Five With William L. Bryan

For our next guest on Pilcrow Lit Fest's "Five With..." interview spots, I'm happy to introduce all of you to William L. Bryan.

1. What are you working on now?

My lovely and talented writing partner (one Angela Gant by name, to be found all over the Pilcrow pages) and I are working on a horror screenplay. It should have been a vampire movie, because it is sucking the life right out of us.

Individually, I am working on a YA novel about a boy whose dog is possessed by a being from another dimension who has to try to help the boy save the universe.

2. What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why?

You learn so much by listening to people talk about whatever they want to talk about – literary festivals are particularly wonderful in this regard because so much discussion is logically about writing that my interest is more than prurient. Even the most obscure perspectives on the craft can be helpful.

3. Who are your favorite small press mover/shaker types at the minute?

I have to give respect to D-Town’s own Joyce Meskis, who owns the Tattered Cover, America’s best independent book store and is the Director of the University of Denver Publishing Institute, who has done and continues to do more for the literary scene here than any other ten people combined. Steve Church and some other very talented people have started a literary magazine called The Normal School which drops this fall – they have a lot of really cool stuff on tap for the first issue, so I am looking forward to that.

4. Which author do you wish was coming to Pilcrow Lit Fest this year who is not?

David Simon, because if I can take anything back to The Wire, I will. Joolz Denby. Nick Arvin – I think he owes me beer.

5. If you were in charge of picking a theme song for Pilcrow Lit Fest this year, what would it be?

Everybody wants to make this meaningful, but I figure if it gets played at every event, I just want it to be something that does not suck. It should be a Chitown artist because that’s part of what Pilcrow is all about, so I considered some of the greats – My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Material Issue, Liquid Soul, The Wesley Willis Fiasco, Molemen, The Bomb. I finally settled on Big Black’s “Bad Penny.” It’s brilliant, short, crude and who embodies the spirit of independent Chicago arts more than Steve Albini?