Interview With Author J.A. Cancelmo
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
This is my first novel. I have written a number of Psychological papers on trauma and essays on current events, and worked with many victims of trauma, loss and violence. This novel is a reflection of years of that work, and my own early loss, my coming of age in The Motor City, and like Detroit, and as viewed through the characters, depicting a love never lost, for a city finally back and beginning to thrive, once again.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Detroit Unrequited – a novel
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I only write when I feel moved to do it, and luckily, that is almost always. I write in my head when I walk, swim and bike and get my best ideas when I am moving.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Joyce Carol Oats is brilliant, uncanny. Updike is amazing. The Rabbit Series, although not PC is a period piece and captures the human condition like nothing else has, at least for me.
Zadie Smith, I am in awe of. I am still trying to learn Italian as an adult, and she just up and moves there and learns it so she can write in Italian. Amazing.
What are you working on now?
I just finished another academic paper that is actually a derivative of the next novel I am working on, a kind of sequel to Detroit Unrequited. The paper is on how it is hard for people to let go as they age and find new ways to exist and contribute, and this is particularly hard for my profession, for Psychologists and Psychoanalysts.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I wish I knew – glad to have this opportunity. I am humbled by how many people have read my novel, mostly word of mouth, and a few on-line publications (Nu Detroit, Authority Magazine).
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Just write. Even a sentence. And not when you are feeling you must. Find a way to love it and don’t be critical when you are in the process. That is for later.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Writing and editing are not the same function; you can feel when a word or sentence doesn’t work, but obsession over a period, semicolon or colon is likely avoidance of some deeper issue about the content you are struggling with.
What are you reading now?
Douglas Stuart’s – Young Mungo. He is a genius.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am working on a sequel to Detroit Unrequited. The protagonist keeps trying to put his past behind him, and comes to realize that only embracing it can really move him forward. Not unlike Detroit, the most compelling City in the county I’d say. The most amazing people live there and have survived all manner of traumas — personally and socioeconomically, and are moving ahead to forge something great. Again. As a character in Detroit Unrequited says,
“A lot can happen in a place where there’s no place to go but up.”
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?
Zadie Smith – White Teeth
Joyce Carol Oats – Them
Edward St. Aubyn – The Patrick Melrose series.
John Updike — The Rabbit Series (OK, technically 4 books)
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