INTERVIEW and EXCERPT
Nature's Confession
by J. L. Morin
Author J. L. Morin stops by today for an interview and to share an excerpt from Nature's Confession.
Description
The epic tale of two teens in a fight to save a warming planet ... the universe ... and their love.
When a smart-mouthed, mixed-race teen wonders why the work that needs to be done pays nothing compared to the busywork glorified on holovision news, the search for answers takes him on the wildest journey of anyone’s lifetime. Their planet is choked with pollution. They can’t do anything about it ... or can they?
With the girl of his dreams, he inadvertently invents living computers. Just as the human race allows corporations to pollute Earth into total desolation, institute martial law and enslave humanity, the two teens set out to save civilization. Can they thwart polluters of Earth and other fertile planets?
The heroes come into their own in different kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance. Along the way, they enlist the help of female droid Any Gynoid, who uncovers cutting-edge scientific mysteries. Their quest takes them through the Big Bang and back. Will Starliament tear them from the project and unleash "intelligent" life’s habitual pollution, or will youth lead the way to a new way of coexisting with Nature?
Nature’s Confession couldn’t be more timely, just as the IMF reveals that governments spent $5.3 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies every year, following COP 21 in Paris, talks in Lima and the largest climate change march in world history when world leaders converged for an emergency UN Climate Summit in New York City. With illustrations and topics for discussion at the back of the book, J. L. Morin entertains questions about busywork; economic incentives to pollute; sustainable energy; exploitation; cyborgs; the sanctity of Nature; and many kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance.
Book Video
Excerpt
Narrative in First-Hupcha
If humans are so evolved, how come they have only two hands?
- Hafchaw Wufuh
- Hafchaw Wufuh
When the man left his family on Grod, the Interplanetary Starliament sent me as a present to Mistress. Unable to refuse such a ceremonial gift, she had a pen built out back and put me in it.
I didn’t see how I could protect my new family from such a distance, so I jumped as high as my six legs could and scrambled over the fence.
Mistress found me yelping on the doorstep. “What are you doing here, you fuzzy ball of feet?”
This was all news to me, since I thought I was destined to grow up to be like Mistress. I rolled over exposing my white underside.
She scratched my tummy. Then she scooped me up and put me in the basement. Soon, the fence was extended upward, and I was back outside. I tried and tried, but the extension was too high to climb. I hunkered down in the blue snow and watched Mistress’ dome amidst all the other domes of differing sizes in the capital.
I spent a hard huphood barking and howling outside. As the months wore on, I grew to accept my fuzzy form. My fangs were excellent for tearing meat, and I don’t know how I would have kept from falling down without all six of my legs.
No one from Starliament visited to check that I was bonding properly. It seemed that I was the only one who understood my mission. It seemed an insurmountable challenge, teaching my humans to defend themselves. How will I look after the family?
I would have to practice getting through to Mistress from afar. I barked in the blue snow. She proved deaf to my warnings. She was obsessed with her business producing Earth cheeses, a skill she’d learned in a place called France.
One day, she got sick. She came down the hill late to feed me. “Shhh,” she hissed, and growled. “What am I going to do with you?”
I made myself as flat as the doormat.
She peeled me off the ground and scooped me up in her arms. “I can’t even put you outside without you howling all day.”
It grew colder, too cold for her to come out in the snow to feed me, so we both ended up inside the dome¾victory! Life was much better inside, curled
up next to Mistress’s Camembert slippers, with her dozing on the couch. Sometimes she let her hand dangle over the side, and I would lick it. She’d flutter awake and scold me, and I’d do my best to look sorry. I gave Mistress the idea to trade her cheese business for a less stressful seat in Starliament. Nothing like a government job to help recover from illness. Starliament let her work from home, and she was coming along nicely.
up next to Mistress’s Camembert slippers, with her dozing on the couch. Sometimes she let her hand dangle over the side, and I would lick it. She’d flutter awake and scold me, and I’d do my best to look sorry. I gave Mistress the idea to trade her cheese business for a less stressful seat in Starliament. Nothing like a government job to help recover from illness. Starliament let her work from home, and she was coming along nicely.
