Americas - Author Interview & Blog Tour

Welcome to the next stop

on the blog tour for

AMERICAS

written by Jason Lee Norman

hosted by Lori Hettler at TNBBC

   

Title:  Americas

Author:  Jason Lee Norman

Published:  2012
Alberta Foundation For The Arts

Pages:  54

Source:  Author

Genre:  Short Stories

Here's your chance to learn more about this inspired author...

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND:
My background. Well I was born and raised around Edmonton, Canada. When I was 18, I went to live in Argentina for just over a year as my father took the whole family down there to live while he was on a two year contract.  This experience changed everything for me.  I studied at the University of Alberta and got my English degree and then a few years ago I went to Manchester, UK to get my MA in Creative Writing.  Going to England once again changed everything for me.  I made some wonderful friends while I was there and learned a lot.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have traveled to some beautiful places in the world.


HOW DID YOU GET INSPIRED TO WRITE AMERICAS?
I have traveled through some of South America and I saw some beautiful and remote parts of the world and it seemed like there is still a lot of mystery left about that part of the world.  I didn’t start reading a lot of Latin American writers (Marquez, Borges, Cortazar) until after I came back from Argentina and my book is my way of working with all of those influences.  I wrote a few of these stories beforehand and they just fit perfectly into a certain country, but most of the stories were written specifically for this book.  In that way I think that all of the stories are like chapters of a larger book.  They work on their own and they also work all together as one long story in some ways.


DO YOU SPEAK MULTIPLE LANGUAGES?
I learned Spanish when I was in Argentina.  It’s very rusty now.  I can still understand quite a bit but when I speak I need a lot of help.  Traveling to Spanish speaking countries helps bring it back but when I’m in Canada I rarely get a chance to practice.


WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGING FACETS IN WRITING AMERICAS?
I thought it was going to be more challenging trying to keep a similar tone throughout the whole book.  Even though they were short stories I still wanted the whole book to have the same feeling throughout.  But because I wrote them all in such a compact amount of time it wasn’t as much of a problem as I thought it would be.  One problem was just looking at a country and reading about its history and just not getting inspired by anything to write about.  There were also a few countries that had such strange facts about them that it was hard to write them into fiction- because the fact was too weird.


WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS?
I love Hemingway and Borges and Rushdie and Marquez and Vonnegut.  I love Calvino and Faulkner and Eggers.  I also love Roxane Gay and xTx and Matthew Salesses and Mathias Svalina and J.A. Tyler.


DO YOU HAVE A HIDDEN TALENT?
I can name the brand of peanut butter just by tasting.  I am also very good at falling off trampolines.  Nobody can misplace a pair of sunglasses like I can.


TELL US ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE MEANINGFUL QUOTES:
“To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”  I think Mark Twain said that. All of my favourite quotes involve hammers and nails in some way or the other.


WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE TIDBITS FROM YOUR BOOK?
I like how Costa Rica doesn’t have an army.  I like how when Mexicans look at the Moon they see a rabbit up there.  I like how there can be a national holiday where everybody pretends to be a tiger for one day.


WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU "GREW UP?"
Besides “professional hockey player” I don’t think I ever knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.  If I can’t be a professional greeting card writer or work for a member of parliament, answering letters from their constituents, then I don’t want to grow up.  I’ll just stay whatever age I am now.


IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON WHO HAS DIED, WHO WOULD IT BE?
I really like Paul Newman.  I would have liked to hang out with him one day.  I would ask him about his favourite movies and stuff like that.  I would ask him how I could be strong like he was.


WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED THROUGH THE WRITING AND PUBLISHING PROCESSES THUS FAR?
I’ve learned that I have a lot to learn about the writing process but I’d much rather be writing than almost anything else.  I need to keep maturing as a writer.  The publishing process is exhausting but also highly rewarding.  I’ve learned that when you put all of your vision into something like the creation of a book that you can even surprise yourself by how well things turn out.  I’ve also seen how much people enjoy holding a brand new book in their hands.  They always do the same things- touch the cover and gently crack the book open and then smell it and smile.  It’s an infectious thing to see how people react to new books and it makes me want to write more of them as fast as I can type.


WHAT DO YOU HOPE READERS TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR BOOK?
Maybe there are readers who aren’t that familiar with short stories or really short fiction like most of the pieces in this book.  I want them to get a sense of what short stories can do. I hope that they get a sense of what I am capable of as a writer as well.  This book is just the beginning for me in that way.  I want them to see that with fiction, especially short fiction, there are no limits.  Most of all I want them to enjoy the book.  I think they will.


DO YOU HAVE ANY FUTURE PROJECTS IN THE WORKS?
In the fall I am going to work on my novel in a very serious way.  Right now I just kind of look at it from far away.  Sometimes I’ll take my novel in progress and put it in the backyard and then climb on top of the detached garage and just look at it from there.  I hear that’s what Faulkner used to do.  This summer I will be traveling through the United States on a vacation/mini book tour.  I’m excited to go to some places I’ve never been and I’m really looking forward to meeting new people and writer friends and telling everyone about the book.  I also have some secret projects that are secret so I can’t tell you.  Secrets.  Shhhh.


ANYTHING ELSE READERS SHOULD KNOW?
Everybody should know that I’m a nice guy.  Everybody should know that proceeds from each book I sell get put into a piggy bank shaped like a gnome in my closet.




Personally, I really enjoyed reading these short stories themed around the countries of the North and South Americas.  Jason Lee Norman uses wonderful examples of imagery and human traits in order to engage the reader. Two of my favorite quotes are:

• [from "El Salvador" regarding snow] "If it falls in a place that is usually very warm then you'll hear a sound like grasshoppers or butterflies landing on the roof of your tent and then you'll hear, all at once, the sound of millions of flakes evaporating like tiny applause."  

• [from "Brazil"]  "In Brazil, they are obsessed with love.  They are in love with falling in love.  They hold it up to the light to see if it is counterfeit.  They bite down on it to see if it is pure."

I am a big fan of short stories!  I did find myself wishing each story was a bit longer because I was just settling in to the frame of mind of each particular country and then the story would end.  Check out Americas...you never know where it will lead you to in your next literary adventure!

For more information, go to

http://www.jasonleenorman.com/
Click on the link below to
visit the next stop on the
Americas blog tour
http://litstack.com/

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