Interview with Joel Connealy
Hi Joel Connealy, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Oltobooks : Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Joel Connealy : I'm from the Kansas City area. I ran cross country and track in high school, and kept running in college. I have been interested in history since I was ten, and I into geography since I was five or six.
Oltobooks : What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Joel Connealy : I have ideas for stories that I would like people to hear or read. I have ideas for stories in Revolutionary Russia, Ottoman Serbia, and a modern America story. Obviously, making some extra money wouldn't hurt either.
Oltobooks : When did you decide to become a writer?
Joel Connealy : When I was sixteen, in high school.
Oltobooks : Why do you write?
Joel Connealy : I write because I have ideas and I enjoy it. It is also a great way for me to explore how people think.
Oltobooks : What made you decide to sit down and actually start something?
Joel Connealy : I had an idea for a story that I wanted to read, so I started writing a story that I would have liked to have read. I started writing it in study hall during October of my junior year. I didn't have a title for it until I was publishing. I just called it "A Hitler Youth Story" for most of the time I was writing it.
Oltobooks : Where do your ideas come from?
Joel Connealy : My ideas come from my study of history, but the American book I'm working on I've gotten ideas for from what I do with my friends. I've also gotten ideas from songs.
Oltobooks : What is the hardest thing about writing?
Joel Connealy : Knowing when a sentence or paragraph is the best it can be.
Oltobooks : What is the easiest thing about writing?
Joel Connealy : Going into another world.
Oltobooks : If this book is part of a series, tell us a little about it?
Joel Connealy : My book is not part of a series.
Oltobooks : What are your thoughts on writing a book series?
Joel Connealy : I am interested in doing that. I started writing a sequel to my second book but I've shelved it because I don't think The Boys of Seelow needs a sequel. But if one of my future books naturally leads into a sequel, I would write one.
Oltobooks : What is your favourite positive saying?
Joel Connealy : You don't miss what you don't have.
Oltobooks : Where can you see yourself in 5 years’ time?
Joel Connealy : Married, with a kid, in a home, having published two to three books.
Oltobooks : What advice would you give to your younger self?
Joel Connealy : I'd say get a better laptop, and get it earlier than you did.
Conversation By :
Oltobooks Team
I sat so merry in my abode
Loving hands around me
I dreamt of such glorious days
One day i would see
I remember the day I left
My room
I closed the door behind me
One quick look again
Then walked away
The room which would always remind me
The glorious days I had dreamt
I did merrily spent
How little did I then know
Life turns on a dime
My room is now not as it was
When I closed the door
Behind me
My room now is a prison
But not how one would invision
It is one of sorrow and grief
Sadness burns into the bare walls
I catch my breath
And weep
Why did thou'st doth betray?
The room which once embraced me
I ask with riddled heart
Jagged and torn
Which wicked riddles have I thus sought?
I sit still
I am now my room
No dreams as once before
I age before my open door
In my room long ago
I sat merrily in my loving abode
Loving hands did hold me
All gone
My room and myself
Now one
Two thrust to be together
Forever
Alone