Local Author Spotlight: Part 2 Of Our Interview With Author John Van Roekel

This is Part 2 of our interview with author, John Van Roekel.  John Van Roekel is the author of 3 historical fiction novels:  "Braver Deeds", "Prisoner Moon", and his latest, "Lorenzo's Assassin".  John was selected by the Friends of the San Diego Central Library as their Writer to Watch for February.  Writers To Watch (W2W) is a new program, designed to promote self-published authors in the San Diego area.  As part of the W2W recognition, John will be having a reception on February 18th at 1pm, in the Mary Hollis Clark room at the Central Library.  All are invited to attend.

We ended our interview in Part 1 discussing John's publishing imprint, Triptych Press.  We continue, now, from that point.  You can read Part 1 here:  http://sandiegoliteraryscene.blogspot.com/2017/01/local-author-spotlight-san-diego.html


        INTERVIEW WITH JOHN VAN ROEKEL Pt. 2

SDLS:  You have named your publishing imprint "Triptych Press", which represents the fact that the stories in your novels are told from 3 points of views.  Why have you structured your novels in that way?

JVR:  I think by accident, truly.  The first one, (the novel, "Braver Deeds") I had a clear picture of Matt, the African American Cavalry trooper.  I was enamored with the story of the Buffalo Soldiers during the Spanish-American War - Teddy Roosevelt's description of them - and so, I woke up one morning and I told my wife, Pam, I am going to write a novel.  Which totally surprised her!  This completely blew her away.  Then, over the next 14 years, I did it.

I travelled to Wounded Knee, to Cuba, illegally, in 1997.  The statute of limitations has expired, so I am safe from prosecution. (laughs)  I spent a week in Santiago, at some of the battle sites.  I knew I wanted to tell Matt's story.  And, I also wanted to tell a Native American story of someone who was at Wounded Knee, as presumptuous as that sounds, from her perspective.  Then I realized she was not going to carry forward and go to Cuba, so I introduced the 3rd character, Carlos, who does go to Cuba with Matt, and that's how I got the 3rd voice.

And, in the second (novel), I think I just did the same thing again.  Same thing happened with the third book, I just felt I had to write it with 3 points of view.  I knew how to construct the plot with 3 separate threads, and then, hopefully, weave them together in various ways so they had a good, satisfying, conclusion.

SDLS:  Why historical fiction novels rather than writing non-fiction?

JVR:  Well, I wasn't really interested in writing a history book.  There are history books about Wounded Knee, the Spanish-American War, the African American soldiers, and certainly, the plight of the Lakota Sioux.  I wanted to tell a story.  I like stories, and history gave me the foundation upon which to build the story around.  Historical fiction allows you to make things up.  I like the "making up" part.

One of the things I've always said is that the best historical fiction is 10% history, and 90% fiction.  In the end, you have to care about the characters.  You have to care about the plot, and you have to care about relationships.  And that's what fiction is.  History provides me with a trellis, like in a garden, and it's up to me to plant the flowers and vines so they intertwine with the trellis.  The trellis is fixed, but the stories, I weave the stories back and forth as I want.  That's what I envision.

SDLS:  So, continuing on with the theme of your imprint, the triptych, you have now just published your third book.  So, does this mean you have reached the end of your writing career?  Have you limited yourself by the name of your imprint?

JVR:  Yeah, I know.  (laughs)  When I finished "Lorenzo's Assassin" in 2015, just over a year ago, I said, "That's it.  I cannot start the research for another historical novel."  I just couldn't do it.  But, I knew I had to work on something.  Several people over the years have said that "Prisoner Moon", my WW II German POW story, seemed very cinematic.  So, I said, "I'm going to do something brand new.  I'm going to write a screenplay adaptation of 'Prisoner Moon'."

I took classes.  I read about writing screenplays - believe it or not, it's a very different genre.  It's mainly about formatting.  Screenplay formats are very rigid, and if you don't follow them, you label yourself as an amateur right away, which is not what you want to do if you hope to get a producer to look at it.  I formed my own "read and critique" group for screenwriters.  So, I put a lot of energy into "Prisoner Moon", the movie.

It's had some success.  I have it with a producer now who has not rejected it yet, (laughter) but, most likely, it won't happen.  It's very difficult to get a movie produced.  But, the other thing you can do is submit to film festivals and contests.  Most film festivals, in addition to competitions for produced movies, they also have them for screenplays.  I submitted to a number of them.  Two months ago I got word that "Prisoner Moon" won the Paris International Film Festival's "Best Feature Film Script" award.  I had won a few minor film festivals as well.

SDLS:  Yes, I saw it (the screenplay) has won a total of 7 film festival awards, right?

JVR:  That's right.  They're very minor film festivals.

SDLS:  But, that's OK.  It's still recognition.

