Kirkus interviewed me about Twisted!

After they reviewed the Twisted book, Kirkus contacted me and asked if I would do an interview for them. Of course I said I would! Here's a link to the page:

http://www.kirkusreviews.com/blog/fiction/indie-spotlight-nora-thompsons-twisted/

Nora Thompson's Twisted features 28 brief chapters of repulsive, funny flash-fiction. In our review, we noted that the debut author “shines at using multiple perspectives to breathe new life into conventional tales, with story endings that are surprising and skillfully foreshadowed.”

Repulsive? Yep. That's what they said.

The interview was done back and forth over email with Kathryn Lawson, and I thank her much for taking the time. Please, if you will, "Like" the page, g +1 it, email it, tweet it. Any help will certainly help!

The August Kirkus Reviews last page

The August edition of Kirkus Reviews is out, and their review of Twisted is in it! And you'll only have to flip to page 1,716 to read it. Yeah. That would be the last page.

Hey, it's Kirkus and they like the book. It doesn't really matter where they put it.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Reluctantly Reluctant Reader

I wrote a post about a month ago in response to a few comments I received in a couple of book reviews I got on the Twisted book, and I just reread yesterday what I had written in the post. After a little time away, sometimes you see things you missed that maybe bring up points you hadn't originally planned on making.

The post itself was supposed to be about how people were perceiving the book and how my implied words and illustrations weren't being taken at face value. As if that wasn't my intention from the start, but let's not go there right now.

When I reread the original post, I saw a few lines in there that I had written that weren't exactly what I was aiming for in hindsight. Here they are:

First, my mentor. Dr. Michael A. Arnzen taught me everything I know about writing fiction. He's a good teacher, and from what I've heard, a good writer as well. Why don't I know he's a good writer? Well, because he writes horror, and I really don't like to read horror. I've tried reading his stuff, but it's not what floats my blood cells, if you know what I mean. But you know what? He's won enough Bram Stoker Awards to shut up anybody who thinks the genre is all about teen gore movies. Just do a search for "Arnzen" on this page, and you'll see what I mean.

That paragraph made me think about something that has come up a few times since the book was released. I was going to post another comment on that post, but quickly realized I had a bigger point than I could put in the space of a comment. (And as an aside, I actually find Dr. A's flash fiction and poetry very entertaining. It's still classified as horror, I understand, but my mind doesn't wander off when it's in smaller doses.) The point I was trying to make was that just because I don't like to read something doesn't mean it isn't good.

That's the conundrum of a reluctant reader.

Let me try to explain. I'm a picky eater. Always have been. I think of mushrooms as fungus, and generally I avoid them when I'm choosing from a menu. But as a vegetarian, I've found that a whole lot of people think that being a vegetarian must mean you really, really love portobellos because that's the vegetarian choice in many restaurants. Apparantly, portobellos are considered very delicious. They're just not delicious to me.

I've also always been a picky reader. I don't like it, and I try hard to get as much variety in my reading diet as I can, but I've found there are some things I have trouble with. And it's not always everything by a certain writer, and it's not always a certain genre, and just because the vast majority of readers and critics agree it's a classic doesn't mean I won't have trouble with it.

Just to give you an idea. Here are a few of the books that I've tried to read that I haven't been able to finish (but am still trying):

A Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft (I understand it's only a short story, but that doesn't seem to be making it any easier for me.)

Here are a few books that I wanted to like but struggled violently to get through:

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (illustrated by Lane Smith)

Here are a few books that I pushed myself to finish but won't be reading the rest of the series (which is terribly sad for me because I love collecting entire series of things):

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide by Holly Black
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

And then here are a few books that I read and will likely read again:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (illustrated by Dave McKean)
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos (which I wrote about on my other blog here)
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

See what I mean? There's no rhyme or reason. Those top books are considered classics; the portobellos of the literary world. I wish I could explain how a reluctant reader thinks, but I don't understand it myself. Some things stick and some things don't. Some books keep my attention, and some books make my mind wander, and it really doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the writing or illustrations.

• I picked up Lemony Snicket, Spiderwick, James and the Giant Peach and The Graveyard Book because of the illustrations.
• I kept with Raw Shark and Extremely Loud partly because of the graphics that were added throughout.
• I had trouble with The Hobbit and Hitchhiker partly because of the odd names and words that I struggled to keep straight.
• I kept with The Graveyard Book and Slaughterhouse-Five partly because of Gaiman's and Vonnegut's turn of a phrase.
• But Vonnegut's great phrase turning didn't help when I forced myself to finish Titan.

There are a couple of things I would like people to know—and when I say "people" I mean readers who devour books. Those people I would so like to be like. I think something that I do understand that I would like other people to understand is that I don't like that I can't stay focused. I don't like that I won't be reading the second book in the Harry Potter series. I don't like that I don't like portobello mushrooms. Because if I could stay focused and read the rest of the series and eat the mushrooms, I would fit in so much easier socially. I could be part of the discussion. But I know what a struggle it is to make myself sit and read the same sentence over and over and over and still not hear what it's saying. I decided a long time ago to stop putting myself through it.

I also want to point out that just because I'm not reading it doesn't mean that I don't think it's good. I'm absolutely sure that it is. It's just not flashing my neurons the way it's supposed to, the way it does all those people who can devour a book in one sitting. I've never, in my entire life, been able to stay focused long enough to devour a book (longer than a picture book) in one sitting. And it really doesn't have anything to do with the book. I still haven't figured out why I like the things I do or not like the things I don't. But if I ever do, it will make it a lot easier when I shop for books.

