Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Tonight on, right on radio. Liz talks with Lee glute. Kinde the author of over 30 books, including you can to make this stuff up. The complete guide to writing creative nonfiction and the award-winning many sleepless nights, the world of organ transplants in 1991, he founded the magazine creative non-fiction. He was instrumental in creating the first MFA program at the university of Pittsburgh. He's known as the godfather of creative nonfiction and currently as a professor and writer in residence at a school for the future of innovation in society at Arizona state university.
Speaker 1 00:00:34 In the last part of the hour, Josh talks with Scott Ganis author, a very fine people it's fall 2016 in flyover country. And dude glicks mother has just died after a long battle with cancer, leaving behind a house in foreclosure, tens of thousands in medical debt and compounding psychological trauma. I was named between raw emotionalism, cutting satire and wild plights of imagination. Ganis is brilliant. They'd view novel builds to an unforeseen and chattering climax all. Listen more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 2 00:01:28 Hello Lee, are you there? Can you hear me now?
Speaker 1 00:01:31 Yes, I can hear you now. I am really sorry about the technical difficulties. What will happen
Speaker 3 00:01:38 Too? I don't know. I've done two other zooms today. It all worked out pretty well, so God knows what happened, but, uh, you know, technology is, um, kind of challenging if you're okay.
Speaker 1 00:01:51 It is what it is. Well, let's start the interview and you know, what I'm going to want to do is do another one at some point fairly soon so that we can do a whole interview about the bark. Um, let's just start real quickly with, uh, with your, uh, position as the godfather of creative nonfiction. And talk to us a little bit about what creative non-fiction is.
Speaker 3 00:02:15 Well, the easy way to describe creative non-fiction is just to say that creative nonfiction is true stories well-told and to get a little bit more in depth, it's a kind of a double it's a synchronization between communicating facts and using the literary techniques available to fiction writers, to all writers in order to make those facts, that information more compelling and more interesting.
Speaker 1 00:02:48 Well, your, your book, my last 8,000 days, uh, is certainly compelling. Uh, I very much enjoyed it was, I was 63. So I got a little bit of the aging piece, you know, I'm starting to think about that myself. So what got you thinking about this in particular? Um, why now and why this,
Speaker 3 00:03:14 Well, a couple of answers to that for one thing I have spent my entire life, I wrote, I've written a lot of books immersing myself for months and years with other people, um, in all kinds of different venues, um, like, uh, robotics, organ transplantation. I, uh, uh, the motorcycles subculture, I traveled for a year with a crew of nationally baseball umpires. I did all of that and that's really interesting to become a fly on the wall and become part of someone else's life in someone else's world. But I had never looked deeply into myself in the way, in the ways in which I looked into character into the characters of those other people I was writing about. So that's one thing I wanted to do something new and different. And the other thing that I think really brought me to the point where I decided that I was finally gonna write a memoir was, um, uh, I had a really lousy six 70th year.
Speaker 3 00:04:23 I mean, I have always fucked. I have always, um, um, fought the idea of me aging. And in fact, um, uh, after my 40th birthday, I asked all of my friends and relatives to, to, to not acknowledge my birthday anymore. I just wanted each day to pass by each birthday to pass like any other birthday. And, um, when I hit 70, however, lots of things kind of happened that made me become much more introspective about who I was. Um, my two best friends died that same year. Um, one leading up to my 70th birthday and one right after my 70th birthday, my mom, my deepest closest Boone companion who lived to 94 died five days before my birthday. And, and I broke, I had a long relationship which fell apart during that year. And I had a book, a book that I thought was gonna, um, maybe not change the world, but certainly, um, um, he long gait and elevate my literary status felt completely and totally part all through that 70th year.