The holiday season landed upon us, and Young Master came home from school. He was so happy to meet me. He rubbed my fur backward to hear me coo, and I followed him around the dome. Our first Hymnmas together. We were fortunate. I got a tyransias bone.
One snowy day, Mistress received an important holomessage saying that ½ sister had escaped to the future and was coming to conglomerate with her family. I was happy for Mistress and Young Master, but despaired about our coexistence. Would this upset the careful balance I had established in the household? I couldn’t imagine what kind of isotope ½ sister was and what effect she would have on my orbit in the family. I tried to imagine what a ½ sister would look like. Would she only have one
hand? Would I have to give up half of the rug?
hand? Would I have to give up half of the rug?
When she arrived, I hid under the table. Only when I heard the explosion of joy in the hallway did I peek out at the ½ girl in Mistress’ trembling arms. She smelled like ozone.
She turned around, and she had two eyes. “Look at this six-legged, fanged fluffball. He’s the cutest animal I’ve ever seen. He’s camouflaged on the floor, there, as flat as a rug. How old is he, Boy?”
I blessed her licking both of her feet. At least she had two. May you stay standing up and not fall over.
“He’s one Grod year.” Boy flushed with pride.
“And he’s white underneath!”
I charmed her into scratching my tummy with her two hands. What a relief! She was as valid as a whole sister.
Half sister soon had the whole family scratching my tummy. The two-handed humans surprised me. They could work together to overcome their evolutionary defect. I wriggled as all six hands dug into my fur. That felt so true. Mistress was overjoyed to have her daughter back. ½ sister called me ‘Tweetiepie’ and ‘Cuppycake’ and allowed me to gnaw on her heels.
The doorbell drummed, ending our hupcha tenderfest. It was Mistress’s purple,
horned friend, Yda. They whispered in low tones until the children were out of earshot. Under the table, I listened with my head on Yda’s foot to see what I could find out.
horned friend, Yda. They whispered in low tones until the children were out of earshot. Under the table, I listened with my head on Yda’s foot to see what I could find out.
In fact, ½ sister was Mistress’ whole daughter who was cloned from Mistress before Mistress married the man who left. I didn’t follow how the man’s comings and goings turned her into a half.
Then, Yda said, “Cloned!” The purple friend was shocked.
Mistress lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper so ½ sister wouldn’t hear. “It started before the dissolution of countries with the rise of the Corporate Empire. There was an Earth woman who wanted to clone her dad and have him as a baby,” Mistress said. “Probably because a lot of Earth women didn’t get a chance to know their dads, having your dad as a baby became trendy. Cloning was still illegal, but it was only a formality. Another push came from the homosexual lobby.”
“Indeed,” said Yda. “Were they pro cloning because it was the only way to have children that would most likely also be homosexual?”
This was above my head, and even Mistress was stumped. “Maybe they just figured, why should women have all the babies?”
I always like hearing about the ancient history of Mistress’ home planet. There was something called an election, and Americans had their first corporation as president of a country called the Enslaved United States. The corporation that was president made decisions based on its history planning models. One of the decisions in the year 12 Before Corporatism, was to lift the ban on the reproductive cloning of humans.
Mistress named a bunch of places I’d never heard of before, Italy, Pain, the Flipeens, Costa Rica and the Holy See, who considered cloning your dad a violation of human dignity, leading to overpopulation. But population growth estimates were drastically wrong under world slavery, where men had become widespread philanderers. That’s how cloning became the definitive tool for the continuation of the human race in the first world at minimum levels for implementing corporate personhood on Earth.
“I decided to clone my mother, since my own mother was murdered by a man in the family.”
“Very logical.” Yda approved. I hoped Starliament would also look upon ½ sister favorably. We had bonded. I already couldn’t imagine living without her. I would assume she was going to Phira with us and train her myself.
Mistress went on with her Earth story about the founding of the ambassadorial family. “I was a single mother for a year, and then I met Porter. A few years later,” Mistress said, “and we had our son.”
