Hello Readers!

Our featured author for this post is Alyssa Cooper.  Enjoy!

Alyssa being as girly girl as a girly girl can be!

How does “My Dead Isn’t Dead” reflect your own life?

It doesn’t. That’s why it’s fiction, of course! Okay, so maybe life did help to inspire bits and pieces of it. I actually began writing this story the evening my grandfather died. So definitely the sorrow and loss is real—the source just differs from that of the narrator. Otherwise, the story is also a reflection of how women are taught to judge themselves as not good enough. To judge themselves against other women. You see it all the time if you know how to look for it (which women do), that glance that is given when we question our own self-worth against each other. The effects can be tragically frightening for relationships as well as mental health. To me, “My Dead Isn’t Dead” shows exactly how wrong everything can go when we don’t trust our own self-value. Beyond that, I love human interactions and I believe in magic. That is what is at the core of this piece.
 
What are some other things you are passionate about (besides writing)?

I’m not sure I understand the question. No—I actually have a lot of things that make life wonderful, that make me grateful to be alive and have the opportunity to experience them. At the very top of the charts is dance. I am a burlesque performer, fairly new to the scene, but I absolutely adore it. For me, it’s basically an opportunity to create characters that I am allowed to perform, while artfully enforcing the tease in striptease. Correlating to this, I am a fashion junkie, suffering an addiction to four-inch heels and all things girly, vintage, or rhinestoned. Beyond this, I am a lover of art. Before I began writing, I intended to study art history in my graduate work. But in truth, I make a horrific critic. I like things because I like them, and I don’t always have the reasons behind this. However, I know without a doubt I would not be the writer I am today without looking at art as much as I do. With both art and dance, they are what fuels my writing. I cannot tell you how many times I have stopped in the midst of my dance practicing—or in the middle of an art gallery—because I am inspired to write, right then and there. Writing may be my main passion, but everything I do contributes to it.

Have you ever turned a dream into a story?

What is it Cinderella said? Something along the lines of, “A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.” For me dreaming doesn’t just exist at night or in sleep. I battle daydreaming almost constantly. So I suppose I could say, yes, I have turned dreams into stories. But only because I have a bad (or wonderful) habit of avoiding reality.

Is “My Dead Isn’t Dead” your first story to be published?

It is not. In fact, just the other day, I was telling my good friend, and editor of Carve magazine, that I cannot wait for both our writing careers to take off so that in every interview I give I can say, “Well, so-and-so, Matthew Limpede was the first to publish me.” So here it is: Well, Rhia, Matthew Limpede was the first to publish me.

I will also say that although this is not the first story I have published, due to its beginnings, I am incredibly proud of it. My grandfather wasn’t much of a fiction reader, but I can almost promise you that wherever he is (I’m guessing pruning peach trees and playing with dogs while my grandmother bakes pies), when he heard that this story was to be published, he said something like, “That’s real good, Scooter.”

What is your writing process?

I’m not sure I have a process—more of a vague, stumbling approach that sometimes works out and other times does not. I would say for the most part, it goes something like this: I get inspired. I begin a story. I finish the story in the same sitting.

“My Dead Isn’t Dead” was one key exception to this rule because clearly there was a lot going on the evening I began it. It’s an exception I’m really glad I made and certainly lends credibility to the idea that creativity comes from somewhere outside of ourselves. Typically, if I start a story and cannot finish it in the same sitting, then I never finish it. I believe it is Raymond Carver that stated a short story should be written in the same way it should be read—in just one sitting. I have found this is what most closely aligns with my own approach. But I write when I feel it and never any other time. My creativity tends to rebel against discipline.

Where is fancy bread, in the heart or in the head?

I suppose that might depend on your definition of fancy. Because let me tell you that as a burlesque dancer and writer, fancy certainly means many different things to begin with. That being said, I would say my sequined, glittered version of fancy is all heart. However, being a Gemini, my heart sorta lives in my head. I have trouble separating my passions and dreamy tendencies from my thought processes. Maybe that’s what makes me a writer. Maybe that’s just what makes me a girl. All I do know is that if your heart feels strongly enough about something, your head never has a chance. This is a lesson I learn over and over again on almost a daily basis.

Who is your favorite author (besides yourself) and why?

