 Andy Gavin studied for his Ph.D. at M.I.T. and founded video game company Naughty Dog, Inc. at the age of fifteen, serving as co-president for two decades. There he created, produced, and directed over a dozen video games, including the award winning and best-selling Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter franchises, selling over 40 million units worldwide. He sleeps little, reads novels and history books, watches media obsessively, travels, and of course, writes. BRIAN: Andy, welcome to the Underground. It’s a pleasure to have you here. I must admit, you’re one of the most fascinating guests we’ve had here at the Underground. You’re a very successful software developer, but what went through your mind that made you take up writing? ANDY: From at least high school on I always intended to write a bunch of novels. Work just got in the way. And the thing about making games is that you can no longer do it mostly by yourself. These days, most games are big teams of over a hundred people, with budgets over 50 million dollars. All that means that it’s not about your creative expression (most of the time), but about getting it done, well, on time, and on budget. And the roll of team lead is largely about firefighting and resource (achem...people) wrangling. So, I really wanted to focus directly on the creative aspects. Dozens of story ideas have been bouncing around in my head for years, and I felt it was time to let a couple of them out. BRIAN: These days readers often roll their eyes at the thought of yet another vampire novel. Yet, in Darkening you made vampires fresh again by returning to their mystical roots. What led you to write a vampire novel for your first book? ANDY: There are two answers to that, the visceral and the cerebral. With The Darkening Dream, the visceral part was this image I had – and some might consider me disturbed – of a dead tree silhouetted against an orange sky, a naked body bound to it, disemboweled, and bleeding out. The sound of a colossal horn or gong blares. The blood glistens black in the sunset light. Bats circle the sky and wolves bay in the distance. But sacrifice isn’t just about killing. It’s a contract. Someone is bargaining with the gods. And on the cerebral side, I've always been a huge vampire fan and I've read and watched a large percentage of the oeuvre. But also as a history buff I wanted to write a supernatural story that was more grounded in real history and legend. I'm always thinking, "that could have been so much better if they didn't make up the historical backstory" so I started with the villains. What kind of ancient evil creatures might still be around? What do they want? And what legitimate human reason would they have to destroy the world (Buffy-style)? I don't exactly answer the question in TDD, because the motives of 5,000 year old baddies should be mysterious. But trust me, they have a plan, and the sheer audacity of it will literally shake the foundations of the heavens. BRIAN: The occult, magic, mystical and religious references abound in Darkening. While I was reading I kept wondering how much of this was research-based and how much was coming from your imagination. ANDY: In constructing The Darkening Dream I wanted the meta-story to play off conventional tropes. Broadly, a cabal of ancient supernatural beings has sent one of their number to recover an artifact needed to destroy the world. And surprise, it turns out a group of teens are all that stands between them and Armageddon. How much more Buffy can you get? But that’s just the high level. I also wanted to ground this preposterous scenario in real history and legend. So as a methodology, in designing my array of supernatural beings and occult practitioners I turned to historic sources. Before our modern science and technology rendered magic quaint, it was the domain of religion and superstition. Of belief. And each spiritual and magical system has its own framework. Proponents wrote out of certainty, out of faith. I merely dig up their writings and take them at their word. So in essence, it’s all researched, but I adapt it from real belief systems into those that work in a story framework.
