{"id":1912,"date":"2012-02-14T02:40:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T00:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2012-02-14T02:37:26","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T00:37:26","slug":"writers-cornered-thomas-carl-sweterlitsch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2012\/02\/14\/writers-cornered-thomas-carl-sweterlitsch\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Cornered: Thomas Carl Sweterlitsch"},"content":{"rendered":"

interview by Vianne Venter
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\nFrom Issue 18 (Feb 2012)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Where is home?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nPittsburgh, in a small brick house\u2014I moved here for college and fell in love with the city (mostly because I fell in love, period. Pittsburgh is where I met Sonja).<\/p>\n

Are you a full-time writer?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nUnfortunately\u2026not even close. Maybe someday. For the past ten years I\u2019ve worked at the Carnegie Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped as a \u201creader\u2019s advisor\u201d\u2014basically talking books all day. We circulate audiobooks, mostly, but also large print and Braille, and since we\u2019re a public library, the service is free. It\u2019s a national program, so if anyone out there knows someone who\u2019s struggling to read standard-sized print, head on over to www.loc.gov\/nls<\/a> for more info. I think Canada, England and South Africa have similar programs!<\/p>\n

What inspired this story?<\/em><\/strong>
\nLike a lot of my stories, this one showed up one morning as a fully-formed image: of a man in overalls disintegrating as he\u2019s shuffling down the street. Figuring out who that man was and what was happening to him created the story.<\/p>\n

The concept of a Disposable Man is brilliant. Where did that idea come from?<\/em><\/strong>
\nThanks! I\u2019ll try not to get mired in politics here, but the idea of him being \u201cdisposable\u201d was most definitely a reflection of my post-9\/11 pessimism, when America found itself in two wars without clear purpose, every evening saw updates of the color-coded \u201cterrorist threat levels,\u201d and xenophobia simmered beneath the national debate. There seemed to be little concern for the effects of our country\u2019s actions globally, and meanwhile the economy tanked\u2014the richer getting richer while the poor got poorer\u2026and more numerous. It seemed like we were willing to make certain values and individuals \u201cdisposable\u201d in exchange for\u2026what? Patriotism? A false sense of security? The mandated age-limit is, of course, a reference to Logan\u2019s Run<\/em>. The plot really snapped into place, though, thinking of Rudolph Mat\u00e9\u2019s classic noir D.O.A.\u2014<\/em>a man\u2019s been poisoned and he only has a few days to figure out the crime. The movie has a tremendous opening: Edmond O\u2019Brien walking into a police station to report his own murder.<\/p>\n

Why Presidents? And why specifically McKinleys and Palins?<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe idea of \u201cmemorializing\u201d Presidents (all from a certain political persuasion) as a way to fill menial jobs which, in conjunction with \u201cthe gainful employment act\u201d mentioned in the world of the story (one character calls this law the \u201cspic act,\u201d knowing full well it was intended to push non-whites from the country), seemed a fitting metaphor for the jingoism and xenophobia that often colors our politics. As for McKinley\u2026I was raised in Canton, Ohio\u2014William McKinley\u2019s hometown, so his specter has always loomed large in my imagination. Canton has the tremendous hillside McKinley Monument\/mausoleum where the city gathers to watch 4th of July fireworks. He\u2019s a sympathetic figure\u2014married to (and stayed faithful to) a beautiful woman, Ida, who lost her sanity, frothing at the mouth and suffering psychotic delusions. He was a good man, it seemed\u2014too pro-business, maybe, and some say a puppet to more powerful interests, but a sympathetic character. I\u2019ve written about him a few times.<\/p>\n

Why do you think SF is so effective as a medium for social commentary?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt has the ability to operate as metaphor and to imaginatively push our current cultural trends to their logical, and often absurd, ends.<\/p>\n

Why British currency?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI love Burgess\u2019s infusion of Russian into Nadsat, and how that detail hints at some unspecified cultural influence or tangled global political scenario for his future England. While certainly not as brilliantly executed or as nimble as Burgess\u2019s writing, the British currency and occasional \u201cBritishness\u201d in my story is an experiment in creating a similar effect.<\/p>\n

Tell us about the closing images of the story<\/em>.<\/strong>
\nThe ecstasies of love, death, sex and God have been stripped away from these \u201cdisposable men\u201d, their dying thoughts instead a pre-programmed concoction of, essentially, \u201cmom, apple pie and the 4th of July\u201d\u2014I kind of like how, despite the bleak and critical tone of the story, these last thoughts still operate as a happy ending of sorts.<\/p>\n

Are you working on anything right now?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nYes! By early summer I\u2019ll have put the finishing touches on a manuscript for a novel, and I\u2019m always trying to keep up with my short stories.<\/p>\n

Where can we find more of your work?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nI have a short story called \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d in the current issue of Icarus Magazine<\/em> and you can follow me on Twitter @LetterSwitch for updates<\/p>\n

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Vianne Venter<\/h2>\n

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Vianne Venter<\/em> is a freelance writer and sub-editor for various South African publications. She served as story editor and sub for Something Wicked since its inception in 2005. She is also an artist and mother. She can communicate with inanimate objects, but only if they\u2019re feeling chatty. In her spare time\u2026 oh, who are we kidding? What spare time?<\/p>\n

[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockClose’ \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

interview by Vianne Venter
\n\"\"<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Like a lot of my stories, this one showed up one morning as a fully-formed image: of a man in overalls disintegrating as he\u2019s shuffling down the street. Figuring out who that man was and what was happening to him created the story.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIssue 18 (Feb 2012)<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[63,163,165,109,100],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-interview","tag-issue-18","tag-thomas-carl-sweterlitsch","tag-vianne-venter","tag-writers-cornered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1915,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions\/1915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}