Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #105 of The Writing Coach podcast, I speak with David Puretz.
David Puretz is the author of The Escapist, a debut literary fiction novel exploring themes of mental health and self-discovery.He is the Editorial Director of the literary journal Global City Review and the creator and founder of the quarterly burly bird zine, which is sponsored by Fortroyal Foundation, a non-profit for the conservation and preservation of the arts. Puretz received an MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York and was a trailblazer for Ithaca College’s BA in Writing. Currently, Puretz resides in New York City where he teaches writing at Yeshiva University. Kaye is the author of Your Book, Your Brand: The Step-by-Step Guide to Launching Your Book and Boosting Your Sales, and the creator of Branding Outside the Box, where she helps authors and entrepreneurs become more memorable.
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The Writing Coach Episode #105 Show Notes
Visit David’s website here.
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Episode Transcript
Hello beloved listeners and welcome back to The Writing Coach Podcast.
I am recording this episode . . . wow . . . Canada and the States and the world is in the midst of the Corona virus pandemic. The United States declared a state of emergency yesterday. Things are pretty crazy here in Canada. The prime minister’s wife has the virus. Schools have been shut down. My kids are going to be home for at least the next three weeks. Things are scary. Things are strange.
And I wasn’t sure whether I should even put out a podcast. My guest today is David Puretz. He and I had a great conversation earlier this week and in the interview you’ll hear he alludes to the Corona virus, He’s in New York and things were happening there. That was, I dunno, we recorded this two or three days ago and just so much has happened in that time here in Canada that . . it’s just . . . we’re taking things day by day here.
It’s kind of a moving fast. And so I was thinking to myself, should I even put out a podcast episode this week? It’s seems kind of silly or I don’t know if there’s, there’s bigger things going on right now then just putting out a podcast. But then I was thinking about, you know, what, why do I do this podcast and why do, uh, any of the people I speak with on the show and why do I work with writers and why do writers do the work that they do? What is the value of storytelling in the time in the age of a pandemic? And I thought about a bit and I think it’s actually really important on the most simple level. My, myself and my family, we’re probably going to be at home basically quarantined in our house for the next three weeks it looks like.
You know, as much as we love quality time and discussion with each other, uh, we’re going to need some entertainment during that time. And whether it’s watching a movie or whether it’s reading a book, storytelling and art can be really, really important and useful, particularly when you’re locked into house for three weeks. But I think also storytelling is about sharing wisdom. And it’s also about preparing your readers or, or giving your readers insight into experiences they might not yet have had in their lives. I’ve always loved horror movies that are in horror stories. I love zombies. What’s the value of a zombie movie? Well, maybe, maybe I’ve spent 40 years watching zombie movies and reading zombie comics and reading zombie books to prepare for this moment, for this moment so that when I am trapped at home for a few weeks, it’s not that scary.
It’s not as overwhelming. Overwhelming because I’ve read these stories, I’ve watched these films. I have at least a bit of context for what this might be like. You know, not to say that the Corona virus is the same thing as a, you know, Donna Romero’s down to the dad or something. But my point is, I think we tell each other stories, one to entertain each other, but also to, to educate each other and to help get each other through difficult times. Um, I think going right back to caveman times and sitting around the campfire, we told stories about heroes. We told stories about adventures and and it wasn’t just about entertainment. It was also about sharing wisdom and knowledge and preparing ourselves and our culture and our loved ones for difficult times. So that’s where we are. You know, we’re in some difficult times right now, but I don’t think that is reason to stop doing a podcast or writing our books.
I think now more than ever, people need connection. People need entertainment and people need stories. And so we’re going to go ahead with today’s episode. I’m glad we are because it’s a great episode. I’m speaking with David Puretz.
David’s the author of a brand new novel, came out about a month and a half ago, the escapist, it’s his debut literary fiction novel. It explores themes of mental health and self discovery, some things that are, you know, very applicable to these, these trying times. David is the editorial director of the literary journal, global city review and the creator and founder of the quarterly Burley bird Xen, which is sponsored the Fort Royal foundation, a nonprofit for the conservation and preservation of the arts. You know, kind of what we’ve been talking about here. David received his MFA in creative writing from the city college of New York and was a trailblazer for Ithaca college’s BA in writing.