Way to save the easy one for last! Amy Hempel. Amy Hempel. Amy Hempel. My former professor, as well as an amazing fiction writer, Kristin vanNamen once referred to my writing as “Amy Hempel on acid.” To this day, it is my favorite compliment. I love Ms. Hempel because she makes me sad. I love her because she makes me happy. I love her because she knows how to take simple words and arrange them so they are more beautiful than you ever remembered the words being before. She is poetry in prose form, and if I am ever one-fifth the writer she is, then I will present golden-covered chocolates and diamond-bottomed cocktails to the creativity goddesses every hour on the hour—double during happy hour.

Alyssa Cooper began her writing career while studying art history at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her fascination with writing as a medium of art—meant to depict—soon took focus, and she graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing. Ms. Cooper maintains that it is her love for visual and performance art that provides the creative lens for her written works, and she finds inspiration while dancing or strolling art galleries. “The Way Back Home” was the recipient of the 2006 Gulf Coast of Creative Writing Teachers Association Undergraduate Fiction Prize. Ms. Cooper’s story, “In His Own Image,” was featured in Carve Magazine, where she currently serves as a reader and editor. She has recently completed a collection of first person narratives that explore the boundaries of the female norm and the inner trappings of self-perception, entitled A Whore Like Me. Ms. Cooper currently resides in Dallas and is researching graduate school options to further attend to the art of writing.

Hello Readers!

Our featured author for this post is Bob Clark.  Enjoy!

You know every old lady Bob met as a child just HAD to pinch those cheeks!

Who or what inspired you to be a writer?

When I was but a small tyke, I loved the way Edgar Allen Poe wrote his short stories, but most of mine are in a much lighter vein.

How do you organize the books on your bookshelf?

I let the books move around to the most comfortable spots all by themselves.  I don’t interfere in their lives.

How did you come up with the story “Whatever LuLu Wants”?

All my stories begin with a touch of inspiration and I often have no earthly idea where they will take me.  I never meant for this story to go in the direction it did.  The title comes from a song in the Broadway musical “Damn Yankees”.  In the show, Lola is really the Devil in the guise of a temptress and her song is “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets”.  LuLu, however, is just a kid who wants a better life.

Tell us a funny or embarassing childhood story.

When I was around 5, my parents took me to a bris.  If you are Jewish, and I am not, you would know what this is.  If you’re not, I am not going to explain it now.  The adults mixed and mingled, but I was thirsty and I noticed glasses on the table.  Nobody spotted the chubby 5 year-old as he reached up and drank some of the funny tasting water.  Years later, I found out the water was champagne.  I slept for many hours on the way home that day and since then, I never again drank alcohol.

What do you feel is your most important contribution to the human race?

Not having produced any children, don’t blame me for anything they do.

What do you feel about your opportunity to be one of the innaugural authors in the first volume of An Honest Lie?

It is the single greatest achievement in my writing life thus far.  (That is meant to be a serious answer.)

Alice in Wonderland…Opium induced pedophile fantasies of a madman or pure genius?

I am often told about the hidden meanings in my stories and I scratch my head when readers tell me that.  My stories are just stories I dreamed up.  I am not that deep and I cared to look beyond Wonderland.

Bob Clark has been writing since first grade, but he started writing for pay when he became a radio personality and turned out hundreds of thousands of thirty and sixty-second commercial announcements. Many of those were tiny stories whose duty was to sell a service or a product. He has lived and worked in places ranging from the New York area to Oregon, from Indiana to Florida and in Mexico and Puerto Rico. After nearly 5 decades of slaving away behind microphones and cameras as a DJ, voice over announcer, talk show host, and TV news anchor, he retired to a more sanity filled life near the beach in Corpus Christi, Texas. There, he began to write short stories, novels and a memoir of his life in the sordid underbelly of the Mexican border. His short stories have been published in two anthologies of stories to be read aloud in competitions in high schools. All of them take place in the strange country called South Texas.

Hello Readers!

Our featured author for this post is Germaine Shames.  Enjoy!

Here we have Germaine either plugging her ears or shouting hooray...not sure which...maybe both.

Where did you get your idea for writing “Counter-Indications of Trance on the Male Libido”?

As a sideline I occasionally practice clinical hypnotherapy, a vocation for which I am trained and certified.  Trance has a way of bringing suppressed longings to the surface.  The resemblance between a hypnotic induction and a romantic seduction is no coincidence: both disarm the rational mind, inviting mischief.

“Counter-Indications of Trance on the Male Libido” playfully explores what might happen if a workaday hack were to relax his boundaries and embrace his fantasies-beginning with his foxy hypnotherapist.

What made you want to become a writer?

Who wants to become a writer?  For better or worse I was born one.

Have you had other pieces of work published or is “Counter-Indications of Trance on the Male Libido” the first?

