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Dreaming Big
Dance Masters: Interviews with New York’s Dance Teachers is a collection of interviews conducted over four years with legendary dance teachers from New York, spanning ballet, jazz, tap, and modern dance. Why was this an important book for you to write?
As I stated in my introduction, I was obsessed with capturing the thoughts and experiences of master dance teachers who were giving away what they worked so hard to get. It was a four-year project, and I was completely immersed in it on so many different levels, from reading dance-related books to taking numerous dance classes and seeing all kinds of dance performances. At the time, I had just been through a major illness, and dance was my road back to wholeness. Although the book is about dance, it’s about much more than dance. It’s about overcoming obstacles, learning to live, having hope, dreaming big, and the history of many different artistic mediums like Broadway, live television, etc. The stories are very diverse and inspirational.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
To keep striving, that it is possible to achieve things against the odds, that dance and movement are not just physical but connected to the entire self. It’s about learning to live fully.
What was the most challenging part of writing this book, and what was the most rewarding?
Every single interview in this book was taped and transcribed by hand. All had to be edited for clarity. I did a tremendous amount of research to explore the topic from all possible angles, so I asked challenging questions and/or a great variety of questions, tailoring each interview to the individual. Writing a book is time-consuming, and this was a four-year project. But I came away from every interview filled with excitement and on a high. It’s rewarding to see the fruits of my labor in a book that is exactly as I visualized it to be and what I wanted it to be. I feel oral history will be lost if not put in book form, and each individual had such a rich experience. I’m really proud of the result of my labor and the information contained in the book, which is timeless.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Dance Masters?
I want readers to be inspired, to understand what made each of these individuals great, and to know so much more about dance history and the resilience of the human spirit.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Interview – Hugh Sterbakov
The Hungry Monster gobbled up City Under the Moon so fast he bit his little monster fingers off. Well, the Monster got the chance to interview Hugh Sterbakov, author of City Under the Moon, and ask him if he would pay for the medical bills to reattach the Monsters little fingers.
City Under the Moon takes a zombie outbreak approach to the werewolf genre. How did that idea come together for you?
I had a traumatic obsession with werewolves as a child, and I wanted to put that on the page, maybe as a catharsis. I was inspired by the firm grounding Michael Crichton brought to Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, and that blend of fiction and science thematically contextualizes my childhood fears that werewolves were real and my parents’ promises that they weren’t. So City has more in common with Crichton epidemic thrillers, or Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone and Robin Cook’s Outbreak than it does with zombie films. You’re in the moment with the exponential werewolf outbreak and the immediate response from law enforcement, the military, the White House, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
You’ve worked on Robot Chicken, sold TV and movie scripts, co-created a comic book and now you’re writing a book. Is book writing just another step on your path to world domination or is this something that you’ve just been wanting to do?
It came out of frustration with Hollywood development. I wanted to do something for myself, and for an audience beyond studio conference rooms. I sat down one day just to see if I could do it, and I realized… yeah, I couldn’t.
So I kept at it, studied narrative prose, rewrote countless times, hired an editor, struggled to overcome fear and perfectionism, and one day my wife told me it was finished. It ain’t perfect, but it’s me.
You have obviously done a lot of research for this book. But I wonder how much research did you do for Lon’s character? Lon is an interesting character and in the novel he’s a ‘nerd’ that loves to play Magic the Gathering, blog, and plays video games. Did you spend a lot of time at Magic the Gathering tournaments researching character traits for Lon?
I’m a lifelong comic book collector, an avid gamer and I’ve spent time at Magic the Gathering tournaments playing Magic the Gathering. Lon is me–or at least he’s the self-destructive misanthropic narcissist I (try to) keep locked away.
What was the one book, movie, song, or Rorschach test that most influenced your work for City Under the Moon?
Probably Michael Jackson’s Thriller–not just the video, but the theme and sensation of the song. It has a nostalgic texture reminiscent of the classic Universal horror films–that tone is important to me, and it’s prevalent in the novel– and it captures both the torture of undergoing the transformation and the helpless terror of watching it happen.
What was your favorite scene in City Under the Moon?
In the middle of the book, as the government, military and scientists are attacking the situation with cutting-edge tactics and technology, our heroes discover that the werewolf curse is rooted in old world superstitions. They travel to Romania–to Transylvania–and it’s like a time warp from Michael Crichton to Bram Stoker. I love that juxtaposition.
Random question: What next generation video game console are you going to get. XBOX One, Playstation 4, Wii U, or decline to comment because it would be too controversial?
Ha! I love that you’ve asked this question. I’m an old-school, hardcore gamer, so there are only a few consoles I never had–relatively obscure ones, like the Amiga and the Atari 7800. I mean, I had an Odyssey 2. So I’m sure that by the end of the life cycle, I’ll have both. I was predominantly an Xbox 360 player in this generation, so I’m used to that ecosystem and I’m dedicated to that gamerscore. But the PlayStation 4 has such compelling advantages over the Xbox One, particularly that $100 price difference, that I’m leaning toward jumping. I have both on pre-order, but I’ll probably cancel one and wait for it to drop in price. It’s only mid-July, and there are still details to be revealed before November. So we’ll see. Ask me again at the end of October.
Available at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com
Pages: 464
ISBN: 0985245611
Also, be on the lookout for the followup to City Under the Moon called Moonrise Duet that will be available December 2013.
LITERARY TITAN 