Featured Interview With Martin Connolly
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am from Ireland. Despite being born in Liverpool, England and living there for five years, mind. Grew up, mostly then, in Belfast. Now resident in Japan, been here over a quarter of a century. No pets. But. Married. Two kids. I’m a professor at a university here.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I didn’t take to reading so easily at an early age. But I loved films. So I read film-tie ins. Thereafter, I started growing up and becoming more interested in books for themselves. An early love was the Spanish language poetry of Gabriel Garcia Lorca. I soon started to explore the blank page by myself. The Age of Enlightenment for me was around the age of 12, for reading (properly), and 17, for writing.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
An early inspiring author was, and continues to be, James Joyce. I now research and publish on his works. Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar has also been important. I have drawn much inspiration from Medieval English literature, the Gawain Poet and the author of The Awntyrs Off Arthur’s. also love generic fiction. Ian Fleming’s Bond books. Philip K Dick, but he’s beyond classification. Much good poetry, much of it Irish. A bit of Stephen King and others, too.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My most recently published book is my debut novel, The Conjuring Cowboy. It is classifiable as a comedy, a Western, an adventure, a fantasy, and as a literary experiment. It’s about a recently graduated Irish fellow at the end of the 1980s, and the time traveling adventure he gets drawn into. He becomes a magician. And a cowboy. He is not very serious minded, but he discovers that the world is not quite as frivolous as he. And yet, does he really learn anything?
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