Speaker 3 00:05:40 And I was pretty shaken. I was scared. I was nervous. I w um, about being 70 and not having a support system and not really where knowing where to go next. And I think all of us in many respects, whether you're 60 or 70 or 80, uh, start to get nervous, not just about the end of life. I didn't feel that I was, I didn't, I wasn't afraid of dying. I was afraid of not being productive, not having an identity, not being able to make an impact and more than anything else, not being able to work in a way in which I would feel accomplished and satisfied. And so all those things happened around that time. And, um, and I just felt okay, Lee, it's time to make a change. And the first change you're going to make is to do what you do, do best, do an immersion, but not doing an immersion and other people's lives, but take a deep solid look into yourself, which is what I did.
Speaker 1 00:06:47 I'm curious. Well, I know cause I've read the book, but I think our listeners might be interested in knowing what the significance of 8,000 days is as opposed to some other amount of days.
Speaker 3 00:07:00 Liz, I don't know you personally and I like you, but I'm not telling I think, um, um, I wanted that title, that title to be as intriguing as possible. And so, um, and so the, the answer to that question emerges as you, as you read the book,
Speaker 1 00:07:21 Uh, I don't want to give away the beginning or the end.
Speaker 3 00:07:25 No. Would you no way. Um, I want, I want my readers to feel compelled and curious and interested and, and, and move ahead from the absolute first sentence to the last 272 pages later,
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Although you have written some fiction, I'm correct about that. You've written some fiction, right?
Speaker 3 00:07:50 Yes. I have one novel one. Now
Speaker 1 00:07:52 I'm wondering what your choice was about creative non-fiction, uh, how you, uh, decided that that was going to be the path that you followed more than any other.
Speaker 3 00:08:03 Well, first of all, when I started writing creative non-fiction as a genre, as a label didn't exist. And so it was a process for me too, to kind of come to the, the idea that you could take your real life or other people's real life and dramatize it, and cinematize it so that it could be, um, it could be fascinating. And, uh, to, to other people, um, especially communicating information that other people wouldn't necessarily be interested in, but that you could do by, by, by, by, uh, embedding the information in stories. So that, so, so that was one thing. But the other thing is, um, I desperately wanted to experience the world to experience life like those early writers that I, uh, that I so admired, like Ernest Hemingway and, um, and Jack Kerouac, um, they plunged themselves into the world. And if there was anything more that I wanted to do, I did not want to closet myself for my entire life, writing poetry and fiction only I wanted to live life.
Speaker 3 00:09:21 And then I wanted to capture that like all kinds of new and different ways that people lived and, and, and orientations that they have. And so it was a combination I didn't, I wanted, I'd love to write, uh, and, and I wrote regularly and still do every single day for four or five hours, but I wanted to experience the world and, uh, and, and, and learn about all kinds of different other people in different values. And I thought that was the thing to do, to, to capture nonfiction like a reporter, and then turn it into a compelling, a suspenseful, uh, descriptive prose by using the techniques that other writers had available to them.
Speaker 1 00:10:13 Let's talk a little bit, uh, about, uh, in the book, you talk some about boredom and about loneliness, and I'm wondering if he could expand on that a little bit for our listeners
Speaker 3 00:10:30 Only minus for writers. I mean, we spend, I know, you know, this Liz, we spend tons of time, um, all by ourselves, in a room staring into a display, uh, or writing in a notebook, tapping on a, on a keyboard, maybe three, four, five, six hours. We don't answer the phone. We don't, we ignore email or at least we should. And we just kind of dive into our work, um, as if it's some sort of religion and, uh, and it's very difficult. And so you, so in my case, I had very, I had a very small, but, but, uh, support system. And, uh, when those folks died, they died on me, Liz. Um, um, I find my found myself. I'm all alone. I'm not completely alone. I knew people, but, um, but, but suddenly my work as much as I loved it, and as much as I was obsessed by it, wasn't a law enough to, to satisfy me.
Speaker 3 00:11:36 And I began. And, and I think I said before that I had a book that fell apart and suddenly, um, my world was pretty empty. My friends, my book, they were all gone. And, um, and there, I was pounding away on my keyboard every day. And, um, and I felt really closed in and isolated. And I think lots of writers feel that way. Uh, we all have our writing spaces, whether it's the basement or the attic or the kitchen, and we live our lives there. And we live our lives in the stories that we're trying to tell of others. And it could be a really empty feeling. And after those events of my 70th year, I felt that say that way I felt lost. I, um, and I, and I find, and I, for the first time I felt that my work was not enough for me that, uh, even if I could stay healthy and continue my work, um, I needed to, uh, I needed to, uh, have connections with others.
