Q&A with Tom Doyle

1) What is the title of your newest book or short story?  What’s it about?  Where can readers find it?

My debut novel from Tor, American Craftsmen, is a contemporary fantasy of military intrigue with a cryptohistorical backstory that imagines that Poe and Hawthorne wrote thinly veiled nonfiction. It’s available everywhere books are sold in hardcover and e-versions (e.g., https://www.amazon.com/American-Craftsmen-Tom-Doyle/dp/0765337517). The mass-market paperback will be out at the end of June 2015, and the sequel, The Left-Hand Way, will be out in August 2015.

2. What inspired your new book or story?

To my own surprise, one of my initial inspirations for this book was L. Frank Baum. When he began telling children’s stories, he had the notion of discarding the existing European folk tales and building a fantasy that was modern and distinctly American. That’s how we got The Wizard of Oz.

I wasn’t going to write a children’s story, but the thought of confining myself to a U.S. mythos for an adult fantasy was oddly exciting. With plenty of books retelling European myths and folklore, it seemed like our own stories had been neglected. I looked at American folklore, but I ended up spending more time with the great early American writers of the fantastic.

3. How do you research your stories?

For American Craftsmen, I had to read or re-read a lot of the American classics of the fantastic or uncanny. I also had to check on various historical incidents where I have my craftspeople at work. For my research on special ops, besides general histories and first-person accounts, I consulted a childhood friend who had served in special forces during the First Gulf War.

4. Where can readers find you on social media? (Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Library Thing, Redd It, etc.)

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.doyle

On Twitter: @tmdoyle2

On Goodread: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6576853.Tom_Doyle
On Google+:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TomDoyle
My website: www.tomdoylewriter.com

Click here to listen to a reading of American Craftsmen on our sister site.

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