Interview with D. Morgenstern
Published 2015-07-22.
What are your five favorite books, and why?
1. "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov. Never will you find another book that will eviscerate the soul of a reader. I find how they interpret this work says a great deal about their personality. No other book has even come close to such an existent yet existent-less narrator. By the end Humbetr Humbert has become your own mirror.
2. "Pride and Prejudice" Jane Austen.Never will you find better character building.
3. "Seven Winter Tales". Isak Diensen. My literary other half I didn't find until just three years ago.
4. "The Razor's Edge" Somerset Maugham. I am also a fan of his short stories. He always presents a grand banquet of locales and human joy and suffering.
5. "MW" by Osamu Tezuka. Very hard for me to pick anyone work but I still feel like this is his masterpiece though I have yet to read his entire catalog and probably couldn't in a lifetime. This man may as well be called the Da Vinci of manga with his prolific nature and fearless expanse of subject matter. He surprises with each work.
What do you read for pleasure?
Osamu Tezuka and other manga. I have a very hard time nowadays reading fiction in print. (As ironic as this is.) It's probably because of the massive amount of academic print I need to digest for my career and manga just offers a respite from it.
What is your e-reading device of choice?
Kindle.
Describe your desk
My grandmother's. Sturdy and wooden. Facing a window. Cluttered with books and cats.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in Southern California and like most children imagined a thousand secret worlds in my backyard. The advantage of writing is now I can show others those worlds.
When did you first start writing?
As a kid, very young. I've stumbled onto a second grade writing exercise of what I may do with a key I had found. I opened a door I shouldn't have.
What's the story behind your latest book?
Frustration. Lots of frustration.
What motivated you to become an indie author?
Namely because I know "Bones of Winter" could never be published under any press. It's an experiment really.
What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
That people enjoy the story. I could care less about the money beyond the fact you sort of need it to survive. But I rather have a small audience of people who delighted in a story than keep it tucked away for decades hoping one editor somewhere is going to like it.
What do your fans mean to you?
A lot. I owe everything to them.
What are you working on next?
I do have a complete full length novel I'm shopping around but depending on my success on the indie circuit it may wind up here too. Beyond that I have an idea for a novella that may or may not wind up as an indie release. I probably have a few more works of erotica in me too.
Smashwords Interviews are created by the profiled author or publisher.
