Christian A. Dumais interview

Christian A. Dumais is the author of "Empty Rooms Lonely Countries". He is currently an English lecturer at different universities in Wroclaw, Poland.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Kenmore, New York and raised in North Tonawanda, New York until I moved to Hudson, Florida when I was seven. I consider myself more a Floridian than a New Yorker, but these days I settle for American.

What was it that first got you into writing and when did you start writing?

I can remember wanting to be a writer when I was nine years old but I didn't know what to do except fill up my notebook paper with blue ink.

It was my mother who gave me my first deadline and let me stay up late on weekends to write at the computer. I ended up giving my mother a 6,000 word short story called "Kathy's Gift", about a man who gets a phone call from an old love at the very moment he was going to kill himself. From there, it's one amazing cliché after another, but I was 14 years old and I thought it was the greatest story ever. I was hooked from that day forward.

Which writers have influenced you the most?

In terms of storytelling, the longest and most consistent influence in my life has been Stephen King. Buying his books at the used bookstore as a child was an addiction, and reading his work was pure bliss. I know his writing has had its ups and downs over the years, but there's no denying his ability to keep you entranced even when the story fails. I appreciate his storytelling and the way his writing mimics the way our brains work.

When I started writing the style I have now, my biggest influence was clearly Hunter S. Thompson. I loved the simultaneous insanity and intelligence he offered. Once I stopped mimicking his voice, I got to explore what was essentially the part of Thompson's work that I found the most compelling, which was his ability to blur fact with fiction, and how he managed to turn his own life into this massive myth.

From there, Raymond Carver taught me the importance of "epiphanic moments" and how to tell a story properly by allowing what is unsaid to have as much – if not more – power than what is said. Kurt Vonnegut taught me how to put down in writing the things I was most afraid of, to find strength by being completely vulnerable. And then Donald Barthelme came along to remind me to not take it all so damn seriously.

These are the influences I can remember at the moment. For every name I can think of, I'm certain there are dozens more I'm forgetting.

What kind of things do you write?

Someone called my non-fiction writing "geek-gonzo" once, and it's stuck with me. In reality, I suppose it's biographical fiction, where I take specific events that have happened in my life and find enough connections to turn it into a narrative. What's more important than the events is my emotional point of view; if I can't find an effective way to communicate the emotion, then no matter how bizarre or interesting the event was, I won't work it into a story.

For instance, there is a story I wrote called "Defying Gravity" about a trip I had from Tampa to Atlanta and back again with some friends. The whole point of the trip was to attend the Lilith Fair in Atlanta and write an article about it for the magazine I was working for. I really wanted to document my experience with the music and the show itself, but it kept falling flat. The reality was, university had recently ended and I was feeling lost and wondering what I was supposed to do next. During the course of the trip, it was obvious that all my friends were feeling the same. When we left Atlanta by car, I was the first one at the wheel. I was told which way to go and I followed the highway until I stupidly brought us to Alabama instead of Florida. When I looked over my notes later, I realized that the "real" story was the part where my friends and I got lost in Alabama, and that this could reflect my insecurities and doubts better – and more importantly, felt more honest – than my experience with the show. Unfortunately, this meant turning in a completely different article than expected, which pretty much got me dismissed from the magazine. The piece has been re-written a few times since, but I think the basic idea is still there.

What are you working on now?

Well, right now promoting my new book "Empty Rooms Lonely Countries" is eating a lot of my time. Without an agent and being effectively removed from my audience geographically, I'm doing my best to make my work visible.

Outside of that, I always have a few short stories in progress and there is a mess of a novel that needs to be addressed sooner or later.

What is your writing day like?

I don't really have a routine anymore. My goal is to allow an hour a day for writing, and in most cases, it's late in the evening. I'd like to have a better schedule where I could devote two to three hours a day to my writing like I did when I was all angsty and "working my magic" at the local Starbucks.

What's the most exciting thing about writing for you?

The most exciting part is you've established enough for the story to wander off on its own. I think a lot of writers seek those breathless moments when the story does something completely unexpected and you find yourself turning into the dark alley instead of the well-lit road you were anticipating staying on. It's pretty amazing.

Other than that, I suppose it's holding the final product in your hand, whether it be your article in a magazine or the proof copy of your book. The intangible finally becoming tangible, and you finally have something to show people – not only for them to read, but to prove that you haven't been up all those nights playing games or surfing the internet.

What's the most frustrating thing about writing for you?

Now that I'm publishing stories regularly, it's the wait between the acceptance of the piece and the actual publication. I find that by the time the story is in print, I've changed enough as a person and a writer to want to make changes to the piece. I subscribe heavily to the belief that writing, like art, is never finished, only abandoned.

What's the best piece of feedback that you've had from your audience?

I've been fortunate to have some good critics over the years, but for the life of me, I couldn't tell you what the best piece of feedback was outside of wearing pants when I'm in public. I do believe that if one person says something about my work, good or bad, I can take it or leave it, but if I have a few people saying the same thing, I need to take a second look at what I'm doing.

Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first priority to satisfy your own creativity?

When it comes to my non-fiction work, I tend to write for myself first and hope the final product is something others can find entertaining as well. But when I wander into other genres, then I usually have someone specific in mind. For instance, any time I write a horror story, I'm usually writing for my father because watching horror movies and reading horror stories were some of the things we shared when I was growing up. Or if I'm writing something that's supposed to be funny, I usually have a person in mind that I'm hoping to crack up.

Do you have a homepage? Do you have any short stories or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):

My newest book of short stories "Empty Rooms Lonely Countries" is available at http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Lonely-Countries-Christian-Dumais/dp/1440490880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232139703&sr=8-1

I've had two stories published at GUD magazine. You can read the beginning of the stories:

"Counting Nuns": http://www.gudmagazine.com/vault/3/Counting+Nuns

"Mad Dogs": http://www.gudmagazine.com/vault/1/Mad+Dogs

Most recently I published "Exodus" through Third Wednesday, which can be bought at http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Lonely-Countries-Christian-Dumais/dp/1440490880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232139703&sr=8-1

And the fine folks at Museion Art made a lovely podcast of my story "Geneva Street" at http://web.mac.com/pendletonhome/iWeb/MUSEION%20Art%20Gallery/MuseionCast%20by%20NP/FF993269-5AB0-41C2-8540-5041A7B0928F.html

I can be found at Good Books at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2801889.Christian_A_Dumais

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