 Susan Kaye Quinn grew up in California, where she wrote snippets of stories and passed them to her friends during class. She pursued a bunch of engineering degrees and worked a lot of geeky jobs, including turns at GE Aircraft Engines, NASA, and NCAR. Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist" and she doesn't have to sneak her notes anymore. Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle. Welcome, Susan! Katie: Having the ability to jack into people’s minds is a very interesting concept. Where did you come up with the idea for Open Minds? Susan: I wanted to enter an online 1st paragraph contest, but none of my current novels had a particularly zippy first paragraph. So I decided to make one up for a novel that hadn’t even been written! I had been playing around with the idea of a boy who was a touch-empath (and thus very isolated because he could know your deepest feelings with a touch) – I wasn’t sure if it was enough for a novel, but I thought it might make a great 1st paragraph. As I was mulling this while drifting off to sleep, an image popped into my head of a girl sitting in a classroom full of mindreaders – only she couldn't read minds. She was painfully isolated (like the boy) in a room that was dead silent, because no one used spoken words any more. I immediately got up, wrote the paragraph … and lost the contest! But a month later, I couldn’t get this girl out of my head. I had to write her story, and that became Open Minds.Katie: Kira has a hard time dealing with her new found powers at first. If you could jack into people’s minds and control them, what’s the first thing you would do? Susan: Freak out. Seriously, I think I would have a much bigger meltdown than Kira does. There’s a saying: We do not fear that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. This is certainly an idea that’s explored throughout the Mindjack Trilogy. Katie: I see you write a blog and various other forms of social media. What is your take on the amount of time an author should spend honing craft versus creating a platform? Susan: An author should spend the vast majority of their time on craft. Platforms are great, and I love social media, but it can easily sap away all of your time. It’s easy. It’s rewarding. It’s fun! But it’s not writing, and the most important thing you can do is create the intellectual property that will sustain your writing career. I’ve posted about this a couple times (ironic, I know!) - Writers Must Write First and Making The Donuts– and I don’t always practice what I preach. But I try. Mindjack#3 is siren-calling me from my plotting cork board right now, and after I finish typing this interview I will immerse myself in that.
 Chris Mendius is a Chicago resident, so it only makes sense that his novel, Spoonful, is set in the windy city. Once on the fringes of the drug world that his novel revolves around, Chris is now a happily married man. I'm excited to have Chris join us today for a few questions.
AB: Despite its sometimes humorous tone, Spoonful has a dark and depressing side to it. It was so real at times that I felt as though I was reading a piece of non-fiction. How much reality was there to the stories within Spoonful?
Chris: Well, the story in a work of fiction, and none of the characters exist in real life. That said, the authenticity you and other readers seem to experience was possible due to my familiarity with situations and people I did know in real life. The world I created for Spoonful illuminates an often distorted reality of our society, and that glimpse into that particular worldview is part of what people seem appreciate about the book.
AB: You had an uncanny ability to make me forgive the main character for his actions, no matter how wrong they were. I was rooting for him the whole way through. What did you do to make your characters so likable?
Chris: I knew guys Michael, so it wasn’t a stretch. There are a lot of scumbag junkies out there, but there are also more complicated, interesting dope fiends. They’re not trying to hurt anybody. They’re just trying to get what they need—which requires them to work outside the law and civilized society. I'm glad you found Michael likable. I like him. But I make no moral judgments when it comes to what my characters do. I'm just trying to tell a good story.
AB: Having cleaned up, was it hard to revisit that time in your life, or was Spoonful part of the process?
Chris: It's been more than a few years since I had anything close to the type of lifestyle of Michael and his friends. It's been well over a decade. The story is set in in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood in the late '90s during the Clinton dot-com boom. The general zeitgeist of that period seems a lifetime away from today, and personally, it feels like ancient history to me. But I do think it took the time elapsed and the subsequent changes in my life to allow me to gain the perspective I needed to express the atmosphere of the time and place as well as describe the drug use and brawling and other elements of the story in a way that would draw in mainstream readers. At the time I wrote Spoonful a few years ago, I enjoyed revisiting that world in the safe, vicarious way writing the novel offered me.
AB: When you wrote Spoonful, did you intend to convey a message, or did you simply have a story to tell?