I know this probably hasn't shed much light on the mind of a reluctant reader, and the only advice I have for the parents and teachers and librarians out there who are dealing with one (or many) is to not give up. Don't stop trying. There's a Graveyard Book out there for yours; you just have to find it. Dig it up. It took me 45 years to find mine.

Redesigned covers

With three positive reviews from major reviewers to boast, I decided to redesign the Twisted covers to include exerpts. While I was at it, I made a few more changes of things that were bugging me. Here's what I did:

• I was afraid the image was printing a little on the cyan side, so I adjusted that
• From the beginning I wanted the title on the front to be much bigger, so I messed with that a little, too (although I'm not quite happy with it yet)
• I added a few spot colors of that aqua from the image in some of the text, which I like a lot better
• I changed most of the fonts from VT Portable Remington to Goudy Old Style like the body copy in the book
• I made some changes to the spine in the image and the font
• I changed the Hairy Eyeballs Press logo so it will show up better

Here's the hardcover before:

and here's the hardcover after:

Two Purple Dragonflies—Proof!

In case you didn't believe me...

a couple certificates to prove it!

Won: Two Purple Dragonflies!

Twisted: Tales to Rot Your Brain Vol. 1 is the proud recipient of two Purple Dragonfly Book Awards! The first one is a First Place award for Fiction: Collection of Short Stories, and the second is a Second Place award for Interior Design. Here's a link to all the winners:

http://www.fivestarpublications.com/bookcontest/book-award-winners.html#2012pdbawin

Are people seeing what the reviewers are seeing?

Hmmm.

Sometimes I wonder what people out there think they're reading. Or seeing. When you read, how much of what you see comes from what you yourself are bringing to the reading?

The Twisted book just got reviewed by Kirkus last week (yay yay yay!), and I'm noticing a pattern here. I'm not a horror person, let's just say that up front. At least, not in the way it's come to be known. I don't go for gore. I'm more of a Sixth Sense kind of scary story person. But between the book's review in Publishers Weekly and now in Kirkus, I'm starting to wonder...

1. About myself
2. About what people think they're seeing
3. About does it really matter

I'll get to "1. About myself" later, but first, let's do 2.

"...the main character is brutally attacked"
"...a jack o'lantern sits mutilated in the foreground..."

—Publishers Weekly

"...Her artwork tends toward the gory..."

—Kirkus Reviews

I don't want to sound like a writer who just got bad reviews and wants to throw a fit; that's not the problem at all. I'm totally thankful for the reviews I got. They were positive and encouraging and much appreciated (thank you, MBR, PW and KR).

The thing was, when the Publishers Weekly review came out, I thought it was a single instance of someone who was reading more into the stories than was actually there, and I just let it pass. But with this new Kirkus review, I'm starting to wonder what's at play here.

Without giving too much away, let me address first the PW quotes. In the first one where "the main character is brutally attacked," I sort of make a face like, huh? Except for two lines, the main character isn't even touched by the thing after him, let alone brutally. (By the way, the lines are: "Oily fingers grab at your throat," and "It reaches through from the back of the open stairs and seizes your ankle.")

In the second quote, I think the easiest thing to do is show you the illustration. And that would be it, over to the right. If the seeds that are left after gutting a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern are considered mutilation, maybe parents should think twice about letting their kids at the gourds this Hallowe'en. Just sayin'.

Now to the Kirkus quote, and I think I'll have to post another illustration here. That picture on the left? That's as gory as it gets. He's a butcher. You know, like the one who works in your local supermarket. I'm not even trying to be funny here. I'm a vegetarian, and the poem that goes with this illustration was actually my reaction to just how rediculous the eating of meat (including the kind that will probably be on your dinner table tonight) is to those of us who don't partake in that sort of thing. Seriously.

Here's a list (without giving too much away) of the rest of the illustrations in the book:

• clouds (not kidding)
• two birds in a tree talking about the person walking under it
• various poses of an artist drawing a graphic novel
• a clown
• the jack-o-lantern from above
• the butcher from above
• a doctor (not even playing doctor)
• a child's drawing of a rainbow, a sun, a flower and clouds (those darn clouds again)
• a child in bed sleeping
• the butt of a monster looking in a refrigerator
• a vacuum cleaner
• a kid looking scared in the shadow of a cartoony monster
• another clown (this one's scary, but not at all gory)
• a chair knocked over with broken glasses and a book
• the zombie waitress on the cover

That's it.

Now about "1. About myself." I was worried at first about being categorized in a genre that I really didn't like and thought I had nothing to do with.

But then I thought about, well, two things.

First, my mentor. Dr. Michael A. Arnzen taught me everything I know about writing fiction. He's a good teacher, and from what I've heard, a good writer as well. Why don't I know he's a good writer? Well, because he writes horror, and I really don't like to read horror. I've tried reading his stuff, but it's not what floats my blood cells, if you know what I mean. But you know what? He's won enough Bram Stoker Awards to shut up anybody who thinks the genre is all about teen gore movies. Just do a search for "Arnzen" on this page, and you'll see what I mean.

As for the second thing I thought about: Alfred Hitchcock. So what if these people are seeing something that isn't there. Alfred Hitchcock banked his career on the possibility that they would, and his is considered classic material.

So I'm not going to worry about any of this after today. If I ever get around to a Vol. 2, I'm going to stick to my guns (but I probably won't draw any because I'm a pacifist) and draw and write the stories that make me laugh.

And, I'm going to enter the book in the Bram Stokers.