My publishing credits are too long to list but include three books and hundreds of articles, essays, art reviews and short stories.  Each opportunity to publish my work connects me to readers, whose intelligence and discernment command the utmost respect.  My best work is still ahead of me.

If you could be any character from any story, who would you be and why?

I prefer to remain my own heroine confronting a blank page each day and preserving to my last coherent utterance the illusion of having been the author of my life.

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

The questions is, does Santa Claus believe in me?

Have you ever contemplated committing a crime?

Daily.

Are there any skeletons in your closet that you think our readers may find fascinating?

Back in my teens I was the only female member of a Mexican motorcycle gang.  As an adult I jumped out of airplanes, rafted waterfalls and bungee-jumped.  I turned forty in Dracula’s Castle.

Germaine W. Shames has written from six continents—soon to add the seventh—on topics ranging from the struggle to save the Amazon to the plight of street children.

When Shames is not trying to save the world, she reviews art exhibitions, flogs her scripts around Hollywood, and dabbles in clinical hypnotherapy, a craft for which she has been trained and certified.

Wanna know more about Germaine Shames?  Visit http://sitekreator.com/germainewrites/index.html

Hello Readers!

Our featured author for this post is Eric Trant.  Enjoy!

Classy! (Get it? School picture...class...classy...ok never mind.

What was your favorite book as a child and why?

Where the Red Fern Grows.  That was one of the first books I read, and  I was in the 3rd grade when I read it.  My mom is a librarian and she always encouraged us to read above our level, and so my brother and I checked out books from the high school library. Where the Red Fern Grows was the first book we checked, and the story was spot on with country kids — and that’s what we were.  When you find a book that you can relate to, you latch on, and you never forget it.

Who or what inspired you to become a writer?

The biggest inspiration I have is my family.  I come from a family of storytellers.  You get this storytelling bone in you and you just want to tell. I don’t think of myself as a writer at all — I’m a storyteller, and I tell stories that I think are fun and inspiring and thought-provoking. I tell stories I think are interesting.

Why do you believe people should read “The Apple Tree”?

People should read Apple Tree if they want to enjoy an ironic, spirited story of two young country boys making a monumental discovery.  I don’t create stories with the sole goal of being marketed or published — I’m not a writer, remember, I’m a storyteller. This means Apple Tree is written for one reason: to be savored by the reader. I write things ~I~  like reading. I write things ~I~ think are fun to read. I write things ~I~ would remember reading. I’m the fat cook who loves his own food, and I love sharing my goodies with anyone who’s brave enough to sip my creations.

Tell us about some other things you are involved in besides writing.

I’m an engineer, and so I spend a lot of time working.  At home, I spend time with my family, hiking and collecting lizards and frogs and exploring the outdoors.  My kids are involved in things like soccer and basketball and sometimes I get to step in as coach — I’m a good soccer coach, and a horrible basketball coach. For my alone-time,  I enjoy woodworking, programming, and of course reading and writing.

Tell us an embarrassing or funny childhood story.

I proved to my brother that gasoline and water do not mix. Actually, he proved it to me — I thought they’d mix. I lost my eyebrows, and quite a bit of my dignity. I have no idea how I survived my childhood.

If someone were to write a story about you, what would the title be?

Almost Right.  I seem to have all these brilliant plans but they never work out right because of some small detail.  For example, when I was a kid, I had this idea that I was going to build an airplane out of bricks. For example, see prior question. Almost Right, that’s me.

Have you ever had a pet that has held you in contempt?

I had a dog once that used to poop in my shoes…maybe he was trying to tell me something.

Eric Trant earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1994, and is the son of a librarian and English teacher, who shared with him her love of reading, writing, and above all, storytelling. Each morning he rises well before the Texas dawn, and in the quiet writes thousands of words. He is self-taught.
Raised during his formative years in the East Texas Piney Woods, and then later in a small town on the Texas Gulf Coast, Eric maintains an avid fascination with outdoor living. Eric’s blended perspective of rural, small-town, and city lifestyles is at the heart of his stories, often leading the reader deep into the woods where as a child, he and his brother discovered so many wonders. He now lives near Dallas, Texas, where he continues to explore the world around him.
He holds a U.S. patent for a statistical outlier algorithm, and has received numerous technical recognitions as a semiconductor engineer. His most-prized award is a simple plaque reading Anyone can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy. This plaque sits on his desk, in front of the embossed US patent.

Wanna read more of Eric’s writings and musings?  Visit http://diggingwiththeworms.blogspot.com/