Currently he resides in New York city where they’re dealing with his Corona virus just like we are here in Ottawa. And he of course teaches writing. I like all the guests we have on this show. He works with writers and helps them to learn the writing process at Yeshiva university. David, I have a great conversation. Uh, you know, I hope you’re healthy. I hope you and your family are well. I hope that the scariness going on in the world right now isn’t overwhelming you. And if you are feeling you know those feelings of anxiety, here’s an interview. Here’s a fun conversation that can hopefully help take your mind away from it for a little while. Let’s get to that interview now.
All right, today on the podcast I have David Perez. David, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. How are you doing?
Great. So your debut novel has been out for just a little over a month. Now. This must be an extremely exciting time for you.
It is. It’s very exciting. Um, I, I have been teaching so it came out right in the middle of my semester, so I haven’t really been able to enjoy it as much as I think I should be enjoying it just cause I’ve been so busy teaching. But you know, that’s the way these things, these things go.
I work with a lot of writers and uh, you know, all of us kind of dream about this idea of the perfect life where you can just sit in your cabin and write your books all day. But, uh, I always remind them of, of Kafka who, you know, had a clerk job and uh, I recently saw a, a letter from Herman Melville where he was writing to someone and he said, Aw, from word for this damn day job, I could get this whale novel written fast. Right. So there’s a long tradition of a great novelist also working.
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s the, it’s the side that readers never get to see or cure much about, but it’s such an integral part of our lives that, um, that I think it’s important to be talking about. Um, so for, I mean for me, I’m lucky enough to be doing something that I really love, um, and something that’s pretty closely connected to my writing because I get to teach writing. So, um, so for me it’s great. I don’t, I don’t work as a clerk at a, at the post office or anything like that, but, um, but you know, there, there is inspiration in those things as well. Um, I mean, um, those, those mundane jobs can sometimes offer a lot of inspiration.
Absolutely. And they can also add, um, you know, when you have unlimited time to work on your writing. Yeah. You know, what’s the, the, the that says work expands to fill the amount of time you have given for it. Um, sometimes having a limited time to focus on your writing can actually really speed up the, uh, or really helped author be focused on the work.
Absolutely. I mean, I feel like the busier I am, the more I can get a get it done, the more I feel accomplished. Um, if I have nothing going on, I get nothing done.
I think that’s really [inaudible]. Well, I know you do have a lot going on, so maybe bring the listeners up to speed here on who you are and what you have going on in the world of writing as well as teaching.
Yeah, sure. So I teach writing at Yeshiva university, uh, which has been closed for the past week and a half because of Corona virus spheres. Um, but, um, but it is supposed to return next Monday, so, so it goes, we’ll see how things develop. But, um, but, but uh, yeah, I’ve been teaching at Yeshiva university for about two years now. Um, before that I was teaching at a st John’s university and at a city college, most of the teaching I do is, um, freshmen composition. Uh, sometimes it’s called first year writing or, um, first year seminar, but it’s that, it’s that first year, um, composition class that’s, that’s usually a requirement at most universities. So that’s my, that’s my bread and butter. Um, but then I teach other advanced writing classes, like fiction workshops and um, and technical writing classes and nonfiction classes. Um, but the, but yeah, the first year writing classes, that’s, that’s where I do most of my teaching.
And so you’re clearly a very literary guy. Has it always been that way? Were books a big part of your life growing up?
Yeah, books have always been pretty important to me. I mean, when I was, uh, uh, I, I think I, I was really interested in writing and being a writer pretty early on. Um, when I went to college, I was a writing major, so I knew then that it was something I was interested in. Um, and then, um, after college I worked in publishing for a while. Um, right after college I got my first gig working at a very small press called four walls, eight windows. And that’s literally what it was. It’s four walls and eight windows. It’s one room shock basically. But, um, but my job right out of college was basically going through the slush file and, um, assisting the, uh, the senior editor there. So that’s where I w where I cut my teeth in the, in the publishing biz. Um, and then I worked at Harper Collins for about six years and then I went back to school to get my MFA. And, um, and from there I, I kind of transitioned into teaching and that was about seven years ago.
I’ve spoken to a few different people who have done that slush pile job and I think each of them have said that, you know, there was some real great takeaways from that experience. Was it like that for you? Were there things you learned in that process of going through other people’s work?
