June 2009

No need for introductions; the interview speaks for itself. Enjoy! Thank you for doing this interview with me. First, tell us a bit about yourself. What got you into writing and podcasting, etc.? A brief bio if you will. Thanks for having me! What got me into writing and podcasting are two different things, but I suppose they have common roots. For as long as I can remember, I have needed to tell stories. The telling can take different forms, from being a child and making up complicated, multi-day adventures acted out between dozens of toy soldiers, dinosaurs and other action figures to writing and performing songs and, of course, writingfiction. I wrote because I read. The earliest things I remember reading are Ray Bradbury’s short stories and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels…and comics. Which is kinda of interesting, because Bradbury’s early influences are Edgar Rice Burroughs and newspaper comic strip serials. Might be why I’ve called Bradbury my “story father.” As far as podcasting goes… I’ve been a DIY (do it yourself) kind of guy since the mid-eighties, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, playing in punk bands. The basic premise of the DIY ethic is this: if you want to make something, make it. If you want to show it to people, put it out there. Don’t wait for someone else to offer you a venue, or a deal — do it yourself. When I first heard about podcasting in October of 2004, it sounded to me like pure DIY: record a “radio” show, throw it on the Internet where you can say anything and do anything and anyone anywhere can hear it. I was sold. I released my first podcast on October 15, 2004… about a week or so after I discovered the medium. Your first published novel is Brave Men Run, a novel about a world in which people with extraordinary powers reveal themselves and demand sovereignty, thus changing the social fabric. What exactly made you want to write this kind of novel? Why a superhero novel that isn’t really about superheroes or clashes between good and evil, but about people–ordinary and otherwise–dealing with a dramatic shift in how the world operates? Largely because, as much as I love comics in general and super-hero comics specifically, I know they’re not a real representation of how the world would really be if people with superpowers existed. Sure, some authors, like Alan Moore in “Watchmen,” for example, have examined the superhero genre in a more realistic setting, but even “Watchmen” is a piece of metafiction — it’s about the genre as much as it is _in_ the genre. I just don’t believe that if a person discovered they could fly, or bend steel in their bare hands, or whatever… I don’t think their first inclination would be to dress up in a costume, put on a mask and fight (or cause) crime. It would take a very unique (read: crazy) personality type, and even in a world where superpowers are common, I just don’t see a superhero / supervillain culture developing. As far as clashes between good and evil… again, the world just isn’t like that. People are driven by their motivations, their needs and desires. That rarely results in anything so black and white as “good” or “evil.” Everyone is a little of both, and just how much of either is in the eye of the beholder. Finally, I like telling stories about people. Folks call “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era” a “superhero book” because that’s the easiest way to categorize it, but to me, the Sovereign Era stories are about people, fundamentally just like you and me, trying to make the most of the world they’ve been given… just like you and me. Would you say that it might be more possible to have cape-wearing superheroes in a world like ours where superhero culture is so widespread and popular? Or do you see people who found out they had super abilities keeping such things secret? I think some folks might do it — in fact, some people without super powers actually do dress up and fight crime: http://www.worldsuperheroregistry.com/ These people are pretty clearly influenced by comics and comic-book culture, and that gives them a little “out” in terms of their own, um, sanity. If there were people with actual super-powers in our world, would they be influenced by comics or would the comics have been influenced by them? Chicken / egg, I guess. In the Sovereign Era, super-hero comics never had a chance to really be part of western culture, so that archetype doesn’t exist. Brave Men Run is set in the 1980s. What about this era made you want to set a story in it? (Are you secretly into hair bands?) “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era” is set in 1985 for two reasons: Number one, that was the most volatile era of recent human history. The Cold War was at its hottest since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States and the Soviet Union fought wars by proxy in the Middle East, Central and South America and elsewhere. If I’m going to introduce the presence of individuals with remarkable, often dangerous abilities, dramatically there’s no better time — it’s one moreburning cigarette to drop in the dry brush of the world stage, a great set-up for global stress and conflict. Number two, “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era” is a coming of age story. I was a teenager, albeit a little older than the main character, Nate Charters, in 1985. I’m pretty sure my experience as a teenager is different from the experiences of being a teenager today… so, I wrote what I knew. Setting the book — and the beginning of the Sovereign Era — in the middle of the eighties also lets me have fun with cultural references and allows me to use the