Posts Tagged interview
Marc Bernardin on Syfy’s Alphas
Posted by admin in episodic TV on September 14, 2011
When I found out that writer Marc Bernardin wrote next Monday’s episode (The Unusual Suspects [premiering September 19 at 10/9c]) of Syfy’s Alphas, I wanted to find out all I could from the writer himself. Lucky me, Bernardin was eager to discuss his work on the show. Below is a preview of the episode. Syfy described the episode as follows: “When a member of the team is suspected of being an agent for Red Flag, the group is held against their will until the traitor is revealed.”
My thanks to Bernardin for a fun interview during a busy and successful time in his life.
Tim O’Shea: How did you get involved with Syfy’s Alphas?
Marc Bernardin: Well, the long story is very long and involves decades of waiting, a boatload of luck, and a plane-load of an unnamed substance being airlifted into a classified location. The short story is, I wrote an original TV pilot for a show that’ll never get on the air — basically, I wrote a $30 million action movie, and that’s about $26 million more than they like to spend on pilots — my agents thought that, while it would never sell, it was strong enough to serve as a good sample. They sent it to the boys at Syfy who thought that my particular love for blowing stuff up, mated with my comic-book experience, would be a good fit for Alphas.
Novelist Diana Abu-Jaber on Birds of Paradise: A Novel
Posted by admin in Literature on September 8, 2011
Birds of Paradise: A Novel
Article first published as Interview: Novelist Diana Abu-Jaber on Birds of Paradise: A Novel on Blogcritics.
If you are a regular listener to NPR, you likely have heard one of novelist Diana Abu-Jaber‘s frequent essays. Next week (September 6, to be exact) marks the release of the award-winning author’s newest novel, Birds of Paradise [Editor's note: Of course, the book is out as of this past Tuesday]. While I was already aware of Abu-Jaber, thanks to NPR, I did not realize she had finished her new book until an early July tweet by Bethanne Patrick (aka @thebookmaven). Soon after learning of the new novel, I reached out to Abu-Jaber for an email interview–and she was more than happy to entertain my queries. As described by her publisher (W. W. Norton & Company): “In the tropical paradise that is Miami, Avis and Brian Muir are still haunted by the disappearance of their ineffably beautiful daughter, Felice, who ran away when she was thirteen. Now, after five years of modeling tattoos, skateboarding, clubbing, and sleeping in a squat house or on the beach, Felice is about to turn eighteen. Her family—Avis, an exquisitely talented pastry chef; Brian, a corporate real estate attorney; and her brother, Stanley, the proprietor of Freshly Grown, a trendy food market—will each be forced to confront their anguish, loss, and sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, Felice must reckon with the guilty secret that drove her away, and must face her fear of losing her family and her sense of self forever.” In addition to the book, we also delve into her recent mention in a New York Times piece on email manners.
How early in the development of Birds of Paradise did you realize it had to be set in Miami–and what appealed to you in terms of setting it there?
Miami was present from the very first page. My husband and I moved to Miami eight years ago and I knew I wanted to use it as a setting. Ever since my second novel, Crescent, I’ve been very inspired by sunlight and water and I always like to use a strong setting for my stories– like the city of Syracuse and the blizzard that seems to keep blowing throughout Origin, my third novel. Birds of Paradise is a reflection of Miami’s many layers– its outward dazzling tropical colors and beauty, its racial and cultural collisions. I’m fascinated by that complexity and challenged by it. Setting my new novel here gave me a way to reflect on my adopted city and to push myself to learn more about it.
Baron Wolman on The Rolling Stone Years
Posted by admin in Music, photography on August 31, 2011
Article first published as Interview: Photographer BaronWolman on The Rolling Stone Years on Blogcritics.
Baron Wolman: The Rolling Stone Years
Only one person can lay claim to being Rolling Stone magazine’s first chief photographer–and his name is Baron Wolman. From 1967 to 1970, Wolman captured some of the most iconic images of musicians that graced the magazine’s pages. This August marks the release of The Rolling Stone Years, a collection of Wolman’s photographs from those three years, described by publisher Omnibus Press as consisting of “many … images from the late sixties and early seventies [that] have become iconic shots from rock’s most fertile era.” In addition to his amazing photos, Wolman writes a substantial amount about the early days of the influential magazine as well as his experiences photographing musical greats of the late 1960s/early 1970s.