Yeah, there was a lot to learn there, especially about just how competitive the market is for good writing because I came across a lot of really impressive manuscripts, none of which were good enough for depress. I mean, some were good, but not just the right time or just not the right market for what the press was trying to do. Um, and just so it just showed me, it was just another signal that, um, getting a book published is a very difficult, difficult thing, a very difficult task. Um, so, um, so there was that, but I also, you know, I learned a lot about the, the industry and just about the way the industry functions, especially on the small press level. Um, and then at Harper Collins I really got to see it on the big picture scale. Um, so I was lucky enough to see it on, on both sides. But you know, this was a long time ago and the publishing landscape has changed quite a bit since then. And so the press that, the small press where, where my book is published, you know, it functions very differently than that small press I first worked for when I first got out of college.
When you see these big changes in the industry over the last decade or decade and a half, um, what’s your take on that? Are you excited where publishing is going or do you feel destabilized by it as someone who has been in the industry for awhile?
Yeah, I think what, well, there’s been a lot of conglomeration right there. The big presses are further conglomerating and um, and so what does that mean? It means it makes it a little bit harder to get picked up by, um, by one of the big mainstream publishers. But it’s also what I’ve seen is that it’s allowed all of these smaller independent presses to really start to thrive and to create these new markets for themselves. Um, and that’s, and that’s what this press, um, global city has done. They’ve, they’re doing, we’re doing some really interesting things and I think some of the new pod technology has allowed some of these small presses to thrive in ways that, um, that can carve out a new slice of the market for different types of writers. Um, and to appeal to different types of readers. I think that, um, audio and podcasts have actually changed the game quite a bit. Um, I think audio books are really doing well probably as a result of the fact that podcasts are so popular. And so now there are these, um, audio book publishers, small independent audio book publishers that I’m starting to see pop up a little bit. Um, so yeah, the market’s going to continue to change and I think that’s gonna continue to change as the technology continues to change.
As someone who studied writing in school, worked at a small press, worked at a big press, um, did the MFA, uh, clearly you were doing your own writing throughout this time. When, when did the novel really begin? Was that always on the horizon or was it perhaps a series of shorter works that kind of evolved into the novel? Let me little know a little bit about this process of, of someone who’s been in the publishing world for a while. Um, how does that novel germinate and then come into being?
Yeah, it was a really long process as you know, about the process. Um, so it started, yeah, I started writing short stories and, um, I think in my early twenties, um, you know, 15 years ago, plus I was really interested in metaphysician and metanarratives and stories within stories that, that was always really interesting to me. Um, these frame narratives that had, um, that would sometimes involve writers where writers were, the protagonists of the stories. They, they really always spoke to me. And partly because I think I was always so interested in writers. So I love to read stories about writers. Um, so I in turn was doing my own writing about writers. I was creating these stories about writers or creators in a sense. But, um, but it took me a long time to get to a point where I had something that was novel where the, um, but I think what eventually did it is I was probably, um, I was, I dunno, it was probably four years out from my undergraduate, um, life when I returned to a short story that I wrote when I was an undergraduate.
Um, and it was about this, this, um, it was about these twins and these twins were pulled apart by their, uh, by their, uh, troubled father was doing these psychological experiments on them to see if he could harness their telepathic abilities. So that was the story that I wrote when I was in college. So then I went back and I was like, and I said to myself, okay, instead of developing that storyline further, I think it would be cool to create a storyline for some young troubled writer that would craft such a story in the first place about these twins and their troubled father. And so that’s where my protagonist was born for the novel. It was someone who was, who was writing, crafting stories. Um, now the book has taken many different twists and turns since then, my protagonist is, is no longer a fiction writer.
Instead, the writing that he does in the book is nonfiction. It’s about him just looking back at his own past. Um, but it never would have happened had I not started thinking about writers and writing about writers in such a way. And so, um, so from there I developed this story about this writer and, um, this writer who had come, a young writer, so someone who is just coming into writing, someone who was in his early twenties, um, and um, and I created a storyline for him and a storyline based around him trying to find his own father. And, um, and that’s how it developed. And during the editing process, we actually cut out all of his fiction to protagonist’s fiction because it didn’t, it just didn’t connect with readers in the same way that his nonfiction writing was connecting. And so the frame narrative component, it removed this, uh, this fiction writer writing fiction component to the story.
Instead, it was about a young man grappling with his past and using writing to, to kind of help him heal, to work through trauma. And so that’s really what the book became. And so it took a long time to get there. Uh, you know, it took a while for, for the book to realize what it was. Uh, I, I, it wasn’t till I had a very full manuscript that my editor said, you know, all of this fiction stuff, we got to cut it. It’s, it, it, you know, it’s better who without it. And it was a really hard pill to swallow. Um, but, uh, you know, because it was the, it was the Genesis for the book itself, but, um, but that’s what needed to go and she was right. The book is much better without it. And, um, and it’s, it’s good. It just, it, it was a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately I saw that that was the right course of action. Um, so yeah, long process, many, many years in many twists and turns along the way.
