Life at Open Heart Publishing

Posts Tagged ‘New Author’

We are coming up on September pretty quickly here. School has started, the weather is cooling off, well for now at least, and there is already talk about what we’re going to be for my favorite holiday, Halloween. That means we are roughly 2 months from the release of An Honest Lie volume 2.

There are big things going on with this volume. We know how much you liked the first one so we brought back a few of the authors you loved. We featured C.B. Calsing a few weeks ago. This week we wanted to bring another returning author to the page … say hello to, Eric Trant.

Eric blessed us in An Honest Lie Volume 1 with a tale called Apple Tree. He returns in An Honest Lie Volume 2 with One Small Step, a story about dreams and following through with those dreams. A working writer and business man Eric has a unique perspective on his work, and the craft. When I asked him to give us some advice for aspiring bloggers he said.

I’ve been blogging and hanging around online for over a decade. Blogging is an inspiring process that challenges me not only to write something useful for others, but for myself. It’s a meditative introspection that keeps me analyzing my writing skills, and honing my word-craft. It’s like going to the gym, but instead of lifting weights, I lift words, and I talk about words with other writers both big and small and in the interaction, we all grow stronger.”

Indeed my friend, indeed. You can find his blog at http://diggingwiththeworms.blogspot.com/

Eric Trant: If you’re wondering about the title (of my blog ed.), the worms are my muse. They always have been no eyes or brain but five beating hearts, dozens of them wiggling between my ears.

Open Heart Publishing: Nice approach. I am beginning to think I don’t have a muse, only an obsession. We’ve really enjoyed reading your work. From where do you draw your inspiration?

E.T.: Real life is my inspiration. I dream, listen to other people dream, and then marry that up with reality to generate my stories. I spend a vast amount of time watching people and wondering about their lives.

OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, who you enjoy reading?

E.T.: Of course; millions. I am currently reading several books — I usually have three or four books going since I flip-flop between them and stash them in the car, next to the bed, by the couch, in the office. I am reading Charles De Lint, Robert McCammon, Neil Gaiman, Cormac McCarthy, and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. I also enjoy blogging among a close-knit group of online writers, both published and unknown.

OHP: I never take seriously the writer that does not read voraciously. Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

E.T.:Cliché, but I have to go with Stephen King. He understands that readers have only one request: Entertain me. That’s all I want to do. I don’t want to make a statement, though I would like to modify your view of the world, just a little. After King come Bradbury and Vonnegut, followed by Cormac McCarthy, who single-handedly almost strangled my muse with his stylistic prose. When I feel the need for inspiration, I read one of these authors and the worms get to digging and I am back at the blank page with pen in hand, erasing the emptiness.

OHP: I agree with King as a writing Hero. I mean the man is good. On the other end, do you have a writing nemesis?

E.T.: YES! Her name is Raquel Byrnes. She is as yet unpublished, but I am certain she’ll land a multi-novel deal somewhere in her near future, because in the real world, evil triumphs. You can meet her at her blog: http://nitewriter6.blogspot.com/

OHP: Since I read your interview I’ve been reading her blog. She is very talented, but I am certain I don’t know the half of it. Why do you feel the need to write?

E.T.: Everyone has a need to share their stories. If you don’t believe me, look at Facebook or any other social networking website. We all want to be heard. Even non-writers want to somehow expose themselves to the public eye. Nobody wants to howl at the moon alone — we want a pack to howl with us, and like every other writer, I do my howling through my stories.

OHP: You really howled with One Small Step but even the most fantastic story must be supported by some sense of what’s real and One Small Step is pretty fantastic. What was your inspiration for it?

E.T.: We all look up and dream about flying off to the moon and stars. Reaching into that darkness has been the greatest collective dream of all humanity from the time humanity took its first small step, and looking back, we’ll see how rudimentary we really were in today’s “modern” society. There is so much out there still to discover and imagine, but we’re beginning to forget our curiosity. We’re taking our genius for granted. We’re bored with the stars and the moon and we can’t even see them anymore for all the airplanes and city lights and televisions and who needs NASA anyway. That’s what this story is about: what’s still out there. It’s about not quitting when we’re so close to flying off to the stars. It’s about never, never quitting.

OHP: So with so many small press publishers out there, why did you choose to submit your work to An Honest Lie: Delusions of Insignificance?

