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An interview with the author SP: How and why did you start writing?
I was in a creative writing
club in college and I was told that the club was only for real writers, English and Journalism majors. (I majored in Chemistry
and Bird Ecology). This caused me to consider creative writing the land of only those with the proper credentials. Banished,
I joined the speech team as an outlet for creativity and was very successful. Until the start of this novel project, I never
wrote anything that wasn't going to be orally presented or wasn't a business plan. My creative writing for the decade since
my education consisted only of text for sermons at church or eulogies at funerals.
SP: Why did you write your most
recent book?
This is very complex. I have always composed stories in my mind before I went to sleep. I have continued
this even into adulthood. These stories either die for lack of content or they continue on to a natural ending and then another
one just starts. Some of the good ones are revisited on nights when I need something old and familiar, or the characters are
used for a sequel. I have only ever written one down and that was back in junior high school for a creative project. One day
while walking the streets of Aurora MN, I vowed to actually write the story I had just started down as an early New Year's
resolution. The initial story was in my head and I also had the idea of what if my great uncle, Arthur, hadn't died in World
War I. I hypothesized that he was in Sweden before the Great War. I started researching my familial homeland and became fascinated
by the weird paradoxes of Falun, Sweden, its mysterious origins, strange runic symbolism, and coupled with the odd history
of the royal burial mounds in nearby Uppsala. I started looking into Norse mythology and then my story transmuted into the
Defenders. From that early point on, the story literally wrote itself and poor Arthur, once an inspiration, never even made
it into the novel. It was almost like energy somewhere wanted me to tell this story, and it was as if Defenders somewhere
were using me as their mouthpiece. What really is fiction, anyway?
SP: What have you learned from writing?
I've seen a part of me that I've repressed for years because I was studying and developing a career. Sometimes this part
scares me, sometimes I'm proud of who I am and what I've done.
SP: Comment on your writing habits.
Where
do you write?
When I'm on the road or at home. Have lap-top will write.
What time of day?
I write the best between 2100 and 0100, maybe it is all that after dinner coffee that causes me to go into a creative mode.
How many days per week?
I write in spurts. When I'm into a creative mode, I can write all day for many
days in a row, and then I may not write for weeks. I can force a creative spurt, but it typically takes a day to get my writing
creative. It just seems mechanical until it starts to flow. I need to go back and redo the early stuff when I do this. Unfortunately,
these spurts are difficult to stop and even if I close my eyes to sleep, the story keeps on writing. Sometimes I'll wake up
and just write to get my mind to settle down.
Do you keep a journal?
No, tried it for a day in high
school and threw it away.
SP: Has any single book inspired you as a writer?
Not really, I don't read
much fiction. My main academic interest is 1890s to 1930s world history, and I go around the world looking into Bronze Age
burial mounds and non-conforming archeology. Some of the non-fiction writing in this genre is very poorly done. I frequently
find myself thinking that I could write that good or better. But like I noted earlier, I always felt writing only was for
the trained professional. I don't hold this belief anymore.
SP: What are your writing aspirations?
I
will write at least three more novels in this series. I also have other fictional novels that need to be purged from my thoughts.
My overall goal is to write the best non-fiction book possible using the story of my friend's grandfather, who it turns out
was a German spy, pre-WWI, living in south Texas. This man's alter ego (he was a Lutheran pastor as a front) was amazing,
and he was involved with the Mexican Revolution, Trotsky's exile, etc. It remained totally a secret until things never added
up.
SP: Describe your ideal reader.
Someone who is able to think and look at life for what it really
is. Someone who is able to look under the illusion that is the accepted reality and be able to see that maybe another reality
exists or at least could exist.
SP: Are you writing to anyone in particular as you create?
My children
and grandchildren. Someday, when I'm gone, they can read my writing to know what occupied my thoughts for many nights—as
strange as those thoughts appear. This is immortality on earth, right?
SP: Do you travel to gain inspiration or
are you a homebody?
