Hi Shawn! It is a pleasure to have you
as a sort of guest on Reader, Writer, Critic to talk a little bit about your
writing career, publishing experience, and your new book Brand-Changing Day. Thank you for taking the time to do this! Now
let’s get this party started!
First off, tell us a bit about
yourself and your new book!
I was born in San Diego but grew up in
Youngstown, Ohio. I studied journalism at Youngstown State University, and
while I loved (and still love) journalism, I realized that I would rather write
fiction.
Brand-Changing
Day is
my second book but my first novel. It’s literary satire about the world of
casual American chain restaurants.
How and why did you start writing?
I started writing short stories and
things like that when I was pretty young, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but of
course I wasn’t very good. In high school I became interested in journalism,
winning a few awards both as a writer for and then editor of my school paper.
Where did the idea for your book come
from?
I worked in restaurants (as I think a
lot of people do) a lot. When I was sixteen I got my first job at a Bob Evans,
and in the years after that I worked for three other different restaurant
chains. But the entire time, I hated the experience. I hated the policies,
mentality, and what chain restaurants typically stand for. So when I wrote my
first novel, it seemed natural that it would take place in and be about
restaurants, exploring what makes them, and the people who work in them, tick.
Are there any parallels between Brand-Changing Day and its characters’
lives and your life? What are they?
Several. As I said, the book takes place
in a restaurant, and I worked in restaurants for years. But the book also takes
place in Youngstown, Ohio, where I group (and which is a city a love).
Additionally, the main character spends some time living in Pittsburgh, PA,
which I did as well.
Are any of your characters the types
of people you would be friends with in your life? What characters and why or
why not?
Some of them are, yes. Some of the
characters—for example, Lori, Kara, and Mike the Bartender—are wonderful
people. Other characters, on the other hand—like Geoff McCree, R.J. Fredickson,
and of course, the black bear—aren’t very good people at all, or at the very
least, they’re complacent people, content to live very boring, menial
existences, and that doesn’t appeal to me in a friend.
And then there’s the main character,
Scott, who I also probably wouldn’t be friends with, which is problematic
because he’s a lot like me.
What was your publishing experience
like working with an indie publisher?
It was wonderful. There are some amazing
things happening in the indie publishing world, and Asymmetrical Press is doing
a great job of taking advantage of them.
The best part of indie publishing is
having a significant amount of control over the process: I got to work directly
with editors, approve layout and covers, and things like that.
What was the biggest challenge you
faced when writing and/or publishing Brand-Changing
Day and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge was releasing the
book into the world. I have a very conservative family, but Brand-Changing Day is far from a
conservative book—it has a lot of controversial, subversive elements, and I new
my family wasn’t going to be happy that I’d written something like that. And
they weren’t. But I had to release the book anyway.
What was your favorite part of the
writing and publishing process?
My favorite part is creating. Creating a
world, a sandbox, and then creating characters to play in that sandbox. It’s
exhilarating when it all comes together.
Do you have any special playlists,
writing habits or rituals” ect.? What are they?
I’d like to say that I do, but not
really. When I wrote Brand-Changing Day,
I went through periods of time where I was writing every single morning, but
then there were other periods where I was writing every single evening instead.
And then there were periods were I would go a few weeks having written barley a
thing.
Even now, as I work on new projects, my
processes are different. If I had to pick out any sort of pattern, I’d say that
silence is important to my process. I have to be alone when I’m writing, with
no music or background noise of any kind, which I think is why I like early
morning or late evening the best most of the time.
It was been lovely having you and thank
you again for your time!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 |
| Brand-Changing Day |
You can buy brand changing day through Liberty Bay Books by clicking the hyper-linked title under the cover and remember to add it on Goodreads!
No comments:
Post a Comment