Ask the Author: Ken Kuhlken
Answered Questions (13)
Ken Kuhlken
I woke up believing I had arrived in Heaven. I hadn't.
Ken Kuhlken
I might go to Tralfamadore to hang out with Billy Pilgrim and Montana Wildhack.
Ken Kuhlken
Sometimes I feel inspired, and sometimes I don't. But it's my job.
Last evening while driving home from dropping my Zoe off at Dave and Busters, I had what felt like a sudden revelation that told me my job is to explore the question proposed by Francis Schaeffer in the title of his book How Then Shall We Live.
My job is to simply suppose that the words of Christ as given in the Bible could be true and that our eternal destiny just might depend upon our attitudes and actions and then ask how then shall we live, and to write my stories with that question in mind.
Then first thing this morning I read in the New York Times about a scientist who suggested the answer to the question does God exist might lie within the reach of forthcoming technology. Still, he said, “’I’m not worried about the answer. I’m worried about the journey".
And I thought, same here.
A few minutes later I checked email and found your question,
Strange.
Last evening while driving home from dropping my Zoe off at Dave and Busters, I had what felt like a sudden revelation that told me my job is to explore the question proposed by Francis Schaeffer in the title of his book How Then Shall We Live.
My job is to simply suppose that the words of Christ as given in the Bible could be true and that our eternal destiny just might depend upon our attitudes and actions and then ask how then shall we live, and to write my stories with that question in mind.
Then first thing this morning I read in the New York Times about a scientist who suggested the answer to the question does God exist might lie within the reach of forthcoming technology. Still, he said, “’I’m not worried about the answer. I’m worried about the journey".
And I thought, same here.
A few minutes later I checked email and found your question,
Strange.
Ken Kuhlken
Right now, I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov again, for at least the fourth time. After that, I have John Lescroart's The Fall and Ruth Rendell's Simisola waiting, as well as a book called UnChristian a friend loaned me. After that, I'm free to look around.
Ken Kuhlken
Long ago, I was in Mexico City and came upon a young woman who was involved planning a student movement to make demands of the government. A few months later, after I was back home in the U.S., the Mexican government killed hundreds and jailed hundreds more of the movement's students. My thoughts about her and what became of her are part of the novel I hope to finish this summer. It's the final book (book 10) of my Tom Hickey historical mystery series.
Ken Kuhlken
A legal thriller featuring the whole Hickey family: Tom, Clifford, Alvaro, Feliz, Tommy, Wendy (from eternity) and also Jodi McGee, the storyteller, who came into the world in my novel Midheaven.
Ken Kuhlken
Being able to live in the world of a story when the "real" world gets your down. The same as what's the best thing about being a reader.
Ken Kuhlken
That's a tough one, because favorite can have lots of meanings. So I'll name a few: Raskolnikov and Sonia from Crime and Punishment. Max and 99 from Get Smart. Catherine and Heathcliff in Withering Heights. Dismiss and Frannie Hardy in John Lescroart's novels.
Ken Kuhlken
I wrote The Giveaway as a feature story for the San Diego Reader, and a local guy asked if he could make it into a limited edition chapbook. He didn't make many. I believe I have a couple of them somewhere. It's about being in a band and living in a hippie commune and winning a lot of money in a radio giveaway and the effect of that on the band. Maybe I'll publish it as an ebook.
Ken Kuhlken
I've answered this question best in my book Writing and the Spirit.
Ken Kuhlken
Writer's block is almost always about not living up to your hopes or expectations. The way to defeat it is to write without expectations, without any ambition except to write what comes into your mind. And the best way to accomplish that mental feat is to believe in your powers of revision.
Ken Kuhlken
Here's a quote from a favorite writer of mine: “A person with originality comes along, and consequently does not say: one must take the world as it is, but: whatever the world may be, I remain true to my own originality, which I do not intend to change according to the good pleasure of the world. The moment that word is heard, there is as it were a transformation in the whole of existence . . ."
Ken Kuhlken
My friend Michael Baumann, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, became an expert on the novelist B. Traven (a pen name, as the author zealously guarded his anonymity). Mike came to feel certain that "Traven" was Ret Marut, a German socialist who fled to avoid prosecution after WWI. But Mike's felt just as certain that The Death Ship and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre were actually collaborations by Marut and a mysterious American.
One morning, I awoke to the realization that the mysterious American might be Charlie Hickey, father of detective Tom Hickey.
One morning, I awoke to the realization that the mysterious American might be Charlie Hickey, father of detective Tom Hickey.
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