I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Today we are joined by James
Brubaker, who's books include We Are Ghost Lit, The Taxidermist's Catalog, Black
Magic Death Sphere: (science) fictions, Liner Notes, and Pilot Season.
He teaches writing and runs the University Press at Southeast Missouri State
University. When he isn't at work, he is at home with his wife and three cats
in St. Louis.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Hang out with my wife, read, listen to records, teach, publish other peoples’ books, take pictures of my cats, play mobile games, browse screen savers on Roku, watch movies or shows.
What’s the most useless skill you possess?
I’ve memorized and can sing all the words to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of
the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
What’s your kryptonite as a writer?
Research rabbit holes—I’ll pause to look up a small detail (ie., who
drummed on “Deacon Blues” or find scans from 80s Yellow Pages) and end up
spending an hour looking up a thread of adjacent details.
Describe your book in three words.
Obsession. Grief. Solipsism.
Describe your book poorly.
One guy
dies under “mysterious” circumstances and his friend obsesses over the death,
trying to figure out what happened, and understand why it
happened, and there’s a being in the sky made of cosmic matter who watches the
story unfolds and eventually comes to Earth and messes everything up.
Would you and your main character(s) get along?
No, which is maybe a problem because, in my latest, three of the
main characters are actually me.
If you could spend the day with another author, who would you choose and why?
Pynchon, but so I can find out
what he looks like so I can figure out if he actually briefly appears in the
film adaptation of Inherent Vice.
What is your favorite way to waste time?
Reporting obviously fake Twitter accounts created just to spread information, though nobody really seems to do anything about them since the new guy took over.
What’s the one book someone else wrote that you wish you had written?
William Kotzwinkle’s novelization of E.T.,
fully titled E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial In His Adventure on Earth –
don’t laugh. If you know, you know.
What’s the one thing you wish you knew when you were younger?
Everyone else is scared, too.
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