Rob Swigart
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
Author of Mixed Harvest: Stories from the Human Past
“Harvest follows planting. Among the benefits are soaring cathedrals, orchestral music, printed books, long-form television series, chocolate mousse. Unintended consequences include plagues, pollution, climate change, overpopulation, inequality, and war. Thus the harvest is mixed. This is a book of stories about the human experience of the world, and how it changed when we adopted farming and started to build cities. We need to understand the past on an emotional level to make better decisions about the current crisis, which threatens our long-term survival.”
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
Author I draw inspiration from: The list is long, from Homer to Charles Dickens, Mark Twain to Kurt Vonnegut, Chidiock Tichborne to T. S. Eliot
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
Favorite place to read a book: Mostly in bed with my morning coffee.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Prince Genji, from The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki. I still lean toward the Arthur Waley translation.
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I wrote no doubt childish poetry when I was six and decided I wanted to be a writer then. I began publishing poetry in graduate school which sealed my fate.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Whatever form the book is in. I don't often have time to listen to audiobooks. I'm old-fashioned enough to prefer paper books.
The last book I read: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, a magnificent science book between an epic poem and a postmodern novel.
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
Pen & paper or computer: Computer
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Author Interview - Rob Swigart
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Neuroscientist or marine biologist or historian or party clown
Favorite decade in fashion history: The excessively silly seventies
Place I’d most like to travel: Antarctica
My signature drink: Blood Orange Soda
Favorite artist: Joan Miro
Number one on my bucket list: I'm not old enough to have a bucket list.
Anything else you'd like to add: I would like to help avoid human extinction in the next couple of decades
Find more from the author:
Linkedin is the only one left. Facebook's evil was too much for me.
Author Bio: Former technology journalist, technical writer, computer game designer, poet, futurist, archaeology writer, pilot, diver, aikido black belt, parent, rumpus room manager. Current fiction writer, grandparent, and sometime urban rambler.
