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Friday, 01 February 2008 |
Interviewing Erik Quisling - Author of Fable from the Mud Lauren Smith: What inspired you to create a work of fiction? Erik Quisling: I initially came up with the idea for Fables from the Mud shortly after I graduated college. In the course of my soul searching and trying to figure out my place in the world, I was struck with the idea of a clam who was trying to do the exact same thing. For some reason it struck me as extremely amusing. This is how The Angry Clam, the first fable in my book, was born. Lauren Smith: Do you see Fables From the Mud as a satire, cultural commentary or something more? Erik Quisling: Fables From The Mud is about three little creatures – a clam, an ant, and a worm – all of whom are struggling with very human problems. The stories are satirical but in many ways are simply a cultural commentary on the human obsession with finding meaning in the world. All in all, they are designed to be amusing and to get you to see somewhat the absurdity of taking life too seriously. Lauren Smith: How did you develop each of the fables? Erik Quisling: Each fable was born from its own separate bout of inspiration. In each case, it was a single line of text that came to me that was like lighting a fuse that set the story on its course. Once the fuse was lit, the stories pretty much wrote themselves – I simply had to go back and edit them a little bit. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 14 April 2008 )
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Tuesday, 23 October 2007 |
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The Abstinence Teacher Gets an A in My Grade Book By Stuart Nachbar Tom Perrotta and I have two things in common: New Jersey roots and novels about sex education; his latest work, The Abstinence Teacher is the only other novel, besides my own, The Sex Ed Chronicles, that I have read which covers a subject that is still considered taboo in some social circles. The Abstinence Teacher has two main characters: Ruth Ramsey, a divorcee’ and high school sex educator who makes one inappropriate comment too many, drawing the ire of the evangelical Tabernacle church and its’ hell for leather Pastor Dennis, and Tim Mason, a former stoner and rock n’ roller, also divorced, turned born-again Christian and doting soccer dad. Tim is struggling to stay along the straight and narrow path, as defined for him by the very same evangelical leader who torments Ruth. The descriptions of Ruth and Tim’s mental conflicts are fascinating. They are both searching for self-worth through someone else. Since their divorces, Ruth and Tim’s lives have taken divergent paths, but each believes that they have lost something that one might call faith. They are both close-minded, though Tim’s close-mindedness is manufactured from his relationship with the Tabernacle. It was interesting that Tim likened the fellowship of the Tabernacle to the camaraderie of the rock bands of his youth; both are closed circles that welcome loners who are taught to pity or look down on others who don’t fit in. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 November 2007 )
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