my story.
I wonder if I created an ancient-world prototype of the Jedi lightsaber.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.A.: My earliest influences were Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe. Then came Ray Bradbury, Leonard Cohen, Gabriel García Márquez, and Jorge Luis Borges. A big influence on my short stories isn’t a literary figure, though, but a TV series: The Twilight Zone, the original series hosted by Rod Serling, whom I still admire. I like to conclude a short story with a surprise ending. The Twilight Zone is all about surprise endings.
A few favorite books are Selected Poems: 1956 – 1968 by Leonard Cohen; One Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez; The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux; Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams; The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, edited by Hayden Curruth;and Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, translated by Bernard Frechtman. I find myself re-reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells every few years. Ditto Jean Genet in Tangier by Mohamed Choukri, translated by Paul Bowles.
One Hundred Years of Solitude had a monumental impact on my reading tastes for a few years. It opened me up not only to the author’s others works, but to the rich world of Latin American literature as a whole. Unfortunately, I don’t know Spanish or, in the case of Brazilian writers, Portuguese, so I had to read the books in English translation.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac affected me when I read it at nineteen. The closing paragraph influenced the last stanza of a poem I published five years ago, “The Day after the Night John Lennon Died.”
I was captivated by Jack London’s Martin Eden when I read it in the ‘80s and dove into other London works, both famous ones, like The Call of the Wild, and lesser-known ones, like Before Adam. In 1990 I traveled to San Francisco for work and made a special trip to Jack London’s Wolf House in Glen Ellen.
It was also in the ‘80s that I discovered Graham Greene and W. Somerset Maugham and read book after book after book by both writers. I go back to Maugham’s short story “Faith” from time to time.
P.S.: You’ve written poems, short stories, a novella, theater works, and musical compositions. Is there anything you can’t write?
J.A.: I think the full-length novel is beyond my natural abilities. My novella, Our Dolphin(Thrice Publishing, 2016), runs 19,000 words. It ran 46,000 words before I took an editorial flail to it. “This can go. This can go. This adds nothing.” Now, 46,000 words is a substantial word count for me, but it’s too short for the novel market, which generally requires a minimum word count of 65,000.
I remember talking on the phone with a late poet friend over a dozen years ago. She told me she was writing a prose book and had written 800 pages. I said, “I wouldn’t know how to fill 800 pages.”
P.S.: You’ve stated that your novella, Our Dolphin, is an example of magic realism. What drew you to that style, and in what ways does your novella exemplify it?
J.A.: Magic realism influenced Our Dolphin. I wouldn’t have conceived it had I not read Latin American writers, but I can’t say it is magic realism.
The first part of the book takes place in a little Italian fishing village. The main character, Emilio Giovanni Canto, is the deformed adolescent son of a fisherman. One night he hears commotion coming from the beach and goes out to investigate. He discovers a small dolphin stranded on the shore. Emilio helps the creature back in the water. Emilio later meets it again and discovers it has the power of human speech, but only he can hear it.
Certain phrases in that part of the book, like “a gull of mythological proportions” and “the face that brought her infinite despair,” show the influence of García Márquez, or of García Márquez as translated into English by Gregory Rabassa (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, et al.) and Edith Grossman (Love in the Time of Cholera).
Other literary influences are at play in Our Dolphin. The main character, Emilio, was inspired by my favorite literary character, Erik, whom everybody knows as the Phantom of the Opera.
The second part of the book takes place in Tangier. The scenes were influenced by the writings of Paul Bowles and William S. Burroughs, who’s my favorite Beat writer. In fact, one of the characters in Our Dolphin, a man known only as Moore (not his real name), is based on Burroughs. I took a day trip to the city in 1990 and drew on my memories when I was writing that section of the novella, but ultimately, the Tangier of Our Dolphin is a Tangier of my imagination.
P.S.: Though you’ve written many forms of poetry and prose, is there one or more common attributes that tie your written works together (genre, character types, settings, themes)?
J.A.: I like to investigate the ordinary in the out of the ordinary and the out of the ordinary in the ordinary.