Speaker 3 00:12:40 Um, if I was going to be able to continue to be productive. And so I spent, uh, I spent a long year and a half maybe, um, uh, all, not necessarily all alone, but pretty much relying on myself, pounding away at my typewriter, look at my keyboard, looking for other right, other articles and essays and books to write and, um, trying to figure out what I was going to do next and how I was gonna do it and how it was going to change, not my work life, but, uh, my, um, my real life. And, um, and so it was, it was, it was at first day, um, depressing process that, that, that, um, led me to certain revelations that allowed me to make a trans formation, uh, from, from, um, from only the writer's life to a writer's life plus a real life.
Speaker 1 00:13:43 Well, and I'm afraid is wonderful as this interview is going, that I have to stop now because I have another interview in the second half. And I'm wondering if he would be willing at some point, uh, to come back again and we'll have a re interview that doesn't have these myriad technical difficulties. Would you be willing to do that?
Speaker 3 00:14:03 I would love it. It's um, uh, we haven't really had a chance to talk. I would love to talk with you. I'd love to read for you.
Speaker 1 00:14:10 Oh, that would be wonderful. Yes. Well, let's plan on doing that. I'll get ahold of Kim, I'll have my people call your people and, uh, and, uh, we'll take care of that. So I'm going to let you go for now and, uh, I'll be getting a hold of, of, uh, your, uh, publicists and we'll set up another time. I'm very sorry about the technical difficulties.
Speaker 3 00:14:34 Well, I'm sorry to, in whichever direction it was. And, um, um, I won, I was so delighted to be selected as a guest on, right on with, with you. And I hope I indeed, I hope we can arrange another time.
Speaker 1 00:14:48 I'm sure we can. Okay. I will let you go then. Thank you. So Leanne, have a good night.
Speaker 0 00:14:53 You too. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 2 00:14:55 <inaudible>.
Speaker 0 00:15:20 Hello, Scott, can you hear me?
Speaker 4 00:15:22 I can, can you hear me? I can hear you just fine. Wow. We were hands on us. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:15:27 Yeah. We're making progress. Okay. Well, Scott, if you are ready, you can begin with your first reading.
Speaker 4 00:15:37 As I Corinne through a stop sign onto highway 55, North Minneapolis main drag bisecting, a neighborhood famous for some of the most egregious red lining and predatory lending in us history, a car shaped like a hotdog, a Wienermobile skidded to a halt. It did not leave a trail of mustard. I swerved, tried to pass it, but then stump my brakes and saw, uh, why we were parked in the middle of the road. A few blocks West of downtown pumping signs and chanting hundreds of marchers clogged the street, dozens more stood with locked arms in front of me and the Wienermobile. I looked over at the driver. He shook his head, dug into a pocket beneath the red cursive of his uniform and sucked from a flask. He tipped toward me a peace offering. I cranked down my window, caught his toss swigged and locked it back to him. Proletarian solidarity. A random act of alcoholism. Two dies stuck behind a Saturday, March for social justice, one trying to get to work and one trying to get on. But the worst day of his life, maybe America wasn't doomed America is doomed an organizer blared from a Bullhorn. I recognize the voice before I felt the eyes. It was principal Schmidt, shouting down isms, and the cops had showed up to protect the isms.
Speaker 0 00:16:55 Very good though. Scott Ganis, is that how you say it? And that's okay. Reading from his debut novel. Very fine people. Scott Ganis is a former forklift operator from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His works appeared in various defunct, Midwest literary journals, and unviewed YouTube channels. He cycled between the floors of Brooklyn and couches and Minnesota. Welcome back to right on radio Scott.
