Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Conrad Bishop
Book Title: Masks
Released: 02/01/21
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Interview by Heather L. Barksdale
What inspired you to write “Masks”?
Bishop: Stuff just grabs hold. Somewhere the Norse myth of the Ragnarok grabbed me: gods ruled by fear causing their own destruction had a political resonance to our own time. In 2006, a Bay Area theatre commissioned us to do a play of the story, which included a troupe of players.
Initially, the novel focused more on the gods, but as it evolved, the focus went to the players—which drew on the hundreds of thousands of miles our touring ensemble traveled over the years, throughout the US, with kids in tow. We drove a Dodge Maxi Van, not a donkey cart, but much of our own experience has analogs in the novel.
With the focus on the boy, it became in some sense a “coming-of-age” story. But for us, a journey is always a journey of change, and everyone in this story changes.
How did you come up with the names of your main characters?
Bishop: Edra, Asta and Braggi are Norse names, Braggi also the drowned son of some friends. Mik is short for the Greek Mikopoulos, and Ludd just sounded right.
Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?
Bishop: Our writing life, for 45 years, has been in theatre, which has been our livelihood; the prose has been more recent. I generally initiate projects and sit at the keyboard; Elizabeth is sounding-board, editor, and often a collaborator in recorded improvisations that inform the text. We keep banging at it until we’re both fully satisfied, given 45 years of trust that the rewrite will be an improvement.
We think of ourselves, above all, as storytellers. We’ve written and produced and performed in many idioms—plays, comedy sketches, solo shows, documentary, puppetry, radio, video, now fiction—but always it’s the story that matters and dictates the style. For that reason, “genre” is always a muddle. MASKS perhaps is historical fantasy, but no heroes or dragons or princesses. It is what it is.
If "Masks” were adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?
Bishop: Any known actors we’d think of would be too old for the roles, too young for the roles, or not adept with the clowning.
When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?
Bishop: Work on something else. Or talk to one another. Or take five minutes writing any crap that occurs to me. Or take a walk. Or take a nap: for me, it’s more often writer’s fatigue. Or just sit and stare at the screen until I get bored with doing that, and avoiding the option of Facebook.
Most often, though, it’s a matter of a mental shift from “editing mind” to “first draft mind”—trying to work out of the muddle of where to put the comma and into the water slide of improvisation. It’s never so much “writer’s block” as “writer’s plod through the mud.”
Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?
Bishop: 1. There are already way too many books, so write another only if it absolutely has to be written—either for your own sake or to save humanity. Either reason will do.
2. Write constantly, and rewrite compulsively.
3. Read a lot of stuff that’s NOT your favorite genre.
What is your favorite book, genre, and/or author?
Bishop: 1. “Classical” authors: Dickens, Kafka, Zola, Shakespeare, Ovid, Gozzi, Euripides.
2. Great moderns: Steinbeck, Ursula LeGuin, Coetze, Brecht, Shaw, Marquez, Yeats.
3. Popular: James Baldwin, John le Carre, Tony Hillerman, Louise Erdrich, Kurt Vonnegut, Mary Oliver. (Sorry not many women, but you said “favorite.”)
What are you working on next?
Bishop: Elizabeth is writing a three-part memoir. I’m laying out an anthology of seven of our stage comedies for self-publication and also starting a novel about King David—who knows why?
Which is perhaps the best reason for writing: to discover why you’re writing this thing.
Learn More About the Author and Masks
www.DamnedFool.com — Our ongoing blog, with six years of weekly posts, alternating between CB and EF. There also find links to our other books.
www.IndependentEye.org — Our theatre website, with the long chronicle, plus many scripts, photos, video clips, and our long-running radio series.
Interested in checking out the book for yourself?
Find it for purchase here
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