Interview with Nick Orsini
I’m 26, living in New Jersey and working in New York City. I
have big dreams of moving into the city and owning a small corgi. I work in
advertising but have been writing every waking hour I’m not making commercials.
At 11 years old, in the car with my mom, I told her, “I want my life to be
weird.”
Fingerless Gloves (http://apostrophebooks.com/fingerlessgloves) is about Anton, who’s drifting through his mid-20’s in a
haze of pot smoke and TV dinners, while working a low-level job just to keep up
with basic expenses. One night, Anton’s best friend, James, collapses for no
reason and needs to be rushed to the hospital. The book is the story of the
24-hours it takes Anton to figure out what happened to James. Throughout the
book, Anton runs into old friends, ex-girlfriends and family members. It’s a
timely story about our economy here in the States and the way we’ve been
dealing with joblessness or the fact that now, it takes someone 30 years just
to get started. It’s about the nature of friendship after college, and the old
habits we keep to convince us that we’re not getting any older.
Winning the Fiction Fast-Track competition was a pretty
remarkable experience. I can’t say thank you enough to the people who voted for
my book and gave it star ratings. The team at Apostrophe has been an amazing
help. It’s nice to have this idea that something you worked so hard on now gets
a chance to be out there in the world.
You also have another book published, Two Wrongs Make a Vice, plus a poetry collection. Tell us a bit about them.
Two Wrongs Make a
Vice is my first book that I self-published the year after I graduated Marist
College. It’s a stream-of-consciousness story about every embarrassing moment
in the life of this teenage boy. It’s about music, being ridiculed, traumatic
experiences, and the pains of stretching beyond a comfort level. It was so nice
to have so much help with that book, from the mentors who encouraged me to the
people who tweeted in the chapter titles.
My poetry
collection is called Bruce Willis with Hair …it’s a compilation of some of the
poetry on my blog and people can download it …for free! At
www.twowrongsmakeavice.com
You have a background in Film History and Criticism. How much has that influenced your books?
My background has influenced my books a ton. I try to write
visually, thinking of how the images I’m trying to make with words will play
out in someone’s head. Fingerless Gloves is book about details and how we
gather importance from even the most mundane things. I liken it to American
Graffiti or Dazed and Confused. I grew up writing about films and filmmakers,
trying to pick apart stories and interpret them in a scholarly way. I try to
apply that as much to my own original writing as I possibly can.
Why did you decide to begin writing?
Through high school, I kept an emotional journal littered
with jumbled thoughts. In college, I tried to write analytically about films,
but also creatively through poetry and short stories. I never considered myself
an organized writer, just someone who enjoyed telling stories. I was in my 20’s
when I decided to try to hone the skill and work on my organization.
What or who are your inspirations?
In no particular order: Hunter S. Thompson, Dylan Thomas,
Richard Linklater, Nick Hornby, Chuck Klosterman…and, this is going to sound
corny, but everyone who has ever written to me through my blog or website. I’ve
gotten the opportunity to hear so many different stories from young people
around the world and it feeds into the work, making it more well-rounded and
more relatable. People go through a whole spectrum of feelings, and it does
impact the way I write.
You write poetry, short stories and novels. Do you find it challenging switching between
those different format styles?
Not really - I write poetry when I have some random thoughts
that I want to string together thematically. I write novels when I’m working
through organizing a particular story and writing particular characters. I also
write non-fiction and that’s usually when something topical or that has some
pop-culture relevancy appears urgent to me.
Do you favour writing one of those styles -poetry, short stories or
novels- above the others, or do they each bring their own unique writing
enjoyment?
They’re all unique. Poetry is amazing because it starts and
ends in this timeframe and you get a gratification that’s really unlike writing
a novel. Novels develop over time, and when they’re done, I often find myself
lost, like I don’t have an extended project to work on anymore. Non-fiction
develops over several days or maybe weeks, and when that’s done and you see it
published, it’s incredibly gratifying.
What projects are on the horizon for you?
I’m working on my third novel. It’s about a superhero. I’m
also ramping up for the wide release of Fingerless Gloves.
Links to buy Fingerless
Gloves:
iBookstore USA: http://goo.gl/txhCn
iBookstore UK: http://goo.gl/3vK7n
Kobo USA: http://goo.gl/uVtsi
Kobo UK: http://goo.gl/uVtsi
Links to find out more about Fingerless
Gloves:
On Apostrophe Books: http://apostrophebooks.com/fingerlessgloves
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FingerlessGlovesByNickOrsini
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