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Thomas E. Kennedy, Interviewee 
Duff Brenna, Interviewee
David Applefield, Interviewer
Frank: Let´s reach into that bag. Do you write on a computer? Does the keyboard and screen bring out any hidden gifts. In an interview we published in the late 80s Robert Coover mentioned that the cool dead space inside his computer, especially at night, helped free up for him a world of boundless invention.
Brenna: It varies now. I used to write with a pencil on legal pads. I still do that, but I also find myself composing directly on the computer. Eventually I expect the computer will completely take over. It has for many writers. What about you, Tom?
Kennedy: Ballpoint pen on lined white pads when I have them. Otherwise whatever paper presents itself. The novel I´m working on now I had five hundred handwritten pages before I decided to go to the computer as a way of reviewing what I had. I write in a mixture of long hand and short hand--Gregg method, which I learned in the army. Very useful. Makes it possible to write as fast as I think. How often do you write and at what time of day? My own favorite time is early morning, but as time grows scarce and other pressures mount, I will take any unit of time I can get my hands on and wherever it might be--I like to write on planes for example. No one to bother you--except the drink trolley which is no bother at all.
Frank: Thank you Tom for lifting the lid off that kettle. Let´s banter a bit on drink for a moment. A fair amount of your characters drink in your stories, and alcohol, although not the subject or source of conflict, does either soothe the pain of living or helps these people confront their issues. Curiously, both of you refer to vodka in your excerpts. Aside from commenting on how your characters use alcohol, say something on what effect drinking has on the writer and the act of creating?
Kennedy: Well, the first chapter of Beneath the Neon Egg is called "The Sacrament of Vodka." Drink can serve to fuel the spirit and the body in what I would consider an almost sacramental manner, but too much of it can ruin you. How sad it was to read in the journals of the great John Cheever that toward the end his days had become a struggle to put off taking his first gin until noon--a struggle he increasingly lost. You´ve got to keep your substances under control or they will control you, and that is not good. But alcohol for me is definitely one of life´s pleasures, consolations, and means of insight. Amen.
Frank: Duff?
Brenna: When I´m working on a novel I work seven days a week, usually in the morning, but lately I´ve been writing late at night, in the weird zone--night writing is more dreamy, less controlled for me--because my school schedule is so hectic.
Kennedy: How much do you get done on a good day?
Brenna: On a good day I can average three or four pages. I´ve gotten up to 10 on rare fire-in-the-mind occasions. But there are equally as many days I´ve spent on one page or even one paragraph, diddling with it and wondering where le mot juste is hiding.
Kennedy: I guess I do about the same. Do you drink or smoke anything while you write?
Brenna: No. I can´t drink and write. My mind is too mucked up as it is without adding liquor or drugs to it. I tried writing under the influence a few times, vodka logic, grass wisdom. It was all shit the next day.
Kennedy: I always start dry, maybe with a glass of juice or club soda and will write as long as I can, but I do find if I am going strong but near exhaustion, a drink can carry me a little further, even two or, rarely, three, but then the next day it is hard to read my short hand. Sometimes I like the stuff that comes out that way though. It breaks patterns, breaks up the line. Sometimes of course it is just silly though, but it can be silly dry too. It´s like the joke Gordon Weaver tells about the preacher who keeps a pitcher of vodka on his pulpit shelf and finds that a little sip every once in a while helps him wax eloquent, but one day he takes a few sips too many and finds himself telling how Samson kicked the motherfucking Philistines asses!
Brenna: Now there´s a possible story, Tom, a preacher who talked that way one day in front of his parishioners. What would happen next? What would the congregation do? To what stunning heights would the preacher´s "eloquence" soar?
Frank: Let´s invite our readers to take up the challenge and see what grows! 
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