E.T.: I am a returning author, and so I knew what I was getting into with Open Heart Publishing. The publisher and editors are a rare breed of wonderful. So long as they keep publishing it, I’ll keep submitting my work.

OHP: What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

E.T.: Let me give you an example of a significant but deluded individual: Your waiter. Hands down, waiting tables is the worst delusion of insignificance. You are treated as an unimportant beggar-servant to be ordered and belittled, yet you can sicken, disgust, or kill an entire room full of people. That’s sounds harsh, doesn’t it, but that’s the reality, and there’s your delusion. These people are not insignificant. Remember that the next time you figure your tip.

OHP: What is An Honest Lie?

E.T.: An honest lie is something you tell because it is either somewhat true, or based entirely on unverifiable speculation. For instance, describing your height wearing boots. For instance, claiming you are a wonderful lover. One is based on a half-truth. The other, if given a chance to prove or disprove, becomes a moot point, as the speculative nature of the Honest Lie has now served its purpose.

OHP: We are always looking for amazing pieces of work, besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

E.T.: I am working on my fifth novel, with working title The Gladiator’s Son. I’ll have to change the title because I have absolutely no gladiators. The hookline is this: “On the isolated slopes of the western Andes, a soldier awakens an earthly Andean spirit that attacks his unborn child, and is cast into a dreamlike battle to save his son thousands of miles away.” This spring I revised last fall’s novel and wrote and revised a novella, not to mention two or three short stories. I started a new novel early this summer and have been working on it for about three months. The current piece is still very much in the draft stage, but if it maintains its shape on final revision — which most of my novels don’t — then it will embed a strong father-son element into a horror-fantasy mold.

OHP: Besides writing, what other sorts of deviant behavior do you happen to enjoy?

E.T.: My deviance meter is low these days. I’m building my family and tapping on the door of my forties. I know that’s boring. Writers are supposed to live in South America, or own a chateau in France and spend their evenings in clubs writing fabulous prose over bottle after bottle of wine between long lines of cocaine. At the very least, I need to be a raging alcoholic who eats Zoloft like Tic-Tacs. I’ll admit that I like dark beer. I am German-Irish. What else is there but dark beer? Other than that, I lead a quiet life and try to focus on my home and family.

OHP: My deviance meter is … well, let us say I am more the drunken cliché of a writer; most famous after life. I accept it. Tell us about your family.

E.T.: I have a son and daughter who both inspire me to remain young and enthusiastic and blindly hopeful. We are expecting a son soon who will, according to my older son, “Break stuff.” I’m sure he is correct. We also have two dogs, a Corgi and a Pomeranian. The Pom sits in my lap as I write in the dark hours of the morning. The Corgi sleeps it off until about mid-morning, when he moves from under the bed to the couch.

OHP: It’s been great getting to know you and we look forward to working with you in the future. For now let’s give our readers something to think about. What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

E.T.: I agree completely. Education has a way of dumbing you down to the level of whoever wrote the book. Some of the best things I’ve learned are not from reading or learning about the subject, but by doing and learning as I go. Writing is the obvious example, but I would lump on top of that woodworking, computer programming, math, and raising a family.

OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?

E.T.: The US is in the middle of a revolution. It is being fought at the polls, and the latest shot was fired in November of 2008. We’re all part of this revolution, and if you are not, then you need to pick up your weapon — your voter ID — and use it.

OHP: Where do you believe humanity is headed as a whole?

E.T.: In the U.S., most of them are headed to Texas. The rest of the world is headed East, I think, toward China. The ones who don’t make it to China will likely get lost in Europe while trying to figure out what the heck a Euro is and how to exchange it for a Chinese yuan.

OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?

E.T.: A combination of both, actually. One gives you the means to accomplish your personal business in private. The other gives you something with which to wipe.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.” In your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

E.T.: Right now, I would die for a dark beer, preferably an Irish Black-n-Tan, well-poured. I wouldn’t die for the idea of a dark beer, though. There’s a difference between dying for the idea and living to enjoy the result. I hope I made my point.

OHP: Mark Twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

E.T.: Twain meant that you’d better be able to see what is not there. Often it is the absence of a thing that makes it important. Seeing the world only in literal terms limits the scope of your vision so much that you might as well keep looking at your feet and walking where they tell you to walk. Twain never walked that way.

