Q&A with Jane Hamilton

  

 

 

Jane Hamilton is the author of the novel The Phoebe Variations, now available in paperback. Her other books include the novel A Map of the World. She lives in Wisconsin. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Phoebe Variations, and how did you create your character Phoebe Hudson?

 

A: I went to see Twelfth Night with the great Mark Rylance. In the middle of the play, he asks the question of the boy in drag, “What is your parentage?” 

 

I got home, and that question was vibrating in my mind. I don’t have any doubt about who my parents were—they were terrific parents—but, I started to think about how complicated the question can actually be. (For many people now especially exploring their gene pool!) 

 

I lived with Phoebe for 10 years. (On and off.) A book starts with a voice, and hers was with me right away as I thought about a teenager who has a shattering experience with her birth family. 

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Phoebe and her friend Luna?

 

A: Complicated!  But, when they are girls, Phoebe considers the relationship pure, one of pure love and friendship. She doesn’t think about the fact that there might be a power dynamic at work. Luna is from a wealthy family; Phoebe lives across the tracks with a single mother in a time when in the suburbs single mothers were rare. 

 

What does Phoebe get from Luna? What does Luna get from Phoebe? Those are some of the questions the book explores.

 

Q: The writer Stephen McCauley called the book a “wildly original story about every kind of love imaginable.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Oh, what a lovely man Stephen McCauley is! I am terrible at describing my own work, so I think this is a perfectly wonderful elevator pitch. 

 

Q: Music is an important theme in the novel--why did you decide to include that?

 

A: For one thing, including music in a novel means you should listen to the music at hand. So, that’s a perk of the job. 

 

As for Phoebe: Phoebe is a person who is very alone. She is a talented pianist. Not at the concert pianist level, but still, she has a life in music. Music is the thing for her, besides the love of her son, that makes life bearable. That gives meaning to life: this mysterious beautiful creation.

 

I have a friend who says, “I don’t believe in God, but…when I listen to music, I start to think, hmmm, maybe there is a god.” So, I wanted to give a slice of god to Phoebe, a great portion of beauty, and a reason to love the world. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A book about two sisters. It’s short. I took something I’d written before and compressed it. Will it be published? Who knows? I loved writing it very much. I love the sisters more than I can say. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: There’s a great coffee shop in my town. Rochester, WI. Come to DW COFFEE!!! (It’s closed on Mondays.)

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Anna Maloney

  

Photo by Ted Allen

 

 

Anna Maloney is the author of the new novel The 10:12. She also has worked in television, film, and radio, and she lives in London. 

 

Q: You’ve said that a dream provided the initial inspiration for The 10:12--can you say more about that?

 

A: A few years ago, travelling by train between London and Manchester visiting family reminded me that trains can still be romantic and interesting even when they’re crowded. And they are great locations for people watching/listening.

 

So train travel must have been on my mind when I woke up from dream about a hijack. I’d just given up a paid job to concentrate on writing and discovered that a major crime writing competition for new authors was closing in a couple of weeks. The hijack was ready and waiting to go.

 

I needed to provide the first few chapters and a synopsis. The dream had given me the set up, but unfortunately neither a middle or an end. However, I managed to come up with what I needed to enter with a day to spare, and to my great surprise, I won the competition.

 

Q: How did you create your character Claire?

 

A: I used to have an elderly neighbour called Marian. One day she mentioned that her husband was annoyed with her and revealed it was because she’d tackled a young man waving a gun around on the top floor of a local bus. She had approached him with the words that he’d “get no cred for shooting a granny.”  He put the gun down.

 

We’ve probably all met Marians. Claire was based around those who step up, not back, in a crisis. And don’t just film it on their phones.

Q: Do you have any other favorite novels set on a train?

 

A: Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith evolves from a conversation between two passengers on a train. It captures those strange moments we sometimes have with people in close proximity on a journey and turns into a great story full of menace and jeopardy.

 

Agatha Christie loved trains but rather than The Orient Express, I’d choose The Lady Vanishes, which became a famous Hitchcock film based on the novel written by Ethel Lina White in 1938.

