Interview with Dan Mishkin
First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I'll be your server toda...oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking
time out of your writing schedule--which I'm sure is busy!--and answering a few questions for your
readers and fans.
Let's get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I knew I wanted to tell stories as soon as I started reading comic books, around age five. Regular books,
which I read plenty of, must have seemed more finished and done to me, but episodic comics stories
about ongoing characters presented a world I thought I could enter creatively.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
My friends and I were always making up stories, either for imaginative play (cowboys, spies, adventurers)
or just to go on "what if" riffs about our favorite characters. One of those friends made the daring
statement that he was going to become a writer, which is something I'd never seriously considered
before, and I ended up following his lead--writing stories, going to writers' workshops, and so on. The two
of us tried breaking into comics together and were a team doing work for DC Comics and others for a
number of years. Although I've been writing comics for over twenty-five years, and have written
educational and other non-fiction materials since then, my new book is my first published work of prose
fiction.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
The Forest King: Woodlark's Shadow tells the story of a boy who moves from the big city to a small New
England town, only to discover that there's something evil lurking in the vast surrounding forest; the
trouble is that nobody seems to know it's there except him. The one thing you should know about the
book is that the characters are true to life: no matter how fantastic the story gets, the people who inhabit
it respond the way real people do, and I think that helps bring the reader's own emotions into the story.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
I think it goes back to the comic books of my youth. Even though so many of them were silly in the
extreme, and not nearly as accomplished and satisfying as some of my favorite book books from a long
reading life, it was the comics that really showed me that there don't have to be any limits on the writer's
imagination.
Let's hear about your family, who I'm sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I don't know if they're so thrilled. My kids have had a writer dad for their whole lives, and my wife knew
me when I was young and even more foolish than I am now. But to lay it out: I met my wife in college and
we've been married for thirty-two years, and we live in that same college town, where she's a physician
and professor at the medical school. And I have three children: a daughter who's a nurse, another
daughter in college, and a son in high school.
Now for some fun facts. What's your greatest comfort food?
Gotta be pizza!
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Wake up my sixteen-year-old son, check my email, and get on the treadmill. Though sometimes what I
do after getting my son up is go back to bed, because nobody cares when a writer shows up for work.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what's the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
You may or may not be surprised by the Superman-themed bathroom. What might be surprising, though,
is that for all the size of my comic book collection (over 20,000), I don't really take very good care of
them, considering that they can be found in closets and the basement in various states of disorder.
Everyone asks the question about "if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?" so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
I'd like to be black at night, white in the snow, or whatever color would allow me to blend in unnoticed in
any situation. My desire to be a chameleon might have something to do with the fact that I'm big (6'4"
and 225 lbs.) and I sometimes worry that I scare people away..which makes it very hard to observe them
and put them in my next story.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
How's this for contrast: my favorite cartoon character is Daffy Duck, but the one who's most like me is
Droopy Dog.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be--and why?
This is probably cheating, but the future is where I want to go, maybe to 2076 to see what a 300-year-old
America is like. But if I had to go into the past, it might be to 1776 to listen to the debates that were going
on then, or 1787 when the Constitution was being written. Or else I'd go back to when my parents and
grandparents were children and spy on their early lives, and hopefully get to understand them better.
So what's your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you're writing?
I listen to a lot of music. Lately I've had on Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, the Indigo Girls, Tom Waits,
Lyle Lovett; and I also love musical theater, and secretly wish I could write Broadway show tunes. But I
don't usually listen to that when I'm writing, because I always listen to lyrics and that distracts me.
Sometimes I put on a classical station while I'm writing, but generally I provide my own accompaniment.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
This fall I'm watching way more shows on a regular basis than I normally do: Heroes is an absolute blast,
and there's Grey's Anatomy, Studio 60, The Nine, Dexter, The Unit. It's a good thing there's no current
Star Trek series for me to have a love-hate relationship with (my favorite was Deep Space Nine). I always
look forward to Deadwood coming back on, and if there's a rerun of the old Dick Van Dyke Show, I'm
there. I like re-watching the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, The Godfather, and various
animated features like The Iron Giant. Last movie theater experience was Casino Royale.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading--voraciously! And be sure to pick out plenty of books that you want to read in addition to
the "boring" books you get assigned in school (which often turn out to be more valuable and memorable
than you expect).
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
The second Forest King book: Woodlark's Winter! I'm in the middle of writing it right now. Check out
Actionopolis.com for updates.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I'll be your server toda...oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking
time out of your writing schedule--which I'm sure is busy!--and answering a few questions for your
readers and fans.
