Friday, August 29, 2008

Rhonda Gowler Greene, Karen Siplin, David Guterson, Chuck Palahniuk, and Salman Rushdie: Five Exciting Author Interviews

Rhonda Gowler Greene

Barnyard Song

Rhonda Gowler Greene is an optimist. She received 220 rejection letters over a span of three and a half years before she had her first book published. Since then her career has soared to the top of the children's bestseller list. She has published 21 books, including the 1997 children's classic, "Barnyard Song,"that received numerous accolades such as "School Library Journal" honors, an "American Booksellers" "Pick of the List" selection, and "Children's Book Council" showcase honors. Greene earned her B.A. in education from Northern Kentucky University. A few years later, she pursued her master's in educational media, graduating from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She taught elementary education for the learning disabled for two and a half years before putting it aside to raise her four children. In addition to writing scores of children's books, Greene is a noted speaker. Most recently she was selected as the keynote speaker in Grand Rapids to address 700 early childhood teachers. She also regularly visits schools and makes appearances at reading conferences. Her Barnyard Songwas the recipient of the 2004 "Michigan Reads-One State, One Preschool Book" award through a program spearheaded by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to propagate childhood literacy. Greene and her family reside in West Bloomfield Township.

SCN: How did you make the transition from teacher to children's book author?

Greene: When we started having a family, I stayed home with my children. Since I loved children's books anyway and had a degree as a librarian at school, I read and read and read to my kids while they were growing up. That made me want to start writing books on my own. So as a stay-at-home mom, I began writing stories and submitting them.

Read more about Rhonda and Barnyard Song here....

Karen Siplin

His Insignificant Other

Avid readers of fiction author Karen Siplin know her signature style and proclivity for featuring multicultural characters in her books. The author of four books, Siplin talked to the Defender about her work.

CD: Your first book, His Insignificant Other,was a Borders Original Voice selection and named one of Cosmopolitan magazine's Sexy Summer Reads. Cosmo isn't known for showcasing African American women or African American authors. Were you surprised to win this honor?

KS: I honestly had no idea what to expect when His Insignificant Otherwas published. It was my first novel, and it was mainstream, contemporary women's fiction about a neurotic New Yorker in her 20s who was unhappy with her career and love life. I thought it was a natural fit for magazines like Cosmopolitan. I had watched fellow white authors writing about similar subjects receive tons of coverage for their novels, so I was more surprised that Cosmopolitan was the only mainstream magazine to recognize His Insignificant Other,especially since it was a Borders Original Voices pick. Still, I was excited when I learned Cosmopolitan chose it as a sexy summer read. I'm always delighted and grateful when a magazine or newspaper devotes time to me and one of my books.

Read more about Karen Siplin and her book here....

David Guterson

Instead of functioning as mere decoration or backdrop, the settings in David Guterson'snovels influence the story and storytelling style. "A sense of place informs much of my work," explains Guterson. "It's something I can't seem to help." He grounds these settings with specific and authentic details gathered through extensive traveling in the Pacific Northwest.

"I like to be out of doors and on foot as much as possible," Guterson writes. "The heartbreaking beauty of the world speaks to me in a powerful way, and I feel a constant compulsion to be in the presence of mountains, rivers, fields, coulees, canyons, breaks, draws, and woodlands."

In 2003, with the publication of Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest,Christian Martin had the opportunity to speak to Guterson at length about his writing habits, influences, and goals, as well as his thoughts on the role of environment in fiction. Earlier this year, he interviewed Guterson again to update their conversation following completion of The Other. What follows blends both interviews in an edited, slightly rearranged version, true to the spirit of the originals.

Christian Martin: To what degree do you control the progression of your narrative? How much is planned out? How much evolves unconsciously?

David Guterson: I have a balance between what I know, what my plan is, and the structure, versus a lot of unknown and mystery and discovery. I work in existing genres: Snow Falling on Cedars,for instance, is a courtroom drama. That gives me a sense of structure; I know that a courtroom drama has opening statements, witnesses, cross examinations, a verdict. In East of the Mountains,I had a mythic journey story which has its own conventions. Our Lady of the Foresthas all the conventions you see in stories about apparitions of Mary. These genres give structure to what I'm doing.

Read more about David Guterson and his work here....

Chuck Palahniuk

Snuff

You learn a lot from lunch with Chuck Palahniuk. For example, I now know that Adolf Hilter invented the blow-up sex doll. True fact, apparently. While the soon-to-be Führer was working as a messenger between the trenches in the First World War, he was appalled to see his fellow Aryans sloping off to French brothels. So he came up with the idea of an inflatable Fräulein. But Hilter didn't get around to manufacturing the doll until near the end of the Second World War when the factory was destroyed by the Allied firebombing of Dresden.

Thus it remains a little-known fact that Adolf Hilter invented the blow-up sex doll.
Palahniuk (“Puh-LAH-nick”) loves this kind of stuff. Tales that may or may not be taller than average. With his breakthrough 1996 novel Fight Club, you were never quite sure what was true and what was made up. Was there a real Fight Club? Was it the same thing as the Cacophony Society (organiser of the annual “Santa Rampage”, which involves pranks and drunkenness) to which the author allegedly belonged? No one knew. That was the genius.

Twelve years and eight books later, Palahniuk, 46 and now openly gay, remains something of an enigma. When I offer to fly to Portland, Oregon, to interview him about his new novel, Snuff, he suggests getting it over with at the airport, because he's going there anyway “to buy tickets”. Who the hell goes to an airport to buy tickets?

Read more about Palahniuk and Snuff here....

Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress of Florence

In Salman Rushdie's new novel, The Enchantress of Florence,the exasperated Mughal emperor Akbar the Great agrees to let a mysterious Florentine adventurer, Mogor dell'Amore, finish a tale. But as the troublesome Mogor prepares to continue, Akbar says with a touch of venom: "A curse on all storytellers. And a pox on your children, too."

Salman Rushdie's more interested in trying "to find stories to tell about how the world joins up."

Rushdie knows the sting.

It wasn't so long ago that the Indian-born author was a hunted man, placed under guard in an undisclosed location, because of an Islamic edict, or fatwa, against his life issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. All for telling a story -- 1988's "The Satanic Verses."

Some radical Muslims believe the fatwa, declared for what they believe was blasphemy against Islam, remains in effect despite Iran declaring it lifted. That a book could be grounds for assassination is a belief that some Westerners routinely invoke -- particularly in these war on terror times -- when boasting about the superiority of Western culture.

Yet Rushdie explores the parallels between East and West in The Enchantress of Florence(Knopf). He observes the two sides have much in common, good and bad.

"You always try to make a strength out of the cards you're dealt," he said in an interview. "Since my life has been this very transcultural life, it's pretty obvious that that has gone a long way towards giving me a subject.

"One thing I've seen ... is that these different worlds [of East and West] are not so separate as we think them to be, they bleed into each other all the time. What happens in one part of the world affects what happens in the other in a way it may not have hundreds of years ago, but it sure does now. ...

Read more about Salman Rushdie and his new book here....

Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez, Debra Winger, Dennis Lehane, and L. Lee Lowe interviewed here.