This is Melissa Ford Lockin, Rosalie Petrouske, Susan Serafin-Jess, editors for the Washington Square Review. Washington Square On-Air showcases the poetry and fiction of the latest edition of LCC's literary journal, The Washington Square Review, read by the poets, authors, and editors themselves. Expect the unexpected as our contributors express experience and fantasy with humor, imagination, poetic license, irony, and passion. If you love language at its most original, please join us in our audio Town Square to celebrate a community of writers spanning from around the world to Lansing.

Hi, this is Melissa Ford Lucken. I'm one of the editors with the Washington Square Review. I'm here with Kevin Brown today. His story is one of the ones that's featured in our journal. And the first thing I'm going to ask you, Kevin, is tell us a little bit about your story. What was going on in your life at the time that you wrote it, and how does it fit in with your overall canon of work?

Well, in terms of what was going on in my life when I wrote it, it was actually two distant periods of my life that I wrote it. It was based on something that happened to someone that was a little older than me in high school. She was paralyzed from the waist down. And sort of what happens in the story at the end is kind of what happened with her. About five years later, I wrote about five pages of that and I got stuck. Then a few years later, a friend of mine, he was married to a woman who was in a car wreck, and she got paralyzed from the waist down. And then he slowly started to slip away from her, like, stop having anything to do with her. It's like it just changed everything for them. And that second part came about 12 or 13 years after the first five or six pages of the story. And then when I started writing my first novel, which I just completed, to take a break from the voice that I was in, I sat down and that first few pages, the, the second part of the story that I told you about with, with my friend, it happened and it just sort of fit. It's like the two just went together in a weird sort of way. It came very quickly, within a couple of days after that. So about 12 or 13 years in a couple of days was I was able to write it.

So you think it was the work in the novel that stirred something loose in your imagination that helped you bridge the two pieces together?

When I wrote the first few pages, something happened in my life where I stopped writing. I just stopped for the 12 years or whatever. I just did not touch anything. I just Stopped. And then one day when I wanted to start writing this novel, it just kind of came back. I was never going to write again. My plan was to be done with it. I just sat down and I wrote a page of this novel and everything started to come back. I never wanted to stop writing. It just was pouring out of me. Everything was new and fresh and my love had sort of rekindled for it again.

So you say that there's 12 years when you really didn't write anything at all?

No.

Did you have a different creative outlet?

No, I had a sort of a tragedy type thing in my life that happened. And anything I do, I go like headlong into it. And I was just going to basically destroy myself. I had gone on that bender where I wasn't going to be around to write anymore anyway. I was going to die drinking. That's what my plan was. But when I stopped, well, then it all came back and I kind of had to learn to write again.

Did that help you come up with new ways of writing since that you were relearning it? Did it spark new voices, new perspectives in the writing?

It did. I came to writing late. I hadn't even read a book. My first year of college where I grew up, I didn't know of any libraries and I didn't have any books. So I hadn't even read a full book other than what was in like high school.

Tell us a little bit about where you grew up.

I grew up in several places, but Memphis is, you know. And then there was a place in Texas that I moved to. It was just kind of skipping around. But they were always. We were always very poor. And, you know, I played guitar and stuff in bands and I would write songs. People would ask me, have you read this guy or this guy? And I didn't. I hadn't even heard of them, like, you know.

So how did you get started then? How did you get started writing?

My first year in college, one night I kind of got up and wrote a little one act Christmas play that some people really liked. And it was really bad. But the way I learned storytelling was orally. My dad is the best liar on the planet. I'll be with him when something happens. And then an hour later he's telling what happened and he'll tell it completely the way it didn't happen. But he was trying to get reactions. And then I learned editing through the way he would tell it the next time because he would leave out the stuff that didn't get a laugh and then amplify the stuff that did. So I began writing stories like you talk basically with no rules. You know, I would be jumping from first person to second to third. And so when you read this story, it is completely different voice than what the novel is.

How long into your writing career was it until you decided to submit things and see about getting published?

I didn't even know that was a thing until like the first several months until I got into an undergrad writing class and I won an undergrad award. They wanted us to submit a story and I did, and it won an award. And then they start teaching me how to do it. I didn't know what a cover letter was. I didn't know where to look. And then it was just a few months. And then I won a competition, like a writing contest. And that was my first publication. And then from then on, I learned how to do it.

So tell us a little bit about the class that you took. Was that a creative writing class?

It was. I was a marketing major and an English minor and took a little writing class. And then after that class I flipped my major and minor and I became an English major and a marketing minor.

So it sounds like taking that writing class was probably the first formal education you had on the so called rules that you were talking about. Were there other ways that you learned the rules, like what you were supposed to do and what you weren't supposed to do? And then I'm also wondering, is there stuff that you found that was successful that people told you that you can't do that, but you did it anyway? And it did work.

It kind of split people. Some would say you can't. I mean, this, you're doing this or you're doing that, and that's not really how it goes. And then others would say, that's refreshing. And only way I kind of knew that I was not following like a protocol was when we would turn in our packets of stories and stuff, especially in grad school, you didn't put your name on it. So you'd get like five stories that we'd do that week and nobody would have their name on it. And like four of them could have been anybody, but mine would always look different on the page. So I started to see kind of how they would structure things. My flashbacks would be different if I put a flashback in or, you know, it'd just be so random and they had a structure to theirs. But I still, I just kept the way I was. I was finding success with it. Even like I played guitar. I. I didn't read music. I just learned by rewinding a cassette over and over. So I just kind of did that same thing with writing. I just swung at the heavy bag and saw what I could do, you know?

So you finished your undergrad with the minor in marketing. Your undergrad is in English, and then you went and got an mfa. Was there a space between the undergrad graduation and applying to the mfa?

No, it was none. I applied to several. My wife at the time, she did not get accepted into those grad schools, so she did get accepted into the school we were at. So I applied there and got in. Little did I know it's the only at the time. It may be different now, but it was the only grad program in the country. That's four years instead of two. So the way my graduation, my credits ran out as an undergrad was in December of 2004, and I went right in by myself in January to the grad program in 2005.

So the grad program that we're talking about for anyone who's not familiar is a mfa, a master's in fine art. And so it's a specific program for people that are focused just on creative writing. Was yours on fiction, poetry? Was it a mix, or was it focused in one?

Fiction.

Okay. Only fiction. All right. And you and I were talking before we started recording, and you let me know that you'd gone back and gotten your MFA later in life. So you were a little bit older than the other students. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, like what it's like to be in a grad program when you're older. What are the benefits?

Well, I was only older by a couple of years because I had to kind of retake high school over again. I had to kind of get my credits, my grades, where I could be accepted into a bigger university. So it kind of put me behind. Like I said, I walked right out of undergrad and right into grad, but it was four years. So the benefits to me was I was married at the time. So the partying. We all started to have lots of parties, you know, MFA programs. That's. But I didn't have sort of the distractions of, like, being alone and single at college and all that stuff. It was just work. I just wrote all the time. I was a little more mature, and I didn't go into any of my college with sort of like, let's. It's just time to have fun. You know, I went in really, where I had let Myself down in high school and didn't care. I went in, focused on my grades and everything. So I was just a little more mature, better work ethic.

What about the marketing has that. How does that weave into your writing or doesn't it?

I have a guy who lives in dc. He used to be in a writers group with me. He helps me with marketing myself because I was really good at business and marketing and stuff, and it was one of my professors who guided me into that, just as one of my professors later guided me into writing, telling me I should pursue that. So I was very good at learning about marketing and everything, but when it comes to, like, marketing myself or in my work, I just. I'm not very good at it. And I have a guy who kind of helps me, like, stay on track of even trying to do that. Now that I. That I write, that's all I do.

Okay, that's interesting because there are a lot of different ways to handle marketing and marketing yourself as a, you know, a published author, because you have quite an extensive list of publications. Are there any stand out to you as personal favorites, you know, projects that you are specially connected to in terms.

Of, like, literary publications and stuff like that?

Yeah, or I know you also had a movie. I have television.

Yes, yes, those were great. And they kind of like get the most attention, but in terms of, like, satisfying or rewarding, it could be the littlest. Being asked to do an interview is going to be one of them, because I've never been asked that. But in that 12 years where I quit writing, this editor from, it's called the Canary Press in Australia, she emailed me several times and I never answered my email. And one day I just caught it and she said, please, please get back with me. And she. She said, we're one of the bigger literary journals over here. And I read a story of yours about five years ago and it just hit me. The story has stayed with me, and I just wanted to reach out and find you and see if we could republish it. Like, that came in the middle of me never wanting to write again, but it's like it was still there, you know, something was still there because there's this. This lady on the other side of the rock trying to reach out to me of a story she read five years ago and wanting to. To reprint it. Like, that stands out to me as something rewarding and big. And a couple of fellowships I won that were really big, that kind of came when I needed them the most and stuff like that. The. The Film was interesting because I got hired to do the film based on that short story that I won an award with as an undergrad.

Tell us a little background about the film.

It's called Living Dark. It's a thriller horror film and it's sort of set in caves. I was in a film class and it was on a Wednesday night, storming really badly. It was like a three hour class and we had to take a test for the first half of the class. And you sit out in the hall and wait for everybody to finish, then come back in for the second half of class. And this guy started talking to me out in the hall and we were talking about movies because we were in a film class. I told him about me writing and stuff. He said, there's this guy you really have to meet. He's a director. And after that class, we drove in the storm to his house and we sat and we talked about films up until like two in the morning or something like that. And I told him I had a story, I had that story in my car. And he said he wanted to read it. And I went out and I got it and gave it to him and I went back home, went to bed and when I woke up, There was like 22 messages on my phone where he kept sending me stuff over and over and said, you're going to write this movie, you're the writer. So that's how that started. And then they shot it, shopped around at film festivals and won a couple of little awards and. And then it was bought by film company and it came out. We shot it in 2006 and I think they finally came out sometime around 2013 or something like that. It's not my proudest moment. It's. It is what it is. A little B horror movie. I mean, but it was fun. I didn't have any of the software to format a script. I had never read a script, so I didn't know what I was doing. It's like everything. And I just sort of just went at it. And so that was, it was really, it was a unique experience. But it, it also, once you hand over your work, it's out of your hands. And I'm. I like to, you know, either sell the ship and be the man selling it or be the one going down with it if it's no good. And I wasn't, I mean, I just had to give it away and let, let the chips fall where they may.

So the writing process for that, how would you compare it to writing a book?

It Was a lot faster because we had to get so many pages a day. I mean, it had to be 15 pages a day. So perfection was out the window. Kind of taught me to let go of things and put the best you can out there and keep going. About 15 chapters into my second novel now, and it's really slow going, but my first novel, it just poured out, so it was almost as fast as the screenplay. So it just taught me to get the surface of the water first and then worry about the depth. Don't try to think too deep. Just get it out there, and then you can get the depth later.

So you said it came from a short story that you had. Was it hard to let go of any pieces of the short story, or did you find that you were able to incorporate everything from the story into the script?

Well, the movie was. It was not my story. He just read my story and wanted me as the writer. The story he had already, he was gonna do. Like, they had an idea, they didn't have a script.

Okay.

So once he said I was gonna write it, then we started sitting down and like, breaking the story, like, trying to come up with the characters and everything in it. My short story was just a sample of what I. How I write and stuff. They even later bought that short story, the rights to it, and we were going to turn it into a screenplay. But funding and everything like that, so it just didn't happen. But.

So what are you working on right now?

My second novel. Right now, I'm just calling it the lion and the Wine. Just. It's a placeholder. It's like what I do with a lot of character names until the names. Like a name really grabs me. I put placeholders in, so it could be my dad's in one, my mom, my friends. So the lion and the Wine was just one that I had that I just kind of put on there to have a folder name. And with my stories, you'll see that, too. Sometimes it's got the most absurd titles because I just couldn't come up with one. And I'll put something for fun on there, and it sticks. I just leave it. So you want to tell us a.

Little bit about what the novel is about, the one that you're working on?

It's about a little small town that's sort of run by rich farmers. It's sort of a dying town. And years ago in the, like, 1920, 1919, there was a. Something really bad happened that pitted several of the townspeople against each other. So now something bad has happened. Again. And a lot of those same families, you know, the ancestors that were against each other, they become a team against the ones who actually did it. The first time, the family line that actually started the thing the first time, it's sort of like how lies and propaganda will pit people against each other. To redirect attention from what this group is doing. To stay to get greedy and to keep things the way they are, to manipulate. Well, this time something's happened where that doesn't work. And who used to be the enemies, now they are the team. So it's almost like payback for, you know, 70 years in the making. Because it's set around the late 70s. I never really give a date or a time period to any of my stories or anything. Like my first novel, it's in 1991. But I never said it. I just put like, you know, it's the year that nirvana gets popular. So by that, you know, people will get about what year it is. So I never really put a time. I don't put, like, ages on people. Like, in the story that you guys took there, there's no age, but you get, like, you know, time passing and stuff. And, you know, I just try to do things a little bit differently than what I've read before.

Yeah, our story definitely has some pop culture references that, you know, readers could clue into. And if they don't aren't familiar with those particular references, it doesn't take away from the story at all. You know, they would get the sense that that was a thing, and, you know, that works that way. If somebody was new to you and they wanted to read one or two of your works, what one or two would you suggest they start with? Of course, the one that's in our journal would be one of them.

Get attention to those. It's kind of weird because I have to remember that that one's in my group of stories now because it wasn't for so long. There's one that I did it in 2004 called One Life. And my wife was from Hong Kong, and I went over there with her right after our wedding, around the time of sars. So everybody was wearing masks. So now when you look back at this, I'm talking about. And it's like years ahead of the coronavirus that we've come to know and loathe. But, yeah, I was talking about a guy whose wife died of SARS in Hong Kong. And he goes back and he is literally going around in these crowded areas and scraping surfaces and licking germs, trying to die of sars. So he can. However he dies, he's in the same afterlife is her, because in her belief, if you die the same way, you go to the same afterlife. So he's trying to die of sars. And then another one called Birthday Licks, about a kid who was. When his mom had tried to have him aborted and it didn't take. And he came out missing one arm, but she died in childbirth. And every year on his birthday, his dad blames him and gives him birthday licks. He tortures him in some way. And it's after he's actually gotten revenge on his father and he's in a police station and he's being asked all these questions and he's trying to. Out of guilt, trying to show that he's guilty so he can go to jail for the rest of his life. And she's telling him it's like a reverse interrogation, basically saying you didn't do anything wrong. They've seen the pictures of these birthday licks and all these fractured bones and burns and cuts and stuff. And it's just him trying to come to grips with the guilt he feels of what's happened. That one was taken by a place that was raising money for child. Child abuse. And they really told me that they sat around a big table when they read it and they were, you know, crying and stuff. And so that one was one that I was very proud of.

Yeah, it's definitely a lot for people to think about and reflect on with those intense, darker themes, for sure. Any last thoughts that you have for us and if you want to invite people to follow you on social media or mention your website.

Yes, the website is. It's kevinnovalina.com I'm in the process of changing my last name from Brown to Nov. Novalena. Nova being my second daughter and Lena being my first. And it's also a town I used in my first book. So I'm changing my last name to novalena. So it's kevinnovalina.com is. Is my website. And then Kevin Novalena on Twitter. I've only sent one tweet and an author that I tweeted about actually joined me or follows me or whatever it's called, and liked it. So that was kind of neat. I just as. Like I said, I'm not very good at marketing. And he, this is the guy in D.C. sort of pushing me to get out of my comfort zone. And, you know, let's hope that some.

People listening will come and find you on Twitter and follow you that'd be great.

I mean, I'm. I'm open to anybody ever wants to ask questions or anything. Like, I'm not the brightest at what we're talking about, but I know I've got a lot of experience and, you know, I do a writers group now. People in my group, they wanted to get published, and I had been publishing a lot, so they wanted to join me in a group. And they've all started to publish and win awards and stuff. So we, you know, I'll give the best advice I can on stuff. I know it's. When I started, I always wanted to ask that kind of thing, and nobody wanted to ever talk about it, so.

All right, that's beautiful. And now people know they can come find you on Twitter and ask you questions and you'll be happy to answer them.

I'll give it my best.

Awesome. Well, thanks a lot for joining us today and for chatting, and we wish you well and hope that you'll send us some more stuff.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. This was great.

Thank you for listening to our talented poets and authors. Until next time, this has been Washington Square On-Air, where we showcase selections from Lansing Community College's literary journal, The Washington Square Review, a publication featuring writers from the Great Lakes State, across the nation and around the world. To find out more about The Washington Square Review, visit lcc.edu/wsr. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed sharing.