Interviews!

Recently, I was contacted for a few interviews, and since I never shy away from talking about myself, I agreed. The first was by Voraka Magazine, an international publication based in Spain that covers fashion and literature. In case you’re confused, they definitely didn’t ask me about my wardrobe. The second was by popular Bookstagrammer Gee. (Her Instagram handle is “Geereadssss,” and no, I don’t know why she includes four “s”s in her name.) You’ll notice that my answers are much shorter for my first interview. Because Voraka is a print magazine, I was constrained to responses that were 60 words or fewer. If you want to view my Voraka interview online, you can click the link below:

Now on with the Q&As!

For Voraka Magazine:

1. How has your background in journalism influenced your approach to writing fiction?

Space is at a premium in the newspaper business, so being a journalist taught me to be pithy and make my point as quickly and effectively as possible. My books aren’t very long, but I don’t believe in wasting readers’ time. You’re not going to be bored with my books. There aren’t just scenes of people hanging out and talking.

2. What inspired the emotional and adventurous journey of Robert in Danger Peak?

Danger Peak was inspired by three main sources: the old-school, 8-bit Nintendo game Excitebike; the adventures my two best friends and I had riding our bikes around town growing up (though they weren’t obviously as fantastical as in the book); and, unfortunately, the death of my older brother when I was 8. I combined those elements to write Danger Peak.

3. Why do you frequently set your stories in the nostalgic backdrop of the 1980s?

I’m a nostalgic person, and I happened to grow up in the ‘80s, so that’s where I get my inspiration. I tell people if I grew up in the ‘60s, my books would be filled with references to bellbottoms, The Beatles, and Woodstock, but instead, they’re filled with references to Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and the falling of the Berlin Wall.

4. What was the inspiration behind the eerie “déjà view” concept in Déjà View?

My best friends and I buried a time capsule in my backyard when we were kids, and the next day, I visited the site and had this weird idea that I saw us still doing it, over and over again, like ghostly doppelgangers. I wrote a short story based on the concept and kept the idea in my head for decades.

5. What draws you to darker, surreal themes in your short stories like those in The Electric God and Other Shorts?

Clinical depression. Seriously, I just find the surreal and fantastic much more interesting than real life. I’d rather write (and read) a story where something out of the ordinary happens than just a guy trying to get to work. Also, writing darker stuff helps me work on my issues and get my anger out. It’s cheaper than therapy.

6. How do you navigate writing across multiple genres, from magical realism to sci-fi and coming-of-age?

It’s natural to me because I’m interested in all those categories, plus action-adventure. I loved sci-fi and adventure books growing up in the ‘80s, like the Choose Your Own Adventure series, and I also grew up on George Lucas and Steven Spielberg movies, so my love for those genres comes out in my work.

7. What recurring emotional themes do you find yourself exploring in your work?

I find myself returning to the themes of grief, trauma, and healing the most, which makes sense considering my life. I realize other people have been through worse, but my brother died when I was 8, my good friend died when I was 15, and I was bullied terribly in school. Bad for my life but great fodder for writing!

8. How do your roles as an editor and father shape your storytelling and characters?

Editing has helped me zero in on the exact language I want to use when telling a story. Being a father has made me more empathetic. Originally, I was going to make the father much harsher on Robert, but I’ve come to understand how insanely difficult it is to be a parent, so I gave that character a little more grace.

9. Have you ever considered adapting your novels for film or television?

Of course! I don’t think any writer hasn’t. Plus, I’ve been told my books are “very cinematic,” which makes sense because I watch a ton of movies. (I own around 500 DVDs.) I’ve been approached by a few people here and there but nothing serious, unless I wanted the film to look like a home movie.

10. What can readers expect from your upcoming novel Is There Life After College??

It’s a romance about trying to fit into the world once you graduate college, which is especially difficult when school is the only place you’ve ever known. How do you forge that identity, and is it possible to find yourself while finding someone else? And oh yeah, there’s also a murder and a high-stakes court case. Spoiler!

