Interviews
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Susan Tepper asked me a bunch of metaphysical questions in this UNCOV/rd feature at Flash Fiction Chronicles. Another opportunity to clarify the title “Thank You For Your Sperm” and instill trust in its buyers. Excerpt:
«Scientists have always been great dreamers and this quality of dreaming is what got me into science. Quantum physics, higher mathematics appeal to me for their beauty, much like art. Writers are great dreamers, too, and to be good, they have to work diligently and exact like engineers. Science and writing, when they’re solid and true, are about the same thing: making something wonderful, something miraculous happen for people.»
I’m being interviewed as a judge for Flash Mob 2013. In the first installment of this fast and furious “Meet the Judges” interview series, fearless host and published author Christopher Allen meets me head on — Chris knows how to squeeze the secret sauce of flash from a stone & help a freshly published writer along the way! — “Thank You For Your Sperm” is discussed as are: The Future Of Flash, The Impact of The Internet, and How Paralysing Poetry can be! — Also included in “How to Write Flash Fiction” from Awkward Paper Cut.
«I hear that social media, Twitter and Facebook at the helm, are slowly winding down. I don’t think anything as short-lived as software can really change the course of literature, which gets its strength from the darkest depths and the brightest light that’s available to man. The Internet is but an infrastructure, a road to connect, while literature is a cause to connect, more like love and less like lino. I believe with John Gardner that art moves and shapes society, not the other way around: perhaps the global need for short fiction created the Internet just like the 19th-century novel helped create the Victorian age.»
Friends of New Zealand, Italy, England, Germany, Texas…of traveling and feeling lost while writing their way through life and loss will enjoy two interviews on Christopher Allen’s wonderful travel writing blog “I Must Be Off”, which ranges far and fired me up for more: there’s an English and a German version (they’re completely different). I think my muse might like these interviews, too. They’re fresh and intimate both:
“Returning to my homeland after such a long absence felt a little like coming back to a story rather than to my own past. It still feels like that at times.”
Blowing my nose in 1976 on a break from work.
Michelle Elvy interviewed me for Flash Frontier. In 2002, we lived in New Zealand. This time really marks my moving from someone who always wanted to find the time to write to someone who simply wrote. An opportunity to also talk about writing in German vs. writing in English and much more:
“I’m a lateral thinker and writer and it takes strength to keep the reins and carve out tracks deep enough so that others can follow my crabbed path later.”
I found it difficult to answer the questions asked by PANK on my extremely condensed piece “The Sodomized Dictator” for this interview. Somehow I got through them and I even got in touch with some precious memories along the way.
Photo: cast of an ash person—a Roman killed in Pompeii in 79 AD during the outbreak of Mt Vesuvius.
GALO (“Global Art Laid Out”) Magazine published an interview with me: “The German Who Writes In English“. It was conducted by poet and musician Tim Young via Skype from New York City. It reads accordingly raw but Tim did a great job making me sound intelligible still. At least I hope you think so, too…after this interview (my 11th) there are no more secrets for the rest of this decade…
OccupyWriters.com | @occupywriters
I was involved in a panel discussion on the meaning of the OCCUPY movement to artists, hosted by Atticus Books. The discussion was published in three parts: (1) “The Occupy Movement: Morality in the Arts” — (2) “The Occupy Movement: Music as Democracy or Music as Greed?” — (3) “Hell no, we won’t go!“ … I really enjoyed taking a stand while Occupy members everywhere are taking a stand for all of us.
Photo: nthWORD
I’ve given interviews before, but when Open Salon member and poet Lucien Quincy Senna hung her questions for me up for public scrutiny at Red Lemonade, I knew I was in for a special treat. Initially, the interview unfolded slowly over time at the Red Lemonade community site allowing for a public dialogue, which is so much more interesting for everybody than just publishing yet another writer’s vanity record. As for the content: I don’t think I’ve ever given myself so much time and space to answer—but I’ve also never quite had questions like these. (10/2011)
Update: if you want to read the interview in one piece, in linear format as it were, you can do so here at nthWORD where it was kindly reprinted with a couple of additional questions by editor Ryan O’Connor.
Interview with Nicolle Elizabeth for Fictionaut blog on the kaffe in katmandu project (03/2011):
“i spend all my time sitting and writing and i’m trying to lose weight. seriously. by writing about thin things. lean management. skeletons in the cupboard. bulimic teenagers. starving sparrows…”
Interview with Gloria Mindock for Červená Barva Press newsletter, issue no. 63 (02/2011):
« For my type of writer, who enters the market from the side so to speak, online publishing is a pure blessing but I can already see how it can also be a bit of a trap. »
Pure Slush gets all its author information from color coding, clothes and your favorite candy. He used the Hue Questionnaire to get under my purple skin. Enjoy the painting:
« when i was 14, i bought a duffle coat which was lined with purple inner lining. i got into a great many fights over this choice. i won some, lost others. it brought the importance of style and color home in a powerful, memorable way. »
“Monday chat with Marcus Speh” at Fictionaut blog, expertly lead by Susan Tepper (12/2010):
« I do believe that fiction ought to be moral. Perhaps there’s no a priori reason why we carry this gift of writing but if we don’t throw our weight behind life, decency and humanity, we’re nothing but word clowns. »
“Portrait of the Writer as his Own Man“ – Conducted by Michelle Elvy for Voices (06/2010):
« …Writer, father, lecturer. Bike rider and devoted husband. Collector of characters, observer of life. Commentator on fictional pointillism and contemplator of geographical dilemmas. A man who’s not afraid to flash and who’s written a novel in a month. »
“The End of Flawnt“ – conducted by Bess Winter for JMWW (05/2010):
« June 16th 2010 marks the retirement of Finnegan Flawnt (Mr. Flawnt’s friends at Metazen have posted a tribute to him here). Before his disappearance, Bess Winter corresponded about metafiction, online writing communities, and not being real. »
“Fictionaut Five: Finnegan Flawnt” – conducted by Meg Pokrass for Fictionaut (04/2010):
« Finnegan Flawnt is a fictitious writer and purveyor of fine podcasts, who lives under Milk Wood with two females and a bad conscience because of his continued deep social media procrastination. »
“BULLshot: Finnegan Flawnt“, conducted by Jarrett Haley for BULL (11/2009):
« You know the score, Finnegan–state what if you’re drinking, then I’ll tell you this: for me, the best, most engaging part of this poet’s obit is the “prayer.” What do you pray for, if at all, and how?… »
