Ask the Author: Matt Orlando
Answered Questions (9)
Matt Orlando
He’d excused himself from the boardroom meeting because that thing in him, that burning itch he’d been scratching for an entire month, even when he didn’t know he was doing it, causing a lesion in his gut that oozed uncontrollably, seeping into the gauze he’d stuffed in there, saturating it until it had shown through his clothes, until he couldn’t take another second of scratching under the table, thinking everyone could see what he was doing, even as his lip bled from biting-in the agony. So he sat in that stall with his shirt unbuttoned, and his pants down around his ankles, wondering why he had even pulled his pants down, as he peeled back the layers of fat and skin on his belly, digging down, always digging down while it seemed the itch was working its way towards him and his fingers, chewing out while he chewed in until finally his fingers had found the crumpled hair of his unborn twin brother and the grinding teeth gnawing towards the light of that piss smelling stall.
Matt Orlando
Growing up part of my life in Salinas California, and seeing the migrant workers in the fields all day, I would always wonder about their lives. And I had an image of an officer out in the fields with workers standing around, but not offering information due to fear of being deported. That image stuck for years until Salinas became the murder capital of California for a time. That filled in the gaps. I had a story.
Matt Orlando
I honestly don't. I have to.
Matt Orlando
I'm working on my fifth novel called, Migrant. My first four books have been a bit comedic, and this will be my first serious book.
It's about a young Hispanic police detective in Salinas California who must navigate the bloodthirsty world of the warring gangs in order to find a killer who's left his first victim on farmland owned by his estranged grandfather.
It's about a young Hispanic police detective in Salinas California who must navigate the bloodthirsty world of the warring gangs in order to find a killer who's left his first victim on farmland owned by his estranged grandfather.
Matt Orlando
Write. Write every day. Write when you don't want to. Write when you know that what you're writing sucks. Keep writing. Write until you don't suck. Then write some more.
Matt Orlando
It is the mining of the unbelievable amount of detail, knowledge, pain, fear, love, creativity, deception, truth, and hope, that you didn't even know was in you, and then putting it out into the world for all to see.
Matt Orlando
I don't get writer's block so much as not knowing what story to write next. If I do get stuck a bit on a story, it's mostly because I felt I needed to add something I hadn't thought of, or the story would be better if I took a bit of a turn that wasn't quite planned. In that case, I generally will get out of the way and write whatever comes to mind. I can always change it later... but I never end up needing to change it. Just get out of your own way.
Matt Orlando
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Border by Don Winslow, The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Matt Orlando
I would go to Christmasland in Joe Hill's NOS4A2 and kick the crap out of Charlie Manxs. He gave me the creeps. And some of those kids too... I mean, they're not really kids anymore right?
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