Q&A/FAQ

1. You’re best known as a novelist, but you also pursue many environment-related activities. Why? And what kind of work have you been doing?

Our beautiful landscapes and their creatures are dying. We’re not just facing global warming – we’re also confronting ecosystem destruction, pollution, animal extinctions, and exhaustion of natural resources. I want to have a role in preserving our miraculous, generous, fragile planet – and figuring out how to survive sustainably.

My experience writing novels has come in handy for this work. I’ve written a syndicated weekly column, “The Green Grapevine”; scripted and produced a 40-minute video, “The Green Makeover”; and edited/wrote “The Farm Energy Handbook” for the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

I also spent four years as director of an organization that promoted the growth of a state economy based on industries providing renewable energy, green consumer products, pollution remediation, and so on. Now I’m project coordinator for a $600,000 feasibility study to assess biodigesting food waste to produce energy. The planned facility will generate heat that will replace burning thousands of gallons of oil as well as electricity for about 350 homes – out of kitchen scraps! It’s very exciting to help create innovative solutions.

2. Your last three novels feature an investigator who uses science, psychology, traditional mysticism, and simple human empathy to solve paranormal mysteries. What’s so compelling about this theme?

The idea originated with my neighbor, Christine Klaine, and it struck me as a concept with marvelous possibilities.

In the old days, ghosts were viewed primarily through a religious lens. But now there’s a world-wide paranormal research community in which every imaginable explanation, theory, and philosophy is represented. The mysterious continues to fascinate people, and science has by no means invalidated the idea of ghosts. In fact, it has provided new concepts and technologies to help understand them.

The theme provides a opportunity to explore many intriguing subjects. Phenomena such as ghosts bear upon many domains of knowledge: history, physics, religious belief, psychology, neuroscience, cultural anthropology, geography, forensics – you name it.

I love bringing all these fascinating aspects of the world into my stories and weaving them into exciting adventures and mysteries.

My idea of the paranormal, of ghosts, doesn’t much resemble the images we encounter in movies or fairy tales. Like my protagonist Cree Black, I believe in the literal reality of ghosts, but I also see them as allegories or symbols for psychological processes. Paranormal events are opportunities for people to better understand their lives.

3. Have you ever had paranormal experiences?

Many. But they don’t resemble the classic spectral encounters. Most occurred while I was pursuing shamanic practices. I have often sought insight by making vision quests, alone, usually at night, in wild places where the elemental powers of the world still hold sway. So I’ve had many experiences that defy scientific explanation and that have profoundly affected my life. “Paranormal” isn’t the best word for such events. “Magical” is a more accurate term.

But I don’t want to sound too serious. I’ve been fascinated by this stuff since I was a kid. I devoured Charles Fort’s books on unexplained phenomena, marveled at Edgar Cayce’s prophecies. I drove myself crazy speculating about UFOs. Yetis, ESP, telekinesis, levitation, Mothman, past lives, poltergeists – what could be more fun?

Most kids go through a similar period, during which they realize just what a strange place the world is. It’s human curiosity at its most urgent and open-minded. I hope some of that comes through in my books.

4. As a guitarist, you played at Carnegie Hall, recorded three albums – including the popular Willow on Windham Hill Records – and performed concerts throughout the U.S., Europe, and China. Why did you stop playing?

A medical condition affected my hands and made playing pretty impossible. Giving up the guitar was tough, but I’m glad I did. For one thing, my compositions were very “athletic,” requiring constant practice – time-consuming and boring. And I just couldn’t get as good as I wanted to be. I played a lot of concerts with terrific musicians like Alex de Grassi and Michael Hedges, and after a while I realized I didn’t have that level of talent. But I feel fortunate to have been deflected into writing. Telling stories comes naturally to me, and I seem to have an endless well of ideas, observations, and interests to draw from.

5. You’re known for doing in-depth research for your novels. How do you conduct research, and why is it so important?

I do a lot of reading, of course, but I especially enjoy hands-on research – meeting people, traveling to the places where my books are set and prowling about. I love being on my own two feet in a new place and then bringing that feeling to readers.

For City of Masks, I spent five weeks in New Orleans. I explored graveyards, ate regional foods, got drunk on Bourbon Street, interviewed cops and coroners, cooks and crooks; I wandered, hung out. I’m very glad I saw the city before Hurricane Katrina destroyed so much of it. That was a tragic loss of a great treasure.

For Land of Echoes, I spent over a month in New Mexico and Arizona. I stayed in the goat barn of a family in the Navajo Nation, meditated in Anasazi ruins, climbed around in canyons and lava fields, gorged on Navajo fry-bread and roast mutton, talked with people of many tribes, went for long, wild horse rides over the dry high plains.

Doing research is a crucial part of the life of the writer – a way to live an adventurous life and to continually re-awaken one’s wonder and curiosity.

6. Neuroscience plays an important role in all your books. What’s so fascinating about it?

The brain is the real “final frontier.” Whatever we see in our microscopes or telescopes must come to us through the filter of our senses and central nervous system. Recent advances in neuroscience are changing our view of self, family, behavior, and values. There’s great promise and great risk in what we’re learning, and that combination of hope and danger provides rich material for the writer.

The brain is also quirky and mysterious, and thus endlessly fascinating.

Are we biochemical machines or intentional personalities? Are we merely material beings, or can mind exist beyond the physical brain? Are we mechanical or magical? The answers are ambiguous and complex. The neurosciences offer a new vocabulary for dealing with these important, long-pondered concerns.

7. You graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop and have been very prolific in the years since. How do you write? What techniques or practices do you recommend?

Each writer has a different way of working. For me it’s best to write every day and to start first thing in the morning. It’s often hard, but when it’s good it’s terrific, and I’m addicted to it. I turn into a monster when something prevents me from writing.

When I’m composing new material, I can sustain only about three hours before burning out. On some days I write nothing of value, on some I get ten pages; on average, I write about three pages a day. Afterward, I wander around kind of stunned and try to do something physical – running or working on my funky old barn of a house.

Other writing-related work such as research, correspondence, or copy-editing is easier – I can put in ten hours a day if needed.

My best advice to writers: Live a good life. Observe. Engage the world. Ask questions. Read good writing. Be patient with yourself. Seek your own passions and trust them. Take risks. Remember that the best stories are found where forces converge, where multiple interests or concerns or topics collide and create conflict, synergy, spark.