BLAST, BLITZ, PROMOS, REVEALS, & TOURS . . . : SPOTLIGHT w/INTERVIEW - MYTHOLOGY

We invite you enjoy a special blog tour featuring the entire City Quartet by Michael Williams, a visionary group of interrelated novels that can be read as stand-alone tales or as a group, in any order desired! It is a fascinating and atmospheric journey into the heart of mythic fiction and magical realism with an exceptional literary quality!

CITY QUARTET

by Michael Williams

Author Info
Over the past 25 years, Michael Williams has written a number of strange novels, from the early “Weasel’s Luck” and “Galen Beknighted” in the best-selling DRAGONLANCE series to the more recent lyrical and experimental “Arcady”, singled out for praise by Locus and Asimov’s magazines.

Williams’ highly anticipated City Quartet was completed by the publication of Tattered Men in October 2019. The four volumes may be read in any order–four stories that intertwine, centered in the same city, where minor characters in one novel become central in another:

“Vine: An Urban Legend” is the story of an amateur stage production In Louisville’s Central Park, gone darkly and divinely wrong.

“Dominic’s Ghosts” takes up the story of a son in search of his father in the midst of a murky conspiracy involving a suspicious scholar, a Himalayan legend, and subliminal clues from a silent film festival.

“Tattered Men” is the account of a disheveled biographer, writing the life story of a homeless man who may have been more than he ever seemed.

And “Trajan’s Arch” is a coming-of-age story replete with ghosts, a testimony to hauntings both natural and supernatural.

Williams was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and spent much of his childhood in the south central part of the state, the red-dirt gothic home of Appalachian foothills and stories of Confederate guerrillas. Through good luck and a roundabout journey, he made his way through New England, New York, Wisconsin, Britain and Ireland, and has ended up less than thirty miles from where he began. He has a Ph.D. in Humanities, and teaches at the University of Louisville, where he focuses on the Modern Fantastic in fiction and film. He is married and has two grown sons.

Author Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mythical-Realism-The-Michael-Williams-Page-128713900543978/

The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with Michael Williams . . .

How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
Almost always these days, when I’m first introduced to someone in publishing, it’s with my connection to Dragonlance. I started my writing career with that series—was on the ground floor of the project and wrote the songs for the original Weis and Hickman novels. It was a good place to begin, but my work has changed: these days I would say my novels are more magical realist—or mythical realist, as I prefer to call them, fictions that anchor themselves in the real world but employ the elements and structures of myth. Fantasy and realism are given equal priority in books like those in the City Quartet: their worlds are not separate or even parallel, but thoroughly mingled and wedded.

Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
I’m not sure I understand the distinction. If you’re asking whether a writer is born or made, the answer is “yes.” There’s such a thing as talent, of course, but talent in what? Imagination? Use of language? Storytelling? Work ethic? Discipline? Persistence? Speaking as a teacher, I’ve had a lot of writers in my classroom, and the brilliant ones are not necessarily the ones who succeed. The dogged ones, the relentless, diligent ones—those are the writers who, up the road, may end up doing the best.

What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)?
Solitude and method. My temperament demands no distractions, so I make sure I work at a time where noise and other interruption are least likely. What that means is that I prefer the very early hours (4 am to 7 am daily) and regular hours, very much like a work schedule—because it is work after all, isn’t it? In fact, I fail to see how I could get much writing done if I tried to work “in spare hours,” or god forbid, when I “feel inspired”: inspiration rises out of order and habit for me—it’s the reward of sitting down daily and doing the work.

Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
Often a minor character—or a character intended to be minor in the first place—seizes my attention and demands more ink and space. When that happens, I listen to my instinct: it generally means that the character has moved from being a plot point and begun to brush against living, breathing humanity. Unplanned for, unforeseen, characters like these call their own shots, and soon are more interesting, more compelling, than the ones I had mapped out in preliminary thinking or in outline. I can’t imagine a character in search of a story; instead, character and story intertwine and nourish each other as they go.

Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
When I finished the City Quartet, one of my students asked what was next, and my answer—admittedly smart-assed at the time—was “what’s a quartet without a fifth book?” Of late, that doesn’t seem as flippant. I’m working on a novel composed of short stories and prose poems, an experimental, short book set in the world of the Quartet.

If you could have dinner/dinner party with 7 fictional character, who would they be?

The non-human members of Tolkien’s Fellowship: the four hobbits, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf. Aragorn always seemed too earnest and goody-goody, and who can trust Boromir, anyway? I think it would make for a great and Unexpected Party.

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mythical-Realism-The-Michael-Williams-Page-128713900543978/