Speaker 4 00:17:18 It's nice to be back, uh, different circumstances than the last time I was on right on radio. But, uh, it's great to be here.
Speaker 0 00:17:26 I want to ask you about the title. Now, the top of this book was brilliant and more so after I was reading the book, it, like I told you in the email, it took me a moment for me to realize those are reference to Trump. Could you talk about, uh, what's also an ironic joke joke as well that the batch of people, we find that those novel are awful. So, uh, I was wanting to talk about the title with the other tiles you had in mind while you were working on this. Yeah. So
Speaker 4 00:17:50 This novel originally started as the story of a museum security guard who was late for work. And it really had nothing to do with politics. At least the way I was thinking about politics at the time. And at that point, the name of the book or the story it started as a story was painting spade like flowers, which is a Vincent van Gogh quote. And it really had nothing to do with politics, but then the 2016 election happened and in Charlottesville and the unite, the right rally happened. And I started to make a connection between the story of a museum security guard in financial precarity and some of these larger trends we're seeing in the us politics. And it seems like a really useful vehicle into that story. And verifying people was still not the title of the book. It was the American carnage, and then it was the deplorables or something like that. But very fine people eventually came to the fore as sort of a way to tie up all of this in coherence together.
Speaker 0 00:18:57 You and I both share a similar work experience in a blue collar atmosphere, uh, that frowns, I think on people have left-leaning views or show a modicum of having a background in education that you it's kind of hard to get away with. Not caring on your tongue. Did your experiences reshape your politics in any way? Did it add content to the book?
Speaker 4 00:19:17 Yeah, I think for a lot of people, politics is not something they think about so much as experience day to day. For instance, if you're a person of color, if you're a working person who doesn't have a lot of money, it doesn't have access to healthcare. Doesn't have stable housing. Politics is just happening to you. So for much of my life, I felt like I was someone to whom politics happened. I wasn't a political actor. I didn't really have a sort of a political vocabulary growing up, but as I was able to go to college and was able to sort of transcend in a sense, um, my background as a forklift operator and as a person who was going to a liberal arts college, when my parents did not go to liberal arts colleges, I started to sort of make these connections and almost code switching away between the two worlds. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:20:15 For your publishing debut. Uh, I was wondering you talk about your experience working with ad ladle press. There are really interesting outfit. I think it's worth talking about them for a little bit.
Speaker 4 00:20:24 Yeah. So they're awesome. They are out of Dayton, Ohio, which is fitting, I think, uh, Dayton, Ohio is sort of like the very middle of the middle West. And this book is very Midwestern. Um, they do a lot of like horror fiction, a lot of transgressive fiction, a lot of sort of leftist and alternative fiction. And the day that I learned they were willing to take me on I'm now based out of New York. And it was literally the day that New York shutdown, like this was the day that they hadn't posed the lockdowns and everything just in a really insane day for like a personal triumph amidst, just widespread horror, which I guess to sort of like a metaphor for the last four or five years, but they've been amazing, especially given the circumstances, uh, taking on a former forklift operator for Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I have nothing but good things to say about them though. It has definitely been a disorienting experience. Uh, you know, no readings, I'm extremely glad I can be here, but this is definitely not how I thought my first book release and tour would be going.
Speaker 0 00:21:36 So let's dive into your book a little bit. There's a blending of truth and fiction. I gathered, I was doing a little background research about you trying to find different things online. I wonder how much of both makeup, very fine people. How close to the character of Jude Glick is Scott Ganis.
Speaker 4 00:21:52 The broad outline is very similar in that I lost my mother to cancer. I lost my home to foreclosure. I am, I identify as a failed stand-up comedian. So sort of those raw materials are very much part of me and part of the story, but it, and I am, I regret to say a former museum security guard, uh, but in sort of like teasing apart, these bigger themes, that is something that I didn't really do when I was experiencing foreclosure or when I was experiencing being a precarious museum security guard. Right. So in that way, I think Judah is a lot more politically advanced than I was when I was Judith's age.