 Hailing all the way from the shores of Cypress, the Underground is proud to welcome science fiction and fantasty writer Chrystalla Thoma. Welcome, Chrystalla! Katie: Rex Rising has such a unique premise: parasites have infected humanity with some interesting and disturbing results. How much research into the nature of parasites did you do to write Rex? Chrystalla: Parasites have interested me for a long time. I always mention Parasite Rex, by Carl Zimmer, as one of my inspirations and sources of information. It’s a great scientific book for the lay public. I read all the scientific articles I could find, and I was especially intrigued by two parasites which influenced the story of Rex Rising. The first one is Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite we humans often get from cats, and which can influence our behavior in startling ways, ways we are often not even aware of. The second one is Wollbachia, a parasite which transfers parts of its genes to its host and can completely change a population (of insects in this case), transforming all of them into females and only allowing the birth of females. In fact, the parasite takes over its host so completely (and its whole generation of hosts) that it cannot reproduce if it is not infected with Wolbachia – or in some cases it starts reproducing asexually – like the race of the Gultur in Rex Rising. Katie: The cover art for Rex is fantastic. Where did you get such an intriguing and highly professional cover? Chrystalla: Oh, thank you! I made this cover. I bought a stock image, cut it in half, added blue to the eye and the effect of scales on the cheek (with the help of my wonderful husband Carlos). A friend, Marion, taught me how to use Photoshop and I used it to create the titles. I am very glad you like it. Katie: The world you create for Elei is vast and robust. Algae ponds, giant mushrooms and the seven islands all draw us in to a new and exciting world. What did you use to help you envision the place where Elei lives? Chrystalla: I live in Cyprus – an island with almost no drinking water. It rarely rains and I know what a precious commodity drinking water is. That meant in my world water wouldn’t be used for cultivating edible plants. But the sea was around the islands, and I knew that certain algae are very nutritious. Spirulina, for instance, which is a blue-colored algae, was cultivated by certain African kingdoms but also by the Aztecs in ponds and lakes for food. As for the Seven Islands... Their existence and the nature of this isolated world in the ocean will be explored in the two sequels. Katie: The sequel to Rex Rising (Rex Cresting) is already out. This is a fast turnover for a sequel. While so many of us struggle with finding time for writing, what is your secret? How do you find time in a busy schedule to make writing a priority? Chrystalla: There are a couple of reasons for this quicker turnout, none of which are secret. One reason is that Rex Cresting is book two in the series, therefore the world-building, the characters and the idea for the story were already in place since book one. Another reason is that last summer I quit my full-time job due to health reasons and have been working as a free-lance translator ever since. This is a mixed blessing: in theory I can take a month off to write. In reality, if I have work, I may have to work day and night for a month to finish before the deadline the customers set and not have time to write a word of fiction. But, yes, in general I do have more time to write now.
 Praise of Motherhood may paint a picture of a young man trying to scrape together the last strings of his sanity, but don’t let the memoir fool you: Phil Jourdan is a multi-talented man with a wealth of knowledge. Phil is working on a PHD in Religion and Comparative Literature from the University of Warwick, is part of a grunge band called Paris and the Hiltons, writes the off-beat blog Slothrop and is the co-founder of an emerging literary website and writing workshop called LitReactor. AB: Thanks for joining us today, Phil. Let’s start by talking about your memoir, Praise of Motherhood. When did you decide to put your experiences into writing? Phil: The very night my mother died. Simple as that. She died, and I wrote. What else was I going to do? I wasn’t sleeping alone in a suddenly very empty house. That wasn't pleasant. The dogs were there just looking confused. I needed a way out, and I couldn't really kill myself without feeling horrible about it the next morning, so I wrote. I was 21, I had unfailing self-confidence, and my mother was dead. "I'll write about this, I guess. Tell people about my pain." Well, that's not quite how it happened, actually. I was 21, I had just lost my mother that evening, and yes, I was alone in her house. But the writing wasn't a "decision" and I never decided to put my experiences into writing. It was more something like this: "Good God, what am I going to do with myself to survive tonight?" And the answer was writing, but that only became clear later on. I wrote a lot of rambling pages that night. I kept starting over: "My mother died tonight, and like Camus, I cannot cry." "Mom's dead, by the way." And the opening line that stuck for a year or so before I decided to change it: "So my mother died and it was very sad." That felt honest. It was a very different book at first, and I'd say everything changed, as far as the writing is concerned, when I did decide to write a "book" instead of just typing away to forget the pain. AB: Praise of Motherhood contains a lot of scenes that are improbable at best, and often simply impossible. You leave it up to the reader to decide what’s real and what’s in your head, if it’s imagined or simply a good metaphor. Why did you decide to write the book in such a surreal way, and still label it a memoir?