 

A young woman befriends an older woman on a long intercontinental train journey, and then falls asleep. When she wakes up the older woman is gone and other passengers claim she was never there. The young woman won’t back down and eventually… No spoilers!  

 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins also features a great starting point with a commuter seeing something from the window that doesn’t look right.

 

Q: The Guardian’s review of the book says, “Gripping and immersive, this salutary tale of how we stereotype and underestimate others is a white-knuckle read that also gives food for thought.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Simply delighted! I particularly like the conjunction of “white-knuckle read” and “food for thought.” My favourite books tend to engage me when I read them but also leave me with something to think about. In a broader sense, it is great when a reader understands what you are trying to do as a writer.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I can’t say too much yet about the next novel but it involves a past tragedy on the River Thames and a present-day threat, plus another older woman who finds herself caught up in the middle of it all. My dad worked in the docks and I live a walk away from the river, so it feels like I’m going with the flow!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Alan Dean Foster

  

 

 

 

Alan Dean Foster is the author of the new novel Lost on Paradise. His many other books include The Mocking Program.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Lost on Paradise, and how did you create your characters Jonos and Liina?

 

A: The idea was to write a story about people in difficult circumstances who strive to better those circumstances, succeed in doing so, and then are forced to confront an entirely new and unexpected set of difficulties. It is also, at heart, a story about how people cope with loss. Some manage to do so, and some do not.  

 

Q: What research and planning went into creating the fantastical world in which the novel is set?

 

A: No research, really, as much as thinking. What would happen if two very different cultures were compelled to live side by side, and then a third was unexpectedly introduced into the mix. Would it affect the original two cultures and if so, how? Positively, negatively, or not at all. What if one of the two cultures was superior to the one newly arrived?

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I did know how the novel would end, but not how. As is so often (and delightfully) the case, as the characters progressed within the story, they themselves changed numerous aspects of its progression. 

 

Writing in this way is very much like traveling to a known destination, but without a map or GPS. You know where you're going, but the roads you take may be different from those you begin with.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Paradise is a concept as much if not more than it is an actual destination. Not everyone's idea of Paradise is the same: many if not most are very different. 

 

The comedian Jim Jeffries speaks of arriving in Heaven only to realize that he's going to be there, with it unchanging, and that he'll be bored for all Eternity. Along with relatives he may not like. 

 

One might arrive in one's notion of Paradise only to find that it's not as anticipated, and then disconcerting things may--happen.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A couple of short stories. Ideas for a new novel. The monthly column I do for a local paper that focuses on art and science (5enses, if anyone is curious, and it can be found online), and a 10th symphony.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I'm not yet tired of telling stories.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Blair Fell

  

Photo by Fitzcreative

 

 

 

Blair Fell is the author of the new novel The Two Wills. His other books include Disco Witches of Fire Island. He is also a playwright, an actor, a producer, and a sign language interpreter, and he lives in New York City.

 

Q: In your new novel’s Author’s Note, you write, “I owe most of the inspiration for this book to Oscar Wilde.” Can you say more about that?

 

A: When I was in my late 20s, near the time I began writing plays, I was introduced to Oscar Wilde’s story “The Portrait of W.H.” The short story is really an essay by Wilde hidden in the guise of a short story.

 

It espouses a theory as to the identity of the male “beloved” in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Wilde argues that the main beloved person written to and about in the sonnets is a young male actor in Shakespeare’s company who created the great female roles in his plays.

 

Remember, at the time I read the essay, the early ‘90s, there was almost zero queer representation in the mainstream culture, and the word gay was synonymous with AIDS.

 

Learning that there were classical writers like Wilde who were (fairly) openly gay and arguing that Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in the English language, was also queer, was astounding to me. As a young gay man I really had no “gay heroes” to whom I could revere.

 

Why had I never learned of this question about Shakespeare’s sexuality in any college class? It’s not like this wasn’t a question scholars hadn’t discussed (at least in secret) for 400 years, and yet no one in my academic life had ever mentioned it.

 

I became enraptured with the theory, and eventually wrote a play that was an adaptation of Wilde’s essay called Naked Will.

 

The action of Wilde’s story is basically an argument between covertly queer 19th century intellectuals about the sonnets, and doesn’t actually bring to life the actual love story to which it refers.