“Hormones will do that to you. And you feel that both of your children are equally suited for the mission on Phira?” Yda asked.
“Yes,” Mistress said. She had been chosen as the next Starliamentary ambassador to an Earthlike planetoid. By extension, all of us were about to move to Phira. I prayed that we would be ready.
I had to agree with Mistress. We would need ½ sister’s smarts on the new planetoid. I didn’t look down at ½ sister for being a clone. On the contrary. She smelled good, and that’s all that mattered to me. Sometimes she even made me wonder if my expectations for Young Master had been misplaced. I must admit my huppylove for ½ sister occasionally caused me to let Young Master lie there watching far too much holofuzz. I ignored him for hours at a time, his muscles atrophying. I lay on ½ sister’s feet and listened to her sing a song called ‘The Failed State Blues’. I would let ½ sister nurse her spirit, wounded over the loss of her planet for a little longer. But there was no need to wait to get Young Master into training. Young Master had spent weeks lounging around the dome. I have to get him outside!
Mistress tried to motivate him. “I wasn’t impressed with your report card.”
And Young Master remarked of our caretaker and provider, “You always say those annoying things.”
I barked at him. You must learn how to work!
It was painful to see Mistress’ back straighten so. “What am I supposed to say? What you say? If I went around talking about what happened on holofuzz last night, then who would be me? Nobody?”
Young Master stared at her with that faraway look in his eyes, probably imagining life with a twin instead of his mother. Not her again. I could tell Young Master’s mind was wandering back to the companionship of his life on Earth. I smelled a change in his hormones. He had an ache in his heart. He was yearning for a girl. “Maybe,” he said aloud.
Mistress threw up her hands. “Maybe another sun will come out and melt all the snow. Maybe a spaceship will land in our backyard. Maybe you’ll get an ‘A’ on your next test.”
Young Master coughed. His face turned red. Then he gathered up his book bag and climbing the stairs, said, “That was a good one, Mom.”
His suitable intentions ended in fitful sleep. I nuzzled his foot to tune into his brainwaves. I picked up his signal with my telepathic powers. He was reveling in a recurrent dream of the pale auburn girl on his faraway planet. I could feel his woe as he wondered, How can I regain her trust after her father chose me as an apprentice and not her? He was trying to talk to her. No words came out. Instead, he held her white hand in the glow of the firelight . . .
This is what my Starliamentary mission was about. I’m sure of it. The girl has the other half of the puzzle. I licked Young Master’s face awake. Starliament had chosen him for good reason. I had to get him into training. I sat down next to the snowsurfer that Mistress had bought Young Master for Hymnmas. I gave him the idea to let me pull him through the snow on it: I like the surfer better than the sled because it’s sporty, and I get cold just sitting in a sled.
Young Master looked at me quizzically.
I stuck out my tongue and panted, trying to look dumb.
“We’ll go later, Cuppy. There’s plenty of time. Just let me rest here a bit longer.” As if he could prolong his childhood forever.
I jumped up as if to tell him, we could also just run instead. I made another suggestion: I need to get a battery pack for my force field. The workings of my suggestion were visible in the expression on his face. He patted my head. He’d understood the plan. It was risky on Grod with no force field. You never knew what kind of alien you might meet in the intergalactic capital, seat of Starliament. He grumbled as he peeled himself off the couch and put on his snowsuit.
We set out into the vast blanket of powder blue snow. Out at last! Young Master threw a snowball at me. Breaking through the smooth snow, I leapt like a fish, and dodged the balls of snow Young Master was throwing. After this warm-up, I let him put the harness on me. He yanked the reins.
Very bad for positive communication.
He looked at me sidelong and let the reins slacken.
I buried my head in a snow bank and shook the snow all over him.
“Yah!” he yelled.
Off I ran, pulling him on his new surfer. He lost his balance twice. I waited in the blue snow for him to remount the surfer. At last, he got the hang of it. Good Young Master! Once he learned to keep his balance, I was doing all the work. I needed to get him moving. We came to the frozen lake. Young Master stopped and hunted around in the snow. He threw a stone onto the ice. The stone skidded across the lake. He sat down by the side of the lake and threw another stone.