P.S.: Your book Platypus (NYQ Books, 2017) contains poems, short stories, Fluxus-inspired instruction pieces, and text art. Does it defy categorization as much as a platypus does, or is there some common theme tying the parts together?
J.A.: Platypus has thematic sections, but as you point out, the book contains a little bit of everything, so I named it after an animal that has a little bit of everything.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
J.A.: The easiest aspect? Coming up with an idea. Ideas pop into my head all the time. though I don’t follow through on all of them. I’m always jotting down ideas and potential titles, as I guess most writers do. This goes for both prose and poetry, my primary genre.
The most difficult aspects? Bringing an idea to fruition and getting the work right. Here’s an example. I spent several hours a day for six days in a row revising a 5,200-word short story that had gone through multiple iterations and larger word counts. I wound up cutting it down to 4,700-plus words. Every time I thought I was done, I found something else I wanted to change. My instincts with respect to this particular story worked out in my favor. I submitted it to a magazine one morning and received an acceptance that evening. How often does that happen?
P.S.: The anthology you edited, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems(NYQ Books. 2015), includes a large number of poetic tributes to television. What or who inspired this idea, and would the book induce a reader to watch more TV, or turn it off forever?
J.A.: This is where my professional background comes in. I spent my career in the business world, specifically, in public relations. My last position before retirement was Director – Media Relations for a national not-for-profit financial-services organization. I prepared the CEO, the vice presidents, and other spokespeople for press interviews. I dealt with 60 Minutes, Nightly Business Report, and producers at local TV stations around the country. I was inside TV studios. I was well aware of television’s power.
Without that experience, I doubt an anthology of TV poetry would have occurred to me.
In 2012 I was reading Dear Prudence, the selected poems of David Trinidad. One of the poems is “The Ten Best Episodes of The Patty Duke Show.” My favorite sit-com from that time period is The Dick Van Dyke Show. I wrote a poem called “The Dick Van Dyke Show: The Unaired Episodes.” Here’s an excerpt: “1966. Sally’s boyfriend, Herman Glimscher, confesses to everyone that he and his mother are really husband and wife.”
A couple of months later I wrote a poem about Bob Crane, he of Hogan’s Heroes and seedy extracurricular activities. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t seen an anthology of poetry about a medium that had influenced our language, politics, and lifestyles.
Rabbit Ears is a celebration of TV. The 130 contributors reveal an abiding interest in and affection for the subjects they cover, from Rod Serling to Gilligan’s Island to the Emergency Broadcast System to the Miss America pageant to American Idol to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc., etc., etc.
Incidentally, Rabbit Ears serves a charitable function. All contributor royalties earned on sales go to City Harvest, a New York food-rescue organization.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction distinctive, different from that of other authors?
J.A.: I have to be careful how I answer this question lest I come across as unconvincingly humble or as somebody with an ego the size of Brooklyn. I’ll say my fiction is different from other authors’ fiction because I’m the one who writes it.
P.S.: I think every Jules Verne fan would love to attend the carnival you describe in “Gabriel at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show,” your story in Extraordinary Visions. Where did you get the idea for that story?
J.A.: I certainly would enjoy a night at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show.
When I saw the call for submissions on the North American Jules Verne Society website, I got excited, since I grew up reading Verne and watching films like Journey to the Center of the Earth, with James Mason and Pat Boone, on TV. I made it my personal mission to write a short story to submit.
The inspiration for “Gabriel at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show” was Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I read when I was thirteen and again maybe fifteen years later. It’s about a demonic carnival that sets up shop in a small Illinois town. It gave me the idea for a World’s Fair-type of show featuring amazing Verne vehicles like the Nautilus, Robur the Conqueror’s Albatross, and the mechanical elephant in The Steam House.
I consider my status as a contributor to Extraordinary Visions to be an important accomplishment. I see myself as having come full circle.
P.S.: Since both the “Gabriel” story and Our Dolphin feature young boys, could you compare and contrast Gabriel Henderson and Emilio Canto, the respective protagonists?