 

In my play, however, I had all these moments where Shakespeare, the boy actor and the Dark Lady come to life in unfinished snippets, hinting at the action of the possible love story. This is where the characters started to form for me.

 

The play was eventually nominated for an LA GLAAD award, and had some nice small productions. Thought, to be honest, because they were small limited productions, I felt it never actually got a production it deserved. This was actually part of the reason I eventually stopped writing plays all together.

 

While great actors can take your material and make it soar beyond anything you can imagine, an actor who isn’t fit for a role can utterly destroy a play or at least not live up to what the writer had in mind. While there were some decent productions, none ever matched the story in my head. This is why I write novels now instead.

 

Decades later, when I turned to novels late in life, I knew I wasn’t finished with the topic and decided to ditch Wilde’s argument between intellects and just take the basic love story and completely fictionalize it.

 

The Willie Hughes of my story is not the one Wilde vaguely describes. All you get from Wilde is what he believes he learns from the sonnets, that the boy is unbelievably beautiful, is from humble beginnings (not the aristocrat many believed the beloved to be) and is named Willie Hughes.

 

I created Willie’s ale-house hustler backstory, his insecure bravado, his unrequited (for a while) longing for the Poet, and created Willie’s first great love, Barnaby Stubb.

 

Wilde suggests Marlowe is the rival poet in the sonnets (which I used) but Wilde also barely mentions the Dark Lady in the essay, believing her to be less important than the youth. I felt she is vital to the story, especially since there is a moment in the sonnets where the youth and the Dark Lady get together, and Shakespeare wants to save the youth from her.

 

Another interesting tidbit about Wilde’s essay is that it was used as evidence against him in his trial for gross indecency, which put him in prison and ultimately lead to his death.

 

Heterosexuals don’t like queers trying to claim Shakespeare as our own, so I was like F that. If you read the sonnets, Shakespeare is far more ours than theirs, damnit.  

 

So, I wanted to take Wilde’s theory even further, in honor of him, Shakespeare, and all queer artists who have been appropriated or suppressed throughout history. It was incredibly brave (and foolhardy) for Wilde to write the story when he did, but I’m so glad he did. He saved lives with it.

 

This is why, in this horrible time in which we live, we have to keep telling queer stories, so queer young people can know they are both not alone, and inheritors of brilliance.  

 

Q: Can you say more about how you created your character Willy Hughes?

 

A: As I mentioned, I started with Wilde’s description, beautiful, arrogant, a boy actor, named Willie Hughes. From there I looked to see if there were any other clues in history, the sonnets, or elsewhere as to the nature of the boys and young men who played the female roles.

 

I looked at age, they could be anywhere from 13 to 24, depending on how pretty they looked. I wanted Hughes to be of an acceptable age for our time, since he was involved in a love story.

 

I saw that many youths came from choir lofts, and would later learn that some companies actually kidnapped young beautiful boys for the children’s acting companies, like The Children of The Chapel Royal, a children’s acting company sponsored by the Queen. (I use this detail for another character in the book).

 

Then it was all about my imagination and the voice from which I drew the other aspects of his character and back story. Willie Hughes’s voice as a narrator came to me pretty quickly and I loved how he was both arrogant and insecure as hell. He was also funny, which I appreciated.

 

He’s someone who, like me,  is very much led by his heart, so finds himself, very fortunately, having fallen into an acting career because of his longing for Shakespeare. Of course he suffers a lot because of this love.

 

This is also my story in a way, so much good in my life came from romantic heartbreaks, so it’s a theme I go back to again and again. Turning that romantic wound into art, into joy.

 

I truly adore Willie Hughes, because while deeply flawed and foolish, he’s got a huge heart, and is relentless on demanding love and all that he deserves from life.

 

Q: What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you wrote the novel?

 

A: Great question. I didn’t want to be barricaded into what we absolutely know, because we actually know almost nothing about Shakespeare’s life.

 

We know he was married, and he left his wife his “second best bed” and then he wrote these 154 love sonnets, 125 of which are written to a young man, and 25 to this woman with dark skin and “wiry” hair. That’s it.

