Monday, November 11, 2013

Author Spotlight of the week!!! Max Shenk


Bibliophile Book reviews recently sat down with up and coming author Max Shenk. Our interview with him is below:



BBR: What is the name of your latest novel?
Max: Meeting Dennis Wilson (serialized novel in seven installments)

BBR: Are You an Indie Author or Traditionally Published?
Max: I am an independent author who chose to go this route because I wanted to have (relatively) complete creative control over the book, from editing to design to publication and marketing. I felt like it was the best way for me to learn from the inside how this business works (or doesn’t work). It feels right to do it this way. I’m glad I did.


BBR: When did you first know that you wanted to be an author?:
Max: Literally as long as I can remember. I used to produce homemade newspapers when I was little: typewritten articles about baseball players, with their baseball cards stapled to the pages as illustrations. I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I don’t ever remember NOT enjoying it and doing it.

 
BBR: Name a book (or a few) that were most influential to you?
Max: Walden by Henry David Thoreau; Thoreau’s journals; Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey... all three of those are deep and beautiful in the same way.

The Marx Brothers Scrapbook by Groucho Marx and Richard Anobile is laugh-out-loud funny and taught me how subjective the truth can be (it’s an oral history of the Marx Brothers, and every voice in the book seems to contradict every other one in some way).
You Know Me, Al by Ring Lardner

The Years With Ross by James Thurber.

The funniest book I’ve ever read is a Dover edition of Mark Twain’s story The Jumping Frog, which presents the story in Twain’s original English, then a French translation, and Twain’s re-translation back in English. It’s one of the few books that I ever laughed so hard reading that my face hurt.

And, of course, I was influenced by nearly every book I’ve ever read about the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson, most notably (and relevant to this project) Jon Stebbins’ biography of Dennis Wilson, The Real Beach Boy, which gave me an idea of what Dennis was like... important when I wrote the actual “meeting” chapters for book seven! Also Domenic Priore’s Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! which like the Marx Brothers book is a scrapbook, and gave me the idea for infusing my work with concocted “articles” and other documents to give it “veracity.”


BBR: Who are some of your Favorite Authors?
Max: Thoreau; Edward Abbey; John McPhee; Garrison Keillor; James Thurber; Mark Twain; Jimmy Breslin; Ring Lardner; Miller Williams; Shawn Kerivan; Anne LaMott. Among others.


BBR: What is playing on your iPod lately?:
Max: I made a playlist of songs that are referenced in my book, and a lot of those tracks come up on the shuffle: some Beach Boys, a lot of classic soul, and a bunch of 70s AM radio hits (the Raspberries, solo Beatles, etc etc) Also the new remaster of Dylan’s SELF PORTRAIT, Terrell Stafford’s THIS SIDE OF STRAYHORN and a ton of classic jazz. Oh, and the new Beach Boys boxed set MADE IN CALIFORNIA.


BBR: Do you have any works in progress?
Max: Yes. A follow-up to MEETING DENNIS WILSON which follows the characters into adulthood. Working title: REBECCA.


BBR: Where can we find you on Social Media?
Max: My work and I are all over Facebook. I have a Facebook page (user ID maxshenkwrites), and there’s a page for the book (meetingdenniswilson), but I’ve also created pages for the characters in the book, so readers can actually friend and interact with Margo (ledoux67) and Brian (brianpressley14) and Christy (christyswims) and Kathy (mkkellyrn), as well as, believe it or not, Christy’s daughter and a few other characters from other works. It’s fun and helps me get story ideas and gives me practice writing in the characters’ voices... important because voice, in my work, is everything.


BBR: What advice can you share with other authors about the writing industry?
Max: (1) Whatever else you do, just write. That’s the most important thing.
(2) I published on Createspace (Amazon’s self-publishing platform) and Kindle. Both of these platforms required me to stretch myself in so many ways beyond the actual writing: design, promotion, marketing, etc etc. I really think doing it this way is the best way to learn how it works. There’s ample opportunity to really make mistakes, and that’s good, because there’s no better way to learn than by making mistakes.
(3) Don’t think of it as an “industry.” The best thing about books and writing is the INDIVIDUAL connection you make with a reader. In the end, that’s the most important thing. Think of readers in the singular and always try to make a connection.


BBR: Would you consider writing outside of your current genre?
Max: I don’t even know what my genre is... the whole thing is blurry to me.  I guess my answer would be that I would never limit myself or my work by considering ONLY writing in a single genre. How’s that?


BBR: If you could meet anyone dead or alive… who would it be?
Max: I think if I could meet or could have met anyone, dead or alive, I would have wanted to have seen the Beatles in the Cavern or the Star Club before they really broke through... back when they were just a rough-edged bar band. At a job where I worked once, a woman from Britain told me that she grew up in Liverpool and that she and her girlfriends used to go see the Beatles play lunchtime gigs at the Cavern before they hit it big. It’s the most jealous I’ve ever been of someone else’s life.


BBR: If you could visit any city in the world, where would you go?
Max: The great European cities: Paris first, then London, then Vienna.


BBR: Do you have a favorite quote?
Max: Two of them:
“What is truth? I don’t know, and I’m sorry I raised the point.” ~ Edward Abbey
“You know, I’m not in music to make money. If I wanted to make money, I know what to do.” ~ Miles Davis


BBR: Is there anything else you would like your readers and fans to know?
Max: That I love these characters and my main interest in writing about them is to be true to them and their voices. I won’t ever sell out or produce anything about these characters that doesn’t ring true.










                              Bibliophile's Book Review:




Meeting Dennis Wilson by Max Harrick Shenk

Review by A.C. Haury


Overall Rating: 4/5 stars


Synopsis: 

In Book One of  Meeting Dennis Wilson, we meet the characters and find out what they want: 16-year-old protagonist Margo wants to meet Dennis Wilson... Scott, her boyfriend, DOESN'T want her to... Brian, the narrator, wants Christy, and Christy, his girlfriend, wants Brian to not want her quite so FAST... among other things. 

Review: 

Meeting Dennis Wilson is the first book in a series of seven. This was a fun read that immediately brought back memories of yesteryear when the Beach Boys ruled the airwaves. This is a fun, breezy read that is perfect for a warm afternoon in the sun or a day at the beach. I can't wait to read the rest of the series. I recommend this to anyone who loved the Beach Boys, but it is also highly recommended to anyone who wants an enjoyable summer read. 
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