Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, 2081

 Short film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, 2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is "finally equal...." The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

Featuring an original score by Lee Brooks performed by Kronos Quartet (Requiem for a Dream) and narration by Academy Award Nominee Patricia Clarkson (Far From Heaven, Goodnight and Good Luck), 2081 stars James Cosmo (Braveheart, Trainspotting),Julie Hagerty (Airplane!, What About Bob?) and Armie Hammer (The Social Network).

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Editorial Reviews

Considered the most realistic cop drama ever aired, Homicide: Life on the Street gives viewers a unique cops'-eye view of one of the most challenging jobs imaginable.

Created by Writer/Director Tom Fontana (St. Elsewhere, OZ) and Executive Producer Barry Levinson (The Perfect Storm, Oz) and based on David Simon's (The Wire) book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, HOMICIDE features TV's most powerful ensemble cast, including Richard Belzer (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), Emmy®-winner Andre Braugher (Thief, Frequency), Yaphet Kotto (Alien), and Ned Beatty (Deliverance) with guest appearances from James Earl Jones, Robin Williams, Steve Buscemi, Peter Gallagher, Chris Rock, Wilford Brimley, and other star actors.

HOMICIDE garnered two Emmy® Awards, three Peabody Awards, three Television Critics Awards, two Writers Guild Awards, and was named to TV Guide's "The Greatest Episodes in TV History" and "TV's Greatest Characters" lists.

Now, one of television's crowning achievements is available in its entirety on 35 DVDs and includes all 122 episodes spanning seven critically acclaimed seasons, the three Law & Order crossover episodes, and Homicide: The Movie.

David Kazzie interview

1: What is the most productive time of the day for you to write?

I have small kids, so I typically write late at night, after everyone's gone to bed. I find myself more productive at that time, although it makes for some rough mornings trying to get everyone out of the house. I'm not a morning person.

2: Do you start your projects writing with paper and pen or is it all on the computer?

I often will scribble notes by hand, but as soon as a project starts to take shape, I switch to the computer. I can type faster than I can write, and if I don't get something down out of my head, I'm liable to lose it.

3: What do you draw inspiration from?

I work more from the vantage point of story. I'm always on the lookout for a good story, largely because I'm always worried I'll never come up with another one. So, I guess I say I draw inspiration from panic.

4: Do you set goals for yourself when you sit down to write such as word count?

I really like to hit 1,000 words per day. For my next manuscript, I plan to shoot for 1,500 a day, but that might be pushing it a bit.

5: Are you a published or a self published author and how do you come up with your cover art?

Even though I have an agent, I chose to self-publish my debut novel. Since October 2010, I've written a number of viral animated videos (about law school, writing/publishing, among other things) that have gotten about 2 million hits, and so I wanted to take advantage of that exposure for my novel. We'll see if it works.

I knew the kind of cover I had in mind, but I definitely needed help. I found a cover designer out in California (GOS Multimedia) that did a great job making my vision a reality.

6: What drives you to choose the career of being a writer?

I don't really know. I don't know how good a writer I am, but I'm probably a better writer than I am anything else. Actually, I think the truth is that writing chooses you as a career. I doubt anyone in their right mind would become a writer if they had a choice to do something else.

7: Do you own an ebook reading device?

I've got a Kindle. I love it.

8: Who are some of your favorite authors and what are you reading now?

My favorite writer overall is probably Carl Hiaasen. Other favorites are Stephen King and Dennis Lehane.

Three favorite books:

1. The Stand

2. Mystic River

3. Lonesome Dove

I am currently reading The End is Now by Rob Stennett. A satirical look at the Rapture.

9: What do you think of book trailers and do you have any plans to have any?

I just saw one for The Passage by Justin Cronin that was really good. It was set inside the military compound where the vampires that ultimately destroyed civilization were engineered. It featured a soldier being attacked by viral after a power failure. Creepy. I've thought about a book trailer, but I'm not sure about going in that direction yet.

10: How did you come up with the title of your latest book?

My book is about a stolen lottery ticket, so the name The Jackpot seemed to fit really well. Plus, I've noticed books and movies that are called "The [Something]" often do well, so I've got this attraction to these titles. The Godfather, The Matrix, The Departed, The Town, The Firm, The Client, and so on. I think people respond to clean, short titles. That said, I realize there are probably fifty examples of crappy movies or books with that name template.

11: What are you working on now that you can talk about?

Just starting outlining a new thriller. Plus ideas for a number of other books. 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Jackpot-ebook/dp/B0051UAU4K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1306029362&sr=1-1

Keith B. Darrell Interview

1: What is the most productive time of the day for you to write? 