 

So, I abandoned any truth telling as far as the actual biography goes, and just ran with the fact that he clearly loved this young man, and he lusted after this “dark lady,” and he did not like how the surrounding culture criticized him for how he lived his life. (At least in one sonnet he mentions this.)

 

As far as the history of play-making, the environment, the Globe et al., I read a lot of history books on Shakespeare and his times, and tried to stick with what was actually going on.

 

So there is much truth about all that, like the word “theatre” was actually taken from an actual playhouse at the time, and the art form wasn’t called that for a while. Or the fact of kidnapping young boys (legally) to act in companies sponsored by the Queen. That’s also true.

 

So I mined other author’s histories of the period and the facts of theater, the plague, and different professions a lot.

 

I do play loose and fancy free with the chronology of the plays, and the chronology of Marlowe and Shakespeare’s possible working together etc. But so did Wilde, and I might add that Shakespeare himself manipulated history, geography, and everything else to serve a play.

 

So in many ways, this novel is incredibly meta. You can see where I even play with your question in the text.

 

The biggest digression from history is the actual love stories in the novel. As I said, we can’t really know anything more than Shakespeare was married, he also loved this young man, and he also lusted/loved this dark-haired lady. Period. 

 

So the love story of the novel is  an almost total invention inspired by the sonnets, Wilde’s story, and theories by other exegetes like the writer Joseph Pequigney, whose book Such Is My Love was also a huge influence on what I knew about queerness in the sonnets.

 

So beyond just being a total fiction, I also use these loves stories in the novel as my way of exploring how all different sorts of romantic passions (new, old, requited, unrequited, short, long, lost forever) affect us, wound us, create us.  

 

Q: What do you think are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about Shakespeare’s life?

 

A: That we know it at all. That he was straight. That his love sonnets were all written to a woman – which is something we’ve actually known for over 400 years, but didn’t like to discuss, and also didn’t stop Tom Stoppard (a wonderful writer) from still using “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day” as a love poem to Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare In Love.  

 

This is not only an affront to the young man to whom it was really written, but to the fact that in the sonnets, the 25 written to a woman, were written to/about a woman with dark skin and “wiry” hair – possibly black, North African, Italian, who knows. (I make her North African and Armenian in my telling because that’s a big part of my own racial background.) Sorry Gwyneth, but it ain’t you. This poem was written to a dude.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Several ideas. The one furthest along is a weird speculative love story about mannequins trying to fight for their freedom in the face of the oligarchy and redundancy. No, they do not come to life.  

 

Then there are several other ideas in different stages, including a follow up to Disco Witches et al. Who knows. I just keep writing. See what sticks. Fingers crossed the publishing world likes it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: So much. But we all have to accept we shall forever live in ignorance for all we should know. Haha. JK. I think that’s it for now.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with James Elkins

  

 

 

James Elkins is the author of the new novel Stories, Like Illnesses. It's part of his Five Strange Languages project. He is the E.C. Chadbourne Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Stories, Like Illnesses?

 

A: This is a book about the stories we all read and watch, in movies, in books, on TV.

 

I think we’re always looking for stories that can inspire us, give us strength, show us a way to think about our problems. Either that or we’re looking for stories so we can escape: romances, adventures, sci-fi, horror. Those are like the opposites of our lives, things that let us forget what’s really happening to us.

 

But most stories we choose have people like us: a person who had a childhood trauma, someone who had a run of bad luck, someone who has made a series of life choices that haven’t worked out… the stories we’re drawn to are ones that are enough like ours so we can empathize with the people in them, and use them to help us figure out our own lives.

 

Okay, but what if the stories you see in movies, on streaming services, and in books, aren’t like your life? What if you can’t find any stories that remind you of your life? Then, I think, you begin to wonder: are stories any use? Where is the story of my life? Do I have to write it myself?

 

That’s what Stories, Like Illnesses is about. The main character, Samuel, decides that stories aren’t helping him. No matter what they are--romances, trauma narratives, mysteries, postmodern fiction, autofiction, sci-fi, fantasy, epic--they just make him feel weak and confused.

