what is your name?
Casey Mensing
how would you describe what you do?
My days consist of writing and hustling.
what are you currently working on?
As always, I have many projects going on at once. I’m finishing up a novel entitled The Last Fair Deal, working on a couple of short film scripts, and getting together poems for a new spoken word album I’ll be recording with the band JUBANO! some time this spring.
what has had the greatest influence on your work?
It changes constantly. Right now, the biggest influences are Thelonious Monk, Roberto Bolano, and Tina Fey.
what is the greatest misconception about you or your work?
Biggest misconception has always been that my work is autobiographical.
how has technology impacted upon the work you do?
I wouldn’t say technology is affecting the work itself. It has greatly affected how I approach the business of writing. Publishing is changing rapidly and is going to continue to do so for some time. All print, whether it be books, magazines, or newspapers is going digital. E readers are the future despite the consumers tactile desires. This opens up a whole new world of publishing. We already see it in the amount of blogs out there, and the fact that the publishing world has accepted electronic journals as a valid form of publication. All writers now have a forum to express themselves, which puts a certain amount of their fate back in their own hands. Of course it also means that a reader will have to sift through a lot more bad writing to find something great.
what’s the greatest piece of advice you would like to pass on?
A friend once told me to burn everything I had ever written and start fresh.
where can we find you online?
http://caseymensing.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jubanismo
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Casey-Mensing-with-Jubano/81890745813
what are you reading at the moment?
Roberto Bolano’s Amulet, Charles Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.
what are you listening to at the moment?
Thelonious Monk and and a great band called Paris Street.
anything else we should know?
Check The March of The Tongue Brigade by Casey Mensing with JUBANO!, which is a spoken word CD I recorded with the band JUBANO! And is a companion to my book Love Is A Ghost Thing.