Speaker 0 00:22:40 You mentioned in your email, the character, Jude Glick, really, he didn't kind of connect with you and tell you advent in the character of Stephen scheisse cop, which once again, overlooked it for a few times, I'm like shy. If you're a German speaker out there, you'll definitely read and seen how funny that is. Where did the idea of shy scoff originate?
Speaker 4 00:22:59 Yeah. So as I sort of transformed this book from the story of a guy who was late to work into something more overtly political, uh, as I was in my grad program and workshopping this novel, a lot of my peers said that like there needs to be an actual antagonist, like life itself is not enough of an antagonist to the rise of the president as antagonistic as he is to so many of us. And so many people like Jude that is not enough of an antagonist. And so I really thought about sort of what would my worst case scenario be if you know, I had gone to school with someone who is currently in the administration of the federal government. And I settled on Steven Miller who is sort of like the chief propagandist for our current president. And I just got to thinking like, what do the people who knew that guy think about not only him, but their own lives in connection to him, right? That's gotta be just like a hallucinatory experience. And so, as I developed and thought through what is the thing I most do not want to be, it would be someone like Steven scheisse cough that really started to give me the material for like, okay, now that I have sort of a carbon copy, uh, how can we make Jude more compelling? And how can we create, you know, actual obstacles outside of just life circumstances for him to overcome
Speaker 0 00:24:37 On the other side of it you had, and Eva Maya, this character who Jude works with in a book, he plays his role, he's pivotal then kind of giving direction his life. There's a great quote from the very beginning that I want to tell our audience that actually told my friend of mine who thought that it's really actually very profound. It's, it's not that you want to be somebody else. You want to be yourself on your own terms. And that for me, you have a quote at very beginning of the book that's outside. That that opens up the book. That's also very, so much of that. It came from me to embody the goal of Jude's existence for the remainder of the story. Was that how you saw him or wanting to see his path go?
Speaker 4 00:25:12 Yeah, I definitely came to that realization over time. It was not something I immediately sought to write a novel about or sought to sort of wrestle with or interrogate. But I eventually came to see the story of this novel, not so much about contemporary politics or contemporary political figures, but sort of about the emptiness of contemporary American life and the way that so many of us are performing our lives for an audience, whether that's on Instagram or Facebook or right on radio. Right. And sort of the way that politics has been really distorted by the way people always have to be on. And I think that quote speaks to I along in bed. I think a lot of people feel which is like, you don't always have to be on, you don't have to be a different person. You, there is a path forward we can find right. Where we can just let ourselves be. It's a little Buddhist, I guess, but I feel like that is not something I see a lot of, especially if you're on Twitter, 24 seven, uh, there's not a lot of people who are just being out there. And I think we're worse for that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:26:33 I think you're actually kind of hitting on something that's really important. Um, I thought this about, uh, about this, a lot of people who are maybe Instagram influencers who are very active on social media, so much of it is about trying to put yourself out there. And the, the appeal for people is trying to be genuine or authentic about what this person is trying to be one, the complete act it's fabrication. I mean, the whole attempt of trying to have these outlets that we use to try to be closer to people are actually have the complete opposite effect. That's kind of,
Speaker 4 00:27:00 Yeah. The name Jude Glick actually comes from a novel that no one's ever read or heard of by a guy named Budd Schulberg. It was called what makes Sammy run. And it was about a guy, uh, from the sort of like, uh, the Jewish ghetto in the lower East side of New York city in the twenties, uh, doing whatever he could to become famous and doing whatever he could to become an influential person. And he was willing to burn any possible bridge and that guy's name was Sammy Glick. And, uh, I read that book for a class and it always sort of stuck with me that the story of our current president in many ways is just someone with an insatiable urge to be the center of attention. And we all have to live with those consequences. And I think that is a story that is playing out across America, in, you know, microcosms, uh, certainly with social media and just sort of the way we don't actually connect with each other anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:28:04 Totally. Um, uh, so when I was reading through the book, we talked about this briefly, um, over the email about how I was, I kept thinking about David Foster Wallace and this quote that he had talked about trying people who try to come off as hip or cool by being very cynical and having a, kind of an outward passivism towards everything. When really it's just a, it's a guide, it's a veneer. We tried to put up to try to not to be human, to not to feel anything. It's a, it's a defense mechanism. And it was funny. I was thinking about this and then I came up to page 18 and you make a direct reference saying, I try to come up and try to mitigate my depression by references to David Foster Wallace. And I thought that was really funny that you, you had mentioned this somewhere in the midst of my thinking about this book.
