Featured Interview With Christopher Antony Meade
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
The first part of my life was lived in Ireland, where I spent a lot of time falling off barstools, and my existence since 1986 has been principally in The UK in London. Recently I moved to the delightful town of Gillingham in the county of Kent. Nowadays I only manage to fall of park benches, as the global recession has made bars too expensive, besides I like a smoke with my drinks, and the “Health Fascists” have outlawed smoking in bars.
My politics could be described as a mixture of extreme conservatism, but leavened with a devotion to fairness, and with a particular devotion to “Gay Rights”
I find the politics and personalities of all republican forms of government to be anathema.
If there were twenty presidents of The United States on one side of a room and the younger son of a minor German prince on the other, I would spend my time talking to the German. Much more interesting to me.
If I got a chance to slap someone in history, it would have to be Woodrow Wilson. He destroyed the Europe that I loved in 1918, and opened it to fascist dictators and communists.
So that is me, a curious and sometimes contradictory individual.
My main redeeming feature is a deep imagination, and a rather twisted sense of humour.
I hope you find all of that in my work.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I had a fascination with books from my very earliest years and I devoured all the great classics from Dickens to Alexandre Dumas. I was always writing interesting essays at school and my teacher predicted that I would become a writer, because of my very vivid imagination.
My working career was not a literary one however. A large variety of occupations gave me a chance to interact with and study all types of people, (something which has been very useful in my writing career).
I started writing professionally about five years ago, with articles and short stories published online. My first and current book was published in 2012. I hope it will be the first of many successors.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite authors are Charles Dickens, P.G Wodehouse, Jonathan Swift, Stephen King, The Bronte Sisters, Bram Stoker, Douglas Adams, George Orwell and there are elements of all of these in my work.
My main sources of inspiration would be Jonathan Swift for satire and P.G Wodehouse for comedy.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
“The Zombie, the Cat, and Barack Obama” by Christopher Antony Meade.
I have always been a conspiracy theory sceptic and have doubted the various claims, such as that the United States government bombed the World Trade Centre or that Prince Philip ordered the killing of Princess Diana. To me, all these allegations are just so much unsubstantiated rubbish. It’s amusing to debate the issues, but totally silly to take them seriously. Consequently, when I started to regularly publish articles and stories, many of them were satirising some of the more ridiculous of the various conspiratorial assertions. Since there was a lot of interest in the character, the political acumen and the ancestry of Barack Obama, I included some stories that poked fun at the various theories surrounding the origins of that American president. A further collection of stories satirised the rumours that abound about Area 51 and the origins and continuing influence of the Illuminati.
My fascination with the macabre led me to write a series about a musically talented, but psychopathic, zombie.
At this stage all of these were separate stories, but I realised that they could be connected. To bring Barack Obama and the zombie together, needed but the addition of some connecting tales. That’s where the Downing Street cat came in and the Buckingham Palace connection. Once I’d put them all together and edited them, so that were transformed into a coherent sequence, the book was almost ready to be published. It was still a little short however. Fortunately for me and my reading public, I had some more stories in reserve. These advanced alternative reasons for the global banking collapse and the menace of climate change, among other things.
I then had on my hands a very tidy little novella. By arrangement with an online publishing company, I succeeded in getting it launched as an e-book. It’s been floating around Amazon and a host of other online retailers for some months now. I’ve been very fortunate to attract some excellent reviews, (some from other writers and a few from satisfied customers). Most of these can be read on the Facebook page “The Zombie, the Cat, and Barack Obama”. I’ve included a couple of less favourable ones as well. It’s only fair to give the opposition a chance to air their views. In my opinion, their taste is abysmal. But what else can I say.
If you are tempted to read my book, (which both I and my bank manager hope you are), it is my sincere wish that you get as much pleasure from reading it as I did from writing it.
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