SIX MINUTES WITH CHRIS PALMER:
Today Chris Palmer joins LitPick for Six Minutes with an Author! Chris, along with his wife J. Bean Palmer (who is joining us tomorrow), wrote ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties, the third book in the award winning Cape Cod Witch Series. ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties won the 2014 Moonbeam Award for Pre-Teen Fiction.
How did you get started writing?
I have always written, since grade school, particularly poetry, and was often asked by schoolmates to edit or write things for them. When I was fifteen, a student I didn’t know that well asked me if I’d write a poem for an assignment he had. He had the idea I could write and he didn't think he could. The poem was selected for and published in the school literary magazine under his name, which was fine with me. I still like the poem.
Who influenced you?
The authors I’ve read and loved and a few I’ve met: Terry Pratchett (read), Neil Gaiman (read and met), Kurt Vonnegut (read and met), John Irving (read), and most recently Jonathan Franzen (read).
Do you have a favorite book/subject/character/setting?
I very much like Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books, particularly A Hat Full of Sky and The Wee Free Men. Also The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I knew Neil in England before he began his writing career in earnest and he’s a funny, brilliant fellow. As a subject, I am fascinated by the spirit in man and nature, and love Cape Cod, New England and “the old country,” which we write about in ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to be an author?
Write, write some more, and read a lot. Don’t study “how to write” by “authorities” or “experts” -- at all, if you can avoid them, or at least until you have written lots and love writing (excepting, perhaps, Stephen King’s On Writing). Many authorities can expertly tell you why writing is hard and there is so much to learn and you won't be successful anyway. By-pass that, write, and love writing before you work too hard at “getting better” -- you’ll be getting better as you write anyway. There are things to know, but don’t gorge on what you don’t know until you enjoy some of the fruits of your labor.
Where is your favorite place to write?
On the couch overlooking our vegetable garden and the Sandy River that borders our backyard.
What else would you like to tell us?
Both our families have lived in New England since that little ship came here in 1620. I’m a 14th generation Cape Codder, in fact, though now live in Maine. Scarily, my wife and I share the same Mayflower ancestor, William Brewster. The point is we have the Cape and the old country deep in our bones and a love of these lands in our blood.
Chris, thank you for joining LitPick for six minutes! You are the first author we’ve interviewed who has told us you had a relative who came over on the Mayflower!