Speaker 4 00:28:48 Yeah. David Foster Wallace was really on my mind as I was writing this, uh, David Foster Wallace is, you know, you're now it's embarrassing and tried to admit, but very influential writer to me, uh, that makes me a cliche white guy. And so it goes like, I guess, um, but Wallace was obsessed with this idea of authenticity and performance, right? Uh, infinite jest was about that. Many of his short stories were about that. And he was also obsessed with irony and the way that irony can sort of poison people and make them almost less human. And Jude is a comedian is very conscious of the fact that he uses humor as a way to make himself less of himself. Because to actually like sit down and feel what he's feeling is almost more horrifying than the dissociation that he can get through irony.
Speaker 0 00:29:47 I mean, there's that side to Jude that I thought was really something I can admit to relate to myself, this idea of real and gets the idea of wokeness or red pilling as being hypocritical as a means of trying to be woke and trying to be more real and more authentic to other people around me. Was this something you're conscious about while writing the character of Jude?
Speaker 4 00:30:08 It's difficult because personally I am very much in favor of wokeness and I feel like a lot of the rhetoric around the way we talk about anger, like political anger is sort of incorrect, right? Like white men are allowed to have a sort of anti-social anger. Like our current president has. Whereas something that Jude is shooting for is a more pro-social or a more righteous anger. And so what sets him off and what frustrates him is when he gets lumped in with scheisse cops, anger, right. Which is that antisocial anger. But at the same time, he's aware of the fact that like, it's not really for him to say that he's a good guy. And so these contradictions, he feels as someone who is really well-meaning and is really pro-social, but he doesn't quite have the vocabulary to feel safe or secure in that that is oftentimes why you don't say something about intersection ality or something out of critical race theory, and it will be spot on, but then he will undercut himself for even knowing that or saying that, or he will not feel that he should be someone speaking about that sort of theory.
Speaker 4 00:31:36 Right.
Speaker 0 00:31:38 Well we're so welfare's character, I mean, is that, we're all those other characters around him who have this anti-social anger you're referring to his anger is rather justified. Like, you'd feel like kind of a jerk to try to tell him you should stop being depressed. You stopped being sad all the time, knowing his background. It's hard for you not to want to say, like I get it. Okay. And that's the point, I think, as a reader, you're seeing this, you can't feel you've, you see as frustration, you ha you can help us empathize with them on our stand, but also can agree with his actions.
Speaker 4 00:32:06 Yeah. I think that's where this really became a political novel or a political satire, or however you want to, you know, stick it into a genre category is that, you know, there is this quote, the person was political and in many ways, Jude has every reason in the world to be upset. And what upsets Judy, but more what becomes sort of a meta anger is the fact that he feels someone like Steven <inaudible> does not have a right to be angry. You know, and Jude is siding with the underdogs who, to him and to me as just a left leaning person, uh, have that justifiable anger. But at the same time, anger is just a very dangerous emotional weapon. And it can definitely, well, it takes Jude into some unseemly places over the course of the book,
Speaker 0 00:33:02 Mehta self-loathing and citizens cynicism that makes it the dialogue from Jude and very fine people it's balanced by this wit and humor. And I think even this charm that this charisma that I think that just kind of exudes him at points, it's hard to push away and deny. Can you describe your process or the difficulty you had in trying to find a balanced tone while writing
Speaker 4 00:33:23 This was the single hardest part of writing the book, uh, even harder than in some ways, you know, finding a publisher and writing all of these different drafts. It was pinning down the tone of the novel. And when I started writing this a lot of the personal material, the things that were the backdrop to getting me to start writing this, uh, they were very new and very raw and they were still happening and I needed a little distance to modulate those feelings and to find a way to express the anger, but also to express joy, occasionally it express love and to express some of those pro social things. And the single comment that I got more often than not when I was workshopping these pieces in graduate school was that like the tone is disjointed and you need to find a way to blend it all together. And I'm not sure if I ever quite did. I think I got a lot closer than initial drafts, and I'm glad that it resonated as something that was sort of complex rather than just one note, but it was very, very hard to find a way to give credence to this anger and these feelings of depression, but not overwhelm the reader.