11. What is the most important advice you would give to aspiring writers today?

I never know how to answer this question, because it assumes I’m an expert, and I’m here to tell you I’m definitely not an expert; I’m making it up as I go along, which is the very definition of writing. If I had to say anything, I’d simply say keep writing, especially if you love doing it.

12. How do you feel about being featured in Voraka Magazine, and what does this recognition mean to you?

It’s an honor to be recognized by an international magazine that celebrates creativity, and because Voraka is widely read in many different countries, it feels exciting to expand my audience.

For Gee (Instagram):

1. When and where were your born and raised?

I was born in the late ‘70s in Massapequa, Long Island, where Jerry Seinfeld and Alec Baldwin are from. I later moved to the small coastal town of West Islip, and I’ve pretty much been there the rest of my life except for 7 years in Baltimore, where I went to college and worked as a technical editor for a few years.

2. Please tell us about your family.

My Mom is a retired high school secretary. My Dad is a retired inspector for American Airlines at JFK. My sister is a year younger than me and works in Central Park. My brother died when he was 12 and I was 8, and this served as the inspiration for one of the subplots of Danger Peak.

3. What are your educational and professional qualifications?

As I said, I went to school in Baltimore, when it was called Loyola College. At the time, it was the only Loyola College in the country, but since I graduated in the late ‘90s, they changed its designation to Loyola University Maryland, so there are no more Loyola Colleges. Since college, I’ve written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Long Island Voice (a spinoff of The Village Voice), and The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), among others. Online, I’ve written for Fatherly, Yahoo!, WhatCulture!, and other websites. I’m currently a Senior Editor at ASME (The American Society of Mechanical Engineers). I used to work in Manhattan until the pandemic, and I’ve been working from home ever since.

4. What is your greatest accomplishment to date?

Having a kid tell me how much Danger Peak meant to him ranks right up there, especially since the book takes place decades before he was born (in the late ‘80s). I think the themes of growing up and trying to fit in are universal though, no matter when you were born. Also, having my books sold in bookstores and available at libraries, including the one I used to visit all the time as a kid, is a thrill.

5. Which writers inspire you?

The obvious answer is Stephen King, so consider me basic, I guess. I also still love J. D. Salinger, Edgar Allen Poe, and George Orwell.

6. What books do you really enjoy reading? What’s your favorite book of all time?

My favorite book is The Catcher in the Rye (another basic answer, but I don’t want to lie just to be interesting). I also love Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. This book directly inspired the short story How to Save a Drowning Butterfly in my recent short story collection The Electric God and Other Shorts. Mail-Order Wings by Beatrice Gormley also served as one of the inspirations for Danger Peak, because just like in my novel, there’s only one magical thing in the book (the titular wings in Gormley’s book and the titular mountain in mine). Her book introduced me to the concept of magical realism, and I’ve been playing in that world ever since.

7. What made you finally start writing?

I’ve had the idea for Danger Peak since I wrote the short story Action Bike when I was a kid in the ‘80s, but I never got around to writing the full-length novel. I don’t want to get too political, but something terrible happened in my country regarding politics, and I thought to myself, “If I don’t write my book now, I’m never going to write it,” so I forced myself to squeeze in the writing after work.

8. Do you have a specific time to write, or does your day just naturally fit around it?

My day definitely does NOT just naturally fit around writing, lol. I don’t think any writer’s does. We’re too busy. You have to MAKE the time, much to the chagrin of my family. I usually write after my shower and just before bed. It helps that I don’t really follow many T.V. shows, which is why I haven’t kept up with a show since How I Met Your Mother went off the air. I should say I do watch a lot of movies, though.