My first novel brought me to Sweden near the end of my writing where we rented a motor home
and traveled around Sweden. I was so inspired, I wrote upwards of 8,000 words a day, and the creative energy lasted for months
afterwards. I've done other research trips to Sweden, Barcelona, Norway, Iceland, St. Martin and Tortola for my first two
novels abroad. We also went camping to the desolate national forest campground in Reva Gap, South Dakota, in the Slim Buttes.
What only started out as a filler chapter became the longest and most in-depth chapter in Marks of the forbidden. I'm sure
if I hadn't spent three days there, my novel wouldn't have been as in depth. We travel extensively. I am incapable of staying
home on vacation. If I've never been to a place, I need to go there. Reading travel essays can quench this travel lust, but
it also serves to do the opposite.
SP: Do local characters play a part in your writing?
Somewhat, but
very loosely. I write fantasy that has a lot of historical fiction as a base. The character, Anja, was named after a woman
who helped me at the Avis rental car counter at the Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. Therese was a flight attendant on SAS. The
Lebanese restaurant in Belize exists, and I hope is being watched by the CIA. That could have been the strangest meal I've
ever eaten.
SP: What do you think of the NY Times Best Seller List?
If the crowd goes left, I instinctively
need to go right. Therefore, typically, I tend to avoid this section. I have read a few NYT list books over the years, but
I tend to like to find some hidden gem nobody else has found. I'm on the road a lot and I did listen to The World is Flat
last year, which did cause some good thoughts in my business world, but the book wasn't all that well organized in places.
After the third CD, it became monotonous.
a.Are you reading a NYT list book currently? No
SP: What contemporary
book are you currently reading?
Fiction I just finished reading: The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell, a Kurt Wallander
mystery. He is a Swedish author. I wanted to see how a novel not written in English, translated. Non-fiction? I am listening
to a biography on Andrew Jackson on CD, but my current in-print read is Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890-1940, by Patrick
Salmon. I am also reading an eleventh century Icelandic saga, and I'm not sure if the Kings of Norway is fiction or non-fiction.
Poetry? I read the Nudes of Iceland last fall, and it is the only poetry I've read in many years. This was an interesting
compilation of 11-14th century poetry with eroticism as its core. The title caught my eye at the Reykjavik airport, and the
book got me back to Minneapolis.
SP: Name an author you admire. Edward Abbey
a.Why?
He lived
for what he believed in.
SP: What is your all-time favorite book?
Probably Edward Abbey's, Desert Solitaire.
This book exposed me to an endless world of travel. After reading it, we had to go and explore the desert southwest. Since
it was more fun to travel in pairs, I had to get married to go.
SP: What is the best book you’ve read in
the last year?
I read a lot of interesting stuff but nothing on my all-time list. The book I quote the most is,
The Great Influenza, the Deadliest Plaque in Human History. John Barry sort of got my mind prepared for what could destroy
mankind in the future. It is not a happy book, so it is hard for me to consider it the best. It was well written.
SP: What is your favorite:
Verb? Fishing
Noun? Fish specifically the northern pike /gädda/
Adjective?
Big, as in big fish or in Swedish /storgädda/
SP: What is the first book you read that totally grabbed you
and made you want to keep turning pages? You know, the first book you couldn’t put down, the one that kept you up way,
way late.
That would have to be the first real novel I read, The Dispossed, a novel by Ursula Le Guin. This was
a 'text book' for a college course on social and cultural radicalism that I had as a college student. It was the first novel
I ever read, because before that I read only non-fiction and newspapers.
SP: What book have you always wanted to
read, but haven’t gotten to yet?
I have a continual stack of stuff to read, and I guess whatever one is
on the bottom of the stack I'd like to read Penguins, Potatoes, and Postage Stamps, the History of an Island in the South
Atlantic. I've never found a copy.
SP: Care to mention your family?
I have a much too tolerant wife
and three children
SP: What do you do in your spare time? Hobbies?
Fishing, Bird watching, and travel.
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