At one point in the book, you express your preference to shoot in natural light. What is the appeal of using that kind of light for your photos?
Natural light is just that. “Natural.” Nothing artificial about it. What you see in the photo is what I saw when I took the picture. For the most part, flash disturbs the subject and ruins the intimacy of the moment…
What was more challenging to do, decide which pictures to run in the book or writing the text to accompany the pictures?
Both were challenging in the best sense of the word, not to mention the locales where the challenge was met: Paris, Santa Fe, Bangkok. I wanted to add some international “spice” to the process.
Some of your subjects died far too young, how hard was it to look at those pictures?
Not easy, of course. Wondering how their lives would have evolved had they had the opportunity, sad for such talent ended before it had a chance to soar, remembering the moments we shared.
Mike Doughty on Yes and Also Yes
Posted by admin in Music, Uncategorized on August 24, 2011
Article first published as Interview: Musician Mike Doughty on Yes and Also Yes on Blogcritics.
Mike Doughty (be sure to click the pic for a closer look at the Clayton Moore portrait behind him)
My appreciation of Mike Doughty‘s music started much later than most fans, as I first became aware of his work with his 2005 album, Haughty Melodic. When I found he had a new album, Yes and Also Yes, set for release on August 30, I immediately set up an email interview to find out what was in store for fans of his work. If you’ve never seen Doughty live, take a spin around YouTube for a bit and you quickly will realize that you should see him live as soon as possible. To best frame the album in proper context, I quote Doughty himself: “I recorded it in a studio in Koreatown, Manhattan, from July ’10 to April ’11. Produced by Pat Dillett. Notable musicians included my trusty factotum Andrew ‘Scrap’ Livingston on bass, and the pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, who basically plays with everybody who’s groovy (Justin Bond, Antony and the Johnsons, Glen Hansard, The National, David Byrne, Yoko Ono). I’m releasing it on my own label, Snack Bar, through Megaforce. I split with Dave Matthews’ label ATO so I could run my own shop and have more control, business-wise.”
I had a chance to listen to the album in preparation for this interview, and I was pleased to find there’s not a bad cut among any of the 14 songs. One song that I hope will garner a lot of attention is “Holiday”, a Christmas duet with singer/songwriter great Rosanne Cash. About Cash, Doughty said: “ I did a show with her, and she said, onstage, ‘I feel nervous playing my new songs, because Mike Doughty is here, and he’s such a great songwriter.’ That blew my mind.” Honestly, to borrow a phrase from Doughty, their duet blows my mind. I am the kind of person that hates hearing Christmas music anytime other than December. But this song has such an amazing hook (as most of Doughty’s songs do), I ended up playing it seven times in a row the first time I heard it. The whole album pulled me in just as much and it was a pleasure to interview Doughty. We also get to discuss another recent Doughty musical project, Dubious Luxury, released earlier this month. My thanks to Doughty for his time and thoughts, as well as Rob Moore for facilitating the interview.
You’re an artist who clearly loves to play live. In developing Yes and Also Yes, how much did you play some of these songs before an audience prior to entering the studio? And did any of the cuts change drastically from how it was initially conceived compared to the final version?
I’ve been playing a lot of comedy shows, around Brooklyn and Manhattan, as a musical guest, and I played “Na Na Nothing”, and “Day By Day By” at nearly every one of them, plus, maybe, “27 Jennifers”. If I play something a lot, before or after recording it, the phrasing will change ever so slightly, so there’ll be a cumulative evolution that I barely notice, unless I listen to a five-year-old version, and then it’s kind of startling. So, I don’t really know.
Novelist Kevin Wilson on The Family Fang
Posted by admin in comics, Literature, Music on August 17, 2011
The Family Fang
So last week, I ran across an NPR review of Kevin Wilson‘s debut novel, The Family Fang. The premise of the book (adult children returning to the scene of an absurd childhood where they were unwilling stars in their performance artist parents’ pieces) fascinated me. So I contacted Wilson to see if he was game for an email interview, fortunately he was. As longtime readers know, I really enjoy interviewing novelists–to get a better understanding of their craft. In this instance, when I started researching Wilson, there was an added bonus fun factor. I discovered Wilson’s wife is respected poet, Leigh Anne Couch. Couch and I went to high school together–and in fact she was one of the kind classmates who supported me in our senior year, when my father died. In fact, a few years back, Couch and I almost did an interview about her work for this blog, but family commitments (aka the birth of their child) delayed the interview. Hopefully one of these days, we’ll get back to that interview. In the meantime, I am pleased as hell to discuss The Family Fang with Wilson–I get the feeling this is the first of many creative successes for Wilson.
