Interview with Collin Piprell (part 2)

I know you have been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the second part of our interview with CDP's Collin Piprell, author of MOM, which releases on April 5th. (Psst...it is actually available for a super secret sale on our website so check it out!)

Without further ado...

5) Do you have any author inspirations?

Among science fiction writers, I especially admire Cormac McCarthy. Although he isn’t really a science-fiction writer as such, I side with those who describe The Road as a minor masterpiece. I have great respect for Neal Stephenson, and I’ve much enjoyed some of China Meiville’s novels, especially Embassytown.

As a teenager I went through a couple of years of reading a lot of sci-fi, my favorites back then were Philip K. Dick (still a favorite), Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip José Farmer.

6) Do you listen to a playlist or music that helps the creative process? And if so, what songs, artists, etc.

I listen to everything from Miles Davis’ "Live/Evil" to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. But I go for the adrenaline-pumping music – jazz, blues, Latin American and African – when I want to surf the feeling that I’m on top of things. More often I work without a soundtrack.

7) How long have you been writing?

I used to be considered a pretty good academic writer, but I started writing commercially only after settling in Asia. In fact I’d already decided I found Southeast Asia stimulating, and thought it might be a good place for me to have a go at writing fiction, so I got a job teaching (mainly writing courses) in a Bangkok university. I also started writing humorous stories for newspapers and a few magazines. Gradually I moved into feature writing and doing some journalism pieces about diving, sailing, forests, conservation, culture, labour issues, travel, food, personalities, this and that. Some fiction. Some of the early stories were collected in Bangkok Knights (fleshed out with a number of longer stories I wrote specifically for the book) and Bangkok Old Hand. DK Books, who published the latter collection of stories-cum-novel, then published Kicking Dogs, my first proper novel. Before long I decided to pack the teaching in and set sail as a freelance writer and editor, which I did for quite a few years, dabbling in magazine publishing along the way.

8) What started you on the path to writing?

I don’t know. Maybe because I knew it irritated my father so much. He’d say, “What are you going to do with yourself, son?” And I’d answer, “I’m going to be a writer.” I loved the way that always elicited an exasperated “Good grief!”Though it wasn’t always thus. My earliest ambition, at least as reported by my parents, was to be a garbageman. Why? Because that was the only guy in our town who got to drive a big white horse everywhere. (Am I really that old?) In retrospect, I still see the appeal of that life. (See “How to write a novel that flies.”)

9) Where do you see yourself going from here as a writer?

Good question. I’d like to find readers for the Magic Circles series, of course. And I want to find a publisher for a 50,000-word novel I have in hand – something I reckon is the best thing I’ve ever written. (If really pushed to identify its genre, I’d have to say it was magic realism.)

I wouldn’t mind finishing what I think of as a series of metaphysical thrillers – what I was working on before CDP asked me to write the third in the Magic Circles novels. It would also be nice to find someone to republish three novels that were in print some years ago.

Other than that, not much. I enjoy yarning about writing and books over a glass of wine with other writers. I hope I never make enough money from this game to buy a Porsche 911 because I’d probably only break the thing or poke my eye out with it.

There. One interview, and three references to my mother, however implicit. What would the Freudians make of that?

***

And there you have it, folks. Thank you so much, Collin, for answering our questions. Just so you know, we'll take that Porsche off your hands if you need us to. We're generous like that. And thank you, readers, for joining us!

Collin's book, MOM, will be available in print and digital format on April 5th, 2017 (except...see the note above about the super secret early sale...). The next book in the series, Genesis 2.0, will be arriving on October 5th, 2017, and the third book, Resurrections, should be arriving in the fall of 2018. We know, we're excited too.

Thanks for stopping by! Our next post will be about covers. Ellie created numerous different covers for MOM, and she wants to show them to you, explain the thought process behind them, and look at how she and Collin finally decided on the cover you see above. Watch for that in the coming weeks!

For now, we OUT! Butts to the wind.