Young Master looked at me and took on a serious tone. “What do you think, Cuppy? Will I ever see her again? I don’t even know if she would be happy to see me, she was so jealous of me when we last talked. I just hope she is taking good care of the secret program I invented. I’m praying she’ll be able to make something out of it, although that’s unlikely without me. But who knows? Maybe it’ll come to some good.” He stroked my fur, unaware that I understood. This was why Young Master was the one. This is what my mission was about. I had to prepare him to defend himself on Phira and hope for contact from the girl, with her half of the secret.
I trotted him up a busy thoroughfare so he could buy special batteries for his force field. I felt important being so useful and sat bravely when he chained me to a post next to a snow bank. He pointed his finger at me and said, “Stay” with authority. I watched him go into the store.
It didn’t cross my mind to try to escape, I was so busy hoping he would come back. There would be no point to life as a free hupcha without Young Master. I looked around nervously. Young Master was unaware of the multitude of thieves in these parts and my value on the open market. Starliament paid over a million rubicons for me, which I gathered, was expensive. I avoided eye contact with the strangers who passed me. It seemed to take forever.
Then the door opened again. Ah, here he comes. Young Master! I snuggled my head against his knee and shimmied under his legs. His ankle got tangled in the chain. I skirted out from under his butt as he came down in the snow bank. I jumped on him and licked his face: creamy skin and hokkanuts. He must have eaten a whole bag. He scratched my ears, and I rolled over so he could ruffle my tummy fur.
Young Master put a choke collar on me and carried his snowsurfer through the city streets. On the way back, we came upon another furry. She smelled like sopa, that fluffy brown hup with blue eyes did. She had a whole fan of tails and tiny fangs. I sniffed her underparts and circled her perspicuously. As Young Master got deeper into conversation with her owner, I felt my choke collar loosen, and with one backward tug, I slipped out of it.
Free! Young Master is running at last. Good for him. His training has begun. Run, Young Master. Run, run, run.
A pelt trader unloading his truck growled at Young Master, “You should keep your furry on a lead.”
I ran under the trader’s legs.
“What do you think I’m doing, you—” Young Master stammered at the trader. I’d never seen Young Master red-faced and speechless. “¾You could have caught my hup just now, and instead you stand there and complain!”
Big carriers slid to a halt as I frolicked in front of them. What power to
be able to stop traffic!
be able to stop traffic!
“Cuppy!” Young Master screamed. A zigzag of food haulers piled up in the street. I trotted proudly in front of them. What a sight!
Young Master chased me down the thoroughfare past the traffic jam where overloaded carriers were entering the highway.
“Cuppy, not there!”
I doubled back so he could catch up and ran between two lanes of cars.
“Cuppy!”
An oversized stinky truck raced down the street toward me. It lit up in red and skidded sideways, unstoppable at an incredible speed. Just then Young Master dove onto me and we both slid into the curb on the other side of the street. The truck slid by. It twirled for
fifty more feet and came to a halt wedged in a snow bank.
fifty more feet and came to a halt wedged in a snow bank.
“Naughty hupcha!” Young Master scolded me angrily. “You have no idea how dangerous trucks are.”
I sat completely still and took his warnings in motionless repentance as he fished in his pocket for the choke collar. Drivers were alighting from their vehicles ready to fight. Insect-like segments burst from one of the trucks. A lobighter with rings of muscles bearing a big stick. What planet is that from? Its hundreds of eyes fixed on Young Master, who froze in his tracks. The alien’s exoskeleton had a green-black sheen. Its head, thorax and abdomen moved one after the other. Suddenly, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and a pair of antennae bore down on Young Master. It demanded something unintelligible. A thick sap dripped from its mouthparts. Young Master shrunk under the creature’s many-eyed stare. The insect’s stare stunned Young Master. He couldn’t move.
