Author Paul Marlowe
New
Brunswick author Paul Marlowe is shortlisted for the prestigious Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which recognizes the best debut collection of short
stories by a Canadian author. The Danuta jury described Marlowe’s anthology, Ether Frolics (Sybertooth Inc., 2012), as “a work of verve, daring, and a near-lunatic sense of
play.” In just a few days (June 11), the winning authors will be
announced! Recently, from his Sackville NB writer’s studio, Marlowe avoided
clichés and platitudes while participating in this Q&A with Arts East. Learn about Ether Frolics, the challenges and rewards of his
literary devotion, some advice (often omitted)for aspiring writers and his own
interpretation of a 'bucket list'. http://www.paulmarlowe.com
With Ether Frolics, is
there an overarching theme to this collection of stories?
PM: The collection is rooted
in the Victorian era, in the characteristic combination of rationality and
spiritualism of that time. We remember the Victorians both for their efforts to
apply scientific rationality to the world, and for their fascination with ghosts,
spirit mediums, and theosophy. The stories are connected by a group of people
trying to reconcile these two conflicting views of the world, generally leaning
towards the scientific view. As you can tell by the title, Ether
Frolics, I’ve attempted to do this without being too heavy-handed, and with
a touch of humour.
What was the timeline/process into writing these stories?
PM: If you mean the
individual stories, they each began with an idea that I rolled around my mind
like a snowball until it accumulated enough detail to be a real story. That
generally took a few weeks for each story. They had to be consistent with the
world I created for them, with the characters from other stories, and usually
also with the real historical time-line. As for the collection as a whole, the
stories were written over a number of years, and when I decided to gather them
into a book I thought out and wrote a framing narrative that placed me inside
the world of the stories, as someone researching amongst records of the events
described in them.
What was your reaction to learning you were shortlisted for the Danuta
PM: Incredulity, initially.
It’s a fairly big, national award, and it hadn’t occurred to me that Ether
Frolics might get chosen as one of 2012’s best début collections of
short stories. Gradually, though, authorial instinct overcame my daze and I
switched to the méthode champenoise – that is, I had a glass
of writer-grade sparkling wine on the deck. The balmy 2°C spring air was fairly
effective in restoring some sense of perspective to it all, as was the
indifference of most of the media to the short-list this year.
You’ve said you "found the job description for 'writer' attractive,
since it didn't include the terms 'team player', 'consensus', or 'fast-paced'
anywhere." What are the
rewards and challenges of a solitary/independent creative career?
PM: The reward is mostly
creative control. When you have an idea, the way it comes to fruition is
entirely up to you. On the other side of the scale, the problems are almost too
many to enumerate. The pay is terrible, there’s no security, and you work in
obscurity because – in the case of writing – we’re not really a literary or
even literate society any more, but rather one focused on images, buzzwords,
sound bites, and electronic media, and unless a writer acquires a degree of
media celebrity they stand less chance of being noticed than does someone who
posts an amusing cat picture on their Facebook page. In my province, for
example, just over half of the population is functionally illiterate according
to Statistics Canada. There simply isn’t enough demand for a variety of books
to support a literary culture, which is not only bad for writers, but for
society in general, because while electronic media make people react collectively,
books make them think individually, and acquire the capacity
to grasp and articulate the big ideas – and the subtle ideas – that keep a
complex society like ours working and improving.
So before you published your short story collection Ether
Frolics, you published the first two books of The Wellborn
Conspiracy. In a nutshell, what is the premise of this series?
PM: It’s a young adult
series, set in 1880s Nova Scotia, with villains who are eugenicists – that is,
people who believe in the then-popular pseudo-science of eugenics, which is
based on the idea that some people are naturally superior to others, and that
you can breed better people by controlling who does or does not have children.
The first volume (Sporeville) is a rather Gothic mad scientisty sort of
story, while the second (Knights of the Sea) is more of a humorous
adventure that makes fun, along the way, of the corrupt state of Canadian
politics in those days. Then again, perhaps not much has changed in 126 years.
What do you do when you're not writing? Is there anything on your bucket
list?
PM: Perhaps it’s a measure
of how out of touch I am, but I confess I have no idea what a ‘bucket list’ is.
I do have (on my fridge) a list of the occasions on which my dog has required
buckets of warm, soapy water. That bucket list has things like ‘skunk’ and
‘rolled in something awful’ on it. It’s quite a long list, sadly.
The sorts of things I write often require reams of research, so aside from the
writing itself I do a lot of historical reading and note-taking whenever
working on a story, in addition to reading plenty of fiction.
What are you working on now?
PM: A satirical adult novel
set in New Brunswick, in which a Faustian bargain is playing out with the fate
of the province in the balance. It’s a comedy – perhaps a somewhat dark comedy
– that does a fair bit of sacred-cow-tipping as it pokes fun at contemporary
life.
Any advice for newbie writers?
PM: Aside from the usual
stuff about doing vast amounts of reading (and rewriting), remember that
writing is your profession, not a genteel hobby. It’s hard work, it’s valuable,
you should get paid for it, and the intellectual property you create should be
respected, not ripped off. Contrary to what its apologists claim, pirate
publishing and distribution on the internet is not about freedom of
information, technological progress, or about people liking you – it’s about
other people exploiting your hard work for their benefit,
often their financial benefit. Copyright is a writer’s bread
and butter – artists shouldn’t have to starve while parasites feed on their
work. Remember that copyright doesn’t restrict what you can do with your
work—it gives you the right to make those decisions. So, read
your contracts carefully before signing them, charge professional rates, and
lobby for effective copyright protection, because we live in a consumer society
that has begun to believe that free entertainment is a human right.
Anything you'd like to add?
PM: Buy my book – that’s the
only way that I can afford the time to write any more stories! It’s available
as an e-book from Kobo for $4.99, and as an attractive paperback for $9.99,
perfectly sized for comfortable reading in bed or in a wing-chair by the blazing
hearth, and it features a whimsical cover!
Bookshop
links can be found at: www.paulmarlowe.com
