As an author on a corporate press, you have a lot less control over the finished product. I figure if I spend a couple years writing something, I want to be able to decide what the cover looks like and how it’s going to be presented. Joe Meno Read Quote
I felt really lucky that ‘Hairstyles Of The Damned’ and ‘The Boy Detective Fails’ were both bestsellers, and I thought that donating the money from ‘Demons’ was a good way to respond to that. My favorite artists are the ones that are willing to experiment, even if it means a smaller audience. Joe Meno Read Quote
Most novels put out by small or corporate presses don’t really sell that well – usually a thousand copies or so. Working with a small press, you have to be willing to book reading tours, plan events, make contacts with other small press authors, and find new ways of getting word about your new work out there. Joe Meno Read Quote
There’s slowly been a kind of shift in how we think about childhood. It’s like childhood almost extends to 20 or 22 even after the end of college. When I was growing up, there was this expectation that you were on your own now. Joe Meno Read Quote
In my fiction, there’s a lot that’s borrowed from music. It’s never like I’m taking a lyric, but more the mood of a particular song. ‘The Boy Detective Fails’ was like listening to ‘Eleanor Rigby’ by The Beatles, this very melancholy-but-poppy song. Joe Meno Read Quote
When you’re reading, like, a character’s thoughts, or when it’s in first person, you’re reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me, that’s what the whole point of fiction is. Joe Meno Read Quote
I have a number of friends that try to live off their writing, and there’s way more pressure for a hit or to write a certain type of book. You can’t do a limited-edition short-story book with drawings unless you don’t want to eat anything but ramen. Joe Meno Read Quote
My first book is really comparable to what I do now, where it’s pretty surreal and strange at moments, but that being my first book – I wrote that when I was 22; it came out when I was 24 – and it was just really overwritten. I just didn’t trust myself as a writer to say something once. Joe Meno Read Quote
When I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, by the time you were 16, you were kind of expected to be an adult. By the time we were 16 and able to drive, certainly by 17 or 18 and into college, you just had very little interaction with your parents. Joe Meno Read Quote