9. What kind of books are yours? What attracts you to this genre?

My books are coming-of-age/action-adventure/sci-fi YA that takes place in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s a mouthful; I know. I’m naturally drawn to YA because, in many ways, I still have the mindset of a 13-year-old, and this helps me connect with the voice of the protagonists in my books. It’s beneficial for my writing career but, again, anathema to my family, lol. And I grew up on George Lucas and Steven Spielberg adventures, so I’ve always been drawn to the genres of action-adventure and science fiction.

10. What makes your books different from others in this category?

I think it’s because they take place in the 1980s and 1990s. Most YA takes place in the current day. At first, I was worried that this might turn off a lot of young readers today, but as I noted in an answer to a previous question, my stories still seem to connect with modern day kids and teens. As I wrote before, everyone goes through the same stuff when you’re growing up, regardless of the decade. The added benefit of my books is that adults can enjoy them too, because it reminds them of their youth. Danger Peak and Déjà View definitely pack a lot of ‘80s nostalgia in their pages, and adults identify with that.

11. Danger Peak is layered with emotion, adventure, and nostalgia. What inspired you to set the story in the late 1980s, and how much of Robert’s journey mirrors your own experiences from that era?

I’ve answered this question before in other interviews, but originally, Danger Peak didn’t take place in the ‘80s. It was present day, but so much of the story is based on my childhood—and I happened to grow up in the ‘80s—that every time I wanted to make a reference to a song, a movie, or a T.V. show, I had the ‘80s on the brain. At first, I fought the impulse, because I thought it seemed too cheesy, but I eventually surrendered to it, and I’m glad I did, because when you read the book back, it feels more like a fully realized, lived-in world. A lot of times I’ll be reading a story, and the author mentions that the characters are listening to a song on the radio or watching a movie, but they fail to name specific examples. It’s like, “Name the movie!” We’re all living in a pop-culture soup anyway, so you may as well go ahead and cite the songs, movies, etc., that your characters are interacting with and experiencing.

As for the second part of your question, Robert is a very brave version of me when I was his age. I would never actually climb Danger Peak myself. In fact, I’ve never even been on a motorbike before, unless you count a moped, which I rode once with a friend of a friend one day in the late ‘80s. Originally, I was going to have Robert’s gang just ride around on bicycles, but I thought motorbikes would be more exciting and interesting for the reader. Also, it would’ve been impossible to climb Danger Peak with a regular, pedal-powered bike. Like Robert, I had two best friends growing up, and Chris and Rinnie are based on them. Also, I had a domineering father, and, as I already mentioned, my older brother died. So there are lots of similarities between Robert and me. But yeah, you wouldn’t ever catch me on Danger Peak!

12. Robert’s relationship with his late brother Danny is so moving. How did you approach writing those flashbacks to maintain both emotional impact and narrative flow?

Well, as I mentioned before (twice now), my brother also passed, so it’s no surprise that the relationship between Danny and Robert was based on my brother and me. I upped his age in the book (Danny is 17 when he dies but my brother was 12) because I always looked up to my brother as being much older than he actually was. Like the brothers in my book, we bonded over Star Wars and also had so-called “Star Wars sleepovers” in his room.

As for the flashbacks, I tried to make the transitions from the past to the present as seamless as possible, though I don’t think I was always successful, lol. One example, I think, of a successful transition is Robert’s father gazing mournfully at a photo of Danny on his desk when he won the school’s science fair, and then the next chapter actually takes you back to that fair. As a bonus, that’s also when readers are introduced to Dr. Howard, a pretty important (and quirky) character to the story. It’s always fun when things in your books work out like that.

13. The inclusion of a magical realism touch adds charm without overwhelming the story. What made you decide to incorporate this subtle element, and how did you find the balance?

I’m an author who can’t handle too much fantasy. No offense to the worlds of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but to me, when EVERYTHING is magical, it’s almost like nothing is. As I mentioned before about the book Mail-Order Wings, I like it when there’s ONE THING in the story that’s magical to truly set it apart from the realistic elements. It’s more memorable that way, I think. I like playing with the idea of how does this one magical item affect the everyday real world?

