Chinese Gucci: The Interview, Part 1

As I noted at Goodreads, I greatly enjoyed Hosho McCreesh's Chinese Gucci, and I wanted to help the book find more readers. I recalled, then, that I'd been known to conduct an author interview or two, so I sent McCreesh some questions, and he was kind enough to answer them. 

AK: Could you tell us when you began writing this book? Did you write it over years, or months?
HM: I started 5 possible novel projects in 2008, the things I saw as potential long-form fiction. I sketched out what I had of each, and started folders to gather materials.  Over the next 6 or 7 years, whenever I had an idea at work, driving, or as I was about to fall asleep, I would jot it down on scraps of paper, and stick them in the folders.  When I felt like I had all I needed, it was the Chinese Gucci folder that was fat and ready...so I spent the next couple years writing on my lunch break, week nights, and weekends until I had a draft. Then a couple cycles of rewriting and refining, and a final draft polish with Joshua Mohr. I spent a year and change trying for an agent, and the small press I wanted...with no luck. AK: What were some of the most important breakthroughs during this time? HM: Finishing a novel, for one. I had scrapped 5 different tries from 1997 through 2008. I'd get 100 pages in and just be lost, and wouldn't care about it anymore.  The other massive breakthrough was discovering, before my final draft and polish, what the book was "about." Up to then, I was writing instinctually, I KNEW something needed to be there, but not why. . . stuff about name brands, high fashion, fast food, WWII, Indian casinos--this crazy, swirling stew of things. I decided to try some collage, and it visually connected all those dots back to the text for me. I knew at the heart of the story was this stunted kid, but the big, mean, and ugly undercurrent was America, my complicated feelings about the country and our history. . . and the characters are byproducts of the culture and history.  The final breakthrough was deciding to self-publish, and to put the collage I made on the hardback covers, so each copy had an original work of art for a cover. That idea powered me through all the remaining work and transformed the project into something more than just a debut novel. It was a real rush, artistically. I had loads of help of course, but I'm proud as hell at how it all turned out. 
AK: Return here for more of Hosho's detailed responses two to three times each week.

Self-publishers only, need apply

Make way for a brick-and-mortar bookstore that only sells books by self-published authors!

Bring your own cushioned chair, brew your own coffee, read self-published fiction, hit the facilities, and, well, skip that, and then every six months, claim a large reserve against royalties or don't send yourself any at all!

It's literary paradise, with no wall of Knausgaard to smile at you on the way out the door.

On the other hand, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King, and Walt Whitman are among famous writers who self-published at least once, if not their entire work.

So feel free to free associate freely, and count the recent story of surveillance planes over Baltimore as proof that the authorities' publishers (read "New York") cannot be trusted. Indeed, they would censor away your very best sentences, so just like countless writers scribbling under the yoke of dictatorship in police states, your self-publication is insurrectionary literature (even if it has zombies in it).

So I'll just drive down to Florida, stroll into the store, and select my contemporary classic from current offerings on the shelf.

Welcome to literature, Gulf Coast!

Getting into the Grove at the Paris Review

“Had we just gone ahead and published Burroughs it would have been a mess because we already had so many lawsuits.” http://t.co/DWHrWYADpG
— The Paris Review (@parisreview) June 28, 2014

MT "Alfred Kazin was another witness. Picked him up from the New School, where I’d taken a course with him." http://t.co/u8aI4D1xtj
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 29, 2014

Miller did not have the kind of reputation that Lawrence did. He was thought of as a sort of bum, an early Kerouac. http://t.co/u8aI4D1xtj
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 29, 2014

"I got to hate Quakers. Detest them. They were anti-Semitic at Swarthmore, and there were no blacks, not one." http://t.co/u8aI4D1xtj
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 29, 2014

"My father somehow made friends with them, but I couldn’t. To them, I was a Jew. My Irish Catholic half didn’t count. . .[T]hey were snobs."
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 29, 2014

shelve your indy novel in the superbookstore month

Yes, it is true. February is national "Shelve Your Indy Novel in the Superbookstore" month. This means that sneaking into a local big-box store known for housing book product and in clandestine fashion placing your independently produced novel on the shelf, with sticker price affixed, is the thing to do. No dark glasses, trenchcoat, or other disguise is required; a hidden camera might make things more interesting, but of course, the store most likely already provides those. Alphabetical order is expected, but the organizers of this month's theme have not yet arranged to check up on folks. I'm assuming this means it can also be "Pretend Your Last Name Begins with a Q Even if it Begins with an X" month.

Reminder: It is absolutely NOT national "Sneak Strong Coffee for Free in the Superbookstore Cafe" month, and as per usual, shoplifters will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Ah, humanity, and the way of all fiction...