The Next Big Thing: Home

What is the Next Big Thing? It is a ripple of creativity, spreading across the new writers of today! Each one gives an insight to her upcoming work, then tags her fellow writers to do the same. The fabulous Deborah Batterman tagged the talented Rossandra White who tagged yours truly... So here is a glimpse into my upcoming book:

What is the working title of your book?

My book is titled Home. It will be available in paperback edition as well as Kindle edition. The launch is scheduled for October 10, 2012. To join the celebration, come one, come all! Click here!

\Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for the book ripened over six years, looking at my short stories and poems and realizing that a selection of them relate to a central theme, a theme of longing for a place that exists only in memory. Then I realized that the same longing can be found in my father’s later work. This book combines two bodies of work.

What genre does your book fall under?

This book is a poetry and prose anthology, around the idea of home. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

For a book containing poems and stories, that is not an easy question. My father’s writing is always autobiographical in nature; you can view it as an ongoing diary of his life. My writing is rarely so, especially when it comes to my stories. I delight in conjuring up various figments of imagination, and fleshing them out on paper. So there is one short story in this book, titled ‘A Heartbeat, Reversed.’ It is cinematic and somewhat strange, if I say so myself, because it allows time to go backwards... So for this particular story I would love for one of the most skilled actresses of our time, Meryl Streep, to play the lead role.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Expressed in the voices of father and daughter, you can hear a visceral longing for an ideal place, a place never to be found again: Home.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Like my novel Apart From Love, published earlier this year, Home is self-published too.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

This is not easy to answer, since there are two authors here. My father’s poems were written during the last twenty-four years of his life. He had published three books during his lifetime: a prose book Dams Erupting published in 1957, offering a personal account of events during his captivity in Jordan during Israel’s war of independence in 1948; a poetry book Can We Still Love published in 1961, questioning our capability to give and receive love, having witnessed the inhumanity of two world wars; and a poetry book Beyond The Window, What Day Is It Today, published in 1977, bringing to light an unusual creative collaboration with me. But the new body of work, which I found during the mourning period for his passing, had never been shared with anyone.

As for my contribution to the book, most of the poems and stories were written in the last ten years, and selected for inclusion here either because they relate directly to my father’s life, or because they relate to the idea of home.

What other books would you compare this book to within your genre?

In a way this is similar to Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, by Billy Collins, which is described as a dazzling new anthology of 180 contemporary poems, selected and introduced by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins. 

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Six years after that moment of discovery, which happened in my childhood home while mourning for my father’s passing, I present a tender tribute: a collection of poems and prose, half of which is written by me, and half—by my father, the author, poet and artist Zeev Kachel. I have been translating his poems for nearly a year, with careful attention to rhyme and rhythm, in an effort to remain faithful to the spirit of his words.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Coming back to the states after my father’s funeral, I recreated the sketch I drew of my childhood home, from memory. In my new drawing I used a fish-eye perspective. What does that mean? Like regular perspective, the horizontal lines converge into a vantage point in the distance. But—here is the difference—the vertical lines are not straight, nor are they parallel. As you look up, vertical lines converge to a point up there, beyond the edge of the paper. You can call it Heaven. And as you look down, the vertical lines converge to a point below, call it Hell. Which makes the entire perspective embrace you, as if you are in the middle of a fish bowl, seeing the world curve around you.

And looking though such a perspective, what did I see? An earthquake, really, in the aftermath of my father's death. Books falling off the shelves; the lamp swinging like a pendulum; the little side table (in the front) overturned, so my father will never lay his pen upon it; and instead of the persian rugs that used to adorn this space once upon a time, I floated blank pages on the floor; pages he will never again use for writing.

In my next sketch I let the lamp swing even higher into the air. The place has completely tilted, and my father's armchair is ascending above the rest of the furniture. This is the sketch I used for an oil painting called My Father's Armchair, which later became the cover of this book. 

 

Now it’s my turn to tag people. Please visit their blogs. They will be publishing their answers to the questions in week 13 (between the 18th September and 24th September)

• Carmen DeSousa 
• Sherri Christian-Samson 
• Patricia Macias 
• Ia Uaro 
• Payal Roy 

Message for the tagged authors and interested others: 

Rules of The Next Big Thing:

• Use this format for your post 
• Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress) 
• Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

• What is the working title of your book?
• Where did the idea come from for the book?
• What genre does your book fall under?
• Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
• What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
• Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
• How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
• What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
• Who or What inspired you to write this book?
• What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
• Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

Be sure to line up your five people in advance.