An Interview With... Matt Borczon
1) The world ends in 24 hours. How are you spending it?
A. Making sure my kids are not afraid of the end and that we are all together as a family, also letting them know how much I love them all.
2) What was the first book you remember reading?
A. A biography of Harry Houdini, I have read about 10 of them in my lifetime. He is an important figure to me, his escapes are never to be duplicated again. No one now faces real danger, it’s all misdirection, no guts left in magic any more. He is as much a myth as a man to me.
3) What is your favourite book / one book everybody should read?
A. There are many but the Old Man And The Sea is one I read every year like a prayer. Not one wasted word. Every single line is essential.
4) Bruce Springsteen once told me about his hometown. Tell me a little about yours.
A. Erie, PA is a broken Ferris wheel where you are stuck somewhere in the middle waiting for something to happen to you. Everyone leaves but most come back. We live about 20 years behind the times. Still we have the beach and one of the 3 best sunsets in the world, the travel books say. We are the biggest small town you will ever see.
5) What are you most afraid of?
A. That my PTSD will eventually cost me my marriage and my children, that I will implode and ruin everything it has taken 51 years to build. That simple.
6) What makes you feel nostalgic?
A. Red headed women, the sounds of babies laughing, and of all things, professional Wrestling, my dad would let me sneak downstairs to watch it with him when I was like seven years old. I had him all to myself on Saturday late nights. I always think of him when my son and I tune in now.
7) Do you have a set writing process?
A. No I write in my car mostly, or at work. I do tend to write it once in my head then once in long hand and then type it. So it gets a little time to revise. I write 5 days a week and believe in turning in the work one way or another.
8) What advice would you give to young writers / people who are hopeless at doing it?
A. A great writer and friend always says write what you want to read. I believe in that. Also in having the discipline to work even when you have nothing to say. I also say put in more time working on your career than you spend writing. Submit, read, revise promote your work and the work of the people cool enough to publish you. It takes more time than the writing does.
9) If you could commit one crime and get away with it, what would it be?
A. I think I would own my own Van Gough painting. Or Jackson Pollock.
10) Go on, have a superpower. What would you like?
A. I would have Danny Rand’s Iron Fist!!
11) You can smack any living person in the face and they won’t sue, I promise. Who are you hitting?
All those ass hats who speed in the school 15 mile an hour zones. I completely lose my mind when they do it. No place you are going is more important than anyone’s kid!
12) It’s hard being a writer, isn’t it? Why do you do it?
A. I am trying to write myself well, I had a therapist who would tell me I had to tell my story somehow. In 2011 I was newly home from the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan. I did not believe my family when they said I had changed and I was pissed that they thought I wasn’t supposed to. I was paranoid and angry, anxious and depressed all in equal doses. I isolated and drank too much, but I made it to work on time every day so I
believed I was just fine. Eventually I was forced to get help and spent most of the time saying I had nothing I wanted to say. One night I wrote a poem about a dream I had and then it just started coming out. I had written as a young man, but nothing but song lyrics for years. The submissions came at the urging of friends and then it became apparent that people wanted to know what this all felt like. I hope to eventually reach the end and have nothing more to say about the war. Hopefully write about life in small towns or love poems. I have been writing now for a year and 5 months so I still have a lot to get out of myself. I often feel like I am telling the stories of ghosts.
13) You can sleep with any famous figure, alive or dead. Who are you taking?
I never thought about it before, mostly just feel lucky my wife will sleep next to me at all after all I put her through. Let’s see, Francis Farmer comes to mind.
14) What are some of your other passions, other than literature?
A. As a young man I loved magic and music. Along the way I have been a Kung fu Master and was an amateur boxer. Fitness takes up some of my free time, but mostly just running 4 kids around is what I am most passionate about. My daughters dance and my son is an excellent guitarist while my other son wants to wrestle professionally. Keeping them excited about life and convincing them to pursue their dreams is my major passion other than writing. I also build guitars out of cigar boxes.
15) Tell me about any work you have published / will be publishing / can only dream of publishing
A. I have about 100 poems published in print and online in 2016. My chap book A Clock Of Human Bones is available through the Yellow Chair Review. My next book Battle Lines is coming out through Epic Rites Press soon. In 2017 my third book Ghost Train will come out from Weasel Press. I have two chap books finished beyond that. I dream of someday earning a living as a writer or a teacher of writing. If it never happens that is OK too as long I keep working on dealing with my problems. PTSD is hard to live with. You take a step forward and then 2 back. I do not think it ever goes away but I hope to navigate it better over time.