I find I’m most creative at night. I think the fact it tends to be quieter at night, with fewer distractions, makes it more conducive to writing. When the phone has rung for the final time that evening, the neighbors have gone to sleep, the street noises have faded, and the Witching Hour has passed, then the gremlins of my imagination can be unleashed. 

Someone once tried to explain to me that nocturnal creativity was tied to theta waves, but my money is on the gremlins.

2: Do you start your projects writing with paper and pen or is it all on the computer?

In the olden days, I would write in longhand or by typewriter, but these days I prefer my ubiquitous laptop. Judging from the chicken scrawls that pass for my handwriting, I was most likely destined to be a doctor, not a writer, so I run the risk of not being able to decipher my stories if I write them with pen and paper.

3: What do you draw inspiration from?

Stories are based on a coalescence of theme, plot, and characterization. I may see a social issue I feel more people need to become aware of, or view from a different perspective, so I might craft a story based on that theme. Other times, I may have an epiphany for a great plot and write around that. But I think the best tales come from creating well-crafted characters, placing them in a situation, and letting them act out the story. If your characters are truly well defined, the scenes almost write themselves, and the author reverts to taking dictation from his characters.



4: Do you set goals for yourself when you sit down to write such as word count?

Absolutely not. I believe a story is like Goldilock’s porridge: it must have just the right amount of words; not too many and not too few. Too many authors ruin good stories by padding them to fill up pages to reach some arbitrary length. It’s not the number of words but the impact of the tale on the reader that is the mark of a good story. A flash fiction piece may be so moving and thought provoking that the reader is still thinking about it weeks later, whereas he may not recall the last chapter of a novel he read a week earlier. 

If you’re writing fiction, you are, by definition, a storyteller. A story is not judged by its length by how it affects the reader and how memorable it is.

5: Are you a published or a self published author and how do you come up with your cover art?

My print books and eBooks are published through my publishing imprint, Amber Book Company. I do all of the cover design for my books. For my print books, I usually use photography since I cannot draw stick figures. For example, for Issues In Internet Law, the cover is a photo of a dog, seated at a computer typing in a singles chatroom (“on the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog”). For my anthology  Randoms, I used a random assortment of leaves of the front cover, and shaped them into the form of a giant leaf for the back cover. Shards, my second short story collection, has a stunning visual of shards of glass projecting toward the reader.

For my eBooks and eStorybooks (single short story eBooks), I still design my own covers but license stock illustrations, which work better than photographs when the covers are reduced to thumbnails online. 

6: What drives you to choose the career of being a writer?

I’ve had many careers throughout my lifetime, including stints as a reporter, stockbroker, attorney, entrepreneur, retailer, web designer, real estate agent, ad rep… life is about experiences, and I think the more life experience you garner, the more you will have to write about. But there are two components to being a writer: the art and the craft. The craft is an objective set of rules; it can be taught and can be learned. But the art is intrinsic to the soul of the writer. This is where the creativity flows from, and one is either born with printers ink in his  blood or not. 

7: Do you own an eBook reading device?

I produced all of my eBooks and eStorybooks formatted both for Kindle and EPUB, so I read on Kindle and several EPUB readers, including Adobe Digital Editions and a great e-reader widget by Opera. My books can be read on Kindles and Nooks, and on various EPUB apps for smart phones. Later this year, I will be adapting many of my works as podcasts, too.

8: Who are some of your favorite authors and What are you reading now?

My primary genre is speculative fiction, so Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman come to mind. As a child, I read all the popular SF authors: Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Kornbluth… as well as the classics: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ernest Hemingway, Guy de Maupassant, D.H. Lawrence, Anton Chekov, J.D. Salinger, George Orwell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Dante Alighieri, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Carlos Castaneda… there are too many to list. But in my anthology "Randoms", I explained: “My writing is a reflection of my muses. From Dickens I learned how to create memorable characters and tell a story. Like Hemingway, I believe in using simple, declarative sentences. O. Henry instilled in me a deep appreciation for the effective use of irony and a resolute belief that a short story should be … short. Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and Douglas Adams erased the boundaries of my imagination while showing that a sense of wonder can be accompanied by a sense of humor. e. e. cummings gave me permission to break literary rules, while Rimbaud encouraged me to go against tradition, as I push the envelope of speculative fiction. And the Marquis de Sade taught me that it’s O.K. to write nasty words and have impure thoughts if they express an underlying philosophy.”

Right now, my reading list includes Neil Gaiman’s :The Grayeyard Book” and three large volumes of short stories.

9: What do you think of book trailers and do you have any plans to have any?

I’ve seen a few good ones but most are slide shows with background music and alternating text slides that make me feel as though I’ve warped back to the era of silent films. I’d love to produce some trailers for my “Halos & Horns” series of fantasy novels, but to do it properly, based on the quotes I’ve received, is way out of my budget. I’ve also read some preliminary reports that trailers do not increase sales, so I’m going to hold off on them for the present.

