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What is something you’ve lied about?
In sixth grade (and every grade) I had no interest in math. But especially in sixth grade, when I sat behind Steven M. (a blazing mathematician, even at the age) and cheated off his tests. He tilted his papers so I could see his answers. So I guess I lied about taking math in sixth grade. And Steven M. lied about aiding and abetting me. Liars. We were all liars back then. Well, not all of us. But enough of us.
Who is the last person you hugged?
My wife. Just now, in fact.
What are you reading now?
I’m reading everything by Vonnegut at the moment. I should say reading everything by Vonnegut again at the moment. So just finished “Bluebeard” and just starting “Jailbird.”
How do you come up with the titles to your books?
I can’t say that I come up with them. I think it’s more they announce themselves and demand to be chosen. Whichever of them makes the most noise in my head becomes the title. Although, sometimes my friends will tilt the playing field. I have smart friends.
Share your dream cast for your book.
Casting is hard. Seems like it should be easy, right? But it’s not. It’s hard. I go by age. If the actor is the right age to play the character in my book, then I might envision that actor at that right age, as opposed to that actor at the age they actually are at that moment in their life. Meaning I might cast the Shelly Duval in “The Shining,” even though that film was released 45 years ago, when she was 45 years younger than she is now. That’s the best I can do with this question, I’m afraid. Plus, I don’t like to step on the inner-eye casting each reader does for himself. So, yeah, that’s how I do it.
A PSYCHO-CRIMINAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ON A SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC
A FAMILY ON THE BRINK OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING INSOLVENCY
A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD UBER-GENIUS DAUGHTER IN THE LINE OF FIRE
CAN SHE SAVE THE FAMILY, NOT TO MENTION THE PLANET?
An extraterrestrial crashes into a suburban cul-de-sac Colonial, absorbs every binary bit of information ever chronicled in all of human history, rearranges its molecules and presents itself as a couple of late and legendary film noir superstars, then immediately displays an appetite for debauchery, depravity, decadence, and destruction, seducing the family into its psychopathic criminal orbit with irresistible Hollywood panache, alluring sexual charisma, and inconceivable intergalactic powers.…all in the name of saving the family from their emotional, marital, and financial ruin.
But uber-genius-daughter Mike Devine figures out fast that the extraterrestrial’s principal plan is to employ its unfathomable interplanetary muscle and implode the planet. Which leaves the fate of her family, not to mention the world, in her twelve-year-old hands.
Enjoy an Excerpt
“That’s almost six trillion miles per year—a single light-year,” Mike said.
“So, if they travel at light speed, they should be here pretty soon,” Maggie said.
“Better make extra pancakes,” Connie said.
“That’s lame, Dad,” Danny said.
“It’s witty, son,” Connie said. “You’ll understand when you get older.”
“I hope not,” Danny said.
“Not too soon,” Mike said. “The distance from Earth to the edge of the universe in any direction takes forty-six point five gigalight-years.”
“How many light years in a gigalight-year?” Connie said.
“A billion,” Mike said.
“What does that mean in Earth years?” Maggie said.
“Voyager 1, our most distant space probe, traveled fourteen light-hours, not even one light-day, and that took thirty Earth years. So, it would take about twenty-two thousand Earth years to travel the same distance light travels in one light-year. About one quadrillion and one hundred two trillion Earth years to reach the edge of the universe.”
If that’s a question on the genius test, I wonder which part of the light-speed equation Mike will only get ninety-two percent right, Maggie thought.
“What if they were coming from the closest galaxy?” Maggie said.
“Andromeda,” Mike said. “Twenty-five hundred Earth years.”
“Long time,” Maggie said, and she turned off her flashlight.
“The meteors should have been here by now,” Connie said.
“I saw something up there,” Maggie said.
But something up there had seen her and made a sharp turn toward Earth.
About the Author:
He’s been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a wedding consultant (it’s true), a PTA board member, a HOA president, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting artist for the UNCW Film Studies Department, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill.
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