Thursday, September 29, 2011

Author Insides - Matthew James Babcock

Matthew James Babcock lives in Rexburg, Idaho with his wife and five children. He holds a PhD in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In 2008, he received the Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Poetry Award. His book Private Fire: The Ecopoetry and Prose of Robert Francis is available from the University of Delaware Press. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in various print and online journals, including Spoon River Poetry Review, Bateau, Alehouse and The Rejected Quarterly.

Matthew's short story, "We Value Your Feedback," appeared in the Autumn 2010 issue of The Battered Suitcase.
Matt, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Second grade. Mrs. Miller’s class at Jefferson Elementary. For creative writing, we used to write on these monstrous folio-sized sheets of newspaper-grade paper, the kind in which your pencil eraser would bore holes if you pushed too hard. It was something about the paper, I think. So sprawling, so grand. The way the Spinnaker-sized sheets would spill over the sides of your desk, the dotted highways running east and west to channel your slapdash upper-case and lower-case cursive. The endeavor of writing seemed so epic, so all-encompassing. I was hooked.

Why do you write?
I can’t help it. But I also teach writing, so I feel I should do it to validate my license. I’d still write if I didn’t teach, though, somehow. Technically, I’m an academic, but I think I’ve just grown curious over the years, having studied literature for so long. A few years back I read Toni Morrison’s “Playing in the Dark,” and I found that I identified with her autobiographical passages about becoming a “writer reading.”

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?
No. Harder. More discouraging. More difficult. Far less romantic. But far more satisfying. It’s tough when you realize how many other writers are competing with you, especially when you read their books and see they’re light years beyond you and half your age. But nothing else I’ve done provides a greater sense of holistic completeness than having something printed in even the most obscure journal. Somehow, the role of the obscure writers suits me.

What do you think makes a good story?
Details. A vivid dreamscape. Complicated situations that don’t turn out the way you think they will. I have to laugh and cry multiple times in the same story, or else it falls flat with me. If I do only one or the other, I put it down. Pacing, too. It’s got to clip along. Also, the language can’t be ordinary.

What's your favorite genre to read?
Anything and everything. I like a good book of contemporary poetry. I like a good novel, a collection of short stories. I read children’s books to my kids all the time. I’ve read young adult novels with my kids, too. I like to read plays, non-fiction. This is mostly due to my eclectic appetite and academic profession, which are always spilling over into my personal writing.

Who is your favorite author or poet?
Anthony Doerr! Followed by Karl Iagnemma and Bret Anthony Johnston. Tony Hoagland is the great American poet.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?
Hard to say. I’m sure they all have. I went on an extended, breathless John Cheever binge in college. I still think Cheever is the great American short story writer. Not sure what everyone’s fascination with Updike is. Then, there was Tim O’Brien. “Going After Cacciato” (also in college) left me amazed, unmoored, changed forever. Virginia Woolf, too. “To the Lighthouse” rocked my cradle. I think it was in college that I saw how high the bar had been raised, and sometimes how far it had been moved right or left, sometimes removed completely. I’m still seeing that with some of my current favorites.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
Going back, Taro Yashima’s “Crow Boy.” It still tough for me to read. Also, Katherine Paterson: “Bridge to Terabithia” and “The Great Gilly Hopkins.” I think I actually cried at school after reading these books, and everyone kept asking me what was wrong. Later, Thomas Rockwell’s “The Portmanteau Book” saved my life in 7th grade. Steinbeck saved 9th grade. After that, it was like standing in a huge wind tunnel of geniuses, trying to hold on.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
Reading. Invariably, I’ll read something, and it will trigger an idea, title, paragraph, line.

What does your family think of your writing?
Don’t know. I don’t think they’ve ever said anything about it. My wife has laughed at a few essays and poems of mine. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. To my knowledge, she’s never fallen asleep while reading something I’ve written . . . My kids think my children’s books are funny—they just don’t like the fact that I’m not an artist and therefore can’t provide pictures to go with the funny stories.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
No schedule. I cram it in when I can.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
Carry my bag. Always, everywhere I go. Inside: something to read, something to write. That way, whenever I find a fifteen-minute lull in a trip to the grocery store or a diaper-changing melee, I can sneak in a line or two.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Time. It doesn’t exist.

What are your current projects?
A screenplay. A series of children’s books. Five unfinished novellas. One unpublished novel, and another just started. Poems, essays, articles. A big morass of scraps and language heaped on my office floor. My hope is that something will grow from it.

