OVERALL interview questions

• Your approach seems to be the opposite of what people are doing today. While parents are pretty much planning that their children will be doctors or lawyers or corporate moguls twenty or thirty years from now, your approach to life and career appears to have been more helter skelter. Is it really better? Why? What role does happiness play?

• Did you plan on having all of these different careers or did they just happen? What do we do about planning our childrens’ futures if we don’t “program” them to a certain outcome?

• Amazing diversity in your life! What is the lesson we can learn from you? For us? For our children?

• You've written about each career in a different book: rock music, corporate management, ad photography, writing. What do they all have in common? Why should we read ALL of your books?

• You’ve had an onerous medical background, complete with many brain surgeries and near-death. While all is OK now—for now—how has the “fear of death” impacted you?

Sample interview questions - A CONSEQUENCE OF GREED
A mystical revenge saga revolving around a corporation, in Chicago and Texas.

•The book describes the workings of a typical U. S. corporation. Why does the book's message seem so cynical?

•It brings back memories of Exxon Valdez and ENRON. Why do
corporations so routinely compromise high morals. Is it reality? Are real corporations really like this? What drive their decisions?

Sample interview questions - LATENT IMAGE
A sensitive novel revolving around an advertising photography studio and Native American healing traditions.

•Competitive photographers "gang up" on Marcus Ramsay. Why? Is it just human nature? What is the common human frailty operating here? How does it relate to recent current events like Katrina?

•Love helps him heal from his pain. How does he "see" his future? Is mourning a loss as simple as just “letting it go” like people normally say?

•What does Marcus learn about the Native American tradition? How does it influence his notion of death, afterlife, and grief?

Sample interview questions - THE ARMSTRONG SOLUTION - A novel of corporate suspense where a corporation tries to addict its consuming public to "make its financial targets."

•The company Pepe's Cafe seeks to addict its consumers. The scheme is discovered by Kathy Armstrong. How does her desire for promotion tear at her desire to do right? What impact does being a woman have? How does her work mate Joanne’s struggle differ?

•What symbols does the book use for the US corporation? Doesn't this routinely imply that the corporation institution is up to no-good? What is at play in US Corporations that undermine good?

Sample interview questions- THE CHARM FROM DELHI
A story of karma revolving around a confused young couple.

•The couple is having trouble at the outset. What is the message sent to young couples who want to have a successful marriage?

•In the end, things are apparently made right for the couple. What message does this send?

• What have you learned and applied from your brush with Buddhism? How has it affected your life. Can you still be a Christian or a Jew and embrace the tenets of Buddhism? How?

Sample interview questions - "GIGOLO" ON THE ROW
A murder mystery revolving around a young writer's reaction to his young wife's sudden death by a hit-and-run driver, supposedly by accident.

•Why does Mark become known as the "gigolo" on the Row?

•How do Mark's listening to a battered wife and another woman who thinks she is gay lead to him uncovering the real killer of his wife?

• Uncovering this mystery shows Mark the secret to successful
relationships between men and women?

Sample interview questions - LACEY'S DAY
A cross-cultural Internet romance revolving around two people with totally different backgrounds.

•Ted and Lacey are so different. Why do they "find" each other and why does the reader sense the romance will last forever?

•How does email make it possible for them to get together forever when their first marriages were so abysmal?

•What hope does that offer for newlyweds? Mature couples?