:: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 ::

Interview with Brad Whittington
by Randy Brandt


Brad Whittington's Welcome to Fred earned him the 2004 Christy Award for best first novel. I caught up with him in December--sadly for me, it was electronically rather than interviewing him in person in Hawaii (a few months later, we met for dinner in Denver, hence the photo).

Note: Click for my reviews of Welcome to Fred and Living With Fred.

The Interview

Randy: The first two fiction reviews I wrote were for Ray Blackston's Flabbergasted and your Welcome to Fred. Did you meet Ray at the Christy Awards?

Brad: I spent several very enjoyable hours with Ray, a guy with a Cinderella story if there ever was one. I hope to hook up with him again in the future, but he's a pretty busy guy. Last I heard he was down in Australia.

Randy: How was the food at the banquet?

Brad: Ha! This probably won't come as a shock, but I don't recall what was on the menu. I'm sure I ate something, and I'm sure it was fine, whatever it was.

Randy: Since this is a web interview, it seems a little silly to requery you about things you've already addressed in prior interviews, so I'll try to keep it short and at least sporadically unique. Speaking of interviews, my Lumberjack Journal issues haven't been showing up lately. Can you help?

Brad: Woody runs a pretty loose operation. The publication schedule is as bad as the old Wittenburg Door days. I suggest bribery.

Randy: I'll keep that in mind. Your website mentions that you lived in Colorado. Whereabouts?

Brad: I lived in Denver for three months in 2000. Moved in Memorial Day; moved out Labor Day. I loved every second of it.

Randy: I think I saw you at the mall. Maybe not.

I grew up in a small one-church town during the 70s, so there were plenty of moments in Welcome to Fred that seemed familiar. As you continue to write Mark's story, do you find yourself creating more of a divergence from--or convergence with--the reality of your youth?

Brad: Divergence, no question. Particularly in Living with Fred. I sometimes get paranoid about people failing to realize the books are fiction. The Fred books feel true because many of the issues that Mark Cloud deals with are common to many, particularly those who grew up in small towns or small churches. But my life in Fred was nowhere near as exciting as Mark's.

Randy: Speaking of my youth, I grew up in Canada. You seem to be rather fond of "our Bob Dylan." How long have you been enjoying Bruce Cockburn's music?

Brad: It started when I picked up a copy of "Salt, Sun and Time" in a cutout rack in the mid 70s. I have every album he's done, from his first 1969 release to the most recent, "You've Never Seen Everything"--all 28 or so. I've seen him live three times. Incredible.

Randy: Bruce's song Lord of the Starfields inspired the name of the band Starfield, a fine new worship band from Winnipeg (home of the Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive), and close to were I was born. You should give them a listen.

Brad: I'll check them out. Although from their website it doesn't look like they're coming out to Hawaii any time soon.

Randy: You can read my review to find out about their CD. I bet they'd love you to book them in Hawaii! While we're on the topic of music, I recall that you referred to the late Mark Heard in one of your interviews. My then-fiancee and I selected his Two Trusting Jesus as the theme for our wedding in 1983. I wrote to him to see if music was available for my sister to play from. There was not, but Mark took the time to photocopy his lead sheet with the chords for my sister, and his wife Janet penned a nice note to us. I think that summarizes the quality of person we lost at his passing. As great as a songwriter as he was, he was a better person. Did you ever get to hear him play live?

Brad: That's a nice tune. I never had the pleasure of seeing Heard live, but I have collected about 10 CDs of his stuff. What an incredible songwriter.

Randy: Continuing the music theme, have you ever heard the song Crazy Mary by FM Static? Pauline in Welcome to Fred reminds me of Mary. You'll have to use the song for the Fred movie. I bet Peter Jackson could do a great job with the bridge scene in Living With Fred.

Brad: Never heard Crazy Mary by FM Static, but I have heard Cross-eyed Mary by Jethro Tull, which I listened to quite a bit while writing the Pauline scenes, as well as Hendrix and Chicago Transit Authority, before they became a pop band. The energy and chaos was conducive to getting into her mindset. As far as Jackson, it would be nice if he found something in the bridge scene that would challenge him.