10: How did you come up with the title of your latest book?

I’m not sure what my “latest” book is. This month (May 2011), I published “And A Child Shall Lead Them ” (Book 2 in the “Halos & Horns” series) and sent “Shards” to the printer; published “Paved With Good Intentions” (Book 1 in the “Halos & Horns” series) as an eBook; published 34 short stories and one novella for Kindle; and am currently writing a Young Adult novel, a SF novel, and the third “Halos & Horns” book, so I’ve come up with quite a few titles this month.

11: What are you working on now that you can talk about?

I think my passion has become “Halos & Horns”, so I’ll be writing the third book, “To Hell in a Hand Basket”, this summer, taking the characters in a completely new direction. I have some very exciting stuff planned  that will surprise the fans of the series. I’ve been challenged by some author-friends to write a Young Adult novel and I’m outlining that right now. It will be titled “The 25th Hour”, revolving around a high schooler whose days have an extra hour he uses to aid those around him. I’m also writing a time travel novel that is taking much longer than I had anticipated, due to the research involved.

LINKS:
http://keithbdarrell.blogspot.com/
www.KeithBDarrell.com
TalesForSale.com

Connor Dix Interview

1: What is the most productive time of the day for you to write?

So far, my most productive time is in the evening, from 7:00 to about 10:00, or on the weekends as soon as I wake up. If this was a full-time job (fingers crossed) it could be any time of day. I like having a laptop so I can get started anywhere, anytime. If I had to sit at a desk in one spot every day I would never get anything done.

2: Do you start your projects writing with paper and pen or is it all on the computer?

It varies, all depending where I am. Most of the time I’ll write something down, and try to flesh it out from there. I want to get a notebook for outlining, my ideas come better handwritten. When I type the outline it feels like I’ve already written the story and that’s no good. I can’t get into it.

3: What do you draw inspiration from?

I draw inspiration from every day life. Without thinking about it, my brain takes a snapshot of something, anything and says “Hey! There’s a story here!” I am just about to start a short horror story called The Men’s Room that I came up with when I walked into the bathroom at work and the lights were off. It was jarring and the story came to me in about two seconds. I went back to my desk and wrote the outline on scrap paper. I think it’s going to be good.

4: Do you set goals for yourself when you sit down to write such as word count?

I never have any goals. Some days, or nights, it’s just not there. The only thing I really set out to do when I start writing is finish the scene. I don’t try to sit down and finish a certain number of words, I think that would actually slow me down.

5: Are you a published or a self published author and how do you come up with your cover art?

I am a fully self-published author. From the first word or the outline to the Word file I save and upload to Kindle or Smashwords, it’s all me. For cover art, I use J. Simmons Illustration. It’s a good fit and the covers have really turned out well. He just went freelance and it’s amazing how it’s taking off. Check him out: http://www.jsimmonsillustration.blogspot.com

6: What drives you to choose the career of being a writer?

That’s easy: my head is full of stories. The problem is that I have a day job and I can’t get them out fast enough.

7: Do you own an ebook reading device?

Oh yeah. I own a Kindle that my wife got me for Christmas and I absolutely love it. Before that, I had the app on my Android phone and really enjoyed it. I have worked my way through a lot of classics on the Kindle and Kindle app. I’d like to reformat them, a lot of them are really hard to read because of the terrible formatting.

8: Who are some of your favorite authors and What are you reading now?

My favorite author is Cormac McCarthy. I’ve read a handful of his books and am determined to read them all. The man really paints a good, violent picture and I can’t get enough of it. I’m also a huge Robert B. Parker fan and I like to read or listen to an Elmore Leonard book every year.

9: What do you think of book trailers and do you have any plans to have any?

I don’t really have anything to say on book trailers. I never watch them. I like to read on the Internet, not watch videos. I have some kind of annoying mental block. But, that being said, if you know of any that are awesome, I’d be willing to check them out. Change my mind, I’m just stubborn. I honestly can’t say if I’d ever do one or not. Book trailers are weird to me and totally off my radar.

10: How did you come up with the title of your latest book?

My latest book, the novella Dead Hooker I came up with for the shock value and I was hoping it would look good on a cover. I wanted it to be a title that got your attention right away. The story is very fast paced, action-packed and a little frightening.

11: What are you working on now that you can talk about?

Right now, I just published the novella Dead Hooker, which is a story in the Clark County Series that started in Bad Case. It’s actually a short story that leads into the sequel to Bad Case, which I hope to have out next year. I’m also writing a fun horror short story called The Men’s Room, wish I hope to be as terrifying on paper as it is in my head. I have the outline started and the title for my next full-length book, but I have to keep it to myself. I feel like it is original and I’d like to unleash it all at once.

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