The Local Authors Book Fair is almost here! We’re so excited about our fabulous list of guests and hope all of you will come out to support our vibrant local writing community. We’re so fortunate to live in a place with so many talented locals!
To whet your appetite for the readings and book fair, we’ll be offering interviews with some of our guests across the next few days. Now, let’s meet James Maxey!
FOCPL: What should readers know before they pick up one of your books?
Before picking up my Bitterwood or Dragon Apocalypse collections, I recommend some stretching exercises. These books are 800 pages long. Remember to lift with your knees, not your back.
FOCPL: Why are you a writer? What drew you into a writing life?
I was blessed with the most important gift any writer may possess: A complete lack of talent at doing anything else that pays better. As it happens, the two things I’m really good are daydreaming and typing. Learn to do both at the same time, and it’s a surefire path to wealth* and fame**!
*According to the World Bank, more than half of the people in the world live on less than $5.50 per day. I’m in the upper half of the world’s wealthiest people. I try not to flaunt it.
**My readings sometimes draw crowds of as many as ten people who aren’t related to me!
FOCPL: If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Me? Or my books? My warning label would read, “Sorry about the cat hair.” My books’ warning labels would be: “Weirdness ahead. Proceed with caution.”
FOCPL: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A responsible adult. Alas, some dreams just aren’t meant to come true.
FOCPL: Do you have a favorite among your own works? Which is it and why?
If I could wave a magic wand and, poof, suddenly every library in the world had one of my books on the shelf, the book I’d probably choose to distribute would be my short story collection, There is No Wheel. This is far, far, far from being my best-selling title. But, I feel like short stories are an underappreciated art form, and the ten stories in that collection really contain a lot of mystery and magic and meaning. A short story exists solely to say something important. Character, setting, and plot are still matter, but a short story can also focus on a single idea in a way that a novel can’t. Novels sort of become their own statements. The characters, setting, and plot take on a life of their own, and the animating idea that I wanted to focus on can get lost among all the things happening. On the other hand, a short story like “Perhaps the Snail” (the closing story in There is No Wheel) can have very simplified characters, only as much setting as is needed for them to move around in, and just enough plot to move the characters toward a single life changing moment. A lot of books and essays are written about the important of first lines. In my short stories, while the first lines serve their purpose in drawing the reader in, it’s always the last line where I’m going to try to change the reader’s understanding of the world. The first line should hook you, but the last line should haunt you. Which sounds a bit pretentious, but hey. I’ve got just a few minutes inside a reader’s head. I damn well better not waste my time, or theirs.
