Christa Faust

Christa Faust, author of works such as Hoodtown and the forthcoming Money Shot, talked to Donna Chavez at Publishers Weekly about writing the novelization of Snakes on a Plane.

A couple of exchanges from their Q & A:

You won the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers’ Scribe Award for Best General Adapted for your novelization of Snakes on a Plane. How did you get that job?

It was an assignment. Originally it was called Pacific Air Flight 121 and the [Samuel L.] Jackson character was just a generic action hero.

Novelizations need to be completed before the film is shot, sometimes before it has even been cast, in order to be released at the same time as the film. The amazing Internet buzz for SOAP didn’t gear up until I was nearly finished. In fact, we had to do some last-minute scrambling to get hold of a final draft of the script that included the famous “motherfucking snakes” line in time to meet my deadline.

Is the award great, or what?

The award itself is a wonderfully cheesy golden star that sits in a place of honor beside my desk with other bits of writer’s mojo like my letter from Richard Prather and a small statue of the Blessed Virgin dressed as a Dominatrix.

Some people look down their noses at media tie-in work and think of tie-in writers as a bunch of soulless hacks just out to make a buck. I love tie-in work and have infinitely more respect for hard-working writers like Lee Goldberg and Max Allan Collins than I do for self-styled literary geniuses who are still sitting in mom’s basement polishing their unpublished masterpiece. It was a hell of an honor to be recognized by my fellow tie-in writers. They really understand how tough the job can be.

Read the full interview.

Visit Christa Faust's website and her blog to learn more about her work.

My Book, The Movie: Christa Faust's Hoodtown.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew Bridge

Andrew Bridge is the author of Hope's Boy.

Robert Anasi interviewed Bridge for Publishers Weekly.

A couple of exchanges from the Q & A:

Is the foster-care system as horrible in general as it was for you in particular?

Well, everyone’s experience is different. These are all individual lives, and individual tragedies, that we’re talking about. But I think overwhelmingly, there is far, far too little good. Within two years of leaving foster care, a third to half of the kids are homeless, and a majority of the girls are pregnant. And their kids often end up in the same system.

Is it mainly a problem with the system?

The government does a fairly good job of paving roads and putting out fires, but when it comes to caring for the lives of individual people, it tends to do poorly. Veterans hospitals, psychiatric care, public nursing homes, you name it. We have a long history in this country of not respecting the integrity and values of families in poverty.

Read the full interview.

Learn more about Hope's Boy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dana Milbank

Dana Milbank is a correspondent for The Washington Post and author of the just-released Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes that Run Our Government.

Jamie Malanowski interviewed him for Playboy.com.

The introduction and opening exchange:

Dana Milbank, a correspondent for The Washington Post, has just published Homo Politicus, a smart and very funny tour of Washington and the people there who run our government. In ths book, Milbank adopts the guise of an anthropologist to examine their culture and behavior, a very clever and revealing way to think afresh behavior we often take as par for the course. Milbank interrupted his coverage of the campaigning in Iowa to answer some of our questions:

PLAYBOY: Congratulations on your book! It’s kind of devastating to liken our wise and eminent leaders to guys who wear grass skirts and coconut bras. How did you get the idea for this approach?

MILBANK: As someone who wears a coconut bra most weekends, I never thought of my treatment of Potomac Man as Devastating. I see myself as a foreign correspondent, sending dispatches home to normal Americans about the curious creatures who live in the capital. When Bill Thomas at Doubleday suggested an anthropological twist on this notion and proposed calling it Homo Politicus, I jumped at the idea, in part because I figured the confusion caused by the title could boost sales in places such as DuPont Circle. And while my anthropological skills are admittedly suspect, I think it’s beyond dispute that Washington people exhibit many traits in common with cultures we consider primitive: tribalism (partisanship), violence (political campaigns), and hunting and gathering (inserting earmarks in spending bills).

Read the entire interview.

--Marshal Zeringue

Conn Iggulden

Conn Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys won Book of the Year at the 2007 Galaxy British Book Awards. His latest book, Lords of the Bow, part of the “Conqueror” series based on the life of Genghis Khan, is published in January 2008 in the UK and March 2008 in the US.

Anna Metcalfe of the Financial Times asked him a few questions, including:

What book changed your life? And why?

Legend by David Gemmell. I read it when I was 14 and it set me on the path to historical fiction. I wrote a book a year from then on.

* * *

What novel would you give your own children to introduce them to literature?

The Twits. Roald Dahl was cleverer than he was given credit for.

Read the full Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

David I. Kertzer

Sarah F. Gold interviewed David I. Kertzer for Publishers Weekly.

