I am very exited to present to you today an interview with a dear and wonderful fellow Author, Devon Henry. I recently read her book “Kaijin”, – about which I will post an review later this week – as well as her work on Medium, so I really wanted to share this interesting writer with you. You should really check out her work, but I am going to let her tell you more about herself and her creative endevours.
Devon Henry
Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and your current project:
Well thank you very much for this opportunity! I’m from Los Angeles, I have three dogs. I love avocado and Jurassic Park and I hate kale. I have watched all seven seasons of 30 Rock more than anyone probably should.
Currently I am working on my first full-length novel which I hope to have out later this year. It’s science fiction geared towards younger readers and I’ve been working on it since late 2011. I’m very, very excited for people to finally read it.
I am looking forward to it (and I hear you about kale). What brought you to writing? Did you always wanted to be a writer?
I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life. As a child I wanted to be a paleontologist and make movies and study different cultures and religions, but there’s always been this caveat that I would write about it too. My profession has always been up in the air but there was never a question about writing.
I really have my parents to thank for that as well. They never questioned it or pushed me into anything else and dutifully marched me to the dollar store two blocks from our house to stock up on Lisa Frank notebooks every Saturday. I’m very grateful for that.
Sounds like a wonderful way to grow up. What are your greatest obstacles to creating your art/finishing a project?
I’m sure most writers will know what I mean when I say there’s that hypercritical part of your brain that gets louder and louder the longer you stare at your work. Then suddenly it’s 3 AM and you’ve spent the better part of the night revising one sentence and you’re over-caffeinated and just thinking, “This is it. This is insanity. Someone take my laptop away.”
How did you or do you overcome these challenges?
I know that a lot of writers work better in seclusion, but I have to say that having a good support system of nosy friends keeps me motivated. It’s very easy, for me at least, to procrastinate and leave a project for ages if I don’t have anyone checking in on me. So to have friends constantly texting and asking to see revisions or making sure I’m sticking to my deadlines really helps.
You are blessed to have such a support system, good for you! What are your future aspirations?
Ultimately I’d really like to carve out a role for myself as a successful comedy writer. It’s my one true passion in life- avocado-based recipes notwithstanding. To be at a point where I could focus solely on that as a career would be amazing.
I think you are on the right track to accomplish this goal. In Kaijin, you chose to use a first person, present tense narrative to express the stories, which I think worked out very well. What made you choose to express the stories in such way?
First of all, thank you! Writing it that way was definitely a risk in terms of storytelling and I’m glad it came across that way.
When I began writing Kaijin, I had a vision of this private slice of Los Angeles full of monsters and demons and banshees and it was important to me to present that vision in a way that would be believable and not read immediately as a run-of-the-mill horror story. So I wrote it all- with the exception of “The Siren and the Immigrant”, in present tense and made a point of never naming the women in my stories. I wanted to make it seem as though the subjects of these stories could be literally anyone.
And you succeeded in that as well. What do you want your readers to know about you, that they might not be aware off?
Let’s see, I am also a trained Improv Performer, Sketch Comedy Writer, Set Designer and I can pick stuff up with my toes. I’m afraid of spiders and elevators. My resume is very impressive, clearly.
That is quite a resume! How can a reader find out more about you?
Well my first book, “Kaijin”, is available in paperback or for Kindle on Amazon as well as the Createspace Marketplace. I also have a Medium profile that I try to update with new short comedic fiction every week for practice (This is also where you can find my ongoing Jurassic Park/Parks and Rec crossover series “Burt Macklin: Raptor Wrangler”). And, of course, readers can get in touch with me via my twitter- which I also keep updated with any new projects or multi-media works that I do. Come say hi, I’d love to hear from you!
Thank you so much, for spending time with us Devon! I am looking forward to hearing more from you!
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I will post a review of Devon Henry’s book “Kaijin” later during the week, so please stop by again, and most importantly check out Devon’s work via the links below!
Avalon-Media - A LifeStyle Blog 