There Are Other Weird People Out There Like Me: An Interview with Krissy Diggs

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Krissy Diggs posts illustrations on Instagram, where she has a lot of followers but doesn’t make a big deal about it.  She first achieved internet fame in the late 2000s making videos as That Chick With the Goggles for what would become Channel Awesome, and briefly produced her own Youtube show, Challenge Accepted!!!  Her art has been featured in exhibitions, on concert posters, a novel cover, and a Japanese beer label, and she’s worked as a waitress, an art director for a major cellular company, and an English teacher in Kanazawa, Japan.

Krissy and I first collaborated in 2019 when she shared some of her drawings with the TRAM zine in nearby Toyama.  When pandemic restrictions eased up I took the train out to meet her in Kanazawa, where we enjoyed a lunch of hanton rice and she shared her insights on the Day Job life.

 

I. I Just Thought of It as Fun

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So when did you join Instagram?

Krissy Diggs: I was an early adapter, so I joined when it was a new thing.  When I first started I never took it seriously as a platform to share art or anything.  I was kind of using it the way everyone else was—sharing pictures of food, etc.  I tend to have my name on all of my handles because I get in early enough.  I have that for Twitter, Instagram, and I think TikTok too.  I don’t know how to do TikTok, but I’m trying to learn. Continue reading »

Shoe Leather Hustling: An Interview with Writer Sean Doolittle

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Sean Doolittle is a crime, suspense, and horror novelist and the author of seven books: Dirt (UglyTown, 2001), Burn (UglyTown, Bantam Dell, 2003), Rain Dogs (Bantam Dell, 2005), The Cleanup (Bantam Dell, 2006), Safer (Bantam Dell, 2009), Lake Country (Bantam Dell, 2012), and most recently Kill Monster (Audible Originals, Severn House, 2019).  Originally from southeast Nebraska, his books have won the ITW Thriller Award, the Barry Award, and many others.  He’s also worked full-time throughout his writing career.

I first met Sean in 2014 when he taught a graduate-level fiction writing workshop at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he gave me some instrumental feedback on my first novel and wasn’t afraid to make pop-culture references in class.  We kept in touch, and earlier this year sat down over Zoom to talk about getting his work out there, his mid-career slump, and finding time to write when you have a day job. Continue reading »

Three Submissions a Month for Twenty Years: An Interview with Melanie Faith

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Melanie Faith is a writer, editor, and teacher whose books about writing include In a Flash, Poetry Power, and Photography for Writers from Vine Leaves Press. She’s also the author of This Passing Fever from Future Cycle Press, a book of poetry set during the 1918 influenza epidemic; and Her Humble Admirer, a pseudonymous regency romance novel.  Her short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in over 250 publications, and she teaches online for Southern New Hampshire University and the WOW! Women on Writing program.  On top of all that, she’s a photographer whose work I’ve scattered throughout this interview.

Melanie’s also the developmental editor of my upcoming novel, MFA Thesis Novel, and after a few back and forth emails I realized she’d be a perfect person to interview about her creative work life…

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Fall TRAM Now Online, Plus Thoughts on Editing a Cool Indie Zine

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The TRAM (a.k.a. that zine I work on in Toyama) has a new issue out, one that I’m particularly proud of because of the quality of the material.  This was also our first new issue since our long hiatus earlier this year, and it has a mix of stuff that I’ll sincerely recommend here.

Those outside the Toyama JET community will be most interested in Mind Your Mindset, an article about Growth Mindsets vs. Fixed Mindsets by recent JET alum Rikio Inouye that shows how opening up to personal growth can lead to greater happiness and success.  I’d recommend anyone interested in improving their perspective and taking on new challenges check this one out.

I also put together another edition of my Let’s Talk About Japan Books! column, this one covering two nonfiction books about the JET Program itself.  While Bruce Feiler’s Learning to Bow isn’t worth getting excited over (despite its popularity, I didn’t like the book all that much), the centerpiece is my review of a book called Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Program by David McConnell, a for-serious academic study about the early years of the JET Program. The book leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the problems faced by ALTs and is incredibly relevant to anyone currently working on or considering JET. Continue reading »

I Like Doing Everything: An Interview with Jeff Gill

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Jeff Gill is an animator, editor, and voice actor (plus a whole bunch of other stuff) who’s worked on South Park and Ask the StoryBots, a children’s educational show currently airing on Netflix for which he’s won Emmys in the Writing and Directing categories.  He’s also worked as the Director of eCards for JibJab and has a hilarious Soundcloud page of songs he’s recorded while stuck in Los Angeles traffic.

I talked to Jeff via Skype to discuss his path to animation success, how to network and get jobs, and what it’s like to work in the industry.

 

I. It Was Really Through Sheer Passion for Learning

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So what made you want to become an animator?

Jeff Gill: Becoming an animator was something I wanted to do from a very young age.  As a kid, your vision of what an adult job is involves working at a bank or being a lawyer, or doing something where you’re in a suit.  The first time I saw a job that wasn’t that was a behind-the-scenes of either Ren and Stimpy or Rocko’s Modern Life where they showed a Nickelodeon animator at his desk, which was covered with toys, and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.  I just remember looking at this guy and thinking “Man, that’s what I want to be when I grow up.” Continue reading »

Should Writers Have to Pay to Submit Their Work?

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In my post a few weeks ago about getting my novel accepted for publication by a small press I briefly mentioned a topic that really merits more discussion: Submitting my novel to publishers cost me some actual folding money.

