Playing The Game: Catfish McDaris

        

Catfish McDaris

H&P: Someday you see that all your writings are on fire – your reactions?

CM: I’d probably cry and start over or cut off my left arm and wait to die.  Or just go fishing and say fuck writing.

H&P: Do you believe that you have any social responsibility as a writer? If yes, how do you manage to perform that with your writing?

CM: I don’t think about social responsibility when I write. I try to tell a good story and if I enjoy it, maybe someone else will too. If people don’t like my words well fuck them. I remain my biggest fan and best audience.

H&P: Your best four poets?

CM: Bukowski, Poe, Li Po, Neruda

H&P: Your best four writers?

CM: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Zola, Steinbeck

H&P: Would you still continue writing if you see that not a single stuff you wrote is sold?

CM: You can’t be a small press writer for money. It’s fucking impossible. You might as well try to suck your own dick. Even if I was facing a firing squad, if I had pencil and paper, I’d be writing. It’s like taking a shit, it might not always be pleasant, but it has to be.

H&P: Can you write if everything is NOT OK? I mean do you need a situational stability and mental calmness when you sit to write something?

CM: I can write in a tornado of madness, in a hurricane of insanity, in an earthquake of orgasmic eruption. I can write in the dark with nothing up my sleeves.

H&P: Do you ever suffer from a complex that you cannot write like the ones you love to read? If yes, how do you handle it?

CM: I’ve never experienced writer’s block. I have been working on something and get distracted by other thoughts or priorities of projects. Fuck it, I attack like a hammerhead shark and let the devil lick my ass.

H&P: Does writing come out of continuous exercise or it’s a spontaneous gust of fresh air?

CM: Writing is about doing. Have you ever captured a fart in a jar? That is my gust of air.

H&P: Do you like to identify yourself as WRITER or writing is just a part of YOU?

CM: I am WRITER hear me roar motherfuckers!

H&P: When will you stop writing?

CM: As soon as I finish living or when I sleep.

H&P: Which one is your personal favourite among your published works? Where can we catch it?

CM: I have no faves, but the next one. You can catch it in the razor sharp wind with stainless steel teeth of a bloody bear trap.

H&P: Briefly let us meet your family

CM: My wife, Aida, our daughter, Elizabeth, two cats, Honey and Pepper, and our kid’s dog, Izzy. All females.

H&P: What are your further suggestions for Hash n’ Pumpkins!!

CM: I think you are doing a super job, Mr. Nili-bro and I am honored to be interviewed by you. I would ask that you introduce the small press world to Kolkata, India your home.