The lobighter grabbed my leash! I felt Young Master’s hand go limp. The alien turned and dragged me back to his truck. It bullied me into the front seat and got in on the other side. It licked it’s pincers with satisfaction and made a belching sound. Young Master, still numb, shook his head.
The truck engine roared, a cloud billowing from two pipes on the hood. Young Master stood gaping as the wheels started to turn. When Young Master saw me turning in circles on the front seat, the paralysis from the alien’s stunning gaze was broken. He was losing his hupcha. “Cuppy!” Tears streamed down his cheeks. I’m sorry I yelled at you!” My two front paws were out the window, but the driver held my leash tight as he pulled onto the highway. I could see Young Master hanging his head in despair. He was losing hope: That highway goes all the way across the country. If they get on there, Cuppy may never find his way home.
The alien busied itself shifting gears as it sped up to pass another truck. On the seat next to the alien, the leash slackened. I could feel my choke collar slide loose. I ducked my head, and the chain slid off my neck and hit the floor. The alien glared at me trying to stun me with those paralyzing eyes. Too late! I turned away from him ready to leap out the window. But I didn’t jump. His hand yanked the steering wheel, and we hit the truck that he was trying to pass. I scrambled away from the window.
The two trucks separated. With a leap, I soared through the window and landed between the trucks—I was off! I ran down the ramp.
“Cuppy!” Young Master howled as I dodged a car. It was long enough for Young Master to slide through its appendages in hot pursuit. I led him out of there faster than a rocket. I ran to Young Master, and skidded past him. He ran after me without scolding this time.
After another twenty minutes of chasing around, I considered that Young Master had had enough aerobic training for the day. We commenced the cool down. I spotted a lady sledding down the way with a pack of white furries, the one-tailed ones with garbled thoughts, not the expensive kind. They stunk to high heaven. Those dry noses panted to a stop in the freezing snow as I wiggled into their midst to get a better sniff. Then I felt a hand grab my neck fur¾Mommy!¾and all six of my paws hung down above the ground.
Of course, it was not my mother, but Young Master, huffing and puffing as he threw the choke collar down into the snow and slapped the harness back on me. He apologized to the lady in the sled, and I suddenly felt sorry, as if I had done something wrong, although I knew it was exactly what Young Master needed. His training had begun. I would get him in shape for life on the new planetoid.
Young Master went back to balancing on his surfer, and he did look a bit more content than when he was chasing me around. I took the opportunity to stop and lick his hand, and he patted me on the head. Young Master had had enough training for one day. We went on straight home with no more adventures. He announced our arrival with many a story of our exodus. He forgot all about my being a rug look-alike, faithful servant, and bus-stop celebrity. Instead, he called me a rascal.
I felt guilty expending all that energy on Young Master without giving a equivalent training to ½ sister. There was much less risk involved in training ½ sister. It was not so easy to get on her wavelength, though. I had to knock Mistress’ The Ancient History of Planet Earth off the coffee table three times before she saw her family’s pictures in the book.
“Hey, that’s us!” she said, and picked it up. She started reading it. I was relieved to see her nostalgia for the distant, polluted planet channeled into constructive study. She lay on the carpet and poured over the history of her planet. Her eyes lit up, for she truly yearned to find out what had happened in the billions of years she’d missed while travelling to Grod.
I could hear best with my chin on her foot. The history book told how a woman called V had saved our own family, including Mistress and Young Master, too. I felt honored to be in such an historical family written about in real history books for everyone to read. V’s life must be a symbol so bright you could see it from outer space.
Many things happened after ½ sister left Earth. My favorite part was where the Earth scientists launched a tomb called a ‘time capsule’ into space. The tomb contained a tin box with the top ten viral Earth books. The tomb was hurled off to the habitable moon of a noxious, gaseous planet. It orbited a dwarf star in the ancient spiral galaxy BX 442. Scientists deemed the moon hospitable for life and called it a ‘planetoid’. That’s where we’re going! I was grateful to ½ sister for reading the history to me. The planetoid, Phira was destined to become ‘Earth 2.0’.
