Zev Good
Hello Readers and Writers!
Today we would like to introduce you to an author whose works have been described as "good from cover to cover". He doesn't stray from hard topics and he reminds us that hard is part of our lives and shouldn't be shunned. His stories are insightful, unique, bold, full of passion, and his skills in character development are impressive which draws readers in, making everything he writes entirely relatable.
Introducing Zev Good!
RL: When did you start writing as a career?
ZG: I published my first book, a short story collection, in December 2017. The stories in it had been written over a span of fifteen years, but it took me a year and a half to retool them and bring them current, so I would say sometime in 2016.
RL: What's your current work in progress?
ZG: A coming-of-age novel titled The Language of Birds.
RL: You write LGBT fiction. What lead you to that genre?
ZG: Well, I like to say that I write fiction that just so happens to include gay and lesbian characters. Not all the stories in my collection focused on LGBT themes, though my novel All About The Benjamins is centered around the coming out of a man after his wife dies. But it's really about what makes a family a family, and what marriage means, and how there's no one way to be a family. The "gay stuff" is just something I used to tell all that.
RL: How do your books rebel against the status quo in your genre?
ZG: I get a lot of surprised reactions from people who expect explicit sex scenes because I write about gay people, so I guess that.
RL: Your debut novel "All About the Benjamins" is about family, confronting the truth, and surviving loss. What led you to tackle such deep topics so early in your career?
ZG: I've been writing since I was 10 years old, so "early" is both correct and incorrect. I started out writing horror and fantasy and science fiction, but as I matured, my writing and subject matter did, too, so at my age, writing about a fifty-eight-year-old widower coming out of the closet to his adult children seemed logical.
RL: Do you have any plans to write outside of your current genre?
ZG: Not at all. I think a lot of writers are all over the place with their writing and readers never know what to expect, so it's difficult for them to build a solid readership. I want people to know what they're getting when they see the name Zev Good on a book cover.
RL: Your first book, the story collection "A Map of the World" is available in audio. Tell us about your experience getting your book into audio format?
ZG: It was actually pretty simple: I posted for auditions, someone contacted me, I sent him a script, he returned the sample to me, and I chose him.
RL: How do you beat writer's block?
ZG: I don't suffer from writer's block. I may take a break from a project for a day or a week or even a few months, but when I sit down to write, I write.
RL: Talk to me about the path you choose in publishing.
ZG: I wanted to see what it was like, honestly. It seemed simple and, of course, turned out not to be, but that's how you learn. The second book was much easier because I hired professionals to format and do my cover. I'm still undecided about my next book, whether I'll self-publish or query agents. We'll see.
RL: What advice can you share with authors who are discouraged by the publication process?
ZG: It depends on their level of discouragement. We all get discouraged, but if every day is just an exercise in futility, and the words never come, and a writer just never knows which direction to move in, or what decision to make... then maybe they should do something else that's more rewarding.
RL: Where do you see your writing career going from here?
ZG: I hope to find an agent and see my way into traditional publishing.
RL: What are you reading now?
ZG: I'm almost finished with Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, then I'm going to reread Night Driving And Other Worlds by Ryan Kennedy, which I just read recently and it blew me away. He's another indie author worth watching.
RL: What can readers expect from you in the future?
ZG: More novels, probably another short story collection, and more of my dorky humor on Twitter, I suppose.