Randy: Perhaps an orc could startle Mark… Young Mr. Cloud was 12 when we first met him, and is well into his teen years in Living With Fred. Will we see him into adulthood in the third book?

Brad: We'll get 'er done in Fred 3. (Working title, Son of Fred, Jr.) Fred 1 takes Mark from age 8 to 16. Fred 2 takes Mark from 16 to 18. Fred 3 gets him to 21. After that, he's on his own.

Randy: Haven't you figured out the Jenkins-LaHaye formula for success? I was envisioning Fred 17, The Next Generation at the very least.

I've been abused at times for perambulating through the thesaurus, or even for merely utilizing the more esoteric portions of my vocabulary. Did you find it liberating to find a publisher and editor willing to allow even recondite phraseology in portions of your work?

Brad: Heh. OK, OK, I did tone it down a bit in Living with Fred. Just for the record, I don't use a thesaurus unless I've found I've overused a word and need some variety. Otherwise, I use the word that comes to mind. By the way, I had to look up recondite, so give yourself a point.

Randy: Why, thank you.

Brad: As far as the vocabulary, I tell people, "It has big words in it, but you can just skip over them, it won't matter." I discovered that my editor, Gary Terashita, has experienced persecutions similar to yours, so he was open to the style. It was nice to be able to use the word I wanted without any arm-wrestling. Although I did remove two words from Welcome to Fred on the recommendation of the copy editor, Lisa Parnell, because they weren't in the collegiate dictionary. The words were "galapagos" (the definition mentioned the islands but not the tortoise) and "craquelure", a word I learned from What's Bred in the Bone by my favorite author, Robertson Davies. It is evidently a technical word in the art world and not in the average dictionary. It refers to the network of fine cracks in the surface of an old painting. I used it in reference to Pauline's face. Nice image, but if nobody knows what it means, what's the point?

Randy: Cool word, though. I'll have to tell my daughter. She's an art major in college.

Brad: In 2002 I made a New Year's resolution to quit doing internal editing during conversations and just use the best word that came to mind regardless of whether I thought the person would know it. I've had mixed results.

Randy: Like you, I had a short teaching career--one year of high school in California, a little break from 1984 to 1998, and then two years in Colorado. Did the literacy level of the students trouble you? I was appalled that I was pleased to find even one true reader in any given class.

Brad: I taught math, so I rarely discussed reading with my students. However, in 1981 it was one of my 11th grade students who turned me on to Stephen R. Donaldson and the Thomas Covenant chronicles, which actually got me back into the regular reading of fiction after seven years of being too busy.

Randy: You began Welcome to Fred long ago. Were you doing much writing in the interim, or did the editorial interest in your book rejuvenate your writing?

Brad: I'm a compulsive writer. I can't stop myself. Seriously. I've been writing for over 20 years. The first 10 years were spent writing bad fiction. Then I turned to other things, like writing bad non-fiction. The interest in Welcome to Fred turned me back to fiction and I'm learning new stuff about it all the time. The book I'm working on now is not based in Fred and stretching me all over the place. But I think I'm about to get my arms around it. My problem is I get carried away doing research and then get behind schedule on word count. Researching is just too much fun.

Randy: Brad, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I'll be eagerly awaiting Book 3!

Brad: Thanks! I'm very excited about Book 3. It's got some outrageous new characters and return performances by some old favorites. It was a blast writing it. One of my favorite scenes was written in Atlanta the weekend between the Christy Awards and CBA 2004. I parked myself in The Park Avenue Deli right by the hotel. I lived in that deli that weekend. Very cool place. Great people, great food, free internet. What's not to like? I did all subsequent drafts at the Common Groundz Café in Hawaii Kai. View of the water, great people, great coffee and free internet. Do you see a pattern here?

The first two were written in the solitude of my office (Book 1) and the lanai (Book 2), so Book 3 has been an experiment in writing in the wild, out in the public. I've found that iTunes and headphones come in very handy.

Randy: Thanks again, and greet your wife Milly from me. My youngest daughter is named Millie; there just aren't too many of them left, so they need to stay united!

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