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason. Why do you really write?

E.T.: On one hand, I write because I must. It’s an obsession and a passion. But really, I have nothing better to do.

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.

Eric’s professional career covers a broad range of experience, including over twenty years of writing. As a freelance writer, he has dozens of short stories and five novels to his credit.

Davin Kimble Jr. Editor

It was recently brought to my attention that we here at the Jr. Editors Desk have made a serious mistake. It seems that we got our Jessica’s crossed somewhere. I’m not sure if you know but mixing Jessica’s can be a dangerous business. Your email boxes rebel, your Open Office documents vanish into the digital void, your credibility and self esteem are thoroughly challenged. Lucky for us all we are champions of literary might and we have once again, with the help of a few friends, and two Jessica’s, brought to you yet another compelling and thrilling Author Interview. The best thing about it is that you get to have not one, but two thrilling interviews in one issue.

Jessica Stilling was interviewed a few weeks ago. You can go check out what she really said here. http://debrincase.com/blog4/2010/08/02/talking-to-jessica-stilling/

Our other Jessica sent us a fantastically disturbing tale called Monkey Love. Monkey’s freak me out a bit, vicious dastardly little monsters. Jessica masterfully wound them into this twisted tale.

“Twisted? It’s just a little story about a man and his monkeys. But seriously, I actually started this story in a writing workshop at the local college. The professor gave us one of those exercises I always mock, like here are five words incorporate them in a story. The words were greasy, zoo and … well those were the only words I used so I forgot the others; turns out the class was full and I had to leave, but I took the first page of my story with me. See kids, you can get something for nothing. It also was inspired by my intense hatred of temping in poorly lit offices, after a few hours the fire ax starts to look pretty tempting.”

So I asked her a few more questions to round things out. Check out what she had to say, but be careful; don’t make the same mistake we made and get your Jessica’s mixed up.

Open Heart Publishing: Sorry about the mix-up. Can you ever forgive us?

Jessica Dunn: It’s all good; really not a big deal.

OHP: I always try to do my research. I had a difficult time finding you around the web. Start by telling us a bit about Jessica Dunn.

J.D.: As for internet presence, I do not have much of one. I know..bad writer…no milkbones. My reason, I am a bit of a misanthrope. I barely know what to do with the people I meet and know in person, much less the potential millions of cyberpeople out there. I have a blog on theicarusproject.net (which is a site that promotes radical mental health) under the name thebegnignconspiracy. Unfortunately, I do not update it as much as I should. Other reason, I am boring from the outside. I don’t do much that involves public, the most I have ever been in noticeably in public was when I dressed up for Otakon and everyone was dressed like a skanky anime chick with a giant sword and/or catears so I didn’t really stand out. Much of my day consists of grading papers, writing and cursing Resident Evil 4 when I have to shoot a zombie 5 times in the head with a shotgun before it dies. Occassionally I attempt to teach myself to play guitar and hope no one hears me.

OHP: The only thing better than killin’ Zombies is killin’ Nazis. But that may be an insignificant delusion. What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

J.D.: It is the belief that our choices are inconsequential. Like its misbegotten twin, this delusion is sadly often held by those to whom it least applies.

OHP: Yeah, some people just don’t know they have greatness right below the surface. What is an honest lie?

J.D.: The most effective kind.

OHP: An Honest Lie is a strange thing, but it’s a truth of our lives. Why did you submit your work to An Honest Lie?

J.D.: I had just finished editing Monkey Love and I was rather proud of myself (which in my world means reading it didn’t make me wish my eyes were bleeding so as to obscure the words) and I wanted to send it out into the world to be rejected over and over again and darn my luck, it got published instead. I also thought Andy would feel at home amongst the other delusions.

OHP: Are you working on anything we might get the privilege to read soon?

J.D.: Current projects include learning how to play Come As You Are, rescuing the president’s daughter (in Resident Evil 4, I promise Obama, I have never met your daughter), and a story I hope to finish soon entitled Everything You Need for Under One Dollar about a boy left to fend for himself in the wilds of the local dollar store.

