Interview with short story writer Bentley Wells

I’m welcoming back Bentley Wells today with a new focus – his short story collection, The Question and Other Stories.

His June 2017 interview about The Paradise Coven is here.

Bio:

Bentley Wells has written a few short stories that have been published in literary magazines and The Paradise Coven, a mystery that was published by Black Opal Books in 2017. The Question and Other Stories is published by Black Opal Books as well.

Welcome back, Bentley. What do you enjoy most about writing short stories?

I believe it is the attempt to depict authentic characters in a realistic situation or situations in fewer words than typically found in a novelette or novel. Of course, an author doesn’t necessarily include as many characters or situations in a short story as in a novelette or novel. Still, a short story―like a novelette or novel―should have a logical conclusion.

Can you give us a little insight into a few of your short stories – perhaps some of your favorites?

The title story, which was published in a literary magazine before it was revised and published in this collection, is a slice of life and depicts a young man in college who has seen the campus queen and wonders what it is like to date someone like her. He expresses as much to his roommates who are playing cards. They tease him about asking her out on a date, which he does, and she accepts. Another story, which is longer, concerns a veteran of Vietnam who encourages a young woman enrolled in college to leave campus to go with him across the country. The young woman doesn’t realize the veteran will do almost anything to get attention until it is too late. Another story concerns a president of a small town bank who enjoys reading ads in a local publication’s personals column. Although he has never responded to any of the ads, he decides to respond to one that has caught his attention. A week or two later the woman responds. He responds. With each letter, the two learn about the other. Eventually, she agrees to meet him by having him come to her home. She has cooked a wonderful dinner. However, as the evening passes, he realizes the woman is not like his late wife. The woman realizes that he is not the man for her.

What genre are you inspired to write in the most? Why?

My first novel―The Paradise Coven―was a mystery. This book is a collection of short stories. Only two or three of the stories are mysteries, however. Other stories in the collection are examples of romance, humor, etc. I am working on another mystery, but it doesn’t feature the same detectives as the first. So, to make a long story short, I would say that I enjoy writing mysteries or suspense. I suppose I enjoy writing in this genre because I enjoy reading mysteries and suspense by other writers. Mysteries allow authors to pit bad people against good people. Mysteries also allow authors to provide justice to those characters who deserve it. And this justice can be swift or drawn out.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I am writing a mystery set in a fictitious town in Oklahoma. After earning a graduate degree in business, Frank Williams returns home in time to attend his father’s funeral. James Williams was a successful businessman and pillar of the community. He was revered by those who knew him, but someone killed him. The authorities have few clues and no suspects. Frank investigates. Eventually, he uncovers evidence that leads to the governor’s office. Unfortunately, the evidence also reveals his father’s unscrupulous activities. If the evidence is presented during the trial, Frank realizes his father’s reputation will be tarnished. Yet, he can’t allow those responsible to remain free―can he?

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I considered myself a writer―at least, a professional writer to a certain extent―when I received my first royalty check. This was for a book of nonfiction. (I have written several books of nonfiction over the years. I enjoy researching and writing nonfiction, especially brief biographies and history.)

How do you research markets for your work, perhaps as some advice for writers?

I do most of my research on my computer. For instance, if I’m looking for publishers of mysteries, I will type “publishers of mysteries” or something to this effect. In addition, I will consult Writer’s Market and/or Literary Marketplace.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I don’t believe I have any interesting writing quirks. At least, I can’t think of any.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

That was many years ago. However, I know I wanted to write―or have a career that included some writing―when I was in high school.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I believe readers will enjoy The Question and Other Stories.

Thanks for chatting with me today!

New interview with author Peter Davidson

Helping me wind up the week, and the month, is author Peter Davidson. He’s he to share a little bit about his humorous personal experience and advice book, Marital Advice to My Grandson, Joel: How to be a husband your wife won't throw out of the window in the middle of the night.

Peter was last here at Reviews in Interviews in July 2017 when we talked about his humorous book, Penny.

Bio:

Peter Davidson is the author or co-author of twenty-nine books published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Perigee/Putnam Publishers, Northwestern Publishing Company, Sweet Memories Publishing, Haworth Press, and others. His works include fiction, non-fiction, college textbooks, children's picture books, and training materials for business and industry. Davidson is also a songwriter and one of his songs was used in a television series in The Netherlands.

For more than two decades, Peter Davidson was one of America's most active writer's seminar presenters, having presented over 625 one-day seminars in a fifteen-state area from Minnesota to Tennessee and Colorado to Illinois. 