Let's get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I knew I wanted to tell stories as soon as I started reading comic books, around age five. Regular books,
which I read plenty of, must have seemed more finished and done to me, but episodic comics stories
about ongoing characters presented a world I thought I could enter creatively.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
My friends and I were always making up stories, either for imaginative play (cowboys, spies, adventurers)
or just to go on "what if" riffs about our favorite characters. One of those friends made the daring
statement that he was going to become a writer, which is something I'd never seriously considered
before, and I ended up following his lead--writing stories, going to writers' workshops, and so on. The two
of us tried breaking into comics together and were a team doing work for DC Comics and others for a
number of years. Although I've been writing comics for over twenty-five years, and have written
educational and other non-fiction materials since then, my new book is my first published work of prose
fiction.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
The Forest King: Woodlark's Shadow tells the story of a boy who moves from the big city to a small New
England town, only to discover that there's something evil lurking in the vast surrounding forest; the
trouble is that nobody seems to know it's there except him. The one thing you should know about the
book is that the characters are true to life: no matter how fantastic the story gets, the people who inhabit
it respond the way real people do, and I think that helps bring the reader's own emotions into the story.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
I think it goes back to the comic books of my youth. Even though so many of them were silly in the
extreme, and not nearly as accomplished and satisfying as some of my favorite book books from a long
reading life, it was the comics that really showed me that there don't have to be any limits on the writer's
imagination.
Let's hear about your family, who I'm sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
I don't know if they're so thrilled. My kids have had a writer dad for their whole lives, and my wife knew
me when I was young and even more foolish than I am now. But to lay it out: I met my wife in college and
we've been married for thirty-two years, and we live in that same college town, where she's a physician
and professor at the medical school. And I have three children: a daughter who's a nurse, another
daughter in college, and a son in high school.
Now for some fun facts. What's your greatest comfort food?
Gotta be pizza!
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Wake up my sixteen-year-old son, check my email, and get on the treadmill. Though sometimes what I
do after getting my son up is go back to bed, because nobody cares when a writer shows up for work.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what's the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
You may or may not be surprised by the Superman-themed bathroom. What might be surprising, though,
is that for all the size of my comic book collection (over 20,000), I don't really take very good care of
them, considering that they can be found in closets and the basement in various states of disorder.
Everyone asks the question about "if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?" so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
I'd like to be black at night, white in the snow, or whatever color would allow me to blend in unnoticed in
any situation. My desire to be a chameleon might have something to do with the fact that I'm big (6'4"
and 225 lbs.) and I sometimes worry that I scare people away..which makes it very hard to observe them
and put them in my next story.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
How's this for contrast: my favorite cartoon character is Daffy Duck, but the one who's most like me is
Droopy Dog.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), during any time in history,
where and when would it be--and why?
This is probably cheating, but the future is where I want to go, maybe to 2076 to see what a 300-year-old
America is like. But if I had to go into the past, it might be to 1776 to listen to the debates that were going
on then, or 1787 when the Constitution was being written. Or else I'd go back to when my parents and
grandparents were children and spy on their early lives, and hopefully get to understand them better.
So what's your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you're writing?
I listen to a lot of music. Lately I've had on Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, the Indigo Girls, Tom Waits,
Lyle Lovett; and I also love musical theater, and secretly wish I could write Broadway show tunes. But I
don't usually listen to that when I'm writing, because I always listen to lyrics and that distracts me.
Sometimes I put on a classical station while I'm writing, but generally I provide my own accompaniment.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie
you saw at the theater?
This fall I'm watching way more shows on a regular basis than I normally do: Heroes is an absolute blast,
and there's Grey's Anatomy, Studio 60, The Nine, Dexter, The Unit. It's a good thing there's no current
Star Trek series for me to have a love-hate relationship with (my favorite was Deep Space Nine). I always
look forward to Deadwood coming back on, and if there's a rerun of the old Dick Van Dyke Show, I'm
there. I like re-watching the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, The Godfather, and various
animated features like The Iron Giant. Last movie theater experience was Casino Royale.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading--voraciously! And be sure to pick out plenty of books that you want to read in addition to
the "boring" books you get assigned in school (which often turn out to be more valuable and memorable
than you expect).
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
The second Forest King book: Woodlark's Winter! I'm in the middle of writing it right now. Check out
Actionopolis.com for updates.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!