An Interview with Tom Burkhalter

I’ve been writing since I was fourteen years old. Majored in mathematics at university, tried four or five different careers, worked as a stable-hand for my equestrienne ex-wife, finally settled down in Hickory, NC, with a significant other, cats and chickens, and volunteer work at the Hickory Aviation Museum.

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

I began writing seriously at fourteen years old. There were three great books I read that year (The Last Tallyho by Richard Newhafer; The Witches of Karres by James Schmitz; and Rites of Passage by Alexei Panshin) that inspired me, and when I finished Rites of Passage it simply hit me, you know, I can do that. At fourteen, you can imagine I had some development to do, and I also wanted to be a physicist. I saw myself as a science fiction writer back then, so the physicist part seemed to blend in really well. Unfortunately my talent for math and physics wasn’t anywhere near as solid as my talent for writing, and it took me way too long to really figure that out!

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

Most of my readers wouldn’t know that I was a first-class stable hand! My ex-wife was an equestrienne and horse trainer, and we had a stable for five years. As far as other professions: restaurateur, aviation fuel technician, paralegal, soils and concrete technician, airport bum, pizza delivery driver, a short stint as a mental health technician in a psychiatric facility where I ended up being unsure I was locking up the right people, probably some other things that slip my mind. Also, I really enjoy baking bread.

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

I like titles that are double entendres, and that began with my first book, Everything We Had. It’s begins in the Philippines just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the US sent nearly every weapon, man, and airplane available to the defend the Philippines from the Japanese, hence we sent “everything we had.” But anyone in the service in wartime is at risk for everything they have, meaning their life is at risk, at any random moment. That was pretty easy to figure out, it came to me when I realized what the book would be about.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

There are all sorts of words for how it feels. There is exaltation and validation, of course, but a strange sort of sadness as well. When you finish a project you’ve poured everything you have into (yep, that was intentional!) and it appears in a finite, physical form, something you can hold in your hand, and you realize it’s over, there is great happiness but also that least trace of sadness. You’ve spent so long striving for that vision in your book, and the striving, the act of finding the right word, the right phrase, the right sentence, the right paragraph, and, ultimately, the whole of the right story, that when you finish the story you also lose that sense of striving. In small part, imagine reading a really, really great book, whatever that book is for you, and in reading you fall in love with the story and the characters, and then, there are those two dreadful words: The End. You will never read that beloved story again, not the way it was the first time, and although you might read the story over and over in the following years, as much as you love and cherish the reading of it, there’s always that bittersweet memory of the first time. Seeing the book cover, holding the finished work in your hands, it’s something like that.

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

Big band, definitely! “In the Mood” by the Glenn Miller Orchestra comes to mind almost at once, or “Jeep Jockey Jump,” by the GMO;all sorts of others from the period between 1939 and 1945. This is the music the kids who found World War II would have listened to, and I listened to a lot of it myself: the Dorsey Brothers, Harry James, Benny Goodman, the Andrews Sisters, a bunch of others.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

My perfect reader could be almost anyone; I didn’t write with a particular audience in mind, any more than Homer did when he (or she, according to some scholarship) composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. I believe a good story can touch almost anyone, and that’s what I try to deliver, a good story. What I would like for my readers to take away from their experience with my stories is a feeling for another time and place, that was part of their history, for better or for worse. I tried to the best of my ability to put the reader in the cockpit with my characters. Stephen King had a phrase for it, something to the effect that you have to invite your reader to put their hand on the cold, clammy flesh of a corpse. I don’t write horror, of course, but in any story about war horror is part of the experience, and inviting the reader to experience my vision is what the work of the writer is about.

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

That so many people see and experience exactly what I set out to depict. When readers tell me it helped them understand what a relative went through during the war, or that they knew people exactly like my characters when they were in the service, or when they ask when I visited a certain place where a scene or a story is set (when I’ve never been there!), then that tells me I’ve done my job as a writer. That’s the most rewarding and meaningful part of publishing, getting your story into the hands of readers.

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

Everything We Had is the first book in a series of at least twelve, or as many as fourteen, volumes. Right now I’m working on the ninth book in the series, titled Nos Credimus, which is Latin for “We Believe.” The initial inspiration for the title comes from one of my characters who is a pursuit pilot; we’d call them fighter pilots today. He describes the belief a pursuit pilot must have in his (all males in that war) ability as being like “the belief of a Georgia cracker full of the Holy Spirit who sticks his hand in a gunnysack full of angry timber rattlers.” In keeping with all my titles, though, in that time and place “belief” is a very nuanced word.

If I’m granted a long enough life, though, I’d like to return to my roots and write science fiction. Or urban fantasy. I have a couple of ideas…

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.