Speaker 0 00:34:45 I want to talk to you about that briefly too. There's that silical nature of, of depression. You demonstrate very well with you. That turns it's very inward. It's very self-directed and it's very self-absorbed. And I think at, in times that usually when you do that, your, your whole mental mental space is occupied thinking about your own problems, your own needs, and it usually pushes everyone away from around you. And I there's a character Addy who in the book attacks ju directly for those reasons. And it's a ruthlessly honest, and I thought that was such a powerful thing to, for you to do. And I was wondering, you could talk about that and that how you got into that space to try to find this and put it on paper the way you did.
Speaker 4 00:35:22 Yeah. I, I, I feel like this ties a bit into the different types of anger and the different types of feelings that are centered in the way we talk about politics. When it comes to white men, like white men are to feel anger, they're allowed to feel rage. They're, they're allowed to basically behave however they want. And it was very important for me to push back on that in the book, because Jude again is warranted to feel pretty bad, but that doesn't give you the go ahead to be a bad person, right? The whole, the whole point of the things he decides to do is that he wants to make the world a better place, or at least that's the story he tells himself. And so when his anger and depression, and self-loathing become a sort of thing that does affect other people and isn't advancing the goals that he thinks he wants to advance, then I thought it was really important for someone to call them out on that.
Speaker 0 00:36:29 Right. We have a little bit more time left. You're Scott. I want to give some time to ask you, what are you working on anything right now, or are you just trying to out there trying to promote this? What are you currently doing?
Speaker 4 00:36:41 Yeah, so I am working through two different projects. I'm not sure which one will be my second novel. Uh, one of them that is sort of a, it's kind of an apocalyptic story set in New York with a group of right wing Christian fascists who kind of take over New York city and how that affects just other people trying to live the day to day. Uh, and then the other project I'm currently working on is a book about sort of the failures of higher education and the tuition driven model. My day job is in higher ed. So I have a lot of negative opinions about the way things are going in higher education that shockingly, I guess I'm just not very creative, right? Uh, it's either always about fascism or it's always about like failing systems, but one of those will probably be my next novel. Is
Speaker 0 00:37:42 There a spot where people can find you online?
Speaker 4 00:37:44 Yeah. So you can find me at scooter. Dannis on Twitter. Uh, here I am. I'm railing against social media and yet I'm on Twitter pretty much every waking hour. So I'm out there. It's not good, but I'm out there. Um, and I would encourage you to, I, you know, I have pieces that are sort of floating around the internet, as I said, under viewed YouTube channels, but, uh, it's sort of mostly aggregated via Twitter.
Speaker 0 00:38:12 We're just trying to find, so where what's your YouTube name called?
Speaker 4 00:38:16 Well, I'm sort of part of, uh, a loose collective of, uh, comedians and like weird artsy people. Our, our, our overall thing is called off-brand content. So give that a look. We, uh, some of it's good. Some of it's not good. Uh, all of it
Speaker 2 00:38:36 Is very weird, very off-brand. So at least like, you know, this isn't false advertisement. You say what you are right there in the title. Right.
Speaker 0 00:38:47 You've been listening to my conversation with Scott T is talking about his book. Very fine people. I recommend it. Scott, thanks so much for being here on the show with us.
Speaker 2 00:38:55 Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0 00:38:56 And now this
Speaker 2 00:39:03 <inaudible>.
