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The FlutePlayer is a 105-page YA fiction book that adults will also love. Brief
synopsis: For nearly ten years, young Oliver has begrudgingly accepted his
position as the flute player of the peaceful village of Drommar—a
responsibility thrust upon him after the previous flute player, and Oliver's
best friend, drowned in a tragic childhood accident. Now on the cusp of
adulthood, a mysterious young woman enters Oliver's life, and he begins to
question the nature of his world and the importance of his place in it.
Asymmetrical Press is
a non-traditional publishing house based in Missoula, Montana, founded and
operated by professional authors, Colin Wright, Joshua Fields Millburn, and
Ryan Nicodemus.
Shawn was born in San Diego, California, in 1990, where he lived until he was seven.
In high school, he won several awards both as a writer for and editor-in-chief of his student newspaper, The Talon, prompting him to study journalism at Youngstown State University before deciding that his passion for writing was better directed at fiction. He then spent several years in Pittsburgh, learning American Sign Language and working with the deaf and hard of hearing.
Shawn currently lives in Youngstown, Ohio, where he writes novels, poetry, and short stories and explores the characteristics of different varieties of wine. His works include The Final Days of Poetry, a poetry collection; The Flute Player, a novella; and Brand-Changing Day, a novel.
Shawn loves to climb things, especially large things like rocks and cliffs and mountains. He also still reads comic books.
Q. What inspires
your writing?
A. My writing is inspired
by all sorts of things. The particular situations or moments in my writing are
often inspired by real life—either things that have happened to me or that I've
witnessed or that have been related to me by someone. I sort of pull these
moments apart in my mind and search for the deeper questions contained within
them, and then my writing ends up being me, in the best way that I know how,
responding to those questions, and so the actual writing is often very
different than the moment or person that inspired it, but the meaning, I hope,
is the same. That's how a high school student's quest for self-actualization,
for example, became a story about a flute player in a fanciful village far
away.
Q. What is your
favorite thing about being an author?
A. Thinking about writing.
Imagining the characters and coming up with questions and deciding, "Oh,
yeah, this is how I'll translate that into a story; this is how I'll put that
down on paper." That moment, and then the moment of releasing the finished
story into the world, is incredibly fulfilling.
Q. What is the
toughest part of being an author?
A. The part in between the
conceiving and releasing: the actual writing. I can spend hours at the keyboard
and only get down a few hundred words. It takes an immense amount of discipline for
me to sit and write, and even if I make myself do the sitting part, the writing
part still might not happen. Writing is almost always slow-going for me.
Q. If you could not
be author, what would you do/be?
A. A friend and fellow
author, Chase Night, actually asked this same question recently. We were
talking about how ridiculous it is that a lot of authors, when asked this
question, answer that they would die. Chase said that he wouldn't die; he would
be very grumpy and difficult to be around if he couldn't write, but he'd
survive. I said that, if I couldn't be a writer, I would be a writer anyway.
But, if I really had to
answer the question, if I really couldn't be an author, then I'd like to be
some other kind of artist—an illustrator or painter or musician (all skills
that I would have to spend a great deal more time cultivating if I were going
to do them in any serious way). If I couldn't be some sort of artist, well then
maybe I would die. Maybe. Probably. Hypothetically.
Q. What would the
story of your life be entitled?
A. Probably something like
"Do Not Buy This Book—It's Boring: A Love Story"
Q. What is your
favorite book of all time?
A. Peter Pan by J.M.
Barrie. It was my favorite book as a child and I imagine it always will be. I
think Barrie's imagination inspired my own.
Q. Which character
from ANY book are you most like?
A. This is a tough
question, because there are just so many books, but for now I'll say Joey
Berglund from Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom.
Q. What character
from all of your book are you most like?
A. I'd like to say Oliver
from The Flute Player, and maybe at some point I was a lot like him, but I'm a
lot like Scott Pelletier (to my detriment, I'm sure), one of the main
characters in my upcoming novel, Brand-Changing Day.
Q. Which book would
you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?
A. I would love to take a
weekend vacation inside The Hobbit. Middle Earth sounds like a fascinating and
exciting place.
Q. What is your
favorite season?
A. Winter, because I like
sweaters and warm drinks and snowboarding and the Dr. Who Christmas Special.
Q. What inspired
your book cover(s)? Or what is your favorite book cover and why?
A. The cover for The Flute
Player, which was designed and created by the talented Colin Wright, was
inspired by a specific moment in the book, in which Oliver, the main character,
witnesses a burning blue Volkswagen Beetle. But Oliver doesn't know what a car
is, so when he's told that the vehicle is a "Beetle," he can only
think of the bug.
Q. Tell me something
funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book.
A. Well, dang. I wish I
had an answer for this one, but this is my first published book, and I'm still
in the early stages of promoting it, so I can't say that anything too funny or
exciting has happened yet.
Q. Are you working
on something new?
A. Yes. I've got a novel,
Brand-Changing Day, coming out later this spring. I'm also in the very early
stages of a new novel that I expect won't be finished for some time,
and while I don't want to reveal much, I will say that it will probably involve
string theory and enlightenment and Broadway musicals.
Q. Anything you want
to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?
A. Just that, if
they'd like to contact me or have any thoughts or questions about The Flute
Player, or just thoughts or questions for me in general, feel free to hit me up
on Twitter (I'm @shawnmihalik)—I'm always excited to chat with fellow readers
and writers. And I'd also like to remind them that the way we read and publish
books is changing, and it's our responsibility as readers to support this
medium we love so much. There's a lot of room for innovation in the world of
writing and publishing, and I encourage all who want to be a part of that
innovation to go for it.
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