OHP: Besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

J.D.: Besides this interview …? I am attempting to write some essays concerning mental health and capitalism as well as the life, works and philosophy of R.D. Laing. Maybe even a poem now and again.

OHP: Nice. I’m impressed. Who would you say your writing Mentor/Hero is?

J.D.: Albert Camus, he wrote the kinds of things that make you say, ‘I’ve thought this was so all my life but never had the words to express it.’ His writing is simple and poignant. It exposes the human animal in all its petty banality as well as exquisite dignity. All the important lessons of life can be found in his work: There is responsibility in freedom. There is a price for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. And “none of your certainties are worth a single strand of a woman’s hair.”

OHP: You know many writers credit Earnest Hemmingway with being “the father of modern literature”; and that with the sort of simpering sycophancy that only aspiring writers can conjure. Do you think writers should call Earnest Hemmingway “Papa”?

J.D.: I think if they are looking for someone to fill the role of their father, they could do better, although depressive, alcoholic fathers never seem to go out of fashion.

OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, that you enjoy reading?

J.D: Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gunter Gräss, R.D. Laing, Chuck Palaniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, and Edgar Allen Poe, to name the first that come to mind in no particular order. (Well o.k., Camus is my groove; talk about “Papa.”)

OHP: Do you have a writing nemesis?

J.D.: Those people that write truly insipid children’s books; the kind that lower the IQ of both child and parent. You know who you are.

OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of human kind … plumbing or the written word?

J.D.: I’ll put it to you this way, I love to write, but I love not being covered in my own shit more.

OHP: Point taken. What do you feel about the following quote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge?

J.D.: Remember when you used to know that Pluto was a planet? Imagination is far more reliable.

OHP: Mark Twain once said, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you think he meant by that?

J.D.: Eyes are good for the surface of things; the imagination is what lets us look inside them.

OHP: It’s post Apocalyptica, what would be your greatest asset?

J.D.: My post Apocalyptica skill is the fact that I can roof (shingles, tar, even hot tin). Because let’s face it, if life as we know it ends and we are all scavenging for food, ammo and shelter on high ground no one is going to respond to a “will write for food” sign. Also I have an intense hatred for the walking dead and won’t go all soft if my friends or family die and then get back up and try to eat me. Sorry guys, but it’s a katana to the brain stem for you. Hesitation is the number one killer in the post-apocalyptic world.

OHP: Awesome! Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?

J.D.: I come by my writing obsession honestly, the result of old fashioned boredom, school-aged delinquency, and isolation. I began to write in detention, and it soon extended to lunch and recess. I scribbled poems and flash fiction in the margins of my notebooks, I wrote sonnets in lieu of essays on my AP exam. I like writing anything, as long as I am supposed to be writing something else.

Jess Dunn has been writing since she was a wee thing, who had still not quite mastered how to end an “s.” She received her undergraduate education at Goucher College and her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Towson University. She is currently a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Although she went to school for psychology and got a “real job,” she continues to write compulsively. Besides writing and subversively influencing the still malleable minds of undergraduates, her interests include radical mental health, outsider art, cephalopods, and zombie hordes. She currently lives in Baltimore, MD with her partner and her cat.

Davin Kimble Jr. Editor

When I read “Origin” I thought, I like this guy … wonder what he’ll have to say. And I was truly happy to hear his answers to our questions. Who is he? Raleigh Dugal a freelance journalist from outside of Boston, M.A. But don’t be confused. Mr. Dugal is so much more than that. With a B.A. and an M.A. from U-Mass. Dartmouth his qualifications were not in question, I was more interested in hearing about the heart of the writer and the man; a man who still wakes up at 10am to play football in the snow.

Even through the trials and toil we writers face, Raleigh weathers the storm with grace. When asked why he writes he said:

… If I could be another type of artist, I would be. I certainly don’t write for the money. I write for one reason alone, and that’s because I have to. Every so often, I think about quitting, about never turning to writing again. It’s a horrifying responsibility, being a writer, even a relatively unknown one. You constantly feel as though you should be doing something other than whatever it is you’re enjoying. It’s like forgetting to unplug the iron for eternity. ….

I have a whole room full of appliances plugged in and humming, but this isn’t about me. Mr. Dugal, take the stage sir.

You know we take great pride in the subtitles of our books and the brilliant stories they inspire. So I have to ask you the first two questions.

