Happy Wednesday Scribblers, I hope you are all having a great week so far. This week I’m excited to bring to you a San Francisco Bay Area local author Charles Joseph Albert. Charles isn’t just an author and poet, he also holds a PhD in nuclear physics. I had the pleasure of meeting Charles at the LocalLit 2020 event jointly hosted by the San Jose Public Library and San Jose State in December (you can learn more about the event and the other authors here).
Welcome Charles, thank you for stopping by today. We have your bio below, by way of introduction, why don’t you share with us something that isn’t in your bio.
Hi, M.D., it was great to meet you at LocalLit. I’m really inspired by your accomplishments as a writer!
One thing I don’t put in my bio is that I play the trombone (yes, my neighbors hate me). For the past three years I’ve played with the South Bay Bones, a trombone choir. Everything from baroque to jazz to movie theme songs. It’s a real hoot (pun intended).
I understand from your bio, and as mentioned above, you have a PhD in nuclear physics. I can’t imagine how much work went into earning that degree. What drew you to nuclear physics? Considering the specialized knowledge that goes into that kind of degree, do you find that you use that experience in your day-to-day work life? And how does that education affect your writing?
Studying theoretical physics was an amazing experience. Granted, it got a little math heavy, but there’s something mind-blowingly crazy about looking at the equation that explains why the sky is blue. Or that predicts the decay rate of a proton. Really, the last few years of grad school were like some kind of calculus-based acid trip.
Useful in day-to-day work? No, you’ve got me there. Though I do find it creeping into my writing occasionally. There’s a few stories in my collection “A Thousand Ways to Fail” that involve physics students.
You mention also that you’ve been working in a variety of disciplines from Environmental Management to computer consulting to metallurgy. Those, to my mind, all seem extremely different and specialized fields. How did you make your way into those fields?
Hah! Not on purpose, you can bet!
I was intending to be a physics professor. The thing is, I got my degree right after the Berlin Wall fell, and the West became flooded with cheap Eastern European physicists... at the same time that Uncle Sam cut back the cold-war physics research. So my teaching prospects grew very dim indeed.
But this was also right after Earth Day 1990, which is what inspired me to get a job doing computer modeling of air pollution in Austin, Texas. When I was ready to move back home to California, the only job offer I got was with an old pal from Berkeley doing computer consulting.
The last client I had was my dad, a metallurgist, who needed computer help in a lawsuit he was working on. He kind of lured me into coming to work for him, even though I had once promised myself I would never do that.
That was over twenty years ago!
Let’s move over to your writing, you’ve written three works of fiction and five poetry collections, plus you have numerous published poems. What has your writing journey been like? What is it you enjoy most about writing?
Writing was something I’ve loved to do since elementary school. But frankly, it’s a lot harder than physics. In physics you can spend your entire career focusing on one little oddball idea. As a writer, you have to keep throwing one oddball idea after another at your readers, or you’ll lose them.
One of the best things about writing are the “a-ha” moments you can uncover. In a story or a poem. An insight that strikes you as so profound or so true that you’re literally (literarily?) glad to be alive. I felt that way reading Robert Frost’s “The Runaway” when I was eleven, and was hooked on poetry ever since.
Another great discovery for a reader is a character that you can just completely fall in love with. Which I did with Elizabeth Bennet, in “Pride and Prejudice.” And Theodore Decker of “The Goldfinch.” So it became one of my literary ambitions to give birth to such a protagonist.
The Absent and the Dead & Other Stories is your latest work having been released in February 2020. What can you tell us about this collection of stories? What ties all these works together? Regarding this collection of shorts is there a common theme you were going for? What is it about these stories that made you want to put them all together?
The theme for this collection was summed up by the title of the last story (also the title of the collection). It’s all absence and death. But each one is a very different take on those two cheery subjects, and many are quite tongue-in-cheek.
Another thing that made me think this could work as a coherent collection is that many of the stories are based on people in my family (with huge liberties taken). Although, given how incoherent my family can be, that may have been a mistake.
But at least, basing some characters on family members helped me to more fully develop them, and hopefully the reader will get a glimpse of how loveable some of them are, despite the looniness.
Since you also write poetry, what is it about poetry you enjoy writing? I dabble a little in poetry myself (find my poems here) and for me it’s about emotion. What is it you try to say with your poetry work? Is there a poem you are particularly proud of? Would you like to share a bit of it here with us today?
M.D., I am a huge admirer of writers like you who can bring emotion to a poem and really remind the reader of the glories and pains of existence in that way. It’s a faculty I can’t claim to have, and often the best I can hope for is one of those “a-ha” moments. Here’s an example--the title poem from my second collection.
Essentialism
Last night, on Market Street, I stripped my clothes;
"Must be the 'nude in public' dream," I thought,
and forced a sheepish grin at passers by,
nonplussed by such an urge to bare myself.
Then, nudity was not enough. How I
removed the human form in which we're caught,
was not the snakelike shedding you'd suppose.
More like I'd peeled off false reality,
cut through a dirty screen to see what shone.
The light was me—pure energy, pure joy.
And yet I somehow still felt like that self
I first had grown aware of as a boy—
the way electric current, through a phone,
holds disembodied personality.
The strangest feeling came upon me next,
as though I'd joined with all the universe.
I'd smashed the vessel that had held me whole,
and spilled the hot quicksilver of the self,
but didn't dissipate my fragile soul,
just freed it from its solitary curse—
the fleshly membrane keeping it perplexed.
That dream had looked beyond the mausoleum
that many say will be our final fate,
but who can tell which visions are mistakes?
I'm in no rush to find out for myself
if there's some inner light that dying wakes,
or if both shell and soul disintegrate…
either bears out Horace. Carpe diem.
What do you want people to get from your stories? Is there a message that you want readers to walk away with?
I go into each story looking for something to captivate me, to really grab my attention and make me say, “huh, that’s a new one.” And, if possible, to introduce myself to some well-fleshed character. Human frailties, maybe, but basically a good heart. So hopefully anyone coming along for the ride will get some enjoyment from what I’m doing.
What can we see coming out from you next?
My first novel, The Unsettler, was published in installments by SERIAL Magazine, and in 2021 the full story will come out in book form. It’s set in a dystopian 22nd century Bay Area, after a red-blue war has torn the country in two.
I also have another poetry collection coming out in 2021: “Apparently.” This collection of new and previously-published poems focuses specifically on the theme of fatherhood. I hope it’s got a touch more of that pure gold--emotion--in it, than my earlier works.
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Charles thank you for joining me today. I’ve enjoyed this opportunity to get to learn more about you and your amazing work.
Do you want to continue to learn about more amazing authors check out these authors here:
Meet Gar McVey-Russell here.
Meet Valentine Wheeler here.
Meet Liz Faraim here.
Meet J.S. Strange here.
Well, Scribblers, that’s all for this week. If you have questions for Charles please drop them in the comments below. Don’t forget to share this interview it really does help, as does clicking on the little heart below. Until next time have a great week.