Said folding money came in the form of submission fees to some of the 22 small indie presses I applied to over a 10-month period.

The submission and payment process for indie presses works a bit differently than it does if you’re going for a contract with one of the Big 5 Publishers.  To get that kind of contract, you first have to send your novel to a literary agent, which is always free.  Literary agents get paid by charging commission fees off advances and royalties—in short, they only get paid when your novel sells, and any agent who charges upfront reading fees is almost certainly running some kind of scam.

This is because the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) specifically prohibits its member agents from charging writers to read their work.  This is an amazing protection for writers that Continue reading »

Holy Shit, I Signed a For-Serious Novel Contract!!!!!!!!111

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Hell yeah I did.

As of three weeks ago, MFA Thesis Novel, my satire about a grad school writing program, is officially signed and scheduled for publication with Vine Leaves Press in April 2022.  That means that my goal of publishing an actual novel is finally going to become a reality.

MFA Thesis Novel is about a twentysomething writer named Flip Montcalm (who’s definitely not based on me) who enters a grad school writing program (that definitely isn’t based on the one I went to at the University of Nebraska) in the barrens of the Midwest.  However, no one around him seems to like his novel, and in an world of fierce competition, Flip has to figure out how to write something that’s both meaningful and that people will actually like.  It’s a novel about fitting in, starting out as a writer, and the desolate working conditions that thousands of underpaid grad students face every year, along with what it’s like to be a lonely young artist in a strange place.

Plus there’s jokes.  And cursing (fuck yeah!).  And lots of pop culture references. Continue reading »

It’s About Prioritizing: An Interview with Haley Alt

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Haley Alt is a dystopian YA author whose three novels have sold more than 10,000 copies on Amazon under the name H. Alt.  (The first half of her fourth novel, Godless, is available for free on Wattpad.)  She recently moved back to the States after almost eight years in Japan, where she taught English, worked at a travel agency, and promoted sightseeing and did English translation for the town of Tateyama in Toyama.  I met her through my work on the TRAM art and culture zine, and sat down with her at a Starbucks in the suburbs of Toyama City, where we talked about religion, her upcoming move back to America, how scary it is when people actually read your work, and how Tom Cruise helped her sell a lot of eBooks. Continue reading »

Three-Quarters of the Way There: An Interview with Andrew Marshall

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Andrew Marshall works as a photographer, painter, videographer, writer, and podcaster, the combination of which make up his entire income.  Much of his work focuses on outdoor exploration: his writing’s been featured in Upventur and Backpacking Light (for whom he also produces a podcast), and he’s photographed landscapes from Scotland  to Yosemite Valley.  I called him via Skype to talk about self-employment, balancing promotion with creativity, and what it’s like to leave your Day Job.

 

I. I’ve Sought Out More Hands-On Work

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So, going back a ways, why did you choose art school?

Andrew Marshall: I wanted to make movies.  I was a film major at SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design] and I had wanted to be a filmmaker since I saw Jurassic Park when that came out in 1994.  It took a while, but I think what I eventually realized is that I wanted a job that was exciting, and I wanted a job that would take me around the world and that felt like an adventure, and filmmaking was a way to do that. Continue reading »

Working on New Stuff Always Gets Me Excited: Miranda Reeder of Minyan/Harlevin Visual Novels

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Miranda Reeder writes and draws visual novels (kind of like graphic novels, except you play them on the computer) under the name Minyan and the label Harlevin, where she has over 1,400 followers on Itch.io.  Her VNs include Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, Mnemonic Devices, and Lilith Hall, and her current project with Fablesoft Studios, Twisted: A Dark Fairytale, raised over $2,300 on Kickstarter in October 2019.

I first met Miranda in Toyama, Japan, where she spent three years in the JET program teaching English.  After leaving Japan she returned to Ohio to pursue a master’s in Japanese translation at Kent State University, and over winter break we talked via Skype about staying motivated, balancing creativity with Day Job work, and sharing her passion with her family. Continue reading »

How Concert Merch Tables Taught Me About Self-Promotion

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I was sixteen when I went to my first concert.  It was a four-person jam band called Uncle Sammy whose two albums I’d been listening to nonstop on CD, and I jumped at the chance to see them live.  The show was at Milly’s bar in Manchester, New Hampshire, and my friend had to email the owner asking special permission to get in because we weren’t 21 yet.  We had to make a bunch of promises not to drink, but we did get some good nachos.

Uncle Sammy was a local band out of Massachusetts who played at bars and smaller shows around New England and at the time had put out two live albums on indie labels.  To us, though, they may as well have been a huge platinum-selling group. Continue reading »

Why Don’t You Just Self-Publish Your Novels????

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You have no idea how often I get asked this.

The question usually comes up when I’m talking about my writing, how I’ve written two novels already, how I tried for kind of a long time to get my first one published without any luck, queried a bunch of agents about my second one, and am now more actively looking at small presses as a better outlet (entry to come about this one, promise!).

Unfortunately, explaining all this makes it seem like I’m facing a long, hopeless struggle rife with setbacks and failure from which I’ll never emerge victorious.  At this point, the person I’m talking to will respond (or, more likely, interrupt) with a well-meaning question/suggestion that seems like the perfect solution to my problem:

“Have you thought about self-publishing?”

The short answer is Yes, But Not Right Now.  The long answer is more complicated… Continue reading »