Open Heart Publishing: What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

Raleigh Dugal: That’s a tricky term, because I think all delusions are kind of significant. When you have a delusion, it dictates the way that you live your life. But maybe delusions of insignificance, in a way, are more significant. They are the private things you dream about that you never tell anyone else. When I was in the sixth grade, I used to daydream about being a rebel fighter against a 21st century neo-Nazi regime. That’s something I’ve never told anyone, and I guess iit’s kind of insignificant in my life, but it’s also pretty significant.

OHP: What is An Honest Lie?

R.D.: I think an honest lie is something that isn’t physically true, but that you believe in yourself. It’s real in your mind.

OHP: Why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?

R.D.: I submit my work everywhere, without much thought, rhyme, or reason, kind of like a crop duster spraying pesticides. But when I came across An Honest Lie I read the theme, Delusions of Insignificance, and immediately thought of my story, Origin, and sent it along. I was enthralled to receive a phone call from Debrin Case, telling me it was accepted.

OHP: I really enjoyed reading “Origin”, what was your inspiration for the story?

R.D.: I grew up living behind a cemetery, and that was the space where my brother and my cousin and I usually went to play on our own. It was within eyesight and earshot of my house, but there was a sort of gateway of brush, and it really felt like we were far away and on our own over there. There really is a big, squat tree where kids carve their names. I think I took that space and just remembered the things that we talked about, the type of games that we played, and just allowed the story to fill it in with a different set of characters, a different set of parents.

OHP: Besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

R.D.: I’m currently marketing my first two unpublished novels, a speculative western and an epic romp through the afterlife of dogs.

My first, Canis Infinitum, hasn’t been published yet. My mother succumbed to leukemia in 2006, and shortly thereafter her dog Kirby was hit by a car. So my book is the story of her dog trying to reach her in the afterlife. It’s pretty weird and outrageous, and was very emotionally draining to write, but I think it put my head in a good place, and I think people will connect with it.

My second novel, A Bloody Fable of Skullduggery & Dust, is the tale of a vengeful Quaker hunting down his brother in the U.S. territories in 1870. It involves elements of magical realism and steampunk, though they’re admittedly sparing. I decided on the term “fable” after the third and final draft, when the moral implications of everyone’s actions really came together. It was a real labor of love (and hate). There’s a blind bounty killer and an exiled outlaw who physically does not possess a heart. It’s interesting.

I just started writing my third novel yesterday, which has a little bit to do with my Catholic upbringing. And (gasp) vampires. Is there a difference? Other than that, I don’t really want to say.

I want to get back to actual writing, and I’ve been seesawing back and forth about which new project to start: a story of a vampire clan in the throes of eighties camp or a tale of robots and cancer in Newport, Rhode Island. Once the cold weather forces me indoors, I’ll probably be able to concentrate on one of them.

OHP: It sounds fantastic to me. Send one of them our way we’d be happy to read it. You have some interesting story ideas there, where do you draw your inspiration from?

R.D.: Everything and anything. Real life, stupid things I think of in the shower, fleeting moments when I’ve had too much to drink. It’s funny, because I’ve never really had a drought of things to write about, just a lack of fortitude and outlets to get them published. It sounds cheesy, but everything in my life inspires me.

OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, that you enjoy reading?

R.D.: Good God. Again, in no particular order: Hemingway, Garcia Marquez, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor. It’s easy, as a writer, to get enamored with the classics. Do you know why? Because you’re poor, and you can’t afford to buy the work of your contemporaries, and used books are very cheap. But I try. I loved Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, I read Michael Chabon. I haven’t read Tim Davvy’s Amberville yet, but I’m salivating over it. I’d say I fall in love with novels themselves rather than authors.

OHP: I can agree with that, I can fall in love with the idea, the anticipation of the story. But someone had to write them right? Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

R.D.: Easily, Stephen King. When I was twelve I read Cujo because I was afraid of scary movies, and I wanted to be able to face that fear. I was terrified, but I kept reading him, and I’ve read just about everything he’s ever written. I don’t write horror, per se, but his powers of characterization are unmatched, and he never fails to connect with his reader. On Writing is easily the best advice I’ve ever received about the craft from anywhere, and no one will ever match his prolific career. Not even James Patterson.