Davidson has been a professional recording studio owner, college professor, and retail store owner. He trained over 700 real estate agents, something that he believes he will have to answer for on Judgment Day.

He is the recipient of the prestigious Leavey Award granted by Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. Davidson and his wife life in the Lake Okoboji resort area of Iowa in summer and in Arizona in the winter.

Please tell us about your current release:

When my grandson, Joel, got engaged, I decided to jot down a few words of marital advice for him, based on my vast experience as a husband. Then I thought, why share this wisdom with only one person when I can share it with the whole world. So, I started a blog and listed new marital advice every week. As the popularity of the blog grew, people suggested that the material be turned into a book, and, well, here it is!

What inspired you to write this book?

This started out as a few words of wisdom for my grandson for him to get a few chuckles from and maybe to pick up a few helpful hints about his role in his marriage - and then it just evolved into the blog and then evolved into the book.

Excerpt from Marital Advice to My Grandson, Joel:

One of my favorite parts of the book are the more than twenty short quotes that each occupy a whole page and that summarize some of the major points in the book or provide a little philosophical message to ponder. Here are a few of my favorites:

As the marital bus rumbles down the highway of life,

there cannot be two people wrestling for the steering wheel,

or surely the bus will crash. Know when it is your turn to drive

and when it is time to quietly sit in the back seat.

When your wife gives you that steely-eyed, clinched-jaw scowl,

known as “The Look,” it means that you have obviously

done something wrong, but what?

You will find out as soon as she gets you alone.

“Buy me flowers, candy, jewelry, clothing, perfume, a card,

or nothing at all -

but do not ever buy me an implement of work as a gift.”

What exciting story are you working on next?

I have a manuscript completed that I was working on when my grandson got engaged and the idea for Marital Advice to my Grandson, Joel took off and occupied a lot of my time. Right now, I'll be working on promoting this book for several months. Then, I hope to get back to pitching the other book to literary agents. It deals with making your mark, leaving a legacy, and when the time comes, going out with a bang.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I was a youth, I always had a paperback in my pocket and read every chance that I got. The thought about writing a book someday was in my mind at a young age. I didn't take the thought seriously until I got to college and got a few nice compliments on some of my written assignments by my professors and even more than that, when I got some nice comments from my college friends when I wrote to them over the summer. I actually considered myself to be a writer when I got my first work published.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like?

I pursued various ventures in addition to writing for many years, as described in my bio, above, but writing has been a major and constant part of my life for over four decades. Right now, writing is my only work-related activity.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I suspect that a lot of writers do this same thing, and a lot of people use it to help clarify or solve problems in their life: I “sleep on it.” When I am having difficulty figuring out how a scene should go in a novel or how some material should fit together in a non-fiction work, I fall asleep thinking about the issue and when I awake in the morning, the solution is there, after my subconscious mind has mulled it over while I slept.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I don't recall any aspirations until I became a teenager, and then I wanted to be a Rock 'N Roll star. That didn't happen, but the professional recording studio that I owned along with three partners was inducted into the Rock and Roll Halls of Fame in Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota, and us along with it, so I got a little taste of it and got to hang out with a lot of musicians along the way.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Although I was involved in various activities and pursuits during my life, the one constant was writing – I was always writing something. Sometimes I wrote only for my own pleasure, but usually I had an eye on potential publishing. Not everything that I wrote got published, but every one of those manuscripts that didn't get published, and never will be, were a labor of love and I'm glad that I wrote them. To aspiring writers, I have only one piece of advice: “Keep writing.” When I'm working on a book, I like to work on it every day. I don't necessarily have a set schedule and I have never had writer's block, so I can write about anytime and anywhere. We have a summer home and a winter home, and I have completely staffed offices in each home.

Links:

Blog | Amazon | LinkedIn | Twitter

Thank you for being here today, Peter.

Interview with humorous sci-fi novelist Mark Speed

My author guest today is Mark Speed to chat about his humorous sci-fi novel, Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens.

Bio:

Mark Speed's comedy writing has been broadcast on BBC Radio and appeared in numerous newspapers. He performed his solo comedy, The End of the World Show, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2011 and 2012. He's been writing novels since he was fourteen and has an MA in creative writing from City University, London. Since a chiropractor told him he’d never run again, he’s run several marathons.

Welcome, Mark. Please tell us about your current release.

Now that there are four books in the Doctor How series, I’m giving away book one for free! Pick it up on Amazon. You certainly don’t have to be a fan of Doctor Who to enjoy it.