Half sister’s breath quickened reading about the scientists sending all kinds of things in that time capsule―a living thyroid, DNA from all Earth’s sacred tombs as signs to code new life on a future planet, frozen RNA from every remaining species. I could smell her sweat when she got to the part where it all died during the millions of light years of travel to Phira.
I licked her foot.
She resumed reading.
Passing close to the spiral galaxy’s garnet star, radiation fell upon the hapless capsule burning it all up. All except the words in the book generated by an Indian girl’s computer. Under the powerful radiation of the garnet star, the word ‘sign’ for a hero’s tomb stirred to life. Dormant for so many eons, the Indian Girl’s digital ‘tomb’ mutated into a living code. Her words came to life. They became a new prescription for life. By the time the spaceship crashed to the oceans of the planetoid Phira, the code had mutated exponentially into the bacteria-like microbe that would rule the planet for the next seven billion years.
That’s where I began counting up to seven billion, and at the count of seven fell asleep on her foot . . .
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
"The eco-novel is wonderful and reminds me of classic science fiction I watched or read as a kid. It was a genre that fascinated me then, and this book has joined that memory. The novel is epic in that it doesn’t just tell a story (which it does do too), but it puts our very survival into question while romping through the universe or discovering new quantum physics that are both scientific and spiritual in nature. In the meantime, universal symbols are unearthed, codes are investigated, fat corporations are dominating, a romance is blossoming, computers come alive, and native tribes and Nature on another planet bring our own treasured past into the future.” ~ The Guardian
"Morin is proving herself to be one of the most interesting storytellers for teens." ~ Teen Reads
"What I enjoyed the most was the author’s ability to combine serious concerns about the environment on Earth, with a sense of humor, at times almost a double-take slapstick, and obviously her wish the polluters on earth, and the policy-makers who foster those polluters could be slapped upside of the head with a dose of reality. Instead, she gives us sublime comedy, which is much better than being preached to, or crying that the sky is falling. Although, I bet she could write a pretty good version of the Sky Is Falling." ~ Midwest Book Review, David W. Wooddell
"It was incredibly tough to come up with a favourite, but in the end, I chose on JL Morin’s, Nature’s Confession. It’s a zany, fantastical read and a product of a clearly whimsical mind. This book, however, covers some serious and important topics that are affecting the planet we live on, so very relevant. It reminded me a little of Star Trek, infused with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and a little Dr Who thrown in the wonderful mix.” ~ Best Read of 2014, Marinovich Books
"Points to Morin for writing a diverse character without emphasizing his ethnicity ... This is a book that gets better the second time around ... Nature's Confession crosses the bridge between teen and adult fiction, and may aspire to be appointed as a new classic." ~ Offbeat YA
Interview With the Author
J. L. Morin joins me today to discuss her book, Nature's Confession.
For what age group do you recommend your book?
It fits in the YA category but speaks to all ages above as well.
What sparked the idea for this book?
The different kinds of love I have for my family, lovers and friends ... and the IMF revealing that governments spend $5.3 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies every year. That really got me thinking about our future on the planet. But even before all of that, I'd say it was a good biology teacher in high school. My protagonist puts it this way: "You might remember doing a biology experiment, where you filled a jar with water and put a few blades of grass in it with holes in the top. After a few days, if you looked at a drop of the water under a microscope, you saw healthy amoebas growing. After a few more days, the jar became full of amoebas as they happily multiplied. After a week, it stunk with rancid water. A look at a drop of the polluted water showed that all the amoebas were dead. What did Nature confess to us in that experiment? That growth could not go on forever. There is a saturation point. The amoebas were so successful that they multiplied until they used up all the resources and became extinct. If humans don't guard against reaching their saturation point, they, too, will commit parricide against their planet. We saw the contagion on Earth, when mankind pit its cancerous growth against Nature. Now the truth is clear. Enslaving Nature, we enslave ourselves. Conquering Nature is a death wish. We have been fighting the wrong war, and in winning, we lose." That's when I realized we can't all fit. We're using up all our planet's Natural resources. Overpopulation is the root of all of human kind's problems.
So which comes first? The character's story or the idea for the novel?
