A Cage for the Wind is the story of a man who has been through a lot, done a lot, and most of all, gotten away with a lot. What inspired the idea of Jerry’s character and the life that’s shared in this book?

Originally, the book itself was simply going to be a new poetry collection to toss onto the stack of my previous collections. The poems in this book, however, started to take on a different sort of life of their own separate from what I’d written before. Eventually, I started filling in the spaces between the poems with little bits of story which in turn began to tell a tale of sorts of a man who would eventually become “Jerry”. I’ve written a lot of solid characters in the past, solid in that they have a very defined line, a route of progression, flawed, absolutely, but they’re mostly all very concrete; you can almost reach out and touch them if you thought about it hard enough. I wanted to write something different, not just a new character, but a new kind of character. Jerry is shattered, in pieces, and in probably will never be put together in a way that makes sense to himself or others around him. So the structure of the book reflects that, as it is written from three different points of view all centered around him.

Jerry is a provocative yet compelling character. What was the writing process like to create that balance in Jerry’s character?

Jerry’s evolution came about very, very slowly during the writing process, right up to the very last day before publication. I wanted a character that didn’t just leave the reader wondering more about and then shrugging off, but rather a character that had many different dimensions of possible existence. Jerry’s story is told from the points of view of three different styles and formats, but they are all “him”. My goal was to leave the reader having some idea of who or what Jerry is, while also in a way, having no idea at all. In that sense, Jerry can be whoever the reader wants him to be. The more people who read Jerry’s story and come to that realization, the more versions of Jerry will come into existence, and I think that’s an amazing thought.

What were some themes that came up in the book organically and surprised you when you were finished?

Flawed characters exist everywhere and are written every which way. I myself have never really gotten any joy out of writing a character who isn’t flawed or fractured in some way. But with Jerry, I wanted to create a character who the reader could sympathize with, maybe even empathize on some level, but couldn’t decide why, because he’s actually a pretty bad guy. He has his glimmers of goodness, but really, he’s a rotten, hole of a man with most likely no real light at the end of his tunnel. Not to mention, he’s a murderer. I think the main thing I wanted to get across, is that no matter how good or how bad someone is, they can never truly be 100% good or evil. I’ve seen a lot of this world try to argue with absolutes, and it makes me sick to my stomach to know that many people out there think so harshly and so absolutely about being “one way or the other”, or “if you’re not with me, you’re against me”, leaving no room to move either way. It’s sickening. And so maybe Jerry is more bad than good, but also, maybe there’s enough good in him to come back from all that darkness. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. And that’s the point.

Have you pursued any other formats to tell your stories in?

A Cage for the Wind is the most “out there” I’ve personally gotten in terms of style and format. I’ll probably attempt writing another book I the future in a similar way with more tweeks and turns and twists, bending the ways a book can be read. I really like the idea of someone picking up a book and assuming one thing, then when they begin to read it they’re suddenly swept off their feet in a way they didn’t expect.

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