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A VOICE FOR INDEPENDENT AUTHORS
Joel R. Dennstedt: Author Interview
Publisher of: Independent Books
The following interview was conducted by Sarah Creeley from Online Book Club.
Interview
Q.1. How did you get your start writing?
I became aware at 8 years old that I wanted to write. I would rise much earlier than my parents and brothers and write stories at the big table in the den. I wrote about a bug with the head of Alfred Hitchcock and a war between the Conumists and Decromats [sic]. I created a comic book about a bear lost on the moon. Although life intervened — as it always does — writing became the magnetic center around which I revolved. At sixty-three, I finally published my first novel.
Q.2. Who’s been most influential in your writing?
Since I explore multiple genres, a variety of influences come to mind. My writing humor comes mainly from James Thurber; my literary fiction is inspired and informed by William Golding, Henry James, and John Le Carré; my science fiction is inspired by all the greats from the Golden Age in which I lived: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, and the large host of others writing SF in the ’50s and ’60s.