How/why did you start to write?
That’s a good question – I really can’t remember not writing. From my early banging on my mother’s typewriter to my first crayons; I think I was always trying to write if not actually writing. I used to make up poems and stories all the time in elementary school, too.
How did you become an author?
When I was eighteen I was obsessed with getting published in a literary journal called Pearl Magazine (Anais Nin started it in the 1970’s) but they wouldn’t print one single adjective I’d committed to paper. I feel like I became an author when, three years later, they published my poem, Waiting for Noah.
What was your first published piece?
My first prose piece was a mock-ponographic story called Meat Man – I’ll let you imagine what it was about – Let’s just say veal cutlets were involved and it was very funny.
Where was it published?
Genre (the Comp Lit department’s journal at CA State Long Beach U.) It was the most hotly contested story in the magazine.
How long ago?
Twenty-six years ago.
What did you do before embarking on your writing career? Was it an asset to your writing? How?
I’ve always worked in libraries, as a clerk, or assistant – I got my Masters degree and now am a librarian professionally. It certainly helped being around books and people who love reading.
What inspires you?
Kindness.
Please share one of your successful author platform building techniques:
Friend everyone on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, LibraryThing, Goodreads, etc. Bug them constantly when you have work coming out.
Parting words
Your audience already exists: you need to get your work out there so they can find you. Submit, submit, submit!
Blurb:
"If There's A Heaven Above" takes the reader on a tour of the Southern California demi-monde goth scene of the mid-1980s, as seen through the eyes of club-kid, Matt. Andrew Demcak combines innocence with experience, sex and drugs, Love and Rockets, with just the right touch of poetry. It is a thrilling ride along the freeways and turntables of that era: when AIDS was new, Reagan was King, and hope was a wounded kitten, cared for by the creatures of the night. - Eric Norris, author of Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale of Two Poets (Sibling Rivalry Press)
Links:
Author website
Poets & Writers profile