 I first came in contact with Patrice Fitzgerald when I reviewed her book, Running. I began to follow this author via Facebook. Author, publisher, lawyer, mezzo soprano, I have met few who are able to match the energy level and creative talents of this up and coming writer and publisher. The first time I interviewed Ms. Fitzgerald was when I reviewed her book. You can find the previous interview here. Today my interview is with Ms. Fitgerald as CEO and founder of eFitzgerald publishing. Once again, I welcome Ms. Fitzgerald to the Underground. Kimberly: You have a varied and unique background. Could you tell us about it? Ms. Fitzgerald: I was a lawyer for fifteen years -- intellectual property law -- but always had a secret creative person inside trying to get out! I did freelance writing for magazines and online, and all the while I was writing novels and trying to get published. Kimberly: How did you get started in the e publishing business? Ms. Fitzgerald: I just finally decided to take my writing career into my own hands. Getting that first novel published, particularly since this is an election year, was critical. I couldn't wait any longer… and I didn't want to wait any longer, so I simply jumped in. And it's been thrilling ever since. Kimberly: Can you take us through the process? If I sent my novel to eFitzgerald publishing, what would happen next? Ms. Fitzgerald: First of all I should say that my publishing company, eFitzgerald, is booked up (ha! pun) for the rest of 2012. But when we get a new manuscript submitted, like any other publisher, we first read it to see if we think we can sell it. If the manuscript is accepted, it goes through at least two rounds of editing -- global, or "big picture" editing, for plot, characterization, conflict, or other issues that may need improvement, and then line-editing. During that process, we create a cover, in consultation with the author. Finally, we format the book for electronic publication, upload it, and voila… a new ebook is born! Kimberly: What are the pitfalls of e-publishing?
 Nathan Larson isn’t just the author of The Dewey Decimal System. He is also a musician, a producer, an artist, and a self-proclaimed “thought criminal.” He lives is New York City, which is also the setting of his post-apocalyptic novel. I’m excited to have Nathan with us today to answer a few questions.
AB: You’re obviously interested and involved in many different artistic venues. What made you move from visual and audio media, and try to write a book?
Nathan: The opportunity presented itself and I jumped on it. Had I not personally known Johnny Temple, who runs Akashic Press, it's quite likely I would have never thought to write a novel, particularly a "genre" type of thing. It came out of nowhere and I'm just so happy it did, it's like a bonus round for me.
AB: How long did it take you to write The Dewey Decimal System? Tell us a little bit about your writing process.
Nathan: I wrote this book over the course of perhaps 2 months, my wife was on bedrest, pregnant with our son, so I had taken some time off to look after her...this still left me with far more spare time than I'm accustomed to having, so in the extra hours I would write. Pretty much everything was written sitting in one chair, listening to either Steve Reich or King Tubby. Some of it was written at the NYP Library itself, in the very room about which I speak, so I could simply look up and make calculations as to where this or that was...I wrote fast and sloppy and had no plan, the rewrites then took another 2 months....so all told 4 months I'd say.
AB: In the world of publishing, I’ve found that connections are the most important way to get yourself noticed. Do you feel that your previous artistic ventures helped you secure a publisher?
 As a long time subscriber to the FundsforWriters newsletter, I had heard all about Hope Clark and her life as a writer. It was when I heard she had her debut novel released that I knew I had to contact her. Please welcome Hope Clark to the Underground. KATIE: First of all, for those few who don't know, you are the editor of the very successful newsletter and website FundsforWriters, one of Writer's Digest's best websites for writers. Where did you get the idea for FundsforWriters? HOPE: FundsforWriters was happenstance. At a ladies' writing group in Atlanta, in 1998, I was asked to speak about online writing, and how it differed from print. At the time I was working for the federal government, for an agency that handled grants and loans, but I wanted to write for myself, so I started pitching essays and book reviews to various sites. One of the editors I wrote for asked me to speak in her stead at this meeting, since she was afraid of crowds. Sometime during the presentation, the topic strayed to concern about being unable to afford computers, printers, toner, etc. I started advising them financially, mentioning contests and grants and such, and the emails started flooding in once I returned home. I asked a journalist I knew about how to start a newsletter, which was new territory back then, so I could consolidate my responses to questions, leaving me more time to write for myself. Unbeknownst to me, that was the snowball catalyst needed to start an avalanche, and FundsforWriters took on a life of its own, overtaking my fiction writing with this sudden interest by writers everywhere. After a couple of months, I had almost a thousand writers on board. I accepted fate's nudge, embraced it and went full speed forward. KATIE: Between the contests, ads, job postings and writing advice, FundsforWriters is full of information. How many hours a week do you dedicate to the upkeep of the information you send out weekly? How do you manage it with your busy schedule? HOPE: FundsforWriters is a daily effort. I work fulltime as a writer, probably half the time with FundsforWriters, a quarter with promotional efforts and freelance pieces, and a quarter on the novels. My children are grown, but I started this exercise when they were teens. I laid down the law at the time that writing was as important to me as anything on their social agenda. Today they are quite proud of what I've done. I'm also a night owl, so I'm in bed around 2-3 AM each night, and up around 10 AM. That's the clock that works best for me, and now that I'm full-time as a writer, I can manipulate my personal schedule. I put in about 50-60 hours per week, but when I need a day off, I take it. The only glitch is when I'm speaking at conferences and they ask me to speak early in the morning. KATIE: Agents and publishers are always looking for a writer's platform. You seem to be the epitome of the platform builder. What advice do you have for new writer's trying to build a platform?
