Michael Elias
Author Interview - Michael Elias
Author of You Can Go Home Now.
Author I draw inspiration from: For me “inspiration” works like this: Great writers don't inspire, they intimidate. I read them and say, "I can't write that well."
Lesser ones don't inspire either, they give me confidence: "I can write better than that."
The truth is the best source of inspiration for me is live music: classical, jazz, rock—put me in a concert, the music frees me and the next thing I know, I'm getting ideas for stories, solutions for present problems, and past missteps. I can't wait to get home and write and rewrite.
Favorite place to read a book: When I was young, I hid a flashlight under my pillow, pulled the covers over me and read. I read everywhere now, but the pleasure of reading in bed furtively has never left me.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: I think I'd like to be with James Bond because he would know how to get us out.
Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy would bring her fictional Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon into the elevator. Would there be room for all of us?
Author Interview - Michael Elias
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I knew early, it just took me a long time to realize it was possible, and to be an author I would first have to become a writer.
In between, I was an actor and part of a comedy act.
One night my partner and I were on The Johnny Carson Show. A Hollywood producer called and asked, "Who writes your material?"
"We do."
"Would you like to come to Hollywood and be television writers?"
"You bet."
It's how I became a writer. The author thing took longer.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: I read 'em all and listen, too. E-books on my phone. Sometimes I wake up in the morning still holding it.
The last book I read: Deacon King Kong by James McBride. Life in a Brooklyn housing project in the 70s.
A moving affectionate novel about unlikely people looking for and finding love. Also, pretty damned funny.
Author Interview - Michael Elias
Pen & paper or computer: Computer, unless I'm at a concert, then it's my little notebook and Muji pen.
I don't remember the name of the comedian who said, "I make my living with a pen. I raise pigs."
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: My heroes in my own books: Nina in You Can Go Home Now and Adam in the Last Conquistador.
I couldn't write them if I didn't love them.
Okay, I also could be best friends with Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Ford Maddox Ford's Tietjens in Parade's End, and, not at first, but eventually, Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman.
Author Interview - Michael Elias
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a: It's a scary thought. I'm not good at anything that requires regular hours, taking orders from a boss, and waiting for the weekend.
I am so lucky to be a writer.
Favorite decade in fashion history: It wouldn't be the 70s—I had to throw out my ties and buy scarves and a Nehru jacket.
I would say the 50s—it's when I fell in love with The Modern Jazz Quartet and button-down.
John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay were the best dressers ever.
Place I’d most like to travel: Travel can only be a memory now, so I'd like to try and go to some fictional places: Frank Baum's Oz, Shakespeare's Prospero's Island, Homer's Troy, Aeneas' Underworld.
My signature drink: Vodka on ice with too many olives.
Favorite artist: It's a toss-up between Philp Guston, Susan Elias, and Reinhard Voigt; two brilliant artists in Berlin."
Number one on my bucket list: After not kicking the bucket? One more meal at my sister's restaurant The River Cafe in London, with my wife Bianca and our kids.
Anything else you'd like to add: I grew up with my two sisters in a small town in upstate New York, population 1,500. My father was the town doctor, my mother the school librarian. For all of us, it was a provincial and Chekhovian existence, we cried New York New York instead of Moscow Moscow.
But our parents knew how to get us out while we were there; they gave us books. I just wish they were around to read mine.
Find more from the author:
Website: www.michaeleliaswriter.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaeleliasauthor
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Author Interview - Michael Elias