J.A.: There’s some of me in Gabriel Henderson. I drew on my boyhood memories of reading Verne to create him. There’s a scene in which Gabriel goes to his local library to find books by Verne. Whenever I went to a library, I walked straight to the V section in Fiction. Gabriel, by the way, is my Confirmation name. It was also Verne’s middle name, but I didn’t know that when I chose it. I took the name of an Italian saint, St. Gabriel Possenti.
Emilio Canto, a deformed boy, is another matter entirely. The inspiration for him was purely literary: the Phantom of the Opera.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
J.A.: I’m working on placing a short (41,100+ words) novel, Vera Peru, Euro-Siren of the ‘60s, a blend of pulp fiction and imaginary music biography. The inspiration for the title character was the Velvet Underground’s Nico, who has fascinated me for decades.
The novel opens in 1984 in New York’s East Village. A dissipated wreck of a middle-aged junkie from Alphabet City is arrested for shooting up her grandson with heroin. She gives Detective Dominic Andante her vital information: name, age, address, nationality (French). She says at one point, “It’s obvious you don’t know who I am. I’m Vera Peru. I’m an international celebrity.” She mentions being late for a recording session and having to face her producer’s wrath. Andante thinks she’s drug-crazy. He starts investigating and discovers she was telling the truth; she was an important person in France and England in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
For Detective Andante, Vera Peru’s offense isn’t just another heinous crime. It has a parallel to a decade-old tragedy in his personal life. As a result, he becomes obsessed with Peru and determined to learn what could have motivated this once-glamorous woman, who had achieved European stardom, to descend into narcotic degradation and commit such an unspeakable act on her own blood. But there’s more at play than even he, an experienced New York police detective, expected. As I write in the final chapter, “He hadn’t seen this.”
Vera Peru, Euro-Siren of the ‘60s comprises alternating chapters that cover Andante’s investigation and the title character’s life and career, from modeling in Paris to stardom in French cinema to hit singles in England to a disappointing entry into the American market and, finally, to her fall. There are cameo appearances by George Harrison, Allen Ginsberg, David Bowie, the Ramones, and Jean Genet.
As coincidence would have it, Jules Verne makes an appearance. During her acting career, Vera Peru works with a Greek-French director, who considers making a film of Verne’s novel about the Greek War of Independence, The Archipelago on Fire.
In addition, I completed a new poetry manuscript, Concrete Gehenna. The 60 poems cover a wide range of subjects, including classical, rock, and avant-garde music; film; the visual arts; New York City; members of the Warhol Factory; mortality; and religion.
The influences, likewise, are varied. Individual poems were inspired by, among others, Asian and Native-American forms, Edgar Allan Poe, Wallace Stevens, Weldon Kees, Frank O’Hara, Anne Carson, and Yoko Ono’s Fluxus-era instruction pieces.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Joel Allegretti: Regard yourself as your primary competition. Look at what you’re writing now and compare it to what you’ve written. Are you writing the same work over and over? Are you absorbing new influences? Are you stretching yourself?
Moreover, I advise that you put effort into developing your own voice.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Joel. You caused me to look up ‘Fluxus.’ Best of luck with the novel!
Many author interviews have appeared here, but until now I’ve never interviewed a playwright. Today’s interviewee writes both stories and plays. One of his stories appears in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
David A. Natale has written since he was a kid in Cleveland.
He received his BA in Theatre Studies from Yale and an MFA in acting from the University of San Diego and the Old Globe Theatre. David then spent eight years in New York before moving west.
Most of Natale’s career has been as a performer and playwright. His one man show, “The Westerbork Serenade,” tells the true story of Jewish actors in a Nazi transit camp in Holland during WWII. It won a Seattle Times Footlight Award in 2007 and toured the Netherlands in 2010.
His latest play, “Around The World in Less than 80 Days,” which follows reporter Nellie Bly’s 1889 global race, was produced at Key City Public Theatre in 2022.
