Interview with Uvi Poznansky

Interview with Uvi Poznansky

Author of A Favorite Son

Interviewed by R. Murry

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

I am an artist, a poet and a writer. In the past, my professional life has undergone several changes, as so many of us are experiencing in this day and age. I have a master of architecture from RPI in Troy NY. Later I have earned a Master of Computer Science from the University of Michigan. I love to extend my skills, reinvent myself and find out the common areas between different disciplines.

Can you tell us about your book?

This story is a present-day twist on the biblical story of Jacob and his mother Rebecca plotting together against the elderly father Isaac, who is lying on his deathbed, in order to get their hands on the inheritance and on the power in the family. This is no old fairy tale. Its power is here and now, in each one of us.

When you listen to Yankle telling his take on events, you will feel the bitter rivalry between him and his brother, and become intimately engaged with every detail of the plot. These are flawed, yet brilliantly fascinating characters. Yankle yearns to become his father's favorite son, and he sees only one way open to him, to get that which he wants: deceit.

"What if my father would touch me," asks Yankle. In planning his deception, it is not love for his father, nor respect for his age that drives his hesitation--rather, is it the fear to be found out. And so--covering his arm with the hide of a kid, pretending to be that which he is not--he is now ready for the last moment he is going to have with his father.

How did you come up with the story? 

I have long been fascinated with the story of Jacob and Esav. To me, it captures several layers of emotions which we all go through in our families: a rivalry between brothers, the way a mother’s love, unevenly divided, can spur them to action, to crime, even; and how in time, even in the absence of regret, a punishment eventually ripens. 

The story had been brewing in me for several years before I put pen to paper. Being an artist, I had expressed it through sculpture long before I wrote the words. So here you can see Yankle and his mother Becky, plotting to cheat the father. Out of a sense of shame, they are unable to look each other in the eye. 

Having been cheated, I found that the character I wish to explore is not the victim of the crime, but rather the perpetrator. What are his motives? Has regret set in? Does he love his father even as he is cheating him? Does he long for the early years when he still had a bond with his twin brother? 

I wrote the first chapter, Lentil Stew, and thought I got the story out of my system. But no, Yankle kept chatting it my head, demanding that I record his thoughts. I wrote the second chapter, and the same thing continued to happen. It was not until I wrote the last chapter, The Curse of the Striped Shirt, where I find a ‘poetic justice’ to conclude the story, that Yankle finally fell silent...

So when reading my story, do not seek clear distinction between heroes and villains: no one is wholly sacred, because--like Yankle, the main character here--we are all made of lights and shadows, and most of all, doubt.

Are you working on something new at the moment?

I thought you’d never ask! I am! And at this moment I am only two chapters away from finishing it. If you like biblically-inspired fiction, here is a new series soon to come your way, titled The David Chronicles. Volume 1 will be titled Rise to Power. In it I present the life of David like you have never heard it before: from the King himself, telling the unofficial story, the one he never allowed his court historians to recount!

Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?

Read your work aloud, first of all to yourself, so your words will flow in the rhythms of your voice and breathing. You may even tape your reading, and listen to it afterword’s. Then, read it in front of an audience. Listen not only to their comments, but during the read, listen if they gasp in the places you wanted them to gasp, if the laughed and cried where you intended the text to move them.

Then go back to the drawing table…

Which authors inspire you?

Surprisingly, I find poetry to be the greatest influence on my writing: I appreciate the nuances, the overloading of words, and the musical rhythms used in the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, the sonnets by Shakespeare, and the lyrical descriptions of Virginia Wolfe, to name but a few. I love The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, and  Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, for their expressive use of ‘stream of consciousness’. I love reading the work of great playwrights like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

Where can people go to read your work?

A FAVORITE SON
♥ Audio http://tinyurl.com/fvort-a
♥ Print http://tinyurl.com/fvort-p
♥ Ebook http://tinyurl.com/fvort-e

TWISTED:
♥ Audio http://tinyurl.com/Twisted-audio
♥ Ebook http://tinyurl.com/Twisted-ebook
♥ Print http://tinyurl.com/Twisted-print

APART FROM LOVE
♥ Audio http://tinyurl.com/aprtl-a
♥ Print http://tinyurl.com/aprtl-p
♥ Ebook http://tinyurl.com/aprtl-e

HOME
♥ Audio http://tinyurl.com/Home-audible
♥ Print http://tinyurl.com/Home-print
♥ Ebook http://tinyurl.com/Home-ebook

Where can people find you on the internet?I invite you to visit my website, which is organized like an art gallery, with bronze and ceramic sculptures, paper sculptures, oil paintings, watercolor paintings, poems and short stories:
http://uviart.com/

Also, stop by my blog, which is organized like a diary where I post almost daily, discussing anything that goes through my mind that morning--be it a poem, a story, a paper engineering project, advice on publishing and writing, and the latest news and reviews:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/

Last but not least, here is my Amazon Author page, where you can find my bio, two of my animations, and my books:
http://www.amazon.com/Uvi-Poznansky/e/B006WW4ZFG/