Interview With Author Carl Parsons
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a former manufacturing manager for TRW Automotive with a secondary career as a college instructor of rhetoric and literature. I have a BA and MA in English from West Virginia University; doctoral course work completed at the University of Pittsburgh, plus a MS in Manufacturing Management from Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute). Now retired from manufacturing, I serve as a Master Gardener for the University of Tennessee Extension Office in Sevier County, TN, and contribute essays on botanical subjects to “Hey, Smokies!,” an on-line travel magazine. I have published eleven short stories with a variety of journals and have a novel, “Locust Hill,” serialized with Spillwords Press. More recently (2023), I had a second novel, “Trios: Death, Deceit, and Politics,” published by Wordwooze Publishing and advertised with Awesome Gang. I have also served as associate editor for “Heater,” a crime fiction magazine, and have a membership in West Virginia Writers, Inc.
I was born in Parkersburg, WV, and now reside in Kodak, TN. My literary awards include Contributor of the Year (2023) from Spillwords Press for “Locust Hill” and Literary Titan Book Award (July 2023) for “Trios.”
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest novel is “Shantyboat: American Dystopia.” This work was inspired by reading other dystopian novels for the Classics Book Club to which I belong. A common feature of dystopian literature is its focus on apocalyptic events. Instead of that, I wanted to show the impact of losing individual and economic freedom on ordinary people and explore how they might react–all done as plausibly as possible. Also, shantyboats were a common feature along the Ohio and Little Kanawha Rivers where I grew up. For many people they became a viable alternative to homelessness just as they do in my novel.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I utilize a recursive technique to overcome writer’s block, maintain smooth narrative flow, and consistency of voice and character. To do this, before each writing session, I drop back at least one chapter (or scene if still early in the writing process) and read that chapter aloud. This technique helps me re-establish the characters and their unique voices as well as providing plot continuity. Rereading, especially when done aloud, also helps with editing.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My greatest influences are Flaubert and Faulkner–Flaubert for his insistence on showing instead of telling and Faulkner for his overlapping stories and plots. It was Faulkner who gave me the idea for my novel “Locust Hill” and the series of Locust Hill stories related to it, many of which are available online, free to read, from Spillwords Press.
What are you working on now?
Currently, I am working on a Gothic novel that deals with possibilities of the spirits of the dead being able to continue experiencing life through their contacts with the living and being able to transfer knowledge to the living as well. Thus, a novel Gothic in its supernatural (but benign) elements but without reliance on horror. Working title: “The House of Coins.”
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This is a matter I’m still exploring and finding perplexing because book sales data lag so far behind actual sales that it is difficult to correlate specific ads or promotions with effects on sales. But this is the second time that I have chosen Awesome Gang because of its reasonable pricing, variety of services, and the size of its readership.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Be persistent and practice continuous improvement!
Writing and publishing have become so competitive in our digital era that it is easy to give up. But I trust that great writing will eventually be discovered if we persist both in the promotion of our completed works and in the improvement of our writing skills in future works.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Choose a compelling complication, build the characters who must solve the complication (problem), and then let the characters develop the plot.
What are you reading now?
I am currently reading Paul Horgan’s set of three novellas entitled “Humble Powers.” Horgan was a wonderful but now most forgotten American writer. He principally focused on the American Southwest for his fiction, despite being from Buffalo, NY, and twice won the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.
Read him for craftsmanship as well as content.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have started research on an historical novel set in the Mid-Ohio Valley. That area was the scene of an oil boom in the late nineteenth century, then attracted a great variety of industries before suddenly falling into economic decline.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible and Shakespeare’s collected plays.
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