OHP: I couldn’t agree more. I love King and still have a box full of well thumbed paperbacks. Dude is truly a Mentor/Hero. Do you have a writing nemesis?

R.D.: No. I think all writers need to stick together, because its so difficult, and only seems to get more difficult.

OHP: The business can be harsh and our fellow writers cutthroat. But even with all the slots available out there every month, there are still only so many. Besides writing, what other sorts of deviant behavior do you happen to enjoy?

R.D.: In no particular order, I enjoy flag football, pickup basketball, beer pong, the beach, trying to play musical instruments, home brewing, and grilling red meat.

OHP: We are coming up on the end of the interview here. It has truly been a pleasure getting into your head a bit. I am going to throw a few at you, say what you like. Do you think writers should call Ernest Hemmingway, Papa?

R.D.: I’m a Red Sox fan for life, and David Ortiz has never had any problem being called Big Papi. I’d like to think of Ernest Hemmingway as the Big Papi of the literary world. In fact, he makes an un-credited appearance in an unpublished novel of mine. I’m still debating whether my allusion makes sense or not, but I’d really like to think it does, because if there’s anywhere in the afterlife Ernest Hemingway would want to be, it’s in this spot in my book.

OHP: If there were a million monkeys in a room, each with its own typewriter, how long would it take for them to realize you haven’t provided them with any paper on which to compose masterpieces of fine literature?

R.D.: Monkeys are pretty smart, but I don’t really have a handle on their concept of paper. I think the clicks, clacks, and dings would be very satisfactory to them. They might type several masterpieces of literature before they realize anything at all, if they ever do. Sounds like an installation at the NY MoMa (New York Museum of Modern Art (ed.) to me.

OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?

R.D.: Yes, in fact. I dreamed of it for a long time, but I think your notion of a revolution when you’re a kid is one thing, and when you grow up you realize it’s something very different. A real revolution is something that consumes your whole being, and in my lifetime it’s always been very difficult to let anything do that.

OHP: What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

R.D.: Knowledge is the raw material. Without the tools of imagination, it’s useless.

OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?

R.D.: Plumbing, clearly, but it probably wouldn’t exist unless someone along the line could write technical instructions, so its sort of a chicken/egg conundrum.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture,” in your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

R.D.: Your family is worth dying or living for. The people you love. Ideas are funny things, because usually when you’re in the position of dying for them, the people that put you there aren’t as interested in the same idea that you are. But does that really matter? Freedom is certainly worth dying for, but the concept is paradoxical, because when you’re dead, you certainly aren’t free. Then again, maybe you’re as free as it gets. Is death the ultimate price to pay for something, or is there a higher one?

OHP: Mark twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

R.D.: I’d heard a lot about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court before I actually read it. I didn’t realize how bloody and satirical it really was. There’s a claymation movie that used to air on HBO when I was a kid, called The Adventures of Mark Twain. It was creepy and philosophical and magical, unlike anything you really see around today. The whole movie was inspired by Twain’s desire to die upon the return of Haley’s comet, because he had been born the last time it came around. I think his ability not just to understand, but to really, truly appreciate the poetry in that, is what he’s talking about. What does Haley’s comet mean to someone’s eyes when they can’t work the context of it into a subtext that fits into their own lives?

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?

R.D.: Here’s a secret: I don’t really like to write. I’m an active guy, and sitting for hours on end in front of my computer screen isn’t my idea of fantastic recreation. Out of all the arts, writing is probably the least rewarding. When you’re a painter, you can show someone the painting and they can say yes, that’s beautiful. If you’re a musician, you play your song in front of an audience, and they clap. It’s the same for actors. Writing is, for the most part, entirely thankless. You sit, you dream, you tap your keyboard. When a story does make it out into the living world, you must convince people to invest great amounts of time and emotions into black words on a white page and the spaces in between them.

If I could be another type of artist, I would be. I certainly don’t write for the money. I write for one reason alone, and that’s because I have to. Every so often, I think about quitting, about never turning to writing again. It’s a horrifying responsibility, being a writer, even a relatively unknown one. You constantly feel as though you should be doing something other than whatever it is you’re enjoying. It’s like forgetting to unplug the iron for eternity.

