About the Author: Born in 1961, in Reading, England. Francis
Powell attended Art Schools. In 1995, Powell moved to Austria, teaching
English while pursuing his varied artistic interests adding music and writing.
He currently lives in Paris, writing both prose and poetry.
Connect
with Francis:
Interview with Francis H Powell
What is the name of your most recently published book…how did you come
up with the title?
Flight
of Destiny is a collection of twenty two short stories published by Savant
publishing, Honolulu. “Flight of
Destiny” seemed to capture the essence of what my short stories are about…fate
governs people’s lives…
I write dark surreal stories, that have an element of wit. The challenge is to get the reader hooked from the start, with a powerful opening line. For the stories to build and build and move in the direction of a powerful ending. With my endings I like to give them a dramatic unexpected twist. With short stories, you need each sentence to be very precise and to serve a function. You need to establish the main plot and characters very quickly. At the same time I like some of my stories to have a certain amount of ambiguity, so the reader asks…is this real?
Where are you from, tell me a bit about your
childhood.
I was born in a “dormitory
town” called Reading, not famous for much, apart from a huge Rock festival, and
for the fact that Oscar Wilde was sent to prison there and wrote “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”. My family then moved to a farm in the country, in Sussex, not too far
from London. I was sent aged eight, to a boarding school, so I would spend long
periods away from my family. Imagine
having regular prison sentences, imposed upon you, as a child. At some of the
schools I attended, there were psychotic teachers and cruel nasty
children. I used to count the days when
I could be reunited with my family. I became
a recluse in the art room and painting was my salvation. I had a teacher who
encouraged me to paint and introduced me to various artists, including Kandinsky. I went from austere harsh boarding schools
to Art College, a very different environment.
What books
were the biggest influence on your life and work? Are these books similar or
different to the books you write yourself?
I love the work of Rupert
Thompson. I also read a book by Roald Dahl, many years ago called “Kiss Kiss”
and I think this book has stayed long in my mind, and had a direct influence on
Flight of Destiny, in terms of the fact that I always aim to put a twist at the
end of each story, in the same way Roald Dahl does, with his short stories.
Where do you find inspiration?
To some extent my stories are
indirectly autobiographical; as stated before my life has not been a smooth
journey, with many setbacks along the way. I don’t think I consciously draw a
line between real events and the fiction I write. I doubtlessly draw from my
experiences, good or bad. Some ideas come from nowhere. Once traveling on the Paris metro, a
name suddenly came to me…Little Mite…I then thought about, who would possess
such a name…concluding it seemed like a young adolescent, rather wicked. The
story is about two families: one old aristocracy on the wane, the other nouveau
riche. Little Mite’s sister is about to be married, a match made in heaven
and beneficial to both families. There is a party on a lawn, all the final
details are being made for the wedding. Little Mite entices the groom’s
younger brother to her father’s workshop and glues the innocent boy to a coffee
table, a work in progress. Not content with this, she goes and picks some
stinging nettles and thrashes the boys legs. This idea came from a newspaper
about the author and writer Vita Sackville West, who had a similar fate awaiting
children who visited the Sackville estate when she was a child. The story
gets very dark, at the end when Little Mite decides to play a trick on her family,
to try towing back her parent’s good favor. Unfortunately her father mistakes
her for a burglar and shoots her with a hunting rifle. This idea came to me
after reading a newspaper article about a similar mishap. Ideas seem
to plant themselves in my head and I feel a need to expand on them and develop
them. Sometimes newspapers provide
excellent sources. I read obscure
stories about people stealing other people’s identities, a person who pretends
he is a Duke, but in reality he is a fraud.
Can you give us an obscure fact about yourself?
I was once on
Austrian TV, wearing a kilt, pretending to toss a caber. They were looking for
Scots, I am a part Scottish. I was and
still am a bit scrawny and I don’t look anything like somebody who would
participate in a Highland Games. I could barely hold up this “caber” and it was
lucky I did,’t drop it on somebody’s head. I was also once in Pigbag video,
wearing a Guerrilla suit, pretending to play a trumpet.
Other than
writing do you have any other interests, do they connect up with your writing?
I do so many things…write
music…make videos…paint…make sculptures from found objects…and I guess a lot of
these activities link up…
Who designed
the covers for your books, were you happy with result?
Me…I also did 22
illustrations, one for each story. This
took a lot of work…but I am happy with the result…
Is there a
character in one of your books that really stands out for you?
I guess “Bugeyes” for me
stands out. He is born into an
aristocratic family, with a genetic fault (over-large enormous eyes) and
immediately rejected by his mother and sent to live with a servant on the
estate. He is mocked cruelly due to his
physical defect, as well as being denied his natural inheritance. He gets revenge in the end.
Why would somebody want to read your book?
If
you feel that you are an outsider…If you live in a dingy bedsit…feel
isolated…my stories are for you…in the same way the British band “The Smiths,”
appealed to a certain type of loner…My stories are very unusual, descriptive
and visual. I would like to think they are dark, but also have an element of
wit…maybe British dark sense of humor.
They are often anti-establishment. There are often reversals, characters
people might expect to be bad (like the gangster Gecko in Bugeyes) come across as being wise and good
and the types people might expect to come across as good (for example there are
a few preachers in my stories) come across as the opposite, bad and inhumane. I
would like to think I use rich language with sharp powerful sentences. The
starts to my stories are also critical, for example my story
Bugeyes begins with… Bug-eyes was due a life of toil. Seed
begins with Captain Spender’s wife was
ovulating. Cast from Hell begins
with There it was: I was
to be banished from hell. It is important I start my stories powerfully, but also
end them strongly. I hope that more stories keep people intrigued right up to
the final sentence…There are also some nice illustrations that go with the
stories…which I did for the book…
If your
books were adapted into being films, which director dead or alive would you
want to direct them? Which actors would you like in the films? What would be
the general mood of the film?
Let’s dig up Stanley Kubrick,
his films were great and varied in subject matter. Let’s put Jack Nicholson in a role, a younger
Johnny Depp, alongside Wynona Rider or Christine Ricci, maybe it’s getting a bit confused, and it’s
starting to look like a Tim Burton film.
David Lynch would do a great job, but apparently he’s not such a nice
man…I saw him once in Paris, I went to his art show and was lucky enough to be
allowed into his press preview.
The mood would be dark…but
witty…
Who would you prefer
to have at your dinner table…out of the following…
Oscar Wilde, Marlon
Brando, Sigmund Freud?
They would
all be very interesting in their own right, but for me maybe Oscar Wilde would
be the most charming dinner guest.
Flight of Destiny
by Francis H Powell
Goodreads blurb: Flight of destiny is a collection of short
stories about misfortune. They are characterized by unexpected final twists,
that come at the end of each tale. They are dark and surreal tales, set around
the world, at different time periods. They show a world in which anything can
happen. It is hard to determine reality and what is going on a disturbed mind.
People's conceptions about morality are turned upside down. A good person can
be transformed by an unexpected event into a bad person and then back again to
their former state. The high and mighty often deliver flawed arguments, those considered
wicked make good representations of themselves. Revenge is often a subject
explored.
Interesting
in reading??
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