Sniggerless Boundulations

MY GUEST AUTHORS

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT ~ Morgan Bell

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2014 10:24 AM

AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH MORGAN BELL

Is there a particular book or author who inspired you to write?

I have been inspired by Angela Carter. Ursula Leguin, Aldous Huxley, and Virginia Woolf. Some home grown (Australian) short story collections that really motivated me to publish my own collection (Sniggerless Boundulations), and/or encouraged me to keep promoting and creating, are Margo Lanagan's Black Juice, Cate Kennedy's Dark Roots, Tim Winton's The Turning, and Angela Meyer's Captives.

How many books have you written? Do you have a favorite?

I published my debut collection of short stories, Sniggerless Boundulations, earlier this year. It is my baby, I love it like it's my own flesh and blood. It is actually a great little snapshot of what's going on in my head most of the time Out of the stories in the book, Garsdale, the final story, is my favourite. It was inspired in part by the lyrics of Chris Cornell from a song called Mind Riot, and is an allegory for struggling with depression.

What are your challenges in writing?

Remembering my ideas, and finding the time to write. I need to write things down straight away or I will lose them. I keep little idea journals in my handbag to try and counteract having a mind like a sieve. I work full time as an engineer, so creative writing is my relaxation time for weekends or sometimes on a Thursdaynight in between dinner and waiting for my movie at the cinema to start.

How do you come up with the names of your characters?

I absolutely love looking up baby names on online databases or on YouTube. I like name etymology and meanings and derivations. I often give little nods to points of reference, but mostly go on the sound of the name. I have on occasion, as I work in managing road traffic, been inspired by a street name.

If your book was a movie, which actors would you choose for your characters?

I would cast Eva Green in It Had To Be Done. Crispin in The Dermoid Cyst is a Hugh Laurie type, Dawn is a Sarah Silverman, Amy is Juno Temple. Mrs Jackson would be Tilda Swinton. In The Package, Madeline would be Kate Winslet. Constable Skillion would be Aidan Gillen and Telfer Speck would be Barry Pepper. Garsdale would be Cillian Murphy.

Are you working on anything new? How far along are you with your new project?

I will have a second collection of short stories released by the end of the year. It will be called Laissez Faire. I am collating and polishing off content as we speak. I have a story (The Switch) being published in a speculative fiction anthology called Novascapes, and another story (Don't Pay The Ferryman) being published in a travel writing anthology.

Originally posted on Donna Marie's World of Writing in June 2014. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20141021200010/http://www.donnamarieauthor.net/blog/2014/06/12/AUTHOR-SPOTLIGHT-Morgan-Bell.aspx