 As a writer, teacher, blogger, husband, parent and much more, Andrew Cotto offers his insights into education, publishing and the role of authors today. Please welcome Andrew Cotto, author of The Domino Effect, to the Underground. Katie: The Domino Effect is a coming-of-age tail akin to Catcher in the Rye or A Separate Peace. Where did you get the idea for the story? Andrew: I've always loved coming-of-age stories, and those two you mention happen to be among my favorites. Oddly, the idea for Domino came to me not after reading such stories but after seeing the Spike Lee film, Do the Right Thing. Something about the effect that movie had on me made me want to tell a story that involved racial or ethnic strife, and I really jumbled a lot of my experiences into something that included both types of conflict. Putting an adolescent in the main role made the transformation a coming-of-age experience. Katie: The main character Danny has such a unique and realistic voice in this novel. Did that voice exist within or did you research to create realistic teenage interaction? Andrew: Thanks. Danny's voice really is the key to the narrative because he'd probably be too easy to abandon without that connection he establishes with the reader. I sort of conjured Danny's voice by tapping an array of voices I know intimately, including a certain amount of my own. Katie: You describe boarding school life so well. Have you attended boarding school or is this the result of in-depth research? Andrew: I'm not much of a research guy, so I tend to write about things I know already. I spent one year at a boarding school, Blair Academy in western New Jersey, and it was all I needed to create the setting, which really is Blair Academy in its physicality. Katie: You mention in your bio an MFA degree. Some authors think the MFA is the way to go if you want to publish. Others think authors can do just as well on their own. What made you seek out an advanced degree? Would you recommend it to those who want to be a published writer? Andrew: I'm a believer in an MFA if you are truly dedicated to growing as a writer. Being in school, with deadlines to meet, is important. It really tests your mettle. You also must endure criticism and learn how to use it. I don't think most writers can grow as much on their own. It also helps one find a community, as well as adding some credibility and focus to the pursuit. In the publishing industry, I believe it opens doors that may not be opened otherwise.
 I'm pleased to introduce Ali Luke, online blogger and author of Lycopolis. Ali lives in the UK and blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures. AB: I understand that you based the fictional online world of Lycopolis on your own experience with text-based role-playing. What inspired you to write a story about online gaming? Ali: For several years before starting Lycopolis, I had the kernel of a story in my head – about a group of players who summon a demon into their game, without realising the consequences it’s going to cause in the real world. I wanted to write about the (sometimes slightly odd!) relationships we form online, and explore the boundaries between the real, the virtual, and the imaginary. Online gaming was a big part of my life in my late teens, and it seemed like a great fit. On a broader level, I'm interested in how digital media is opening up storytelling and publishing to more and more people: fan fiction, games, forums, ebooks ... there are so many great possibilities compared with twenty years ago. AB: Are you still involved in the online gaming community? Ali: Sadly not, because I’d never get any productive work done! AB: Your characters make up an eclectic cast. Did you base them off of people you know, or did you summon them up from your imagination? Ali: None of them are based on anyone real. I’d say that all of them carry some aspects of me (even the less-than-nice characters...) and I’m sure that’s the case for every author. After all, writing fiction is about getting inside people’s heads, and the only head we have access to is our own. AB: How long did it take to write Lycopolis? Was it your first attempt to pen a novel?
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