As someone who teaches writing, did that surprise you or did you anticipate the challenges and then the way that the story was going to evolve?
Uh, that’s it. Hang on for a sec. There’s a door opening, you know, cut this out. Yeah, I just, I didn’t want any of that background noise. Um, yeah. Uh, I anticipated it to some degree. Um, I understood that it was going to be a marathon and I really liked the writing process. Um, I just didn’t anticipate how intense the final editing process was going to be. And I think that’s going to be different for everybody. I think sometimes editing is rather light and I think other times editing requires a, a complete overhaul. I think that was, that was the thing that I was not anticipating how much of uh, how much of an ordeal that was going to be and how much work that actually requires. I mean, I understand editing and revising is a big part of the process, but I didn’t think that it was going to be such a big overhaul.
Um, so, um, but you know, it’s something that I tell my students all the times that writing is rewriting is revising. And, um, and I think that’s a hard thing for a lot of students to understand and to wrap their heads around is, uh, an appreciation for the process. And, um, some students see it as just the product, like just this, not appreciating the process, but something that can just get you to some final product and not thinking about the fact that the product can, can be altered further, um, to make it as better, as best as it can be.
Yeah. And I think the biggest surprise there, as you have expressed is that a lot of the times that involves a removal of something, and it, it seems so shocking to say this thing, this, you know, five chapters or whatever that you worked on that, you know, seemed so important at the time. Um, to realize that ultimately the story is better as a whole if you let go of them, even if you know that’s coming, it can still be painful and you still as a creator feel tied to that work. And sometimes it can be tough to, to see it go.
Yeah, I would say that was the hardest part of the whole process for me was Harding with the very thing that was the, the, the basis for the story, even though when it went in a different way. Um, it, it was everything that I, that I wanted to do but it, it’s what allowed the book to become what it became. Um, which, which honestly is something much, much better.
I’m, I’m very much a, uh, I’m not a very woo woo person. You know, I’m very kind of tactical in my writing and in my teaching of my writing and yet there is like this faith aspect to it where you just like kind of have to tell the story and kind of have to have some faith that it’s all gonna work out in that even if this draft isn’t perfect, you have to have some faith that you are going to get there. And it’s funny as, as kind of like, uh, you know, nuts and bolts as I tried to be. Um, there is this kind of, you know, uh, uh, almost spiritual aspect to it where you kind of have to have some faith that, that the artistic gods are going to bring it all together in the end.
Faith is absolutely an essential component. You have to have faith in the process. I think another way of putting it is you have to find enjoyment in the process. I think you have to just enjoy putting words down on the page. Um, and if you enjoy it, then that can just continue to build. And um, if you don’t enjoy doing that, then I don’t know if it’s even worth doing. Um, it’s like going to work every day doing the nine to five, but it’s a job that you hate and you’re doing it just for the paycheck. You know? I don’t think that’s a good way to live. You want to do stuff that makes you happy. So I think faith is part of it. You have faith that what you’re doing will turn into something meaningful and something that audiences will, will find meaning in. But I think that process, doing the actual work, you need to find meaning in that for yourself too.
When I started teaching writing, I found that really early on, a lot of what I was doing was understanding that I was going to have to articulate and give language to things I had only ever kind of done intuitively. And so as yourself, as someone who teaches writing, in what ways has that teaching process and interacting with students influenced your own writing and your own approach to your storytelling?
That’s a great question. Um, in subtle ways. I would say it’s always, it’s always a give and take. I mean, I’ll, I’ll bring in readings or I’ll implement certain strategies in my classroom, um, because it’s something that I’m interested in. Oftentimes, like if there’s a, there’s a short story that I find really interesting and something that I want to digest a little bit further. Um, I’ll sometimes bring it into the class and, um, and that’ll help me better understand it. And, um, and it’s the same thing with, with writing as well. If there’s a certain process that I’m exploring, maybe I’ll try that process with my students and see how they may approach that process. Um, I did that a long time ago. Um, it did more for, for writing essays than for, um, writing fiction. But there’s this, um, with essays, um, there’s, I think a lot of students come into college and I think a lot of people in general when they think of writing essays, they think of a top down, thesis driven piece of writing, right?