JVR:  Yes.  One of the minor film festivals that I won had their awards ceremony 3 weeks ago, and they invited me to attend.  It was in Hollywood, so I went up.  They had a red carpet.  They did interviews on the red carpet.  They tell me, yes, I will be announced from the stage, and I will come up to get my certificate, and I was thrilled.

SDLS:  Circling back to the idea of "3s", and the triptych then, since you've published a third novel, does this mean that you are done writing novels?  Have you moved on to other things, like screenplays, or do you have plans to write more novels?

JVR:  Well, as it turns out, about 3 months ago, I woke up and I had an idea for a novel.  I mapped it out in my head, laying in bed for an hour, and I got up and wrote it down.  So, I have been working on a 4th novel.  So far, there are only 2 points of view.  I have worked out the 1st story.  I know what happens to her.  I realized, I had projected it out forward, I had about 30,000 words, which is half or a third of a novel.  So I said, "Well, I don't want to pad the novel, so I'll just add another point of view", which is what I have done.  I may very well end up with a third point of view, but it is not the goal, necessarily.

SDLS:  Will this one also be a historical fiction novel?

JVR:  That's the other thing.  This is a contemporary family drama.  So, who knows?  I will not be constrained by the imprint.  (laughs)

SDLS:  How is promoting, marketing, & publishing a book different from doing the same for a screenplay?

JVR:  Well, when writing a novel, the first step has to be getting an agent, and getting an agent is more difficult than it used to be.  Very difficult.  Everybody seems to be writing now.  A legitimate literary agent will get about 200 submissions a week, and they are overwhelmed.

I went to the SDSU Writers Conference - I've gone many times - for networking.  Eight years ago, I was there, and I met a great agent, with the Andrea Brown Agency, Laura Rennert.  One of the most exciting evenings of my life is when I got an email from her, saying that she as going to represent me.  And then, 3 days later, I got an email from her with about 17 bullet points of things she wanted changed.  (laughs)  And, my heart sank.  Oh my God, my poor book!  I don't want to do this, but I did it, and it was a great experience working with her to make the book much better.  I cut it from 160,000 to 145,000 - so, about 450 pages.  It's still a tome, but I cut a lot out.

That's the good news.  The exciting part.  The bad news is that we couldn't sell it.  We got close.  Algonquin said, "Cut 100 pages", and I said, "Let me think about it", and I tried.  I really went over it, and looked at it, and I just couldn't do it.  And, they weren't going to guarantee anything anyway, so I ended up self-publishing.  The good news about self-publishing is that anybody can get published.  The bad news is, anybody can get published.  So, there's this mass of badly written work that is self-published out there.  Everybody - a lot of people - have decided that they have always had a book in them, and now it's time to write it.  So, they self-publish it, put it up on Amazon - it doesn't cost them anything - and typically, they're awful.  So, it's hard to rise above the glut.

SDLS:  You said that you found working with an agent to be a great experience.  That getting feedback on your work, and having to make edits, made your book much better.  However, you ended up self-publishing.  So now, you do not have an agent giving you feedback and suggestions for edits.  What do you think are the pitfalls - if any - of having to self-edit when, as you've said, it's very difficult to let go of your writing?  How do you make sure that your book doesn't become just another bad novel in the glut?

JVR:  Right.  Right.  I'm perfectly capable of doing that.  (laughter)  The trick, and this is not original to me by any means, is to be involved with a community of writers.  I have always been in a writers group, where the format is "read and critique".  Now, with my new book, I bring in 8 pages a week, 8 or 10, and they are merciless.  You hear their criticism.  If you're smart, you don't argue.  You write it down, move on to the next draft, and you take all of it to heart.  I do not write in a vacuum.  I am a member of San Diego Writers Ink, which is a great organization of, and for, writers.  We have classes and other programs. It is a wonderful organization. I would encourage all writers to join a writing community.

SDLS:  We've already talked about your book, "Lorenzo's Assassin" in some detail, earlier.  I'd like to talk some more about your other two novels, "Braver Deeds" and "Prisoner Moon".  You had mentioned that you had read Theodore Roosevelt's account of the Buffalo Soldiers, and this inspired you to write "Braver Deeds".  Can you elaborate on that?

JVR:  Yes, that's true.  After reading Roosevelt's book, I knew I wanted to tell that story.  I'm now embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of these African American Cavalry troops, and their contribution to the United States Army.  So, it blew me away, and I had this naïve view that I was going to tell their story - this White guy, tell this African American story, and a Native American story, for that matter.

I've had doubts about that at times, and I want people to know that I understand the arguments about presumptuousness and cultural appropriation, but in the end, I had a story that I had created, that I wanted to tell.  And ultimately, we all have the right to write the damn book that we want to write.  So, I stopped worrying about it and just did the best job I could, even as a White male writing about an African American young man, and a young Lakota Sioux girl.  I just did the best I could.

