Interview with Jason Mott, Superstar Author of The Returned

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Mott at his book tour stop in Seattle last night at Greenwood Library, sponsored by Elliott Bay. (Cool idea, right – a partnership between a library and bookstore? There should be more of those.) It was a wonderful reading, a great and lively crowd, and a pleasure to see Jason work his magic in person.

Jason is living pretty much every writer’s dream right now. I met Jason through correspondence about comic book poetry some year back, and now he is a New York Times bestselling author (for “The Returned”) with a show coming out on ABC called “The Resurrection” in March 2014. (Oh, and did I mentioned it was optioned by Brad Pitt’s production company?) Jason is a fine poet as well, his Hide Behind Me is one of my favorite superhero poetry books, in case you’re interested. He’s a really nice person, as well, the kind of person you’re really glad good things have happened for. Really. He spent a ton of time answering questions from the audience about how he landed his agent, his editor, how he got his book on television – he was generous and gracious.

Jason Mott, author of The Returned and Hide Behind Me, Q&A

JHG: I’ve heard your work described variously as magical realism, speculative, and genre – how would you classify your book? And, to follow up, who was the greater influence – Stephen King or Haruki Murakami (you can also choose your writer-or-influencer-of-choice here!)

JM: I think that magical realism best describes my work. But speculative and literary fiction also do a pretty good job of putting a label on it. My greatest writer-of-influence is probably John Gardner. His book Grendel and October Light are two of my biggest influences by far. Grendel was the book that really started me off as a writer, so pretty much everything I’ve done stems from that.

JHG: When we first started corresponding, it was because of our mutual love of comic book poetry. After writing two books of poetry, including the excellent “Hide Behind Me,” how did you approach a book of fiction? Was it a totally different kind of writing experience?

JM: Writing fiction was fairly different, but not as different as people might suppose. I actually started in fiction, so poetry was the divergence that came later in life. But my poetry tends to be fairly narrative driven (thanks to a childhood love of epic poetic classics such as The Odyssey and Beowulf). So, for me, when I shift back to fiction it’s not as far of a shift as one might imagine. And the poetry background helps me conquer some fiction hurdles. If I’ve got a place where I need to have something “big” happen in a small amount of space, the poetic background helps make that happen thanks to the precision of language required in poetry.

JHG: Your book is being turned into a television series called “The Resurrection” for ABC. How did it feel when you watched your work being adapted for the screen?

JM: Both surreal and wonderful at the same time. I never expected it, so it caught me completely off guard when those things began happening. And the production team, the cast, basically everyone involved with creating the show has been simply wonderful. All in all, it’s been terrific and I’m eager to see what they create.

JHG: The subject matter – the return of unexpected people from the dead – is dealt with in your book in a humanistic, heart-felt way. Why did you choose to go with a small town in the South, with a kind of stripped-down approach, rather than the bang and zoom of zombies or something more “sensational?”

JM: This whole project began with a dream I had about my mother. She passed away in 2001 and in 2010, I had a dream that I came home from work and found her at my kitchen table, waiting for me. We sat and talked for hours about everything that had happened in my life since her passing, and it was one of the warmest, most cathartic dreams I’ve ever had. And that was the feeling I wanted to “bottle” with The Returned. I’ve got nothing against the zombie genre—I actually rather enjoy a good zombie movie—but that wasn’t what I was going for. I didn’t want to scare people, I wanted to create a book that spoke about the connections we all make with one another over a lifetime. And, hopefully, readers will feel that I achieved that.

Dreaming of New Things…Presses, Bookstores, and a next book

I’ll admit, with all the health challenges in the last few years, it hasn’t been easy to adjust my personality (driven, accomplishment-oriented, and extroverted) to fit my new limitations and expectations. I went from working a 90-hour-a-week job at a tech company to taking a couple of years to get my MFA and then spent the next few years working part-time – adjunct teaching, running workshops, editing manuscripts, and writing freelance all while trying to manage the health stuff, write some poems, sell some books, do readings. Oh, and on a more limited budget (thanks, recession!) Now I’m ready to dream bigger – suddenly, with this new diagnosis, I feel like – why not do the things now that I’ve always wanted?

My ultimate dream would be running a small press and a bookstore. I know bookstores seem hopelessly out of date but I predict that cozy, focused independents will make a comeback after everything has gone all-Amazon-and-Walmart, and that’s exactly the kind of place I’d like to run. Maybe get a cup of coffee, buy a pillow or a throw, see a reading or even a cooking demonstration – you know, a place that might help a neighborhood feel like more of a community. I can see going out and getting a small business loan to do that someday. And the press – that’s probably in the nearer future for me, now. I’m looking around and thinking of people I’d like to work with, the money I’d have to put in. Would I do my own e-books, or farm that out? Would I need to hire a book designer? Would I do regular press runs or POD or some combination? (probably the latter.) Would I go after a good distributor – or would I need to wait on a step like that? Would I be an open submission press or run a contest? (probably the former.) Would I be non-profit or not? (Probably not – I hate paperwork.) But I’m finally tinkering with near-term ideas rather than five-years-in-the-future. And after working as my city’s Poet Laureate for the last year and a half, it would be nice to feel like I was a giving back to the community, but in a different way.