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between this novel and the two previous volumes in your Five Strange Languages series?

 

A: It’s an unusual project. It’s actually not a series, it’s a single novel. But I’ve designed it so each book can be read by itself. Each one has a different style and different events, but they also all tie together. The final two volumes, which are due out in 2027, tie everything together.

 

This isn’t just a long diary, like Knausgaard’s My Struggle, or Jon Fosse’s Septology, which--to me!--feels like it could be 10 times longer, or maybe much, much shorter. This project is tightly designed, and the conclusion, in Book 5, is as strong an ending as I could manage. It’s worth the wait.

 

Stories, Like Illnesses sets the stage. If you read it, and you’re intrigued, you can go straight on to the second, called A Short Introduction to Anneliese.

 

It’s about a maniacal, overbearing, OCD, narcissistic woman who has spent 20 years on her own, writing a long book but not showing it to anyone. It’s a book for anyone who has tried to read, or write, a long book. It tells how people get lost in projects like this one of mine, and how they sometimes rescue themselves. 

 

Next in order is Weak in Comparison to Dreams, which came out several years ago. It returns to the character Samuel, and describes a difficult year he spent on assignment to zoos all around the world, where he had to study animals who suffer in captivity.

 

There’s a special reading experience in store for people who read all three of these, because they all take place during the same period of time, to the same person. His life is split between wondering about stories (Book 1), listening to his demented friend Anneliese (Book 2), and studying animals in zoos (Book 3). Only a person who reads all three can feel what Samuel’s life is really like.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Five Strange Languages signals the fact that the five books are different. They’re all about Samuel, his life, and his family, but each one is written in a different voice, a different mood. In effect they are accounts of Samuel written in five different languages.

 

I got very serious about this when I wrote: each book has a different font and page look, just to help give them distinct moods. Stories, Like Illnesses is also designed differently: I use multiple columns, text boxes, and marginal notes to express Samuel’s fragmenting state of mind. 

 

I think this kind of multi-volume novel is quite rare. If you think of Proust, Anthony Powell, William T. Vollmann, or any other novelist who has written books so long they need to be divided, well then their volumes are uniform in style and length.

 

This is something different, which I hope gives it a stronger sense of closure, since all the parts need to be there next to each other.

 

Q: As an art historian and novelist, how do you see the two coexisting in your work?

 

A: They don’t! There is almost no mention of fine art in these books. Even though the books have over 800 images, not a single one is fine art. I did this so I could really focus on writing the best novel I’m capable of, and not be distracted by things I know about history or art.

 

In my teaching--I work at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago--I focus on problems of writing. I try to show our grad students how they can write more adventurously, even if they want to be critics, curators, or historians; and I teach classes on experimental writing that uses images. 

 

I’ve also changed my professional work. I no longer undertake new research on art history. I have a couple of unfinished projects, but when they’re done I won’t publish on art history or criticism any more. The idea there is the same: I want to keep as focused on this project as possible.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Books 4 and 5: they’re written, but I want them to be the absolute best they can be, so I work on them three, four, sometimes six hours a day.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: These books aren’t “experimental” in the bad sense of that word. “Experimental writing” sounds like it’s unnecessarily complicated, dry, academic, and probably best suited for geeks. That is unfortunately sometimes true.

 

Stories, Like Illnesses may look like one of those, with its multiple columns and unusual images, and it is definitely not “summer reading”--you won’t breeze through it--but it is, I hope, absolutely and completely, and maybe even compulsively, readable.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with James Elkins. 

Q&A with Gerilyn Bass Greenberg

  

 

 

Gerilyn Bass Greenberg is the author of the new novel Drama Drama Drama. She lives in the Chicago area. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Drama Drama Drama, and how did you create your characters Mona, Grace, and Bubby?

 

A: My kids were in high school and college, and I was a stay-at-home mom figuring out my next steps now that my kids were older. They had experienced lots of drama in their lives, and it didn’t seem that many books talked about what girls went through. What a great topic for a book, and it was a good time for me to start writing it!

 

I created the characters of Mona (a middle-aged mom), Grace (a high school freshman), and Bubby (an octogenarian moving to assisted living) as a way to show that the drama continued throughout life.