SDLS:  And how was the book received by those communities?

JVR:  I went and tracked down an African American book discussion group, and I went in there and was totally honest with them.  I said, "Here I am, this middle-aged White guy, and I've written this book.  What do you think?"  And, overall, the comments were positive.  People were glad to get that story out, for one thing.  There were a few who took a sort of more radical approach, but that was fine.

I have also run into some Native Americans, in fact, in a writing class, who were concerned.  I remember this one comment.  There was a woman who came up to me and said, "You didn't use the 'S' word, did you?"  I was thinking desperately, "What's the 'S' word?"  She wouldn't say it, and I'm trying to figure it out.  Eventually, she either hinted at it, or I finally figured it out.  The "S" word is "squaw".  It is this word, and I hesitate to use it now, that shows part of my lack of appreciation for that culture, and contemporary Sioux culture today.  But, I am happy to say that I had not. (used that word in the novel)  The one thing I really worked hard at was to not reinforce stereotypes, as I understood them.  I hope I had some success at that.

SDLS:  I know that your father was in WW II, and that he wrote about 52 letters back home during the course of his service.  You took the time to transcribe and edit them, and you have them up on your website.  It looks very nice.  I looked through some of them, and they really are a wonderful treasure.  Your novel, "Prisoner Moon", is a WW II story, so I am wondering if these letters - and your dad's experiences in the war - inspired you to write "Prisoner Moon".  Did your father inform that work, or are they completely unrelated?  Have you thought about writing a fictional story, or non-fiction memoir, about your father?

JVR:  No.  The truth is, there is a connection between my dad's letters and "Prisoner Moon", but it's indirect.  I was born in 1948, which means that I grew up with WW II always looming over us.  So, I like to think I know something about it, but I continue to have an interest in it.  When I found my dad's letters, that certainly fed into it.  I felt that this really added to my perspective.  When I had this bright idea for a German POW story, I was able to tap into my interest in that period.

When I learned about these German POWs, one of the first things that came to mind is that they're not all monsters.  One of the themes of "Prisoner Moon" is, a lot of them are young kids fighting for their country (like my dad was), and they know nothing about the politics.  About Nazism.  They came to the U.S. in these camps, 400,000 German POWs in hundreds of camps, and basically, people found them to be very likeable people.  And they, (the POWs) were happy to be here.  Nobody was shooting at them anymore.  We treated them well.  Yet, there was this strain of Nazism in the camps, a minority of the hardliners.

I want people to know that, even though a lot of the characters (in the book) are German POWs, this is not a German apologist book at all.  I pull no punches about Nazism, and I hope that I'm not exploitative.  I will point out to people - this was my decision - that there is no swastika on the cover of "Prisoner Moon".  Every other book that is centered around Nazism will put a swastika on the cover, because they know it will sell books.  But I made the decision - when you self-publish, you get to make those decisions - not to put a swastika on the cover.

SDLS:  Speaking of the cover, what I noticed - what struck me when I first saw all 3 books on your website - are the beautiful covers.

JVR:  Aren't they great?  I love them.

SDLS:  Who did the art and designed those covers?  They're really beautiful.

JVR:  I had a waffle cover for "Braver Deeds", for the first edition.  I had a guy help me with it, and I tinkered with it, and it was awful.  If you own a first edition of "Braver Deeds", you'll know it.  So, when "Prisoner Moon" came out, I decided to do them (the covers) both together.  So, I hired an artist online through one of these freelance artist websites.  He and I worked back and forth with ideas, and he'd send me drafts, and he came up with these very lovely designs that were complimentary to the themes of the books.  So, I love them.

When I finished "Lorenzo's Assassin", I had admired the artwork of this local artist named Lori Mitchell.  She was showing her art at the Inspiration Art Gallery in Point Loma, run by a friend of mine.  Pam and I have actually bought a couple of her paintings.  So, I had this brilliant idea to commission a painting for the cover of the book.  So, Jill Hall, Lori, and I met together several times, and we ended up with two pieces, which are now on the cover of "Lorenzo's Assassin".  They are original art, and I am just tickled to death by how they came out.

SDLS:  They are beautiful.  John, I want to thank you for talking with us today, and congratulations on being named the Writer To Watch for February.

REMINDERJohn Van Roekel's Writer To Watch reception will be on February 18th, at 1pm in the Mary Hollis Clark room at the Central Library.  All are welcome.


More info here:
http://johnvanroekel.com/2016/

https://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/news-events/localauthors

http://www.friendsofsandiegocentrallibrary.org/john-van-roekel-will-discuss-book-lorenzos-assassin-february-18-2017-100pm-mary-hollis-clark-room-part-w2w-series/

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