The characters. It's all about love. To sustain such a lengthy effort as writing a novel, there has to be a strong motivation that feeds the interest.
What was the hardest part to write in this book?
The first page. No doubt about that. After getting started, the rest flows. And then the first page has to have a hook to keep the reader going.
How do you hope this book affects its readers?
I hope it will open their minds and get them excited about a calling in life. There are so many necessary and interesting things to do, but we have to look within to find what should be done and how we can meet the challenge with our own talents.
How long did it take you to write this book?
Two years. I took the first draft to a writers' circle and read it out every week chapter by chapter, and then did the same with another writers' group the next year for the re-write.
What is your writing routine?
Taking time out to write isn't easy, so the routine is work hard to save up and then write. It's pretty rocky.
How did you get your book published?
A lot of trial and error.
What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer?
When you can’t get a thought out of your head and it becomes an obsession, there’s a good chance it’s a golden nugget - the kind of seed that can sustain you on a long literary journey.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I'm a big fan of swimming. I feel so great after a swim ... it satisfies the evolutionary roots, not to mention the health benefits.
What does your family think of your writing?
They think it's impressive in theory, but in practice, it's annoying. It takes such an enormous amount of time away from socializing.
Please tell us a bit about your childhood.
I grew up in inner city Detroit, where it became risky to go outside. Add the cold winters, and the result was an internal world that developed beyond the norm in America in general. That's where I first witnessed the "workforce" at its daily grind, driving by at rush hour, commuting to wherever, to do ... busywork. Polluting up a storm, each car with only one human in it doing nothing at best, damage at worst. Were they just doing "busywork"? There wasn’t enough work to employ everyone, but I could see plenty of real work that sorely needed to be done all around me just to clean up the mess that the "workforce" was making. I began to wonder, "Why doesn’t the work that really needs to be done, pay?"
Did you like reading when you were a child?
Very much. After getting into a bit of trouble as a teen, books were my friends.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
When I was 12, in my Language Arts class. Mr Hatthaway assigned keeping a journal as a class activity. I never stopped.
Did your childhood experiences influence your writing?
Yes, seeing a city decay, forgotten by auto companies, and then watching the exportation of this capitalist underbelly to other cities - now "burnt out" - and countries, I couldn't write just another love story. I wanted to write a book that would inspire people to think about real problems and come up with creative solutions! What I found was tremendous resistance to thinking about things like "clean air" and "where our food comes from".
Which writers have influenced you the most?
Kurt Vonnegut, Kazuo Ishiguro, Virginia Woolf, Frank Herbert, John Fowles, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Ann Patchett, Carl Jung, Ralph Ellison.
Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?
From time to time I get a message like this one that makes my day: "I LOVE Nature's Confession!!!!!!! Thank you for writing it. I am onto your books."
Fantastic! What can we look forward to from you in the future?
A multi-cultural international spy thriller is on the way.
Sounds good. Thank you for taking the time to stop by today. Best of luck with your future projects.
About the Author
Novelist and rooftop farmer, J. L. Morin grew up in inner city Detroit and wrote her Japan novel, Sazzae as her thesis at Harvard. It was a Gold medalist in the eLit Book Award, and a Living Now Book Award winner. She took to the road, traveling around the world, worked as a TV newscaster, and wrote three more novels.
She is the author of USA Best Book Awards finalist, Travelling Light; and "Occupy's 1st bestselling novel" Trading Dreams, a humorous story that unmasks hypocrisy in the banking industry and tosses corruption onto the horns of the Wall Street bull.
Her Nature's Confession is a LitPick 5-Star-Review Award winner, was picked as the top read by Marinovich Books, was included in "12 Works of Climate Fiction Everyone Should Read", and an excerpt received an Eco-Fiction Short Story Contest Honorable Mention.
Adjunct faculty at Boston University, J. L. Morin writes for the Huffington Post and Library Journal and has published in The Harvard Advocate, Harvard Yisei, Detroit News, Agence France-Presse, Cyprus Weekly, European Daily, Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers, the Harvard Crimson, and others.
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