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  • Amy Shannon

Featured Author: Robert Eggleton


Q: In one sentence, tell me something that describes you as a person?

A: I’m a retired children’s psychotherapist turned fiction writer

Q: How many books have you written? How many of those are published?

A: Rarity from the Hollow is my debut novel. It was published by a traditional small press. The next, Ivy, is close to submission for editing.

Q: Do you have an upcoming release? If yes, tell me the title and impending release date.

A: The final edition of Rarity from the Hollow was released to Amazon on December 5, 2016.

Q: If you could “create” your own genre of what you write, what would you call your books?

A: I sometimes refer to my writing as adult literary speculative fiction. Since that genre is not familiar to many readers, sometimes I will use the term adult social science fiction.

Q: Without quoting your back cover synopsis, tell me about the last book you published.

A: Rarity from the Hollow is a story of victimization to empowerment. Early tragedy feeds and amplifies subsequent comedy and satire, including political allegory. The protagonist begins the story as an eleven year old victim living in an impoverished hollow in West Virginia. Without using swords or lasers, or sex appeal, she becomes a most unlikely savior of the universe with the help of and android sent to Earth to recruit and train her. The story is satiric of most everything that it touches upon, especially the political allegory that has become much more obvious now the Donald Trump is a household name. The off-world setting, planet Shptiludrp (Shop Until You Drop) is a giant shopping mall and the center of universal governance. Skill in negotiating the best deals determines an individual’s status and the fate of planets. Lacy Dawn doesn’t mind saving the universe but her family and friends come first. She first negotiates that her parents are cured of their mental health concerns and then goes on a wild adventure diagnosing and minimizing an imminent threat to the universe.

Q: Tell me something about yourself that is separate from writing.

A: As I mentioned, I’m a retired children’s psychotherapist who has devoted over forty years to child advocacy. I grew up poor, have never made much money because I have worked for underfunded community-based agencies, and now live on a small Social Security check. My wife is a retired Chemist. We have one child, a son (42) who works in the IT field. Politically, some people think that I’m liberal, but I consider myself more common sense middle-of-the-road. I do care about several social issues, such as poverty, health care, human trafficking…. With respect to religion, I grew up on Christian Fundamentalist values but I do not affiliate with a church today. I do believe that there must be some type of higher power because so much seems otherwise unexplainable, but I’m not convinced that human have achieved the insights to define it. I enjoy accomplishment, sense of achievement, especially permanency, such as building stone walls, landscaping, and construction. I also like to work on my own vehicles. I watch WVU sports, but not much else, although I did root for the Cubs in last year’s World Series. I like to watch cheesy SciFi moves, the more ridiculous the better. However, one of my favorite all time movies is The Color Purple.

Q: Who is your favorite Author?

A: Since I read in all genres, that’s a tough question. I loved everything Vonnegut, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams may be my favorite novel, but Watership Down by Richard Adams would be a very close second choice.

Q: What is the last book that you read? (Not counting anything you wrote)

A: Hit and Run by Dr. Bob Rich. He’s a prominent Australian psychologist. This book will probably never be a big hit, but I loved it – a diary-based story about love trumping hate. The main character is a severely abused child.

Q: When writing, do you have a system or something you plan, or do you just write?

A: I start with a flexible outline, refer to it, make adjustments when warranted, and edit out scenes based on the outline that do not advance the plot.

Q: Why do you write?

A: I started writing stories as a child, perhaps to escape a troubling childhood. It helped, plus when other appreciated my stories, that enhanced my low self-esteem. I became addicted to writing similar to how someone might develop a dependency on a drug. I fed my addiction with poetry, handouts for civil rights and antiwar protests, and nonfiction until I accepted the job at our local mental health center in 2002 as a children’s psychotherapist. There wasn’t much writing required for that job and I started to experience withdrawal symptoms that I ignored until 2006 when I started writing stories again.

I also write to support child abuse prevention. Half of author proceeds are donated to a local nonprofit agency where I worked in the early ‘80s. While it’s never been much money, every little bit helps and I still have hopes and dreams for the future.

