Ask the Author: Jude Roy
Answered Questions (9)
Jude Roy
This is a difficult question to answer because as a reader and writer, I have visited many fantastic worlds. Is there one that I would like to visit over all the rest? As a young reader, I rafted down the Mississippi with Huck Finn. I roamed the wilds of Alaska with Jack London's characters. As I aged, I battled bad guys in Louis L'Amour's wild west. I wooed women and fought evil agents with 007. I witnessed the evils of war with Hemingway. I suffered the sting of prejudice and ignorance with Ernest Gaines' characters. I toughed it out with Chandler and Spillane. I loved and cried with Jane Austin. Books make those worlds accessible, and to pick just one is impossible for me.
Jude Roy
My father was an Orphan Train child. In 1908, his New York mother gave him up as an infant, and the orphanage placed him on a train and shipped him to Louisiana. A family in Arnaudville, Louisiana adopted him. Every New Year's Eve, he would get drunk enough to cry. "Why would she just give me away like that?" he would ask my mother, and of course, she had no answer. The mystery is in that question. I have been trying to obtain information from the orphanage for a couple of years now, but so far have not had any luck. I hope to write a book or story someday that speculates on why she gave him away. I have several scenarios in my head—pregnancy out of wedlock, a brutal husband, too many children already, no money, etc.—but while any of those may be true, I want something more ominous and less stereotypical such as he was the son of an Irish Mob leader, and she gave him up to save his life. I think my father would have loved that one. In any case, the "real" mystery will probably live on long after I'm gone, but the story…well, the story will come out someday.
Jude Roy
For pure fun, there is no better than Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles. The sometimes crazy, always irreverent, banter between the two is a joy to read. The movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy wasn't bad either. On a more literary bent, I read Emma by Jane Austin years ago when I was in college, and her love affair with Mr. Knightley is still fresh in my mind. Of course there's Romeo and Juliet's fling, and who can forget Madame Bovary's flings with everybody. There are many more that I enjoyed, but those are the ones that come to mind right now.
Jude Roy
That's easy. If what I'm working on creates a blank, I move on to something else. If that doesn't work, I move on to something else. The time I set aside for writing is sacred. If the fiction isn't working, I write an essay. If the essay doesn't work, I write a poem, or a blog post, or a letter. If nothing works, I read, and it never fails. After a few pages, I can't wait to hit the computer again.
Jude Roy
I'm smiling as I write this. The best thing about being a writer is living the story in your mind--letting the character take you to wherever h/she wants. There are no controls--you don't want controls. I tried explaining this to a friend once, and he replied, "Sounds like you're crazy." Maybe it does, but it feels so natural to me.
Jude Roy
When Ernest Gaines was asked once what his advice to aspiring writers was, he answered in six little words: Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write. I can't improve on that.
Jude Roy
Several things. I always have a short story going. Right now, I am focusing on a story about a sheriff's deputy who, twenty years after the fact, is trying to solve who lynched a young black musician in 1967. I'm also working on a novel about John LeGrand, a Cajun private investigator, who is trying to find a girl who has been missing since she was a child. Both of those are complete, and I am now in the editing and revising stage.
Jude Roy
I write every day. The inspiration is watching the stories take shape on the page. Once I develop a character, h/she talks to me and wills me to tell h/her story. The weird thing is that sometimes I forget that they are not physically real.
Jude Roy
I grew up in a small Cajun village, Chataignier, LA, in the late fifties and left in the early seventies. I started the collection while attending the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana Lafayette. The stories come out of my background. As a young boy, I could not speak English. My father sharecropped. We were extremely poor. My family's main source of entertainment was an old ruby red tube radio and stories. My collection follows the boy narrator from his early years until he leaves to experience the world outside his little community. The stories are interconnected and read like a novel.
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