Tim O’Shea: Frequently I talk to authors that speak highly of the cover design for their book, but you are the first author I know to get the cover tattooed on your arm. When did you realize you wanted to commit the piece to flesh?
Kevin Wilson: I knew pretty much the minute that I saw Julie Morstad’s artwork for the cover that I wanted to get the tattoo. I thought it would be cool to get a tattoo that was connected to the novel. Before Allison Saltzman, Ecco’s book designer, showed me the cover design, I thought I might get four sets of fangs on my forearm, but when I saw Annie and Buster, I knew I wanted that on my arm.
Susan Straight on Take One Candle Light a Room: A novel
Posted by admin in Literature on August 4, 2011
Article first published as Interview: Susan Straight, Author of Take One Candle Light a Room: A novel on Blogcritics.
Novelist Susan Straight was born in Riverside, California, and it is the city she still calls home. It is also the place that informed and influenced the city in all seven of her novels, the fictional Rio Seco. Her most recent work, Take One Candle Light a Room: A novel, was released in October 2010.
In this interview, we cover a great deal of ground, mostly her latest work. Her newest novel sets out to tell the tale of Fantine Antoine, who “is a travel writer, a profession that keeps her happily away from her Southern California home. When she returns to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of her closest childhood friend, Glorette, she finds herself pulled into the tumultuous life of Glorette’s twenty-two-year-old son—and Fantine’s godson—Victor. After getting involved in a shooting, Victor has fled to New Orleans. Together with her father, Fantine follows Victor, determined to help him avoid the criminal future that he suddenly seems destined for.”
Straight was kind enough to work with me on this email interview and, as the mark of any good writer, tried to be economic with her words. In that spirit, she chose to compile her thoughts on my final five questions into one engaging and in-depth answer. I was more than happy to adjust my questions (and chose to drop one) accordingly in the final editing, and appreciate the opportunity to interview Straight. Also my thanks to author Caroline Leavitt for putting me in contact with Straight.
After reading the interview, please be sure to avail yourself of Amazon’s Take A Look feature for the book.
Of your most recent novel, Ayelet Waldman wrote “Susan Straight is the Meryl Streep of novelists…” How does one take a compliment of that caliber?
Ayelet’s line about Meryl Streep was hilarious, because I’m a short white woman who writes about communities filled with black men from the South, teenagers selling drugs, Oaxacan immigrants trying to survive, and yes, even blonde foster moms who are raising other people’s children. So I don’t know about Meryl Streep – I’ve been told variously that I “look like” Sissy Spacek, Mia Farrow, and Reese Witherspoon. It’s a compliment based on chameleon qualities, I think.
Chris Miskiewicz on Everywhere
Everywhere Logo (by Andrew Wendel)
The latest installment in my ongoing effort to cover the creators of ACT-I-VATE continues this week with my interview of writer Chris Miskiewicz regarding Everywhere. Everywhere is an anthology series with a unique foundation that is discussed in our opening question. My thanks to Miskiewicz for the interview.
Tim O’Shea: In a few words, could you tell our readers the premise of The Everywhere Anthology?
Chris Miskiewicz: You wake up to find that millions of a single species have appeared EVERYWHERE around the world at the same time. It’s basically The Twilight Zone meets an Animal Disaster B-Movie Feature where each episode features a different animal disaster drawn by a different artist.
O’Shea: What motivated you to initially develop Everywhere, and how did it land at ACT-I-VATE?
Miskiewicz: The Everywhere Anthology came from a drunken conversation with artist Andrew Wendel who co-created the concept with me.
Sue Bourne on JIG: The Story of The Irish Dancing World Championships
Article first published as Interview: Sue Bourne, Director of JIG: The Story of The Irish Dancing World Championships on Blogcritics.
