Johnny Newport will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Tell us about yourself: At thirty-three (33) I’m a very-long-in-the-tooth wild animal in the last throes of death. I have two children and a woman I devote myself to, when I’m not writing or (maybe more honestly) thinking about writing. Follow me @MothAnkles or mothankles at gmail
What was your first book? In Defense of the Moth or A Meaningless Dance in Blinding Heat and Light. It is the story of Johnny Gomez, a modern, disillusioned man who feels guilt for desiring not to abide by societal standards, but instead for self-destructive behavior. Also, a concept that I’ve been chewing on for a while that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about is privilege, what that looks like for a guy like Johnny Gomez, and how the idea of privilege gives him the opportunity to subvert the norms of society to justify a more creative way of life.
Ultimately, the book employs allegory and is a Platonic apology (apologia) for alcoholism and acute insanity and is written with the clever rebel in mind. Also for people like Johnny Manziel and Shia Labeouf
Describe your first break. I don’t know that I’ve had a first break. I was published five times in 2015 in MFA literary journals in varying degrees of repute and had a short story published in a neat anthology, which I think helped to both expand and collapse my writing. I suppose now that I think of it, maybe it would be nice if I can look back one day and see this book as my first break.
What is your favorite genre to read? To write? My favorite genre to read is probably absurd/fabulism and probably magical realism because I like the blend between the experimental and literary. I like to write a mixture of fabulism and literary as well.
Are Happy Endings a must in your stories? No. I don’t like absolutes. The only thing in my mind that is a must with my writing is that I give my best effort and do everything I can to put forth my best efforts.
What makes a protagonist interesting? Personally, I think it’s a strongly supported, unique belief system and worldview— weltanschauung, if you will—and that is generally shown through the innermost thoughts, dialogue and ultimately actions of the character.
What is the best thing about being a writer? It’s the same quality that makes it the best thing about being a runner or a mathematician; when you get to a certain point you don’t consider it torture, but a fun way to explore yourself and the world around you. Unfortunately those moments are few and far between.
What is the worst thing? Generally? The daily, sometimes hourly, confrontation of my own fear and disabilities is probably the worst thing. Specifically? Being haunted with the passionate urge to quit your job and write, to hell with material wants and needs, or else a sacrifice of this desire is to waste my life. I came very close to applying to low-res MFA programs the past month.
Pantser or plotter? I am generally a plotter insomuch as I’ll plant plot points like guide posts at intervals, but in between those I’m a pantser.
What do you see the direction of your future writing taking? What can we expect next? Give us a little taste. I’m glad you asked! I am finishing the first draft of a collection of short stories. The short story collection is interesting (to me) in that I’m writing in an experimental style; a single narrative which is composed of my short stories which are interconnected by the segues of the (unnamed) narrator. This collection ranges from urban realism to fabulism and is told through the prism of the aforementioned unnamed narrator. The thematic glue for the collection is this narrator who toes the line between haught (or at least a well constructed ego) and a deeply-flawed, human vulnerability familiar and worthy of our sympathy.
A few of the stories that have been published that are included in this collection:
* La Tortuga, (Limestone, University of Kentucky MFA journal)
* He, Who Controls the Spices (Euphemism, Illinois State University graduate journal)
* I Blame Lolita (Moth magazine, Ireland's premiere literary review)
* Letter to the Jew's Mom (The Vehicle, Eastern Illinois University online journal)
Just for fun
Cat or dog person? Cat; I have a cat! The relationship between writers and cats is well documented, after all, right? (Hemingway, Sartre, Stephen King, Bukowski, etc.)
Favorite food? I’m a snob about one thing in my life. I went to school in Austin and so it was during the formative years of my twenties that I lived in the Hill Country of Central Texas. This, of course, is the home of barbeque and the Mecca. So, (real) BBQ! I’ve been to Memphis many times and while their barbeque is good and Carolina-style barbeque is good, it’s not the same.
Favorite book? My favorite book I’ve ever read is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, though Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky has been the most influential.
Favorite movie? City of God, Jesus Christ Superstar and A Clockwork Orange are tied for my favorite movie. Honorable mention: Ratatouille.
Favorite holiday? Thanksgiving; I’m a man of excess and I was born on the day, back in the 80’s.
Would you rather be the princess or the villain? Why? Princess, because her acceleration is MUCH better and her handling is better and easier to use fast in Mario Kart compared to Wario or Bowser.
Who has more fun, orcs or hobbits? Hobbits seem like they have more fun, they seem more whimsical and fun-loving and drunk. Maybe I’m not giving Orcs enough credit, though.
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BLURB:
The Moon...
It is said the moon’s spell can move us and nobody understands her pull like Johnny Gomez.
Johnny, a devil-may-care and fatalistic salesman, remains tethered to his privileged life by a love for his children, his career and the moon—and not necessarily in that order. In fact, it’s Johnny’s lifelong passion for the moon, through both obsessive, independent study and a communal involvement in an astronomy society, that serves as the only outward distraction as a life of standard struggles waxes into a burgeoning crisis.
Until one night Johnny finds that the moon—his preferred method of self-medication-- no longer exists...but for him only and not anyone else.
Or so it seems, leaving Johnny’s continued marriage with reality to hinge on his rediscovery of the moon!
If you like allegories and/or philosophical apologies for acute insanity, grab “In Defense of the Moth or A Meaningless Dance in the Blinding Heat and Light” and join the eclipse.
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Excerpt One:
“I had earnestly believed—perhaps I had to believe it—that I could find my way to the office for the big meeting but instead found myself on a balcony with a spackle of vomit on my snakeskin boots. I glanced once more at the dancing moths.
Must be nice, I thought. I threw my bag over my shoulder and I jumped the railing, landing with a splash of my own puke, and left without saying goodbye.”
Johnny Newport (The Moth) is carrying the consciousness of the oft-failed man native to 2016. Strictly from a visual standpoint he looks like he may be kept in a nice package, but this is not so. Johnny Newport has two feet on the warpath and probably smells like last night’s street tacos.
Johnny knows that his devil-may-care attitude is unfair—to himself and to others—but this is precisely the origin for the voice of an unbridled generation of privilege; the 21st-century-livers that intimately know they have squandered (squandered what? How can we say definitively and with any assurance despite knowing that a squandering has, indeed, befallen?), and will continue to do so, happily.
Otherwise about me, I studied at the University of Texas at Austin, have spent the last two years in The Writer's Path program at SMU (Southern Methodist University, Dallas) and have applied to a handful of low-res MFA programs for fall of '16.
Short story publications in 2015 were:
* Mr. Franklin’s Heartbreaking Sympathy (The Speculative Book, anthology)
* La Tortuga, (Limestone, University of Kentucky MFA journal)
* He, Who Controls the Spices (Euphemism, Illinois State University graduate journal)
* I Blame Lolita (Moth magazine, Ireland's premiere literary review)
* Letter to the Jew's Mom (The Vehicle, Eastern Illinois University online journal)
LINKS:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14879430.Johnny_Newport
https://twitter.com/mothankles
http://www.johnnynewport.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Meaningless-Dance-Blinding-Light-ebook/dp/B01B1XN6MS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454352251&sr=8-1&keywords=in+defense+of+the+moth