Meet Brant Randall Author of Blood Harvest .: Knowledge Base

Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest, Brant Randall author of Blood Harvest.

Good day Brant and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

How did you decide you were ready to write Blood Harvest?

Brant:

I was trying a new type of structure in which the story is told from multiple 1^st person points of view. Because of this it was essential that I know the entire cast of characters well. Once I had them firmly in mind I was ready to tell a story that is loosely based on actual events.

Norm:

Was Blood Harvest improvisational or did you have a set plan?

Brant:

I wanted to tell a story in several layers. The overarching structure is the actual course of events. Within that I was free to improvise as each character relates the events from his own perspective.

Norm:

How did you develop the plot and characters for Blood Harvest? Did you use any set formula?

Brant:

This novel grew from an incident related to me by my grandmother when she was in her nineties. She was a Scotch-Irish girl from rural New England, one of twelve children, though two died in infancy.

I knew she had married young, perhaps at sixteen, though she sometimes claimed she had been eighteen. She said that after her wedding day she never returned to her home town. I assumed that she eloped or otherwise angered her parents. At one point I asked if her parents disliked my grandfather, who I remembered as personable and charming.

She claimed that they liked him very much. He was a perfect example of the immigrant success story. Came to America from Greece at sixteen, without any English. Started working the next day. Within five years he owned his own restaurant, and in another five he added a chain of candy shops and drug stores.

“So why didn’t you ever return to your home town?”

“It was those dumb clucks.” She used this expression only when quite angry. “My brother-in-law didn’t think it right for a white girl to marry a non-white European.”

This was new territory to me, but when I read my grandfather’s immigration papers I found that southern Europeans—the Greeks, Spanish, Italians, and Turks—were classified thus until 1912. But it was her next revelation that stunned me.

It wasn’t dumb “clucks.” It was dumb “klux.” It was the KKK that had driven my grandparents from the town. This was not consistent with what I had learned in my history classes, and so I began to research.

Norm:

What kind of research did you do to write this book?

Brant:

Best of all I interviewed friends and family whose memories extend back to the 20s. Their reminiscences were wonderful and invaluable. I found that as they spoke of their childhood they dropped into the jargon and slang of the times.

Norm:

In fiction as well as in non-fiction, writers very often take liberties with their material to tell a good story or make a point. But how much is too much?

Brant:

Since three eyewitnesses to the same event come up with three different (sometimes contradictory) accounts, I don’t put too much value on “history.” Even the word history contains the word “story” within it. As long as I’m not preaching I can shape the story as I wish.

Norm:

Have you had anything published prior to your first novel? What has been your overall experience as a published author?

Brant:

I have written a textbook, several hundred pages of articles in my discipline, and a novel under another name.

I still have relatives who live in the same vicinity as the incidents in my book. To protect them I changed the family names and the town name. For myself, my research into the KKK drew the attention of contemporary hate groups and I decided a pseudonym was a good idea.

Norm:

Has your environment and/or upbringing influenced your writing?

Brant:

I suppose it must, as it does for everyone. However, no one in my family was a writer or in the arts. I was raised in a strict Calvinist tradition. The arts were frowned upon as frivolous. Only after I had a college degree in a “real” profession did I feel free to pursue more creative outlets.

Norm:

What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing? What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?

Brant:

First is a sense of story. If you can’t tell a compelling story, why waste paper and destroy trees?

Second is a command of language and an ear for dialog. Story without felicity of language is like listening to someone tone deaf try to sing.

Third is a need to find an audience. I dislike writers who are writing only for themselves and a handful of cognoscenti with the specialized knowledge to appreciate their work. I wish they would just email their stuff to the six people who will get it and not inflict it on the rest of us.

Norm:

Where can our readers find out more about you and are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We would love to hear all about them!)

Brant:

They can find out more at my website www.brantrandall.com

I am currently working on a comic crime adventure set in Hollywood and Ireland. I particularly like cross-cultural tales, and these two milieu offer wonderful opportunities for burlesque.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Brant:

Thanks for the opportunity to get news of this book in front of readers. BookPleasures is a treasure trove for readers.

Thanks once again and good luck with Blood Harvest.

To read Norm's Review of Blood Harvest CLICK HERE

Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Blood Harvest

To find out more about Blood Harvest Click Image Below (Note: May Not Work With All Browsers)