Interview with Jerome Charyn

Jerome Charyn (born May 13, 1937) is an award-winning American author. With nearly 50 published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life. Michael Chabon calls him “one of the most important writers in American literature.”

New York Newsday hailed Charyn as “a contemporary American Balzac,” and the Los Angeles Times described him as “absolutely unique among American writers.”

Since 1964, he has published 30 novels, three memoirs, eight graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays and works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the Year. Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.

Charyn lives in Paris and New York City.

What are your thoughts on the explosion of popularity concerning the YA genre?

I think it might very well be that it started with Harry Potter, that young adult writers are trying to tell good stories and adults have moved into that kind of dream.

You are the master of writing across a realm of different genres, what excites you about connecting with different audiences?

I’m not so sure that these are different audiences, I think we all love stories, whether we’re children or great-grandfathers, and when you move from genre to genre you are still telling a story like Scheherazade - and the king is always waiting for the next tale.

Your writing is so precise, yet evocative - how do you work at crafting your unique style of prose?

Everything begins and ends with the word, with the music of the sentence and as Tolstoy once said, “I’m always composing.”
Being a published author for nearly 50 years, what do you think of eBooks?
I think that this is a kind of logical step as we move from the internet into eBooks.  

Publishing is changing even as we speak. I think there now will be a more complicated dance between the eBook and the printed book, and as we’ve seen recently, successes in eBooks allow the author to move into print.

What would be your advice to young people who aspire to a literary career?

It’s not worth the money – only write if you’re absolutely in love with it.

How much of your life is in Back to Bataan? How did you personally experience New York during World War II?

I think so much of the source of my writing comes from my childhood, I grew up during the War  - so many of the terrors and the magic of certain films have remained with me.  And all of this appears in the character of Jack.

Your older brother was a detective. Did your experiences with him influence the plot?

Not really, I think all writing is crime writing. And Back to Bataan is a crime novel with a very original twist.
Why did you decide to include the fascination with the famous as a theme - Gary Cooper, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc.?

These people were heroes to me as a child, particularly Eleanor Roosevelt, who was one of the most extraordinary women who ever lived, and of course as a child I fell in love with Gary Cooper’s face and with his very slow drawl, that seemed so exotic to me.

Jack finds acclaim through his writing, yet feels guilty for exploiting other people (Mrs. Fink). How does a writer starting out work to bridge this gap?

You’re always cannibalizing other people and writers when you start to write, so it’s natural that Jack should be a young cannibal.

How important is the New York Times in your own life? Why did you decide to make it a form of connection between Jack and the Leader?

As a child, I didn’t even know that the Times existed – I grew up in a neighborhood without newspapers and books, so that when I first fell upon the New York Times, I was very very greedy, and wanted to include it in Jack’s middle-class life.

Back to Bataan 

New York City, 1943. War is raging in Europe and the Pacific, while Jack Dalton is stuck attending Dutch Masters Day School. What Jack really wants is to enlist in the army, to fight...

Everything changes when Coco, Jack's "fiancee," throws him over for one of his classmates. Jack sees red and does something drastic. Then he runs away. Hiding out in a nearby park, Jack joins ranks with a group of vagrants and is soon under the sway of a man called the Leader, an ex-convict who is as articulate and charismatic as he is dangerous. The Leader turns Jack's world upside down. To put things right, Jack must prove himself a braver soldier than he ever imagined.

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Interview with Ashelynn Sanford

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for stopping in and reading my blog. I'm glad others find it interesting to hear about other aspiring writers. I like the fact that it seems more like a community when we can be here for each other and cheer each other on!

Today we're talking with Ashelynn Sanford.

Welcome, Ashelynn. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m a young aspiring author who lives in Northern Wyoming. I teach a group of five nine-year-old girls dance every Wednesday, and I spend two days of the week learning the routines that I teach from my boss. I go by the name Ashelynn D. Sanford, or Ashy.


You lead a very artistic life. What is the name and genre of your manuscript?

"The Year the World Ended" is the novel I’m focusing on now, and it’s a action/adventure. A genre I don’t normally write in.

And what is this action/adventure story about?

The Boudoirs are a French couple who know one secret, and if that secret lands in the enemy’s hands, North America’s empire is going to expand from just one continent.


