Interview IV

So, here's a place we've not seen you before: an office.

You could call it that. It's really a storage room in some undisclosed location on campus where we've piled all of the goodies that wouldn't fit in the apartment with the arrival of our baby earlier this year.

The place is in varying states of disarray. Surprisingly, my desk is the cleanest area in the room. Have some art up and an action figure or two, some book ephemera.

Just my own little cubby away from everything.

Sounds like a good fit for you.
WAITAMINUTE!
BABY?!

Yah. Harrison Dale Conti was born February 5 at 255am. It was a bit of a scare at first, but everything turned out okay.

We named him after Harrison Ford, not William Henry Harrison like everyone thinks. The Dale comes from my wife's aunt. Okay, and maybe a little from the guy in The Walking Dead.

A little Traveling Tales trivia for you: HD are also the initials missing from the title of the fourth book of the series. Didn't realize that until later, but very hinky to see that pop up.

And how's your post-apocalyptic folk tale coming along?

Ah, you know. It comes in fits and starts. I was offered a lead this morning about writing for a local newspaper, so I may think about serializing the series somehow. Got the wheels turning, for sure.

So, baby. Have your writing practices changed?

Again, you know... I get to it when I can which is the completely wrong answer. I long to be doing this every day. Even this interview is just potchking until I sit down to the real thing.

Raising a youngling is hard work. The first couple of nights I was up all the time with feeding, piddling around at Traveling Tales, mainly Barry's story after the fact, and then my superhero short I was tackling for a workshop I attended earlier this winter.

I'd like this to be a job some day, so I need to start treating it as such.

And speaking of jobs, you've got something coming out tomorrow?

Yah, I do. The Oracular Beard now has a monthly gig in the Williamsport Sun Gazette reviewing comics. Funny, but this month is about a young family with a newborn on the run from some pretty unsavory characters. Very similar to our situation right now.

Oh?

No, just the fact that we've got a baby. It can be pretty hectic at times.

Anything else before we let you get down tot the nitty gritty?

Well, I've some photography down at the Avenue to finance my newest project. Maybe another chapbook of poetry, maybe a short story.

I think I'm going to try and coincide this with an appearance at LHU this fall so I have something new to shill and talk about. If I can dovetail it into Lock Haven's 175th birthday, that'd be pretty swank.

That superhero short story I finished for workshop was the first thing I've completed in five years, so that's given me a push to do some other stuff. I've a collection in mind, so we'll see where that gets me.