An Interview with Author Donald Gallinger - ForeWord MagazineWhen did you start reading, and what did you like to read as a kid?

My very first memories of reading seem to be the record label on “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley. My next big thrill was The Borrowers by Mary Norton. A few years later, at the sophisticated age of nine or so, I moved on to the philosophical plains of Tom Corbett and the Space Cadets. Tom Corbett was my first truly “literary” experience, in which I began to understand character motivation: “When I was a boy, I lived with a great dream—and that was to join the finest space patrol in the galaxy!”

When you were growing up did you have books in your home?

Yes, my parents belonged to a Readers’ Digest “greatest books” club, or something similar. We had a small library of classic and contemporary works in the house, along with some of my father’s medical books. I remember perusing Grey’s Anatomy (p. 1169) for erotic material, and being both horrified and disappointed by all the Latin names and the arrows pointing to places that were supposed arouse in me a sense of poetry, but instead made me feel that sex would probably be like some kind of test in school.

When did you think about becoming a writer? Was there someone who got you interested in writing?

Well, again, nothing will ever top reading Blast Off for Titan! when I was nine. On some instinctive level, I think I must have felt then that I would never achieve that level of artistic distinction. Nevertheless, I tried. At twelve or so, I wrote my first short story. It was science fiction or horror—I forget which—but the thrill of creating a new reality was quite palpable. Then when I was fourteen, I kissed a girl for the first time—it was at night, on a beach in Miami. Afterwards, I remember thinking…writing and making out with girls on the beach… yes, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life…

As a teenager I also began to write letters to authors. I wrote to Evan Hunter, author of The Blackboard Jungle and Last Summer. I also wrote to John Updike and William Styron. I was very fortunate--all of them wrote back. John Updike sent me a handwritten postcard that said, “I think you read me very well.” Styron wrote a letter in which he defended his decision to create Nat Turner’s inner life. Evan Hunter wrote several letters; he gave me advice about getting published as well as ideas on how to write dialogue. These writers helped me believe that, like Tom Corbett, I, too, could one day join “the finest space patrol in the galaxy.”

How do you write? Do you have a daily routine? What's good about it? What do you hate about it?

When I’m writing a novel, I write every day, usually beginning at nine or so in the morning and continuing until two or three in the afternoon. It’s good to keep a schedule, because it helps you to sustain the inner life of a work and the tone necessary to maintain its artistic cohesion. When I’m writing a novel, I really do spend most of my day wrapped up in my imagination. It’s a sort of magic. It either works or it doesn’t, but you have to believe in it if there’s even a chance for your characters to live. I don’t hate anything about writing, other than the fact that I frequently feel I don’t know what the hell I’m doing until I do it.

What is some good advice that you've received concerning writing? What's some advice that you could offer young writers?

There’s so much advice about writing—there’s a whole industry devoted to it. And it’s all wrong or all right depending on who you are and what you want to accomplish. Here’s something I believe, for whatever it’s worth. A lot of programs advise you to write as if you were building a pre-fabricated house. This is nonsense, especially for fiction. Writing prose is an organic process. You grow good writing, and as you watch it grow you make adjustments as the thing takes shape. It may sound silly, but being a good writer means discovering enchantments and then having the skills to make the spells work within the boundaries and rules of English sentences.

I would advise young writers to let their talent evolve naturally. Don’t rush it. Learn to “groove.” Your talent is as singular as a finger print. You have to learn what it’s about through experimentation.

How did you find the publisher for this book? What has you experience with a publisher been like?

My wife and I went through the trials and tribulations reserved for most writers at some stage in their careers. We had an agent; we were elated. Our agent lost interest as the top tier publishers passed on the novel; we became depressed. We queried sixty new agents; they passed. I became weary and despondent; my wife refused to give up. Then my wife began submitting the novel directly to smaller publishers. Within two months we had two contracts offered to us. We signed with Kunati--perhaps the finest, most innovative independent publisher now operating in the world.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on a novel called Stupid School. It is about a very wealthy hedge fund manager whose girlfriend is a soap opera star. Something happens to this guy (the details of which I’m not going to disclose right now). He discovers, in the strangest way possible, that he must also discover the greatness within himself in order to survive.

What are you reading?

I’ve just read Lost Horizon for the third or fourth time. I am now reading The Odyssey for perhaps the tenth or twentieth time. A few weeks back I re-read a selection of Chekhov’s short stories, and I also recently finished a new Spenser for Hire by Robert Parker. People are often surprised when I tell them that some of the best writing today can be found in detective fiction. This is a genre where action AND character are still considered vital and equally important elements in fiction.