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Andrew Vachss interview
Feb. 26th, 2008 02:08 pmSome choice quotes from an fascinating (and long) interview with Andrew Vachss:
I consider it our moral obligation to do everything we can to protect innocent people from pain and death. And I consider anyone who blocks such [stem-cell] research to be in the same class of human who want to bar a child incest victim from getting an abortion. Amazing how people who claim to be so vitally committed to protecting the "unborn" have no interest in protecting those already alive, isn't it? And quite stunning how all their "concern" seems to come down to controlling women. Remind you of anything? What's next … "honor rape?"
But, then, again, some idiots voted for Bush because his "military experience" made him much more fit to be Commander-in-Chief in the War on Terrorism than John Kerry. I guess that's what "faith-based" really means.
If I want the finest fabulist writing today, it's Charles de Lint.
Finally, genre-worship isn't one of my disabilities. Apparently, as with all religions, some people believe they can dictate definitions.
I once thought I could learn something from book reviews. I got over that a long time ago.
My life is triage, and writing is the guy with the leg wound: he's not the first one you evac, but never the one you abandon.
I don't sign contracts to WRITE a book, and I don't accept advances to WRITE a book. Here's how I do it: First, I write a book. Then I offer it to my publisher. If he says "yes," we have a deal. It's always the same deal—I've been with the house so long that I have my own contractual boilerplate—but neither of us feel the need to have a signed contract right away. They trust me; I trust them. Sooner or later—often when the book is already in galleys—a contract arrives. Unlike the movie contracts, I don't have to hyper-scan them to check for land mines. Hell, I wouldn't have to read them; I'm sure they don't. My publisher is my home. I've been with them since the second book, and never intend to leave. I love it there. I have a truly superb editor—not the kind of weakling who needs to leave his "tracks" on a manuscript, the kind of real editor who wants to make all his writers better. Classy covers—a big deal with me; I have terminated numerous foreign deals over their proposed covers for my books; I'm hardly anti-sex, but exploiting images of children on the cover of my books would make a mockery of their contents … and a hypocrite of me. Wonderful in-house support. A personal friendship with the publisher. Folks who go well out of their way to help, because they believe in what I'm doing. It's where I belong. But I would never sign a contract or take an advance, because that would mean I am promising to deliver a manuscript by a certain time, and my life doesn't permit that.
Read the entire interview, which goes to some very dark places, but provides a ton of insight into Vachss as a person and as a writer.
I consider it our moral obligation to do everything we can to protect innocent people from pain and death. And I consider anyone who blocks such [stem-cell] research to be in the same class of human who want to bar a child incest victim from getting an abortion. Amazing how people who claim to be so vitally committed to protecting the "unborn" have no interest in protecting those already alive, isn't it? And quite stunning how all their "concern" seems to come down to controlling women. Remind you of anything? What's next … "honor rape?"
But, then, again, some idiots voted for Bush because his "military experience" made him much more fit to be Commander-in-Chief in the War on Terrorism than John Kerry. I guess that's what "faith-based" really means.
If I want the finest fabulist writing today, it's Charles de Lint.
Finally, genre-worship isn't one of my disabilities. Apparently, as with all religions, some people believe they can dictate definitions.
I once thought I could learn something from book reviews. I got over that a long time ago.
My life is triage, and writing is the guy with the leg wound: he's not the first one you evac, but never the one you abandon.
I don't sign contracts to WRITE a book, and I don't accept advances to WRITE a book. Here's how I do it: First, I write a book. Then I offer it to my publisher. If he says "yes," we have a deal. It's always the same deal—I've been with the house so long that I have my own contractual boilerplate—but neither of us feel the need to have a signed contract right away. They trust me; I trust them. Sooner or later—often when the book is already in galleys—a contract arrives. Unlike the movie contracts, I don't have to hyper-scan them to check for land mines. Hell, I wouldn't have to read them; I'm sure they don't. My publisher is my home. I've been with them since the second book, and never intend to leave. I love it there. I have a truly superb editor—not the kind of weakling who needs to leave his "tracks" on a manuscript, the kind of real editor who wants to make all his writers better. Classy covers—a big deal with me; I have terminated numerous foreign deals over their proposed covers for my books; I'm hardly anti-sex, but exploiting images of children on the cover of my books would make a mockery of their contents … and a hypocrite of me. Wonderful in-house support. A personal friendship with the publisher. Folks who go well out of their way to help, because they believe in what I'm doing. It's where I belong. But I would never sign a contract or take an advance, because that would mean I am promising to deliver a manuscript by a certain time, and my life doesn't permit that.
Read the entire interview, which goes to some very dark places, but provides a ton of insight into Vachss as a person and as a writer.