Something that builds off of one central claim. And um, sometimes that works for specific types of writing and for specific rhetorical situations, but oftentimes it, it’s not necessarily going to be that interesting or that fun to read or that suspenseful. I think so. So sometimes a good approach to writing an essay isn’t to do the thesis driven essay isn’t to start with a point with a claim and then try your hardest to defend that claim button instead to start your essay with a question or a hypothesis and work to sort out what the truth is on the page and Chronicle your thinking and research process as you continue to work through it. And nothing is too big and nothing’s too small. As long as you’re chronicling your, your process, as long as you’re chronicling the thinking and the research that goes into trying to solve this question.
And, um, and I think it’s a, it’s a novel way of approaching essays, but I think it’s a good way of approaching writing in general too, especially if you’re trying to work out something for your book. Like it’s a good way to brainstorm. Um, so that’s something that I had started to do with essay writing and I, and I brought it into my class and it seemed to it and it worked really, really well and students were writing these really powerful essays. And so now it’s been kind of a centerpiece of the way that I teach writing. And it has been for the last couple of years following, um, this is kind of exploratory writing format for essays. Um, and so that’s something that I was experiment again, I brought it into the class and I integrated it into the classroom and it’s something that I use to in, in a lot of different ways when I’m doing my own writing.
Well speaking, that idea of experimentation, and you alluded to earlier your interest in meta fiction. Did you bring these sort of experimental tendencies to the novel? The [inaudible]? Maybe we should talk about the book of obey. So it’s called the escapist, um, lemme let listeners know a little bit about what the book is about, but then also, um, if you could address that question of is there an experimental element to
So there is an experimental elements. Well, it started experimental, it started with this metal fictional component. Um, but now it’s, it’s become much more of a frame narrative that’s, that’s a lot less of a rabbit hole than what I had initially intended. Um, so now it’s a frame narrative in that it basically switches back and forth between, um, third person narration and, um, first-person journal entries and we go back and forth between the two. Um, so the story takes place, uh, about 10 years ago. It takes place in early, uh, it in like 2010. And, um, and so the Iraq war is coming to a close. And, um, the, the main character Billy, his father has been serving in the Iraq war and his brother has also been, um, serving overseas in the Iraq war. They were both, um, deployed DOR during the surge.
I don’t know if you remember the surge that, um, that Bush implemented during the Iraq war, but, um, so both of them were overseas and it was a time that Billy was finally able to kind of be on his own. And he, um, he decided not to enlist even though it was from this military family. And um, and then his father returns home and his father basically escapes just, uh, disappears, leaves the house in the middle of the night and Billy decides to track him down to find him. And those are the first two words of the book actually find dad. Um, and those two words seal Billy’s fate. And it’s basically about him trying to find his father, even though his father kind of terrifies him. His father was a very abusive parents. Yet by trying to track him down, there’s this kind of role reversal that’s taking place.
And in his writing he’s able to confront some of that early trauma. And so, you know, he’s moving forward in real time to try to find his father and his journals. He’s kind of moving backward in time, documenting his early life with his dad. And, um, and that’s, and that’s how the book starts and then it progresses forward from there and moves along the, uh, the Eastern seaboard. It takes him from, uh, New York to DC to Baltimore, uh, and he continues South all the way to Florida and then back through at belief tra and, and so, so it’s a travel novel. It’s a road novel. Um, and eventually, um, returns to where he started back in New York.
Are you well-traveled yourself or were you drawing from your own experiences or were you using your imagination for the, that road trip aspect of the story?
Yeah, so a lot of the research [inaudible] the geographical research anyway, came from my own travels. It was during, it was 2008 when my girlfriend, now, my wife at the time, and I traveled the United States for, for a long time. We traveled for about three months just exploring this, this beautiful country. And, um, so a lot of that, that research, um, was conducted during that travel. During that time though, I didn’t know that I was researching something that was going to become what it was. I just knew that it was important that this documentation of these places and what I was seeing was important. And it ended up being really important in helping me craft the world in which Billy existed in during this time period. Um, and these different cities and these different places he went. So, so that was really important. And how in the research process anyway.
The book’s called The Escapist, um, I think that sort of travel can be thought of as a form of escape. And I think as novelists and as writers, we’re often kind of thinking about this idea of fiction, um, as escapism. What are your thoughts on that? Do you, do you worry about storytelling being in the scape or do you think that’s a valuable tool, um, as someone who’s written a novel called the escape, it’s whether your thoughts on that idea.
