About The Book
Author: Christopher P. Ring
Publisher: Independent Self Publishing
Publication Date: December 5, 2014
Pages: 73
ASIN: B00QOBEIX4
Genre: Literary / New Adult / Short Stories Collection
Format: eBook (.mobi / Kindle), PDF
Buy The Book:
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/electricity-christopher-ring/1120893130?ean=2940149963393&itm=1&usri=electricity+christopher+p.+ring
Book Synopsis:
A teenager wrestles with the meaning of love when his parent’s high-voltage marriage turns deadly. School boys playing chicken with a commuter train, search for answers about life and death. An American teacher working in Peru struggles to reconcile the gap between her idealism and the reality of poverty when an act of kindness leads to a frightening episode. Covert baptisms, duels of love and highway robberies: the coming-of-age stories in Electricity share a vision of America marked by tainted innocence and misguided idealism.
Author Interview!
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I don't think I ever did. Writing simply grew out of my life. In the same way that a warm sun can lure me out to my hammock, experiences drew me to the craft and inspired me to write stories. It was a calm awakening, not a concrete decision. Originally I wrote only poetry, but I lost interest in it as the power of stories started to appeal to me. Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It shook me up, from a creative perspective. The simplicity of his story telling and the lyricism of his prose inspired me to focus more on stories.
Believe it or not, I never read any fiction voluntarily until I was just out of college. I only read poetry and non-fiction at that point. That was 23 years ago. Even now I read as much non-fiction as fiction. Experiences and learning provide the fuel for everything I write.
What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
It's different every day. I have children and I'm happy to say that raising them is always my first priority. That, however, makes a writing life very challenging. Writer's need their consistency and ritual. They need unfettered time to immerse themselves in their craft. With a young family that doesn't always happen. I tell non-writers that our craft is like any other activity. We need to practice every day, we need to keep that writing muscle in shape or it gets weak. Believe me, I know. So, sometimes I'm up at 5 am to write. Sometimes I don't get a chance until the late evening. Fortunately, I was able to reduce my work this year to half time so I can focus on writing, but being home so much has made me the go to guy for a lot of family needs, so it hasn't given me as much time as I had hoped for. I'm sure thousands of other writers know what I'm talking about.
What inspired you to write your first book?
My first novel was a pile of crap, but it taught me how to write. I must have written 700 pages, drafted until it was down to 350 and when I was done I burned it in the woodstove. Originally, that novel focused on the development boom of the Eighties and Nineties that ravaged the East End of Long Island, where I grew up for part of my youth. As a sub-story to that plot, I explored the unknown histories of my two grandfathers. One was a bootlegger in his early adult years and the other had come to America to escape his troubles in Ireland. He was a member of the IRA who had been in and out of prison a couple times. My Irish grandfather died before I was born, so I only know him by the frayed stories of his life here in the US and Ireland that relatives have passed along. The former bootlegger was very close to me growing up, but he never shared much of his business life with the family. What I do know of his history I had to piece together through old letters, but there are a lot of holes in my knowledge. Both men were a bit of a mystery and I am using writing to complete their stories. What I know now as I write another draft of this novel is that their stories are the keystone of the novel.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
As I mentioned, I am working on the novel about the Bootlegger and the IRA runaway. First, however, I am finishing up a collection of short stories I would describe as speculative / literary fiction. That should be published in April or early May.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
I am just happy that so many people are still interested in the art of storytelling. Thank You.
Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE
About The Author
Christopher P. Ring writes fiction, poetry, children’s stories, travel essays, social commentaries, humor and screen plays. His writing has appeared in numerous regional magazine and small literary journals such as Caldera and The Broken Bridge Review. He received his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire and taught High School English for several years in the U.S. and abroad. He continues to teach the art storytelling to Elementary school students in Southern Maine, where he resides with his wife (a teacher too) and two children.
Much of his fiction draws on the experiences and discoveries of his life as a “rambler”. Growing up in Long Island, New York, he developed an insatiable thirst to escape the confines of conventional living, spending his twenties and early thirties travelling the globe to off the beaten path places in search of adventure. He has called many regions of the U.S. his home and has also lived in Ireland, the Andes of Colombia, and Vienna, Austria. As with the cultures and places he has visited, the settings in his story shape the events and characters profoundly.
You can learn more about Christopher P. Ring and check out other writing of his at www.mortalsandfools.com. His next book, The Glow, a collection of speculative fiction short stories, will be available in April, 2015.
Author Website: www.mortalsandfools.com
Author Blog: www.mortalsandfools.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/untermarmot Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13084642.Christopher_P_Ring
Electricity
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