 

Q: The author Catherine Drake called the book a “relatable and compassionate family story that honestly captures three ordinary women facing familiar transitions as they navigate the push and pull of obligation, resentment, and love.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love it! Mona, Grace, and Bubby’s stories aren’t way out there. They’re relatable people dealing with everyday events that could happen to anyone. Yet, while the characters are at different phases of their lives, they encounter the same feelings of obligation, resentment, and love. As we all do!

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: This one just fit. There is drama in life wherever you look. Having the word repeat itself three times suggests that there are issues and struggles for each main character.

 

Plus, in the book, it tied in with the important Drama Club (a metaphor for popularity), and the novel is put into sections like a drama. Life is a series of matters that we need to navigate through the best we can.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: No spoilers, but I knew what the ending would be early on. At first, I started writing without much direction, but then I figured out that the ending was necessary.

 

What I did add along the way were a few male characters. This is a book for/about women, so I originally made the decision not to have men. However, I added a few for realism and necessity for certain character arcs.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have a few ideas for future stories, but I’m not working on them now.  I’m riding the wave that this book has brought!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I started writing this book 11 years ago, but I’m publishing it now, at 57 years old. It’s never too late to do something new or follow your dream! I’d love to hear from you at gerilynbassgreenberg.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Michael J. Bowler

  

 

 

Michael J. Bowler is the author of the new middle grade novel Muppit Boy and the Wheel of Power. His other books include Muppit Boy and the Allergies of Evil. He is also an educator and a screenwriter.

 

Q: This is your second book featuring your character Mo--do you think he's changed from one book to the next?

 

A: Despite not physically aging, Mo has matured mentally and emotionally based on all he experienced in Book 1, but he’s still very insecure about his nose.

 

He’s learned about his new abilities as Condor Kid, but his natural tendency toward self-doubt leads him to question his qualifications as a superhero. This makes him a more endearing character, in my view, because he retains his empathy toward others, even people he never imagined feeling something for.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of Muppit Boy and the Wheel of Power?

 

A: As a teacher, I knew many boys who were energetic and athletic and who didn’t fit the one-size-fits-all education model that rules education. They were always in trouble or told they needed medication when all the really needed were teachers who understood how to engage boys in a classroom setting.

 

Sadly, teachers don’t seem to be trained in teaching boys, who learn differently than girls. As a male teacher, I understood all that energy and worked hard to create engaging lessons that allowed for movement and competition.

 

Q: What do you think the book says about superheroes?

 

A: I’m attempting to make Condor Kid as “real” a superhero as possible, hence he’s still subject to the laws of gravity like the rest of us.

 

But I also want to show that being a hero isn’t just about physical strength or feats of derring-do. It’s also about finding the value in others as in yourself and giving people second chances, even if they’ve wronged you.

 

I also show that even a superhero can’t solve every problem he or she might encounter because people are too complex.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: First, I hope they have fun and enjoy the story. That’s number one, of course.

 

But I also hope they might understand more about the so-called hyper boys in school who are typically treated with disdain and punishment, realizing that these boys just learn differently and should be taught to their strengths, not their weaknesses.

 

I also hope kids who read Wheel of Power might look beneath the surface of other kids they don’t like and perhaps give some of them a second chance.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently writing Book 6 in the Muppit Boy series and plan at least a seventh installment before wrapping up Mo’s early adventures.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I may continue the adventures of Condor Kid and Hawk Boy if there’s reader interest, but I also must complete my trilogy for teens and young adults that began with the award-winning Forever Boy, so that’s likely my next project after completing the middle grade adventures of Muppit Boy.

 

I also have a cozy mystery series for adults mapped out, and there’s always the possibility I’ll write more middle grade books. Time will tell.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Michael J. Bowler. This Q&A was conducted in partnership with Michael J. Bowler. Up, up, and away! Follow along on the virtual book tour and enter for a chance to win one of 10 prizes: Grand Prize (1 winner): a $50 Amazon gift card, a signed hardcover copy, and an audiobook download code. Signed Hardcover (3 winners). Signed Paperback (3 winners). Audiobook Download Code (3 winners).