I’ve been tagged for the self-interview The Next Big Thing– here are my answers:

What is the working title of the book?
KJV

Where did the idea come from for the book?
The poems try to inhabit the rhythms of the King James Version of Genesis, which I will forever be haunted by.

What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
“Characters” is an interesting concept– but I’d love to hear Linus read it, like he read from the Book of Luke in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

the first line of the first poem:

In the morning I shadow you with envelopes, and falling down stairs our breath; the night as it moves. and the lines recede, a thunder; and they are ecstatic in the aisles; and the boats are righted and culled from the bearing deck

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I started it several years ago and have been writing into it again in the last 2 years.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Sitting in a church for the first time as a fifth grader, listening to the minister read the Bible, and feeling profoundly and simultaneously both inside and outside the language. My father is a proselytizing atheist and I could not enter that language as one kind of believer, but could as another.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Shopping carts, nightbirds, forests, soldiers, streamers and cables, red clay, and foundering boats abound.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m still writing into it, so I have no idea– but it’s amusing to think about “an agency” taking on my book.


My tagged writers for next Wednesday are Todd Melicker, Susanne Dyckman, Wes Solether, Karen Biscopink, and Linda Gann.

Thanks to Jesse Nissim for tagging me!   April 10, 2013