We are pleased to announce a new weekly “Wordsmith Interview” series. These interviews will allow our readers to gain a little more insight into the methods and madness of our contributing writers!
Our first featured contributor in this interview series is…
Bruce Makous
Philadelphia, PA
B.A. Oberlin College and M.A. NYU
Do you have a specific writing style?
I do. I prefer a style that appeals to a broad audience.
Do you see writing as a career?
Bruce Makous
Philadelphia, PA
B.A. Oberlin College and M.A. NYU
Do you have a specific writing style?
I do. I prefer a style that appeals to a broad audience.
Do you see writing as a career?
Writing has been a key professional focus of my life, so, yes, writing is a career for me, although I don’t make a full living at it.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as a writer?
I feel that my 2004 novel Riding the Brand with its treatment of the American Dream gone bad, its critical recognition, and distribution to a large readership is my greatest accomplishment to date.
What is your ultimate goal as a writer?
I would like to continue to produce novels that may reveal the darker side of American life today and receive broad readership.
The Work
Tell us about your work in Crack the Spine.
My story, “Stranger in My Own Home,” is about a young investigative reporter who has been injured in an attack while on a story in Barcelona. During his convalescence back home, he is devastated when his family’s business is also attacked. It is an excerpt from an as-yet-unpublished novel.
Is there a main theme or message in this piece?
This story is about the heartbreak of betrayal by someone close to you. I think everyone has experienced a relationship in which a person you love and trust later turns out to be quite different from what you thought. If you are badly hurt by this mistake, it can shatter your confidence and destroy your life.
What inspired this work?
This and all of my works are based on personal experiences. At one point in my life, I was betrayed and badly hurt by someone I loved deeply. In this and all of my fiction, I work to sensorily heighten my own real life experiences to create something thrilling to a broader audience.
Tell us about another project you have published.
My first published novel, Riding the Brand, was about a young high-tech entrepreneur who finds out that his venture funding has been contributed by a crime organization. The Wall Street Journalinvestigative reporter felt that it inferred that the high-tech venture capital business of the late 1990s was operated like organized crime, and they wrote an article about it.
What inspired your novel?
At the time, I was raising money for an engineering college, and I met a number of very successful high tech entrepreneurs who were alums of the college. Every time I asked one of them about their early years and their first “angels” or venture funders, they all referred to them as “loan sharks.” To me, that was a revelation about how that business operates, and a comment on business success in contemporary America.
Where can we find this novel?
It was published in 2004, and it’s still available on Amazon.
The Methods
How often do you write?
How often do you write?
5 days per week.
Where do you write?
In my office in my home.
What time of day or night makes you most productive as a writer?
I wake up early to write.
How many drafts do you generally go through before you consider a piece to be complete?
Many. I do a rough outline, then keep layering on the revisions until it is finished.
What is your usual starting point for a piece? (Is your work character driven, plot driven, inspired by locations, etc?)
It’s usually character driven. A novel or story concept is launched when I get an insight into part of myself, or another type of person.
How do you react when one of your submissions is accepted for publication?
I’m always as thrilled as I was upon acceptance of my first piece.
The Madness
Who is your favorite author?
Elmore Leonard
What is the greatest occupational hazard for a writer?
To indulge in the narcissism that is writing without earning the right to do so by publishing and sharing your work.
What makes you laugh?
Bitter irony.
What makes you cry?
I’m sentimental—hurting children, people harmed unjustly.
How many of your character have you ended up killing off?
I’ve lost count.
What is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?
The volcanic geological features all over Maui, particularly the inside of the crater of the volcano Haliakala.
Rain or Sunshine?
Rain
Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?
Stones
More about Bruce