Joshua Norstein interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Hi, I'm Joshua Norstein, founder at LOREWEAVER Publications and author of the Freelance Heroes Incorporated novel series.

When did your love of books begin?

I've always loved stories and storytelling, but I first really became fascinated by narrative as a craft when I was about four. I learned to read on a copy of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, as illustrated by Graeme Base. 

The book combined the poem's fanciful nonsense words, made uncannily meaningful through rhyming meter with anachronistic parody illustrations, to create a remarkably vivid story that was entirely understandable and even captivating. To take what amounted to non sequitur and satire and paint a masterpiece of meaning from nonsense; this was to me the heart of storytelling.

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

To be honest, see above answer. I fell in love with the craft pretty much from day one.

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

I've found that it's more than simply using words to make pictures. In the process, I've worn the hats of a graphic designer, a copy editor, a typesetter, an illustrator, a publicist, a teacher and adviser (I've coached a few friends into embracing their own author journey at this point) and even, a little bit of an intellectual property specialist paralegal. Indie authors wear many hats. I'm lucky (and hopefully not too rare) in that I genuinely enjoy all of them.

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

See above, and also, never give in to self-doubt. Writing professionally is a skill. You aren't born with it, and raw talent isn't enough. Practice. Write. Read critically. Read the classics. Read what's new. Embrace as many forms of absorbing narrative as possible; an audiobook is neither an inferior nor a superior way of taking in a story--rather it is an entirely different experience, from which you may learn something entirely new and different from a story you already know by heart. Lastly, read aloud. Storytelling was oral tradition long before it became the written word. There are still very many lessons to be learned from the bards and troubadours of old.

Tell us about your book/books:

Some Assembly Required [Part I of III] is the first part of a serial novel that is first in a 5 novel series. It is a story of another new normal, as told through the eyes of a group of twenty somethings living in suburban upstate NY. 

It might even be mistaken for a memoir, except for the bit about ten-foot-tall, quasi-invisible nightmare monsters, manifesting from out of pure imagination and fueled by the base emotions of humanity's collective unconscious.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

It's home. Writers, particularly writers of fiction, are the sort of people who carry multiple universes in their heads. It can be terribly difficult to find folks who relate to that kind of thing in the wider world. The writing/reading community understands and relates to the best things about me in ways that no-one else can.

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

I have no idea, but I SO look forward to the day when they've got questions they want to ask me! 

Where can people connect with you?

Find me on my website, at www.loreweaverpublications.com

Email me at jnorstein@loreweaverpublications.com

Or on Twitter or Instagram: @jnorsteinauthor

My first novella is available as an eBook on Amazon/KU, and once all three novellas are released in sequence, I'll be launching a collected paperback print edition in September 2023. You can find out more, and read the first 5 chapters for free, at www.loreweaverpublications.com/fhi

Amazon quick link: https://a.co/d/1eIYLRj