What inspired you to write this book?

I got it into my head that Doctor Who always painted himself in a positive light, and that all the other Time Lords were always seen to be wrong. How could that possibly be true? And if you look at his screen incarnations, he seems to have some kind of multiple personality disorder. What’s the real truth?

I realized that there was a bigger story here – the world needed an alternative explanation of the ‘Whoniverse’, which not only explained why the BBC series is incorrect, but incorporated it into the story.

The BBC has a history of taking legal action against authors who they see as breaching their intellectual rights in the Doctor Who franchise, so I had to tread a very difficult path. I’ve been very flattered that some hardcore sci-fi or Who fans have said that it’s a great alternative, and isn’t a straightforward parody.

What’s been particularly interesting in the last year is that the Doctor Who scriptwriting team has actually followed me in regenerating the central character as a woman.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m now working on the fifth and final book in the series. It’s been a wonderfully satisfying journey, and I’m enjoying all the threads coming together.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I tried writing my first novel when I was six. I completed my first full-length novel at the age of fifteen.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I gave up my job in January 2016 to write full-time. It’s not paying the bills yet, and I’m living on savings, but I’m getting there. I still get up at 06.40 in the morning. I tend to do my best writing in the afternoon.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I suffer from a bit of OCD. I will often delete and rewrite a word or a punctuation mark. I know at least one other writer who does that.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Author and astronaut. I figure writing the occasional bit of sci-fi allows me to tick ‘astronaut’ off the list too.

Links:

Amazon | Website | Goodreads | Facebook

Thanks for being here today, Mark. All the best with your writing! 

Readers, remember to pick up book 1 for ---free--- through Amazon!

Interview with humor writer Jass Richards

Comediane Jass Richards joins me today to talk about her new humor novel, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God.

Bio:

Jass Richards has an M.A. in Philosophy and used to be a stand-up comic (now she’s more of a sprawled-out-on-the-couch comic). Despite these attributes, she has received four Ontario Arts Council grants.

Her most recent novel, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God has been called “highly entertaining … and a riveting read” (Midwest Book Review). In addition to her Rev and Dylan series (The Road Trip Dialogues, The Blasphemy Tour, and License to Do That), which has reportedly made people snort root beer out their noses, she has written This Will Not Look Good on My Resume, a collection of short stories described as “a bit of quirky fun that slaps you upside the head,” followed by its sequel Dogs Just Wanna Have Fun. Several of her pieces have appeared on Erma Bombeck’s humor website, “The O & D” was published in The Cynic Online Magazine (Sep 2011), two excerpts from This Will Not Look Good on My Resume have been selected for Contemporary Monologues for Young Women (vol.3), and Substitute Teacher from Hell was produced and performed by Ghost Monkey Productions in Winnipeg (2014).

Her worst-ever stand-up moment occurred in Atlanta (at a for-blacks-only club) (apparently). Her best-ever stand-up moment occurred in Toronto (when she made the black guy fall off his stool because he was laughing so hard at her Donovan Bailey joke).

Welcome, Jass. Please tell us about your current release.

Here’s the blurb:

You ever have a neighbour whose behaviour is so mind-bogglingly inconsiderate and so suicide-inducingly annoying that you just want to ask him, in a polite Canadian way, to please stop?

TurboJetslams isn't like that.

Jass Richards' new novel, TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God, tells the tale of one person's pathetic and hilarious attempts to single-handedly stop the destruction of a little piece of beautiful Canadian wilderness by the increasing numbers of idiots who couldn't care less.

A quick and entertaining summer read. A perfect cottage-warming gift. Boomer lit. Sure to resonate with paddlers and nature lovers everywhere.

What inspired you to write this book?

My primary reason for writing this book was to inspire a bit more respect for others’ quality of life. I find that we are living in a culture of less civility and more ‘entitlement’—people have gone overboard with rights talk and now often claim they have the right to do whatever they want (especially when on their own property). They forget that their right to X stops at someone else’s right to Y; in the words of someone philosophical, ‘Your right to freedom of movement stops at my nose.’ In other words, rights are not absolute; they are often in conflict and we need to figure whose rights or which rights should take priority when.

Exacerbating this is that we seem to priortize the physical, forgetting that the visual and audio can be just as intrusive, just as much a trespass on other people’s space.

Of course, there was also the environmental motive—we mistakenly think that ‘cottage country’ is pure and will, somehow, always stay that way—though I think that ship has sailed.

