An Interview with c.b. strul

c.b.strul is the author of The Ancient Ones, CONNECTIVITY, and Papillon IV and founder of Odom’s Library. He also has in print three novellas: Spinners, Forget the Complex, and What Grows from the Stump of a Tree?, as well as the short story “The Last Trucker.” His short play Leading the Blind was produced in Los Angeles by the former artist organization ImageneseFree. His three-minute short films as well as the animated feature screenplay for Critter Crossing have received awards and recognition at multiple festivals in California and around the world. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, extended family, and four sweet pug doggies.

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What inspired you to start writing this book?

To be honest, Papillon IV began in my mind as a political thriller all the way back in 2016. I was still focused on screenwriting at the time so I wanted to make a world-scoping Aaron Sorkin kind of piece where the garbage bomb struck another nation instead of properly making its way off-world. Obviously, things have changed a great deal since then. In the years since that initial spark of an idea, my focus cleared and I decided I wanted to play primarily in the sci-fi genre. While in a writer meeting with some colleagues looking to break into the animation realm, I offered up the heart of the Papillon IV concept as a possible component of an animated sci-fi anthology series and with the team’s blessing I got to work on transforming the general prospectus into a collection of half-hour episodes. The first of these would eventually be transformed once more into the first two stories that Ao learns about in Odom’s Library in the finished novel.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Papillon IV’s title has honestly never changed across all of its iterations. There’s a very interesting Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman film from the early 70s that’s stuck with me for many years. The word Papillon means transformation or butterfly and I thought what better name for a group of Ark Spacecrafts coming out of a future Brazil? My other works have often gone through title changes… Connectivity was originally called The Gaming Class, for instance. But Papillon IV never did change its name and I found it almost in the same moment I came up with the idea in general.

Describe your dream book cover.

Yeah, this cover is here and now. Aurelia Lozano, who did the art for The Ancient Ones, made it, and I think it’s great. Essentially, it shows the Papillon IV Ark Spacecrafts floating through deep space and pushing up toward a distant star at the top of the page. Falling down toward the bottom is a trail of garbage that spirals off toward the spine and back of the book. And superimposed over the right side of the spacecraft is a metaphorical light anomaly that implies a butterfly wing emerging from a cocoon.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

I just so happen to have a great playlist for Papillon IV. So here are a few samplings from that:

“Dyon Anaswa” – The Upsetters

“Underlands” – Andrew Bird

“Nazo Nazo” – Kikagaku Moyo

“What’s Up?” – 4 Non Blondes

“Sapien” – Bonobo

“Elephant Gun” – Beirut

“Khala My Friend” – Amanaz

“Up To Us” – Nightmares On Wax

“Tired of Fighting” – Menahan Street Band

“Daisy” – Wet Leg

“For You” – Kadhja Bonet

“Witchoo” – Durand Jones & The Indications

“Saana” – Ebo Taylor

“Shadows” – Bonobo

“Ala Vida” – El Michels Affair

“Madness” – Muse

There’s more, and these by no means need to be played in order, but it’s a good sampling of where my head was at soundtrack-wise while working on Papillon IV.

What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov is a great example of research I’ve done in order to help get the format of the book to make sense. I also read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell for similar reasons. Both of those are excellent reads. In the early goings of Papillon IV, I have a character who writes poetry to try and move the world to action, named Pauline Delgado. For Pauline’s section, I read Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman. I enjoyed Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut for its political intrigue and a bit of comic relief as well. And I read through both On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking to keep my scientific bearings. Oh, and there was Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clark that helped me in the Adonis sections of the book. I don’t know if you can tell, but Papillon IV has a lot to accomplish. And I’m very proud of what the book has become.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I’ve been a bartender for more than a decade now. Sometimes it’s rewarding, sometimes very frustrating work. I intentionally keep a two-day schedule so as not to negatively impact my writing and family time. But eagle-eyed readers will surely spot some of my bartending experience in a couple chapters of Papillon IV.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I think a part of me has always wanted to tell stories. Playing in the woods as a kid (I was a Boy Scout… actually attained the rank of Eagle, so the woods are not such a strange place for me to have been in my youth), I would always imagine vivid transformations and bizarre character arcs. In middle school, I was working on a big project for a science class and accidentally stumbled on the film GATTACA. That picture really opened my mind to what sci-fi as a genre could accomplish. Everything I had seen before that was more like Star Wars or Star Trek TNG so it was a very different experience for me. I like to revisit GATTACA every couple years and I find it teaches me a different lesson in storytelling with each viewing.

Where is your favorite place to write?

The Getty… or my room… or The Stalking Horse pub. I can write in a lot of places if I’m being completely honest.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

“Start writing prose right now.” As a screenwriter juggling bar gigs and friendship group dynamics, I didn’t believe I had the time to focus on novels. I love movies, though, so it made sense to me that I would write screenplays. Of course, with a screenplay, you never quite have a finished product. You always have to turn it over to someone else and hope they do your work justice… assuming they finish filming it at all. With prose, you as the author can cross the finish line all by yourself. It’s deeply rewarding and I wish I had begun writing prose ten years earlier.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

I want my readers to feel a sense of hope… joy… dare I say enlightenment? The opening words of Papillon IV state the yogi mantra, “May all beings including me be happy be healthy be free.” At its very core, that is the essence of Papillon IV, and man do I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

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