What are you planning for future projects?
Same as “current.”

Do you have any advice for other writers?
I have a hard enough time following my own. I think it’s a fabulous thing to do, though, in the age of information. More so now than ever, in my opinion, writers are trying to save a generation of humans being savaged by a vampire network of mindless culture and media.

Where can we find your work?
In my office, in a big heap on the floor. Um, just search online, I guess. Wild Child published some of my fiction. Press 53 (North Carolina) chose my novella as a winner and put it in their latest anthology. Mostly online and print journals. Still chippin’ away . . .

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Author Insides - Dan Lundin

Dan Lundin's work appeared in the Spring 2011 issue of The Battered Suitcase.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Signing yearbooks in junior high school. Seriously. Kids I had never really talked to before were handing me their books and asking me to sign them because they had seen what I had written in someone else’s yearbook and thought it was funny/different. Up until that moment, I had never thought of myself as creative in that way. I suppose I assumed everyone could write like I did.


Why do you write?
I like to make things: art, furniture, bread. Writing feeds that desire and well. It challenges me as much as anything else in my creative life.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?
Too early to tell.

What do you think makes a good story?
One that trusts its audience.

What's your favorite genre to read?
I am open to anything that tries hard yet reads as effortless.

Who is your favorite author or poet?
Martin Amis


What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?
Quite a few. Along with many of the works of Amis, I’ll note three: Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Nabokov’s Lolita and Greene’s The End of the Affair

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Solzhenitsyn’s One Day… and, most recently, Franzen’s Freedom

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
Three steps out the door or three inches into my own flesh; out the door is most times easier.

What does your family think of your writing?
They are tirelessly enthusiastic.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
No schedule. I will write at anytime, anyplace, on anything, and by anything I mean physically anything I can get my mitts on: receipt, gum wrapper, paper airplane. I’ll even send myself texts if I’m in a bind.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
Finding a quiet place and reading my work out loud.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Editing. It can be hard to throw things out.

What are your current projects?
More short stories.

What are you planning for future projects?
One long novel.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Write it down. Find the theme. Exploit it.

Where can we find your work?
You can follow me on my blog: http://www.gonelumberjacking.blogspot.com/

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Author Insides - N. God Savage

N. God Savage was born in Northern Ireland and still hasn't managed to escape. He has written fiction for over ten years, but only recently entertained the idea that other people might want to read it. His writing has appeared in print and online at places like The Catalonian Review and Word Riot. He currently lives in Belfast with his wife and spends his days writing up his PhD dissertation in philosophy.

His short story "The Ghost of The Holy Lands" appeared in the Autumn 2010 issue of The Battered Suitcase

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

It happened gradually. I have dabbled since I was at school, but I would say I seriously committed to writing fiction in my early twenties.

Why do you write?
Now, I write because I have been at it for so long that I couldn't not write. It is built into my life. It's an essential part of the way I understand the world around me.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?
At the start, yes, because I wasn't doing it properly – I worked haphazardly and was more focused on the act of writing than the end result. Now I take a more methodical approach, and I'm constantly surprised by how much hard work is actually involved.

What do you think makes a good story?
I think it is about the balance of form and content. It must be well-crafted, of course, but there must be some passion or excitement to give meat to the bones of the craft.

What's your favorite genre to read?
Anything that is as much about the language as it is about the other stuff – plot, characters, ideas and so on. I suppose that is "literary fiction."

Who is your favorite author or poet?
It is forever changing. At the moment I am very much into John Banville and Nabokov.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a writer?
I suppose it is the writers I read during the time I most developed as a writer: Haruki Murakami, Bret Easton Ellis and Kurt Vonnegut. That's not to say I write like them, or even that I enjoy them as much as I used to. But they are the background to my writing, I think. Specific books that stand out in my mind: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Murakami) The Rules of Attraction (Ellis). I have studied philosophy for the past eight years, and it also strongly influences my work.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
The Proud Highway, which is the first volume of Hunter S. Thompson's collected letters. It is a lesson in determination and defiance.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
I am often inspired by ideas. Recently, a lot of my writing is a reaction to what philosophers call physicalism – the claim that everything, including the mind, can be completely explained in terms of physical things.