Q: Do you read your own work a lot? If so, what does it do for you?

A: My attitude is that once it’s done it’s done. A story can always be improved or harmed by working on it before publication. That’s the double edge – second guessing oneself. In a way, I lucked out with Rarity from the Hollow. There was a formatting problem with the original edition. The italics for the internal dialogue didn’t show up. The publisher proposed fixing this serious flaw. I revised, which actually weakened the story, with the help of a new editor and having studied book reviews, the final edition is much better. On 1-6-17, the first review of the new edition was published, five stars. The closing lines were: "…Brilliant satires such as this are genius works of literature in the same class as Orwell’s 'Animal Farm.' I can picture American Lit professors sometime in the distant future placing this masterpiece on their reading list." https://marcha2014.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/5-stars-for-rarity-from-the-hollowby-robert-eggleton/

Q: What is your favorite type of music? Is there one genre (or song, band etc...) that brings out your creativeness more than others?

A: Similar to my tastes in reading, I enjoy a variety of music. We have an L.P. collection of thousands, including older jazz, rock n’ roll, some pop, country…. When I write, however, I have played rock albums from the late ‘60s and ‘70s, such as Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Jethro Tull…. The featured band in Rarity from the Hollow is Metallica, but songs by Cher and others played in the background of some scenes.

Q: As an author, I find that the hardest thing to write (for me) is the synopsis that will be on the back cover or book’s description. When you write, what is the hardest line to write, the first line, the last line or the synopsis for the book?

A: I agree that writing the synopsis is tough, especially when controlled by word length expectations. My personal obstacle is the chapter title. I’ve tried both writing the chapter content first and then coming up with the title, and brainstorming the title before I write the content. If I have at least a tentative title in mind, it seems to keep me on track, unless it’s a bad title which throws me off. If I write the content first, not having the title in mind bugs and distract me in a way that slows me down. I do not appreciate the practice of writers who use numerals as chapter titles. It seems lazy to me.

Q: Any final thoughts that you want to give to your fans or even future authors?

A: In closing, no book is for everybody. While Rarity from the Hollow may fall outside of the reading interests of some of your fans who check out this interview, please keep in mind my project’s mission: to sensitize readers to the huge social problem of child maltreatment through a comical and satiric science fiction adventure. Of course I would not want anybody to buy a book that they don’t want to read, but everybody can do something to help prevent child abuse. As examples, pay attention to the politics of child welfare and support those politicians who express support for helping needful children, talk to your own children about truly listening to their peers at school and about the harmful effects of bullying, or send a gift to your local emergency children’s shelter. Thousands of children spent last Christmas in one. If you don’t want your help to be recognized, your gift could be made anonymously. Easter is around-the-corner. A stuffed bunny would give a homeless child something to hug.

Additional Author Information:

Robert Eggleton has served as a children's advocate in an impoverished state for over forty years. He is best known for his investigative reports about children’s programs, most of which were published by the West Virginia Supreme Court where he worked from 1982 through 1997, and which also included publication of models of serving disadvantaged and homeless children in the community instead of in large institutions, research into foster care drift involving children bouncing from one home to the next -- never finding a permanent loving family, and statistical reports on the occurrence and correlates of child abuse and delinquency.

Today, he is a recently retired children's psychotherapist from the mental health center in Charleston, West Virginia, where he specialized in helping victims cope with and overcome physical and sexual abuse, and other mental health concerns. Rarity from the Hollow is his debut novel. Its release followed publication of three short Lacy Dawn Adventures in magazines: Wingspan Quarterly, Beyond Centauri, and Atomjack Science Fiction. The second edition of Rarity from the Hollow was release on November 3, 2016. Author proceeds have been donated to a child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West Virginia. http://www.childhswv.org/ Robert continues to write fiction with new adventures based on a protagonist that is a composite character of children that he met when delivering group therapy services. The overall theme of his stories remains victimization to empowerment.

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