Also, I hoped to speak for other people who are just as angry and just as dismayed at the demise of the little natural beauty that remains, especially when it is being destroyed by idiots for no good reason. 

Lastly, TurboJetslams:Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God was personal therapy: I tried to turn tears of frustration and screams of anger into laughter. And since almost all of the triggering events in TurboJetslams actually happened, it was a stay-out-jail card: writing about what I really wanted to do kept me from actually doing it.

Excerpt from TurboJetslams: Proof #29 of the Non-Existence of God:

The next week, a trailer appeared on a piece of land mid-way up the lane. Again, Vic had thought the land in question was part of the lots on either side, not a separate lot.

The appearance of the trailer meant that within two years (the Township did have one bylaw), a cottage would be built. She hoped they’d hire the local construction crew. It would be done in three weeks, Monday to Friday, nine to five. If they did it themselves, there’d be no telling how many years it would take.

It also meant that, in the meantime, they’d have to pay just $200 a year in property taxes instead of something closer to $2,000. Even though they’d use the roads, the dump, the library—scratch that, what was she thinking—even though they’d use the roads and the dump just as much. More, probably.

And since they probably wouldn’t pay to hook up to hydro until they started building, it meant that everyone on Paradise Lake would hear their generator whenever they wanted to watch tv. They’d probably also hear their tv, given how loud it would have to be to be audible over the generator.

When she paddled past, on her way up the river, she saw that the teenaged son was up with all of his friends. Three tents were set up around the trailer.

She thought for a minute. Had she seen an outhouse? Or would there be shitting in the bush. Ten feet from the lake.

She heard a belch. A long, extended belch.

A lot of shitting in the bush.

She considered giving a heads-up to the woman down-current with the red bathing suit who swam every day. Scratch that. Used to swim every day. (The jetslams near-slammed into her one day.)

She thought nothing more of them until well after she’d returned. Until two o’clock in the morning, in fact. At which time the bongo drums started.

They probably have a fire too, she thought, as she set aside her work and headed out.

It was that whole primeval thing again. Sitting by a fire, sending messages by drum, chowing down on a mammoth— What’s next, she wondered as she got to their driveway, hurling spears?

Something whizzed by, just missing her face.

“What the fuck?” she screamed as she dove into the bush.

“Sorry!” How he’d heard her, given the bongos, she had no idea.

She picked herself up and walked in.

They had one of those straw targets set up on the driveway. Its back to the road. See what she meant by the drop in IQ due to all that DEET and two-stroke engine fumes?

It was, she noticed, as yet unpunctured.

“Give me that thing,” she said to the nearest twenty-something, the one with the bow and arrow in his hand. He handed it over. She loaded the arrow and fired it into his leg.

“Fuck!” he started hopping.

“And enough with the bongos!” she screamed.

They stared at her.

“There’s a fire ban,” she said then, searching for the one in charge. The one with half a brain.

“What’s a fire ban?” someone asked.

What? What?!

“We haven’t had rain for over two weeks,” she explained. “No outdoor fires are allowed.”

She waited for it. Altogether now, ‘We can do whatever we want on our own property!’

Surprisingly enough, they were silent. Probably still trying to figure out the relevance of rain to fires.

“Suppose that thing,” she pointed to the six-foot high blaze, “throws a spark.” She bent down, picked up a rock, and tossed it into the fire. Some of those present—not all, note—moved back from the shower of sparks.

Unfortunately, one of the sparks landed on one of the tents. Nylon, it blazed immediately.

Shit. She looked around, but they didn’t have buckets of water at the ready. Of course not.

“Call 911!” she screamed. Her cabin was just five lots away.

“And enough with the bongos!”

But as quickly as it had blazed, the tent, now an ex-tent, had congealed into a sad, melted marshmallow.

“Never mind.”

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m working on the fourth Rev and Dylan novel. This one is about an app that creates a sex-changing (or at least gender-changing) hologram, making women appear as men and men appear as women. Rev and Dylan become part of the beta testing team.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I was eight and wrote a poem about my dog, Rexie. It rhymed.

Do you write full-time? No. I can’t imagine spending 8 hours a day working on a novel. Or even several novels. If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write? I spend a lot of time kayaking and going for long walks in the forest. I do various things for just enough money to enable forementioned writing, kayaking, and walking.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I don’t have one. Which is really weird because a lot of people say my writing is quirky.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

If they want to buy any of my books from Smashwords, I’ll create a discount coupon for them to use.

Links:

Website | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | Indigo | iTunes 

THANK YOU for this!!

You’re quite welcome. Thank you for joining my blog.