Ellen Welcker

Jennifer H. Fortin tagged me. Thanks, Jennifer! You should read about her chapbook GIVE OR TAKE (in which she intimates, “the hidden cost of having family photos taken is having a family”) here.

• What is the working title of the book?

Mouth That Tastes of Gasoline

• Where did the idea come from for the book?

I dreamed I was a member of a league called the Urban Lightwing Professionals. At times I was in on the actions, and at times I was an outlier. One thing led to another, though I am still not sure if I am in or out…

• What genre does your book fall under?

Sense of desperation; paranoia, real or imagined; technology as stand-in for human interactions, secret missions; overt-consumption; the general and pervasive hopelessness that leads to single-issue indignant righteousness; urban hiking; toxic ecosystems, internal and external; imaginary and nefarious plots; concepts of ‘duty’, ‘heroism,’ and ‘alienation.’

• What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

It would have to be an ensemble cast of nobodies, & I mean that in the best possible sense.

• What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A vascular alternative to a machine—beating, beating, incessantly beating.

• How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote the first section, The Urban Lightwing Professionals (a chapbook at H_NGM_N, free, downloadable, here) in winter/spring 2010, and the next sections have come out of that. So, I guess a year and change.  Have been revising the other sections until late 2012.

• Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Often I am writing to try to understand that which is too large to comprehend at face-value (this seems obvious), and in this case it’s the question of how to go from a world/nation/community/individual feedback cycle of greater and greater toxicity and chaos to a more balanced and healthy environs. Unfortunately I continue to fail at the understanding part. I read lots of good books though, in the effort to — including The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual (Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society), Kim Hyesoon’s All the Garbage of the World, Unite!, & my favorite book from when I was a tot, Busy Day, Busy People.

• What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Readers who are full or part-Nebraskan, hypochondriacs and the people who love them, and those who enjoy the mysteries of biology.

• Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

n/a

• My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:

Don Mee Choi, Megan Kaminski, Drew Dillhunt