Then there are the moments when the cylinders are firing, when you are clacking away, and the story just happens. Stephen King said something to the effect that he does not really write his stories, but more discovers them, the way an archaeologist uncovers bones, and I’m very partial to this analogy. Once the stories get going, if they’re true to themselves, they write themselves, and you’re just carefully picking away the dust and the grime. When things really get hot, it’s like having a front row seat for the big bang.

OHP: Enough said.

Raleigh Dugal is a former teacher, lifeguard, private investigator, and roller skating DJ. He has fished for blue sharks off the coast of Nantucket, appeared on reality court television (and won), and has driven from Sacramento to Rhode Island in forty-five hours. From March to late August he practices the religion of pickup basketball. In September he converts to flag football. In 2003 he earned a B.A. in English Literature from Umass Dartmouth, and in 2008 completed his M.A. in Professional Writing. Raleigh finds inspiration in the stories of Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Flannery O’Connor, and his fiction has been published in Temper and Encounters Magazine. He is intrigued by the places in reality where the truly strange is allowed, and inevitable, to happen: mall parking lots at three AM, public restrooms, and walks home from the bus stop. He currently lives in Massachusetts and is writing his second novel.

Davin Kimble Jr. Editor

All right loyal fans and followers. It is that time of the week again. An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance is that much closer publication. So far we’ve learned that some of us write “to differentiate ourselves(ed) from the madding crowd” and others suffer the yoke because we simply cannot stop slaving away. Maybe one day I will tell you all why I write, but this week, we have another of our talented writers I would like to introduce you to. Jessica Stilling hails from Manhattan where she lives and writes supported by a loving husband and son. When I got her interview mixed up with Author Jessica Dunn she graciously forgave me and set the record straight. Here is what she really had to say.

Open Heart Publishing: I understand you are a busy woman, so I won’t keep you long. AHL V2 is titled Delusions of Insignificance. What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

Jessica Stilling: I feel as if I should focus on the delusion part first. It’s like faking out a lie detector test and actually believing everything you’re saying. Then, with respect to the insignificance, it’s melding it in with your life.

OHP: What is An Honest Lie?

J.S.: An Honest Lie is something that becomes a part of who you are. It’s no longer a lie, because it’s become real. Though it’s still a lie logically, but logic is no longer important.

OHP: Now I’m going to get right to the hard stuff. I’ve been asking everyone the writer’s question; why do you feel the need to write?

J.S.: I get stories in my head, and little phrases. My characters start to talk to me and I know that they need to exist. I can’t leave them hanging. I feel wrong when I do not write. In fact I stop being able to sleep well when I’m between projects and not really working on anything.

OHP: There are a lot of small publishers out there, why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?

J.S.: I truly believed this story worked within the parameters of the overall concept of the collection. I believed in this story and I had a feeling in my gut. I also enjoyed An Honest Lie I.

OHP: We are so glad you checked it out. I really enjoyed reading “A Girl Walks into a Bar.” Can you tell us something about your inspiration for this story?

J.S.: My husband called this story horrific; in fact he refused to read it when I asked him to edit the piece before I sent it out on submission. He still hasn’t read it and I’m not sure he’s ever going to read it. The story is about many things, but what disturbed him most was the loss of a child. We’d just had our son when I wrote the story and I think it was my way of dealing with this sudden fear that I had of losing him. He’s two years old now and I’m (for the most part) over that new mother fear of walking into the bedroom to find that your child has stopped breathing, but I still check him once a night. This story is also about the nature of storytelling. It deals with the fact that you can tell one person’s story and still not get to the heart of who they are, the true heart of their story. Rebecca never knows who Ryan is because he never shares with her his story. She shares her story and so he is able to connect with her, but he never shares his story with her, and so she’s just the girl who walks into the bar to him. Ryan never really shares his story with himself either, it’s only Claire who knows it and understands him, which is why she seems so together at the end while he’s still falling apart.

OHP: We plan on working closely with the authors we choose for these volumes, should they wish to publish more stuff with us. Do you have any exciting projects in the works your fans might wish to know about?

