SmokeLong Quarterly

Great story, great title. “We’re high because there’s no glass between us.” Do all couples have glass—metaphoric and otherwise—between them?

Thanks for the kind words, man. I guess there’s at least a layer of glass between everyone. I enjoy writers who try to understand the distortions and armor people use, and the reasons they use them.

The dialogue reminds me of the best edgy talk of noir fiction. From where did you get these voices?

I like noir, but didn’t set out to write “tough” dialogue. I guess the muse is packing a .45 these days. The protagonist and antagonist in my second novel are talking like this, too, so I’ve been going with it.

“Jamming with Hendrix in heaven.” Sounds cool. Who else is in the band?

Ha. Maybe Zappa and Zevon and John Lee Hooker and Janice Joplin and Joey Ramone?

A house full of women—a wife and three daughters. Would love to hear more about that.

Hey, are you trying to get me in trouble? I love ’em like crazy. I couldn’t imagine living any other way. (We also have a male dog, but he’s neutered.)

What’s up at NASA?

NASA is a fantastic place to work. Many of the people there have every right to carry around egos the size of Jupiter, but they don’t hesitate to crack one-liners. And the work they do is amazing – nanotechnology and astrobiology especially fascinate me. I have friends who worked on the science payloads that flew on shuttle missions. I’ve stumbled into talks given by Tuskeegee airmen. I’ve watched Air Force One land, while I was eating my lunch.

I was recently laid off for budgetary reasons and I’ll miss driving onto base every morning and being part of the NASA family, but now I’ll have time to write books.