As you may have guessed from some things I’ve been saying, my fourth book is looking closer and closer to becoming a real thing. (Thanks for your help with the author photos – I’ve narrowed it down to two!) I’m thinking of how to work smarter this time around, how to give the book the support it needs in the right places. What strategies worked in the past and what didn’t? How do I make a maximum splash with minimal obnoxious factor and cost? I’m trying to think more like a publisher, and less like a hapless, dreamy poet these days, in terms of books…So, do any of you have advice on this? Any thoughts on any of these dreams? Am I nuts?

Help Me Decide on my Next Author Photo?

Well, it’s that time again…author photo time! I know it seems like I am carting-before-the-horse since I haven’t announced my next book yet…but I promise I will announce news as soon as I can! Until then, help me pick my next author photo by voting in the comments! (All photos by Tom Collicott. Thanks Tom!)

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A Video of my Reading, Border Crossing, September Heat

In case you’d like to see me read from all three of my books plus a bonus new poem that will be featured in the 2014 Poet’s Market…here’s a video of my part in the Jack Straw reading at the UW’s University Bookstore. (Thanks to my husband for taking the video, and to Chelsea Werner-Jatzke for the kind introduction.)

If you like these poems, you can buy my books here, here, and here. Or order a signed copy directly from me (and possibly get some swag!) here. Yes, it’s almost fall, though it may not feel like it – time to buy some poetry books! I have my new favorites, including Forty–One Jane Doe’s from Carrie Olivia Adams and Special Powers and Abilities by Raymond McDaniel, waiting to be reviewed.

And here’s a link to the Fall 2013 issue of Border Crossing, which features one of my poems, “Phosphorus Girl:”

http://www.lssu.edu/bc/SelectedexcerptsfromVolume3.php

It’s been crazy hot here in Seattle – we broke a record yesterday at 93 degrees, and remember most stuff (including most homes and businesses) isn’t air-conditioned out here. And it’s muggy. The days are getting shorter, though – we drove home through darkness at 8 PM, it feels like just a second ago 8 PM wasn’t even sunset. I’m in the midst of planning things – mostly hopeful things – looking forward to the temperatures dropping and the leaves turning, the rituals of September – buying bright notebooks, baking again, and something I haven’t done enough of in the last year – spending time with friends, catching up on what we did all summer. This week, drink some frozen watermelon lemonade and grill out one last time in the late heat, pick up a book, buy some highlighters, pick some sunflowers, kiss someone on the lips. It’s the last long days of waning summer…

A Jack Straw Reading at University Bookstore, A Poem Feature, and Pondering Publishers…

All righty, enough sad posts for this week. Thanks to Bridle Path Press who is featuring two of my Robot Scientist Daughter poems this week here. They’re only up for a few more days so hurry and catch them!

I’m reading at the UW University Bookstore downtown tonight at 7 PM as part of the Jack Straw Writers reading series with terrific poets Daemond Arrindell and Larry Crist. Show up if you can – it’ll be a good show!

Pondering Publishers…

So, my next book will be my fourth, and I wish I had a ton of wisdom to share now about how to go about choosing a publisher for your poetry book. It seems like, yes, there’s the contest system, there’s open submissions (which sometimes still charge fees,) and there are presses that take submissions any time. It seems the larger poetry presses are reading less, but small poetry presses are proliferating, thank goodness, so maybe that makes up for it. At last week’s twitter #poetparty, I asked poets about what they looked for in a press. Not only am I thinking about how to decide where to publish my own next book, but I’m thinking in terms of starting a small press myself someday soon. Here are some of the top answers:

Input or say in the cover art. That was really a high priority for a lot of poets, and with good reason – a lot of people pick up a book of poetry (or not) because of the cover.
Distribution didn’t seem as important to most poets at the twitter poetparty as it does to me. I think now that distribution – even if the three main ways books are sold by poets is either at readings, on Amazon, or directly through the press’s web site – is an important consideration when you sign up with a press. You want your book to get out into the world.
A good working relationship with the editor. Yes, that does seem important. I often send to presses because I like the editor’s voice.
Royalty rates, author copies, longevity of press, and how the press markets their books were also considerations. I like to see that the press is active on social media, has an e-mail newsletter where they promote their books, and that it has a decent, easy-to-navigate web site. Does the press do e-books? Have their books won major prizes recently (see below…)
Something that wasn’t brought up but strikes me as important as someone who has done this three times…how willing is the press to send out review copies? How many prizes will they send your book to, and are they willing to send copies/pay fees? For poetry books, getting attention is tough, and getting any kind of prize recognition and reviews really helps get the word out.

What else do you think are the most important things to think about when a poet signs up with a press? Yes, you can also say “the press accepted my manuscript” as an important consideration, but I think that we need to think beyond “they like my work” to what the press is going to do for the book once it’s published (or not.) There was also a discussion of POD versus traditional print run, self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and options in-between. The publishing world is changing, and the poetry publishing world in particular is kind of morphing before our eyes, and it’s our job to keep up as well as we can.