What does your family think of your writing?
My wife is incredibly supportive and constantly – yet constructively – critical. The rest of my family are not really interested, nor am I interested in their interest. I think they just don't get it, which is fine.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
At the moment I'm writing up my PhD, so I spend half the day on that and the other half writing fiction. Fiction usually takes up the morning, and I try to start as early as I can. The sad part of the day comes when I have to set the fiction aside.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
Not really. I just sit down, without fuss, and get on with it.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
The single greatest challenge is that of constant rejection. It's not that I would ever give up – it's just a very long slog.

What are your current projects?
I have almost completed a novel. I've been working on it on and off for years now, and am pushing hard to get it finished. When I'm happy with it I'll send it off to agents, and brace myself for another round of rejections.

What are you planning for future projects?
An idea for another novel is simmering, but I'm trying to keep it off the boil until I finish the first one.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Don't be afraid to write badly. You can always delete it later.

Where can we find your work?
At my blog, ( http://www.ngodsavage.com/ ) where there are also drawings and ramblings and other miscellany.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Author Insides - Robin Merrill

Robin Merrill is a freelance writer, performance poet and editor hailing from Maine. Her work has appeared in hundreds of publications in print and online and has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. She has an MFA from Stonecoast and a bachelor's of science degree from Maine Maritime Academy. Her piece, "Happy Twenty-Ten," appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of The Battered Suitcase.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

When I was in the third grade, I handwrote a thirty-something page story about meeting Amy Grant. Drove my teacher nuts.

Why do you write?
I stole this from Lucille Clifton, but it’s true: I can’t not write.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?
I think so. Or maybe I don’t remember what I imagined it would be like. Or maybe I’m still imagining.

What do you think makes a good story?
Characters I can fall in love with. And I like to laugh. And I like to cry too.

What's your favorite genre to read?
Memoir. But I really love to read everything.

Who is your favorite author or poet?
My favorite author is probably Richard Adams. My favorite poet is probably Robert Cording. But I also love love love Tim O’Brien, Brian Turner, Garrison Keillor, Mark Doty, David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Lucille Clifton, Betsy Sholl, C.S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King when he’s not being too disgusting, and Garret Keizer.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, poetry by Ann Sexton, poetry by Emily Dickenson.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
“Love (3)” by George Herbert. I know it’s almost cliché to say, but I am certainly influenced by the Bible.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt inspired. Usually I’m trying to fall asleep and can’t and I’ll think of something I should write down. I am always inspired by nature, but I also always fail to write about it well, so no one ever sees the products of those inspirations.

What does your family think of your writing?
Oh wow, you’re going to publish this on the World Wide Web, right? Then I should probably just plead The Fifth. Let’s just say they’re not thrilled.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
I write all the time. Constantly. In between dodging flying sippy cups and cleaning up puppy pee. I am most productive at night, and Saturdays are all mine baby!

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
I don’t think so. I like to eat m&m’s. Oh wait, I have one better than that. Yes, I like to smell lemongrass essential oil while I write. I have no idea why. It makes me smarter, I think.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Yes. Getting published. Also, I am horrifically honest in my writing. I am a flawed and tragic person, and that comes through in my writing and I am often told (particularly in memoir) that my protagonist isn’t likable. I’m like, “of course not, she’s human.” So I guess I find it difficult to make my characters real people and also make them likable.

What are your current projects?
I am working on a novel, and I write lots and lots of articles and blogs for other people. I write a lot about hotels in Marquette, Michigan. I’m also a regular contributor to everydog Magazine. I’m also an editor for Nations Magazine.

What are you planning for future projects?
I don’t really have a plan.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
I am not qualified to give advice to anyone. But if I could advise myself ten years ago, I would tell her to stop trying to impress everyone, because everyone is too busy trying to impress everyone else to worry about whether or not they are impressed by her.

Where can we find your work?
Well I am an Internet junkie, so I would love it if people would visit me on Facebook, Twitter, and at my website http://www.robinmerrill.com/. I also have a mommy blog. I also love Tumblr.


Friday, September 2, 2011

End of Summer Sale at Vagabondage Press!


Stock up now with our Labor Day eBook sale starting Sep 2 through Sep 5. Get ready for fall and cozy up with one of our quirky, fun and funny digitals. Just in time for early nights indoors.

All eBooks on sale for .99! 

Buy at sale price right now from our website: http://www.vagabondagepress.com/bookstore.html

Also on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
(sale price may not be available immediately)

Print Copies will also be on sale over the weekend. Check back for details.