After years of struggle in performing arts, Natale makes the transition to the literary milieu. He has been published in Italian Americana, Cultural and Historical Review. And his short story, “Nellie and Jules Go Boating,” appeared this year in the North American Jules Verne Society’s latest anthology, Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
He also seeks a publisher for his supernatural mystery thriller about a pizza driver: Pizza Stories: Deliveries from Beyond.
David lives in Seattle with his wife, step-son and dog. He works as an actor, stage-hand and pizza man.
Now, on with the show…er, interview.
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
David A. Natale: There were a number of writers in my family: My dad was a newspaper reporter for more than 50 years. My mom also started out as a reporter before becoming a public defender. I had a great aunt who was an author and reporter with her husband in England. I remember looking at the row of their novels on a shelf.
But mostly, growing up I remember my dad telling us stories about his childhood in the Old Neighborhood, a working-class Italian enclave on the West Side of Cleveland. He had a whole colorful cast of characters.
My mom would read us things like Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Once, when I was scared of thunder, she said it was just the elves bowling in the clouds. I believed her. Telling stories was always a thing in my family.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books and plays?
D.A.N.: The first books I read included, Wind in the Willows and Huckleberry Finn. I was also really into Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and that wave of fantasy writers along with classic Sci-fi masters like Asimov and Bradbury. I also read my mom’s old Fantasy and Science Fiction magazines from the 50’s and comics I found in my grandparent’s basement, like The Witching Hour and Dr. Graves. More contemporary influences include Carlos Ruiz Zafòn, Leigh Bardugo, Helene Wecker and Emily St. John Mandel. I also like Michael Connelly and John Le Carré. And Dashiell Hammett is so great, though I fear for everyone’s liver. As for plays and playwrights, Anton Chekhov gets my thumbs up. His short stories are even better. Right now I’m reading Salman Rushdie’s, Victory City. Three books that have had big influences on me are: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
P.S.: Your bio mentions living in Ohio, California, New York, Washington State, and travel to the Netherlands. Have the experiences of living in all these various places influenced your writing?
D.A.N.: Even if it’s in the future or some magical reality, I usually end up placing my stories in a place that is much like where I’ve been. The settings are a lot like Seattle or Cleveland, NYC or some lonely highway out West.
P.S.: You’ve written and performed a one-man show. What was that experience like? In writing the script and performing the play, how do you sustain audience interest with just one character?
D.A.N.: Well actually, in my one-man show, there are something like fifteen characters. That definitely keeps the audience engaged. In college, I saw the Italian playwright and performer, Dario Fo. He was a master at performing solo multi-character scenes. His lazzi, “The Raising of Lazarus,” includes half the city of Jerusalem! My director and mentor, Gin Hammond, is also amazing at this. Through simple shift of focus, body and voice, it is possible to create the impression of any size crowd and any situation as well as dialogue between two or more characters. Something about, “less is more,” allows the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imaginations which can be most effective and moving. If one person is playing the Jew and the Nazi, we are forced to see the full spectrum human behavior that is within us all.
P.S.: Your crime story, “How Marco Got the Business” got published in the journal Italian Americana, Cultural and Historical Review. Tell us about that story.
D.A.N.: It’s a story about a guy from a poor immigrant family trying to bust into bootlegging during the 20’s. I wanted to attempt a noir homage to the Old Neighborhood stories I heard from my dad and uncle.
P.S.: Congratulations on the performance of the play you wrote, “Around the World in Less Than Eighty Days.” You acted in the play as well. Please tell us about the play and what it felt like to have your script accepted and staged.
D.A.N.: Denise Winter, the artistic director at Key City Public Theatre, was going to do a production of Around the World in 80 Days. I told her I wasn’t thrilled with the script which seemed old-fashioned and not very PC. Me and my big mouth! She challenged me to make a better script. Because of COVID, we had almost two years to develop it.
Around the World in Less than 80 Days ended up being a mash-up of Verne’s story and the true historical 1889 global race between reporters Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland. In addition to Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, there were the characters of Bly, Bisland, Joseph Pulitzer, Jules Verne himself and more than 30 others; all portrayed by 5 actors.
