Updates

David: It was the first class of any kind I have taught-I got my MFA in Writing to simply become a better writer, with no eye toward teaching. My old professor and the director of the Hamline writing program Mary Rockcastle finally convinced me to try my hand at teaching. The Loft is great because they allow you to design your own class.

David: "Grounding the Fantastic" is a multi-genre fiction class (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc.) divided in two basic parts. The first half of the course we try our hands at several different genre-aimed writing exercises, with a special focus on a specific craft topic each class (such as character development).
The second half of the course is a more traditional workshop environment, with an eye on toward helping a writer develop whatever piece they submit to class (novel chapter or short story). I stress the idea that we're all "mad scientists" tinkering in the fiction lab.

David: The stranger or more out there your story is, the greater an effort you must make to not only ground it in visceral detail, but to give your piece a meaningful, emotionally resonant backbone.

David: I take it to simply mean slipping between fiction genres, or streams. Imagine two streams running alongside each other-the slipstream author is the fish jumping from one stream to the other, enjoying both. I'm currently polishing a horror-Western that fits the bill nicely.

David: The old idea that we'd have flying cars someday and the fact that we still don't.

David: Hell no, I've written twelve! My two published novels are The Suicide Collectors, which is set in a near-future America that has been devastated by a suicide plague, and Wormwood, Nevada, about an isolated town in central Nevada where a meteorite lands and slowly causes the town to unravel.

David: Three or four a year, if that. I'm always in the middle of a novel or busy drinking.

David: I have a short story called "A Fairy Tale for the Incarcerated" coming out this spring in the Write of Spring anthology.

David: Hell yes. We drink ourselves silly. At least I do-Noah takes it a little more seriously. He's the true backbone of the show-I just crack wise and interrupt him a lot.

David: We've gotten a decent amount of hits on our website, but most of the feedback has been from friends and family, who like it. Sometimes it feels like we're talking into a void.

David: I've gotten into bluegrass lately, thanks to Trampled By Turtles. I love music and writing-I have over 400 albums I rotate. I love the rock and roll.

David: Not really, but I can't listen to new albums either way. I pay too much attention to the song writing and lyrics.

David: Sometimes. Bluegrass sure perks you up, Dukes of Hazard style.