RoguesAngels: Rogue's Angles Present ~ In Defense of the Moth by Johnny Newport

Please welcome Johnny Newport author of In Defense of the Moth.

Johnny Newport will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

In Defense of the Moth

A Meaningless Dance in Blinding Heat and Light

by Johnny Newport

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GENRE: Literary Fiction

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INTERVIEW:

1. What or who inspired you to start writing? My earliest writing memory was crawling under the family dinner table and settling into a corner space with a silver crayon and memo pad. I truly have no idea why or how that became an established routine and I’m at a definite loss for what could have inspired that behavior. At this point I must defer to divine inspiration?
2. What elements are necessary components for this genre? I would think character and character development is pretty much the only prerequisite.
3. How did you come up with your idea for your novel? I honestly have no recollection. I don’t say that to be cagey or to be coy but I look back and cannot remember even starting to write this book. The only thing I remember when I wrote the foreword and the frustration of not being able to function in my everyday life.
4. What expertise did you bring to your writing? A solid 12-13 years of active alcoholism and a good amount of time as a functional drug addict, full of existential resentment and not without a sizable (and flawed) ego.
5. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio? Despite my past and the autobiographical nature of the book, I’m a very happily married man who leads a quiet, secure and stable life as a family man to a beautiful woman and two amazing children.
6. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans? I’m glad you ask! I am finishing the first draft of a collection of short stories. The short story collection is interesting (to me) in that I am writing in an experimental style; a single narrative which is composed of my short stories which are interconnected by the segues of the (unnamed) narrator. This collection ranges from urban realism to fabulism and is told through the prism of an unnamed narrator. The thematic glue for the collection is this narrator who toes the line between haught (or at least a well constructed ego) and a deeply-flawed, human vulnerability familiar and worthy of our sympathy.

A few of the stories that have been published that are included in this collection:

* La Tortuga, (Limestone, University of Kentucky MFA journal)
* He, Who Controls the Spices (Euphemism, Illinois State University graduate journal)
* I Blame Lolita (Moth magazine, Ireland’s premiere literary review)
* Letter to the Jew’s Mom (The Vehicle, Eastern Illinois University online journal)

7. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why? Probably the kid(s) or ex of the protagonist, because they have their whole lives ahead of them with a man who loves them madly and would do anything for them.
8. Can you give us a sneak peak into this book? Man vs. Self
9. Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing? I have an informal group of writers that I lean on when writing; former fellow writing students and people I’ve met into the local literary scene. This is a great help to me because I get to lean on trusted beta readers to give me feedback on what works and what doesn’t long before the book is ready to be read by the masses.
10. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step? Even during rewrites I was content with this book just being a passion piece; a labor of love, if you will. I knew that the work was pretty ambitious and lofty for a debut author and that I didn’t have the MFA cache or salability credits to warrant the risk for a big traditional house, but I still thought the original philosophy within (or as original as possible if everything is, indeed, derivative) was serious enough to worthy consideration. I was thrilled when the charming indie Gnome on Pig Productions was willing to take the risk to publish such a work.

11. Do you outline your books or just start writing? A little bit of both, but when I really get going the writing takes over and I discover anew the characters and plot and the outline mostly becomes unuseable.
13. How do you maintain your creativity? I try and read as much as possible. I try to read a book biweekly but at the very least I read a book plus some substantial articles and essays every month.
14. Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?
15. Are your plotting bunnies angels or demons? Angels, because my wife calls me “Johnny Angel”
16. Anything else you might want to add? Go Longhorns! (I have them in my Final 4)

Thanks the Angels

BLURB:

The Moon...

It is said the moon’s spell can move us and nobody understands her pull like Johnny Gomez.

Johnny, a devil-may-care and fatalistic salesman, remains tethered to his privileged life by a love for his children, his career and the moon—and not necessarily in that order. In fact, it’s Johnny’s lifelong passion for the moon, through both obsessive, independent study and a communal involvement in an astronomy society, that serves as the only outward distraction as a life of standard struggles waxes into a burgeoning crisis.

Until one night Johnny finds that the moon—his preferred method of self-medication-- no longer exists...but for him only and not anyone else.

Or so it seems, leaving Johnny’s continued marriage with reality to hinge on his rediscovery of the moon!

If you like allegories and/or philosophical apologies for acute insanity, grab “In Defense of the Moth or A Meaningless Dance in the Blinding Heat and Light” and join the eclipse.

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EXCERPT:

“I had earnestly believed—perhaps I had to believe it—that I could find my way to the office for the big meeting but instead found myself on a balcony with a spackle of vomit on my snakeskin boots. I glanced once more at the dancing moths.

Must be nice, I thought. I threw my bag over my shoulder and I jumped the railing, landing with a splash of my own puke, and left without saying goodbye.”

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Johnny Newport (The Moth) is carrying the consciousness of the oft-failed man native to 2016. Strictly from a visual standpoint he looks like he may be kept in a nice package, but this is not so. Johnny Newport has two feet on the warpath and probably smells like last night’s street tacos.

Johnny knows that his devil-may-care attitude is unfair—to himself and to others—but this is precisely the origin for the voice of an unbridled generation of privilege; the 21st-century-livers that intimately know they have squandered (squandered what? How can we say definitively and with any assurance despite knowing that a squandering has, indeed, befallen?), and will continue to do so, happily.

Otherwise about me, I studied at the University of Texas at Austin, have spent the last two years in The Writer's Path program at SMU (Southern Methodist University, Dallas) and have applied to a handful of low-res MFA programs for fall of '16.

Short story publications in 2015 were: 

* Mr. Franklin’s Heartbreaking Sympathy (The Speculative Book, anthology) 

* La Tortuga, (Limestone, University of Kentucky MFA journal) 

* He, Who Controls the Spices (Euphemism, Illinois State University graduate journal) 

* I Blame Lolita (Moth magazine, Ireland's premiere literary review)

* Letter to the Jew's Mom (The Vehicle, Eastern Illinois University online journal)

LINKS:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14879430.Johnny_Newport

https://twitter.com/mothankles

http://www.johnnynewport.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Meaningless-Dance-Blinding-Light-ebook/dp/B01B1XN6MS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454352251&sr=8-1&keywords=in+defense+of+the+moth

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