Mike Hilbig interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

My name is Mike Hilbig. I’m an emerging writer from Houston, TX whose first book Judgment Day & Other White Lies, debuts from Madville Publishing on Feb 17th, 2022. I received my MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing from Sam Houston State University in Dec of 2017. I teach English at the University of Houston-Downtown and at Lone Star College.



When did your love of books begin?

I can’t remember ever not loving books. Although, I do think the first book I can remember falling very hard in love with was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.



When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

I have always written off and on, but when I was younger, I mostly wrote essays. I started writing fiction around 25 years old. I’ll be 40 just two weeks shy of my book’s release date. But it was while taking creative writing classes in college that I really felt challenged to produce language that would emotionally move people.



How have you found the process for becoming an author?

It has been equally arduous and equally rewarding. I love writing, but it is not an easy path. The publishing industry is hard to break into, and it’s even harder to learn the craft well enough to have something you really want to publish. Ha.



What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

Read everything you can, from every genre you can imagine. Books are made out of other books. You need to be able to pull from a broad array of ideas and styles to write one yourself.



Tell us about your book/books:

It is a short fiction collection that deconstructs ruling narratives in western civilization (primarily whiteness) by retelling contemporary absurdist and surrealist versions of Greek and Christian myths. For instance, there is an alternative to genesis where apes eat magic mushrooms and have orgies to produce the first human societies. There is also a retelling of the Oresteia that finds Orestes as a middling middle age white heavy metal musician helping his sick mother commit suicide. Finally, the title story Judgment Day is about a christlike white man with two sets of memories stuck in his head after he smokes a mysterious hallucinogenic plant.



What do you love about the writing/reading community?

I love being around people who love creating new things and have important things to tell the world.



If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

Hope is a weapon.



Where can people connect with you?

@mikehilbig on Twitter
@hilbig.mike on Insta
https://mikehilbigwriter for my website