Please welcome author James Hutchings all the way from
Australia! His book,
They
Say the Sirens Left the Seas, is
a collection of poems, often fantasy-themed, and was released on May 26.
Please
tell my readers a little bit about your book.
It's a
collection of 46 poems. It has a particular emphasis on poems that tell a
story, particularly in the fantasy genre.
When
did you start writing toward publication?
I
wrote a novel in the early 2000s that's best not spoken of, but I've been
writing and submitting continuously since 2010.
I started submitting stuff (turned out to be crap) in 2007, and
sold the good stuff starting in 2010. Practice makes perfect! Do you
have any rejection stories to share?
I got
a rejection email for one of my poems which said that "There were several
amusing parts in this poem, but it’s not consistently funny throughout, which
is what I’d be looking for in a humour poem. I think the problem (as I see it)
is that you’re often vague or allusive; specific details tend to be
funniest." This would have been a lot more encouraging if the poem was
meant to be funny.
What
is your writing routine like?
I've
heard some writers say they can only write in a particular room, or only at a
particular time of day or something, but I've never had anything like that. At
the moment I mostly write last thing in the day, but I'd be happy to change
this if circumstances required it. I've done a lot of writing on bus or train
trips.
Me, too! With a husband and several volunteer 'jobs', I try to
get 'stuff' out of the way, then write until something else interrupts.
Are you a member of any writing organizations and, if so, have they
helped?
I've
been a member of a few different face-to-face critique groups, as well as
online ones, and have found them mostly useful. However I've never been a
member of bigger, fee-charging organizations like Writers Victoria. I've found
that, at least for an amateur like me, the cost isn't worth what they offer.
Please share THREE fun facts about you that most people
don’t know:
1) I have three nipples (the third one is
small, and looks like a birthmark or a pimple, but it's a nipple).
2) This isn't really a fun fact, but it's a strange fact. Some local neo-Nazis called Australia
First recently decided (falsely), that I was the author of an anti-Nazi blog.
They published my photo, name, address and even date of birth online (I assume
they found them on facebook). I went on local radio with the real author of
this blog to prove that we were two different people- but even after I did this
they kept insisting that I was really him! I've actually had to get lawyers to
threaten to sue them.
3) I used to dance like no one was
watching, but everyone stared at me.
What’s
next for you?
Later
this year I hope to put out two more ebooks: one based around a long poem set
in my fantasy city of Telelee, and the other around a long Western poem called
'Confession of a Bounty Hunter'. At the moment I'm working on a longer poem,
set in the distant past and with a fantasy-like atmosphere, but no magic or
monsters.
BOOK BLURB
The last dragon faces his death...
A magician bases his life on a misheard word...
A teenager goes looking for his friends' girlfriends, none of whom have ever
been seen...
46 poems by James Hutchings.
Excerpt:
The
Cat and the Toad
At the
dawn of the world on a tree-sheltered road
an
agreeable cat met a horrible toad.
When
the cat saw its neighbor it fearfully shook
for in
those days all creatures would act as they looked
and
the toad was all warty, and bulging, and slimy.
The
trembling cat mewed a terrified "Blimey!"
(more
vigorous oaths had not yet been discovered)
and
looked at the evil made plain on the other
one
hideous sin for each hideous feature.
"Oh
please do not kill me, most wicked of creatures!"
it
begged without hope. But the toad thought awhile
then
it gave what might almost have been called a smile
and it
said, "You may keep what you carry within
but if
you are to live, you must give me your skin."
Now
the cat had no choice, though it bitterly cried
but to
take off its fur and to put on the hide
of the
venomous toad, and no creatures had made
such a
villainous threat, such a terrible trade.
Then
the cat hopped away where it once would have strode
for
the toad was a cat, and the cat was a toad.
This
explains why the toad, though so utterly charmless
is
gentle in nature and totally harmless
while
cats appear graceful and splendid and good
but
would murder us all in our beds if they could.
(Disclaimer:
This only refers to other cats. Your cat is lovely of course).
Thanks!
How can my readers
buy your book?
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 |
| James Hutchings |
James
Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but
his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' His
work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Wisdom
Crieth Without among other markets. His ebook collection 'They Say the Sirens
Left the Seas' is now available from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and
DriveThruFiction.
You
can find more information
about James here:
Goodreads
Nancy Lee Badger
