Pages

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Interview: David Swykert

Why don't you tell us about your latest work?  
In The Pool Boy’s Beatitude, Jack Joseph understands dark matter and the desire to find the God particle. What Jack doesn’t understand is Jack. He has a Masters degree in particle physics, an ex-wife, a sugar mama, a passion for cooking and chronic dependencies he needs to feed. He cleans pools to maintain this chaotic lifestyle. Spinning about in a Large Hadron Collider of his own making, facing a jail term, the particle known as Jack is about to collide with a particle known as Sarah. 

What inspired it?  
They say write what you know. I worked in law enforcement, I’ve known a lot of under the radar kind of people. And I know about addiction, and treatment, and in spite of being in law enforcement I have done a little jail, similar to Jack in my story. I’ve never cleaned swimming pools for a living, but I had a house in the suburbs at one time with a nice pool. So I know how to take care of one. And who doesn’t want to meet the love of your life, that one person that just stones you, as Sarah does to Jack Joseph in the story. 

Is there something you are currently working on?  
I’m about three-quarters of the way through a draft of a novel about an older woman who shoots a bounty hunter to protect an imaginary wolf she believes has returned from her youth to comfort her. It’s historical in setting, takes place in the 1940’s in Central Mine, Michigan, which was a ghost town when Maggie lived there and remains so to this day. 

Is there a topic you would like to write about but haven't gotten around to yet?   
Yes, a gun shy homicide detective who, even when he should, is reluctant to shoot a perpetrator. I sold a short story based on this character to Shooter Literary Magazine in the UK this winter, and it will be reprinted in Suspense Magazines upcoming summer issue. The success of “Gun Shy” as a short story has me thinking, in lieu of all the media notoriety about police shootings as of late, that perhaps this would be a good time to write a novel about a cop who hates shooting the bad guys.  
When did you finally feel like you could call yourself an author?  
I’ve always felt I could call myself an author. But officially, perhaps when I got the advance for Alpha Wolves, which is still available on Amazon and through my own website page.

Other than writing, what are your favorite things to do? 
I like to do a little hiking up on the Keweenaw Peninsula, and just sit out and look up at the stars down at this little tree house my girlfriend and I share near Elk Lake in Kentucky. 

Are there any websites where readers can connect with you?  


No comments:

Post a Comment