An Interview with Mitchell Waldman

Mitchell Waldman’s fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web. Waldman is the author of the novels The Visitor and A Face in the Moon, and two story collections: Brothers, Fathers, and Other Strangers and Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart. He is also the fiction editor for Blue Lake Review.

Mitchell grew up in the Chicago area and attended the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, where he received a BS in psychology, the University of Texas at Austin, and Southern Illinois University, where he earned his JD. He worked as a writer and attorney-editor for a legal publishing company for thirty-seven years before retiring in 2022. He enjoys rock music, cycling, baseball, and a good ale.

Mitchell lives in Rochester, New York, with his partner, journalist and poet Diana May-Waldman, author of the poetry collection A Woman’s Song. They have six children and six grandchildren.

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

I was a constant reader as a kid. Sci-fi was my favorite genre back in those days. Ray Bradbury, for sure, Robert A Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and dystopian novels like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984, and, of course, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I was inspired by both very good and what I considered very bad (but popular) books, thinking, ‘Hell, I can do that!’ Later, I was more into literary writing like that of Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth, and Larry McMurtry.

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

I worked as a legal writer/editor for twenty-seven years before retiring in 2022. At first, constantly reading court opinions, with all their very bad legalistic writing, messed up my fiction writing. But after a while, I was able to separate that kind of writing from fiction writing and get back on track.

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

THE VISITOR.

He wakes up in a different body.

So begins the journey of Ash – short for Pin Asher9919 – who awakens on a hospital bed on, he believes, a different planet after an automobile accident took the bodily life of an Earth human named Edward Fleishman. Ash is told he was the victim of a serious brain injury and miraculously recovered from being brain-dead in a coma, but Ash feels he knows the truth: his spirit has replaced the distressed spirit of the former Edward Fleishman.

And so Ash’s new life on earth begins, complete with a spouse who is a stranger to him, a body he is not sure how to use, a world he must learn to navigate, and a government he can’t trust.

What part of publishing your book made it feel real for the first time?

When my publisher sent me the ‘Published!’ note after a good couple of rounds of revision. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, ‘Well, now the real work starts!’

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

The theme to The Twilight Zone? Starman by David Bowie.

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

I try to use the opportunity of an alien presence (or is it?) in a human auto crash victim to take a sort of objective look at how messed up our culture here in the US is, as well as the political leadership at the moment. Think about the meanness in this world, and maybe think about being more empathetic of the plight of others.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The validation that this story – which I was not so sure of, given it was my first attempt in the speculative/sci-fi genre – had resonance and might have an appreciative audience.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a third collection of short stories. My prior collections were Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart and Brothers, Fathers, and Other Strangers. I also previously wrote a novel entitled A Face in the Moon. Check them all out at mitchwaldman.homestead.com.

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