Author Interview – Brian Francis Heffron ~ Reading My Addiction

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Author Interview – Brian Francis Heffron

If you could leave your readers with one bit of wisdom, what would you want it to be? “If faut (d’abord) durer” meaning: First, it is necessary above all things to endure.

When you wish to end your career, stop writing, and look back on your life, what thoughts would you like to have? That I told the truth as I saw it.

Are you reading any interesting books at the moment? I am studying the painter JMW Turner and may wind up writing a book about him. He basically invented and glorified “landscape” as its own art form and I desperately admire the discipline he showed to his art: For instance he always carried a sketch book and was constantly drawing everything he saw.

What are your goals as a writer? My goals as a writer are acceptance and an audience that likes my work. The goal of this book is an attepmpt to help others who may have PTSD understand that they are not alone. And that there is a way out of the scourge and pain that PTSD causes.

Who is your favorite author and why? Ernest Hemingway reinvented the novel and I think he deserves credit for his work, not for the farce of a life he lead as a hyper masculine character. His books are all beautiful and engaging. His sentences are solid and purposeful. There is no waste or extravagance: Just powerful but simple writing and storytelling.

Do you intend to make writing a career? I am now an established Poet and Novelist and I intend to be so for the rest of my born days.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? I can describe things so that you are able to see them in your own mind’s eye. Description is my forte. Whether it be a landscape or a person I feel that I can bring a person or place to life through my prose.

How did you come up with the title? A Mandala is Sanskrit for “magic circle” and is used to meditate on to raise one’s concioisness, or it can represent a person who is fully actualized and complete in their development. Colorado Mandala was the place where all three of my main characters became themselves, some after a very long and difficult effort.