The introduction and one exchange from their dialogue:

In Amalia’s Tale ... David Kertzer tells how in 1890 an illiterate Italian peasant woman — who contracted syphilis from wet-nursing a foundling — took on Bologna’s social and medical elite.

Both with Amalia’s Tale and your earlier The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, you show a knack for finding stories that were sensational in their time but then forgotten.

This is such a dramatic phenomenon: women in large numbers who were getting infected with syphilis [from nursing foundlings]. The question was, was there a way to tell the story in a rich enough manner to make it come alive. [Unlike the Mortara kidnapping] this was a story that the authorities did everything possible to hush up, and the principal, as a peasant, was powerless. I was fortunate because, as I dug further and further, I found a treasure trove of materials in an unexpected way for such an obscure person. One thing I discovered while doing the Mortara book was how vital and rich court records can be in providing insight into the powerless and illiterate people of the past.

Read the full Q & A.

Kertzer's Amalia’s Tale is due out in March 2008. Visit David I. Kertzer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Allison Brennan

Toni McGee Causey interviewed Allison Brennan for Murderati.

One exchange from their Q & A:

You always have fascinating characters, and I know you write three books a year, plus the other works (short stories, etc.) Finding a character and getting the details are generally different for every writer, so I'm curious: how do you brainstorm characters? Do you write out descriptions, do a dialog with the character, chart them, or something else? What inspires you, character-wise?

(blushing deeply) Thanks Toni. I think your phrase “finding a character” is how I do it. I find out all about them as I write the book. I generally know a little bit about my characters, but not much. I don’t really know enough until I get them on the page. I don’t write out descriptions (which really screws me during the copyedits sometimes), I don’t dialog with them, chart them, or anything that would considered “plotting” (shivers.)

What I do is start with the idea. Like, “Earthquake under San Quentin.” I knew from SPEAK NO EVIL that Theodore Glenn had been convicted of killing four strippers in San Diego, but it was a throwaway line to get Will Hooper out of town because I didn’t need him in the story at that point. But when I started my prison break series, Theodore became my villain. I wrote the scene of the earthquake and put Glenn there. What was he doing? He had something in his hand. It was a letter. To Robin. Who the hell is Robin? Right—she testified against him. Then he shreds it in anger. Wow, he has some emotion there—the only emotion he has. So you can see I learn about my characters as I write. They sort of tell me. Usually when I get stuck writing it’s because I start telling my characters what to do rather than letting them do what they need to do.

I did know that Glenn came from a good family, wasn’t abused as a child, and he isn’t a traditional serial killer. Usually when I get in their heads I figure them out. Sometimes they come fully formed, like Joanna Sutton my heroine in TEMPTING EVIL. Sometimes it takes me a little digging, like Kate Donovan in FEAR NO EVIL. She was such a tight-lipped bitch, er, heroine, it took me awhile to figure out what made her tick. Anthony Zaccardi in the novella came fully formed, it was the heroine Sheriff Skye McPherson that I had a bear of a time with. Again, because she’s a closed, private person and just didn’t want to open up.

Read the entire Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

Orhan Pamuk

Two exchanges with Orhan Pamuk about his novel My Name is Red, from a Q & A at the publisher's website:

AAK: You have used the rather unusual device of telling this story through many narrators. In fact, no two consecutive chapters are in the same voice. Why did you structure the novel this way? What challenges did this structure present?

OP: It was so much fun to impersonate my characters! I enjoyed finding the voice of a sixteenth century ottoman miniaturist, a mother of two children who is looking for a husband, the voice of her kids, the demonic voice of a murderer, and the narrative of a dead man on his way to heaven. Not only my characters speak in my story but objects and colors as well. I thought all these distinctive voices would produce a rich music—the texture of daily life in Istanbul four hundred years ago. These shifts in viewpoint also reflect the novel’s main concern about looking at the world from our point of view versus the point of view of a supreme being. All of this is related to the use of perspective in painting; my characters line in a world where the restrictions of perspective do not exist so they speak in their own voice with their own humor.

* * * *
AAK: What kind of research did you have to do to write a novel of such rich historical detail?

OP: It took me six years to write this book. Of course, I spent a lot of time reading books and looking at picture, but I rarely thought that of it as "research." I’ve always enjoyed what I was reading and I read what I enjoyed. Ottomans were great record keepers and the records of the governor of Istanbul were well kept and published. So, for hours I used to read the prices of various clothes, carpers, fish or vegetables in Istanbul markets in a given year. This led to interesting discoveries; for example, I learned that barbers also performed circumcisions or pulled teeth for the right prices.

