Q: May I make a suggestion.
A: Certainly.
Q: I'd forget about ON ASSIGNMENT and concentrate on AT THE HOUSE.
A: That leaves out my going to the Gulf Coast Writers Conference and writing about Writing the Black Novel After 9-11.
Q: Yes.
You didn't write a black novel.
You wrote ON ASSIGNMENT.
I don't know what you'd call it but I wouldn't call it a black novel.
A: No.
Q: I wouldn't even call it a black memoir, like Derek Raymond's The
Hidden Files.
About the effect writing black novels has on a writer.
A: No.
Q: And I wouldn't expect to win an Edgar for Biography/Criticism for AT THE HOUSE, which is, basically, two books of poems.
A: Or one book in two parts.
Q: Or one book in two parts.
You are at the house.
You
probably won't go back to work until after the first of the year.
Just relax
and enjoy the holidays with your kids and grandchildren.
A: Yes.
Q: Just write about school, the military, and work.
A: Good idea. Combining writing with a day job. When writing interferes with your getting and holding a day job. Keeping a day job.
Q: You don't have to look for a day job until January.
A: That's true.
Q: Right now, writing is your job.
A: It is.
Q: You're off to a good start. With MUSICMAKERS: POEMS ABOUT FLORIDA.
A: Thank you.
Q: Just relax, and write MYTHMAKER: OUTSIDER POEMS.
Don't get
your bowels in an uproar about where you'll publish it.
You are publishing
it at The Daily Bulletin.
A: You're right. I am.
Q: That's where an outsider publishes.
Self-published pamphlets
and a web site on the worldwide web.
A: You're right. It is.
Q: You're at the house because you can't hold a fucking job.
A: I did good at my last job.
Q: But it was temporary.
A: All jobs are temporary. No gig lasts forever, Owen says. I would shorten that to, "No gig lasts."
Q: Dread Clampitt have been playing at The Red Bar for seven years.
A: That's amazing.
Q: Owen was with David Davis before you left Atlanta.
A: That's true.
Will I ever sell a book?
Q: You can't know.
We don't know.
Who knows?
Probably
not.
A: That's what I was thinking.
Q: You're at the house, man.
Don't piss and moan.
Or worry.
If you drop dead you drop dead.
Look what happened to Hemingway when he
dropped dead.
A: He didn't drop dead. He blew his head off.
Q: Look what they did to A Moveable Feast.
A: They just took out things he wanted in and put in things he wouldn't
have wanted.
Publishers do that.
For that matter, writer's widows
do that.
He's dead. What can he do about it?
Nothing.
Q: Make AT THE HOUSE like A Moveable Feast.
You have a good
start, with MUSICMAKERS.
Continue the good work.
Keep up the good
work.
A: Up and Down in Delray Beach and Panama City.
Q: Swiss Family Paranoia-Critical.
A: AT THE HOUSE. I have everything I need.
Q: Don't blow it.
A: I won't. This is my chance.