JIG: The Story of The Irish Dancing World Championships
This Friday, June 17, JIG: The Story of The Irish Dancing World Championships opens in movie theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Toronto. The 90-minute feature-length documentary captures the story of the competition’s 40th year. To mark the documentary’s opening, director Sue Bourne discussed the process leading to her filming the stories behind just some of the stories behind the thousands of dancers, families and teachers that converged on Glascow, Scotland in March 2010 for seven days of intense dance competition.
Tim O’Shea: I love the opening shots of the documentary, where you get so tight in the action you see the sawdust that is kicked up by the dancer’s steps and the hairspray being applied to the wig. How early in the development process of the project did you realize you wanted to capture moments like that and with such nuanced detail?
Sue Bourne: We always knew that it would be great to capture the dancing in wonderful close up detail. However at the world competition we were very limited in terms of what we could do. This was a real, live competition and the ruling body did not want our filming to interfere with the actual competition or influence the judges in any way. So we always had to film from behind the eyeline of the judges – which of course meant we could not get Matrix style multicamera stop frames or multi camera close up coverage. In the end we had five HD cameras and one of those was able to do slow motion – but we only had that camera on the last day… The other interesting thing is just how well slow motion does or does not capture Irish Dancing.. it is all about sound and speed so for me the three minutes on Joe Bitters’ feet are astonishing – and there is nothing tricksy about that… just astonishing footwork captured on camera as it happens.
Ron Hogan on Getting Right with Tao
Posted by admin in Literature on June 8, 2011
Getting Right with Tao
Ron Hogan has helped shape the literary/critical analysis Internet landscape since establishing Beatrice back in 2005. That’s just one aspect of his very busy career as critic and author. As an author, most recently, he released Getting Right with Tao: “a print edition of his popular online ‘translation’ of the Tao Te Ching into modern vernacular”. He also leads a reading series for Greenlight Bookstore as well as a book club for Fountain Bookstore.
Tim O’Shea: Would you say 2010 was the year of the iPad in terms of publishing technology advancements? What do you think will be the potential major technology (or non-technology) trends in the 2011 publishing industry?
Ron Hogan: I would say 2010 was a very good year for establishing the iPad’s potential usefulness to the publishing industry, and already in 2011 I’ve seen exciting new developments from independent outfits like The Atavist and Byliner.com that are using apps not just to repurpose or dress up existing content but to create new products and find new audiences.
O’Shea: The publishing industry has undergone major changes in the past few years, how much has that influenced your approach toward Beatrice?
Hogan: The changes in the publishing industry actually have very little impact on my approach towards Beatrice, which remains focused on introducing readers to new books and new writers. Although the ways I’ve written about those books and writers have evolved over the last 15 years, that’s more to do with me than with the industry.
Michael Molenda on Guitar Player Presents Guitar Heroes of the ‘70s
Article first published as Interview: Michael Molenda, Editor of Guitar Player Presents Guitar Heroes of the ‘70s on Blogcritics.
Guitar Player Presents Guitar Heroes of the '70s
As a teen growing up in the 1980s, one way I broadened my musical horizons was reading interviews with musicians. So when I recently learned that Guitar Player editor-in-chief Michael Molenda had dug through the magazines archives to collect Guitar Heroes of the ‘70s, I was eager to interview him. This 262-page collection (published by Backbeat Books, a Hal Leonard imprint) documents a variety of guitar greats that helped form the iconic music of the 1970s. The roots of classic rock were built in this era, and this book documents the evolution of the music from the ground floor view of its creators. In editing the book, Molenda aimed to cover a great deal of ground and includes such guitarists as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Jimmy Page, Bonnie Raitt and Pete Townshend (along with a variety of other famous and respected talents).
Tim O’Shea: How did you go about deciding what interviews to include in this collection? Were there some musicians that had been interviewed multiples times in the 1970s, so you had to choose which of the many would be the best to run?
Michael Molenda: There were the obvious choices, of course — the players who defined classic ’70s rock, such as Beck, Clapton, Page, Santana, Frampton, Townshend, Iommi, and so on. Those were the easy selections for inclusion in the collection. The challenges were determining who to spotlight out of the many players who, as a community, really helped forge one of the glory eras of the guitar, but who are not as much on today’s cultural radar. Jose Feliciano, June Millington, Lenny Breau, Roy Buchanan, and Steve Hackett are perhaps good examples here. However, I sincerely feel that every guitarist in the book absolutely affected the ’70s guitar culture in an extremely positive way, and, to varying degrees, inspired other generations of players.
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