It was a real thrill to have my play performed. I will say, though, that even though I know what a good play looks like, I find it really hard to make one good. But having the chance to hear, and say the lines one writes is a great way to find out if they work.
P.S.: Your story, “Nellie and Jules Go Boating,” appears in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. How would you compare and contrast that short story and your previously-written “Less Than Eighty Days” play?
D.A.N.: The story expands on one scene in the play where Nellie Bly meets Jules Verne. It has a shared dream sequence where Bly and Verne fight a giant cephalopod.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
D.A.N.: Often, the hardest thing for me is just starting. I get the most chores and errands done whenever I have writing to start. I guess the easiest is when I have a general idea where a story is heading and I can just step aside and let the characters do their thing. It is a real thrill when a character does something you didn’t expect them to do and the story goes a whole new direction.
P.S.: Much of your career consisted of playwriting and acting. Only recently have you turned to short stories and novels (though you’re still writing plays). What was the transition like for you?
D.A.N.: A play is a collaboration. It engages artistry from many fields. So, a playwright can, and should, leave a lot open for interpretation. All you have to do is set the scene and let the designer and director figure out how to make it happen. Say who the characters are and let the costumers dress them. Write a line of dialogue and let the actor figure out how to say it. In a short story or novel, the author has to do it all! And they are expected to do it with some style. I guess I’m more familiar with the theatrical medium, but like I said, it can still be a challenge. To bring up Chekhov again; it’s interesting to compare his short stories and plays. In his play, a character says, “I am the Seagull,” and it’s up to the poor actor to figure out what the heck they are talking about. While in his stories, Chekhov will use great care and detail to explain what a character thinks.
P.S.: Your plays and stories span a wide range of genres, character types, and settings. Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together in some way, or would you describe yourself as eclectic?
D.A.N.: As a reader and audience member, I enjoy a wide range of genres. So, I try to write the things I might like to read or see. I even considered taking a crack at a romance. I’m romantic but I’m not really a fan of the genre—unless there are ghosts or something. I’m for the underdog, so, in my stories, usually the protagonist is one.
P.S.: I understand you’ve been commissioned to write another play script, but it involves two subjects that seem completely disconnected. Tell us about this play and (if possible) explain how the topics are related.
D.A.N.: Key City Public Theatre is in Port Townsend Washington, a quaint Victorian sea town. They want a new holiday show that speaks to that audience’s interests. Hence, why not a story that combines a sailboat race with a gingerbread-house building contest? Well, it’s a commission, so I say—why not?
P.S.: Is it true you’re working on some fiction in the solar punk vein? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
D.A.N.: The story is for a contest that asks writers to imagine our world up to 180 years from now. It is supposed to explore a just and positive climate future. With all the climate doom and gloom, I wanted to face the challenge. It was a real mind opening experience. Once I started to think about what the world could be like if we just stopped being f#@k*ng stupid, I was amazed at how the ideas started to flow. That is the whole point of Solar Punk, as far as I understand it. If we can imagine a just future, we can make it happen. I mean, we are already living in a dystopian future. Or are we?
In my tale it’s 180 years from now. Earth is one World Commonwealth. Technological discoveries of fusion as well as advancements in robotics and, of course, A.I. have allowed humanity to prosper. But in order to qualify for funds, one has to take The Treatment: a psychoactive trip that forces one to grapple with one’s personal and historic climate crimes. Heck, I even put romance in the story. Check my website for updates…
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers of plays, short stories, and novels?
David A. Natale: I would just say: Do it for yourself. If someone sees your work and is moved, that’s terrific. But if you enjoy writing, that is all that matters. Writing can be a real remedy for boredom, depression or despair and a real path to inspiration, happiness and hope—I mean for you personally.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, David. That’s great guidance for writers of both stories and plays.
Readers seeking more information about David A. Natale can visit his website. Information about his play “The Westerbork Serenade” appears here. An article about his play “Around the World in Less than 80 Days” appears here.
