O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam: An interview with myself – Part II

Jay Leonard Schwartz – O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam – @Jschwartz63

NOTE: The following is a transcript of the second part of a self-interview with Jay Leonard Schwartz, author of O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam. The interview is taken from a podcast to be released in the near future. The author—that’s me—discusses his new novel and its development. The first part of the interview can be found by clicking here:

Jay: OK, so now let’s move on and talk a bit about the process of your writing the novel. You said before that the book didn’t start out as a novel. Is that right?

Jay: Yes, as I mentioned, I began this book mainly as a writing experiment. Ultimately, it took on a life of its own as a novel—which was a pleasant surprise to me, to say the least, considering how it all began as sort of a bit of therapy.

Jay: Therapy? How so?

Jay: Initially, I began writing because I was recovering from an intestinal bug and became bored with an academic project I had originally started. Later, I returned to this material as a distraction from the local coronavirus-related lockdown. It’s often said that laughter is the best medicine—and I can ceertainly attest to having much fun writing this work.

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O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam: An interview with myself – Part I

O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam

NOTE: The following is a transcript of a self-interview with Jay Leonard Schwartz, author of O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam. The interview is taken from a podcast to be released in the near future. The author—that’s me—discusses his new novel and its development.

Jay: Hello and welcome to this podcast that champions independent authors of absurd fiction and non-fiction, as well as works of satire and dark humor. Also discussed are their creative approaches to writing, be they process or product in nature. Today, we have with us writer, musician, filmmaker and self-confessed Dadaist at large, Jay Leonard Schwartz, author of the absurd and social-satire novel, O Little Central Florida Town Of Bedlam. Jay, welcome to the show!

Jay: Thank you, Jay. I appreciate my being here. I’d just like to say that it’s really nice of me to have myself here, today.

Jay: So, Jay, what is this book about?

Jay: That’s a good question, Jay. You know, I always find that it’s much easier for me to write or develop a project, even a novel in this case, than summarize it in fifty words or less. Basically, however, the novel is the absurd saga of a soggy little Florida town in crisis. The town’s inane history is marred by natural disaster, social dysfunction and bureaucratic ineptitude. As a result, the quirky and eccentric locals of this quagmire of civil strife are forced to live with chronic flooding, political apathy, and societal decay—and eventually fight for their very existence when suddenly threatened by a cosmic collision of political corruption, vindictive weather patterns and supernatural forces.

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