Elijah Anson and West Anderson have been assigned the mission of getting the information from Pierre Boudoir. Eli’s only issue with the assignment is his burning desire for Chance Boudoir, Pierre’s wife.


When Pierre becomes sick with a plague, Eli reacts irrationally and takes Chance Boudoir with him to Florida, where the last space shuttle to the moon is launching. West is tracking them down, determined to get the information from Chance who pretends she doesn’t know the secret…


It’s a race against time, enemies, and trust. How can Chance trust the one person who captured and saved her?

The description's got my blood pumping already. How did the idea of the story come to you?


I believe it came when I was sitting my history class, watching a movie about World War II and the great depression. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been rethinking the plot, trying to further it along, and those ideas came to me when I’m in the shower…like always…

Is your manuscript complete or still a work in progress?

A work in progress.

Do you have a word count goal, and how far along are you at this point?

I don’t at the moment, but I’d like if it was over 75K. I’m still in the beginning stages, but hope to be much, much further, at least 1/3rd of the 75K goal by the end of March, early April.

What will be your next step when you're done?

Querying for an agent. I think everybody should try to get an agent before going to self-publishing; a lot of bestselling authors received a ton of rejection letters before somebody decided to take them on. Self-publishing isn’t something I’m looking into, and I hope I don’t have to.

I agree with you on trying for an agent. Good advice. So do you have a critique group or beta readers, or do you self-edit?

When I get to the editing phase, I’ll send it my close friends—Mireyah being one of them. I think being in a critique group helps writers and even friends whose advice you trust.

Yes, a fresh set of eyes helps a lot. What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

Finding time to write. You’d think for a nineteen-year-old not going to college would have a lot of time to write, right? My mother seems to think that I’m her housemaid, so I’m usually away from the computer nine hours in the day, and then when I am able to get on the computer, I either get distracted by the shiny things (Oo, internet…) or my mom has decided the fridge needs to be cleaned.

I'm sure most of us are often distracted by the internet. Can't be helped. Any tips you’ve learned about writing you’d like to share?

Manage your time very well; if you have a few hours to kill, open up your MS and start writing. Whenever you can write, write. It will help you in the long run, even if it’s just baby steps. A lot of people say you need to write every day, but I don’t. As long as you’re thinking about it, I think that’s good enough. Some days you don’t have time to write at all without sacrificing something, and writing shouldn’t be your top priority. Family, job, relationships, etc. should be your top priority.

That's a healthy perspective. So who are your inspirations?

Kate Chopin because she wrote scenes that weren’t safe to write about in her time, and she was a woman and not a lot of women wrote “unsafe” scenes in the 1800s. I have a lot more other inspirations, but I’m just going to leave it at Kate Chopin because I could go on.

She sounds awesome! Let’s get to know you on a deeper level. Can you name three things about yourself people may not know (or maybe they do know but they are special traits/hobbies/quirks)?

1. I love perfume and body spray. I can six bottles on my desk right now, and that’s not including all the bottles I have in my bathroom! Since I have decision-making issues, I have somebody else pick what perfume I’m going to wear that day. My Stepsis really likes this job.
2. I can’t read one book at a time. I usually read two-three books at the same time, but right now I’m reading seven (yes SEVEN) published books and TWO manuscripts from two very talented young writers.
3. I don’t want to write a bestseller; sure, it’d be cool, but it’s not something I’m aiming for when I become published. I’d rather have my book become banned than a bestseller. Not because banned books make a lot of money or anything, I’m not doing this for the money, but because I could say, “Yeah, my novel so-and-so is banned. Pretty cool, eh?”

Aha, I see. Well, that's one way to stand apart from the crowd. Okay, here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you. Who would you like to give a shout out to?

My best girls: Dawn, Amy, Mireyah, and H. C. They’re always there for me, and even though there are a lot more people who support and are always there for me, these four are *always* there and not afraid to kick my butt into gear if I’m stalling with writing!

And finally, where can people find you online?

My blog: http://ashelynnsanford.wordpress.com
My twitter: @AshelynnS

Thank you so much for chatting with us, Ashelynn. Good luck with your book, and be sure to let us know when you've reached the next step of your writing journey!