Mark Connelly was born in Philadelphia and grew up in New Jersey. He received a BA in English from Carroll College in Wisconsin and an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His
books include The Diminished Self: Orwell and the Loss of
Freedom, Orwell and Gissing, Deadly Closets: The Fiction of Charles
Jackson, and The IRA on Film and Television. His
fiction has appeared in The Ledge, Indiana Review, Cream City Review, Milwaukee Magazine, and Home Planet
News. In 2014 he received an Editor’s Choice Award in The
Carve’s Raymond Carver Short Story Contest; in 2015 he received Third Place in Red Savina Review’s
Albert Camus Prize for Short Fiction. His novella Fifteen Minutes received
the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize and was published by Texas Review Press in
2005.
Mark’s latest book is the literary fiction/humor/satire,
Wanna-be’s.
With his new girlfriend – a soccer
mom with a taste for bondage – urging him to “go condo,” failed screenwriter
Winfield Payton needs cash. Accepting a job offer from a college friend, he
becomes the
lone white employee of a black S&L. As the firm’s token white, he poses as a Mafioso to intimidate skittish investors and woos a wealthy cougar to keep the firm afloat. Figure-skating between the worlds of white and black, gay and straight, male and female, Jew and Gentile, Yuppie and militant, Payton flies higher and higher until the inevitable crash. . .
lone white employee of a black S&L. As the firm’s token white, he poses as a Mafioso to intimidate skittish investors and woos a wealthy cougar to keep the firm afloat. Figure-skating between the worlds of white and black, gay and straight, male and female, Jew and Gentile, Yuppie and militant, Payton flies higher and higher until the inevitable crash. . .
Praise for
Wanna-be’s:
This book right here! What can I
say about Winfield Payton...is he the most unlucky pasty or most unlikely fall
guy...what a schmuck...I laughed so hard at this,for this guy....with this
guy....every character described in this book will immediately remind you of a
real life joker in the in the 24 hour news cycle on all of the Major networks
and cable television channels regurgitating skewed facts benefiting them and
lining their pockets....it's hip and fresh writing which could easily become a
HBO series....or Starz..maybe..anyway get this book....I laughed so
hard...almost popping my recent stitches from surgery...Mr. Connelly...thanks
for making my recuperation fun...this book is not for the faint of heart..or PC
sensitive readers...
-- Lynda Garcia Review
For More Information
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?
Teach, work out,
read, travel, conduct research on George Orwell (I’m writing my
third book about
him).
When did you start writing?
I started writing
poems and stories in junior high, but did not get anything published
until I was in
college.
As a published author, what would you say was the most
pivotal point of your writing life?
Getting stopped
in a restaurant by someone who recognized me from a magazine
bio picture. That was a pure ego rush for a struggling
grad student. More recently,
getting a
five-star review a week after Wanna-be’s
appeared on Amazon.
If you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your
next book, where would that be and why?
Ireland. Have to love the Old Sod.
If you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?
Work on my next
novel. I have about half it
completed. Three chapters have been
published, so I am eager to finish it.
Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done
yet?
San
Francisco, one of my favorite cities. I got a freelance job last year writing
computer games
for a San Francisco company but
alas all my work was done by
Skype and email.
Back to your present book, Wanna-be’s, how did you publish it?
My agent
considered it too short (50,000 words) to consider. After the first
chapter was
published in a magazine, I decided to self-publish on Amazon. This is
my fourteenth
book, but my first self-published one.
In writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
Episodes in the
book take place in New Orleans, New
Jersey, Chicago,
and Houston –
but these are places
I have been to, so I just relied on memory.
Why was writing Wanna-be’s
so important to you?
I enjoy satire
and tried to create a compelling character in Winfield Payton, the
ultimate
wanna-be. He is mashup of Bellow’s Tommy
Wilhelm in Seize the Day,
F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby, and Larry David’s Curb
Your Enthusiasm character.
Although the
book is satire and meant to be funny, I did want to express some serious
thoughts on
race, gender, political correctness, and culture. Sometimes a witty
scene can
communicate more than an essay.
Where do you get your best ideas and why do you think that
is?
My best ideas
came from actual events that I expanded, exaggerated, and dramatized, taking an
observation and turning it into a comic scene by adding dialogue – having
Winfield say things I just think about but am too cowardly
to express myself.
Any final words?
Satire is the mirror in which we
supposedly see everyone else but ourselves.
I just hope people who read the book recognize themselves now and then
and smile.
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