Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an adjunct English professor and freelance writer in Tampa. Like many writers, I began by writing fan fiction. In my late teens and early twenties, I was obsessed with hardboiled detective novels, especially Hammett and Chandler. Out of that obsession came a novel titled EYE OF THE STORM. Years passed before I produced another. After having kids, I wanted to write something they could enjoy. I wrote two middle-grade novels, one called THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE GOALIE and DISCOVERING DYNAMITE. I had great fortune with THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE GOALIE, having sold the screen rights and penned the screenplay for the motion picture. I felt I was a pretty good storyteller, but knew I needed to hone my craft. I went back to school and earned by MFA in creative writing. That process taught me a different way to write, a different way to look at the world, and how to draw from my own life. In July of 2020, my linked collection of short fiction, COMETS, was published by Unsolicited Press.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Inspired by the cabinet shop my father owned for more than 60 years, COMETS, is a linked collection of short fiction that follows the lives of craftsmen and artisans, strivers and strays of all kind struggling to survive, while centering on the life of Roberto, as he grows from a working teenager, influenced by the men in his father’s shop, to a disillusioned 42, unwittingly trying to fill his father’s shoes, while searching for a deeper understanding of himself and his life. Ybor City, Tampa’s historic Latin Quarter, is the backdrop for the stories of immigrants and working-class people living on the margins. COMETS captures a microcosm of blue-collar problems with implications that go beyond racial, economic, and cultural boundaries, illuminating a greater understanding of the human experiences we all share.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I listen to music before I write. Before writing every single story in my linked collection COMETS, I listened to Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis, which might give indication of the book’s tone.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
The list is long and getting longer each day! Here are a few books that inspired my latest collection of short fiction, COMETS:
Rock Springs by Richard Ford
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Visit From The Good Squad by Jennifer Egan
Fever by John Edgar Wideman
Airships by Barry Hannah
Anything by Hemingway (especially his short stores)
What are you working on now?
I’ve started work on a novel about two struggling misfits in Ybor City (Tampa’s Latin Quarter). The book will take place in the summer of 1929, a few months before the start of The Great Depression and before the end of Prohibition.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Still looking for that. For now, it’s my public facebook page: FB.com/josephallencosta
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read! Read! Read! Read everything, both in and out of your genre.
What are you reading now?
1. I continue to read old and new short stores. I always re-read the short stories that I’m teaching, and each time I read them, I get more out of them.
2. I wanted to read a Western! So, I picked up the Pulitzer Prize winning book: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
3. Next to my bed, when I can’t sleep, which is often, I read Hemingway, a biography by Kenneth S. Lynn
What’s next for you as a writer?
The novel I’m working on…and finding more time to spend on it.
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?
Oh come on! Only three or four?
I’m still staring at my bookshelves….
Author Websites and Profiles
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