Author Spotlight: Mick Carlon

Jazz plays a huge role in my life! My husband is a jazz drummer, my brother was a jazz saxophonist -  the sounds of jazz are the soundtrack of my life. If you're also a jazz lover, you'll enjoy reading this interview with Mick Carlon, author of Riding On Duke's Train , Travel With Louis , and Girl Singer . Find out why Mick loves jazz and why he was inspired to write novels inspired by such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, how his experience as a teacher influenced his writing, and where in the world he’d go for the perfect writing retreat. You clearly love jazz! What inspired you to write novels about such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington? I was lucky because growing up my father played a great deal of jazz around the house. Being born in 1959, the Beatles and Bob Dylan hit me in a huge way, but I also always loved my dad’s music. When Duke Ellington died in the spring of 1974, I read Ralph J. Gleason’s piece on the maestro in Rolling Stone magazine. I suddenly realized that the musician/entertainer my dad loved so much was also one of America’s truly great artists.   I began reading jazz historians like Nat Hentoff, Gleason, Dan Morgenstern, Whitney Balliett, and Gary Giddins. Diving into all styles and eras of jazz, I had to admit that my two heroes were Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Reading about their lives, I also soon realized how much the evil and hatred of racism affected them each and every day. Here were two of the United States’s truly supreme artists, and they were often treated like third-class citizens. So I also began to admire them—and so many other jazz musicians, like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald—for their resilience and dignity in the face of ignorance and hatred. You’re a teacher; how has your teaching experience helped you as a writer? After 38 years of public school teaching, I know that most students have a low attention span. So I also know that as a writer, I can’t fart around—I have to get to the heart of the matter right away. In Riding on Duke’s Train , for instance, there are not pages and pages of exposition that could drag the story down. My readers meet Danny, learn a bit about his circumstances, and— bam!— his journey begins. If you could meet your favorite author, what question would you ask them? My all-time favorite writer is William Shakespeare— the genius of our language. I would ask him how he did it all—actor, playwright of a renowned and popular acting troupe, playwright, poet, genius. In addition, I would ask him how he had the audacity (as well as genius) to create over 1,700 new words for our language. Finally, I’d see if I could find out the identity of Will’s “dark lady.”  What are some author resources you recommend (e.g., courses, conferences, tools, etc.). I don’t. I would simply say to a budding writer: WRITE. As a teenager, I was besotted with the “spontaneous bop prosody” of Jack Kerouac, so I sat myself down, between baseball practice and high school homework, to write two wretched, Kerouac-inspired, totally adolescent novels. Thank goodness that these two fawning pieces of fan worship were torn to shreds by the time I was nineteen—but you learn something by writing early garbage. Having said that, I also find Stephen King’s On Writing to be an inspiring book. Remember: In dialogue, said does the trick; avoid adverbs! What is your favorite novel (or author!) of all time? I have to choose two favorite novels: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Both are huge and sweeping, with unforgettable characters. I rarely reread any books—there are so many up ahead to dive into!—but I’ve reread these two beauties several times.  What is your writing routine? With earning a living by teaching, I fit in the writing when I’m inspired. When I’m not inspired, I grade papers! I do find, however, that early mornings are perfect. But when one feels inspired, hop aboard that train! What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?  Hmm…probably on a quality dictionary. I’m not a big fan of thesauruses, but I do dig a fine dictionary. I’m also not one for writers groups. I’m not judging—they are fine for some—but I’m too shy and writing is too private an activity for me.  What’s next for you? Do you have a novel in the works? I’m about 90 pages into a time-travel novel that involves New Orleans in 1910, but I’ve also begun a nonfiction book of what it’s really like being a public school teacher in the trenches—the joys, the lows, the pressures, the wealth. I want to really describe to people what it’s like to teach in America today. Once we are free to travel again, if you could go anywhere for a writing retreat, where would it be? There’s an inn in Avoca, Ireland. It’s simply called the Meetings and it’s located right by the spot where Thomas Moore wrote his famous poem, “The Meeting of the Waters.” The inn has a deck overlooking the spot where the Avonbeg and the Avonmore rivers merge. That spot would be perfect .  What is the most challenging thing about being a writer? Since I deeply love revising—taking a blah 19-word sentence and crafting it into a diamond -hard eight-word beauty—I’d have to say coming up with the ideas themselves. But writing at its best is pure joy. As I’ve always told my students, being creative is FUN. When it becomes drudgery, that’s when I walk away from the story for a spell.  If you could go back in time and do something differently to prepare yourself to be a novelist, what would it be? I wish I could have been inspired much, much earlier to write my novels. It took me years to come up with the idea of mixing fictional young people with real-life jazz musicians. I wish that idea had occurred to me in 1984 rather than 2004.