As for researching the paintings, that was more personal because beginning at the age of six, I’ve always thought that I would be a painter. When I was a kid I used to copy the Ottoman miniature that I came across in books. Later, I was influenced by Western painting and stopped painting when I was twenty when I began writing fiction.

Read the entire interview.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dave Wann

Dave Wann is author of many books, including Affluenza and the new Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle.

From a Q & A at his website:

Q. You write that happiness depends on how well basic human needs are met. So if needs like social connection, stimulating work, and creative play are not met, you’re saying we resort to consumption instead?

DW. Absolutely. Over-consumption is an addiction, and addictions arise when we’re off-balance and insecure, as our society now is. Because we feel empty, we want something to want, but consumption can’t really fill us up unless we’re consuming something of real value in moderate, sensible amounts. On the other hand, when we are healthy, active, and stimulated by life’s many adventures, we don’t need or want to buy as much.

I make a clear distinction between gratification and true happiness. Gratification is about infinite and often insatiable wants, while happiness is more grounded in meeting achievable, satisfying needs. For the past fifty or more years, the hidden mission of the marketers has been to deliver dissatisfaction guaranteed, because real happiness is not as profitable. As a result, we aren’t meeting needs for nutrition, efficient cars, the respect of our peers, sufficient leisure time, as well as the skills and habits that can use leisure time well.

Read the full Q & A.

The Page 99 Test: Simple Prosperity.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. Graham Burnett

Anna Mundow interviewed D. Graham Burnett, author of Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature, for the Boston Globe.

Mundow's introduction and the first exchange of the interview:

In 1818, in a New York City courtroom, the case of Maurice v. Judd posed an apparently straightforward question: Was whale oil fish oil, and therefore subject to state inspection and taxation? As expert witnesses testified, however, the trial quickly became a passionate public debate on the order of nature and the supremacy of man. In the fascinating "Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature" (Princeton University, $29.95), D. Graham Burnett describes the trial, its undercurrents, and its repercussions with sublime wit and consummate skill. Burnett, the author of "Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado" and "A Trial by Jury," is associate professor of history at Princeton University. He spoke from his home in Princeton, N.J.

Q. Is there a common preoccupation that connects this and your previous books?

A. I suppose I'm concerned with the way that facts become facts. My first book dealt with the history of cartography; maps are wonderful spaces to see natural and social facts in the making. My second book is more personal. In 2000 I served as the foreman of a jury in a murder trial in Manhattan, and found myself completely caught up in the complicated dynamics of proof, evidence, and persuasion in the courtroom. "Trying Leviathan" represents an intersection between those two previous books, perhaps, since here I open up a legal case that is of real importance in the history of science. There was a good deal of serendipity in all this. I am a lover of "Moby-Dick" and had decided I wanted to write a book about changing ideas about whales in the modern era - how did these creatures go from monstrous "beasts" to soulful, musical friends of humanity? I was doing this research when I stumbled on the records of Maurice v. Judd.

Read the entire interview.

The Page 99 Test: Trying Leviathan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Max Allan Collins

John Kenyon of Things I'd Rather Be Doing interviewed Max Allan Collins, author most recently of a "posthumous Mickey Spillane novel, Dead Street, finished by Collins.... A Killing in Comics, an interesting mesh of vintage crime novel and a comic strip, and finally Collins' own Hard Case Crime novel, Deadly Beloved."

The opening exchange from their Q & A:

TIRBD: For a guy who has tried a number of different things over your career, 2007 will go down as a groundbreaking year: Your first novel featuring comic character Ms. Tree, finishing a Mickey Spillane novel and writing a hybrid of sorts in the book A Killing in Comics. Does a year like this tell you anything about avenues you have left to explore or give you more license to try new things?

MAC: It was a busy writing year as well, perhaps the busiest of my career. I probably should be slowing down, but as I get older, the reality that the time ahead is finite becomes all too apparent. So a lot of what I've been doing reflects me getting around to doing things that I've intended to do for a long time – the Ms. Tree novel, for example. Black Hats, the Wyatt Earp novel (written as Patrick Culhane), is a notion I've been nurturing for 10 or 12 years. My new DVD, “Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life,” is the culmination of all of my years of Ness interest as well as my desire to keep honing my filmmaking craft. I'm at a stage where about half of the effort is designed to make a living – the movie and TV tie-in work – and the rest is artistic ambition and working to get done all of the things I'd like to do.

It looks like I may get to do Nathan Heller again, and I will very likely write the final two books, to make sure the series has a sense of having been finished. If they are successful, I'll fill in with earlier stories, but I have always intended to do Marilyn and Kennedy as Heller's last cases.

Read the entire interview.

--Marshal Zeringue