Between the Lines

1) Your name: William Gough

2) Titles of the work you have on Bookrix:

Maud’s House: Sonic Theatre
Twenty-five years ago this novel was hailed when it first arrived. In 2009 I’ll be releasing the Sonic Theatre Audio-Book. Perhaps it’s time for you to meet Maud in this script for voices?

…REVIEWS OF “Maud’s House” – (the novel) :
…it’s clear that the richness of language as it is spoken in Newfoundland is in Gough’s literary blood.” Michael Harris(The Globe and Mail)/  “Maud’s House is a wonderful book, a treat to read, and one of the best books I’ve read this year, period…” Peter Gard(The Evening Telegram)/ “Maud’s House is… to laugh and cry over, and in the end to ‘dance.” Roy MacGregor, author of ‘The Last Season/ “Gough’s writing is…poignant, spare with the strength and subtlety of a fine woodcut…” E. Annie Proulx.

Deaths Of Friends I’ve Never Met
As a poet I become guardian of other people’s stories as well as my own & frequently I hear of death.  Such stories always change me.

Shinto Poem Field: Poems for Departed Friends
This is the place where I remember friends and relatives.

I add other poems here.

Singing Underwater: A Story of the Little Old Woman who Lives in a Fishbowl
No need to breathe air; releasing his poems from the afterlife;  having shared his green bicycle & married, placing a plum blossom in his lapel; now past being old, he lives underground – and his widow carries her tales like a comet. Yet another story of the little old man in a big room.

Inside The Painted Poem Cave
He doesn’t own any curtains; and now he makes paper from vegetables.  Having lost his green bicycle, and arranged plum blossoms in a vase, he becomes old and  meets a woman in the adjoining room.  Another story of the little old man in a big room.

My Room Has No Curtains
No longer imprisoned by curtains, recently released by vegetables, discovered back on his green bicycle, celebrated by plum blossoms; yet another boyhood story of the little boy in a big room.

Sonic Ocean
A powerful and evocative poem about childhood in Newfoundland.

Sonic Poet:  The Radio Drama Version of “Poet In A Pontiac
The reunion that brings former students to the edge – and over it.  Now – In Sonic Theatre Form.

MoonLight
This is my song for Caren in our 13th year of celebrating being together. St. John’s. Newfoundland. April 20, 2009. If I were to choose one book to represent my work – this would be it.

Dogs Of A Strange Town
“Dogs of a Strange Town” is a fable, a novella & a poem. William Gough tells the story of a Gargoyle who wants a child, and of a lost child who drifts from Piano Island until he floats to the shores of our world. This novella explores what happens when a Gargoyle Poet gives birth.

Vegetable Talk
Imprisoned by curtains, surrounded by vegetables, lost on his bicycle, caught by plums; another boyhood story of the little boy in a big room.

Celestial Guardian: The Stageplay
What happens when we realize that the greatest border of all is unguarded?

Poet In A Pontiac: The Stageplay
In “Poet In A Pontiac”: The Stageplay.”  the author sets out to create a word-movie on stage – an inner film that unspools in the mind.

You’ll find my Poem-Movie available with my other published books here.

3) What is your writing method? Do you wake up super early in the morning? Do you burn the midnight oil drinking coffee to stay awake while penning your passion?

Both of the above & more.  I write as I walk, but don’t carry pen, paper or notebook.   Most of the work is applied attention & disconnection from outcome.   It is always with me.

4) How long have you been writing?

First novella in Grade Six – 1956, Sci-Fi, and Poetry from the time I could measure and rhyme & learn that the world was something to discover – not be ‘taught’ about.  It’s an ‘is’ not a ‘becoming’.

5) How do you maintain your regular job while writing?

This is my regular job.  Sometime I make money, more times I don’t.  The job is its own reward – the payment is a bonus.  Sometimes I have no food, other times I have food.   The poetry is the food even when there’s none on the table.  And no table to put the ‘none’ on – lol.

6) Do you have special places where you go to write?

Varies.  Often, I prefer crowded coffee shops where there are other writers, the kind of place where there’s a table I always get if I’m there early enough (Thanks in particular to Cafe Sole in Boulder, Colorado, and the 14th St. Caribou Coffee in DC & ROCO on Salt Spring Island.)  And then we like to be tucked away in the woods & near the Ocean while we write. My other place that’s a favorite when writing is in a small cabin in the forest.

7) Do you have any quirks when writing? Do you need to shut off your phone for the weekend or stay away from family and friends?

Caren Moon (my wife) & I also shut ourselves away in our little cabin when we write – which is everyday. I tend to talk to my work – sometimes I hum while writing – believing that the art of silent reading has robbed us of out throat-music in words.  By humming or singing we make of the writing impulse something both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the head.  It becomes the neck of the bellows.

8 ) What inspires you?
The world – the people of the world, animals of the world, light, shapes, texture, strangers, friends, odd songs, shadows, being a profound mix of stardust and crap – all in the one being.

9) Do you want to make a living from your wordsmith skills or are you doing this for fun?

Both.  The ‘making a living’ is a giant snare, wherein the rich of the world snarl our tangled ideas, tighten the grip on the poor person’s neck & and bury us all by hoarding money so they may control the natural democratic delights of all beings.  Living is our job – and there is no boss.

10) What are your stories about? Are they fiction or non-fiction?

As a writer, all forms are open to us.  Everything is fiction.

11) Do you have a lesson in your stories? Do you have a philosophical or moral mission you are showing in your work?

I try to make it my view, to see my elusive thoughts, to hear my hidden words.  To understand that everyone I meet is my co-writer.  My readers also write each book anew when they read it.  They deserve access to my books in such a way that they are rewarded with low prices for the book they wish, and I am rewarded by a portion of the small fee they need to pay.  Flow – not stagnation is also the life-blood of money.   Husserl & Plato & Bergson are all writers – philosophy happens to be the spine of their writing – but they are writers first.  My readers can work out their own moral missions – I have little to do with that, nor is it my aim.  Freedom embraces all.

12) What advice do you have for other authors?

Write as if you’re on a grassy ledge which stopped your head-over-kettles fall.  Write as if night is coming.  Write as if there is growling from a cave at the edge of your ledge.  Write as if you’re falling.  Write as if you’ve smashed into rocks at the bottom of the cliff and yet still can write.  Write as if you are actually here – on this earth; spinning into words, spinning from air, burning with fire, drinking the deepest of deep well water.  Write for your life.  Because then you write for all our lives.

13) Please write anything else you’d like for the BookRix blog.

Thanks for this fine site.

I dream of a ‘buck-a-book’ site where all my books may be downloaded, each time a book is downloaded I’m paid something – books do not need to cost so much.  Period.

Keep all bookz inexpensive(I’ve added the z instead of s – to emphasize that books may be printed on pixels, labels steamed from old cans of food, paper napkins in restaurants, on ends of paper caged from closing paper mills.  Books are written in departing glances, arriving eyebrows – one lifted – one level.  Books may be written on a tombstone covered in ivy, hidden, letters worn to nub-stubs; and still there is the book.  Each of us walking, each of us, pages fluttered, torn, dampened, dried in the winds of change.  Like weathervanes, we spin, like veins we beat our lifeblood, paper words, grass words, earth words, sky words, lost words, found words. )  The delight of writing is for everyone – all peoples of the earth.

Keep access to knowledge affordable & you will have low prices for everything – as knowledge is obviously the most priceless of all modalities of the earth.  This is a question of balance – not of control.
Somewhere beyond mere borders there’s an old world waiting.  Remember?  The tools may be new, the dance is antique.