14. The dirt bike-building journey becomes symbolic in many ways. What does it personally represent to you—both as a narrative device and a metaphor?

It’s interesting because originally, the idea to build the Action Bike was just a vehicle (no pun intended) to round out the book and introduce other elements/characters in the storyline I was trying to tell, but so many reviews and readers have mentioned how symbolic that bike is, how building it piece by piece is akin to Robert remaking himself and trying to heal his psychological scars (both from his brother’s absence and his father’s negligence). I actually never thought of that before, but it definitely works. When you’re writing and in a groove, you’re just letting the words and ideas flow out of you; you’re not necessarily meditating on the meaning. Sometimes you need people to point out the obvious.

15. Many readers, both young and old, have connected with the themes of grief, healing, and courage in your book. What do you hope readers take away from Robert’s climb up Danger Peak?

I hope people realize that first of all, it’s good to have a dream in the first place, and secondly, if you work hard enough and don’t give up, it can be achieved, no matter what it is. It’s like the line from Back to the Future: “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” That line certainly inspired me to try writing a novel in the first place. (As a bonus, George McFly actually writes a novel himself at the end of the movie – forty-year spoiler alert!) Lastly, with regard to Robert’s and Danny’s relationship, I hope people take away the idea that just because the person you loved is gone doesn’t mean the love you have for that person has to be gone as well.

16. How long did it take you to actually write the book? What were the toughest and the easiest parts of writing the book?

It took me 4 months to write the first draft of Danger Peak, which is shorter than I thought it’d take. I thought it would take a year! But once I started, I couldn’t stop. It just poured out of me. As I said before, I had this story rolling around inside my head for decades, and I desperately wanted to tell it.

The toughest part to write was probably the Prologue, since I wasn’t sure I was going to even be able to finish the book. I rewrote that part more than anything else in the novel. Originally, the book opened with Robert just walking towards Danger Peak, but then I realized: “Hey, this is a book about a motorbike-riding gang. I should probably have him zooming down the block on his motorcycle.” So I did that, and it made the intro much more exciting. Even the notoriously harsh Kirkus Reviews agreed, writing, “Perone immediately engages the reader in the Prologue.” The easiest part to write in the book was the dialogue between the three main characters, mostly because they were based on my own interactions with my best friends growing up.

17. Are you working on a new book? What’s it going to be about?

I just finished the first draft of my fourth book (sixth, if you count my poetry and blog books). It’s going to be different from my other books because there’s nothing supernatural in it. Also, it’s a romance, which is a subject I haven’t really written about before.

18. What are your plans for the future?

Besides editing and publishing my new book, taking a well-deserved break!

***

In other MTP news, my books are now on sale at The Islip Arts Council bookstore at Westfield Mall (formerly The South Shore Mall) at 1701 Sunrise Highway, Bay Shore, NY (next to Dick’s Sporting Goods). If you had told me when I was young that one day I would not only write and publish books but that they’d be sold at the mall where I hang out all the time, I never would’ve believed you. So if you’re in the Long Island area, drop by and visit their beautiful gallery of local art, and pick up a book or two from some talented authors. (I know one I could recommend!)

***

In other, other MTP news, I’ll be having a book signing at Fire Island Vines (17 E. Main Street, Bay Shore, NY) on Thursday, July 24^th from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. This Books and Bites event is hosted by Long Island Authors. There will be book and gift card raffles, and food will be served, as well as delicious wine for purchase. Attendance is free. I’ll be selling discounted copies of Danger Peak, Déjà View, and The Electric God and Other Shorts. Come say “Hi,” get your book signed, and also get a free ‘80s-themed gift with any purchase. Other amazing writers will be in attendance, so come celebrate local authors, drink wine, and be merry. Hope to see you guys there.

MTP

P.S.: Next blog: I return to hacky listicles!

P.P.S.: Don’t forget the Danger Peak audiobook is now available!

P.P.P.S.: The new edition of The Electric God and Other Shorts is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble: