A poet and fiction writer, my work
has been published in Poet Lore, Crystal Clear and Cloudy, and Flying
Colors Anthology. I am a past attendee of Pikes Peak Writer’s Conferences
and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and a member of Lighthouse
Writer’s Workshop in Denver,
Colorado.
In addition, I am/was a licensed professional counselor and psychotherapist,
who for many years counseled perpetrators of domestic violence and sex
offenders, and provided psychotherapy for individuals, groups and families. I
hold a master’s degree in contemplative psychotherapy from Naropa
University
in Boulder,
Colorado.
I was born in Kentucky
but soon after my parents moved to Detroit.
Detroit
was where I grew up. As a kid I visited relatives in Kentucky,
once for a six-week period, which included a stay with my grandparents. In the
novel’s acknowledgements I did assert the usual disclaimers having to do with
the fact that Then Like The Blind Man was and is a work of fiction,
i.e., a made up story whose characters and situations are fictional in nature
(and used fictionally) no matter how reminiscent of characters and situations
in real life. That’s a matter for legal departments, however, and has little to
do with subterranean processes giving kaleidoscopic-like rise to hints and
semblances from memory’s storehouse, some of which I selected and disguised for fiction. That is to
say, yes, certain aspects of my history did manifest knowingly at times, at
times spontaneously and distantly, as ghostly north-south structures, as
composite personae, as moles and stains and tears and glistening rain and dark
bottles of beer, rooms of cigarette smoke, hay lofts and pigs. Here’s a quote
from the acknowledgements that may serve to illustrate this point.
“Two memories served as starting
points for a short story I wrote that eventually became this novel. One was of
my Kentucky
grandmother as she emerged from a shed with a white chicken held upside down in
one of her strong bony hands. I, a boy of nine and a “city slicker” from Detroit,
looked on in wonderment and horror as she summarily wrung the poor creature’s
neck. It ran about the yard frantically, yes incredibly, as if trying to locate
something it had misplaced as if the known world could be set right again,
recreated, if only that one thing was found. And then of course it died. The
second memory was of lantern light reflected off stones that lay on either side
of a path to a storm cellar me and my grandparents were headed for one stormy
night beneath a tornado’s approaching din. There was wonderment there too,
along with a vast and looming sense of impending doom.”
I read the usual assigned stuff
growing up, short stories by Poe, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The
Scarlet Letter, The Cherry Orchard, Hedda Gabler, a little of
Hemingway, etc. I also read a lot of Super Hero comic books (also Archie and
Dennis the Menace) and Mad Magazine was a favorite too. I was also in love with
my beautiful third grade teacher and to impress her pretended to read Gulliver’s
Travels for which I received many delicious hugs.
It wasn’t until much later that I
read Huckleberry Finn. I did read To Kill A Mockingbird too. I
read Bastard Out of Carolina and The Secret Life of Bees. I saw
the stage play of Hamlet and read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle too.
However, thematic similarities to these works occurred to me only after I was already well into the writing of Then
Like The Blind Man. Cormac McCarthy, Pete Dexter, Carson McCullers, Raymond
Carver, Flannery O’Conner and Joyce Carol Oates, to name but a few, are among
my literary heroes and heroines. Tone and style of these writers have
influenced me in ways I’d be hard pressed to name, though I think the
discerning reader might feel such influences as I make one word follow another
and attempt to “stab the heart with...force” (a la Isaac Babel) by placing my
periods (hopefully, sometimes desperately) ‘... just at the right place’.
Freddie Owens’ latest book is Then Like
the Blind Man: Orbie’s Story.
Visit his website at www.FreddieOwens.com.
Thank you for this interview! I’d like to know more about you as a person
first. What do you do when you’re not
writing?
I practice Tai Chi and work out with free weights. I like to ride my bicycle from time to time. I live in Boulder, Colorado and the city is very biker friendly, so there are many paved pathways for bikes of all kinds. I have a meditation practice, and have studied many years with various meditation teachers in both the Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist Traditions. I like to read, when I can, what I consider to be good writers, writers I've learned to write from actually like Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oats. I like Pinot Noir and prime rib. I dine out at least once a week. Italian cuisine is favored. I like movies and HBO. I like Breaking Bad, Dead Wood and Boardwalk Empire. I'm an avid basketball fan and follower of The Denver Nuggets. I like football too and Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos. I read the NY Times on Sunday and Boulder's Dailey Camera during the week. Oh, and I like to record my voice; here's a sample. http://bit.ly/1dnWwwN
When did you start writing?
1970, I believe – because I didn't know what else to do with myself. My first writing desk consisted of an old door supported with cinder blocks I set up in a clothes closet. I used and old Smith Corona typewriter and made carbon copies of the poems I wrote on onionskin paper.
As a published author, what would you say was the most
pivotal point of your writing life?
When it dawned on me back in the early 90s that as a psychotherapist I was going nowhere, I began to think about writing seriously. I had been away from it for quite some time – though I had always found time to write poems. I realized I wasn't getting any younger and that if I wanted to explore this thing that had bothered me for so long – this thing called writing – I had best get to it. I started experimenting with stream of consciousness and automatic writing – and by keeping a journal – and by developing the discipline of being on the spot each day before a blank page.
If you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your
next book, where would that be and why?
Tompkinsville, Kentucky. I'm planning the sequel to my debut Then Like The Blind Man: Orbie's Story, which is set in Kentucky and think it would be grand to rub shoulders with folks from that part of the country. I think it would be interesting also to spend time around or near black communities in the south. I'm not sure exactly where I'd go to do this. Savannah and New Orleans keep coming up as possible places to visit.
If you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?
Well, as I'm currently answering questions to gazillions of interviews and writing guest posts for a 3 month long virtual book tour (a la Pump Up Your Book), I'd most likely use the time to get a little more of that done. I suppose the 'right' answer, if such a thing exists, would be to say that I'd use the time to meditate or work out with free weights but nah...I'd probably watch TV or if I could, I'd catch a Denver Nuggets Basketball game downtown at the Pepsi Center.
Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done
yet?
This is difficult to say, since I don't yet have another story outside a possible sequel to Blind Man in mind. Paris. How about Paris? Or Harlem? Or down and out Detroit? How about San Francisco? My guess is that none of these would ultimately suffice. Settings are like characters I think. They have their own voice and manner of speaking not to mention behaving. Witness the difference of expression say of a stormy setting as opposed to one of idyllic calm.
Back to your present book, Then Like The Blind Man: Orbie's Story, how did you publish it?
After many years of 'almost' and 'no' or 'yes but we wouldn't know how to market it' from agents and publishers alike, I've opted for 'certainly' and 'yes' instead, taking all my marbles to Amazon's Independent Publisher's Assistant, Createspace, which has become Blind Sight Publications and Then Like The Blind Man's home base.
In writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
Yes, in my mind, I went south and back in time. Two memories served as starting points for a short story I wrote that eventually became the novel. One was of my Kentucky grandmother as she emerged from a shed with a white chicken held upside down in one of her strong bony hands. I, a boy of nine and a 'city slicker' from Detroit, looked on in wonderment and horror as she summarily wrung the poor creature's neck. It ran about the yard frantically, yes incredibly, as if trying to locate something it had misplaced as if the known world could be set right again, recreated, if only that one thing was found. And then of course it died. The second memory was of lantern light reflected off stones that lay on either side of a path to a storm cellar me and my grandparents were headed for one stormy night beneath a tornado's approaching din. There was wonderment there too, along with a vast and looming sense of impending doom.
Why was writing Then
Like The Blind Man so important to you?
I wanted to prove to myself that I could write a novel and that it would be not just another ho hum piece of writing but something special. I think I succeeded in doing that, at least to some extent – and if I do say so myself. After discovering Orbie's voice, of course, the novel's importance for me took on an added dimension of fascination – having to do mainly with point of view – how a nine-year-old boy might experience, see, touch, taste, smell and/or hear a world strangely wonderful though troubled by storms – and how he might render the experience of it in the vernacular.
Where do you get your best ideas and why do you think that
is?
Many of my best ideas come only after exhausted efforts. It's as though I have to go through a process of trying and failing and then giving up altogether before out of the blankness of no ideas occurring whatsoever presto change-o one occurs. Go figure.
Any final words?
I guess I should be more circumspect in public and not say that it astounds me that so many people now have read Then Like the Blind Man and actually like it. In fact, there's been a surfeit of praise. I'm tickled of course but is this possible? Am I not dreaming a pleasant dream from which I'll awaken one day to discover the harsh truth, i.e., that the book is sub par, mediocre and yet another example of self published claptrap? I ask myself this. And I'm a little embarrassed, I guess. I mean I'm out there now, publicized in a way I'm only gradually getting to know. It's sort of like having been behind locked doors for years and years and finally finding a key of sorts and using it to open the door and stepping out into the sunshine - where everything is now exposed. The temptation, of course, is to crawl back, go back inside, shut the doors, shut out the over bright lights. Seems odd and a little disconcerting at times but I seem to have an abiding affiliation with the darkness, more so than I do with the light - it is the darkness that interests me, that causes me to explore. But that requires light, doesn't it? I need the light; but I love the darkness.
About the Book:
Nine-year-old Orbie already has his cross to bear. After the sudden death of his father, his mother Ruby has off and married his father’s coworker and friend Victor, a slick-talking man with a snake tattoo. Since the marriage, Orbie, his sister Missy, and his mother haven’t had a peaceful moment with the heavy-drinking, fitful new man of the house. Orbie hates his stepfather more than he can stand; this fact lands him at his grandparents’ place in Harlan’s Crossroads, Kentucky, when Victor decides to move the family to Florida without including him. In his new surroundings, Orbie finds little to distract him from Granpaw’s ornery ways and constant teasing jokes about snakes.
As Orbie grudgingly adjusts to life with his doting Granny and carping Granpaw, who are a bit too keen on their black neighbors for Orbie’s taste, not to mention their Pentecostal congregation of snake handlers, he finds his world views changing, particularly when it comes to matters of race, religion, and the true cause of his father’s death. He befriends a boy named Willis, who shares his love of art, but not his skin color. And, when Orbie crosses paths with the black Choctaw preacher, Moses Mashbone, he learns of a power that could expose and defeat his enemies, but can’t be used for revenge. When a storm of unusual magnitude descends, he happens upon the solution to a paradox that is both magical and ordinary. The question is, will it be enough?
Equal parts Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn, it’s a tale that’s both rich in meaning, timely in its social relevance, and rollicking with boyhood adventure. The novel mines crucial contemporary issues, as well as the universality of the human experience while also casting a beguiling light on boyhood dreams and fears. It’s a well-spun, nuanced work of fiction that is certain to resonate with lovers of literary fiction, particularly in the grand Southern tradition of storytelling.
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