Yeah. So if clearly thought a lot about the concept of escape, um, and I, I think the escape of this tier, who is the escapist Billy for sure, he is the escapist, he is the one that has always escaped and originally is escapism came as a result of that, that abuse from his father. And so, um, now and we see this a lot, I think in childhood trauma, um, children tend to not physically escape but, but escape kind of mentally, they kind of go inside themselves, they depart from where they are and um, fall into this, this kind of dreamscape just to, just to leave this place right so that that manifests as he gets older and his escapes manifest into, um, drug use in particular. And so he, he is a drug addict and he’d be, he’s a drug addict from, from very early on, starting in his early teens up until his early twenties, from the point when this book begins.
And so that’s a big part portion of his escapism as well. He escapes as well by, by actually escaping the childhood home where he grew up. You know, while his brother and his father are deployed, he quote unquote escapes and flees and moves to New York. Um, and, and so there, so he’s doing his own form of, uh, of escape and then his father comes back and his father becomes the escapist, his father is the one that, that is needing to escape this, this world that he’s returned to. Um, and, and so there’s this kind of role reversal that takes place where, where Billy then tries to, to be the one that’s, that seeking out, that’s finding, that’s trying to locate his father as opposed to to escape from that experience. But there’s also this other problem. Yeah. I mean, I, I am also, I the writer, I’m also the escapist here, right? As I’m the one escaping my own reality and writing this fiction in creating this story that, um, that, that is very different from my own reality. And so that is an escape. And then the readers, the escapist when they enter into this world. So it’s a, it’s a multilayered form of escape that’s taking place.
I know the novel is being well received amongst critics, saw some great reviews. I’m curious how your students responding to it. Do they think it’s pretty cool that their professor is, uh, has a new book out or are they not as excited as one might be?
Well, you know, it’s a little tricky because it’s, you know, it’s a pretty R rated book. It’s got, you know, it’s got some, some tough stuff in it. It deals with, so, you know, it deals with abuse and it deals with heavy drug use and there’s some, some pretty graphic, uh, violence and sexual moments in the book. So I try to be careful about that. And, um, and so I’m not, I don’t talk about it in too much detail and I think it, you know, I think there, there have been some students who have been interested in want to learn more and some have ordered the book and then those that have ordered it, those that want to talk about it, I’m happy to talk about it with them because I feel like if they’re reading it, they’re at a place where they may be, you know, ready to talk about it.
Um, but I think there are, you know, for some students I think they, they’re just, I don’t know, it’s, it’s not quite an appropriate place to be talking about the content. Um, so, so I don’t, you know, obviously they think it’s super cool that I wrote this book, but a lot of them don’t know really what it’s about. Um, but I think some know when they actually look into it and then they read it, they appreciate what I’ve done. Um, and, you know, it was, it, I think a concern is that when it comes to fiction, a lot of people, a lot of readers, a lot of people that are, that aren’t familiar with the writing process when it comes to fiction, is a lot of them think that you’re essentially writing veiled autobiography. You know, people think that you’re, your writing is based purely on what you yourself has had experienced.
And this story, you know, I, I come from a very loving family. I’m not a drug addict. You know, there’s all this stuff where Billy’s life is so different from my own. Um, and so that’s, I think that’s been the hardest part. And I think that’s, and I, I think especially for, for young, um, young people who are reading this book, they may think that it may be more closely connected to my reality than it actually is. Um, so I think there’s an end, there’s an entry point there for, for a good way to talk about fiction writing. Um, and absolutely a great entrance point for my fiction writing classes. But for first year writing, it’s not quite to place there because they’re, you know, it’s more focused there. It’s, there should be a little bit more focused on more scholarly academic writing, nonfiction writing. And so I don’t quite delve so deeply into it in those writing classes as I would in a, in a fiction writing class.
Well, the novel is The Escapist. Can folks get it in all the usual places?
In all the usual places yet. Um, you can get it on Amazon, your local bookstore and you can buy a signed copy through the publisher’s website, uh, which is a global city press.com
We’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much for being on the show. I know it’s a very busy time for you. Not only are you teaching, you’re also promoting a book. So thank you so much for finding time in your schedule to get on the show here and I share with the listeners your experiences, both teaching, writing and putting together this, that fantastic novel.
Kevin, thank you so much for having me. This was a great time.
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