J.S.: I write a lot. I write a little too much. I have a novel that my agent has been shopping for a while called Alice Down the Basement Window, a literary retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I also have a short story collection that I’m looking into shopping to small presses on my own in a little while. The collection, called Skimmable Cities, is a collection of short stories dealing with cities and city life. It doesn’t adhere to all those clichés, but it does deal with urbanness and how that affects how people live. The people in the stories have all lost something and in their surroundings they hope to perhaps find something else. I also just…well I don’t want to say finished, but I’ve come a long way to finishing a novel that I’ve been working on for a great many years, since I was in college, for my MFA thesis. The novel, God on the Wall, is about three boys growing up in Northern Ireland in 1982 during the Troubles. It’s about family and war and religion and friendship, brothers and brotherhoods and art. That’s a little grandiose I know, but I think history has a way of being grand on its own.

OHP: Wow you do write a lot where do you draw your inspiration from?

J.S.: Sometimes from the people around me and the world that I see. I like being able to take images and ideas, scenes from my life and stories that I hear and twist and turn them around until they’re something else entirely. It’s a lot like impressionism in that way, writing. To write is to take the world, the truth, and hold it under water for a while, until it’s grasping for breath. That’s when you’ve made it your own and you can really play with it.

OHP: Almost all writers are inspired by “one who came before”, who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

J.S.: Linsey Abrams and Felicia Bonaparte from City College.

OHP: As much as we love some, there are always those we can’t stand, do you have a writing nemesis?

J.S.: Not at the moment. I just finished my MFA and I realize, logically, that we’re all trying to do the same thing. That there are only so many spots for “successful writer” that are going to be filled, but I don’t find myself in competition with them. I prefer to like these people.

OHP: Okay we are working up o the home stretch. I only have a few more questions for you. What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

J.S.: When it comes to fiction writing this is definitely true. You can’t gain imagination. It has to be in you. It is the foundation for all great works. In fact imagination is the foundation of knowledge. Someone had to imagine any piece of information we have about the universe before they went about proving it. Also, you can look things up; you can get the knowledge you need to write a piece. You can’t look imagination up and come up with a great character or plot point.

OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?

J.S.: Funny you should ask this question because I’m teaching a class I compiled next semester called Revolutionary Memoir. We’ll be reading Eamon Collins’ IRA memoir Killing Rage, Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Malcolm X’s Autobiography, Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries, Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai and Ishmael Beah’s Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, which brought me to tears, and I don’t cry easily when reading a memoir. I think revolution is an important part of the human condition. All people should want to throw off the chains of society at some point. Do I think I’d become involved in a revolution? Well, I haven’t yet and there’s plenty going on right now to start a revolution over.

OHP: That’s quite a reading list there. Do you think writers should call Ernest Hemmingway, Papa?

J.S.: I think there are other writers one could call Papa or Mama in the same way. It’s the job of all writers to blast through the world and other writers may connect better with different mentors.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture,” in your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

J.S.: I’d die for my son, but I think that’s just selfish, because I could not live without him. Would I die for anything else…I don’t know. There’s a lot worth living for. My work is one thing, my family is another. Living in New York City sometimes makes my life more wonderful. Though to be a true New Yorker I think you have to simultaneously be head over heels in love with the city and absolutely despise it in the same breath.

OHP: Mark twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

J.S.: I think it’s the same impressionism idea. What we see is only so much and while there is a “real world” that’s not what art is about. It’s about the real world according to person X. Everyone has equal access to the real world, not everyone has equal access to ideas and imagination.

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?

J.S.: It’s easier (and better) than living in the world.

Jessica Stilling enjoys skiing, running, and wandering aimlessly, preferably in quiet, restful places. She currently lives in New York City, which can be surprisingly quiet and restful. Ms. Stilling is a very recent graduate of the MFA program at City College of the City University of New York and currently teaches there. She has been an editor for The Muse Apprenticeship Guild, The Olive Tree Review and The Castalia Project online zine, her brief attempt at founding a literary journal in college. She has been previously published in many publications including The Mini-Mag, City Writers, Children, Churches and Daddies, Birmingham Words, Open Wide, The Hawai’i Pacific Review, Audience, Existere, Cause and Effect, The Blotter, Skyline Review and Kudzu. A story of hers was a finalist in the Summer Literary Seminars Kenya Contest and she is the winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts Chapter One award for her unpublished novel, Alice Down the Basement Window, which is currently being represented by Foundry Literary and Media. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband Adam and her son Addison.

Davin Kimble Jr. Editor