What made you take the leap to become an author? What was that pivotal moment?
Although most of my college education was technical in nature, I noticed that when I took a Liberal Arts course, I had a passion for literature, language and writing. And when my experiences as a pilot started to grow, I thought I might like to write about them someday. Back in the 90s I enrolled in a fiction writing class at the University of Chicago. Our teacher was brilliant but a hard taskmaster just the same. If she liked your work, you got invited to read some of it in front of an open mic at the Woodlawn Tap in Hyde Park, Chicago, on Sundays. I had written a short story about going back to Camden, Maine, where my father was from, and traipsing through the little cemetery and seeing all the names on the tombstones of my relatives, whom I never knew. The famous poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was from Camden, and the story I heard growing up was that my grandmother and Ms. Millay went to grade school together. Well, part of my story included lines from Millay's famous poem, "Renascence." In the audience was the father of one of my classmates who was from Jamaica. As I was reciting the words of the poem, my teacher noticed that this gentleman was mouthing all the words out loud. Afterwards he told her that, growing up in Jamaica, in English class, the students were required to memorize every line of this 18-page poem. He hadn't heard or thought of it in years, but when I started reading, it brought back a flood of memories. My teacher related this to me afterwards and said, "That is the power of writing, you never know how your words are going to affect someone." I never forgot that.
What do you hope your book will do for others? I hope the universal themes of Sticks in the Clouds will resonate with a wide audience on a uniquely personal level. You don't have to know a thing about aviation to relate to this story. Describe your writing process. How did you get to the 'finish line'? I would always write freehand first, with pen and paper. That allowed for a more free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness process; I was free to scratch things out and write in the margins. It was a bit messy at times, but then the first transfer to the word processor became the first draft, and I would begin to see things more clearly and make corrections. Writing is an active discipline, you are in control, but it is also a passive one. With a bit of luck, the creative process takes over and your characters become the ones in control. I didn't "get to the finish line" until many editorial drafts were completed. Much more than I could have imagined at the start. It's true that you're not finished when there's no more to add, you're finished when there's no more to subtract.
Who is your favorite author and why? I've loved Ernest Hemingway ever since high school. His dedication to writing was so profound, and he lived such a life of travel and adventure. Of course, like every writer, not all his work was brilliant, but all you had to do was keep reading, and the brilliance always came back.
What is the biggest regret in your life?
Biggest regret? I have no regrets. I have made many mistakes that made my life a lot harder than it could have been. But I know that, before we can get really good at anything, we have to make hundreds, even thousands of mistakes first. So, mistakes are actually good things in disguise. Besides, I don't think having an easy life is the reason we're here in the first place.
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