Interview with Graham Parke

Deirdra: Why did you become a writer?

I guess like many authors I just found the act of writing books and stories so much easier than that of _not_ writing them. They basically need to come out and it is much less painful when you let them.

I don’t think many people sit down to make a career choice and come up with ‘author’, much like the number of enthusiasts for a vacancy as torture victim are, I suspect, quite low. In both cases, however, it’s very much a matter of not having much choice about the matter. Most children, when they learn to read and write, develop an immediate immunity to needing to put their ideas to paper. They understand inherently that nothing good is likely to come of it and more healthy pursuits are to be found aplenty. They realize that there is no intrinsic value to a witty turn of phrase or a hearty one-liner.

Authors on the other hand never really evolve past this point. This condition has yet to be recognized by the medical community.

Deirdra: What books have most influenced your life?

I think most authors are influenced almost equally by two different kinds of peers. One being the peers whose writing makes them think; ‘That was nice, but I could have done that so much better.’ The other making them think; ‘Damn, I could never have done that so well.’ It is probably a good idea to read from both categories in a balanced measure.

Deirdra: What do you hope readers will get from your books?

I truly believe that if people will just try my novels, they will like them. But I also believe in aliens (although I’m not sure they believe in me.) 

Deirdra: What are you working on now?

Right now I’m dividing my time over several projects. There are more Gomez books in the works, some stand-alone novels, and some screenplays. Just looking at how often I add a new project and how long the average project takes to complete, you can definitely expect to hear from me again sometime in the next millennium. 

For more details on the new novel, see http://www.amazon.com/Unspent-​​Time-Omnibus-ebook/dp/​​B007EVPK30