A native of the San Francisco Bay Area and a refugee of the Punk/Metal/New Wave/My-God-what-did-we-do-last-night? daze of the 1980's and early 90's. Born in Palo Alto, raised in Berkeley, and lost in San Francisco on more occasions than I can remember, the stories of the Concrete Jungle can be just as ridiculous and bizarre as they can be intense and tragic, and that's what I try to bring to the fore with my writing.
Tell us a bit about your most recent work.
Late last year I published two books at more or less the same time: my short story compilation Short Songs: Tales From the Punk Side, and book five of my Skye Wright series called Requiem Descent. I really did work on both books at the same time, which is a new one for me. Publishing them around the same time was planned!
Short Songs features supporting characters from my Skye Wright series. They were becoming so complex and characters in their own right that they needed stories of their own.
Requiem Descent is the continuation of Skye Wright adventures, in which the weight of the rock and roll world threatens to crush her spirit to the point of her near self-destruction. It’s the fifth book in the Skye Wright series, and could be read on its own, but it’s best to start with book one, The Rise and fall of Skye Wright.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
I write literary fiction about crazy punks doing crazy punk things, which means lots of wild stories about clubs and parties and messed up musicians trying to keep a band together. I try to shed light on alternative scenes for the muggles, for those people who’ve never experienced the underground scenes of alt music, fashion, and art.
But I also do my best to portray the subject of addiction and recovery in a realistic way. There’s so much misinformation about those subjects, especially in mainstream media. I also emphasize the struggles of the poor, the working poor, and the working class. I really emphasize that in my short story South Berkeley, one of the stories from my collection Short Songs, featuring my character Gust the gutter punk.
What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?
My mother taught me to read at a very early age. She had me reading James Thurber by the time I was five! I was, by far, the best reader in my first grade class. I was fascinated and entranced by stories. I knew at a very early age that I wanted to become a writer or a filmmaker, to create my own stories.
What inspires you to write?
I was a wild clubber in the San Francisco Bay Area when I was in my teens and twenties. Back then the volume on everything was up: The punk scene, the metal scene, the gay scene, the Goth scene… I got caught up in the club and bar life and found myself getting deep into the drug scenes. Basically if someone were to make a movie about my young life, John Waters would have to direct it! I just have too many stories to tell.
I would also say that my characters inspire me to keep writing. When you start out you think you’re going to be a puppet master, manipulating the lives of these people you created. Turns out they come to life in ways you never expected. She would do things that simply baffled me. I still don’t know why Skye Wright had to punch that flight jacket girl in the nose at the Gail Burp show. “Don’t hit her. Don’t hit… Damn. She hit her.”
As an example, Skye Wright’s band The Dynamite Chicks wrote a song called “Atomic Bomb Betty,” about a wild and sexy punk that everyone’s in love with, even though she has more red flags than a Chinese military parade. In the series, they even have an artist draw a rendition of Atomic Bomb Betty and are thinking of making her a band mascot, a la’ The Circle Jerks mosher. Yes, that’s where my writing is at: my fictional characters are writing their own fictional characters!
It took me a long time to really find out what motivates my character Skye Wright, as I kept creating stories for her and her back story became more complex. I tell people that I don’t really write her anymore. I just watch what she does and report back.
Which of your works has meant the most to you?
I really think my best writing is the first two books of my Skye Wright series, the first book The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright and book two, The Return of the Dynamite Chicks. The first two books of the series is really one long story divided into two books, and when I came up with the story I knew exactly how it was going to go. I not only really brought my character Skye to life, but created a whole host of dynamic supporting characters.
But my personal favorite is my novel Stella Maris. It’s Skye’s story right before the Rise and Fall series. It’s a very Bay Area and Berkeley kind of story, featuring one character inspired by my mother.
It’s also the one work of mine I wish my mother had been around to read. Only a few hours after I completed the manuscript for my editor, back in September of 2021, my step-father called me to tell me my mother had suddenly passed on.
My mother not only read all of my earlier books, she helped me edit them. She’s the only person I know who’s definitely read my first four novels.
Later on this year I plan to go to her final resting place and read Stella Maris to her. I know she would have loved it.
(Also, yes, I know Cormac McCarthy also wrote a book called Stella Maris. But my Stella Maris came out first, before his!)
If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?
I can’t honestly say I would do over any of my older works. My very first book, Gutter Folklore, is very tongue-in-cheek. It has some really outrageous and silly scenes. In fact, I’ve gone through it recently because I was reformatting it. I know a lot of writers are tempted to redo and rewrite their earlier works, and I can’t say I didn’t change anything, but I wanted to make sure I retained the original spirit and story of my earlier work.
What writers have influenced your style and technique?
Some of my favorite classical writers include Dostoyevsky and Richard Wright. Especially Richard Wright. He’s probably my favorite novelist. I also got caught up in Dorothy Parker and the aforementioned James Thurber when I was quite young. Later on I got into Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson, Ann Petry, and Charles Bukowski.
I know many writers who have tried to write like Hunter S Thompson, including myself, but unless you’re Hunter S Thompson, you cannot write like him. He’s definitely a huge inspiration
These days I’ve been really inspired by writers I’ve gotten to know personally, writers like CE Hoffman and Simon Warwick Beresford, and Dani Dassler who also writes punk novels. Dani and I have become really good friends! They’re writing really inspires me. A key scene in my drug rehab book A Long Slow Aftermath was inspired by Dani Dassler’s novel PR.
What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
The two biggest problems I have with my work is time and marketing. I don’t have as much time as I would like to work on my stories. I have a backlog of ideas and projects I want to develop, but that damnable day job keeps getting in the way. My dream is to become a full-time author, to be successful enough to just work on my art.
Which comes to marketing. As an indie author I have to summon up my own personal Herb Tarlek and do all the hustling myself, usually on social media. It’s just such a different animal. Really, writing my stories is so much easier than getting them around!
How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not?
I’m working on a novella and my friend Shelly Johnson gave it a wonderful beta read. She even edited it! I’ve also learned a lot from my friend CE Hoffman who is one of my marketing gurus.
And so many of my friends have bought my books and left reviews and even more. I found out I was nominated for Best Local Author in the Reno News and Review newspaper. I initially had no idea until a friend mentioned it to me! Turns out my friend Kim Rochelle, a very talented actor friend of mine, nominated me!
And like I said before, my writing friends inspire me just with their material. They’re scary good writers and reading their works inspire me and my stories. A key scene in my novel A Long Slow Aftermath, about a man adjusting to life after a drug rehab, was directly inspired by a scene from Dani Dassler’s novel PR, where my character Preston takes his blind friend Toshi to her very first punk show!
What does literary success look like to you?
I want to get my writing out there. I want to get my stories and novels into the hands of more readers. I’ve talked to several writers about this, and some of them have encouraged me to be realistic, to stop having daydreams about going viral and just enjoy expressing myself.
I don’t compromise on my writing. I write what I feel is raw and real. I’m not trying to write pop stories to hit the charts, but I still want to see my work take off. Some people have counseled me to be realistic, to take solace in small victories such as just expressing myself and enjoying what sales I do have.
Personally, I’m not interested in being realistic. That’s just too depressing. I’m going to hang onto my delusions and keep plugging my writing, while I daydream about signing the deal for the Netflix miniseries!
Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?
I’m about to publish a novella entitled Trieste. It’s based on a true story about life surprises and unexpected family relations coming out of the blue. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out!
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